@AccurizedNom @mercoglianos @TuskandQuill @cpgrabow His thesis was not disproven by 19th century US history:
jstor.org/stable/3083395…
nber.org/system/files/w…
independent.org/article/2025/0…
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Caleb Petitt
108 posts
Caleb Petitt
@CalebDPetitt
GMU Economics PhD 2025. Research Associate at the Independent Institute. Interested in Historical Political Economy and Adam Smith. https://t.co/U0zXx4O6qY
Katılım Nisan 2025
160 Takip Edilen96 Takipçiler
@CalebDPetitt @mercoglianos @TuskandQuill @cpgrabow Smith is the most extreme that educated laymen would recognize.
His thesis was comprehensively disproven by the entire 19th century of US economic history. So I don’t need him to support Trump’s policies. History already did that. Acknowledging the principle is enough.
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As the Trump admin waives the Jones Act to ease shipping pressures, we resurface (😉) our conversation with @cpgrabow.
Colin walks through the (sometimes absurd) history and costs of the Jones Act on the American economy.
Tusk & Quill@TuskandQuill
🚢 America has vast waterways and coastlines—so why are we barely using them? @cpgrabow breaks down the data and points to a new vision for our infrastructure—if we rethink the rules. Watch the full discussion on American shipping (recorded May'24) at the link below ⬇️
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@AccurizedNom @mercoglianos @TuskandQuill @cpgrabow 1. Smith is not the most radical free trade philosopher (although he is the best) and
2. Just because he made an allowances for restrictions to trade for defense does not mean that he would support any protectionist policy that claims it supports defense
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@CalebDPetitt @mercoglianos @TuskandQuill @cpgrabow The point is that even the most radical free trade philosopher agreed that the military needs of the country could override the accumulation of wealth that he attributed to uncontrolled trade.
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@AccurizedNom @mercoglianos @TuskandQuill @cpgrabow But basically Smith saw that wealth was an important input for defense (especially after the invention of gun powder) and Smith never actually says that the Navigation Acts worked
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@AccurizedNom @mercoglianos @TuskandQuill @cpgrabow It's not actually as clear cut as that. I've written on Adam Smith, the Navigation Acts, and the defense-opulence trade of presented in WN
libertarianism.org/articles/adam-…
independent.org/article/2026/0…
independent.org/article/2026/0…
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People like to complain about how terrible things are in modern America, but things are actually pretty great
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Caleb Petitt retweetledi
The White House’s Maritime Action Plan proposes a “universal fee” on imports carried by foreign-built ships to revive U.S. shipbuilding. Critics say it would act as a broad tax on trade while doing little to rebuild an industry that now accounts for just 0.04% of global shipbuilding. | @CalebDPetitt
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The Trump administrations Maritime Action Plan proposes more protection and government help to our already coddled shipping and shipbuilding industries, and the costs will fall on ordinary Americans.
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Caleb Petitt retweetledi
Always comes to mind when Jones Act defenders insist waivers will only save a fraction of a penny per gallon.
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@oren_cass Corporations sell chicken and rent houses to people; both are totally fine.
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No, it means Perdue Farms should sell chicken to people instead of eating the chicken itself.
Oh wait, it doesn't make sense to say that Perdue Farms would eat the chicken, because corporations aren't people. Idiocracy indeed.
Alex Tabarrok@ATabarrok
What does “Homes are for People, Not Corporations” even mean?–this is a slogan for the Idiocracy era. “Food is for People, Not Corporations,” so we should ban Perdue Farms and McDonald’s? marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu…
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Big corporations buy houses that families would buy. But so do small and medium investors (~90% of the SFR market). Your complaint is just about single family homes being available for rent
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Corporations improve the existing housing stock, expand the supply of housing, and allow families to rent single-family homes.
Oren Cass@oren_cass
2/ Yes, yes they can. You see, while the bill contains many key provisions that the House has already voted for, it also includes Section 901, "Homes Are for People, Not Corporations," which would *gasp* INTERVENE in the market, on behalf of *gasp* FAMILIES trying to buy houses.
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They aren't contradictory when you don't present hyperbolized versions of them. Institutional investors purchase a small % of homes (they do not control the housing market) and the effect they have can still be positive (they provide a real, positive service in the market
Oren Cass@oren_cass
@berniemoreno @HawleyMO @RepFrenchHill 4/ What's the argument here? It turns out the Old Right has two complaints and they are, you'll be shocked to hear, directly contradictory. One is that institutional investors don't buy a lot of homes so a ban won't accomplish anything.
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@oren_cass The title of your recent article on finance called it "grift," which seems to fit well with the idea that you think it is evil.
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Economics as religion...
If you construe a case for banning share buybacks as an argument that they are "evil," you may be afflicted by a case of market fundamentalism.
Richard H Thaler@R_Thaler
@zingales @weeklyshowpod @oren_cass Do you agree with @oren_cass that share repurchases are evil? What about dividends?
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@ENERGY US oil and natural gas production is up but has been growing steadily across administrations; President Trump has not caused their production to boom.
eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/…
eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n…
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🔥The State of American Oil & Natural Gas:
Thanks to President Trump’s policies, America leads the world in oil and natural gas production, producing at all-time records.
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Caleb Petitt retweetledi
In a 6–3 ruling, the Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration’s IEEPA tariffs, saying Congress never gave the president such sweeping authority. A win for constitutional limits—and for free trade. But the legal and economic fallout isn’t over. | @CalebDPetitt
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