Some Problems with the ‘Repatriating Critical Supply Chains’ Argument
“Even if political pressures were miraculously to disappear, government officials would remain ignorant of most of the detailed bits of knowledge about how resources are, and potentially can be, used. And so any errors these officials make in distinguishing ‘critical’ from not-critical goods and services will result in resources being used more wastefully than otherwise.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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You Think This Is A Game? Not Quite
“Sports and gaming metaphors certainly have their place, but if we take them too seriously we get lost in details and lose sight of the greatest positive-sum game in the world: specialization and division of labor. When you’re bowling or playing a board game, there’s a winner and a loser. When you’re bargaining, however, everyone’s a winner.” ~ Art Carden
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Steel Follies and the Perils of Politically-Controlled Trade
“American citizens and manufacturers should be allowed to buy every commodity they choose as cheaply as the world can produce it. The time has come to end the medieval pursuit of a “just price” for imports and to cease permitting politicians and bureaucrats to have economic life-and-death power over American businesses.” ~ James Bovard
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Covid’s Vindication of Free Movement
“This pandemic is not ending because borders were sufficiently impenetrable. But it must be said that its effects have been mitigated because many of the most essential forms of capital continued to flow. If the free movement of people, goods, and ideas could pull the world out of one of its darkest chapters, there’s no telling what the same openness could yield during brighter days. And, hopefully, will.” ~ Peter C. Earle
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The Mischief of “Pecuniary Externalities”
“Perhaps my long discourse on ‘pecuniary externalities’ strikes the reader as ponderous or even pointless. Ponderous it probably is, but pointless it is not. If the above reality were more widely understood, many fewer people would complain about foreigners using their exports as a means of ‘stealing our jobs.'” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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The Dangerous Path of Trump-Biden Trade Isolationism
“It would be wise for our leaders, particularly those in the Biden administration, to heed the clear lessons put forth in our Constitutional system as well as the tides of history. An embrace of free trade will promote widespread prosperity but most importantly, it will prevent a backslide into a past sequence of events that we should be glad to have behind us.” ~ Ethan Yang & Jack Nicastro
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Gordon Tullock: A Birthday Appreciation
“Long after many influential economists have been relegated to footnotes or forgotten, I believe people will still be reading and citing Tullock’s work, and not as historical curiosities, either. They will be reading and citing the work of a scholar who made timeless contributions to how we understand the world.” ~ Art Carden
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A Nuanced Approach to China Part One
“Diplomacy, economic engagement, and the reserved use of military force are the core principles that define disciplined interstate relations. Throwing them out in favor of romanticized visions of conflict and glory would be playing checkers while China is playing chess.” ~ Ethan Yang
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Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 4
“When combined with the empirically verified reality that increased trade between nations decreases the likelihood of those nations getting into shooting wars with each other, what is left of the national-security exception to the case for unilateral free trade is very narrow indeed.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 3
“The notion that people will be enriched if their government artificially impedes their access to goods and services is as detached from reality as is the belief that the future can be revealed through astrology.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 2
“Foreigners do not treat us ‘unfairly’ if they insist on sending to us more imports in exchange for a given amount of our exports (or, what is the same thing, if they accept fewer of our exports in exchange for a given amount of what we import from them). Accusing foreigners in such a case of treating us unfairly makes no more sense than accusing your employer who gives you a raise of treating you unfairly.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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Twelve Principles of International Trade: Part 1
“Although it’s possible to imagine bizarre scenarios in which a country’s rising trade deficits might be evidence of economic decline, none of these scenarios is realistic in the case of the United States. American trade deficits are evidence of American economic health, at least relative to many other countries, rather than of economic hardship.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux
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