Trade: Why Don't People Get it?
... free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.
-- Thomas Babbington Macaulay (1824)
The following is the most depressing survey result you will read in some time:
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll conducted earlier this month found that 60% of voters nationwide agreed with the statement that "foreign trade has been bad for the U.S. economy."
Admittedly, trade affects different people in the U.S. (or in any country) to different degrees. But the notion that trade that isn't good in every way for everyone must be bad, and that protectionism is therefore required -- and the current political candidates pandering to that latter view -- makes me sick to my stomach.
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