Forums: Trade And Use Of Saffron

Starting with an old cell phone a friend gave him, 17-year-old Steven Ortiz of Glendora, CA, used Craigslist to trade up 14 times over two years and eventually end up with a Porsche Boxster. Here's how he did it. Although Oritz's story isn't the first time we've seen Craigslist-swapping writ large, it's the first one we've seen that doesn't include any outside help. You may remember Kyle MacDonald, who famously created a website to document his attempt to trade one red paperclip for a house. It worked. But MacDonald also had a built-in fanbase and publicity from his website. Ortiz,...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius promised, "The U.S. government plans to increase funding to battle obesity and views healthcare reform as an opportunity to encourage better eating habits." Rather than spending money and attacking the food industry, the secretary and others concerned with the health of Americans ought to go after the U.S. Congress. Let's look at it. According to a study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (May 2009), widespread use of fructose may be directly responsible for some of the ongoing increase in rates of childhood diabetes...

The Chinese market for Michigan goods continues to grow. So it's strange that politicians here continue to point fingers at Chinese trade for Michigan's economic decay. Since 2005, Michigan's exports to China increased by 91 percent, while Michigan's exports to the world dropped by 14 percent, largely due to a substantial decrease in 2009. However, it appears that state exports recovered in 2010. First quarter data shows that Michigan's exports are returning to 2010 levels and that our exports to China are having a banner year.

Ron Bullock, chairman of Bison Gear & Engineering Corp, writing in the Washington Examiner: "More effective foreign competition has led to increasing manufactured-goods trade deficits and the loss of 7 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 1980." Don Boudreaux responds: "This account – repeated ad nauseam – would be more plausible if it were also the case that U.S. manufacturing output, during this same time, had declined. But this output rose. Manufacturing output today is nearly 100 percent higher than it was 30 years ago (see chart). Importantly, manufacturing output is up while manufacturing employment is down for a reason...