Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
Posted in Extended Order, Standards of Living, trade on Jun 7th, 2012
One of our favorite places in all of Rochester is the Green Acres Fruit Farm. I do recommend it (and no, no one I know works there nor do I own a piece of it nor did Exxon pay me to say that). In fact one reason we choose to live around here is to […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, trade on May 22nd, 2012
You may have seen last week that the Executive branch ordered itself to impose tariffs on imports of Chinese solar panels to put boulders in the harbors of Los Angeles. There is one political point today to make and one economic point. The political point is this: did US taxpayers vote for this? Do they […]
Posted in trade on Apr 27th, 2012
From a new Harvard study showing that the Eastern US was cooler than otherwise over much of the 20th century due to the particulate pollution in the air (now mostly cleaned up): No one is suggesting that we should stop improving air quality, but it’s important to understand the consequences. Clearing the air could lead […]
Posted in trade, Unintended Consequences 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 trade, You Can't Have it Both Ways 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, trade, You Can't Have it Both Ways 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 trade, You Can't Have it Both Ways 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, trade, You Can't Have it Both Ways 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 […]
