The Economic Nationalist

Robert J. Samuelson writes today in The Washington Post:

We may be about to shoot ourselves in the foot — or maybe the chest — on trade. In the name of “fair trade,” we may punish our own exporters. In 2005 worldwide exports exceeded $10 trillion. Since 1980 they’ve more than tripled while the overall global economy doubled. Like it or not, massive international flows of goods and services (aka “globalization”) underpin all modern economies. Supply chains have dispersed. We can accept this reality and try to benefit from it. Or we can rail against it. We seem to be edging toward railing.

Mr. Samuelson’s well written column argues competently for free trade. I recommend that you read it, because it helps one to understand better an important species of the logic which animates free traders. Here I explain why I believe Mr. Samuelson’s reasoning to be flawed and his conclusion, fundamentally incorrect. (more…)

Obliquely, Stuart Lawson-Rogers describes Political Correctness so:

Political Correctness intends by the use of some words and the prohibition of others to prevent debate.

Such words lack the actual form of a definition, but somehow they seem to serve better to define the concept than any other short definition I have yet read.

As an economic nationalist, you may have experienced just how hard it is to persuade a free trader to your point of view. Too many free traders, one cannot get to listen seriously — or less yet, even to listen courteously; they seem to want only to bombard you with the same, stale five-minute “Economics 101″ lecture, over and over again. I used to be one of those people, and to my discredit I behaved in precisely the manner described, so this is something I know a little about.

If you are a free trader, you should read this. I hope that you will. (more…)

It is still too early to be sure who the Republican presidential contenders will be in 2008, but the names showing up in opinion polls of sundry kinds just after the 2006 election seem to be John McCain, Rudolph Giuliani, Condoleeza Rice, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. (more…)

Welcome to The Economic Nationalist, dedicated to the old country, the American republic, the land of the free, the home of the brave, the United States of America. This blog is a home for patriots who feel deeply that America is much more than a mere creed, who believe that America is a nation, the ancestral home of a mighty people; whose forebears fought and bled and tamed the land, tilled soil hallowed by heroes’ blood, built, brick by brick and stone by stone, the greatest civilization the world has seen since the glory of ancient Rome. If the clang and clatter of Rome’s fall sound a warning in your ears, then maybe this blog is for you. (more…)