James Leroy Wilson's one-man magazine.

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Imports? Never!

If low-price, imported steel is bad for the US economy, and tariffs are good; if low-price imported computer software is bad and outsourcing should be outlawed, well, then,

HIGH PRICED IMPORTED OIL MUST BE GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY!

Thanks to T. Norman Van Cott. I never thought about that before.

Imports? Never! - Mises Institute

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:41 PM CDT

    uh, interesting article, but he doesn't give any references to these so called mercantilists. is this a strawman, or are these real arguments?

    it's also not exactly clear where any low cost oil is going to come from...

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  2. I don't think it's a straw man if he is referring to economic nationalists. Nor do they have to be explicitly identified, any more than libertarians or socialists have to be explicitly identified when they are critiqued.

    The point about oil is that high priced imports will help domestic producers and thereby help the domestic economy - or it won't.

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  3. Anonymous8:04 PM CDT

    fair enough.

    though i agree with the main assertion, it seems like an empty argument because we can't come close to producing enough oil domestically anyway, and oil prices are currently based more on suging global demand than marginal cost of production.

    anyway...

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