Trade

Archive for Trade

On Trade Deficits: Murphy vs. The World, Part 2 of 3

In a previous post, I objected to Mark Perry’s own post about the U.S. trade deficit. The title of Perry’s post captures his point: “US has a net inflow of goods and a net inflow of capital. Team Trump wants the opposite?” I pointed out that if a populist in Japan tried to impose schemes to […]

On Trade Deficits: Murphy vs. the World, Part 1 of 3

I disagree strongly with the rhetoric and substance of Donald Trump and his top advisors when it comes to trade deficits. For example, Peter Navarro’s recent WSJ op ed (which relied on the accounting tautology Y = C+I+G+Nx) could just as well “prove” that increased government expenditures are the way to boost real GDP and create […]

Follow-Up On Free Trade and Household Analogy

I think Don Boudreaux would be fine with me quoting his comment from my previous post here in the big lights. So I’ll break his comment up and respond piecemeal. Bob: Thanks. Your example is valid, but I believe that it doesn’t cast any suspicion on the household analogy (which, of course, was used also […]

Free Traders Might Want to Be More Careful With the Household Analogy

I am friends with Don Boudreaux and I love that he is hammering away on free trade. (Check out this cool post showing how much more knowledgeable Reagan was compared to Trump.) But I also get bored and like to make nitpicky remarks. So take this post in that light. Don favorably links to a […]

Understanding the Economic Commentary on the Border Tax/Subsidy

I was so happy with Scott Sumner’s post that tried to explain the border tax/subsidy issue, that I spent 45 minutes on an episode of the Lara-Murphy Show walking through its logic. Scott’s post made it click for me, and I did my best to convey that extra comprehension to all of you folks too. […]

One Last Post on the Trump Carrier Stuff

Following up on this post, let me reframe things in the following way. NOTE: I truly am not posting these thoughts as a, “Nana nana boo boo, what a bunch of hypocrites!” I really just think this is curious/interesting, and so I’m encouraging people to dig through their intuitions and see if they can refine […]

An Interesting Combination of Positions in the Carrier Debate

I don’t want to make too much of this, and I’m not even saying there is an outright contradiction here. I’ll succinctly state the interesting combination in the form of a script, loosely based on actual events that I observed firsthand on social media. TRUMP SUPPORTERS: You idiot libertarians need to drop your faith in […]

Clarifying My Comments on the Twitter Exchange Between Rep. Amash and Scott Adams

[UPDATE: Amash clarified what happened; see the bottom of the post. Now I can sleep peacefully.] In Episode 799 of the Tom Woods Show, I was the guest and we were talking about the Carrier deal. Tom brought up the fact that I had mentioned on Twitter that I thought Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) had […]