Free Republic

The revelations of the so-called Panama Papers that are roiling the world’s political and financial elites this week include important facts about Team Clinton. This unprecedented trove of documents purloined from a shady Panama law firm that arranged tax havens, and perhaps money laundering, for the globe’s super-rich includes juicy insights into how Russia’s elite hides its ill-gotten wealth. Almost lost among the many revelations is the fact that Russia’s biggest bank uses The Podesta Group as its lobbyist in Washington, DC. Though hardly a household name, this firm is well known inside the Beltway, not least because its CEO...

<p>We don't suppose many Iraqis have heard of Ludwig Erhard, but the late German economist may hold the key to the successful reconstruction of their country.</p> <p>The cigar-chomping Erhard was a national hero in Germany, where his free-market policies laid the basis for that nation's postwar economic miracle. In the early 1990s, his how-to book, "Prosperity for All," found new readers in former Communist countries eager for their own Wirtschaftswunder in the wake of the Cold War.</p>

Germany is still the third biggest economy in the world but it is suffering from rising unemployment, massive capital flight and a growth rate approaching zero. It is fashionable to blame the current crisis on macroeconomics: a eurozone interest rate that is too high for Germany, tight limits on budget deficits and the foolish one-to-one currency swap at unification. These are all important. But Germany's fundamental structural problems would eventually have generated an economic crisis whatever the monetary regime. The problems can be understood only by going back to the beginning of the Federal Republic. Under Allied occupation the country...