Donald Boudreaux
George Mason University economics department chairman Don Boudreaux has been busy explaining the significance of the trade deficit (also known as the influx of investment capital). Last week he met with the members of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. Here’s his latest post at www.cafehayek.com.
Besides educating presidential advisers, he educates all the rest of us, too. Don writes more letters to the editor than any other living mammal. Here’s one he sent out today, which, when I got it, I thought, “That’s right! Why hadn’t that point ever occurred to me?”
25 February 2006
Editor, The Economist
25 St James’s Street
London SW1A 1HG
UNITED KINGDOMSir:
In “Opening up the big box” (Feb. 25) you overlook a significant benefit of Wal-Mart – namely, by relieving Main Street’s retail spaces of the need to supply staple goods such as groceries and hardware, Wal-Mart frees these spaces to be transformed into ethnic restaurants, wi-fied cafes, art galleries, arts theaters, and specialty retail shops.
Wal-Mart makes downtown areas more diverse and lively.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Chairman, Department of Economics
George Mason University
A collection of Don’s letters-to-editors (with those of other fine economists) can be found at MarketCorrection.
(I did point out to Don in a phone conversation that, as a city dweller without a car, losing the little hardware store down the road would represent a hassle for me. Still, most people — who do have cars and who do venture outside of the urban core in something other than an airplane — do benefit from Walmart.)
Two things I learned today on Wikipedia:
1) Karl Popper was an original member of the Mont Pelerin Society
2) you have your own entry
I was happy to discover both, since Popper is my favorite philosopher of science and you are my favorite libertarian!
Wow, there is nothing I love more than “wi-fied” cafes, art theatres, and ethnic restaurants.
I’m sure glad all those terrible non cultured mom and pop shops were run out of business, so a bunch of yuppies could buy save 30 cents on their sushi before watching their foreign films.
What’s wrong with that? The “mom and pop” shops usually had a limited supply of what you wanted, anyway. If the issue is having a living urban core, theatres, ethnic restaurants, and cafes sound at least as “vibrant” as hardware shops.
No reason Wal-Mart should cause you any inconvenience at all, Tom. As I’m sure you realize, if you and other car-less city-dwellers are willing to pay a premium for convenience, there’s no reason the hardware store down the road has to close. If you’re not willing to pay that premium, then your revealed preference is for cheap over hassle-free — in which case you’ve no grounds to complain about the hassle!
Preaching to the choir, I know; just couldn’t help myself.
By the way, there’s nothing you can get from the hardware store down the road that you can’t get from McMaster-Carr, if you’re willing to wait a day. (They pride themselves on next-day delivery.) In fact, I’ll wager that there’s a lot you can get from McMaster that no one at the local hardware store has ever dreamed of! And you don’t even have to leave your apartment to get any of it! I love those guys.
Hyperlink in my last didn’t take. McMaster-Carr website: http://www.mcmaster.com/