Month: August 2025

I am excited to announce that this Saturday, 16th August, Akshar Prabhudesai is hosting a zoom event on Indicforum.org with yours truly as the guest. We will talk about trade, tariffs and international trade. Hope you can join us.

The event is on Saturday at 9:30 PM IST (9:00 AM Pacific, 11:00 AM Central.)

Registration is required and free. Click on any link in this page to register. Talk to you on Saturday.

I enjoy US road trips immensely. I have driven across the continental United States twice so far: once from San Jose, CA to Newark, DE, via Chicago, IL; and once from Newark, DE to San Jose, CA via Dallas, TX.

Those were nearly 4,000 kms. They were solo trips. I generally drive around 12 to 14 hours, with a couple of gas station breaks. The most recent trip was from Phoenix, AZ to San Jose, CA.

Other important road trips have been to Death Valley National Park (five times), Yosemite National Park (about a dozen times), Grand Canyon (thrice), Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, etc. Most of them involved camping. I love camping, particularly in Death Valley because if you time it right — moonless night — then you can see the Milky Way. Continue reading “Road Trips in the US”

Trade, as we all know, is good for those who trade. If two parties freely choose to exchange stuff, we can be certain of this: that they expect to gain from that, else they would not do so. Free trade is what we call a win-win situation or a positive-sum game.

Trade involves two parties and only two parties. If a third party intervenes uninvited, then it is not free trade. In that case, instead of that win-win game, it could be win-lose or even lose-lose game. The world would be a lot better if it had universal unrestricted trade.

I have a particular interest in trade. That’s because I am an economist, and economics is the study of humans as they go about that peculiar business of exchanging stuff. Trading is as unique to humans as is reading and writing: no other animal does it.

In his 1776 book “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” Adam Smith wrote about specialization and the division of labor. It is the division of labor that gives rise to “general opulence.” One of the causes of wealth is division of labor. Continue reading “International Trade and Food”

One of the joys of being an economist is that I get to meet (nearly always virtually) great minds, of the past and the present. Among those whom I admire immensely are the legendary ancients like David Hume, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and the 20th century greats like Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell.

Sowell is unique in many ways. Unlike the others I just mentioned, he’s not a dead white man; he’s alive and black. Also, Sowell is not primarily an economics theorist and has not made (as far as I can tell) any fundamental theoretical contributions to economics. However, he’s one of the best social commentators and explainers of basic economics. His work enable lay persons to understand how the world works. He has made—and continues to make—the world understandable to millions of people.

Let’s begin with a brief bio of Dr Sowell. Continue reading “Thomas Sowell, an American Treasure”

As a dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying classical liberal, it is distressing for me to watch the insanity of the “trade wars” that Trump has unleashed around the world. He is a self-centered, myopic, stupid, uncouth ignoramus. His economic policies are not good for the US, never mind the world.  

However, the US is a very rich economy. Although it will be hurt by the perverse tariffs that Trump has imposed on it, the US economy will weather those insults. This too shall pass.

Trump’s tariffs don’t make sense. But what’s worse is that he appears to think that the tariffs are paid for by the exporting countries. I would fail any Econ101 student who doesn’t understand that consumers pay the majority of the tariffs because a tariff is indistinguishable from a sales tax. The incidence of a sales tax is primarily on consumers, not on producers— domestic or foreign. Same goes for tariffs. Continue reading “Trade Wars and Freedom”