The Week

■ Lamar fades; the shirt hit the fan.

■ Free-market fanatics, which emphatically includes us, are disturbed by Patrick J. Buchanan’s heretical revival of the American tradition of tariffs. Of course, we have to admit that tariffs are just another form of tax. Arguably, they would result in no more misallocation than the enormous onslaught of taxation that has taken federal revenues from below 5 per cent of GDP under Calvin Coolidge to almost 20 per cent under Bill Clinton, without too much libertarian uproar. But meanwhile we have another question: Why has no one—for example, his fans at the Cato Institute—noticed that Steve Forbes is committing an even greater heresy against free-market writ? He is reviving another American policy tradition, that of the currency crank. He wants to abandon floating exchange rates (the prescription and lifetime achievement of Milton Friedman), fix the U.S. dollar against gold at a high rate, and resist any and all pressures to let the dollar depreciate (“trashing the dollar,” in Forbes-speak). This, of course, would mean periodically closing down the economy to reduce imports and generate a dollar-bolstering current account-surplus—the celebrated “stop-go” effect that crippled Britain in the 1960s. That’s apparently OK with Mr. Forbes, who seems to view a “strong dollar” as an end in itself. But his “strong dollar” would also make American products more expensive in foreign markets—and foreign products cheaper in American markets. Amazingly, Steve Forbes intends to subsidize imports and tax exports—across the board. He’s a protectionist too— an inverted protectionist. Ed Crane, call your office.

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Presidential Election

■ Lamar fades; the shirt hit the fan.

■ Free-market fanatics, which emphatically includes us, are disturbed by Patrick J. Buchanan’s heretical revival of the American tradition of tariffs. Of course, we have to admit that tariffs are just another form of tax. Arguably, they would result in no more misallocation than the enormous onslaught of taxation that has taken federal revenues from below 5 per cent of GDP under Calvin Coolidge to almost 20 per cent under Bill Clinton, without too much libertarian uproar. But meanwhile we have another question: Why has no one—for example, his fans at the Cato Institute—noticed that Steve Forbes is committing an even greater heresy against free-market writ? He is reviving another American policy tradition, that of the currency crank. He wants to abandon floating exchange rates (the prescription and lifetime achievement of Milton Friedman), fix the U.S. dollar against gold at a high rate, and resist any and all pressures to let the dollar depreciate (“trashing the dollar,” in Forbes-speak). This, of course, would mean periodically closing down the economy to reduce imports and generate a dollar-bolstering current account-surplus—the celebrated “stop-go” effect that crippled Britain in the 1960s. That’s apparently OK with Mr. Forbes, who seems to view a “strong dollar” as an end in itself. But his “strong dollar” would also make American products more expensive in foreign markets—and foreign products cheaper in American markets. Amazingly, Steve Forbes intends to subsidize imports and tax exports—across the board. He’s a protectionist too— an inverted protectionist. Ed Crane, call your office.