Trump and Intel: Golden Age or Lost Decades?

John Stossel's latest column does a good job of explaining why Donald Trump's partial nationalizations are socialistic and, therefore, a bad idea.

It's worth reading and passing along for that, but the following is especially timely, given the "post-liberal" GOP's love of industrial policy:

"Let the weak companies go away," says [economist Daniel] Mitchell. "Then resources, labor and capital can go to the young new companies that actually create wealth. Allow creative destruction to operate. Politicians, they look at the seen but ignore the unseen. The seen is, 'A company in my district is closing and factory jobs will be lost.' They're not paying attention to the new companies, the new entrepreneurship that makes us much richer in the long run."

The "unseen" is also the company that might have started, might have become even more valuable, if government hadn't thrown our money at the older, politically connected, declining businesses.

"Japan was one of the richest, most prosperous countries in the world," Mitchell points out. The media said, "We needed to copy Japan. 'They had this great industrial policy.' It turns out they suffered several lost decades, largely as a consequence of trying to prop up zombie companies." [bold added]

As with tariffs, so with industrial policy: It's economic hokum that economists understand well, and experience shows to be foolhardy.

Slapping an R after your name and claiming patriotic motives will not magically turn such snake oil into an effective remedy.

-- CAV