Source: Law & Liberty
by Samuel Gregg

“It’s no exaggeration to say that America is in the midst of one of its fiercest economic policy debates for some time. But the current quarrel between economic nationalists and free marketers extends beyond domestic policy. Whether conducted via long-form articles or duked out on X (formerly Twitter) by dirigiste senators and their free market critics, China looms large in the back-and-forth. The much-debated relationship between trade and national security forms part of that discussion. Yet so too do arguments about whether American policymakers in the late 1990s placed too much faith in markets to shift China towards greater political freedom, and, more generally, how much political change can be expected to flow from expansions of economic liberty. Missing from these disputes is an appreciation of economic liberalism’s place in modern Chinese thought before 1978.” (04/23/24)

https://lawliberty.org/book-review/market-liberalism-chinese-style/

Source: Cobden Centre
by Ryan McMaken

“During the 2016 and 2020 campaigns, Trump’s opponents in the Democratic party (and elsewhere) often pointed out that Trump’s protectionism hobbles private markets and the economy overall. Yet, the allegedly anti-protectionist Biden administration has done virtually nothing to end Trump’s protectionists policies put in place from 2017 to 2020. The motivation is unclear, but it is possible that the Biden administration realized that protectionism is a useful political tool. These policies offer a way of punishing opponents, rewarding allies, and pandering to voters. Now that it’s election season, the pandering side of the equation is in full swing.” (04/23/24)

https://www.cobdencentre.org/2024/04/tariffs-are-taxes-on-americans-but-protectionists-pretend-otherwise/

Source: TomDispatch
by Bob Dreyfuss

“One, erratic and often unhinged, blew up the U.S.-Iran accord that was the landmark foreign policy achievement of President Obama’s second term. He then ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general visiting Iraq, dramatically raising tensions in the region. The other is a traditional advocate of American exceptionalism, a supporter of the U.S.-Iran agreement who promised to restore it upon taking office, only to ham-handedly bungle the job, while placating Israel. In November, of course, American voters get to choose which of the two they’d trust with handling ongoing explosive tensions with Tehran across a Middle East now in crisis. The war in Gaza has already intensified the danger of an Iran-Israel conflict — with the recent devastating Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria and the Iranian response of drones and missiles dispatched against Israel only upping the odds.” (04/23/24)

https://tomdispatch.com/handling-and-mishandling-the-iran-nuclear-program/

Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Gary M Galles

“Over more than four decades of reading, writing and teaching about economic policy, one of the lessons I have learned is that market forces are more powerful than we think. When people are faced with some problem in coordinating their economic efforts, they commonly say things like, ‘well, there’s not much we can do to change things’ or ‘we might not like it, but we have no other choice.’ That is, they tend to discount the possibility that markets, if allowed to work, could address those issues. Then, such false premises provide support for coercive government ‘solutions’ as the default response.” (04/23/24)

https://www.aier.org/article/why-even-insiders-underestimate-markets-power/

Source: Reason
by Joe Lancaster

“In January 2024, Amazon terminated its agreement to acquire iRobot, the company that manufactures the Roomba robot vacuum. That company then laid off nearly one-third of its work force. In a joint statement, the companies said they saw ‘no path to regulatory approval in the European Union.’ But busybody American lawmakers also helped scuttle the deal. … Lawmakers — led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — penned a letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan in September 2022, advocating that ‘the FTC should use its authority to oppose the Amazon-iRobot transaction.’ … One assumes Warren was pleased as well (though her office did not respond to a request for comment), as she had opposed the merger from the start — though since iRobot is based in Bedford, Massachusetts, a sizable portion of the 350 laid-off workers are likely to be her constituents.” (for publication 05/24)

https://reason.com/2024/04/23/regulators-killed-a-lifeline-for-roombas/

Source: CounterPunch
by Antonio Scurati

“[F]ascism was, throughout its entire historical existence and not just at the end or occasionally, an irredeemable phenomenon of systematic political violence characterized by murder and massacres. Will the heirs to that history recognize it once and for all? Unfortunately, everything leads one to think that this will not be the case. The current post-fascist ruling group, having won the elections in October 2022, could have gone down one of these two paths: repudiate its neo-fascist past or try to rewrite history. It has undoubtedly taken the second path.” (04/23/24)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/23/liberation-day-monologue/