Market Correction

20 May 2006

Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281

Dear Editor:

Harry Wiles, Executive Director of American Beverage Licenses, supports government restrictions that hamper big-box retailers' efforts to sell alcoholic beverages (Letters, May 20). He asserts that, without these restrictions, the likes of Costco and Wal-Mart will "muscle out smaller retailers at the expense of choice, convenience and service."

The same argument was made 15 years ago by small book retailers when Barnes & Noble and Borders first opened large bookstores nationwide. But who today believes that Americans have less choice, convenience, and service when buying books? Clearly, we have more - as suggested by the fact that inflation-adjusted retail book-sale revenues are today nearly 80 percent higher than in 1992 even though the inflation-adjusted price of books hasn't changed since then.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

19 May 2006

Editor, The Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

Charles Krauthammer says that "legalization [of illegal immigrants] is desperately unfair to the further millions who have been waiting in line at U.S. consulates around the world" ("Why is Border Security 'Conservative'?" May 19). Although often alleged, such unfairness is chimerical.

Entering America without Uncle Sam's approval would be unfair to those seeking legal entry only if doing so reduced the chances of those seeking legal entry to gain it, or if illegal entry increased the waiting time for legal entry. In fact, the opposite is true. By avoiding the queues for legal entry, illegal immigrants shorten these queues. Combined with the fact that illegal immigration doesn't reduce the number of legal entry slots, the shorter queues created by illegal immigrants arguably make entry for those seeking legal entry more likely and less time-consuming.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

Dear Mr. Secretary of Transportation, State of Virginia:

RE your "Click It or Ticket" campaign: I second the sentiments of my colleague Walter Williams. Government has no business telling me or anyone else to wear a seatbelt.

Like Walter, I wear a seatbelt each time I ride in an automobile. I will continue to do so because I believe it is the prudent thing to do; for me, the inconvenience and discomfort of buckling-up are outweighed by the safety benefits of doing so. But I assure you that being commanded by busybodies to wear a seatbelt emphatically is not and never will be the reason I wear mine.

In a free society, adults are not ordered to be safe. Each adult chooses his or her own preferred level of safety, unmolested by others.

I resent to my marrow your rampaging arrogance.

Don Boudreaux
Burke, Virginia

17 May 2006

Editor, The Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

Robert Samuelson says that "while the presence of low-skilled immigrant workers may raise the profits of their employers, they tend to have a negative effect on the well-being of the low-skilled native-born population, and on the native economy as a whole" ("Still Dodging Immigration's Truths," May 17). Not so.

First, even George Borjas - a favorite economist of immigration skeptics - agrees that immigrants annually contribute, on net, $7 billion to the U.S. economy. Second, don't forget that capital is more mobile even than people. If immigration raises employers' profits, these higher profits attract additional investment and new competitors into these industries. Profits return to normal levels, and wages and output increase.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

15 May 2006

Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281

Dear Editor:

Bravo for Richard Epstein's case for greater reliance on markets to supply kidneys for transplant ("Kidney Beancounters," May 15).

And while he's correct that saving lives should trump the aesthetics provided by altruists who today donate their kidneys, it isn't clear that allowing donors to be paid for their kidneys will diminish such altruism. Today the altruistic donor sacrifices only a kidney. In a regime in which the altruistic donor could receive money for his kidney, he sacrifices a kidney and money. If opportunities to sacrifice spur altruists into action, then a freer market in kidneys will raise, not lower, the number of kidneys donated free of charge.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

14 May 2006

The Editor, The Economist
25 St James's Street
London SW1A 1HG
United Kingdom

SIR:

Three sincere - not Bronx! - cheers for your remembrance of Jane Jacobs (Obituary, May 13). She was indeed wise. Among my favorites of her insights appears in her book Cities and the Wealth of Nations, where she observed that national boundaries do not define economic boundaries: "Nations are political and military entities, and so are blocs of nations. But it doesn’t necessarily follow from this that they are also the basic, salient entities of economic life or that they are particularly useful for probing the mysteries of economic structure, the reasons for the rise and decline of wealth."*

If Ms. Jacobs ever is taken as seriously as she deserves to be taken, future generations will look back on our hysteria over national "trade imbalances" with the same bemusement that we look back on past generations' hysteria over witches, saloons, and rock'n'roll.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

* Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), p. 31.

14 May 2006

Editor, The Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

Samuel Loewenberg alleges that Niger's deep poverty is caused by its deep poverty, unrelieved by adequate foreign aid (Letters, May 14). This semi-circular explanation misses the mark entirely.

According to economists James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, Niger's people are poor because they are among the world’s most oppressed.* They are prevented from prospering by high barriers to international trade, enterprise-crushing credit and labor regulations, an engorged government, and lack of secure property rights.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University

* http://www.cato.org/pubs/efw/efw2005/efw2005-1.pdf

12 May 2006

Editor, The Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editor:

Applauding Massachusetts' effort to guarantee health-insurance to all citizens, E.J. Dionne asserts that "employers who insure their workers provide an indirect subsidy to employers who don't" ("States’ Rights - for the Right Ideas," May 12). Nonsense.

Like wages, employer-provided health insurance and other fringe benefits are parts of workers' packages of total compensation - packages determined by competitive market forces. It makes no more sense to say that employers who offer health insurance subsidize employers who don't than it does to say that employers who pay average wages of $25 per hour subsidize employers who pay average wages of $10.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University