Been gone for a while

As many of you know, I have been gone for a week, so I will post a few things today that are rather old but have been wanting to comment on.

First is this piece by George Will. Free trade is good and that things such as tariffs hurt the majority of people involved.

George F. Will - Obama's Tire Tariff May Protect Unions but Harms the Nation - washingtonpost.com:

"The 215 percent increase in tire imports from China is largely the fault, so to speak, of lower-income Americans, many of whom will respond to the presidential increase in the cost of low-end tires by driving longer on their worn tires. How many injuries and deaths will this cause? How many jobs will it cost in tire replacement businesses or among longshoremen who handle imports? We will find out. The costs of the president's sacrifice of the national interest to the economic illiteracy of a single labor union may also include injuries China might inflict by imposing retaliatory protectionism or reducing its purchases of U.S. government debt, purchases that enable Americans to consume more government services than they are willing to pay for."