The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. – F.A. Hayek
Posted in Unintended Consequences, trade on Jan 17th, 2012
Guess what year this is referring to? I slightly edited it from the original. … villages in the lower Yangtze became congested hives of small … factories, attracting workers from other parts of China and spewing (wintercow: nice choice of words, huh) out goods at frightening (wintercow: nice choice of words, huh) volume. Yuengang merchants [...]
GUEST POST: The following article is authored by current University of Rochester Senior Alex Armlovich. From Bloomberg Businessweek …Eizenstat and his fellow negotiators faced a barrage of lobbying from U.S. companies and trade groups that wanted specific language written into the agreements to protect their products or give them an edge over their rivals. The [...]
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways, trade on Nov 3rd, 2011
Last week Tyler Cowen linked to this profile of lefty anthropologist anarchist David Graeber. There’s actually some good stuff in there, so do read it if you have the chance. In any case, in the profile is a description of two things I find hard to square with one another. First, the piece discusses the [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, You Can't Have it Both Ways, trade on Oct 20th, 2011
It just occurred to me that the following two concepts cannot possibly exist side by side: There is a folk belief then when a rich nation trades with a poorer nation, that the income of workers in rich countries is reduced. There is yet another popular folk belief out there: that when a rich nation [...]
Posted in You Can't Have it Both Ways, trade on Sep 27th, 2011
Opponents of free-trade like to make claims that, “it is just too hard for people to retrain and adjust to losing jobs” when we allow free trade. I want to comment on a metaphysical aspect of this, not an economic one (though I imagine some of you would like me to point out the basic [...]
Posted in Environment, You Can't Have it Both Ways, trade on Aug 15th, 2011
I am sure my New York readers and some others have seen these signs: You don’t have to drive very far from where we live in Western, NY to see them (more on this below). I’ve spent a good deal of time in the last year studying the natural gas boom in the Eastern US [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, Macroeconomics, trade on Apr 6th, 2011
Not likely. First, a brief summary of the idea. Right now the Chinese Central Bank buys and sells US Dollars with the aim of keeping the Chinese RMB, the Yuan, pegged at a rate of 6.56RMB to the dollar. In other words, each yuan is worth 15.2 cents. I’d remind readers that the Chinese simply [...]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, trade on Feb 3rd, 2011
I often myself grouping critics of credit cards and the fees they charged with the folks I see screaming when their smartphone doesn’t have a strong enough signal, or when their supermarket is running low on quinoa. I don’t intend to discuss the economics of middlemen here, and why middlemen receive the brunt of so [...]
Posted in trade on Jan 16th, 2011
Former student Sam Wecker writes in the American Thinker: While the banner of good intentions or “job protection” is raised by the special interest groups when championing such mercantilist trade policies as increased taxes on Chinese tires, rarely are the results of these “good intentions” placed under close scrutiny. Questions tend to arise, like “What [...]
Posted in trade on Nov 28th, 2010
… at least be a good one. But let’s assume the Obama administration is mentally stuck in 1930s Italy and thinking only of exports. It still can’t justify its position on Colombia, the third largest market for agricultural imports in Latin America. American farmers now pay an average 16.5% tariff on exports to Colombia. As [...]
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