By Business Beyond the Reef / Egon Winkler
The headline is premature as Mark Twain would say, but we can wish it were true. Dan Ikenson and Scott Lincicome have a paper up at the Cato Institute entitled Beyond Exports: A Better Case for Free Trade, in which they argue that it is time for our leaders to stop beating the export drum when confronted by protectionists. They need to stress the very real virtues and benefits of imports for our society. You know the point: look at all the imported products and services you use in daily life – and think what life would be like without them. Less choice, higher prices, lower standard of living … Plus lost jobs in companies and industries that use imports (which are almost all of them). Do you really want all that?
