Topic: Free Trade

The Wages of Washington’s Economic War on China Are Not Cheap

– November 23, 2022

“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

READ MORE

Industrial Policy Returns, Prior Pratfalls Notwithstanding

– November 22, 2022

“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

READ MORE

On Some of the More Difficult Questions About Trade Policy, Continued.

– October 19, 2022

“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

READ MORE

On Some of the More Difficult Questions About Trade Policy

– October 10, 2022

“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

READ MORE

Mercantilist Follies, Then and Now

– September 21, 2022

“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

READ MORE

Some Pictures Are Indeed Worth a Thousand Words

– September 19, 2022

“No data or sets of graphs, regardless of how carefully constructed and intelligently interpreted, can convey a complete picture of an economy. Yet, such data can convey important information, which is often the opposite of popular narratives about the economy, generally, and about trade in particular.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

READ MORE

Helping Y’all Understand Protectionism

– July 22, 2022

“Given that protectionism violates the central purpose of any government, which is to benefit all its citizens, it replaces the justice of voluntary arrangements with the injustice imposed by involuntary arrangements.” ~ Gary M. Galles

READ MORE

With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

– June 22, 2022

“Unfortunately, the patriotic protectionism story confuses American consumers’ friends and enemies. Our supposed enemies, foreign producers, are actually our friends, and our supposed friends, domestic producers and the US government, are actually our enemies.” ~ Gary M. Galles

READ MORE

Trade, Debt, and Growth

– April 21, 2022

“What are we getting for this unprecedented debt? Mostly, all it’s purchased for us is political leadership which can only charitably be characterized as mediocre.” ~ Robert F. Mulligan

READ MORE

Microchips and Potato Chips

– March 30, 2022

“The fact that we produce more Z doesn’t imply that we thereby can afford to acquire and use more Z. This reality is inescapable whether ‘Z’ stands for potato chips or for microchips.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

READ MORE

In Respectful Disagreement with Alex Salter

– February 15, 2022

“While Alex is correct to note that cross-border trade doesn’t ensure against belligerence, it almost certainly does make such belligerence more costly and, hence, less likely. We abandon such trade at our peril.” ~ Donald J. Boudreaux

READ MORE

Lessons from the Tokugawa Shogunate 1603 – 1868

– February 5, 2022

“The impact of the Shogunate was one of stability and unification over the course of the 1600s. The Shogunate established peace and stability after a period of destructive civil war, which in turn allowed commerce and domestic industry to flourish.” ~ Robert F. Mulligan

READ MORE