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My intrepid Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy – reporting on new research by Brian Blank – is appalled by the cronyism that forms the heart of protectionism.

George Will is understandably dismayed at what is becoming of much of American higher education. A slice:

In the Chronicle in March, the University of Washington’s Bessner said we are in a “crisis of capitalism,” by which he seemed to mean a shortage of jobs for people like him: left-wing academics. “Given that there are almost no tenure-track jobs, the majority of the next generation of intellectuals — like my own generation — will probably have to look outside the university for employment.” To him, “intellectuals” denotes left-wing aspiring academics. Again, note the absence of self-examination and the disregard of the possibility that there are fewer teaching jobs because fewer students are drawn to the study of literature, history and the rest of the humanities because of the way these subjects are taught.

Johan Norberg’s newest “Dead Wrong” video busts the myth that communism, while perhaps not quite as good as capitalism at producing material goods, excels at fostering community and other non-economic values.

Bryan Caplan’s and Zach Weinersmith’s Open Borders is a legitimate best seller!

The great Bruce Yandle argues that people will cope with climate change better the more they are free.

Richard Ebeling praises the globe-spanning division of labor and exchange. A slice:

It is worth recalling that Great Britain followed such a policy in the middle decades of the 19th century. In 1846, it unilaterally abolished virtually all the protectionist restrictions on the importing of foodstuffs, and shortly after did the same with almost all manufactured goods. As the, then, British prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, said in an address before Parliament before stepping down from that role, if other nations choose to misguidedly buy high and sell lower in their commercial dealings with the rest of the world, there was no reason why the people of Great Britain should follow such an irrational course, as well.

Colin Grabow finds that, contrary to one of its big selling points, the Jones Act is likely a net liability to America’s national security. A slice:

The facts are these: under the Jones Act’s watch the U.S. maritime sector has suffered grievous setbacks. Numerous shipyards have closed, the domestic fleet’s numbers have dwindled, and the pool of mariners that the military draws upon to crew its sealift fleet has become perilously shallow. Rather than ensuring, as the law states in its purpose, a “merchant marine of the best equipped and most suitable types of vessels” capable of “serv[ing] as a naval or military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency” the Jones Act has produced a depleted, decrepit fleet of limited capabilities.

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