The best way to look at tariffs or import quotas or other protectionist restraints is to forget about political boundaries. Political boundaries of nations may be important for other reasons, but they have no economic meaning whatever. Suppose, for example, that each...
protectionism
TGIF: A Public Choice Perspective on Trade
by Sheldon Richman | May 4, 2018 | Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
Let's say you could make a strictly economic case for government interference with people's trading activities, that is, with their ability to cooperate freely with others across the world. (I have no idea what "strictly economic case" even means, but stay with me.)...
TGIF: The Dangerous Deficit in Trade Understanding
by Sheldon Richman | Apr 13, 2018 | Economics, Featured Articles, Libertarianism, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
I was chatting with my tobacconist the other day -- I have no rabbi, no priest, no minister, no imam, no chiropractor, and no lawyer, but I do have a tobacconist -- when it struck me that my trade deficit with him is astronomical. How could I have let this happen? For...
TGIF: Economic Nationalism: Elitism in Populist Clothing
by Sheldon Richman | Mar 16, 2018 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
My old friend and former American Conservative editor Dan McCarthy gets it all wrong about Donald Trump's "national security" tariffs on aluminum and steel. I won't discuss Dan's strictly economic case for the tariffs -- I've already discussed this -- but I want to...
TGIF: Trading Places
by Sheldon Richman | Mar 9, 2018 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy, Libertarianism, Politics, Sheldon Richman, TGIF
"What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war." --Henry George When Donald Trump can propose tariffs on imported steel, aluminum, washing machines, and solar-panels without being roundly booed off the...
On Tariffs and Trade (and Why Trade is Better for America)
by Matt Knight | Mar 5, 2018 | Economics, Featured Articles
I have a huge trade imbalance with Wal-Mart. Huge. I spend hundreds of dollars on groceries and other items every month, but never--not once--has Wal-Mart ever bought something from me. Maybe I should stop shopping at Wal-Mart as a way of sticking it to them. Or not....
Trump: 'Trade Wars Are Good'
by Eric Schuler | Mar 2, 2018 | Blog
Yes, that's apparently a real quote from President Trump. This is likely the worst economic position he has staked out so far. On the plus side, if he puts his trade war optimism to the test and thus sparks the next recession, perhaps we won't have to hear contrived...
Trump: ‘Trade Wars Are Good’
by Eric Schuler | Mar 2, 2018 | Blog
Yes, that's apparently a real quote from President Trump. This is likely the worst economic position he has staked out so far. On the plus side, if he puts his trade war optimism to the test and thus sparks the next recession, perhaps we won't have to hear contrived...
Blog
The Pink Unicorn Stamp
Kyle just finished printing out the form he needed to send to a client, an elderly woman who had just lost her husband. He felt empathy for her and really wanted to get it done as fast as possible. Searching the nearby desk, he could not find the stapler. He looked...
The UOC, the OCU, and the USA w/Ben Dixon
Ben Dixon of the Union of Orthodox Journalists joined me to discuss the UOC and OCU schism, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, and Orthodoxy in America.
The Kyle Anzalone Show [GUEST] Patrick Henningsen: Nothing Can Be “Imminent” for 47 Years
Two million people flood central Tehran and an American reporter says he felt safe—so what else about Iran, the protests, and the path to war have we been getting wrong? We open with a vivid, on-the-ground account of Iran’s national day, where politics look more like...
Just Call It Fascism
“From the river to the sea,” is an expression that has become illegal in Australia. An insecure nation with government often desperate to placate foreign interests and those who keep the politicians rich. And, in 2026 any thing that has been determined as...
The Kyle Anzalone Show [GUEST] Lt Col Karen Kwiatkowski: Operation Epic Failure: Trump’s War in Iran Is NOT Going As Planned
A war launched with shifting reasons and sliding timelines is a warning sign, not a strategy. We sit down with former Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski to examine how the U.S.–Iran confrontation veered from consent to chaos in days: bungled evacuations, brittle base...
The Kyle Anzalone Show [Guest] COL. Lawrence Wilkerson: Trump Admits Americans Will Die in the War for Israel
War rarely begins with a single decision; it grows from motives, misreads, and momentum. We sit down with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson to map how a promised era of “no new wars” gave way to a high-stakes confrontation with Iran that could redraw the strategic landscape....












