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1 week ago | 
econlib.org | Kevin Corcoran |Bryan Cutsinger |Pierre Lemieux
It’s time for another round in the ongoing saga of “Kevin complains that economists are terrible at naming ideas.” Here, I propose that economists should consider rebranding “the trade deficit.”The reason people so badly misunderstand the term is right there in the name – deficit. Deficits sound bad. In most usages, deficits imply something along the lines of living beyond one’s means and accumulating debt. That would certainly be true if my household budget was in a deficit.
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3 weeks ago | 
econlib.org | David Henderson |Kevin Corcoran |Pierre Lemieux
President Trump has now unveiled his outline of the higher tariffs he proposes. They are much higher and, therefore, much more destructive of people’s wealth, than I or, apparently, many others had expected. Trump claims to be doing this in the interest of reciprocity. In his Rose Garden speech, he noted, correctly, that you should judge countries’ openness to trade not just based on their explicit tariff rates but also based on their other barriers to trade.
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3 weeks ago | 
econlib.org | Kevin Corcoran |Pierre Lemieux |Scott Sumner
It’s often said that after people are wealthy enough to meet their basic needs, they are more concerned about their relative rather than absolute level of well-being. If Smith sees his real income increase by 10% this year, but everyone else around Smith has their real income increase by 20%, Smith doesn’t feel glad that his standard of living has gotten objectively better. Instead, Smith feels despondent that he’s falling behind compared to others.
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3 weeks ago | 
econlib.org | Kevin Corcoran |John Locke |Scott Sumner |Pierre Lemieux
Michael Huemer’s book The Problem of Political Authority examines various arguments given in favor of establishing the existence of political authority, which he defines as a property containing two aspects:(i) Political legitimacy: the right, on the part of a government, to make certain sorts of laws and enforce them by coercion against the members of its society – in short, the right to rule.
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1 month ago | 
econlib.org | Jon Murphy |Pierre Lemieux |Kevin Corcoran
As I write this, much digital ink is being spilled on inflationary pressures from Trump’s latest round of tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China. These are our three biggest trading partners, representing vast amounts of goods over many industries and sectors, affecting both American consumers and American firms alike. Price concerns are legitimate. But we must differentiate between changes in prices and inflation.
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1 month ago | 
econlib.org | Pierre Lemieux |Kevin Corcoran |Scott Sumner
There is something libertarians have learned, or should be learning, from the current American administration about the rule of law. One illustration among many was provided on March 13 when Ursula von der Leyen announced the European Union’s response to Trump’s 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
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1 month ago | 
econlib.org | Scott Sumner |Pierre Lemieux |Kevin Corcoran
The Federal Reserve has begun a review of its monetary policy framework. The previous review was conducted in 2020, and led to the “Flexible Average Inflation Targeting” framework. The FAIT approach would have been effective, if it had been tried. Unfortunately, the Fed forget the meaning of “average”.
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1 month ago | 
econlib.org | Pierre Lemieux |Kevin Corcoran |Janet Bufton
In his essay “Of the Independency of Parliament” (first published c. 1741), David Hume defends the Enlightenment idea that constitutions should assume that individuals, including politicians, are self-interested and that rulers will try to abuse their power. A famous passage reads:In constraining any system of government and fixing the several checks and controuls of the constitution, each man ought to be supposed a knave, and to have no other end, in all of his actions, than private interest.
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1 month ago | 
econlib.org | Kevin Corcoran |John Maynard Keynes |David Henderson |Pierre Lemieux
R. R. Reno’s book The Return of the Strong Gods is very broad in scope. He covers many disparate phenomenon, including some commentary on economics. Unfortunately, Reno’s arguments in this regard are disappointing. While describing possible causes of economic inequality, Reno says “This is the sort of assertion I prefer to leave to the economic theorists to debate.” This was a wise instinct on Reno’s part, and one he would have benefited from if it had been more consistently applied.
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1 month ago | 
econlib.org | Pierre Lemieux |Scott Sumner |Kevin Corcoran
Commenting on a post of mine, co-blogger Scott Sumner offered a striking observation:“I feel sort of like Rip Van Winkle, like I fell asleep in the USA and woke up to find myself living in a banana republic.”According to a Wall Street Journal story, some members of Congress are beginning to start waking up to the current president’s power grab (Aaron Zitner, Siobhan Hughes, and Gavin Bade, “Powers of Trump and Congress Collide as Government Shutdown Nears,” March 1, 2025).
