Worthwhile Reads
What New York Can Learn From Texas About Inequality - Meg Tuszynski, The Dallas Morning News
If Americans are serious about inequality, they should spend less time arguing over how to redistribute outcomes and more time examining the rules that shape them in the first place.
The Arithmetic of Family Punctuality - Zachary Bartsch, Economists Writing Everyday
My children are getting more capable. They get more responsibility that comes with the independence that capability implies. Specifically, when getting ready in the morning they like to leave so that they arrive at school just barely on time. Except, when something comes up, they are rushed, flustered, short-tempered, and tardy. They lament that “if only the unforeseeable event X hadn’t happened, I would have been on time”.
It doesn’t matter what X is. Maybe they forgot to pack a lunch, or set out their clothes, or they have a flat tire on their bikes, or… whatever. The specific time-consuming event is unforeseeable. But, that *any* time-consuming event will occur is very foreseeable. What’s a Bayesian to do?
Before we even start the analysis, let’s acknowledge that being perfectly on time for some event usually involves stress and a lack of preparedness. Yes, you were ‘on time’, but given the probability of heavier traffic, difficulty finding a parking spot, or whatever, we know that tardiness is just one unforeseen event away.
Friends? Enemies? The Answer Is Transaction Costs - Tom Savidge, Fusion Magazine
Whether disagreement escalates depends on both its content and the costs of managing it. In “The Problem of Social Cost,” Ronald Coase reframes conflict as reciprocal: disputes arise because individuals seek incompatible uses of scarce resources and institutional arrangements determine how costly it is to resolve those conflicts. In the UCLA price theory tradition, outcomes depend on rules and incentives. Rules shape behavior by determining the costs and benefits of cooperation and conflict, not by resolving moral disagreements.
This is the classical liberal insight: order requires institutions that make cooperation possible despite disagreement. Transaction costs capture the difficulty of coordinating and understanding others. Human distance reflects these frictions, including differences in norms, expectations, and moral frameworks.
From America First to America Alone - Sam Gregg, Engelsberg Ideas
When a US president pursues a trade policy in which instability is a feature rather than a bug, many nations will begin wondering about America’s reliability as a long-term trade partner. Such doubts have a way of seeping over into security questions. Indeed, there is considerable evidence that the Trump administration’s ever-shifting trade measures have substantially corroded the trust that underpins the alliances that help America project its power around the globe.
Tariffs aren’t the sole reason why the leaders of several European governments and countries like Canada are now speaking of strategic realignments away from America, but they are part of the picture. There is little prospect of any of these nations entering into formal alliances with US geopolitical rivals like China. Nor are longstanding US alliances heading inexorably toward a rupture. But there is little question that some EU nations and Canada are seeking to forge new security arrangements that are independent of the existing arrangements that these nations have with the United States. That necessarily implies a certain distancing of these countries from America. It is unclear, at best, how such disaffection serves long-term US interests. All countries need allies, even the United States.
Bonus: not really a read, but AIER will be hosting Don Boudreaux virtually for a continuation of the Trade, National Security, and American Prosperity event that we did in Washington, DC last month (on the anniversary of Liberation Day, no less!). The first few sessions are available online for free, but you’ll have to subscribe (or be really nice to me!) if you want to watch the others.
Register for Don’s talk here (it’s zero-priced): https://aier.org/event/trade-national-security-virtual/