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Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.

Editor:

You asked five prominent economists to offer ideas “for reducing income inequality” (“Five Ideas for Reducing Income Inequality,” June 5). Of the five, only John Cochrane dared come close to challenging your question’s faulty premise – namely, that large income differences in a market economy are a problem that demands government attention. In markets, incomes are produced and earned, and they rise with the size of the contributions income earners make to the material welfare of their fellow human beings. There is no ‘problem’ here over which to wring our hands.

What does warrant hand-wringing is the economic misunderstanding of too many prominent economists. Emmanuel Saez, for example, in unimaginatively proposing to soak the rich, is apparently unaware that such soaking will – in addition to discouraging entrepreneurial innovation – deplete the stock of capital, thus reducing worker productivity and, in turn, lower real wages. Glenn Hubbard, in pinning the blame for the growth in income difference on globalization and technology, too readily accepts the claim – first peddled by progressives and now also by MAGA conservatives – that many ordinary Americans haven’t prospered over the past few decades. This claim has been thoroughly refuted by careful researchers, including Jeremy Horpedahl, Michael Strain, and Phil Gramm, Bob Ekelund, and John Early.

Also baseless is Heather Boushey’s allegation that the decline of labor unions resulted in workers having too little bargaining power. Another careful researcher, Scott Winship, finds that, although the percentage of workers who are members of unions has been falling since 1955, inflation-adjusted worker pay since then has not only been rising, but has kept pace with rising worker productivity – proof as solid as proof gets that labor-market competition continues to ensure that workers aren’t underpaid.

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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My intrepid Mercatus Center colleague, Veronique de Rugy, explains that European-style “single-payer” health coverage will simply not work in the U.S. if Americans insist on having anything close to excellent modern health care. A slice:

OK, but what about Europe and Canada? Progressives inevitably say: They made it work! This is a rhetorical sleight of hand that collapses on contact with basic facts.

European countries built modest, government-controlled health infrastructures from the ground up over several decades. They contained costs—meaning, among other things, they rationed care—as they expanded access. America did the opposite.

We built the most expensive, technologically advanced, sprawling health system in human history, which consumes nearly 20 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), under mostly private incentives and market pricing. As [Jessica] Riedl puts it, “We cannot simply pay European prices for the more vast American health infrastructure that exists.”

The central theory of single-payer savings has always been this: Slash payments to providers to offset the surge in the use of universal, no-cost-at-point-of-service coverage. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) took a serious look at this fantasy. Its conclusion was that national health expenditures might actually rise, and demand for care would outrun supply. The final result would be European-style rationing, delays, and forgone services, all leading to worsening health care.

Richard Burkhauser and Kevin Corinth report on their new research into poverty in the U.S. Two slices:

From 1939 to 1963, the overall poverty rate—using our post-tax, post-transfer income measure (excluding health insurance)—fell from 48.5 percent to 19.5 percent, a 29.0 percentage point reduction in just under a quarter century. This decline in poverty was accompanied by a 76 percent increase in real median income over the same period, reflecting the United States’ strong economic growth following the Great Depression in the 1940s and the post-war boom in the 1950s. Between 1963 and 2023, the poverty rate fell by another 15.7 percentage points to 3.7 percent. However, the pace of poverty reduction was no faster after the War on Poverty began than before, even when applying a consistent initial poverty rate (19.5 percent) to compare trends in each period. Under this approach, poverty fell to 5.8 percent between 1939 and 1963 but only fell to 7.8 percent between 1963 and 1987.

…..

Our findings show that poverty fell substantially prior to the War on Poverty, primarily due to increases in market income, without a substantial rise in the dependency of working-age adults and their children on government transfers for most of their income. Poverty continued to decline after the War on Poverty began, but this progress was sustained only by the increasing generosity of transfers, as market income poverty rose and dependency increased. It was not until the welfare reforms of the 1990s and the recovery from the Great Recession that poverty and dependency fell simultaneously. These trends were particularly stark for black people, who experienced a steep decline in poverty before the War on Poverty, primarily driven by an increase in their market income, and a large rise in dependency after it began.

Ryan Bourne and Nathan Miller make clear that “raising the federal minimum wage is a solution in search of a problem.”

Wall Street Journal columnist Joseph Sternberg reports on Beijing’s decision to liberalize the market for labor in China – happy news for the Chinese people as well as for people outside of China who trade with the Chinese people. Here’s his conclusion:

China’s economic slowdown risks significant political and social consequences the regime may struggle to manage and that could get ugly. Still, this is all the more reason to cheer one of the rare occasions when the government’s solution is an expansion of freedom for hardworking Chinese migrants.

GMU Econ alum David Hebert unpacks the import price index.

Brian Albrecht argues powerfully against proposals to tax computer-processing capabilities.

John Stossel wisely counsels that Benjamin Franklin’s counsel remains relevant.

David Bahnsen eloquently champions freedom.

Acyn shares this small yet telling example of the utter cluelessness and illogic (unless tendentiousness at all costs is logical) of Batya Ungar-Sargon and other supporters of Trump’s tariffs punitive taxes on Americans’ purchases of imports: (HT Scott Lincicome)

Ungar-Sargon: The American people who voted for Donald Trump are hurting. He has to somehow alleviate the pain. The best way to do that is a stimulus check. He needs to give them a tariff rebate.

Phillip: Weren’t you an advocate for the tariffs?

Ungar-Sargon: Yes

Phillip: Why are you asking for a rebate?

Ungar-Sargon: We brought in $200 billion in tariffs. And we should now take some of that money and give it to Americans who are struggling.

Phillip: That money already has to be refunded because most of it was illegal.

Ungar-Sargon: That’s actually not clear they have to be refunded.

Phillip: There refunds are happening right now. If tariffs are a good idea—

Ungar-Sargon: Yes, I’m so glad we have that money

Phillip: Why would we have to rebate that money in stimulus checks?

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… is from page 23 of the 1994 Liberty Fund edition of Adam Smith’s remarkable 1759 book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments:

Society and conversation, therefore, are the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquillity, if, at any time, it has unfortunately lost it; as well as the best preservatives of that equal and happy temper, which is so necessary to self-satisfaction and enjoyment. Men of retirement and speculation, who are apt to sit brooding at home over either grief or resentment, though they may often have more humanity, more generosity, and a nicer sense of honour, yet seldom possess that equality of temper which is so common among men of the world.

DBx: Adam Smith – or so says his gravestone – was born on this date, June 5th, in 1723.

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Here’s a letter to the Washington Post.

Editor:

The Trump administration’s latest excuse – of which you’re wisely skeptical – for imposing, this time under Section 301, broad punitive taxes (a.k.a. tariffs) on Americans’ purchases of imports is that it wishes to combat forced labor (“Trump tries a new trick to raise tariffs,” June 4).

Every civilized person sympathizes with prohibitions on the sale and purchase of goods produced by slaves. Yet every such person also understands that protectionists have incentives to abuse this sympathy by exaggerating the extent to which the stream of commerce contains slave-produced goods. In this light, here are some relevant facts (gathered with the help of Claude).

In China, which is the trading partner accused as being most reliant on forced labor, the upper estimate of the number of forced laborers is 3.17 million. Now looking at other data from 2024 – and making assumptions as generous as possible to the administration’s case – we have these additional facts:

– Total number of manufacturing workers in China: 120 million

– Annual U.S. imports of manufactured goods from China (including estimates of transshipments): $542 billion

Even if (contrary to fact) all forced-labor workers in China work in manufacturing, that means that 2.6 percent of China’s manufacturing workers are forced laborers. Assuming (also almost certainly contrary to fact) that the productivity of these workers is as high as that of China’s non-forced-labor manufacturing workers ($39,000 per worker), the value of U.S. manufactured-goods imports from China that is produced by forced labor is likely around $14.1B. With total U.S. imports of manufactured goods being $2.71 trillion, the maximum share of U.S. manufactured-goods imports that is produced by Chinese forced labor is 0.5 percent.

As a portion of total annual U.S. production of manufacturing output – $7.1 trillion – U.S. imports of forced-labor manufactured goods from China are a paltry 0.2 percent.

These numbers strongly suggest that the effects on America’s economy of forced labor in China are too minuscule to meet Section 301’s requirement that the challenged actions be shown to burden or restrict U.S. commerce. You are indeed wise to doubt the sincerity of the administration’s latest excuse for obstructing Americans’ freedom to trade, as a far worse source of such burdens and restrictions is the administration itself.

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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The Editorial Board of the Washington Post sees right through the Trump administration’s latest cynical effort to escape the legal limitations on its ability to punitively tariff – that is, to punitively tax – Americans’ purchases of imports. A slice:

The Trump administration keeps pursuing creative ways to impose tariffs after setbacks in the courts and amid a lack of support on Capitol Hill. The latest gambit came late Tuesday when the U.S. trade representative announced plans to raise tariffs between 10 percent to 12.5 percent on 60 countries for not being aggressive enough about combating the use of forced labor in their supply chains.

This is clearly a pretext for protectionism. If it weren’t, China wouldn’t be subject to the same new import taxes as Japan, South Korea and Switzerland.

Also quite skeptical of the Trump administration’s latest gambit to impose tariffs unlawfully is GMU Scalia Law’s Ilya Somin. Two slices:

I am extremely skeptical of the claim that all of these sixty countries – including numerous affluent liberal democracies – are actually more lax about importing goods produced by forced labor than the US is. And if forced labor were really the concern, there would be no reason to impose massive tariffs on virtually all imports from those nations, even though the vast majority of those goods have little or no connection to forced labor. It sure looks like the forced labor issue is just a pretext for large-scale protectionism of the same kind courts blocked earlier. This looks like yet another presidential power grab seeking to usurp Congress’ authority over tariffs, granted by Article I of the Constitution.

…..

Ultimately, the new Section 301 tariffs appear to be yet another attempt to give the president a blank check to impose tariffs at will. The same is true of the administration’s plans to use Section 301 to target “structural excess capacity,” which rely on the absurd premise that it is somehow an unfair trade practice for countries to be able to produce more goods than they can use themselves.

About the Trump administration’s foot-dragging on its obligation to refund the taxes that it illegally collected from Americans, Douglas Holtz-Eakin tweets:

This is just outrageous.

Gale Pooley tells of how the Gillette company “built an abundance revolution.” Three slices:

Simple ideas often appear obvious in retrospect, but simplicity is usually the far edge of genius.

Men’s facial fashions were shifting rapidly in the late 1800s: the beard was out, the clean-shaven chin was in, and the mustache had to be perfect. To maintain this look, men either visited the barber two or three times a week, or shaved themselves, a risky alternative. The “cutthroat” straight razors demanded constant sharpening, and punished even small mistakes — especially for beginners or anyone pressed for time.

[K.C.] Gillette’s insight was simple: don’t sharpen the blade — replace it with something safe, affordable, and convenient.

…..

Under Gillette, shaving ceased to be a tedious chore performed with a dangerous blade. It became part of the modern masculine ideal. The right razor promised confidence, precision, cleanliness, and success — the same virtues embodied by the athletes and heroes in his advertisements.

Later, using an elaborate formula, Gillette figured that the monetary value of the time men saved each year using his razor was equal to the entire capital of US Steel, valued at around $1.5 billion at the time.

…..

What began as a dull blade before a mirror in Boston became a revelation: knowledge can redeem time. Gillette became a global engine for transforming human ingenuity into billions of dollars of value and billions of liberated hours.

In 1903, Gillette sold 51 razors. A century later, Procter & Gamble purchased the company for $57 billion. Steel did not become more valuable. Steel is abundant and nearly worthless without the mind. The value resided in the invisible architecture of human creativity — metallurgy, machinery, chemistry, branding, logistics, engineering, and trust — accumulated across generations and poured into a single morning ritual. Accumulated manufacturing knowledge compressed time prices downward, making what was once a luxury nearly universal.

“Do you trust the government to control AI?”

Tosin Akintola is correct: “Bernie Sanders’ AI wealth fund bill shows that he doesn’t understand AI or wealth.” A slice:

And while Sanders frames “tech oligarchs” as modern-day robber barons, he proposes an idea commonly used by real oligarchs and authoritarians across the world to prop up illiberal regimes, illegally funnel money, and wield unchecked power over their citizens.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin is draining the country’s National Wealth Fund for his war in Ukraine, against the advice of the nation’s financial monitors. Iran uses its National Development Fund to finance terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and its shadow police force, while Saudi Arabia’s wealth fund is regularly used to facilitate human rights abuses, according to a 2024 report from Human Rights Watch. While it’s unlikely that an American wealth fund would be used this nefariously, recent cases of fraud show it’s not unreasonable to assume that an unappropriated pot of hundreds of billions of dollars could tempt officials.

George Will applauds Lamar Alexander’s new memoir. A slice:

Edmund Burke, the fountainhead of modern conservatism, warned against purely performative politicians, of which America today has a surfeit. They “make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity,” and become “flatterers instead of legislators.” By them, “moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards, and compromise as the prudence of traitors.”

Arnold Kling writes of the books that he has re-read.

Ryan Streeter remembers the late Economic Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps. A slice:

His 2013 book, Mass Flourishing, makes the case that “relatively modern-capitalist economies are more rewarding in nonmaterial terms than the relatively corporatist or socialist economies.” Societies that encourage and reward indigenous innovation by freely allowing investment and competition to select the winners and losers, rather than state actors and rent-seekers, always come out ahead. But, again, this is not merely a statement about policies and institutional arrangements. “[A]s important as institutions and policies may be, we must recognize that every economy is a culture or mix of cultures, not just policies, laws, and institutions,” Phelps writes.

The economic culture of a nation consists of prevailing attitudes, norms, and assumptions about business, work, and other aspects of the economy. These cultural forces may affect the generation of nonmaterial rewards indirectly through their influence on the evolution of institutions and policies, but also very directly through their impact on participants motives and expectations.

Put another way, he writes that an “economy may owe its vibrancy – its readiness to apply newly discovered technologies and adopt newly proven products – to one or more components of its economic culture; an economy may owe its dynamism – its success at using the creativity of people to achieve indigenous innovation – to some other components in its cultural repertoire.”

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… is from page 140 of Deirdre McCloskey’s superb forthcoming book, Equality of Permission:

What mattered to the economy was a mad commitment to trying, venturing, experimenting, now suddenly under primary liberalism permitted without let or hindrance – nay, encouraged – in which a proletarian like Edison or Franklin or Faraday could participate.

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Among the speakers at this National Review event are David Bahnsen, Phil Gramm, Sam Gregg, Jeb Hensarling, and Bob Lawson.

The Washington Post‘s Editorial Board decries the Trump administration’s maneuvers to evade the government’s legal obligation to reimburse Americans who were unlawfully ‘taxed’ by its illegal tariffs. A slice:

The administration launched a portal in April for companies that paid unlawful tariffs to submit their claims, and in May the money began to flow. Just over $20 billion has been returned.

But the administration said in the Friday court filing that it would appeal a judge’s order that it recalculate hundreds of thousands of importers’ tariff bills in light of the Supreme Court’s decision. It argued that it should only have to do so for companies that have filed a lawsuit contesting the tariffs.
The Justice Department told the U.S. Court of International Trade that the order to pay back all the illegal tariffs exceeds the court’s authority.

The administration seems to be suggesting that any company that wants to be reimbursed for unlawful border taxes might need to sue on its own accord. Forcing more companies to hire lawyers to get the refunds they’re owed will only raise those companies’ costs and therefore consumer prices.

But some companies might decide this isn’t worth it if the legal costs are great and the tariffs they paid are relatively small. Others might not want to sue to get their money back for fear of regulatory or other reprisals by the Trump administration.

Jim Dorn reflects on Blackstone’s Commentaries. A slice:

Both Jefferson and [George] Mason and other Founding Fathers were familiar with William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in four volumes between 1765 and 1769. Of particular interest is Blackstone’s discussion of “the absolute rights of individuals” in the first chapter of Book 1, where he argues that “the principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature”—namely, “the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right of private property.”

Drawing on the Magna Carta (“the great charter of liberties”), Sir Edward Coke (1552–1634), and Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke (1632–1704), Blackstone examines the higher-law foundation of common law and holds that “the principal view of human laws is, or ought always to be, to explain, protect, and enforce such rights as are absolute, which in themselves are few and simple.” Moreover,

“The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature: being a right inherent in us by birth.”

Charles Calomiris writes insightfully about stablecoins. A slice:

Congress also poked stablecoin issuers in the eye with the Genius Act’s requirement that they must redeem stablecoins on demand, which created liquidity risk for issuers akin to risks banks face from uninsured demand deposit outflows. There is no need to require redemption and doing so makes stablecoins less efficient.

The great Richard Epstein harshly criticizes the Trump administration’s proposed “anti-weaponization fund.” A slice:

There is no doubt that the IRS was negligent. In their initial lawsuit, the Trumps cited a case brought by billionaire Kenneth Griffin after his documents were released to ProPublica in the same data breach — a case that settled, with the IRS formally acknowledging its misdeed. But in that settlement, the IRS offered no financial incentive or inducement to settle. While the documents of many other individuals were released by Littlejohn, none of them received any cash relief at all, let alone a Trumpian jackpot. The key question is how the Trumps aggregated their claims to obtain this $1.776 billion settlement.

For openers, the Trump plaintiffs never established anything approaching proof of any actual losses, measured in terms of prospective business losses. The complaintcontains the standard boilerplate language of “significant and irreparable harm to Plaintiffs, their reputations, and their substantial financial interests.” But there is not a single instance of any event that traces the ensuing harm from those releases, let alone the severe business and financial sanctions that were imposed on the Trump family by the bloodthirsty activities of New York State Attorney General Letitia James, or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which ironically might have propelled Trump to victory everywhere outside of New York State. Absent actual damages from this release (which did not result in any further action against the Trump plaintiffs), Trump should only receive nominal damages at a level that could not support the sweetheart settlement the President has reached with Acting AG Blanche, who had been his own personal lawyer, creating an inexcusable conflict of interest that was never explained away.

David Henderson reminded me that several years ago he reviewed a book co-authored by Glenn Hubbard and Peter Navarro. A slice:

Second, an undervalued currency, while it causes Chinese consumers to pay too much for imports and earn too little on exports, is a clear-cut boon to the U.S. economy. I feel for the hapless Chinese who have to pay for this, but if a government offers us lower prices, we shouldn’t kid ourselves that these lower prices make us worse off.

Bjorn Lomborg reveals some of the sloppy ‘science’ used by the World Health Organization as it continues to peddle climate hysteria:

The World Health Organization is at it again. A top commission—stacked with a former European Union climate commissioner, a former prime minister of Iceland, other former ministers and environmental campaigners—has recommended that the health body declare climate change a global health emergency. The commission’s headline evidence is a Lancet study showing heat deaths in Europe are rapidly rising, reaching 63,000 a year. This study shows that European heat-death risk has risen 82% since 1990.

But the study and the commission report both ignore a crucial factor: Heat mortality risk rises sharply with age, and Europe has aged dramatically. Since 1990, the share of Europeans over 70 has increased by 78%. Aging alone explains virtually all the observed increase in heat deaths.

Any honest analysis of mortality in a rapidly aging society uses age-standardized death rates, which are comparable over time because they control for demographic change. The Global Burden of Disease, the world’s leading mortality database, finds that Europe’s standardized heat-death risk has changed only marginally since 1990. At current population, the increase amounts to fewer than 850 additional heat deaths. The WHO commission’s unstandardized figures exaggerate the problem more than 50-fold.

This isn’t a technical quibble. It is the difference between a genuine health crisis and a demographic inevitability being rebranded as a climate emergency.

The World Health Organization is at it again. A top commission—stacked with a former European Union climate commissioner, a former prime minister of Iceland, other former ministers and environmental campaigners—has recommended that the health body declare climate change a global health emergency. The commission’s headline evidence is a Lancet study showing heat deaths in Europe are rapidly rising, reaching 63,000 a year. This study shows that European heat-death risk has risen 82% since 1990.

But the study and the commission report both ignore a crucial factor: Heat mortality risk rises sharply with age, and Europe has aged dramatically. Since 1990, the share of Europeans over 70 has increased by 78%. Aging alone explains virtually all the observed increase in heat deaths.

Any honest analysis of mortality in a rapidly aging society uses age-standardized death rates, which are comparable over time because they control for demographic change. The Global Burden of Disease, the world’s leading mortality database, finds that Europe’s standardized heat-death risk has changed only marginally since 1990. At current population, the increase amounts to fewer than 850 additional heat deaths. The WHO commission’s unstandardized figures exaggerate the problem more than 50-fold.

This isn’t a technical quibble. It is the difference between a genuine health crisis and a demographic inevitability being rebranded as a climate emergency.

Scott Lincicome tweets:

Bernie copying Trump, who copied Bernie, who copied Lenin.

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… is from page 9 of Jagdish Bhagwati’s 1989 lecture “Is Free Trade Passé After All?” as reprinted in Political Economy and International Economics, a 1991 collection, edited by Doug Irwin, of some of Bhagwati’s writings [footnote deleted; link added]:

Thus [Alfred] Marshall, after observing the American experience with protection which reinforced his skepticism of rational tariff intervention, felt that “in becoming intricate it (i.e., protection) became corrupt, and tended to corrupt general politics.”

DBx: It has become fashionable among certain protectionists to attempt to strengthen the weak intellectual credentials of protectionism by conscripting into protectionist ranks famous economists, including Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), pictured here. But these attempts reflect nothing more than a failure, by the protectionists, to read the works of their would-be conscripts carefully.

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Here’s a letter to the Nevada Globe.

Editor:

Spurred by the White House’s recent announcement about tariffs on steel, aluminum, and copper, you applaud Pres. Trump’s protectionism because allegedly it is “rebuilding American industry” and strengthening U.S. national security (“Trump Tightens Tariffs on Steel, Aluminum, and Copper as America First Manufacturing Push Accelerates,” June 2). I have some questions.

– Are you aware that in April 2025, the month Mr. Trump imposed his “Liberation Day” tariffs, U.S. industrial capacity was at an all-time high, being then 11% larger than when China joined the World Trade Organization and 64% larger than when NAFTA took effect?

– Because nearly all imported steel, aluminum, and copper are inputs used in American factories to produce outputs – including military materiel – how, exactly, does restricting these factories’ access to inputs help to ‘rebuild’ American industry?

– The U.S.’s largest foreign supplier of steel and of aluminum is Canada, and Canada is also the U.S.’s second-largest supplier, after Chile, of copper.* How does tariffing imports of these metals from one of our closest allies promote U.S. national security? And as high U.S. tariffs prompt Canada (and Chile, Mexico, and Brazil – other major, friendly suppliers of metals to the U.S.) to build buyer networks away from the U.S., won’t we Americans regret having alienated allies as well as obstructed our access to their metals?

Unlike Mr. Trump’s second term, when tariffs were raised almost immediately, in Mr. Trump’s first term there were no tariff increases, or even announcements of such, until late January 2018, just over a year after Mr. Trump was first sworn into office. Might the following facts prompt you to reassess your position? Industrial production during the first year of Mr. Trump’s second term rose by 1.4%, but during the first, no-tariff-hikes year of Mr. Trump’s first term, this production rose at nearly twice that rate, by 2.7%. Real private-sector nonresidential fixed investment rose, in the first, tariff-filled year of Trump 2.0 by 5.8%, after having risen in the first, no-tariff-hikes year of Trump 1.0 by 7.5%.

Other economic measures that performed better during the first year of Trump 1.0 than during the first year of Trump 2.0 include, but are not limited to, all three major U.S. stock indices, real per-capita GDP, real median household income, real hourly earnings of all private-sector employees, and – important chiefly because the administration puts huge stock in this measure – manufacturing employment.**

If you were to investigate the facts rather than swallow and regurgitate conventional wisdom, you’d be much less gullible than you are about the alleged ‘need’ for – and wonders worked by – Mr. Trump’s punitive and mad taxation of Americans’ purchases of imports.

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

* According to Claude (whose answers here are consistent with what I’ve learned over the past few years).

** See my forthcoming column at AIER.