My GMU Econ colleague Vincent Geloso tells of the dangers of sacralizing the state. Here’s his conclusion:
Simply put, anti-statism is part of the soul of liberalism. It is the rejection of the worship of power! In the present election, where all candidates have exhibited the need to be sacralized in one way or another, properly understood anti-statism is a necessary antidote to all illiberal, populist and authoritarian viruses.
Michael Strain explains that “US tariffs will not bring back jobs from China.” A slice:
Moreover, this focus on the effects of Chinese imports fails to account for the fact that open trade also increases exports. Studying the 1999-2011 period, economists Robert C. Feenstra, Hong Ma, and Yuan Xu found that the 411,000 jobs gained from America’s ability to export goods to a global market almost fully offset the 533,000 jobs lost from import competition.
More important, the alternative to open trade – protectionism – is bad for consumers and workers. Former President Donald Trump’s tariffs against Chinese goods, which Joe Biden’s administration has maintained, were sold as being highly beneficial for manufacturing workers, if mildly harmful to consumers. Instead, as my AESG study shows, the tariffs have caused manufacturing employment to decline by increasing the costs of imported intermediate goods for domestic producers and prompting other countries to retaliate against US exporters.
It is possible that the bond market will remain in the high-confidence state for many more years. It has so far. But at some point, there could be a sudden shift to the crisis state. Although such a debt crisis has been building up slowly and was anticipated for a long time, the actual event will take place rapidly, over the course of a few days.
Could the government just print money and inflate away the debt? Not easily, because inflation will not solve the government’s spending problem. Interest rates usually rise with inflation. Government employees usually demand higher salaries to compensate for inflation. Social Security outlays automatically rise with inflation.
The primary choices in a crisis would be a partial default on the debt and/or a partial default on obligations to pay Social Security and Medicare. And taxes would have to go up sharply.
But Blehar’s colleague at National Review Jim Geraghty warns against underestimating Harris.
Brandon Buck is correct: “The draft Is antithetical to liberty, even if it is never used.”
My colleague Bryan Caplan reflects on the United Arab Emirates.
