by Paul Krugman, Paul Krugman Substack, January 31, 2025.
Excerpt:
As I wrote the other day, in the three decades since NAFTA went into effect, North American manufacturing has evolved into a highly integrated system whose products — autos in particular, but manufactured goods more broadly — typically contain components from all three members of the pact, which may be shipped across the borders multiple times. Manufacturers developed this system not just because tariffs were low or zero, but because they thought they had a guarantee that tariffs would stay low.
One way of saying this is that until just the other day there was really no such thing as U.S. manufacturing, Canadian manufacturing or Mexican manufacturing, just North American manufacturing — a highly efficient, mutually beneficial system that sprawled across the three nations’ borders.
But now we have a U.S. president saying that a duly negotiated and signed trade pact isn’t worth the paper it was printed on — that he can impose high tariffs on the other signatories whenever he feels like it. And even if the tariffs go away, the private sector will know that they can always come back; the credibility of this trade agreement, or any future trade agreement, will be lost. So North American manufacturing will disintegrate — that is, dis-integrate — reverting to inefficient, fragmented national industries.
DRH comment: Trump often talks about the beautiful taxes called tariffs. The tariffs are not beautiful. Quite the opposite: they will, as Krugman, says help dis-integrate a beautifully integrated manufacturing system.
by Timothy Taylor, Conversable Economist, January 31, 2025.
The GATT, formally known as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade but informally known as the Gentleman’s Agreement to Talk and Talk, was first signed by 23 countries back in 1947. Over the decades, all that talking led to a substantial decrease in tariffs all around the world. By 1994, the GATT morphed into the World Trade Organization. At that time, it has [sic] about 125 countries, accounting for about 90% of world trade. From a free trade perspective, it was a considerable success.
Here’s my hypothetical question: Would the GATT have been able to expand the parameters of free trade around most of the world if it had also included the USSR?
by Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2025.
Excerpt:
Congress established the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in 1986 for children’s vaccines because an avalanche of litigation was driving manufacturers from the market. The program allows patients who believe they’ve been harmed by vaccines to file claims with the government for compensation, which are adjudicated in special vaccine courts.
Why do vaccines receive more liability protection than medicines? For one, the population of potential plaintiffs is much larger for children’s vaccines than for any other medical product. Juries are especially sympathetic when it comes to children, so the payouts and potential liability are also much larger.
If patients don’t like the vaccine court judgment, they can still sue manufacturers in federal court. But they rarely do since the standard for proving claims is higher in federal court. But as HHS Secretary, Mr. Kennedy could take action to assist his trial-lawyer pals.
The HHS Secretary can add or remove vaccines from the compensation program, as well as specify injuries eligible for compensation. Removing vaccines from the program would open up manufacturers to mass torts based on weak evidence, including animal studies and scattered human cases that purport to link injuries to the shots.
DRH comment: It’s nice to see the Journal editors not be swayed by the MAHA [Make America Healthy Again] push for Bobby’s confirmation. I’ve had a number of friends, who I thought agreed with me, tell me that we need the government to regulate, more than it does, what goes in our food. They often use the same arguments that I, and, I thought, they have been arguing against for years, namely, how little power individuals have to choose their foods.
I also found Caroline Kennedy’s statement against her cousin interesting. It amounts to “Bobby is a Kennedy.” I was flabbergasted, but shouldn’t have been, by her statement that if Bobby is confirmed at secretary of HHS, he will be in charge of our nation’s health. Who knew?
by Charles L. Hooper, Incidental Insights, February 1, 2025.
Excerpt:
After finding a few nearby pharmacies that agreed to fill the prescriptions he [Dr. Stephen Banister] wrote—the pharmacists had studied the same information and saw the potential—he started treating patients. Patients who went to other pharmacies were told that ivermectin wasn’t approved by the FDA for COVID-19 and were sent away empty-handed. He redirected them to his preferred pharmacies.
For every patient he treated, he instructed them to report back every day. If the patient was getting worse, Banister needed to know. That was never the case. Patients would report the next day that they felt a little or a lot better. The following day they would feel even better. He treated 100 to 200 patients and, while some got better quickly and others got better slowly, they all improved and not a single patient needed to be hospitalized.
Charley also references a number of pieces that we co-authored on ivermectin.
