The Political & Economic Debate

International Trade Makes America Great
International trade is in bad odor these days, being blamed for massive job losses and draining wealth from the U.S. The rap is wrong: Trade creates far more resources and jobs than it destroys. Free markets are always changing, with businesses opening, closing, growing or shrinking. New technologies upend existing ways of doing things.

California Should Embrace Internet Freedom to Ensure Future Innovation, Prosperity
Last month the D.C. Court of Appeals settled, for now, the question of how much freedom consumers will be guaranteed to make their internet experience the one they want. The Court upheld the current Federal Communication Commission's Restoring Internet Freedom Order, which repealed the prior administration's heavy-handed, 1930s-style regulation of the internet, and accepted the Commission's rejection of claims of broad authority to regulate broadband services.

Scandinavia is Not Socialist, It Just Soaks the Taxpayer | Mitchell Nemeth
As the 2020 presidential election nears, progressive candidates continue to propose social welfare programs focused on expanding government intervention in health care, education, and long-standing familial decisions. These politicians continue to refer to Scandinavian entitlement programs and their "successes." What is often missing from the policy discussions is the unbelievably large tax burden on middle-class citizens in these countries.

Free Enterprise Is the World's Only Successful Strategy for Reducing Poverty | Daniel J. Mitchell
Grinding poverty used to be the normal human condition, but then rule of law and limited government enabled a dramatic increase in prosperity. North American and Western Europe went from agricultural poverty to middle class prosperity. What about the rest of the world?

What Streaming Services Teach Us about Economics | Zilvinas Silenas
" Fifty-seven channels and nothing on" is an adage and a so-so Bruce Springsteen song from the '90s. Obviously, he is talking about cable TV and the supposed paradox that there is a plethora of choices but no worthy ones.

Free Markets: Power to The People
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that he was going to name an energy czar "in the wake of Pacific Gas and Electric Company's prolonged power outages," says the Sacramento Bee, because. According to the governor, "the entire system needs to be reimagined."

Nordic Nations Show How Welfare and Redistribution Weaken the Human Spirit
Statists occasionally get very angry about some of my views. My support for "tax havens" periodically seems to touch a raw nerve, for instance, though I guess I shouldn't be too surprised since some people are so crazy that they have even urged military action against these low-tax jurisdictions.

NEW ISSUE BRIEF: Damon Dunn Shares Stories from His Rise from Poverty, Makes the Case for Why Socialism Doesn't Work
Recalling his experiences overcoming extreme poverty, former collegiate and pro football player and successful businessman Damon Dunn makes the case for why socialism doesn't work in a new brief published by the nonpartisan, California-based think tank, the Pacific Research Institute. Download a copy of "My Rise from Poverty and Why Socialism Doesn't Work."

Cheesecake Factory's Free Cheesecake Disaster Is a Lesson in Scarcity and Prices | Jon Miltimore
To celebrate its 40th anniversary, The Cheesecake Factory announced it was giving away 40,000 pieces of cheesecake to customers who used the DoorDash app to place orders. What could possibly go wrong by giving away 40,000 slices of the most delicious cake on the planet? Well, quite a bit.

Income Mobility Data Show America Still Very Much the Land of Opportunity | Daniel J. Mitchell
I generally don't write much about the distribution of income ( most recent examplefrom 2017), largely because that feeds into the false notion that the economy is a fixed pie and that politicians should have the power to re-slice it if they think incomes aren't sufficiently equal.

Don't Blame California's Poop Crisis on Capitalism | Greg Morin
I recently had the opportunity to visit San Francisco for the first time. Coastal towns tend to be a bit more interesting in terms of cuisine (seafood being one of the more varied palate options) and architecture (steep hill structures are ever a testament to human ingenuity), and San Francisco scores high in both categories.

Competition Should Be Neither Restricted Nor Mandated | Connie Lin
Imagine two different track races. In the first race, there are 100 competitors who are all Olympic athletes. In the second race, there are 100 competitors, but all of them are obese yet were eligible to enter because of connections with the coach. Which race has more competition?

Why We'll Never Run Out of Jobs | Donald J. Boudreaux
In the 3rd edition of University Economics, Armen Alchian and William Allen state that "an unlimited number of jobs are available in a world of scarcity." Entrepreneurial innovation marshals resources in new and creative ways so that desires once too costly to satisfy become cost-effective to satisfy. This is indisputable.

Capitalism Is the Moral High Road | Richard M. Ebeling
Higher education in the United States is engulfed in an ideological campaign against the American political and economic traditions of individual liberty, free competitive markets, and constitutionally limited government. In its place is the "progressive" agenda of collectivist identity politics, the interventionist economy, and political plunder.

This Explains Man's Fatal Attraction to Communism | Paul H. Rubin
"Dan hears the screaming, rushes in, wrestles Alex into the bathtub, and seemingly drowns her. She suddenly emerges from the water, swinging the knife." (Wikipedia summary of the 1987 movie, Fatal Attraction) Favorable views of capitalism were 47% among Gen-Z; 42% among Millennials; and 45% among Generation X.

For Affordable Housing, Let Supply Meet Demand | Charles Blain
There's a common misconception that conservatives are hostile toward affordable housing. While it's true that the rhetoric surrounding housing and the plight of urban areas can, at times, be downright off-putting, free-market policy prescriptions are the way to make affordable housing a reality for those who need it most.

Why a 15% Interest Cap on Loans Would Hurt the People It's Intended to Help | Anne Fleming
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want to cap consumer interest rates in an effort to curb "sky high" credit card charges and other forms of predatory lending. Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez should rethink their proposal or risk emboldening the type of lending they hope to stamp out.

Data Show Poorest Americans Are Benefiting Most from Strong Economy | Adam Michel
In the past year, wage growth was 6.6 percent for the 10th percentile of workers with the lowest incomes, according to the Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers. That's double the 3.3 percent growth rate for workers at the top of the income distribution.

The Myth That the Poor Get Poorer When the Rich Get Richer | Daniel J. Mitchell
I wish my leftist friends understood the Laffer Curve. I also wish they understood the downsides of artificially low interest rates. And the Rahn Curve. And comparative advantage. But perhaps more than anything else, I wish they understood that poor people aren't poor simply because rich people are rich.

You May Not Like Capitalism, You May Not Be Good at Capitalism, but Capitalism Is Good for You | Thomas Gordon
Ask yourself how long the world would wait for the smartphone if Cuba or North Korea had been relied upon to invent it. The richest person in Rome couldn't have his or her favorite perishable dish until their servants prepared it, and now you simply take your favorite dish out of the refrigerator and put it in the microwave.

Economist: Venezuela Is "Atlas Shrugged" in Real Life | Daniel J. Mitchell
I listed the collapse of Venezuela's socialist dictatorship as one of my "hopes" for 2018. That didn't happen, so I included the same hope in my list for 2019. But will it happen? David Asman seems very confident in this clip from a recent interview. I was a bit less hopeful.

Has the Fed's Monetary Meddling Set the Stage for the Worst Financial Crisis of Our Time? | Josh Adamson
The stock market dip in October saw an onset of hysteria regarding the state of the global economy, with many analysts asserting that another sweeping worldwide downturn is imminent. Trade tensions, a poorly timed US fiscal stimulus, slowing Chinese growth, and a messy and uncertain Eurozone have signaled to many that the perfect storm is brewing and may spur another global recession.

Capitalism: Understanding Its Secret | John D. Waterman
Many of the people who disagree with us think that capitalism is just an anarchistic, zero-sum game that paves the way for rich folks to exploit poor folks and to steal the products of workers' labor. So which side of this contentious debate is on the right track?

Economist Explains the Greatest Threat to Liberty in the Modern World | Gary M. Galles
Democracy need not serve liberty. It is entirely consistent with choices that destroy liberty, even though Americans commonly equate them. Consequently, it is important to refocus attention on the primacy of liberty as we move from electing to governing. And there is an excellent guide to such reflection in F.A.

How the Gig Economy Empowers Unschoolers | Kerry McDonald
The gig economy and unschooling share common traits. Independent contractors who choose freelance work are often frustrated by traditional work arrangements and rigid schedules and are seeking more freedom, flexibility, and autonomy. Similarly, many unschooling parents find conventional classrooms to be highly standardized, test-driven environments and want their children to have the freedom, flexibility, and autonomy that they as adults also value.

Basic Income Comes to Stockton
Just six years after declaring bankruptcy due to a 15-year spending binge, Stockton is now exploring creative new ways of spending again. This time, it's a one-year experiment to give several dozen Stockton families $500 a month, with no strings attached.

How Socialists Make Economics the "Dismal Science" in Spite of Rising Prosperity | Kevin Villani
Eighteenth-century economist Thomas Carlyle called economics a dismal science not just in reaction to economist Tomas Malthus' view that economic stagnation and collapse due to population growth was inevitable but also to John Stuart Mill's calls for individual liberty (and as a consequence freeing the American slaves) as the way to improve aggregate economic well being.

Italy's Taxes Drive Its Economy Underground | Daniel Di Martino
Italy's corporate, capital gains, gift, and myriad other taxes are passed on to individuals and borne directly by workers. These high taxes have led to a growing shadow economy where people underreport work to avoid paying taxes.

India's Economy Is Booming. Deregulation Is the Next Important Step. | Patrick Tyrrell
With reported growth of 7.7 percent in the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2017 and 6.7 percent annual growth projected for 2018, India now boasts the world's fastest-growing economy. The question now becomes how to preserve the momentum.

As a Tax Accountant, I Can Tell You Tax Reform Is Helping Small Businesses | Kalena Bruce
As we enter the summer, Republicans and Democrats continue to debate the merits of the tax cuts. Lost in this partisan bickering is the genuine and long-overdue relief the tax cuts offer small businesses. Sadly, the media reporting on small business tax cuts has been heavily politicized, complicating rather than clarifying the issue.

Free Trade Isn't Killing Jobs | Pierre Lemieux
Even assuming that the number of jobs is a good indication of welfare, the populist objection is not valid. Although some workers can, like other producers, be harmed by competition, free trade does not destroy net jobs. At least as many new jobs appear as old ones disappear.

Debt Doesn't Matter, Because "We Owe It to Ourselves"? Why Krugman and Keynes Are Wrong about This | Bart Remes
When Japanese business leaders questioned their government's policy of reckless racking up of debt, Nobel Prize laureate Paul Krugman immediately rose to the occasion. He wrote an article in the New York Times humbly titled "The economic wisdom-or lack thereof-of business leaders". It is a shocking read.

What 19 in 20 Americans Don't Know About World Poverty | Chelsea Follett
An overwhelming majority-95 percent-of Americans are confused about the state of global poverty. A survey from the late Hans Rosling's web project Gapminder assessed the public's knowledge on the subject. The survey asked twelve thousand people in fourteen countries if, over the last two decades, the proportion of the world's population living in extreme poverty has a) almost doubled, b) stayed the same, or c) almost halved.

Ride-Sharing Services Aren't a Problem, They're a Solution | Aeon Skoble
According to The New York Times, app-based rideshare services are a serious problem in need of a regulatory solution. While their editorial is about New York City, the fallacious thinking behind it is universal. Most people who have used Uber or Lyft might wonder what exactly the problem is, never mind what sort of solutions might be warranted.

Toys *Were* Us. Now Let's Build Something Better! | Seamus Coughlin
Since Toys 'R' Us declared bankruptcy and announced that it will be closing all of its stores, it has seemed like no retail store is safe. Are people nowadays too lazy and obsessed with convenience to appreciate the inherent goodness of traditional brick-and-mortar stores? Ehh.

Who Needs the WHO? Not the World's Poor | Fred Roeder, Bill Wirtz
The World Health Organization is a large and antiquated United Nations body that is expensive unnecessary and counterproductive to its own cause of "public health." It's time to take the appropriate measures and defund it. Over 2,500 people died from Ebola in Guinea, but rather than addressing the important health concerns, the WHO focused on cigarettes.

How Foreign Competition Strengthens Domestic Firms | Tim Worstall
Protectionists would have you believe that domestic firms would be helpless against those viciously efficient foreigners, so we must have trade barriers to stop that pressure. But it's actually that competition from viciously efficient competitors which drives up productivity and thus increases living standards.

Capitalism Makes Us Free to Be You and Me | Omer Grigg
Karl Marx argued that capitalism alienates man from the products of his labor. He admired the massive productivity of the capitalist system, but lamented the loss of small industry for industrial production, aimed at satisfying the needs and tastes of the masses.

The Data is Clear: Freedom-Not Foreign Aid-Is the Solution to Global Poverty | Patrick Tyrrell
The 2018 Index of Economic Freedom, an annual study that ranks 180 countries for their economic freedom using hard data, has now been published by The Heritage Foundation. The results, when combined with poverty data from the World Bank, show that inhabitants of countries who enjoy high levels of economic freedom are far less likely to suffer from abject poverty.