Homines libenter quod volunt credunt
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 […]
Posted in Economic Illiteracy, trade on Nov 27th, 2010
Or is it? For the sake of consistency, why don’t the czars in European Parliament mandate that this “trade” be made more fair? After all, the brick machine doesn’t play by the same rules as the manual bricklayers it has replaced (again, assuming it even replaced them). Maybe we should place a tariff on all […]
Posted in Regulation, Taxation, trade on Nov 19th, 2010
Actually, almost none of this is due to the current President. I just liked the play on words. Here, in all its horrific glory, is the 22 section, 99 chapter, 3000 page “Harmonized Tariff Schedule” for the United States. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a horror story if there was any economic evidence that tariffs […]
Posted in trade on Nov 6th, 2010
Don’t ask me why but I was perusing Lou Dobbs’ book Exporting America, which is just a pile of utter nonsense on trade. An Eco 101 student could easily dissect it, so I do not wish to apply those economic arguments here. Others have done so extensively and admirably. Instead I’d love to focus on […]
Have you ever wondered why it is so uncommon for political bodies to make exchanges of political jurisdictions? While it is a regular occurrence for the owners of real property to swap deeds and claims to property, I am not very familiar with how common this is among the U.S. states. For example, there are […]
Posted in Environment, trade, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 27th, 2010
A UN report on the “benefits” of green jobs exclaims that increased agricultural trade between the US and Mexico is bad because, “cheap corn from the US has hurt Mexican producers who grow maize on small and mid-sized plots in difficult environments using low levels of technology.” So let me get this straight: The myriad […]
Posted in trade, You Can't Have it Both Ways on Oct 25th, 2010
As I was delivering a lecture on the topic of “Buying Local” a few weeks ago, I was struck by something I had not thought about for years. “Progressives” seem to be obsessed with the idea that government is an insurance company. Indeed, they call much of what they favor, “social insurance.” They view the […]
Posted in trade on Oct 20th, 2010
In the modern mercantilist view of the world, the U.S. economy would be super strong if “we” produced lots of stuff ourselves and exported lots of stuff to China and other nations, and at the same time, if we imported nothing from them. Imagine a world with only two countries, the U.S. and China, to […]
