All Posts Tagged With: "tariffs"
The Unconstitutionality of Protectionism
Even the staunchest free trader might reluctantly concede that the apparatus of protectionism—tariffs, import quotas, and anti-dumping duties—is constitutional because clause 3 of Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution delegates to Congress “power . . . to regulate commerce with foreign nations. . . .” Before we make too hasty a concession, however, [...]
1Apr2005 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedFree Trade: Key to Peace and Prosperity
Contributing editor William Peterson (whpeterson@ aol.com) is an adjunct scholar with the Heritage Foundation. At a time of international tension and a so-so economy, we are fortunate that the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has issued its essay (online or in hard copy) “The Fruits of Free Trade.” It comes from the Dallas Fed’s 2002 [...]
1Jan2004 | William H. Peterson | 1 comment | ContinuedFeeling Their Oats
How inspiring it was to see nearly two dozen representatives of the poorest nations’ governments walk out of September’s World Trade Organization meeting to protest the rich countries’ subsidies to farmers. I don’t say this lightly. Governments rarely inspire anything in me. But here was a group of governments that finally put diplomatic niceties aside [...]
1Dec2003 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Absurdity of "Saving Jobs"
Timothy Terrell teaches economics at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In any period of economic distress there is a renewed search for political solutions to unemployment. It seems obvious that jobs must be saved, and the government must be the key to preserving those jobs. So we get another round of government intervention: economic [...]
1Dec2003 | Timothy D. Terrell | 7 comments | ContinuedFree Trade Has Been Refuted?
Perhaps the most settled of all economic propositions is that coercive interference with peaceful exchange is detrimental. Yet we often hear groups that want to stifle trade for their own benefit claim that some statistic or argument proves that free trade is a bad policy in general and that protectionism is good for the country. [...]
1Jul2003 | George C. Leef | 1 comment | ContinuedThere’s No Such Thing as “Overproduction”
A most stubborn economic fallacy, especially in my own discipline of history, is that in the unhampered market, output can exceed demand. This is the alleged problem of “overproduction.” The result of this calamity, we are told, is that unsold surpluses pile up, leading to mass unemployment, since the natural solution to overproduction is to [...]
1Jan2003 | Thomas E. Woods Jr. | 0 comments | ContinuedAre Meat Eaters Starving the Poor?
Jeremy Rifkin, America’s ever-present guilt-monger, says hundreds of millions of people are going hungry because the world’s grain crops are being fed to livestock instead of people. Rifkin, writing in the May 27 Los Angeles Times, says eating grain-fed meat is “a new form of human evil.” He blames wealthy consumers for “eating at the [...]
1Oct2002 | Dennis T. Avery | 0 comments | ContinuedUnderdeveloping Indiana
The people of the 50 states of the United States (5 percent of the world’s population) produce 31 percent of the world’s gross product of goods and services. Think of the United States as a world in itself, composed of 50 countries with open borders and no restrictions on trade between them. In this world, [...]
1Sep2002 | Manuel F. Ayau | 3 comments | ContinuedA Tale of Two Tariffs
Although it doesn’t happen often, especially with modern “econometric” tools and the application of computers, sometimes there are questions in recent economic history where those who embrace free markets know something is right but just can’t prove it. We can argue theory endlessly, but some people are never convinced until you show them a little [...]
1Jun2002 | Larry Schweikart | 6 comments | ContinuedJames J. Hill: Transforming the American Northwest
Daniel Oliver is a research associate at the Washington, D.C.-based Capital Research Center and a freelance writer. In 1962 Ayn Rand gave a lecture titled “America’s Persecuted Minority: Big Business” in which she identified two types of businessmen.1 Burton Folsom, Jr., later called these “economic and political businessmen,” the first, self-made men who earned their [...]
1Jul2001 | Daniel T. Oliver | 2 comments | ContinuedGetting It Right
Ideas on Liberty has a place—“It Just Ain’t So!”—to take editorialists and op-ed writers to task for their economic fallacies. We don’t have a place to praise them when they get it right. Since they don’t do it often, that’s usually not a problem. But on rare occasions, someone does and it should be recognized. [...]
1Aug2000 | Sheldon Richman | 0 comments | ContinuedTrade and the Rise of Freedom
Thomas DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland. This is adapted from a paper presented at the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s conference on “’The History of Liberty” at Auburn University, January 29, 2000. It is no exaggeration to say that trade is the keystone of modern civilization. As Murray Rothbard wrote, “The [...]
1Jun2000 | Thomas J. DiLorenzo | 2 comments | ContinuedFree Trade and Flexible Markets
Christopher Mayer, a commercial loan officer, is studying for his MBA at the University of Maryland. International trade plays a critical and often overlooked role in the prosperity of the world’s economy. Imprudence on the part of governments can stifle growth and trigger painful unnecessary contractions. The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 was a major cause [...]
1Apr2000 | Christopher Mayer | 0 comments | ContinuedConflicting Visions
People generally share common goals. Most of us want: poor people to enjoy higher standards of living, greater traffic safety, fewer wars, greater racial harmony, cleaner air and water, and less crime. Despite their common goals, more often than not we see people grouped into factions, fighting tooth and nail to promote differing government policies. [...]
1Oct1999 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedFighting Back
John Landrum, a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and a former attorney, is in management at a New Orleans manufacturing company. He is the author of Out of Court: How to Protect Your Business From Litigation (Headwaters Press, 1992). I have always envied “how-to” writers and secretly hoped to become one. This is my [...]
1May1999 | John Landrum | 0 comments | ContinuedThe Civil War’s Tragic Legacy
The Civil War produced at least two important outcomes. First, although it was not President Lincoln’s intent, it freed slaves in the Confederate States. Second, it settled the question of whether states could secede from the Union. The causes of and the issues surrounding America’s most costly war in terms of battlefield casualties are still [...]
1Jan1999 | Walter E. Williams | 0 comments | ContinuedWhy Managed Trade Is Not Free Trade
The British historian Thomas Babington Macaulay observed that free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can bestow, is in almost every country unpopular.[1] Indeed, sound economics often makes for unsuccessful politics. That free trade is a great benefactor is one of the most convincingly established truths of economic science.[2] The economic case [...]
1Aug1997 | Robert Batemarco | 19 comments | Continued-
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