Ill Humor
22 May 2007
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
To the Editor:
Matthew Slaughter compellingly explains why Americans are not hurt by the value of the Chinese yuan ("Yuan Worries," May 22). But will Senators Schumer, Graham, and other protectionists in Washington be persuaded by Mr. Slaughter's logic and evidence to stop imagining that the yuan's value justifies their harmful efforts to hamper trade between Americans and the Chinese? Alas, no.
As Will Durant lamented near the end of his massive survey of human history, "The triumph of imagination over reality is one of the humors of history."* And the diseased imaginations that power politics are especially indestructible.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Will & Ariel Durant, Rousseau and Revolution (1967), p. 64.
Editor, The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
To the Editor:
Matthew Slaughter compellingly explains why Americans are not hurt by the value of the Chinese yuan ("Yuan Worries," May 22). But will Senators Schumer, Graham, and other protectionists in Washington be persuaded by Mr. Slaughter's logic and evidence to stop imagining that the yuan's value justifies their harmful efforts to hamper trade between Americans and the Chinese? Alas, no.
As Will Durant lamented near the end of his massive survey of human history, "The triumph of imagination over reality is one of the humors of history."* And the diseased imaginations that power politics are especially indestructible.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
* Will & Ariel Durant, Rousseau and Revolution (1967), p. 64.
Posted by Don Boudreaux on
Saturday January 12, 2008 at 3:08pm