My Comments: Radicals are usually thought of as being on the left end of the political spectrum. You know, people like Castro in Cuba or Chavez in Venezuela. The term ‘radical’ almost never comes to mind when looking at the right end. Except maybe the Taliban or now ISIS wreaking havoc in the middle east.

When I think of the Republican Party, I think of people who want to slow down change, spend less money, roll back regulations, etc. All good things in their place perhaps but…

What I hear and see coming from Donald Trump and his cronies is far from conservative. It’s a radical and potentially dangerous trip down an economic  rabbit hole that defies logic on so many levels.

Yes, there is a need to re-evaluate the norms of behavior and thought that have created the stress facing millions of Americans these days. But surely there is also a need to understand and respect the fundamentals that most of us will argue resulted in the amazing nation in which live.

I think he is putting my welfare at risk, along with that of my children and grandchildren, and I don’t like it at all.

Donald J. Boudreaux Sunday, December 04, 2016

Mr. Trump:

Like a despot drunk and delirious with power, you bellowed recently that “[c]ompanies are not going to leave the U.S. anymore without consequences.”

Even if we ignore much that oughtn’t be ignored – such as your unconstitutional promise to use the office of the president of the executive (note: not legislative) branch of the national government to dictate how private companies conduct their business – you reveal appalling economic ignorance.

How do you anticipate business executives will respond to your bullying threats? Are you truly so stupid as to not understand that among the results of your intimidation is that fewer firms will open in America? That fewer businesses here will expand? That those that do open or expand will use a higher ratio of capital to labor because they fear that the greater the number of workers they employ the more likely they are to be victimized by your arbitrary diktats? That no matter how much you cut the monetary taxes they pay, the uncertainty and absurdity of your promised autocratic rule drastically raises firms’ costs of starting and growing on U.S. soil? And that each of these inevitable responses to your imperious fulminations will be slower job and wage growth for Americans?

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Donald Boudreaux is a senior fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a Mercatus Center Board Member, a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University.