James Pethokoukis from US News & World Report offers more evidence of the global entrepreneurial economic boom that has been underway now for almost a decade.
"This is far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime," is how U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson recently described the current global boom. Hyperbole? Actually, that dramatic declaration probably under states things. Let's refer back to this piece of analysis from Paulson's old firm, Goldman Sachs: "If we and the consensus are correct, then the period 2003-2008 will have been one of the most powerful periods of economic growth globally since accurate data [have] been collectible for much of the world."Indeed, the global economy is growing at about a 5 percent annual pace, according to the International Monetary Fund, after growing 4.9 percent in 2005 and 5.4 percent last year. By contrast, the global economy grew at a 3 percent pace from 1980 to 2000 and at 4.7 percent from 1960 to 1980.
As support he links to an important and compelling report issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and this "Fiscal Fact" from the Tax Foundation.
He rightly ties much of this growth to worldwide efforts to lower tax rates. There is a growing mountain of evidence for the impact that lowering marginal tax rates has on fueling entrepreneurial expansion in an economy.
This evidence only adds to my concern that many politicians in the US now want to return to higher marginal tax rates to pay for new government initiatives, such as universal health care.
