This morning over at National Review they made a comment that trade deals take years and we shouldn’t even want one sooner, but I disagree. The reason NAFTA took years is to negotiate carve outs–and free trade doesn’t need carve outs. Instead of 1500 pages, it could have likely been done in a couple of […]

I’m willing to accept for the sake of argument that in the internal battle within the Trump Administration over whether the tariffs are tools to 1) negotiate free trade or are 2) non-negotiable to force manufacturers back to the U.S. that Mr. Trump wants free trade and believes that his tariffs will both get us […]

Let’s apply one to each party. For the Republicans, I hear quite a few of those supporting the Administration’s trade war make the case that because Donald Trump has been talking about this for forty years, that this makes it good policy. Effectively he’s been the only one to stand up to the establishment for […]

In the recent movie Mickey 17, the central conceit is that Mickey is an expendable. To flee his troubles on Earth, he joins a multi-year mission to another planet. To get accepted, he agrees to take on the most dangerous jobs, which are mostly suicide missions. Once Mickey “dies,” they just print another copy of […]

As I related in a previous post, I am encouraged that Mr. Trump understands what he is doing, he is not merely ignorant and pridefully so. That doesn’t mean he isn’t taking incredible risk, at what I see is for a very small reward. I (and most economists and informed observers) have told you for […]

One of our own Bereans, Dr. Marc Clauson, entered the presence of God this week.  Memories have been flooding my mind and acting as a balm to my heart as we enter the grief of losing a good man.  In a culture where it is hard to find good men, Dr. Clauson’s life is a […]

I mentioned this in my last post; you should watch the presentation if you have the time. It’s lengthy but quite provocative. Student feedback was very good–they loved hearing this challenging view. Dr. Pincin and I subsequently had a follow on session the next day to discuss and we had about 30 students and faculty […]

Trumpian fans will almost surely say “how could you not see it before?”, but I still believe it’s a reasonable response that when someone says “go and drink this poison–it will taste really good!” we should vehemently disagree. And I still disagree with his rhetoric on tariffs, but there is some small reason for optimism. […]