Mad About Trade
One of the benefits of living long airplane rides away from everywhere is the time that travel gives for catching up on reading.
Mad About Trade
I finished a terrific new book during my recent trip to Washington by Daniel Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. Mad About Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization gives all the counterarguments you wish you could remember when facing down the legion of anti-trade troglodytes. Griswold makes short work of arguments against allowing foreign investment in the United States, against allowing U.S. investment overseas, against imports, against offshoring and that a trade deficit necessarily harms the country. Although aimed at American readers, the book is just as useful for foreign readers. Just substitute your country’s name wherever America appears and you have arguments that can serve you well at home.
Perhaps his most valuable contribution is his emphasis on the impact of trade and investment on consumers. Politicians seem to forget that ALL of their constituents are consumers who are hurt by any action that raises prices or limits choice among consumer goods. The pols pay close attention to companies or unions who imagine they are hurt by trade or investment, but ignore the biggest voting bloc of all. I suspect this is true in every country in the world.
