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A sympathetic case for the America First Committee and their opposition to America’s entry into World War II comes from a surprising source.
If Hobbes is right about human nature, then he is wrong about the state as a solution. Ironically, his key arguments for the state are actually key reasons against it.
How did Murray Rothbard view Ronald Reagan's legacy? A mood of blind "feel-good" Americanism, entrenched big government, and the evisceration of libertarian gains—leaving only one positive (repealing the 55 mph speed limit).
The progress against coercion was as important as the progress against poverty to improve human well-being.
The post Quotation of the Day… appeared first on Cafe Hayek.
1. Zvi (NN) on my podcast with Sam Altman. I will note that GPT-5 is very good at picking out restaurants for me in northern Spain, and Neruda you have to read in Spanish, otherwise it is lame.
2. Peter Thiel on young people and socialism (Free Press).
3. Is the Heritage Foundation imploding?
4. Fertility job market papers.
5. Iguana advisory for Florida.
6. The full twenty minute Sydney Sweeney GQ interview is worth watching. Few books about sociology are this valuable. And memed, about free trade.
The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
Editor:
Desmond Lachman correctly explains that Trump’s tariffs won’t reduce U.S. trade deficits (Letters, November 8). In doing so, however, Mr. Lachman uses language that mistakenly suggests that trade deficits are necessarily a problem. He writes: “A basic economic truth is that a trade deficit is simply the result of a country spending on consumption and investment more than it produces.”
Although conventional, this language subtly misleads. A country isn’t a person or an organization, and so “it” doesn’t consume, save, invest, or produce. When we economists say, for example, that “America invests,” what we really refer to are the investments made in the geopolitical region known as “America” by individuals and organizations. Some of these individuals and organizations are American and others are foreign. Yet in discussions of the balance of trade these investment decisions are all lumped together into the phrase “America invests.” When this investment exceeds the amount that Americans save, the impression is created that we Americans are living beyond our means – that in order to make up the difference between what we save and what is invested here, we must borrow the funds from foreigners.
This impression is false because “we” don’t make all of these investments. Many of the investments in America are equity investments made by foreigners. When Ikea builds a store in Ohio the U.S trade deficit rises, but the investment is done by foreigners, not by Americans. This investment is neither a result nor a symptom of us Americans living beyond our means. It is, instead, a happy indication of the attractiveness to global investors of America’s economy.
Evidence confirms that U.S. trade deficits haven’t drained Americans of wealth. The real net worth of the average American household today is 236 percent higher than it was in 1975, the year when America last ran an annual trade surplus.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
The post A Country, As Such, Doesn’t Consume, Save, Invest, or Produce appeared first on Cafe Hayek.
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