Free Trade & Trade Policy

The Great Sugar Shaft

by James Bovard April 1, 1998

The U.S. government has devotedly jacked up American sugar prices far above world market prices since the close of the War of 1812. The sugar industry is one of America's oldest infant industries — yet it dodders with the same uncompetitiveness that it showed during the second term of James Madison. Few cases better illustrate how trade policy can ...

Forget the Trade Deficit!

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 1998

Memo to newspaper editors: Stop publishing stories about the trade deficit. You are needlessly worrying people about something that means absolutely nothing. Forget the trade deficit. There's no such thing. Adam Smith, that Scot who knew a fair bit about political economy, said: "Nothing is more absurd than this doctrine of the ...

Bank Mergers and Progress

by Sheldon Richman April 1, 1998

The big hullabaloo about the latest bank mergers stems from a fundamental misconception about the way the world works. The unions of Citicorp and Travelers, NationsBank and BankAmerica, and Banc One Corp. and First Chicago have to be judged against the fact that we live in a world of uncertainty. ...

Pay Equity Errors

by Sheldon Richman February 2, 1998

President Clinton has pledged to step up enforcement of the Equal Pay Act. The promised $14 million to fight wage discrimination was on his list of bribes to the American people, otherwise known as the State of the Union address. The president's Council of Economic Advisers says women make only 75 cents for each dollar men ...

Economic Sanctions: Who Has What Rights?

by Samuel Bostaph December 1, 1997

Christmas is one of the most joyful times of the year for most Americans. Gaily decorated houses, yards, and Christmas trees sprout nationwide in November and last until the New Year season closes the holidays with fireworks, parties and, finally, the Super Bowl. People decorate their Christmas trees in many ways, but one of the staples is bright, multicolored strings ...

Freedom in Transactions

by Fredric Bastiat August 1, 1997

On entering Paris, which I had come to visit, I said to myself — Here are a million of human beings who would all die in a short time if provisions of every kind ceased to flow towards this great metropolis. Imagination is baffled when it tries to appreciate the vast ...

Order without Design

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 1997

Perhaps the toughest thing that libertarians have to persuade nonlibertarians of is the existence of order that is undesigned. It is certainly a counterintuitive idea. So much of our everyday experience seems to teach us that where there is order, there is a designer working from a plan. That fact ...

The FTC Strikes Again

by Sheldon Richman March 1, 1997

The Federal Trade Commission has once again dealt a blow to our allegedly free enterprise economy. The FTC plans to move against a proposed merger between Staples and Office Depot, two office supply chains. The commission claims the merger would violate the antitrust laws. Displaying its standard confusion over ...

The Evils of Economic Sanctions [long]

by Sheldon Richman February 1, 1997

Americans are undoubtedly sleeping soundly in the knowledge that U.S. Customs agents in the last year tripled the number of Cuban cigars seized before they could be brought into the country. The Customs Service says that it grabbed nearly 90,000 cigars, thwarting 1,285 acts of smuggling. The cigars were valued at more than $1 million. That may sound impressive, but ...

The Evils of Economic Sanctions

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 1996

Americans are undoubtedly sleeping soundly in the knowledge that U.S. Customs agents in the last year tripled the number of Cuban cigars seized before they could be brought into the country. The Customs Service says that it grabbed nearly 90,000 cigars, thwarting 1,285 acts of smuggling. The cigars were valued at more than $1 million, according to USA Today. Why ...

Corporate Chiefs Should Refuse Clinton

by Sheldon Richman July 1, 1996

President Clinton has invited corporate chief executives to the White House in April to talk about "corporate citizenship." The meeting is intended to honor companies that treat their employees well in hopes of inspiring others to do the same. Any self-respecting corporate chief who believes in the free-enterprise system ...

Minimum-Wage Law as Political Racketeering

by James Bovard July 1, 1996

President Clinton and many congressmen are hankering to raise the federal minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 an hour. The minimum wage epitomizes government pseudo-paternalism, and Clinton's proposal should receive harsh condemnations from anyone who has looked at the history of minimum-wage policies. Early in the century, after a ...