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Trading Responses

Here’s a letter to a first-time correspondent:

Mr. Harry Collins

Mr. Collins:

Frustrated with what you describe as my “interminable and tiresome” letters and blog-posts on trade, you e-mail to ask me when will I “stop incessantly harping on trade matters.”

My answer is straightforward: I’ll stop harping on trade matters when prominent and powerful politicians, including the current president of the United States, stop not only insulting my and other sensible people’s intelligence with their ridiculously stupid babblings about trade, but also – and more importantly – stop their destructive, officious, obnoxious, and immoral efforts to intervene into my and other people’s peaceful commercial affairs.

I am no more likely to fall silent under the assaults and batterings of Mr. Trump than I would be to fall silent were my next-door neighbor to persist in threatening me with violence if I refused to conduct my economic affairs according to my neighbor’s unethical and absurd commands.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA  22030

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