Category Archives: Cross-Examination

This year’s scholarship winners will be announced late January 2017. More on contest here. The topic for the 2016-2017 scholarship essay contest is:   “Are international free trade agreements in the best interest of the United States? Why or why not?” … Continue reading →

Earlier posts have discussed supply-chain networks that bind U.S. manufacturers with Chinese and Mexican factories producing intermediate goods and materials. “Trump’s Tough Trade Talk Could Damage American Factories,” (New York Times, December 2, 2016) examines the US/China trade debate, looking … Continue reading →

Around the world women wash clothes and most wash by hand since they lack access to electricity, or access to enough electricity to power a washing machine. Access to modern washing machines, like access to cars, matters for teenagers and … Continue reading →

China’s government is struggling to halt industrial and automobile pollution, even inspecting barbeques. Heavy winter smog in Beijing and other Chinese cities causes a range of health problems. In addition to coal-burning industries and cars, Beijing is up against mountains holding … Continue reading →

After learning witches are made of wood, peasants in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, are asked what, besides wood, floats. One peasants asks hopefully: “tiny rocks”? Well there are ways for rocks and other heavy cargo to float, and … Continue reading →

Economists Tyler Cowen & Noah Smith at Bloomberg are “Debating Free Trade and the Populist Backlash” (November 1, 2016 1:16 PM EDT). For NSDA (and NCFCA) debaters, the benefits, costs, and pushback on U.S./China trade is at the center of economic … Continue reading →

The most important point is that the US China Trade War is expanding and has now become a universal trade war. – Bill Perry, US/China Trade War   I’ve been reading Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War (431 B.C.E.) and researching the U.S./China … Continue reading →