President Andrew Johnson, who is best known for being the first president to be impeached, vetoed protectionist legislation that looked to raise tariffs on imported copper. Congress overrode his veto, but his free-trade message is just as relevant today as it was in 1869.
Since the financial crisis, industrial policy has experienced a renaissance in the Western world. Government programs are launched, then large pools of subsidies, targeted R&D funds, and cheap loans are made available for corporations, opening opportunities for cronyism.
President Trump claims that tariffs built American wealth. The truth is that tariffs cannot build wealth at all, only destroy it.
State taxpayer dollars are used to keep several money-losing nuclear plants operating. Each nuclear plant should be viewed as a stranded asset, not needing a state subsidy.
President Trump has announced his intentions for the government to set up a sovereign wealth fund. However popular the idea might be, it runs headlong into the realities of economic calculation and would soon deteriorate another government slush fund.
How can we determine if a private company is a true partner of the state—truly benefiting from state power—or if the private company is really a victim of the state?
As Mises and other Austrian economists have reminded us, government cannot “invest” profitably because it directs funds toward ventures that were not chosen by voluntary investors.
As the Trump administration makes real cuts to federal programs, suddenly the opponents of “waste, fraud, and abuse” are discovering that Trump and Elon Musk are serious about slashing spending. Not surprisingly, the Usual Suspects don't like the cuts.
As we see from Jamaica‘s experience, attempts by the government to be entrepreneurial misallocate resources, waste money, and achieve poor results.
As Joseph Schumpeter noted, markets need “creative destruction” to survive and advance. However, Europe‘s Digital Market Act (DMA)—while written to ostensibly protect competition—gives the digital economy uncreative destruction.
