Steve Landsburg weighs in with two more posts on fallacies about trade. Here, and here.
Shikha Dalmia is rightly appalled by Donald Trump’s big trade speech from earlier this week. A slice from Shikha’s essay:
At the heart of his argument is the belief that selling to countries is good and buying from them is bad, the crude mercantilist fallacy that Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations debunked in the same year that America embraced the Declaration of Independence. Smith, the brilliant British political economist, argued that unless people start eating gold bullion, the point of wealth is to buy not sell; to consume not produce. If China starts shipping free plasma TVs to America, a few American companies may be thrown out of business, but American consumers will be better off. What’s more, they’ll be able to spend their savings on goods from other companies. The only folks that protectionist policies benefit are crony capitalists who face less competition — the very thing that Trump says he’s fighting.
Steve Chapman correctly describes Trump’s trade speech as “an encyclopedia of error.” A slice from Steve’s essay:
It’s [Trump’s trade speech] a scam, skillfully pitched to fool the gullible. His framework is a house of cards built on sand in a wind tunnel. Its most noticeable feature is a total divorce from basic economic realities.
Sandy Ikeda explains that immigration is a fundamental human right.
Angus is fed up with the hysteria over Brexit.
Jared Meyer interviews GMU Law professor Ilya Somin.
