India’s Business Environment: Beyond Corruption

In spite of expected growth of 6 or 7 percent for 2012, the economy of India was facing a pessimistic outlook at the time. The underlying cause seems to have been mismanagement by the federal government—in particular, by the ruling Congress Party. In actuality, the problem lies in the Indian business culture, and the society itself. As such, the problem is not so easily fixed as a change of government or policy.

The full essay is in Cases of Unethical Business: A Malignant Mentality of Mendacity, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.

E.U. Presses Italy to Tax Church Businesses

One of the chief benefits of federalism is the ability of one system of government to check another within the overall federal system. In the European Union, the state governments have so much power at the federal level—in the E.U. institutions—that it is difficult for the E.U. Government to check excesses and abuses in the state governments. E.U. law, regulation and directives rely on the state governments, albeit to varying extents. In the United States, the case is the reverse. The U.S. Government holds so many of the cards that the state governments cannot act to check abuses in the federal government. Actually, for all of the power that the U.S. Government has amassed, it does a horrible job in aiding citizens against abuses in their own state governments. Fortunately, we can look to Europe for a bright spot: the E.U. Commission and Italy, á grace de Mario Monti who is both governor of the state of Italy and a former commissioner in the E.U. Commission (the E.U.’s executive branch).

The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.