Disqus - Latest Comments for HH

Re: Vitamin R

HH — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:41:44 -0000

This comment deserves a Boaz-esque, "Oooohh-kaaay..."

Re: MLK, BHO, and Moral Progress

HH — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:34:40 -0000

Why are you not a NYT columnist yet? The huge majority of your blog posts - this one is no exception - are better than anything I've ever read in that paper's op-ed pages.

Re: Cato Unbound in Unlikely Places

HH — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:33:22 -0000

Some wealthy people are serious thinkers who would merit a forum even if they weren't wealthy. Then there is Peter Thiel.

Re: Conservatives vs. Libertarians

HH — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:21:25 -0000

Lee,

Most of us don't view the person with a stash of drugs as a "criminal" anyway.

Re: Serious and Pseudo-Serious Arguments About Trade

HH — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 19:31:59 -0000

Your complaint doesn't seem to be with Weisenthal's post, which really only makes the obvious point that a purely free trade world doesn't exist. Rather, your complaint seems to be with Tim Carney's original post.

Weisenthal approvingly quotes Carney's post, sure, but it's a bit harsh to link to Weisenthal and call him "disingenuous" (much less "one of the most disingenuous ..." when the real claim you're disputing is in a different place altogether, and written by a different author altogether.

Beyond that, what's disingenuous about Carney's post? Look at the first paragraph of the quoted excerpt:

"If you dig a bit further into the legislative and lobbying priorities of those politicians and businesses now fighting off 'protectionism,' you see that by “free trade” many powerful folks in Washington really mean whatever policies help well-connected multinational businesses."

So who is Carney writing about? Economists, professors, think tank dwellers? No, and it's right there: he's writing about "politicians and businesses" ... "powerful folks in Washington" ... "well-connected multinational businesses."

His argument might be wrong, but I find it odd to accuse an author of being disingenuous when he explicitly makes clear, right off the bat, which people he's writing about, and then ... writes about those people.

It sounds as if your entire complaint here is that Carney cites corporate officials and Washington politicians as "leading official voices for free trade." You may not think those people fit that label, and you're probably right. But it isn't "disingenuous" to believe they do, and Carney provides good evidence to back up his claim (or at least the claim that they are advocating free trade now, but haven't been). To me, Carney's post is pretty straightforward and accurate.

I don't make it a point to disagree with the Cafe Hayek authors often, but this time I think you're way off the mark. Ironically, this hysterical response to Carney's post kind of proves Weisenthal's point.

Re: Serious and Pseudo-Serious Arguments About Trade

HH — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:44:48 -0000

Where did Carney say politicians were offering the "best" arguments for free trade? Or that he was "shocked!" at the hypocrisy of the politicians? Carney writes that Gary Locke supports subsidies and corporate welfare, and, despite those actions, has long espoused "free trade." Is that not correct? If not, show us why. If it is, then where's the controversy? Carney's post seems straightforward: many of the people using free trade rhetoric don't support genuine free trade. You seem to agree with that. What's the problem?

"Truest and best" does not equal "leading official." That's the source of your error. Carney isn't attacking free trade, and nowhere does he indicate that the people he cites in the post are the intellectual standard-bearers of the free trade movement. To me, that's an obvious point that yields one of two conclusions: 1) you just swung hard and missed wildly on this one, or 2) this post is itself disingenuous. As a longtime reader of the Cafe and your writing in the Freeman, I don't believe the latter. So I'll just chalk this one up to the fact that no one is perfect, and assume you'll come around on this eventually.

Re: Free Trade is Common

HH — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:48:45 -0000

Weisenthal's claim was that "free trade doesn't exist." Don claims that it does, and uses inter-state trade in the U.S. as examples.

I guess when all else fails, go after the semantics. Weisenthal's point was clearly, explicitly, exclusively focused on international trade, in the same context as almost everyone uses "free trade."

Imagine if I said, "Americans really love football." Don might reply, "No they don't! Look at these television viewing statistics for the 2004 World Cup," referring, of course, to the international soccer tournament. But that wouldn't be an effective reply.

Many words and phrases have multiple meanings. But when the meaning is clear within an argument, it isn't a very good retort to attack the argument as if it meant something else entirely. In fact, to do so is almost, dare I say, disingenuous.

Re: Free Trade is Common

HH — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:40:11 -0000

Yes, people trade and only people trade. But when one refers to "free trade," one is generally - no, almost always - referring to trade across international borders. Sometimes we'll refer to a licensing requirement or something as "protectionist," but generally even that term is reserved for discussions about international trade.

Weisenthal's point, as far as I can tell, is that we don't need completely free trade to have prosperity, because we are prosperous and we don't have free trade - wait, let me clarify that: I mean free trade across international borders). He points that out to prove a different point, which is that economists and other free trade (across international boundaries) advocates often become hysterical at the prospect of even a small tariff, even though the existence of such tariffs doesn't prevent material prosperity.

Of course, maybe we'd be even more prosperous if trade were even freer (I'm referring to trade across international borders). I think we would be. But it's - waht's the word? - disingenuous to argue that without completely free trade - sorry, free trade across international borders - we'd all be incredibly poor. That's obviously not true, and I think that's all Weisenthal was getting at.

Re: I Am a Liberal

HH — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 15:38:01 -0000

This post is more like it.

Re: Serious and Pseudo-Serious Arguments About Trade

HH — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 02:32:28 -0000

Man, I love being right. And it happens so darn often, too.

Re: Serious and Pseudo-Serious Arguments About Trade

HH — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:57:48 -0000

"Free trade dogma" is, as I understood it, the idea that the world will fall apart without completely unfettered trade; that any tariff, no matter how small, will be the end of all of us; and that any defense of anything that inhibits unequivocal free trade is per se nonsense that isn't subject to debate.

Re: Roads and Public Goods

HH — Sat, 02 May 2009 07:38:46 -0000

"These roads and highways are, instead, just what the public wants and is willing to pay for in full -- it's just that the alleged public-goods nature of these goods means that they can be supplied in optimal quantities only by government."

True, and also true that all of the problems you cite make it (virtually) impossible for government to supply these goods in optimal quantities.

But does that fact mean that government can't get closer to optimal quantities of public goods than the open market could? In other words, maybe the correct answer is that there can never be an optimal supply of public goods - provided either by the government or by the market - but that the government gets us closer than would the market left alone.

Further, would rejection of the classical theory of public goods also extend to other areas beyond light-rail? Would it mean the rejection of public goods arguments for, say, national defense or police?