This Ain't How It's Supposed to be Done
26 February 2007
News Editor, WTOP Radio
Dear Editor:
You report that the U.S. Postal Service wants to raise the price of a first-class stamp by three cents. The USPS's stated reason, as you note, is that people increasingly use e-mail and the Internet to do things once done through the mail. So because the USPS is losing customers, it wants to raise its prices.
This perverse argument is the best case for opening first-class mail delivery to competition. In competitive markets, firms that are losing customers CUT their prices. The fact that the USPS brass can think only to raise prices in response to a loss of market share speaks volumes about the need to subject that institution to the bracing winds of competition.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Totalitarian Leadership
24 February 2007
The Editor, New York Post
Dear Editor:
Your editorial "Lying for Fidel" (Feb. 24) reminds us that collectivism is both evil and pathetic. A further example is provided by Richard Pipes in his book Communism. Discussing Cuba's rise as a popular sex-vacation destination, Pipes relates that "In 1992, in a speech to the National Assembly, Castro touted the advantages of Cuban prostitution by declaring his country to have the lowest incidence of AIDS."
So what do Cubans get in return for their blood being brutally spilled, their freedoms crushed, and their prosperity destroyed? A "leader" serving as the people's pimp.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
I Have A Dream
23 February 2007
Editor, The Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
Jerry McCoy is disturbed that the National Memorial Project Foundation's new statue of Martin Luther King, Jr., will be carved by a Chinese sculptor from granite quarried in China (Letters, Feb. 23). Mr. McCoy wants the statue to be carved by an American sculptor from granite quarried in America.
He should be less prejudiced. To paraphrase Dr. King, I have a dream that one day the goods and services that Americans enjoy will be judged not by the nationality of their producers but by the character of their content.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Steel Yourself for Inconsistency
22 February 2007
Editor, Baltimore Sun
To the Editor:
You rightly criticize the Antitrust Division's requirement that, as a condition of merging with Arcelor, Mittal Steel sell its Sparrows Point mill ("Getting the Point," Feb. 22). But you miss an acute incongruity behind this requirement: the world steel market is so competitive that U.S. steel makers must sometimes be protected from it.
Or, at least, the Bush administration thought so in 2002 when it raised tariffs on steel imports in the hope that protection from low prices on the world market would enable U.S. steel producers to "restructure." Do these producers now have such dreadful market power that Arcelor Mittal cannot be trusted to keep the mill at Sparrows Point? I doubt it - but if so, surely part of the blame rests with President Bush.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
This Horse Ain't Dead
21 February 2007
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
To the Editor:
Donald Kalff asserts that the "deterioration of the current account deficit will burden the U.S. for years" (Letters, Feb. 21). I disagree.
The real burden is created by Uncle Sam's reckless budget deficits. Any resulting increase in the current-account deficit is merely a symptom of this fiscal irresponsibility.
More importantly, other factors that increase the current-account deficit - such as foreign direct investment in the U.S. - make Americans wealthier and, hence, better able than otherwise to bear the burdens foisted on us by wastrel politicians.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Satire?
20 February 2007
Editor, Business Week
To the Editor:
Surely economist "Vladimir Masch" - author of "A Radical Plan to Manage Globalization" (Feb. 14) - is the nom de plume of a satirist.
No one REALLY believes that free trade is the right-wing equivalent of the Soviet Union, a regime that routinely murdered millions of its citizens and crushed the rest into poverty. No economist SERIOUSLY suggests that for every job created in firms that export to the U.S. the number of jobs in the U.S. falls permanently by one. No one with enough expertise to write an essay on globalization for Business Week can TRULY be unaware that the per-capita foreign direct investment currently going to China is a mere seven percent of the per-capita foreign direct investment coming to the U.S. - a pattern of investment wholly at odds with Dr. "Masch’s" thesis that free trade encourages capital to flee to low-wage countries such as China until ordinary Americans are impoverished.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Let A Billion Flowers Bloom -- And Tolerate the Weeds
20 February 2007
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
To the Editor:
Bill Johnson interprets the Anna Nicole Smith saga as cause for pessimism about American culture (Letters, Feb. 20). I dissent.
As my colleague Tyler Cowen argues in his book IN PRAISE OF COMMERCIAL CULTURE, rich and vibrant cultures feature lots of experimentation. Much of what goes on today is indeed shabby, even sometimes disgusting. But soaring cultural achievements and discovery are possible only through such wide-ranging experimentation, and by recognizing that inspiring culture is not limited to what was bequeathed to us by our ancestors.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Why Raise Taxes?
19 February 2007
Editor, The Washington Post
1150 15th St., NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Editor:
Even if Sebastian Mallaby is right that government programs - such as efforts to retrain workers - are justified as the price to pay to weaken political resistance to freer trade, he's wrong to argue that these programs must be funded by higher taxes ("Matching Free Trade With Taxes," Feb. 19).
Uncle Sam today takes from Americans' pockets more than $2.5 trillion per year. In real dollar terms, this sum is 50 percent higher than what Bill Clinton's government took during its first year in office and 25 percent higher than what George W. Bush's government took during its first year. Surely, Uncle Sam already has on hand more than sufficient funds to pay for whatever programs are needed to mute opposition to trade.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
More Deficient Reporting
18 February 2007
Editor, The Washington Times
To the Editor:
Shame on you for joining with demagogues to stir up anxiety about America's trade deficit with individual countries such as China and Japan ("Trade deficit realities," Feb. 18). These "deficits" are completely normal; it would be freakish in the extreme if the U.S. had "balanced" trade with each of its trading partners.
Consider that most customers of your newspaper have permanent and growing trade deficits with you: they buy more from you than you buy from them. Do you advise your customers to stew in fear about this situation? Do you recommend that they avoid trading with you unless and until you promise to buy annually as much from each of them as each of them buys from you? If not, why in the name of Adam Smith do you worry that Americans import more from China and Japan than we export to those countries?
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
Labors' Share
17 February 2007
Editor, US News & World Report
To the Editor:
James Pethokoukis is an insightful economics reporter. So I was surprised that he uncritically accepts claims that "profits [are] at record highs and the share of income going to labor at 40-year lows" ("Why the Pelosi Democrats Scare China," Feb. 16). People reach this mistaken conclusion by ignoring the value of workers' fringe benefits. As a portion of total compensation, these benefits have risen over the years.
In fact, as reported recently by the St. Louis Fed, "labor's share of national income has averaged 70.5 percent over the past 50 years and has remained within a narrow range of that average."* To say that "capital" is getting a bigger share of the pie and "labor" a smaller share is simply wrong.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* "Labor's Share," National Economic Trends, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Aug. 2004.
