Tweet [1]
Jeff Jacoby correctly and rightly slams Trump’s economically lunatic scheme to “Make America Great Again” with protectionism [2]. A slice:
Not even Trump claims there is anything unpatriotic about selling American-made products to Mexico or China. So how can it be unpatriotic to buy products from Mexico or China? Trade is by definition a two-way proposition: Stifle imports and you stifle exports. The only way foreigners can acquire the dollars they need to purchase American goods and services is for Americans to buy their goods and services. The more we trade, the more we gain.
(To understand Trump’s ‘economics’ you need to understand only that he and his horde are mercantilists of the most simplistic, ignorant, and cartoonish sort [3]. Eleven-year-old children of ordinary intelligence have more economic understanding than this idiot president. There is nothing subtle or nuanced or deep in Trump’s “thoughts”; he sees only that which is immediately in front of his nose, and even at that close range his vision is often distorted. If he believes even a quarter of what he says about trade, he’s a complete moron – a moron made dangerous by the power at his command and by the cheering of his deluded followers.)
Richard Ebeling tells the story of how free trade helped to enrich Europe [4]. A slice:
Properly understood, the theory of comparative advantage shows that all individuals and all nations may find their place at the global table of commerce and trade. That both the “strong” and the “weak,” the most and less productive and efficient, each may find a niche in the international division of labor by which all of humanity may improve their circumstances by mutually bettering the conditions of others in an encompassing world market.
Shikha Dalmia exposes the folly of Trump’s proposed border wall [5].
Speaking of Trump’s wall, Alex Nowrasteh explains that it will not be paid for by taxing remittances [6].
Speaking of inequality, Gregory Clark reviews, in the Wall Street Journal, Walter Scheidel’s [9]The Great Leveler.
Here’s a video of an interview with John Cochrane [10].