Friday, January 01, 2010
Trade Protection = Economic War on Yourself
By Dr. Mark J. Perry
The chart displays the volume of U.S. exports of goods and services, in inflation-adjusted dollars, annually from 1929 to 1945 (data from Global Financial Data, subscription required), showing that U.S. exports fell roughly the same from the combined effects of the Great Depression and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 (-46% from 1929 to 1932) as from the effects of WWII.
"Protectionism is doing to ourselves in peacetime what our enemies to do us in wartime (cutting off trade and moving a country in the directon of self-sufficiency)."
"Protectionism is doing to ourselves in peacetime what our enemies to do us in wartime (cutting off trade and moving a country in the directon of self-sufficiency)."
