Highlights from my weekly lecture, August 25, 2024

by Donald J. Boudreaux, American Institute for Economic Research, August 21, 2024.

Extract:

This development is not surprising. No matter how smart and clever President Xi and his lieutenants are, they cannot perform miracles. If the Chinese do not have a comparative advantage in producing electric vehicles on a scale as large as the scale desired by these government officials, diverting resources on this scale to electric vehicle production will likely be counterproductive – as is happening now. Are possible that if Beijing pours even more resources into this industry, the Chinese will eventually have the necessary resources comparative advantage in producing electric cars. But as things stand now, this possibility is a bad bet – even if it is one Good My bet is that Beijing will actually look to rope in troubled Chinese EV makers with even more subsidies and special protections. After all, the money Chinese government officials spend is not their own money; it is money forcibly taken from Chinese taxpayers and consumers.

by Ryan Bourne, Cato at FreedomMay 16, 2024.

Extract:

Fewer babies means pay-as-you-go welfare states will face increasing financial pressure, and many economists worry that fewer people will lead to fewer breakthrough ideas that drive economic growth. In response, there has been a pro-natalist push for government baby bonuses, tax breaks or subsidies for childcare or other costs to make raising children more affordable.

The problem is that these policies usually produce small results. The Scandinavian welfare states still suffer from birth rates below replacement levels, despite many ‘family-friendly’ policies. Childcare subsidies have not meaningfully changed the dial here. Australia’s former baby bonus, worth thousands of pounds, caused only a temporary birth spike and the country’s fertility rate is now back to around 1.6. The main effect of financial incentives appears to be the “retiming” of births, with those already planning to have children more likely to do so in order to obtain the benefits.

DRH comment: This is an issue I discussed in my judgement from Matt Yglesias’ 2020 book, One billion Americans. Here’s a relevant portion of my review:

In a book that advocates a massive increase in immigration, a logical next step would be to argue for reducing the cost of raising children by millions of immigrants, probably disproportionately women, from the poorest countries of Latin America to the United States to admit. such as Guatemala and El Salvador, the poorest countries in Africa, such as Zimbabwe and Congo, and the poorest countries in Asia, such as India. It wouldn’t be difficult to get 50 million immigrants out of those places in a period of, say, five years. They would benefit, and many current American families would benefit from a dramatic drop in child care costs.

But that’s not where Yglesias is going. Instead, he advocates large-scale new government programs to subsidize child care. He writes that “compared to some comparable countries, the United States has been embarrassingly slow to provide subsidized child care.” But the closest he comes to explaining why American policy is shameful is by arguing that we should do it too, because other countries are doing it too.

I’ll say more about that judgement.

by C. Jarrett Dieterle, RodeAugust 24, 2025.

Extract:

It’s hard to argue against ‘transparency’, ‘common sense’ and ‘informed choices’. But labeling mandates always are the hardest on the smallest company.

The concept of nutritional and ingredient labeling is even more complex in the field of alcohol, as the TTB uses a prior approval system for alcohol labeling, which means alcohol manufacturers must submit their proposed labels to the agency for approval for the product ever comes onto the market. No approval, no market access. This is in stark contrast to most food labeling, which the Food and Drug Administration enforces after a product goes to market.

Not only are most craft breweries, distilleries and wineries are small, local businesses, but much of their appeal lies in the ever-changing range of products they offer. Some of the most advanced and popular microbreweries in America also release several new beers per week or month seasonal releases which vary in availability depending on the time of year.

Breweries often release annual products, such as Christmas Ales, which use the same basic set of spices but may have some minor variations and adjustments from year to year. If these mandates are in place, a brewery could do that facing the prospect of having to get new labels approved every year, a time and cost burden that few small breweries can bear.

Who would have thought that we in America, the land of the free, would be hemmed in by central planning on beer labels?

by Joe Lancaster, RodeAugust 23, 2024.

Fragments:

One of the nation’s largest automakers announced this week that it was shifting its focus from battery-powered electric vehicles (EVs) to hybrids that still use some amount of gasoline. The decision to prioritize a transitional technology makes sense, even if federal regulators may not like it.

And:

Unfortunately, federal regulations passed this year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may make the transition more difficult.

In March, the EPA released rules That would reduce the number of new gas-powered vehicles on the road over the next decade. Under its “tougher emissions standards” for consumer vehicles, the agency projected that by 2032, 56 percent of all new vehicles on the road would be electric, while only 16 percent would be hybrid.