The other day a gentleman made a comment that I was not able to refute although I knew it to be wrong.
He said he tried to only buy American. I tried to engage him in a discussion that not only was it unamerican, it was unhealthy for the economy. I failed miserably.
When arguing an emotional topic, there is need to have even more emotional laden proof. It took only three clicks to find my answer.
Turns out, it is quite a depressing economic controversy.
You see, the great depression was felt to be caused by five different factors.
One was a tariff (Smoot-Hawley Tariff) designed to keep American money in America. Only problem, everyone else retaliated and started doing the same.
Guess what? The Great Depression was not all that the narrow minded thinking resulted in. An even greater catastrophe. The world wide tariff war that helped fuel the depression was one of the causes of the rise of extremism in Germany leading to World War II.
Thinking keeping jobs here will keep the money here may not only be narrow minded. It may lead to even worse problems. It may in the end be bad for the economy.
How would I argue it if given an opportunity?
Why do you feel that way would be the first question? The answer would be something like keeping the money and jobs here.
Then I would ask if there was any historical data that he based his thinking on, any proof that it would be a good idea to do this?
Then I would express agreement that his thinking was inline with 98% of the population and most economist.
Of course, these are the same economist that got us in the mess were in now. These are the same economist that were taught by the economist that were children of the economist that lived through the great depression.
Funny but history shows that those economist said the same thing. The only problem, those economist are considered partly responsible for the great depression and the resulting world wide depression and the rise of Nazi Germany which took the lives of numerous Americans, including my Grandpa who I never got to know.
He died in Anzio.
So, I do not know but it seems like this kind of thinking only leads to others thinking the same way which results in more people suffering.
I would choose to try to make things better rather than making things worse.
What do you think?
Speak Well and Prosper.
