Frequent readers of this blog know that I do not believe anyone can predict the future. So it might come as a surprise that, based on the title of this post, I appear to be doing just that. Well, I’m not. I’m just sharing some historical data to put business cycles in perspective. We are…
Read more

Part 1 addressed tariffs in general and why they are for the most part shortsighted. In this post I’ll briefly address Trump’s misconceptions about trade. The first fallacy is his apparent belief that bilateral trade with every country must be even. That is, if we run a trade deficit with a country like China, then…
Read more

It’s difficult to explain a complex topic in a single post so I will attempt this in two parts. First, I’ll address tariffs in general and why they are for the most part shortsighted. In a following post I’ll address Trump’s misconceptions about trade. Let’s first try to understand why a country would impose restrictions…
Read more

President Trump recently announced “the greatest deal in the history of the U.S.,” the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). He is promoting it as a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that had been in place since 1994 and that Trump had called “a really bad deal.” Putting aside Trump’s recurring penchant for extreme…
Read more