In his famous essay, What Is Seen And What Is Not Seen, Frederic Bastiat said:
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
I thought of that when I read this article at the New York Times about the repatriation of foreign profits by US corporations. There is talk again about a repatriation holiday where US corporations would be taxed at a lower rate if they repatriate their foreign profits. The US currently taxes the global profits of US corporations but the tax is only due when the profits are repatriated to the US. US multinationals have billions in foreign income sitting offshore to avoid triggering the corporate tax:
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