Trade quotebook

1. "Some countries are so poor that they don't have a comparative advantage in anything."
       Anonymous professor, 1986.

2. "To those of you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, hire young -- let's assume you've been in business for a long time and you've got a mature work force -- pay a dollar an hour for your labor, have no health care -- that's the most expensive single element in making a car -- have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south."
       Ross Perot, Presidential debate, Oct. 15, 1992.
       (Henry Ross Perot (born June 27, 1930) is an American businessman billionaire from Texas best known as a candidate for President of the United States (in 1992 and 1996). Perot founded Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 1962. He later left the company, and, in 1988, founded Perot Systems Corporation which delivers technology-based business solutions to help organizations worldwide control costs, drive revenue, and cultivate growth.)

3. Peter Angelos, trial lawyer and owner of the Baltimore Orioles: "His credo is always 'to buy American.' When bestselling author Tom Clancy, an Orioles investor, bought a Mercedes-Benz, Angelos called it 'a German piece of s---.' Clancy has since purchased a Cadillac, the same brand Angelos owns (his wife drives a Lincoln). It is every American's responsibility, Angelos says, 'to buy American, even if it's inferior to a foreign product. You have to support your fellow Americans.'"
       Los Angeles Times Magazine, Feb.26, 1995.

4. "China can manufacture anything cheaper than any other nation."
       Chalmers Johnson. "Economic fanaticism is bad for Seoul." Los Angeles Times, Jan. 27, 2002.
       (Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, has written numerous books on Japan and Asia, including MITI and the Japanese Miracle and Japan: Who Governs?)

5. "American factories are closing because they can't compete with cheap foreign labor. No manufacturer wants to pay workers our guaranteed wage of $7.45 an hour when they can have people in third world countries doing the work for $2 a day." (Frank DePaulo, owner of Fernbrook, a conglomerate of twelve textile factories.)
       Pattie Mihaulik. "Hanging by a thread." Times News, Dec. 13, 2002.

6. "Forcing our middle class to compete with cheap foreign labor will result in systemic job loss..."
       Lou Dobbs. Optimize, September 1, 2004
       (Lou Dobbs is the anchor and managing editor of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight. Dobbs also anchors a nationally syndicated financial news radio report, The Lou Dobbs Financial Report, and is a columnist for Money magazine and U.S. News and World Report.)

7. "No single economic stimulus initiative would do more in the short and long term to resuscitate U.S. employment ... than a fair 'buy American' program."
       Leo Hindery Jr., Leo W. Gerard and Donald Riegle. "'Buy American' -- why not?" Los Angeles Times, September 1, 2009.