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By Pierre Lemieux
Reality is not easy to interpret and understand, even with good theories. It becomes even more difficult when ideology--that is, moral values or political partisanship--interferes. Here I think is an example. I tweeted a link to a Wall Street Journal story of October 5 titled "U.S. Unemployment Rate Falls to Lowest Level Since 1969," with the subtitle "Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 134,000 in September, the smallest gain in a year." My only comment was a straight quote from...
The October 5 issue of the Wall Street Journal contained two interesting comments that may be related. One is part of a story titled "Trump Will Push Trade Policies as Helping Workers in U.S. Heartland" : Mr. Trump has accused China in particular of politically...
Unfortunately, tariffs (and trade in general) have zero effects on wages 9this has been empirically proven by Paul Krugman among many others). So, imposing tariffs would not induce people to work. Further, there's a more basic supply-and-demand error of your logic. Basic Econ 101: demand curves slope downward. It's the reason why the minimum wage doesn't work. More people may be willing to work, but given they are currently unemployable at the current wage rate, a higher wage will not make them more attractive. And all this is ignoring public choice issues.
Jon Murphy , October 10, 8:12 am.