“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” So begins the classic line from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens continues with contrasts such as “it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,” which only adds to the feeling of simultaneous joy and heartache. Such is […]
Archives
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General Motors and the Lordstown Plant Closure
03 Dec 2018
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Market Volatility Returns–the end of the Boom?
21 Nov 2018
The index of stock market volatility (one measure of market fear) has risen in the past week, concurrent with large absolute point swings (although relatively low on a percentage basis). Markets are not as volatile as they were in October, but clearly there are uncertain times ahead, and markets generally like certainty. There are so […]
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Weekly Sage #4: Wilhelm Ropke
16 Nov 2018
The Weekly Sage hopes to regularly bring brief profiles of key contributors to thought and faith before a Christian audience for historical education and awareness of valuable resources. Wilhelm Ropke – “Economic integration – a network consisting of the division of labor, the mutual exchange of products and the specialization of production, coupled with the […]
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Trump and Trade: Bereans VLOG (10/15/2018)
17 Oct 2018
Our latest VLOG is up and ready to view in the site’s plug-in. Also, you can subscribe to our channel on YouTube if that makes viewing the videos simpler. Please leave any comments below.
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Who’s “Protected” By Tariffs?
01 Oct 2018
This afternoon I’m prepping for our Intermediate Microeconomics class, and I’m re-reading Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. I choose to assign this book because in the complexities of economic theory that a standard Intermediate Microeconomics course entails, we must not lose sight of the essence of economics, seeing the unseen. Thus today’s chapter is in the title, […]
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We’ve posted earlier on some of the perverse results and unintended consequences of Mr. Trump’s trade policies, but today’s WSJ highlights yet more. First, aluminum producers are finding their profits down even while aluminum prices are up, because the integrated global economy and the current division of labor have critical inputs whose prices are driven […]
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Reagan Vs. Trump on Trade
10 Sep 2018
Not much analysis needed here: HT to Greg Mankiw. Mr. Reagan had his own flaws, even on trade. Yet his convictions were always in the right direction, as this piece clearly articulates. All we know for sure is that aside from their difference in morals, Mr. Trump is no Reaganite. Mr. Sasse, are you ready […]
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Short musings on today’s politics–conservatives lose Ohio, Trumpian trade travails, and the “S” word
08 Aug 2018
As wake this morning, the bellwether Ohio special election is too close to call, with Republican Troy Balderson a mere 1500 votes up with 3000 provisional votes and other absentee votes yet uncounted. I suspect he’ll hold on given the red nature of that seat. But conservatives have already lost as he is a panderer […]
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Whirlpool’s cronyism backfires on them
16 Jul 2018
Whirlpool helped start the cronyism trade policies of the Trump Administration with their cries of unfair practices by their toughest competitors, including Samsung. In the WSJ today (gated), we see that it hasn’t perhaps worked out the way that Whirlpool intended. When they initially had tariffs enacted on washing machines, Marc Bitzer, the chief executive […]
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Mr. Trump is apparently going to get his trade war, and I predict a colossal failure. But this is one war I’ll be glad for the U.S. to lose. Just as there is really no victor in war (in the sense that the lives that were lost are forever gone), so too will whatever trade […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach