You Can’t Break the Laws of Economics

Supply and demand invariably overcome any effort to defy or outsmart them

By Brian Albrecht. Excerpts:

"When Mr. Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018, the University of Chicago surveyed dozens of top economists."

"Not one of them thought that Americans would be better off because of the tariffs."

"Study after study—using customs data, retail prices and scanner data from stores—has found that American businesses and consumers bore virtually 100% of the tariff burden."

"about half of U.S. imports are used as inputs in the production of other goods."

"because of the 2018 tariffs, downstream American industries . . . lost jobs, swamping any gains to aluminum producers."

"After egg prices roughly doubled at the start of this year, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) urged the Justice Department to investigate price gouging."

"The supply side collapsed when avian flu killed more than 100 million birds. When supply shrinks and consumers aren’t very price-sensitive . . . the price will rise significantly." 

"a high price for eggs is an incentive to do two things: import eggs and rebuild the supply of chickens. The latter can’t happen immediately."

"Economists’ prediction of recovery through imports and restocking has come true, with egg prices"