Ricardian Resentment

The Ricardians are again out in force, evidently experiencing another bout of resentful remembrance this week. The IMF has just augured that present moves toward ‘friendshoring’ on the part of the world’s principal trading nations ‘could slow global output,’ while Martin Wolf warns that we’re throwing away ‘nine decades of hugely successful policy.’

What is most comical about such pronouncements, coming now as they do, is perhaps less how wrongheaded they are than how unmindful they are of the fact that yes, we know all that. We’re well familiar with the Ricardian clichés.