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39 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 Feb \ parent \ on: Why economists got free trade with China so wrong econ
Also, welfare enhancing for who? Not everyone is a universalist.
I don't like tariffs, because a) it's a violation of people's rights to restrict voluntary transactions and b) it makes poor people in foreign countries worse off. The financial impact on Americans is actually fairly negligible. According to one of my trade professors, if the US went full autarky, GDP would only take about a 3% hit.
Another good point. Economists have implicitly adopted a consequentialist ethic, whether they're aware of it or not. But I'm not willing to trade my freedoms for mOaR coNsuMptIon ... and I'm sure not many other people are either.
Reminds me of the grad student who wrote a paper on how having immigrant neighbors gives you less racist views, therefore we should randomly put immigrants in areas with a small immigrant population.
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I love silly myopic policy prescriptions. Grad students are a treasure trove for those.
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I actually called it out in the seminar haha and my colleagues backed me up. One guy even said something like, "That's just going to make the natives go <makes a gun loading motion with his hands>"
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Except there are no guns in Europe
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Has this grad student been to Germany today? Twenty percent of Germany is foreign born today
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