「Tom Gould, vice president of global customs at San Francisco freight forwarder Flexport, said hundreds of U.S. companies have hired firms like his to devise moves to cut tariff costs. In one instance, Mr. Gould said, he convinced a U.S. company that manufactures computer routers to move part of its Chinese assembly line. Now, workers in neighboring Vietnam attach circuitry to the router’s printed circuit board, which marks the exact moment the computer router is born according to a 1980s customs ruling. Workers then ship that part back to China for final processing and packaging. The company, which Mr. Gould declined to identify, saved more than $100,000 in tariffs since the change, he said.」
不但這種「專門教廠商迴避貿易壁壘」的顧問公司應運而生，同時也削弱白宮政客自以為的「管制措施」。這一點建議恰恰是張五常在經典論文「A Theory of Price Control」（The Journal of Law and Economics, Vol XVII, April 1974）中提出：傳統認為價格管制會發生短缺是淺見，更進一步是市場參與者會在自私的驅動之下，選擇「租值消散最少」的方案來降低或繞過管制。如果論者可以事先調查清楚侷限條件，就可科學性預測何種方案會被選擇。
有經濟學好友引述知名聯邦巡迴法院法官R. Posner對隱私權與營業秘密的經濟概念類比：「The most interesting question in privacy law is whether a person should have a right to conceal embarrassing facts about himself — for example that he is an ex-convict. …… Should he be encouraged to deceive these people, by being given a right to sue anyone who unmasks his hidden “defects”? At least on economic grounds, the answer seems to be no. It would be different if what was “unmasked” was not an embarrassing fact but a superb dinner recipe. We would then be in the realm of the trade secret, broadly defined, and the case would be no different in principle from the theft of a secret formula by a commercial rival. Here secrecy is a method of enforcing an informal property right and encourages an investment in a socially valuable idea. Concealing discreditable facts about a private individual, a firm, or a product does not.」
2. 傳統common law對privacy的保護是放在「侵權行為（tort）」底下，原則上公認的四種隱私權侵害態樣： a. appropriation by defendant of plaintiff’s picture or name for defendant’s commercial advantages; b. intrusion by the defendant upon plaintiff’s affairs or seclusion; c. publication by the defendant of facts placing the plaintiff in a false light; and d. public disclosures of private facts about the plaintiff by the defendant 第一種就是所謂的肖像權，通常是把名人的照片或名字未經授權拿去從事商業行為。這種不是Posner談的狀況，但卻是落在純粹的金錢收入。 後面三種行為都要求"highly offensive to a reasonable person"或"actual malice"，而且相較於其他侵權行為訴訟，這三種隱私權受侵害原告只需要證明「侵害行為存在」，並不需要證明「所受損害」即可成立。反之，營業秘密侵害並不要求"actual malice or highly offensive"之存在，僅需故意、重大過失或違背保密義務即可構成。但營業秘密，原則上是需要證明損害存在與損害額度。除了少數原告不能證明損害，由法官判斷。 這點差異之所以存在，我認為就是因為侵權行為法在處理隱私權受侵害本來就不是以「金錢收入」為基本考量點，而是以保護personality；但營業秘密則完全考量金錢收入，反而不考量原告的personality。 當然，personality是什麼沒有明確定義，在美國法體系下就是靠大量判決累積畫出邊界。
3. 這就回到Armen Alchian著名的「THE MEANING OF UTILITY MEASUREMENT」論文中所提出的觀念：如果把personality看成經濟學上的一種utility，則經濟理論上關於量度我們只能做到對utility的偏好做排列，卻無從得出絕對數值。
如果看過我多次推薦的R. Coase那本"How China Became Capitalist"一書，就知道中國在毛澤東時代刻意的保持地方政府的高度自主（源自於毛澤東自己的延安戰爭經驗），也會知道中國中央政府的實質統治能力是被誇大，許多聲稱「中國政府獨裁」的人根本就不了解中國中央政府的權限某方面並不比美國聯邦政府對州政府來得大。
朱鎔基稅制改革之後大幅精簡稅率、課稅原則與稅金分配架構，同時以縣政府為基礎單位的產權劃分清晰而明確，官員與私人之間的權利義務亦然。整個中國進入類似張五常「佃農理論」所解釋的「層層外包與縣政府競爭」的分成合約架構。從此迎來爆炸式經濟成長，其實只是印證R. Coase獲得諾貝爾獎的鴻文「聯邦傳播委員會」中那著名的Coase Theorem : “The delineation of property rights is the precondition for market transaction."
事實上研究美國憲法或聯邦制度者也知道，美國建國至19世紀末也存在各州之間大大小小的「非關稅壁壘」。事實上各州之間的課稅現象，也使得美國1783年正式從英國獨立，但1789年才通過生效的美國憲法第一條特別規定「..各州之間不得對他州出口之商品課稅（No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.）」或「不得給予某州港口優惠待遇，亦或對他州往來船隻課稅（No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another.）」
C. 最後還是回到破題 — 許多人看到某些特殊現象動不動歸咎於「民族性」。然而這是最糟糕的一種理解世界的方式，其問題在於「民族性」本身既無指明客觀侷限條件，本身也難以定義與觀測，更枉論量度。因此以民族性為基礎的理論永遠都只是tautology或論者自身狹隘的價值偏好（personal preference）。
元毓說 