Global Economy

While the legislation introduced in the US Congress remains fiction under a Republican executive and senate, the Brussels initiative will become law unless there is considerable opposition from EU member states.

A “free trade agreement” in practice isn’t simply an index card declaring, “Tariffs on Country X are 0 percent, three cheers for Bastiat!” These are managed trade agreements, with hundreds of pages devoted to detailed regulations that smack of top-down Soviet planning.

Zimbabwe's government has embraced a potent mixture of monetary inflation and price controls. The result has been economic disaster.

Japan's once-envied economy is now in shambles. The European economy, built on the same shaky tenets, is crumbling, too. Where to go from here?