What Cayley Knows Nearly every economist in America is appalled by Pat Buchanan's revival of protectionism. So is my daughter Cayley. The difference is that, unlike the economists, Cayley is appalled for the right reasons.
Economists know that trade is the engine of prosperity.
Those are the arguments I make in my college classroom. My favorite teaching tool is a fable based on a tale told by Professor James Ingram of North Carolina State University. It's the tale of a brilliant entrepreneur who invented a new technology for turning grain into cars. The entrepreneur built a factory by the sea, surrounded its inner workings with secrecy, and commenced production. Consumers were thrilled to learn that the new cars were better and cheaper than anything Detroit had to offer.