Today marks the 81st anniversary of the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act. Actor and economist Ben Stein famously explained this legislation in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the classic John Hughes movie that was released 25 years ago this month: In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort …
A financial bubble fueled by easy money and loose credit bursts. Unemployment shoots up, and gross domestic product falls sharply. Some in the U.S. Congress blame foreigners for unfair trade practices and pass a trade bill that prompts widespread retaliation, exacerbates the popping of the bubble, and sends the country …
An ugly financial bubble bursts. A misguided U.S. Congress responds by blaming foreigners and passes a trade bill that prompts widespread retaliation and exacerbates the initial popping of the bubble. That was 1930 and the Great Depression. Fast forward 80 years. An ugly financial bubble has burst and the U.S. …
Professor of European Political Economy at the London School of Economics, Willem Buiter, writes at the Financial Times: I used to be optimistic about the capacity of our political leaders and central bankers to avoid the policy mistakes that could turn the current global recession into a deep and lasting …
Barack Obama has frequently called the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) “a bad deal.” During one Democratic primary debate, Obama even said he would unilaterally “use the hammer of a potential opt-out” to “renegotiate” the entire treaty. But after he secured the nomination, Obama changed his tune, admitting that …
The Wall Street Journal editorial page looks at recent liberal efforts to attack conservative economic policy as a Herbert Hoover “Let the economy sink” approach and responds: To hear [Sen. Chuck] Schumer and his fellow-traveling columnists tell it, Hoover’s great policy blunder was to do nothing, all the while insisting …
With politicians invoking the Great Depression to justify more government intervention in the market place, it is important to look back and remember what policies helped really helped usher in the worst decade for the US economy ever. Amity Shlaes writes at Bloomberg: Hoover knew free trade was beneficial. But …
