Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from pages 55-56 of Jagdish Bhagwati’s 2002 book, Free Trade Today (original emphasis):

And so in the United States far too many politicians today have turned into an unfair-trade-obsessed, cynically manipulative lot. Broadly, with a few shining exceptions – such as the former senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan among the Democrats and Senator Phil Gramm, a former professor of economics, among the Republicans – they divide into two groups: the less disagreeable ones whose slogan is “free and fair trade,” and the more disagreeable ones who insist on “fair trade before free trade.”

DBx: Count on it: Whenever pundits or politicians use the term “fair trade” as if this term refers to something meaningful (beyond trade that is mutually agreeable to the individuals who spend their own money and resources trading), these pundits or politicians are either ignorant or disingenuous (or both).