Monday, September 14, 2009

Tariffs and trade wars

One of the first papers, I wrote in college was on the onerous steel tariffs we used to have back in 2001. Oh the folly of tariffs, subsidies, and trade restrictions. I know it's naive to think that we could ever have truly free trade, but it makes so much sense. Otherwise you get into nasty trade wars like the one we're falling into with China right now. And how arbitrary is this?! Because we decided to levy tariffs on Chinese tires, the chicken farmers of America and our already weak auto industry will suffer China's retribution. All I can do is shake my head.

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