Trade Deficits Don’t Matter – Unless Caused by Government by Richard M. Ebeling May 15, 2017 In 2016, the United States exported goods and services equal to $2.209 trillion, and imported goods and services with a market value of $2.712 trillion. The balance of trade deficit for 2016, therefore, came to $502.3 billion. The trade deficit represented a little over 10 percent of the over $4.92 trillion of total trade in goods and services between ...
The Libertarian Angle: The Folly of Trade Retaliation by Future of Freedom Foundation April 6, 2017 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling discuss the benefits of free trade. Go to the podcast.
Trump’s Economic Warfare Targets Innocent Bystanders by Richard M. Ebeling April 3, 2017 An often forgotten truth is that it is not just military warfare that can cause injury to innocent bystanders, the same inescapably happens in economic warfare initiated by governments, as well. But in the latter case the human “collateral damage” is a targeted victim. On March 29, 2017, “The Wall Street Journal” ran a story highlighting the Trump Administration’s likely ...
The Libertarian Angle: Trump on Trade by Future of Freedom Foundation November 17, 2016 FFF president Jacob Hornberger and Richard Ebeling talk about the trade policy of president-elect Donald Trump. Go to the podcast.
Free Trade versus Political Fallacies by Richard M. Ebeling June 15, 2016 The current political campaign for the U.S. presidency has brought out the worst in both the personalities and the policy positions among many of those running for that high political office, and this has been especially the case with international trade and the global economy. Listening to the presumptive Republican and Democratic candidates for the White House, the average voter ...
Free Trade Is Fair Trade by Laurence M. Vance June 1, 2016 As relayed by Harvard economics professor and chairman of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, N. Gregory Mankiw, “The Princeton economist Alan Blinder once proposed Murphy’s Law of economic policy: ‘Economists have the least influence on policy where they know the most and are most agreed; they have the most influence on policy where they know the least ...
The Libertarian Angle: The Virtues of Free Trade (video) by Future of Freedom Foundation March 29, 2016 In this segment, Richard Ebeling and Jacob Hornberger discuss the why free trade is pragmatically a boon to civilization and ethically the only moral result when you allow people to live in freedom. Go to the podcast.
Are There Rules for Trade? by Laurence M. Vance June 4, 2015 Barack Obama has been lobbying Congress for Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), also known as “fast-track authority,” so the executive branch can work in secret on trade deals before submitting them to Congress for a quick up-or-down vote with limited time for debate, no provision for amendments, and no possibility of a Senate filibuster. The president has made passage of the ...
Free Trade Benefits vs. Fears of Foreign Goods by Richard M. Ebeling May 4, 2015 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe spoke before a joint session of the U.S. Congress on April 29, 2015 and offered his “eternal condolences to the souls of all American people that were lost during World War II,” but never directly said that he was sorry for Imperial Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The real purpose ...
TGIF: The War of 1812 Was the Health of the State, Part 1 by Sheldon Richman February 27, 2015 Part 1 | Part 2 In 1918, having watched in horror as his Progressive friends gleefully jumped onto Woodrow Wilson’s war wagon, Randolph Bourne penned the immortal words: “War is the health of the state.” As he explained it, The republican State has almost no trappings to appeal to the common man’s emotions. What it has ...
Global Free Trade Makes for Mutual Prosperity and World Peace by Richard M. Ebeling January 20, 2015 The recent brutal events in France have reminded us how small the world is that we all share. Violence and conflicts that have their origin in one part of the globe shows itself in another part of our planet. And mass media immediately shares those events to the rest of us, no matter where we are. The impression that is ...
Free Trade: The Engine of Revolution by Wendy McElroy January 12, 2015 To say that a country so remote and insignificant as Korea is our first line of defense is to say that every nation in every part of the world is also our “first line of defense” — a conception which is obviously fantastic and grotesque to the borders of megalomania. —Louis Bromfield, 1954 Louis Bromfield (1896–1956) may ...