Important sentences

Agreed with Charlie. that Rio Grande region counts for a lot.

It doesn’t matter what numbers we’re talking about. The sentence is totally irrelevant. A clear example of nonsense economics. Please Tyler tell us why it may matter to whom the local store is selling its merchandise; why it may matter to whom US exports her production. This is neither the economics I learnt in the past 50 years, nor the one Adam Smith wrote more than two centuries ago. I hope Don Boudreaux talks to you.

If you want interesting numbers I have one. Number of aftershocks in Chile today: so far we have had 11. Two before the inauguration of the new president, one during the inauguration, and the others in the past few hours.

“It doesn’t matter what numbers we’re talking about. The sentence is totally irrelevant.”

Maybe if you’re viewing the world through a tube.

U.S. withdrawal from Latin America would be myopic and counterproductive. U.S.-Latin American country relationships, for all their occasional drama, require less and give back more than most bilateral ties that Washington has. The Americas’ economies are tightly intertwined, to the benefit of all sides.

Queue important sentence.

Most voters think they have more in common with Europe than with Latin America, and they are probably right. But it is a mistake to conclude, as many or most Americans do, that the US should therefore associate with Latin America less. Today it is safe for demagogic legislators — aided by the ignorance of the electorate — to call for rescinding NAFTA or forgoing liberalized trade with more Latin Americans.

If more citizens knew the important sentence, it would be much less safe.

You don’t need to study Econ 101 to change opinion polls that are hostile to NAFTA. School kids can be taught the basic insights provided by Adam Smith and subsequent on-message multidisciplinary social scientists in ear-pricking ways. Explain to them how NAFTA can help Mexicans — expanded commerce (what good that brings in unsalted bread and butter terms), the domestic legal multiplier effect of cross-national legal rules required under the Treaty, knock-on requirements for more honest and efficient public administration, political demonstration effects, not to mention environmental requirements, friendship, niceness, morality, etc. Then explain how it helps North Americans — peace and security, friendship and a good feeling, trade and investment profit opportunities, cleaner hemispheric air, etc etc. Because the point is mutual gains from trade. Try explaining this with graphs and calculus and many kids will just tune out. When they graduate they will be easy prey for union ideologues and democrat populists. This commonsense about trade should start at school. Question is — how many teachers are not already conditioned to be hostile to capitalism and therefore psychologically unable to deliver the message.

BTW it’s important to have sorted out those comparative trade numbers (above). So Foreign Policy magazine was right after all?

“Explain to them how NAFTA can help Mexicans — expanded commerce (what good that brings in unsalted bread and butter terms), the domestic legal multiplier effect of cross-national legal rules required under the Treaty, knock-on requirements for more honest and efficient public administration…”

I’m no economist, but have a graduate degree and can understand most of what I read here…but that short quote contains terms I’ve never heard of. Do you really know any school kids who’d understand a lecture about unsalted bread (presumably of the metaphorical variety) and knock-on requirements?