- Good for Your Conscience if Not for Your Wallet (Mark Hulbert, NYT): “Because socially responsible funds are more oriented toward growth stocks than value stocks, for example, investors may find that their portfolios will suffer over time.”
- The ‘Free Trade’ Fix in In (Editorial, NYT): “The United States government has just added a final flourish of hypocrisy to its efforts to crush the Vietnamese catfish industry under a mountain of protectionism. The Vietnamese, after doing well enough to capture a fair share of the American market, have been declared trade violators deserving permanent, prohibitive tariffs by the United States International Trade Commission. The case against the Vietnamese was brutally rigged by American fishing and political interests. It stands as an appalling demonstration to striving commercial nations that all the talk of globalization has not reined in the old power politics of marketeers in the United States, Europe and Japan. Their thumbs remain all over the scales of free trade.”
- Textile Industry Seeks Trade Limits on Chinese (NYT): “A coalition of textile and apparel industry groups asked the federal government yesterday for new protections against what it called unfair competition. In a petition filed yesterday, the coalition pressed the Bush administration to put a cap on certain imports from China and to impose safeguards that were agreed upon when China entered the World Trade Organization.”
- Lawyers Scream About Ice Cream (WashTimes): “Trial lawyers and a consumer health group are teaming up to go after America’s ice cream, sending out legal notices to six major chains this week as the group released a study criticizing ice cream’s nutritional value. They sent letters to Baskin-Robbins Inc., Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Holdings Inc., Cold Stone Creamery, the Haagen-Dazs Shoppes Inc., TCBY and Friendly Ice Cream Corp., telling the chains to add healthier alternatives and put nutritional facts on their store menu boards or face potential litigation.
- How Much Longer Can the USA Propel the Global Economy (USAToday): “Weak as it is, the U.S. economy is the main motor propelling worldwide growth. Germany is flirting with deflation. Britain and Canada cut interest rates this month to bolster their sagging business sectors. Global expansion has slowed by half since 2000.”
Posted by Mises.org News
