John Cochrane rightly cheers an improved understanding of the baneful effects of zoning. (My first exposure to the economics of zoning is the late Bernie Siegan’s excellent 1970 Journal of Law & Economics article, “Non-Zoning in Houston.”)
Bob Higgs identifies the trifurcated rule of law in the United States. A slice:
L’affaire d’Hillary, in contrast, shows that the system’s kingpins are pretty much above the laws, even the laws that they themselves have made and purport to enforce equally without fear or favor. The Clintons appear for all the world, and long have appeared, as a free-range criminal family with far-reaching elite connections—who’s to say what is bribe and what is shakedown?—amounting to what might well be described with a nod to Lady Macbeth herself as “a vast left-wing conspiracy.” So even when the FBI itself has the pelotas to report in great detail on Hillary’s law-breaking, it takes upon itself the pronouncement that a prosecutor would not have a case against her.
Jeffrey Tucker reveals a connection in history between racism and environmentalism.
Larry Reed tells the story of Kellogg.
Shikha Dalmia takes aim at the moronic mercantilism that is Donald Trump’s trade “policy.” A slice:
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.
But even from the mercantilist standpoint of selling stuff abroad, NAFTA has been a huge boon. When it was passed, America’s tariffs on Mexico averaged 3 percent and Mexico’s on America 10 percent. Because NAFTA equalized tariffs, U.S. manufacturing output post-NAFTA reached record highs.
