Trade

Archive for Trade

Introduction to the TPP

My cousin has been asking me if I’m up to speed on the dangers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). I explained to him that Paul Krugman had just declared that the TPP was no big deal, so I assumed it must be awful, but no–I didn’t really know much about it. After reading some of […]

Murphy vs. Yglesias On Chinese Bond Purchases

In this Daily Caller article I dispute Matt Yglesias’ recent argument that the Chinese government exercises no leverage over the American government because it buys so much of its debt. An excerpt: The only way to completely offset both [rising U.S. Treasury yields] and [rising U.S. consumer prices], is if foreign investors are willing to […]

Is the International Status of the Dollar a Big Deal?

David R. Henderson has a thoughtful post that (among other things) endorses Paul Krugman’s recent thoughts on the significance (or lack thereof) of the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency. As David puts it, the role of seigniorage is relatively unimportant in its impact on Americans. In the comments I pushed back on David’s […]

IMF OK With Capital Controls, Inflationists Shrug

Bloomberg: The International Monetary Fund endorsed nations’ use of capital controls in certain circumstances, making official a shift, which has been in the works for three years, that will guide the fund’s advice. In a reversal of its historic support for unrestricted flows of money across borders, the Washington-based IMF said controls can be useful […]

Illustrating the Problems With GDP Accounting

In the comments I chimed in, giving an example to demonstrate the dangers of the standard discussion of GDP accounting. (Note that I’m not sure if anyone in the comments was saying something wrong; it was just a springboard for me to pontificate.) Let me embellish the example here: Suppose Country A is composed of […]

Rorschach on Economics

Someone (sorry I’ve forgotten who it was) emailed to get my reaction to this chart posted on Zero Hedge: The obvious “fight the power” reaction to the above is to say, “Those traitorous One World banksters! They outsource manufacturing jobs in order to fatten their own bottom line.” But that’s not necessarily what’s going on. […]

Murphy Twin Spin on International Trade and Currencies

To get you warmed up, I tell people to stop worrying about the yuan in the Freeman. An excerpt: When Krugman and others complain about the Chinese keeping their currency “artificially weak,” what they really mean is that the Federal Reserve—under both Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke—has been out-inflating the rest of the world. Under […]