The Sex Workers' Petition
[The following is a slightly satirical yet deadly serious prediction of what I assume will come of the future sex industry, based on Frédéric Bastia...
[The following is a slightly satirical yet deadly serious prediction of what I assume will come of the future sex industry, based on Frédéric Bastia...
HuffingtonPost.com | Dave Jamieson | Posted 03.21.2012
WASHINGTON -- Following the lead of lawmakers on Capitol Hill, several states have proposed legislation that would punish American companies that relo...
HuffingtonPost.com | Dave Jamieson | Posted 01.09.2012
WASHINGTON -- A bill that would punish American companies for sending their customer call centers overseas has caused an uproar in India and the Phili...
Ian Fletcher | Posted 12.21.2011
I have found one candidate whom I believe is genuinely serious about fixing America's trade mess. He's an undeniable long shot, as Herman Cain was until recently. But it's not my aim here to handicap a horse race.
HuffingtonPost.com | Jon Ward | Posted 12.13.2011
WASHINGTON -- President Obama submitted three long-awaited free trade agreements to Congress this month, which were quickly ratified Wednesday, but Re...
Sen. Fritz Hollings | Posted 12.05.2011
President Obama bails the economy boat as fast as he can with tax cuts and infrastructure, but fails to plug the off shore hole in the sinking economy. Shameful conduct! Not on Wall Street, but in Washington.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 11.01.2011
America doesn't need to cut itself off from the world entirely, but it does need to get wise to the fact that the rest of the world views trade (correctly) as an arena of national rivalry, and start playing the game.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 10.29.2011
Whenever protectionists like myself demand that the U.S. government do something to stand up for America in global trade, we are shouted down with the stern admonition, "You'll start a trade war." I wish.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 08.23.2011
It may seem paradoxical, even perverse, to suggest that the Republican party is soon going to have to abandon free market ideology. But this is quite likely true, and it may be the political weapon that will marginalize Democrats for a generation.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 06.18.2011
Replacing foreign rivalry with strong domestic rivalry is probably a net plus. Japan's ferociously competitive (and protected) automobile and consumer electronics industries illustrate this well.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 06.17.2011
China is only the most brazen player of one-way free trade out there. We ran a $273 billion deficit with China in 2010, but we also ran an $80 billion deficit with the European Union and a $60 billion deficit with Japan.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 06.08.2011
The blithe assumption of conventional economics that "Sure, free trade has its costs, but the benefits are infinitely larger" doesn't hold up. We're either not winning out, or winning only peanuts.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 06.07.2011
There is no good reason -- regardless of what most economists say -- to assume that free trade is necessarily the best approach. The economic logic of those who say it is is riddled with enough holes to sink a container ship.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 06.05.2011
Once protectionism is conceded to be a valid political position, it will eventually win the public debate, if free trade's unpopularity continues to mount at the pace it has been mounting over the last 10 years.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.28.2011
It is high time policymakers stopped deferring to weak intellectual constructs. The reality is that free trade is an exceedingly dubious proposition for America and many other nations.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
Embracing our economic obligations to our own countrymen would be a far more meaningful step for anyone who really cares about other people than the phony humanism of economic globalists and "free trade" advocates.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
Despite being one of the most pressing policy choices facing America, and despite having been one of the biggest controversies in the last, oh, 400 years of economic history, free trade rarely gets a real debate in this country.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
How did America end up in its present trade pickle? In retrospect, America's decisive wrong turn was probably John F. Kennedy's Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
Most of the benefits of protectionism center on winning tomorrow's industries and keeping today's from falling into trouble, not on rescuing industries already dying.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
Without economics, vested interests can't tell whether free trade benefits them or not, just as a company can't know whether or not it is profitable without resort to accounting principles.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
I advocate protectionism. But one standard criticism is that this would just result in politically connected industries getting tariffs raised on the...
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
Mercantilism has somewhat different application in developed, rather than developing, nations, but its fundamentals still hold good. We at least need to defend against mercantilist aggression against us, something we are not doing.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
It's an utter mistake to think America is this big helpless giant with respect to its trade problems. The solutions are out there if we would but avail ourselves of them.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
Despite the fact that every major American trade agreement since NAFTA has worsened America's trade balance, Obama actually seems to think he can improve America's export performance by going for more.
Ian Fletcher | Posted 05.25.2011
I'm going to ask the reader to forgive the somewhat personal nature of this post, as personal experiences are sometimes revealing about larger issues....
Brian LaSorsa | Posted 04.21.2012