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Here’s the opening paragraph of Tim Worstall’s calling-out of Dan DiMicco for endorsing protectionism for the U.S. steel industry:

I’ve been guilty of more than my fair share of brazen chutzpah over the years but this sally into the form from Dan DiMicco still has the ability to take even my breath away. For DiMicco was the CEO of Nucor and he’s calling for trade protection for the American steel industry. That American steel industry which has suffered so grievously from the competition from Nucor. That Nucor which Dan DiMicco used to be the CEO of. That American steel industry which has suffered more from the competition of Dan DiMicco’s Nucor than it has from anything the Chinese have done.

My colleague Dan Klein is favorably impressed by Trump’s nomination of Scott Gottlieb to lead the Food and Drug Administration.  A slice:

I confess to being one of those classical liberal economists who doubt that the existing banned-until-permitted policy was ever justified [for new medical products] in the first place. Voluntary institutions and traditional legal incentives work well to make it self-damaging to take, buy, produce, sell, or prescribe drugs that are ineffective and/or unsafe. There is a natural demand for the assurance of quality and safety, and that motivates the supplying of such assurance, by means purely voluntary and through the civil court system. Drug regulation should look more like food regulation. If it did, we’d all be a lot healthier.

Eamonn Butler remembers F.A. Hayek.  A slice:

Hayek saw freedom as critical to spontaneous orders. When we force people to act in preconceived ways, we disrupt the delicate workings of society. And if spontaneous social orders are to evolve and strengthen, they need new ideas, not preconceived ones.

Arnold Kling offers an important and (I believe) original insight about household production, its meaning, and its measurement.  (And see also this follow-up from Arnold.)

James Pethokoukis is justifiably skeptical of ‘happiness research.

David Henderson reviews my colleague Tyler Cowen’s latest book, The Complacent Class.

Richard Rahn is right to criticize Republicans who resist budget cuts.

My GMU Econ colleague Tom Rustici, and GMU Econ doctoral candidate James Caton, explain that entrepreneurs create value for disabled workers.

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