13 Jun 2018

This Is Your Economics on TDS

Foreign Policy 5 Comments

When Trump says China is killing us on trade, free-market economists are quick to point out that there are positive-sum games.

When pundits speculate on the impact of certain events, free-market economists often point to the stock market as the best aggregator of expert opinion.

Now US defense stocks are down… Even so, because North Korea says it benefited from the Trump-Kim meeting, Scott Sumner concludes that “Yep, Kim won.”

(In fairness, over at EconLog Sumner gives a more balanced assessment.)

5 Responses to “This Is Your Economics on TDS”

  1. baconbacon says:

    Another case of not believing your own rhetoric

    “2. Trump’s effusive praise for Kim as an individual was morally offensive and not even necessary.”

    For a self described utilitarian who has repeatedly stated that he isn’t smart enough to predict complicated outcomes this should be totally out of character. SS has no idea how KJU will react to the praise or how this summit will play out in the future, from a utilitarian POV if these remarks were a part of a process that helped NK liberalize and dramatically reduced the suffering then the statements would be morally acceptable or even a moral imperative. Treating them as individual statements is not how a utilitarian should act. Declaring them not even necessary is not how someone who has actual humility in being able to predict the future should act either.

  2. E. Harding says:

    Sumner is incapable of discussing anything Trump-related with the least bit of objectivity. He barely even notices the existence of Moon Jae-in.

    • Tel says:

      Part of the tertiary education groupthink I’m afraid.

      Tom Woods and Stefan Molyneux really went to town recently, trashing the US college education system. I can see increasing reasons why young people should be looking for alternatives: overpriced, socialist politics, rape allegations, declining standards, as well as a one sided education that probably won’t help you much when it comes to achieving anything. Maybe that’s unfair to tar the entire tertiary sector, because I’m sure some places are a lot better than others. Do your research.

      Mind you, Tom Woods is selling the competing product, so he would say that.

  3. Craw says:

    Nice point. Tyler Cowen has a better take than Sumner over at his place.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Yes thanks Craw, I had missed that. Here is Tyler, everybody. I think more highly of Dennis Rodman and of Tyler Cowen. (That doesn’t mean I thought little of them two months ago.)

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