Choosing to Remain in the Global Market Economy
“People who have actually experienced the ‘security’ that comes from insulation from market forces understand that the price they pay for this ‘security’ is far too high.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Individuals, Not Governments, Have a Comparative Advantage at Improving Comparative Advantages
“There is no plausible case to be made that for us Americans to improve our comparative advantages we need government to protect us from foreign competition.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Economic Reality Is Far Too Complex to Be Improved By Trade Restrictions
“Unlike market participants guided by prices, politicians and administrators literally have no reliable information to guide them. They will therefore be guided exclusively by their own biases and hunches.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Where Do The Savings Go?
“As Henry Hazlitt reminds us, the art of economics consists not merely in looking at the effects on the most visible groups, but in tracing the effects on everyone.” ~ Art Carden
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Are Free Traders Guilty of Naïve Globalism?
“Free trade does indeed enrich the world. But it also, and chiefly, enriches the people of each country that practices it, regardless of the policies pursued elsewhere.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Protectionism in Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Harms Consumers and Domestic Industries
“The only jobs protected are those in the politically favored companies whose inefficiencies are protected from competition at the expense of other domestic jobs lost and higher prices on consumers.” ~ Brian Balfour
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The Libido for the Superficial
“Once the reality of a libido for the superficial is admitted, many phenomena are better understood. For example, it’s easy to understand, and excuse, intellectually unengaged people falling for protectionist fables.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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The Wages of Washington’s Economic War on China Are Not Cheap
“To make up lost revenue, the US industry may become more dependent on government largesse and ultimately less vibrant and dominating. Ultimately, making policy more like China risks turning US industry into something more like China’s.” ~ Doug Bandow
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Industrial Policy Returns, Prior Pratfalls Notwithstanding
“Letting politicians pick winners is the surest recipe for shafting consumers and every unsubsidized business. Unfortunately, there will always be enough pundits who failed Econ 101 to whoop up every boneheaded intervention.” ~ James Bovard
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On Some of the More Difficult Questions About Trade Policy, Continued.
“Reality is messy. It seldom presents to us ‘solutions.’ Much more often we are confronted only with trade-offs. Principled and informed defenders of a policy of free trade accept this fact. I wish that more defenders of protectionism did likewise.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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On Some of the More Difficult Questions About Trade Policy
“Empowering the home government today to use trade policy to protect against unfortunate commercial entanglements in the future raises the prospect of failure by the home government.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Mercantilist Follies, Then and Now
“Mercantilism encouraged governments to create and prop up inefficient domestic sectors, and incentivized merchants to curry favor with governments to extract privileges from them.” ~ Samuel Gregg
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