I echo Lex’s wishes.
I also wish to thank my Chicago Boyz collaborators, from whom I have learned much and without whom this blog would still be receiving ten hits a day. And I thank our readers, for the same reasons.
My goal is to make it as rewarding as possible to post to this blog as well as to read it. Please don’t hesitate to make suggestions for improvement.
Here’s a suggestion for ya. As economists (I believe), why not try to explain to the rest of us non-economists why free trade is actually good for us.
I’ve seen the economics 101 texts with graphs and explanations about the benefit of doing what you do best. Not convincing, really. Much too simplistic.
How does it benefit Americans to compete with Chinese making $1/day? How does an American engineer benefit from competing with an Indian engineer making 1/4 his/her salary? How do you benefit when you’re told that your job is now going to be done online by someone on another continent making a tiny fraction of your salary?
But the consumer benefits, you say, by reduced prices. By you have less to spend, do you not? Aren’t less taxes paid? Isn’t less money invested? Aren’t ALL salaries pushed into a downward spiral? Don’t we have a rush to the bottom?
Who benefits, really? Who pays?