Mountains of Debt: Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence, Victorian Britain, and Postwar AmericaLike the United States today, Renaissance Florence and Victorian Britain were the richest, most dynamic economic systems of their times. Yet each succumbed to a fiscal crisis brought on by public debt and taxation and eventually fell into long-term economic decline. Now, public debt and taxation dominate the America policy agenda. Must the United States follow the same dismal pattern of fiscal crisis and economic decline? Mountains of Debt argues that it is not too late for the United States to change directions and suggests a comprehensive program for reform of American fiscal institutions that would reduce the deficit problem and at the same time reverse the long-term structural trends that are both the cause and the effect of the fiscal crisis today. Offering proposals for reducing the deficit, this new analysis could alter the current course of the United States economy. |
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Contents
| 3 | |
1 Structural Change and Fiscal Crisis | 7 |
Death Birth and the Fifth Element | 19 |
3 Mountains of Debt and the Heart of Florence | 46 |
Britain and the Industrial Revolution | 75 |
5 The Odious Tax and the Standing Miracle | 103 |
6 The American Century and the American Crisis | 132 |
7 The Changing Structure of American Government | 153 |
8 The New Mountains of Debt | 171 |
9 Saddle Points | 190 |
10 Changing Directions | 212 |
NOTES | 223 |
| 235 | |
| 244 | |
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Mountains of Debt: Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence, Victorian ... Michael Veseth No preview available - 1990 |
Common terms and phrases
baby boom banks Black Death British industry budget capital catasto change and fiscal Ciompi cloth consumption Corn Laws corporate costs created deficit dowry fund economic growth economists effect entrepreneurs example factories fifth element financial markets firms fiscal balance fiscal crisis fiscal imbalance flat tax Florentine economy florin foreign government’s growing guilds important income tax increase Industrial Revolution innovations institutions interest investment labor living standards Medici Medici bank ment Monte Commune Monte shares Napoleonic Wars national debt nomic outlays pattern Peace of Lodi percent perhaps period political population postwar private sector problem production profits programs public debt Renaissance Florence rigid rise role saddle point shift social insurance social security structural change tax burden tax expenditures tax rates tax reform tax revenues tax system tion trade trend U.S. economy United Victorian Britain wealth wool workers world economy
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Mountains of Debt: Crisis and Change in Renaissance Florence, Victorian Britain, and Postwar America |
| Author | Michael Veseth |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, 1990 |
| ISBN | 0195362454, 9780195362459 |
| Length | 256 pages |
| Subjects | › Business & Economics / Economic History |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |