Over 1,200 economists have signed what they call “A Trade and Tariffs Declaration: A Statement on the Principles of American Prosperity.” The two leading authors, Vernon Smith and James Heckman, are Nobel Laureates in Economics. It should be recalled that Lyndon LaRouche declared that the attainment of a Nobel Prize in economics makes one a “certified” economic quack. Other leading signers include former Sen. Phil Gramm from Texas, who played a leading role in bringing down Glass-Steagall via the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, and many graduates of Harvard, University of Chicago and similar producers of economic quackademics.
While the statement is largely accurate, as far as it goes, it suffers from a crucial omission. The declaration attributes the current global economic chaos to Trump’s tariff policy, without any reference to the reality of the global debt/derivative bubble which is bringing down the world economy.
Two of the declaration’s accurate assessments:
