Free Republic

Congressional liberals aren’t done taxing wealthy Americans. On Thursday, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced the Keeping Social Security Promises Act, which asks the wealthiest Americans to “pay their fair share into the fund.” “The people on top are doing phenomenally well,” Sanders told a news conference on Thursday. “It is time to ask them to help us, in this case with making sure Social Security is there for our kids and grandchildren.” The bill would require those with yearly incomes of $250,000 or more to pay the same 6.2 percent payroll tax that is currently...

SOUTH BAY, Fla. -- From a distance it looks as if tornadoes are churning in the fields. But as you get closer, you see that the dark plumes are clouds of black smoke. And if your smell is keen enough, you realize it's sugar cane that's burning. Trucks hauling trailers full of cane stalks crowd the northbound lanes of Route 27 for a stretch just south of Lake Okeechobee. In the southbound lanes the trailers are empty. They're running between the cane fields that dominate this northernmost part of the Everglades and the Okeelanta sugar mill, owned by the Fanjul...

The UK would be better off staying in the EU, the country's foremost euroskeptic think tank says, amid a growing debate among Conservatives on the merits of a British exit from the European Union. "From purely a trade perspective, EU membership remains the best option for the UK," Open Europe argues in a report published Monday (11 June). "All the alternatives come with major drawbacks and would all … require negotiation with and the agreement of the other member states, which would come with unpredictable political and economic risks," it continues. The report examines the idea—gaining traction among some euroskeptic...

Protectionism, and economic nationalism more generally, are usually held up by the supposed sophisticates today as dumb ideas. Sometimes, of course, they are. Bone-headed protectionism belongs in the junkyard of history with all the other ideologies rusting there. Nothing in this booklet is intended to defend it. But it can also be a smart, productive, pro-growth policy—and very much in the American and conservative traditions—when implemented correctly. The fundamental message of this booklet is that nations, including the U.S., should seek strategic, not unconditional integration with the rest of the world economy. Economic openness, like most things in life, is...

The chart above displays annual refined sugar prices (cents per pound) using data from the USDA (Tables 2 and 5) between 1982 and 2011 for: a) the U.S. wholesale refined sugar price at Midwest markets, and b) the world refined sugar price. Due to import quota restrictions that strictly limit the amount of imported sugar coming into the U.S. at the world price, the domestic producers are protected from more efficient foreign sugar growers who can produce cane sugar in Central America, Africa and the Caribbean at half the cost of beet sugar in Minnesota and Michigan. Of course,...

In his 2010 book "No Apology," Mitt Romney has a lot to say about China, much of it unfavorable. He writes of Beijing's "brutal repression and incarceration of dissidents." He decries the brazenness of Chinese enterprise, with its "rampant theft of intellectual property from Western businesses." He warns that China's "aggressive pursuit" of cyber-warfare capabilities has made it "the most active cyber-combatant in the world." He details the ominous Chinese military buildup in combat aircraft, submarines, and ballistic missiles. He laments the communist government's willingness to shield the odious regimes in Iran and Sudan from international sanction. Nevertheless, Romney's criticism...

California cities can protect workers from being fired immediately when their company changes owners, the state Supreme Court ruled Monday.The 6-1 decision reinstated a Los Angeles ordinance, struck down by lower courts, that required supermarkets to keep their workforce for 90 days after a new owner takes over. Similar laws covering different industries are in effect in other cities - including Oakland, San Jose, Berkeley and Emeryville - and the state also has a law protecting janitors who work for building contractors. "When you're keeping a business open and all you're doing is changing the name

Donald Trump’s short-lived presidential campaign wasn’t the first to try to make Communist China the villain in our economic debate… but he did feature it more prominently in his attempt at populism than most do. Others choose NAFTA as their whipping post, since everybody’s heard of it, and its birth at the hands of both Bush I and Clinton makes it an easy target for folks who want to pin the blame on the domestic establishment, rather than a foreign culprit across the sea. Unfortunately for their case, they’re both wrong. The cause of our economic doldrums is much closer...

I have for some time been a basher and hater of "Fair Trade," in coffee and other commodities. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, Russ Roberts and I podcastrated the whole issue nearly four years ago. Sarah Marchmont wrote a very fair-minded article about it. Here is the basic economics--a rent is being created: a price above market price is being charged. In countries where property rights, contracts, and rule of law is tenuous, feel-gooders and scam artists have put together an unholy coalition. The feel-gooders create something called "Fair Trade" certification, which means that the farmers get...

<p>BEIJING (AP) — Chinese protectionism has increased since the 2008 global crisis and U.S. companies are being hurt by Beijing's policies aimed at developing its technology industries, a business group said Tuesday.</p> <p>A report by the American Chamber of Commerce in China adds to mounting complaints that Beijing is violating the spirit of its free-trade pledges by limiting market access and trying to shield its fledgling technology industries from competition.</p>

One of the most common plaints from those who are upset about America’s current trade mess is “just give us a level playing field.” In particular, this is what one tends to hear from American businesses (at least those which have resisted the siren song of offshoring) that are hard pressed by “unfair” foreign competition. It’s hard not to be sympathetic, and on an individual basis, my heart goes out to them. Unfortunately, the whole idea of a level playing field in international trade is basically a mirage as an aspiration, and we’ll all be better off if we stop...

Why have nations at all, economically speaking? This question is provoked by the fact that every few months, without fail, somebody writes to me and asks why, if the protectionism I advocate between the U.S. and the rest of the world is rational, why isn't it rational to have tariffs between the various states of the U.S.? And since it clearly doesn't make any sense to have tariffs on trade between, say, California and Oregon, it follows that nations shouldn't practice economic protectionism either. Sounds good. In fact, some people proffer this argument as if it, on its own, settled...

Americans presumably realize by now that living in a bubble economy, while exhilarating as long as the champagne lasts, is not a good move. Therefore it is worth understanding why the biggest bubble of all may be yet to pop. I refer to America's trade imbalance with the rest of the world. As I explained in a previous article, our trade deficit with the rest of the world means that we must a) borrow money and b) sell existing assets in order to cover the yawning gap between our imports and our exports. And while a rich nation can indeed...

Free trade has been the conventional wisdom in the U.S. for so long that many people have forgotten that it is even possible to challenge its fundamental assumptions. It is supposedly a settled truth of economics that free trade is always best and that anyone who questions it is either merely ignorant or the spokesperson of some special interest. Protectionism supposedly belongs to the dark past —despite the fact that we ourselves accuse some of the world’s most successful economies, like China, of practicing it in the 21st century. But in reality, free trade is not generating rising prosperity, rather...

Last summer, I purchased a 2010 LS 460 Lexus, through a U.S. intermediary, from a Japanese producer for $70,000. Here's my question to you: Was that a fair trade? I was free to keep my $70,000 or purchase the car. The Japanese producer was free to keep his Lexus or sell me the car. As it turned out, I gave up my $70,000 and took possession of the car, and the Japanese producer gave up possession of the car and took possession of my money. The exchange occurred because I saw myself as being better off and so did the...

Contemporary American politics is conducted in the shadow of historical myths that inform our present-day choices. Unfortunately, these myths sometimes lead us terribly astray. Case in point is the popular idea that America’s economic tradition has been economic liberty, laissez faire, and wide-open cowboy capitalism. This notion sounds obvious, and it fits the image of this country held by both the Right, which celebrates this tradition, and the Left, which bemoans it. And it seems to imply, among other things, that free trade is the American Way. Don’t Tread On Me or my right to import. It is, in fact,...

Green Protectionism By James M. Roberts Wednesday, August 11, 2010 European policy makers and environmental groups want to restrict imports—but not in order to save the planet. A recent article in the New York Times featured unsubstantiated accusations by Greenpeace that Indonesian pulp, paper, and palm oil conglomerate Sinar Mas is “secretly planning a massive expansion of pulp mills and cutting down essential forests, including habitats for endangered tigers.” Alleging serious ecological harm, Greenpeace—along with the World Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth, and the Rainforest Action Network—is advocating trade restrictions on these products from Indonesia. This attack on Indonesia’s...

We learned a simple thing this week: that the BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act. This is a piece of 1920s protectionist legislation, that requires all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed. So while, for instance, the U.S. Coast Guard can accept such help as three kilometres of containment boom from Canada, they can't accept, and therefore don't ask for, the assistance of high-tech European vessels specifically designed for the task in hand. This is amusing, in a way: a memorable illustration of ... the sort of stuff...

The debate over free trade is riddled with myth after myth. One that keeps resurfacing, no matter how many times it is discredited, is the idea that protectionism caused the Great Depression. One occasionally even hears that this same protectionism -- specifically, the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 -- was responsible in significant part for World War Two! This is nonsense dreamed up for propaganda purposes by free traders, and it can easily be debunked. Let's start by reminding ourselves of a basic fact: The Depression's cause was monetary. The Federal Reserve had allowed the money supply to balloon excessively during the...

WASHINGTON, Pa. -- Bill Steiner had a simple explanation for Tuesday night's result in Pennsylvania's 12th District. "It's Murtha's ghost," said Steiner, about a half-hour after Republican Tim Burns had conceded to Democrat Mark Critz, former aide to the late Rep. John Murtha. "People were afraid to change." Murtha died in February, three weeks after Republican Scott Brown had won the Massachusetts Senate seat held for more than four decades by Ted Kennedy, and the GOP clearly hoped to carry that momentum into the special election to fill the House seat that Murtha had held since the mid-1970s. What happened...