The First Semiconductor Trade War
Until the Very End, the Generals Wanted Biden to Leave 2,500 Troops in Afghanistan
“In response to a question from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Austin acknowledged that while there were “a range of possibilities” for what could have happened with a theoretical continued presence, “if you stayed there at force posture of 2,500, certainly, you’d be in a fight with the Taliban. And you’d have to reinforce yourself.”
This is the crux of the matter: There is no plausible scenario in which the U.S. could leave behind a permanent, or even indefinite, force of soldiers without incurring further casualties. The Doha Agreement negotiated under Trump set an end date by which all American forces would have left Afghanistan, barring any future Taliban violence; a new administration reneging on that deal would certainly have invited renewed bloodshed. And a force of 2,500 facing the entirety of a renewed Taliban would have necessitated further reinforcement. At that point, we would be right back to October 2001, facing an uncertain future and an even more uncertain end goal.”
South Korea Considers Banning Dog Meat
Americans Paid $7.6 Billion in Tariffs During August, a New Monthly Record
“Former President Donald Trump hiked tariffs on a wide range of imported goods, President Joe Biden has refused to cut them, and that bipartisan opposition to free trade means Americans are now paying higher import taxes than ever.
The federal government collected more than $7.6 billion in tariffs during the month of August, according to recently released figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, which tracks economic data. That’s an amount that exceeds even the highest single-month total during the Trump administration and one that dwarves monthly tariff revenue from earlier years.”
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“It can be a mistake to make too much out of a single month’s economic data, but these numbers provide some small insight into the failures of the Trump administration’s trade policies. Higher tariffs did not reduce Americans’ desire to buy imported goods. They did not reduce the trade deficit (quite the opposite, in fact). They were not paid for by China or other foreign nations, but by American companies importing those goods (and the costs are passed along to other buyers and consumers down the supply chain).”
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“Revenue extracted by the federal government is not the only cost imposed by tariffs, of course. They also warp supply chains, change investment decisions, and encourage more spending on lobbyists and lawyers.”
Good News: The World Finally Has a Malaria Vaccine
“Malaria cases annually number nearly 230 million, and the disease kills more than 400,000 people—mostly children—each year. Until now, the search for an effective vaccine against the parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes has been fruitless. Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it is recommending the approval of the Mosquirix malaria vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline. The research on this vaccine began in 1987 and was earlier this year shown to be 50 percent effective in preventing malaria infections in the first year of Phase III clinical trials in children in three African countries.
Compared to the 95 percent efficacy of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, 50 percent may not sound like much, but a 2020 modeling study estimated that rolling out the vaccine in the areas with the higher prevalence of the illness could prevent 5.3 million cases and 24,000 deaths annually.”
Michael Munger on Free Markets
Los Angeles Orders Local Businesses To Serve as Vaccination Enforcers
“What the city is actually doing is outsourcing responsibility for getting people vaccinated to private local businesses. Fines for failure to comply with the law fall not on the unvaccinated people attempting to get into restaurants and movie theaters, but on the businesses that fail to catch them. Fines start at $1,000 (beginning with the second violation) and can reach as high as $5,000 per citation.”
It Took More Than 15 Years for a South Carolina Hospital To Get Permission To Be Built
“Before being able to break ground on a new hospital there, Piedmont Medical Center had to navigate the state’s Certificate-of-Need (CON) process, which in this case required going all the way to the state Supreme Court to fend off a legal challenge from a competitor. All that to build a 100-bed facility that the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control had determined, all the way back in 2004, was indeed needed in the region.
Unfortunately, “need” is not enough in many cases. Like how zoning laws and mandatory environmental reviews might be well-intentioned policies but are frequently wielded by “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) activists as a way to tangle new development in costly piles of red tape, the CON laws on the books in many states can be used by existing hospitals to delay or prevent new facilities from opening.
That’s exactly what happened in Fort Mill. A hospital chain based in Charlotte challenged Piedmont Medical Center’s plans for a new facility, then sued to block the state’s decision to give Piedmont permission to build the hospital. The litigation cost thousands of dollars and delayed construction by several years. Researchers at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a free market think tank, argue that even the threat of such lengthy, expensive reviews ends up deterring investments that would otherwise take place.”
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“Artificially limiting the supply of health care services can be a major issue when a pandemic or other emergency strikes, of course, but CON laws harm public health even without the help of a novel coronavirus. States with CON laws have higher mortality rates for patients with pneumonia, heart failure, and heart attacks, according to research published in 2016 by the Mercatus Center, a free market think tank that argues for repealing CON laws. Other studies show that CON laws contribute to health care shortages in rural areas because they force medical providers to focus on wealthier, more populated areas in order to make up for the added costs imposed by the CON process.”
It’s Time To Kill the Mandatory Beef Tax That Underwrites “Beef, It’s What’s for Dinner”
“”Today, when you buy a Big Mac or a T-bone, a portion of the cost is a tax on beef, the proceeds from which the government hands over to a private trade group called the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA),” Washington Monthly reported in 2014. “The NCBA in turn uses this public money to buy ads encouraging you to eat more beef.””