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Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetGMU Econ alum Matt Mitchell, writing at The Hill, explains that “America’s leaders confuse economic coercion for good exchange.” A slice: The power to tax is widely accepted but fundamentally coercive. And the higher the taxes, the greater the coercion. Outlawing mutually agreed upon prices between sellers and buyers — as both President Trump and former […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from page 126 of Thomas Sowell’s 2023 book, Social Justice Fallacies: Many social policies help some groups while harming other groups. Affirmative action in academia manages to inflict harm on both the students who were not granted admissions, despite their qualifications, and also many of those students who were admitted to institutions where […]
Full Text of Gramm’s and Boudreaux’s “Tariffs Mean Electoral Defeat for the GOP” - Cafe Hayek
TweetBecause more than 30 days have passed since the Wall Street Journal published Phil Gramm’s and my May 22nd, 2025, piece, “Tariffs Mean Electoral Defeat for the GOP,” I share the full text of this piece here, without charge, beneath the fold (link added). Tariffs Mean Electoral Defeat for the GOP The debacle of 1932 […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetDavid Henderson makes the case for libertarian wariness of war. A slice: Similarly, in foreign policy, governments do things that have unintended consequences. Take the Middle East. The takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by a number of Iranians in November 1979 came as a total surprise to most Americans, including me. But that’s […]
Bonus Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from Michael Strain’s June 10th, 2024, essay, “The Economic World We’ve Lost”: It is no surprise that the rise of populism and economic nationalism has coincided with growing skepticism toward liberal democracy and growing comfort with political violence. The erosion of economic liberalism – free people, free markets, limited government, openness, global commerce […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from David Hart’s marvelous 2019 translation – still only on-line, but forthcoming in print – of Frédéric Bastiat’s 1850 Economic Harmonies; specifically, it’s from Chapter XI, titled “Producer and Consumer” [original emphases]: I would very much like the language of economics to supply me with two words other than “production” and “consumption” to […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetGeorge Will is correct: “Exploding U.S. indebtedness makes a fiscal crisis almost inevitable.” A slice: [Kenneth] Rogoff warns that many believers in “lower forever” interest rates express the human propensity to believe in a “supercheap” way to expand “the footprint of government.” The nation is, however, “running deficits at such a prolific rate that it […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from pages 328-329 of the 1982 Liberty Fund version of the 1978 Oxford University Press edition of Adam Smith’s Lectures on Jurisprudence: Whenever commerce is introduced into any country, probity and punctuality always accompany it . . . It is far more reducible to self-interest, that general principle which regulates the actions of […]
Deficit Financing By Government Is Unethical and A Source of Excessive Government Growth - Cafe Hayek
TweetHere’s a letter to a new correspondent. Mr. P__: Thanks for your e-mail. You wonder why I keep favorably posting items from Veronique de Rugy, George Will, and others who warn of the dangers of the U.S. government’s exploding indebtedness. “If,” you ask, “Milton Friedman was right that the actual cost of government is what […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetReason‘s Eric Boehm is correct: “Trump’s controlling stake in U.S. Steel is indefensible socialist nonsense.” A slice: U.S. Steel isn’t just getting nationalized. It’s getting … personalized? President Donald Trump will personally control the so-called “golden share” that his administration has forced U.S. Steel to accept as part of the terms of a deal that […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from page 8 of Norbert Michel’s 2025 book, Crushing Capitalism: How Populist Policies are Threatening the American Dream (original emphasis): [T]he share of U.S. households earning more than $100,000 (adjusted for inflation) tripled over the past five decades, and the share earning less than $35,000 fell by 25 percent. Share Tweet Share Email […]
Super-markets - Cafe Hayek
TweetHere’s a letter to National Review. Editor: Jim Geraghty rightly ridicules NYC mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s proposal to open government-run grocery stores (“A Few Problems with City-Owned Grocery Stores,” June 26). The irony of this self-described “democratic socialist’s” scheme is rich: There is no greater testament to the productive and economic-democratization powers of capitalism than […]
Mark Meadows Complains That Canadians Put America First - Cafe Hayek
TweetHere’s a letter to The Hill. Editor: Mark Meadows’s stab at justifying Pres. Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum reads like a term paper composed by a clever sophomore (“Trump’s 50 percent aluminum, steel tariffs will create new American manufacturing jobs,” June 23). He stuffs his text with lots of numbers, such as […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from page 261 of the 1992 collection of some of William Graham Sumner’s best essays, On Liberty, Society, and Politics (Roger C. Bannister, ed.); specifically, this quotation is from Sumner’s insightful 1894 essay “The Absurd Effort to Make the World Over”: [I]t is the greatest folly of which a man can be capable, […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetMy intrepid Mercatus Center colleague, Veronique de Rugy, continues to talk sense to those pundits and politicians – left, right, and center – who ignore the dangers of ballooning government indebtedness. A slice: Republicans once were interested in the proper way to raise revenue. They once discussed pro-growth tax reform, base broadening, lowering marginal rates, […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetThe U.S. Secretary of Commerce – who, like the man who appointed him, presumes to know better than do individual Americans how individual Americans should spend their money – doesn’t even know what’s going on in the agency over which he has been given responsibility. Here’s Ramesh Ponnuru: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick joined the administration […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is a rare repeat. This quotation first (and last) appeared in this spot on December 4th, 2013; it’s from the Preface to Thomas Hardy’s marvelous 1886 novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge and refers to the time before the repeal, in Britain, of the infamous corn laws, which were import restrictions on grain; on this […]
Trump's Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Will Cause Economic Harm to America - Cafe Hayek
TweetIn the print edition of tomorrow’s (Thursday’s) Wall Street Journal, Phil Gramm and I explain that Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum – that is, Trump’s punitive taxes on Americans’ purchases of steel and aluminum – will harm the American economy. A slice: While total imports compose less than 14% of the U.S. economy, steel […]
The Real Emergency Is the Abuse of Delegated Powers to Address Emergencies - Cafe Hayek
TweetIn my latest column for AIER – after having read the “Liberation Day” Executive Order that Trump used to claim the authority to exercise powers conditionally delegated by Congress to the president – I explore the details of this alleged “emergency.” A slice: I’m incompetent to discuss whether or not this statute, despite making no […]
Has Free(r) Trade "Hollowed Out" America's Industrial Economy and Her Middle Class? - Cafe Hayek
TweetLast week, I was honored to deliver the final talk of the academic year to Stanford University’s Classical Liberalism Initiative. In this talk I did my best to bust several of the most prominent myths that fuel the tolerance of today’s protectionism. Share Tweet Share Email Print
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetNational Review‘s Andrew Stuttaford warns that we Americans will pay higher prices for food because of Trump’s tariffs punitive taxes on Americans’ purchases of imports and of import-competing products – punitive taxes imposed by an administration that Stuttaford accurately describes as “saturated in zombie McKinleyism.” A slice: Perhaps the food and beverage industry can adjust […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from the late founder of Federal Express, Fred W. Smith, as he is quoted in yesterday’s remembrance of him by the Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board: People talk about capitalism and socialism and communism. There’s only two kinds of economic systems: the market-driven and the government-directed. That’s it! The more you move toward […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetThe Wall Street Journal reports on a small American manufacturing company that Trump’s protectionism is driving to the verge of ruin. A slice: For weeks, Woldenberg and his roughly 500 employees—most at a suburban Chicago headquarters—have hastened to halt shipments, reroute cargo, raise prices and freeze expansion plans. The companies sued President Trump and other […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from the economist Jason Furman in his recent interview with Reason‘s Nick Gillespie: Basically, every step of Trump’s mentality on trade is wrong. First of all, imports are good. We like to import coffee. We like to import cars. We like to import the inputs we need for American manufacturing. Second, trade deficits […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from pages 223-224 of Johan Norberg’s marvelous 2023 book, The Capitalist Manifesto: The more economic power the [Chinese] Communist Party takes, the more knowledge and outside initiative is lost. The difference between the popular image of China and what research actually shows about it could hardly be greater. Our politicians and media paint […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetDavid Henderson reviews Norbert Michel’s splendid new book, Crushing Capitalism: How Populist Policies Are Threatening the American Dream – a book that empirically disproves nearly all of the claims that MAGA types assert about the American economy to justify their economically destructive tariffs. A slice: We often hear that there has been almost no growth […]
Are Protectionists Really This Historically Uninformed? - Cafe Hayek
TweetHere’s a letter to Vox. Editor: Much should be carefully said about your discussion with Oren Cass of the alleged depredations of the straw man “market fundamentalism” – a phantom beast forever stalking the imaginations both of progressives and ‘nationalist conservatives’ (“The economic theory behind Trumpism,” June 22). But one point screams out for an […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from historian Marc-William Palen’s January 10, 2018, interview with the Toynbee Prize Foundation: When I initially started doing research and tracing the origins of this debate after I found FDR’s Secretary of State Cordell Hull being referred to as the ‘Tennessee Cobden.’ I was quite surprised and wondered when these references about British […]
On Tariffs, Trump Outsmarted No One - Cafe Hayek
TweetHere’s a letter to The Daily Spark. Editor: Torsten Sløk proposes that Trump has “outsmarted everyone on tariffs” (“Has Trump Outsmarted Everyone On Tariffs?” June 21). Mr. Sløk’s evidence for this conclusion is weak, to put it mildly. First, Mr. Sløk’s conclusion depends on Trump delaying by one year the imposition of the “Liberation Day” […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetBad news for the economy (and not so great either, it seems to me, for the rule of law): “Supreme Court Passes on Immediately Deciding Trump’s Tariff Powers.” A slice: To recap: Trump justified his authority to impose three categories of tariffs without congressional approval on the basis of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act […]
Bad Economic History Fuels Bad Present-Day Economic Policies - Cafe Hayek
TweetAt CapX, I explain what motivated Phil Gramm and me to write our book, The Triumph of Economic Freedom: Debunking the Seven Great Myths of American Capitalism. A slice: Likewise with America’s own industrial revolution, the ‘Gilded Age’. American schoolchildren are taught that the final third of the 19th century witnessed John D. Rockefeller and […]
No Logic to the "Liberation Day" Tariffs - Cafe Hayek
TweetHere’s a letter to The Epoch Times. Editor: Attempting to find economic coherence in President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, Christopher Balding argues that the foundational justification for these tariffs is the president’s alleged wish to decouple the U.S economy from China’s economy and his desire to secure this decoupling by preventing China from transshipping goods […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from page 220 of Thomas Sowell’s 2008 volume, Economic Facts and Fallacies: Among the many preconceptions that cannot be subjected to any empirical tests, because they are so subjective, is the notion that third-party observers know better what is good for people than those people know themselves. Share Tweet Share Email Print
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetGeorge Will makes clear that no ideology has done as much to create in the U.S. an imperial presidency – now, alas, in the hands of Trump – as has ‘progressivism.’ A slice: Last weekend, many Americans — mostly progressives, surely — staged “No Kings” protests against what progressivism has done much to produce: today’s […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetGMU Econ alum Dominic Pino busts the myth that failure to allow SALT deductions is double taxation. A slice: It is a bedrock principle of American government that the states are not mere administrative divisions of the country. Federalism means states have their own tax and spending powers that exist independent of the federal government. […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from pages 149-150 of University of Connecticut economist Richard Langlois’s monumental 2023 study, The Corporation and the Twentieth Century (original emphasis; footnotes deleted; link added): Because of human cognitive limitations, what Herbert Simon misleadingly branded bounded rationality, there are diminishing returns to centralized decision-making. The more complex the division of labor, the costlier […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from page 97 of Matthew Hennessey’s superb 2022 book, Visible Hand: Those who promise “free” college, “free” health care, and all manner of other “free” goods often have to work hard to obscure the obvious caveats, the most important of which is that someone will pay, just usually not the person on the […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetBenn Steil decries Trump’s lawless and reckless destruction of the rules-based global trading order that Americans in the past struggled to build and maintain – a trading order that Trump and his fans ignorantly presume, contrary to all evidence, has harmed America’s economy. Three slices: The multilateral trade regime – built under the aegis of […]
Some Links - Cafe Hayek
TweetBruce Yandle warns that “the tyranny of debt is alive and well.” A slice: Just out-the-door DOGE director Elon Musk is sharply critical of the budget bill. He sees it as undermining his efforts to reduce government deficits and debt and calls the latest version a “disgusting abomination.” President Trump, not at all pleased that […]
Quotation of the Day... - Cafe Hayek
Tweet… is from President Ronald Reagan’s September 13th, 1986, “Radio Address to the Nation on Free and Fair Trade”: The Smoot-Hawley tariff ignited an international trade war and helped sink our country into the Great Depression. Dbx: Today – June 17th, 2025 – is the 95th anniversary of Pres. Herbert Hoover signing into ‘law’ the […]