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December 12, 2006
Says It All
Don Boudreaux
In February 2005, Mother Jones ran this interview with Lou Dobbs. This one line from Dobbs speaks volumes about how seriously the man should be taken:
I cannot find anyone for whom free trade is good.
I'm tempted here to say something about the benefits from free trade that are enjoyed by the stockholders and employees of Dobbs's employer, CNN -- a network that broadcasts globally -- but I'm too dull-witted to come up with a line that does justice to Dobbs's surreal sense of reality.
Posted by Don Boudreaux in Trade | Permalink
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Comments
I love this quote:
"Our dependency isn't just on foreign oil; we can't even clothe ourselves."
Oh really? My experience may be annecdotal, but I rarely see unclothed people walking the streets (I live in D.C.,though, and it's a pretty uptight town).
I wish I could wrap my head around his concerns. Is it that we're at risk of falling prey to extortion from the Organization of Pants Exporting Countries? Will they choke off the supply, forcing Americans to go pantsless (oh the humanity)?
Posted by: anon | Dec 12, 2006 3:08:11 PM
Dobbs seems to be promoting the Juche Idea in America :-P
Even if I were a protectionist and thought that free trade were a net evil for America (which I don't), his statement would be surreal, as I could point to hundreds of millions of Chinese who had benefited mightily from trade. But maybe Dobbs stays at home all day and 'can't find anyone' because he doesn't look...
Posted by: bbartlog | Dec 12, 2006 3:49:37 PM
Or, rather, maybe Dobbs stays on his huge CT estate all day:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061204fa_fact1
Posted by: jmunnie | Dec 12, 2006 4:43:20 PM
It turns out that he lives an outer province of North Korea. Once you realize this his statement makes perfect sense.
Posted by: Robert Sperry | Dec 12, 2006 5:41:01 PM
Dobbs is irrelevant. Just because he has a t.v show it does not mean that he should be taken any more seriously than Bill O'Riely or the Michael Moore's of the world. You dont see any reputable left wing economists saying that trade benifits nobody so why worry about it. The usual intelectual left wing critique of free trade is not to abolish it but to make it more fair.
Posted by: John Pertz | Dec 12, 2006 6:18:55 PM
Just the other day, someone refused to trade me an apple for some cheese because, as he said, the trade would have left him happier. So I presented another offer: I would knock him upside the head, for which he would punch me in the stomach. He accepted and we're both still sore.
That kind of harm is the inevitable result of free trade. Good thing we have Dobbs to stop us from killing ourselves.
Posted by: Tim V | Dec 12, 2006 6:42:51 PM
I'm not sure why Dobbs would be satisfied if the U.S. was self-sufficient. Each person would still be reliant on millions of strangers. What if Detroit cuts off the car supply to the rest of America? Or Iowa stops exporting corn? Or Walmart stops selling me consumer goods? It seems the logical conclusion of Dobbs' viewpoint is that each individual should be self sufficient--growing his own food, sewing his own clothes, cutting out his own diseased appendix, etc. Somehow I don't think this is a formula for wealth and prosperity, but I don't have a Harvard economics degree or a news program on CNN, so what do I know?
Posted by: Nathan Benedict | Dec 12, 2006 9:51:10 PM
Yeah, I'm Dobbs has:
- farmed all of his own food
- cut down trees for the wood in his house, as well as mining the iron for the saw. Lord knows how he made the mining equipment
- spun the cotton for his own suits
- etc. etc.
I mean, if the people in China would hurt you by doing something more efficiently, why wouldn't an American do the same thing?
In all seriousness, those plants up north are more likely to be shut down by competing plants in the south and west. That's because of cheaper labor costs, better infrastructure, a more business-friendly environment. You know, the same reason companies are also building plants in China.
He actually got his degree in economics in college before getting his MBA. I have no idea how much of his own anti-trade rhetoric he really believes, but his ratings have definitely increased since he turned his show into a xeno-marathon.
Posted by: Matthew | Dec 12, 2006 10:25:33 PM
MJ.com: If the federal government were suddenly to choose to fight outsourcing, what should it do?
LD: The first issue is to stop the destruction of an American job. The principal issue I have with outsourcing is that American companies -- based in the United States, providing goods and services to the U.S. consumer economy -- are killing jobs in this country and sending them overseas to provide the same goods and services back to the U.S. economy. I have no problem if they want to invest and create a market in India or the Philippines or wherever. That's great, but don't kill an American job and put it in the hands of someone making one-tenth as much just to send that same good or service back to the United States. That's what's unique and different, and that's what has to be stopped. As far as ways to do it, we could do it with regulation. One would hope that before that, corporate America would find a conscience. But failing that, regulation is entirely necessary, I'm all for it, and my apologies to the libertarians.
So, it's OK to play benevolent central planner as long as you offer some "apologies". It's also ridiculous that he has "no problem" with a multinational operating in other countries, as long as cross-border trade in goods/services doesn't occur...this is sheer idiocy and is an insult to the legacy of David Ricardo.
In fact I would be interested to learn if Dobbs has read Ricardo, Adam Smith, or Bastiat (let alone contemporary economists like Bhagwati or even Amartya Sen...hell, even Stiglitz makes more sense than this guy). Actually, I am REALLY curious to learn if he has read something like...an INTRO to economics textbook!
Why does Dobbs think he has authority to proclaim himself an "expert" on free trade, one that supposedly has sufficient knowledge to tell government how to regulate it? At least he should name some economists that agree with him...oops, can't.
When someone like Dobbs tries to claim implicit moral superiority, it smacks of Stalin's, Mao's, and (now) Kim's brands of "socialism in one country".
I would pay my more than my current net worth to see Milton Friedman (in his prime) debate this halfwit.
I would also love to see Dobbs and Pat Buchanan form their own little Juche-powered U.S. All clothing will be made in the U.S., no inferior free-trade allowed (the benevolent regulators will of course assure that non-American contraband will not enter). The Juche-U.S. is allowed to export as long as it can't import, this way it will build up the biggest supply of gold (foreign currency) and thus rule the world. Also opportunity cost will not exist, everyone will be in a union, firings will not occur (except for greedy CEOs), and NO OUTSOURCING ALLOWED. This society will grow wealthy because it is a great combination of wealthy European nations like Germany (high levels of worker protection) and successful "patriotic" South American nations like Argentina (very restricted imports, support for "manufacturing base"). In fact this new Juche-U.S. should be able to quickly overtake the "real" United States because it will be able to clothe itself; i.e. change the dangerous trap the U.S. has fallen into of being unable to manufacture decent clothing and losing its lead in this key sector to manipulative thieves such as Vietnam who try to steal U.S. market share while hoarding the gold that the U.S. sends in return.
Posted by: Sean | Dec 12, 2006 10:33:26 PM
how about the retort... "Well certainly not the people who watch your show. They wish a trade barrier would have been erected in their living room so they wouldn't have had to listen to your drivel."
Posted by: Taggert J. Brooks | Dec 12, 2006 11:25:20 PM
If you asked Dobbs whether he'd heard of Ricardo he'd probably reply that he hadn't seen I Love Lucy in years.
Posted by: David Gillies | Dec 13, 2006 12:22:20 PM
Tim:
If neither of you are going to eat your apple or cheese, may I have them? I'm hungry.
Oh, maybe I'll sell tickets to you and your friend's grudge match and split the difference between you guys.
James
Posted by: James Pyrich | Dec 13, 2006 7:49:14 PM
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