Protectionism can’t enrich the country as a whole, only boost certain individuals and industries while impoverishing the rest.
MARKETS
Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. – AYN RAND
Why Do Business Leaders Appease Their Enemies?
The fundamental reason for appeasing the critics of business is that company executives lack the moral argument for defense. As Ayn Rand argues in ‘The Sanction of The Victims,’ most business leaders have accepted the moral code of altruism.
Time To Privatize the United States Postal Service
Decades of ossification, political interference, and financial losses have left USPS in unsustainable position.
Bitcoin Bests $100,000
If Bitcoin is someday supplanted by another digital asset offering indisputable improvements, its foundational role in seeding and anchoring the cryptocurrency asset class — and in driving trillions of dollars of investment into similar and related assets and enterprises — will remain as significant, if not more so, than its contributions to the present.
Killing Thousands of Jobs: California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Law
California’s minimum wage law for fast-food workers is, like any such law, a price floor; it is a price control on labor.
Walgreens, Mass Closures, and the Power of Incentives
Despite Walgreens being ranked as one of America’s most trusted brands, with a rich history dating back to 1901, 500 stores are slated to shut their doors in 2025 with more closures to come in the years following.
Tariffs Don’t Save Industries — Markets Do
In reality, America’s industrial capacity – the ability of the American economy to produce value in the form of industrial outputs – is today at an all-time high.
U.S. Tariffs Benefit The Politically Connected at The Expense of Honest Americans
The best way to address unfair trade practices is not through blanket tariffs but by expanding trade with allies and non-hostile nations.
The “Joy” of Rationing and Price Controls: Kamala Harris vs. The Price Gougers
There is a lack of public comment and debate about Kamala Harris’s call for price controls on groceries and rents, the most stunning and frightening policy proposal made in my lifetime.
Free Markets, and Not Statist Regulators, Should Decide The Fate of Google
The DOJ’s case against Google is a moot point and waste of taxpayer dollars.
Free Market Fundamentals and NatCon Inconsistencies
Endorsing individuals’ freedom to trade with foreigners is simply of a piece with the more general endorsement of individuals’ freedom to trade with whomever they please, whether fellow citizens or not. The protectionist position, in contrast, invariably relies upon arbitrary distinctions that ensnare protectionists in intellectual and ethical inconsistencies.
What Americans Can Learn From Venezuela’s Crackdown on ‘Price Gougers’
Ten years ago, Venezuela set out on a path to economic ruin and grave shortages of basic consumer goods, because of price controls on groceries and other products. Is the US really going to travel on the same road?
Trade Deficits Don’t Really Matter
Free nations as such don’t gain or lose from trade; only individual traders do.
Free Markets Help Workers Flourish
The fundamental principle that we need to recognize to help all workers flourish, ignored by most labor unions and governments alike, is freedom.
The “Next” US Recession
There’s strong and growing evidence that the “next” US recession has begun — or will begin soon.
Antitrust Laws are Unjust and Destructive
As Ayn Rand explains, the antitrust laws are based on confusing two types of power: economic power (sometimes called “market power”) and political power. Only the latter is coercive.
On The Biden Administration’s 100% Tariffs on Electric Vehicles (EVs)
Must the US counteract Beijing’s subsidies with high tariffs?
Trump’s Protectionist Trade Policies Won’t Make America Great Again
More than half of imported goods are intermediate items or inputs used in manufacturing. Because the cost of these inputs will rise with the tariffs, total employment in manufacturing and the entire economy will decline or, at best, grow slower.
Should Business Be Selfish?
Selfishness guides business to trade value for value with all parties – wages for employees’ productivity, products and services for customers’ payment, payment for suppliers’ products, and so on – by mutual consent, for mutual benefit, with no deception or fraud. This is the only way business can maximize long-term profits – and the reason it should be selfish.
America’s “Trade Deficit” With China
Just as there’s absolutely no reason for you to worry about the trade deficit that you have with your physician or your grocer, there’s absolutely no reason for us Americans to worry about the trade deficit that America has with China.
Confusing Effort with Achievement: On The Labor Theory of Economic Value
Labor is not, in itself, a source of value. Labor is expended in the pursuit of value, and the market process’s competing bids and offers convert people’s individual assessments into intelligible data called prices.
GOP Trade Platform Would Penalize Forgotten Americans
The GOP platform calls for new Buy American restrictions, but this is just warmed-over Bidenomics.
What’s Wrong with Bernie Sanders’ 32-Hour Bill
A shortening of the hours of work is a highly desirable goal. But it cannot be achieved along with growing prosperity except in a free market.
Trump’s Proposal To Replace The Federal Income Tax with Tariffs
If Trump’s goal is simply to eliminate the federal income tax, then he should advocate for doing that and only that.
American “Protectionism” Means Putting America Last!
Americans should ask protectionists such as Donald Trump and Josh Hawley just how America is put ‘first’ by US government trade barriers that constrict ordinary Americans’ freedom to spend their incomes as they choose.
Repeal The 1936 Robinson-Patman Act (RPA)
The 1936 Robinson-Patman Act (RPA), once a lynchpin of antitrust enforcement actions, because the government almost always won under its convoluted terms, has been all-but abandoned for decades.
Trump’s Politicizing of Monetary Policy Won’t Fix the Federal Reserve’s Failings
Trump’s proposed reform would make the Fed an arm of the White House. It would be a step in the wrong direction.
Bryan Caplan’s “Build Baby Build: The Science and Ethics of Housing Regulation”
We don’t have as much housing as would be necessary to keep housing costs low because it’s illegal. Governments manufacture scarcity by wrapping building permissions in red tape.
What’s Wrong with Bernie Sanders’ 32-Hour Work Week Bill
A shortening of the hours of work is a highly desirable goal. But it cannot be achieved along with growing prosperity except in a free market.
The Fossil Fuel Industry Should Defend Itself Against Congressional Smears
Fossil fuel companies should say two things when threatened for expressing pro-fossil-fuel opinions: 1) We have a 1st Amendment right to our opinions on energy and climate, and 2) We are now going to talk a lot more about the benefits, including climate benefits, of our industry.
Bidenomics: Creating “Jobs” That Destroy Wealth
Government spending doesn’t really create jobs, but instead moves them from where people themselves would have chosen to where the government dictates by way of its tax, spending, and regulatory policies.
Ludwig Von Mises, The Austrian Theory of Money, Banking, and the Business Cycle
What should have been a minor economic downturn became the Great Depression because government interventions prevented the market process from working.
Ludwig Von Mises explained why with his Austrian theory of Money, Banking, and the Business Cycle.
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