Imports are a Good Thing

A very clear-headed post on the Marmot's Hole explains in down-to-earth fashion what every sensible economist will state in the face of usually incredulous audiences: that imports are a positive, not a negative, and in fact paying for them is the entire reason for exporting goods and services to begin with. Mercantilist politicians and bureaucrats who fail to grasp this and fetishize trade surpluses are harming their own citizens above all, and we can see this very clearly in the nosebleed prices Korean and Japanese consumers pay for beef, despite being relatively close to an ultra-low-cost, high quality producer like Australia.

Generally speaking, the single most positive step any political regime in the OECD could take for its citizenry would be to declare unilateral free trade rather than wait for bilateral treaties which proceed on the assumption that one is making "sacrifices" by conceding better terms for one's own domestic consumers, but the average voter is so easily fooled by the nationalistic rhetoric of parasitical special interest groups that most will readily swallow the line that "we" are being robbed by getting access to cheaper goods and services, which is one amongst the many reasons why I despise nationalism.