Economics Quotes - page 34

It was Adam Smith, the father of free-market economics, who once said, "They who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.” And for those of you who don't speak old-English let me translate. It means if you work hard, you should make a decent living. If you work hard, you should be able to support a family. (Barack Obama)
The idea of comparative advantage works when there is a complex local economy intact in the background of each trading partner's specialized item of production, with a variety of social roles and occupational niches to support the long-term project of community. But a locality geared to doing only one thing for export is... a slave system based on the extractive economics of mining. [...] One group had all the cheap labor, and another group had all the capital, and for a while, one group made all the things that the other group "consumed.” Thus, comparative advantage became, for a time, a con game strictly for the benefit of large corporations, which ended up enjoying all the advantages while the localities sucked up the costs. View quote
James Howard Kunstler