… is from pages 3-4 of Art Carden’s and GMU Econ alum Caleb Fuller’s forthcoming (in April 2025) book, Mere Economics (original emphasis):
Economics doesn’t tell you what to value, only that there are trade-offs. Economics isn’t about why you’re making the waffles. It just says that the eggs you put into waffles for the homeless shelter across the street can’t also be served as omelets at the homeless shelter across town. Even good things (e.g., feeding the homeless across the street) cost something (e.g., feeding the homeless across town).
Dbx: So true.
And yet this truth, as indisputable and important as it is, is very often ignored when people ponder and propose government policies. The protectionist sees the jobs and industries kept in place, or even expanded, by high tariffs; the protectionist ignores the jobs and industries necessarily destroyed by those same tariffs. The proponent of price controls sees the lower money prices paid by buyers who are fortunate enough to gain access to price-ceilinged goods and services; the proponent of price controls does not see the people who are unable to get the price-ceiling goods and services at any price, or the non-price means of payments – e.g., waiting in long queues – often paid even by those persons who gain access to the price-ceilinged goods and services. Similar blindness to all but the most immediate effects of government intervention is suffered by proponents of minimum wages, of income redistribution, and very many other government-imposed regulations.
