Socking it to us

The Bush administration has decided to consider a request from the domestic sock industry to impose quotas on imports of Chinese-made socks and will make a final decision on the matter just before the November presidential election, the Commerce Department said Wednesday…

“Urgent, significant action is needed immediately to save the domestic sock industry, the most competitive sector remaining of the once flourishing U.S. domestic apparel manufacturing industry,” wrote Charles Cole, chairman of the Domestic Manufacturers Committee of the Hosiery Association, and three other industry executives…

Cole, of the Domestic Manufacturers Committee, owns Alabama Footware in Ft. Payne, Ala.

From a CBS MarketWatch story. The administration has already imposed quotas on bras from China, despite the fact that there is no domestic bra industry to protect.

China is selling us a lot of socks (22 million pair in 2003 up from just 1 million pair a few years ago) for which I am grateful. I find that they go great with shoes from china.

Thanks to Marc Andreessen for the pointer.