Must the US counteract Beijing’s subsidies with high tariffs?
MARKETS
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.
Stop Eroding Freedom with Communist Conceptions of “Fairness”
Conceptions of “fairness” pursued through taking from those who have produced more and giving it those who have produced less or nothing are morally unjust and economically destructive.
Why The Department of Justice Wants to Take Down Apple
Is there muscle behind the growing push for censorship? Certainly there is. This reality is underscored by the Justice Department’s antitrust actions against Apple.
Apple’s Big Business: Von Mises is Right, Sen Warren is Wrong
Mises’ words ring loud and true in the case of Apple, and it is a shame that those in Washington, like Senator Warren, can’t seem to grasp this fact.
Altruism Can’t End Homelessness
One of the chief weapons used by the advocates of altruism is guilt.
Why Even Insiders Underestimate Markets’ Power
Anyone who has ever taken a competently taught economic principles course should understand why people tend to underestimate market forces for airline fuel, irrigation water, and so many other areas.
Business Schools Undermine Wealth Creation
Students should be reminded that money-making is not an evil endeavor when done ethically and efficiently, and productive pursuits do not need to be tasked with tackling societal ills.
The Rich Aren’t Rich Enough
Eating The Rich Won’t Feed the Statist Beast
EPA Phase Out of Gas-Powered Cars
A clever ruse in that it allows the Biden administration to use regulatory power to force automobile manufactures off of gas-powered vehicles while denying that they are banning them.
Central Bank Digital Currencies vs Banking Freedom
By resisting the CBDC tide and instead strengthening our money with a commodity backing (preferably gold), the US would in one fell swoop create the world’s soundest and most stable monetary unit.
What Does Morality Have To Do With Business?
“But I don’t want to be moral!” That’s what a CEO spontaneously exclaimed when he was given my book, How to Be Profitable and Moral. Why did he say that, and did he really mean it?
Capitalist Profits Do Not Cause Inflation
The idea that hundreds of thousands of businesses have colluded to raise prices to boost their profit margins and in so doing, engineered the inflation that continues to afflict Americans — is easily disproven.
Dollar Stores are a Beautiful Thing
Carlson is entitled to his view of dollar stores as being ugly, but for individuals and families who appreciate the offerings, services, and availability of a discount retailer in their neighborhood, it is surely a beautiful thing.
The Beginnings of a Reborn Austrian School of Economics
Fifty years ago, on October 10, 1973, one of the leading members of the Austrian School of Economics, Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973), passed away at the age of 92.
The Multifront Attack on Business Hero Elon Musk
The attacks on Elon Musk seem like something straight out of an Ayn Rand novel. The successful and innovative entrepreneur is attacked on all sides by institutions and people who live off the system rather than innovate around and beyond it.
Misunderstanding the Meaning of a “Monopoly”
As long as government secures and protects private property rights, enforces all contracts entered into voluntarily and through mutual agreement, and assures law and order under an impartial rule of law, “monopoly” as an economic or social problem is virtually non-existent. But introduce government intervention into the market system, and monopoly invariably becomes a social harm and an economic problem.
What if the First Great Age of Globalization Began 100 Years Earlier?
The first age of globalization could have started much earlier had it not been for trade policies. How much earlier? At least a century, which means somewhere in the mid-18th century.
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