Religion & Liberty Online Archives

International Trade

January 04, 2007

Immigration and innovation

From today’s WaPo: About 25 percent of the technology and engineering companies launched in the past decade had at least one foreign-born founder, according to a study released yesterday that throws new information into the debate over foreign workers who arrive in the United States on specialty visas. Continue Reading...
January 02, 2007

The outsourced knight

James Dyson, inventor of the world’s most exciting bagless vacuum cleaner, will receive a knighthood. Speaking of his company, the BBC reports: Today, the company has about 1,400 staff in the UK, with about 4,000 others working in production plants in Malaysia and China. Continue Reading...
December 21, 2006

Calderon is off to a Good Start

New President of Mexico Calderon spent yesterday at the US Mexican border greeting Mexicans returning home for Christmas. His message was two-fold. First, a pledge to create jobs in Mexico: “The generation of well-paid jobs is the only long-lasting solution to the migration problem,” Calderón said before greeting immigrants in cars packed with Christmas gifts. Continue Reading...
December 18, 2006

Costs of Aggressive Population Control

The children of the Chinese One-child policy are finding new obstacles in their paths: no one wants to hire them. Incredible, but true. It seems that many of the only children have been so pampered by their parents, that employers do not find them suitable workers. Continue Reading...
November 28, 2006

Corruption in Health Care

Transparency International is a group devoted to exposing corruption of all kinds. One of the most sickening forms of corruption in many poor countries is health care corruption. One sort of corruption is absentee-ism: medical personel bill for their services even when they aren’t at work, but are doing another job. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2006

Rule of Law and Economic Development in Mexico

This article, by California Western School of Law Professor James Cooper concerns me quite a bit. A legal specialist in Rule of Law, Cooper has been trying to establish legal reforms in Mexico that would make its judicial system more transparent. Continue Reading...
November 25, 2006

Immigration Policy and the Future of Free Market

I have been quite concerned for some time about the shrill debate over illegal immigration and its potential fallout for free trade. I have argued, at Acton events and elsewhere, that no long-term solution to the flow of illegal immigration from Mexico is possible, without significant economic growth in Mexico. Continue Reading...
August 29, 2006

China-Taiwan Trade Spike

Tension between China and Taiwan is one of the more troubling matters in geopolitical affairs. Now AsiaNews reports that trade between China and Taiwas increased by 15 percent in the first half of 2006. Continue Reading...
August 22, 2006

“I Buy Goods from Poorer Countries”

From the “why didn’t we think of that first” department: The trade which can lift peoples out of poverty is assailed from many directions. A motley assortment of protectionists and anti-capitalists use every argument they can lay their hands on to protect their interests. Continue Reading...
August 10, 2006

Sew Efficient

US News and World Report has a little feature on a drapery company that has expanded into more distant markets and thereby grown. The article identifies trade agreements and technology as paving the way for such expansion by many small, local businesses. Continue Reading...