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In April – when June Arunga, Johan Norberg, Tom Palmer, and I took on Lou Dobbs’s protectionist follies on Stossel - Dobbs called me “an idiot.” Here’s the back-stage conversation that prompted Mr. Dobbs’s harsh assessment of my mental faculties:
LOU DOBBS (introducing himself to me): “Hi. Lou Dobbs. Nice to meet you.”
DON BOUDREAUX (shaking Dobbs’s hand): “Hi. Don Boudreaux. Nice to meet you.”
LD: “So, we’re here to debate the merits of free trade. But who opposes free trade?”
DB (a bit taken aback): “Well, you do.”
LD: “What makes you say that?”
DB: “I read your book.”
LD (very loudly, so that everyone in the backstage green room heard him): “You’re an idiot!”
Dobbs went on to deny, both on air and back stage, that he’s a protectionist. He denied being a protectionist also during his recent debate with Tom Palmer on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch. And he denies being a protectionist in his 2004 book Exporting America (which I reviewed here).
You judge. Below are some quotations from Dobb’s Exporting America; italicized passages indicate my own added emphases:
Page 38: “I am neither a free trader nor a protectionist.”
p. 50 “The central question is this: Should American workers be forced to compete for their jobs – providing goods and services to the American market – with workers in countries like India and China who make a fraction of U.S. wages? I believe the answer is ‘absolutely not.’”
p. 51: “I’d certainly prefer that our government look to the risks of one-sided ‘free trade’ agreements that have resulted in a flood of imports into the United States…..
“Fifteen years ago Congress mandated economic as well as environmental impact statements on domestic policies but failed to extend the requirement for such research into foreign policy and international trade. In my opinion, Congress should do so, and soon.”
p. 55: Dobbs ask rhetorically: “Or is it in our national interest not to spend those hundreds of billions of dollars on imports, but rather to preserve our national manufacturing base – even expand it – and create more jobs at home? These are questions that should be addressed in a national dialogue.”
Chapter 5 (starting on page 64) is entitled “The High Cost of Free Trade”
pp. 65-66 (in chapter 5): “…we have failed to create and conduct trade policies that serve our national interest. In fact, we’ve been downright timid. President Bush’s reversal of his decision to place tariffs on imported steel is illustrative of the confused thinking not only in his administration but in all of Washington.”
PP. 68-69: Dobbs praises the Reagan administrations “voluntary restraint agreement” that limited Japanese auto imports – and Dobbs himself understands, and applauds the fact, that this quota wasn’t really voluntary.
p. 77: “At the very least, we need to begin to pursue a national policy of balanced trade.”
p. 102: “A number of people on Capitol Hill thought [former Council of Economic advisor Greg] Mankiw should have resigned [over Mankiw's remarks that off-shoring is not bad for the U.S. economy], but I disagreed. On my broadcast that night, I called on the president to fire him. Not merely because I disagreed with him, but because Mankiw’s statement raised the administration’s support of overseas outsourcing to a declaration by government policy.”
pp. 108-109: “The real alternative to what we continue to permit Washington and Corporate America to call ‘free trade’ is balanced trade, in which we negotiate trade agreements that are reciprocal in benefit – unlike the World Trade Organization or trade agreements like NAFTA.”
pp. 117-118: Dobbs explicitly calls for a “moratorium on outsourcing.”
pp. 139-140: “Our lack of self-reliance and inability to produce our own goods is seen by most economists as simply a global economy at work, but our growing dependency on the rest of the world for commodities and finished goods alike is, in my opinion, reason for considerable concern, if not alarm.”
p. 150: “While we pursue free trade, our status as the world’s largest debtor nation worsens. Even if the result is more profits for multinational corporations, do we truly believe that exporting those jobs will lead to a better life in this country, for our workers? Even if we are buying more and cheaper goods from our trading partners, do we really believe that our quality of life is better and that we should sustain permanent dependency and indebtedness? Or will outsourcing and free trade lead to further, wider gaps between the wealthy and our middle class? Should we simply hope that Corporate America will find a social conscience and voluntarily restrain its outsourcing to a minimum? Should we continue to permit the exportation of our knowledge base, technology, and capital to other countries to provide the products and services for export back to America? Or should we rely on public policy, regulation, tariffs, and quotas to protect our standard of living?”
p. 153: Dobbs calls for “A strong position on the importance of balanced trade, on reducing our national dependency not only on oil but on nearly all imports….”
p. 155: Dobbs calls for “the creation of a comprehensive trade strategy….”
pp. 155-156: “I believe that Congress must act now. Corporate America will not end outsourcing on its own; it is driven to cut costs and boost short-term profits, and it will continue to claim that even if it ends the practice of outsourcing, its competitors will continue to outsource. They’re probably right about that. So let’s level the playing field. Congress and all state governments should immediately prohibit the outsourcing of government contracts and American jobs to cheap foreign labor.”
…..
To paraphrase the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Lou Dobbs is entitled to his own opinions, but not to his own definitions of familiar terms such as ‘protectionist.’
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Mathieu Bédard Thank you Don for exposing Dobbs' demagoguery.What is most important to me is that even if it were true that we were under "managed trade" and not free-trade, as Dobbs like to repeat over and over again, the benefits of trade still apply. That is, the benefits of free trade are totally independent from what is going on on the other side, may it be subsidies, protectionism, etc. In any case, "managed trade" would be a terrible name for a system where our correspondent nations' exportations are "subsidized" (to our benefit!). Commerce is still decentralized and the result of millions of micro transactions contrarily to what the term "managed" suggest. It is so complex a phenomenon that no one would even think of managing it. Richard Stands They took our jobs!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLni3wbndls mandeville Dobbs has been denying things he said about Mexicans too. However, I might give Dobbs some wiggle room. Privately, he may not be a protectionist. Back on CNN, his ratings went sky high when he started to talk about exporting jobs, etc. I think he ran full speed with it and now thinks he can get elected and is backing off some of his extremist positions. Basically, he only believes in his own power, and little else.A few years ago I dubbed his thinking as "Dobbs Syndrome"----- a mental deficiency that prohibits the use of chain link reasoning to learn economic cause and effect.Pat Buchanon isn't much different. Sam Grove Unfortunately for Mr. Dobbs, we can tell who is the idiot. MyDailyRoast Wow, if Lou Dobbs called me an "idiot," I would probably feel pretty good about myself. Bravo! vidyohs Lou Dobbs, Keith Obermann, Larry King, Chris Matthews, is there a penny's worth of difference between them? Which one has the greater grasp on the reality of the business/labor world?Which one has ever taken an idea, formed a plan, organized a model, secured the physical means, and opened the doors on an actual business; and then, with that as a starting point, went out and cold called and made sales? Then hired employees, trained those employees, supervised those employees, and made the payroll for those employees. Finally, dealt with all the regulations smothering what your business is doing and controlling how you make and sell your product.Business necessarily means work.Work does not necessarily mean business.So many people seem to be so ignorant of that little fact. ArrowSmith Why do libertarians hate the American worker? S_M_V Why does the left hate the American consumer? thedirtymac Why did socialists kill 150,000,000 people? Tkwelge I watched that episode of Stossel. Dobbs made me want to throw a chair at the TV, because he wouldn't say anything definitive. He just kept playing defense without suggesting ANYTHING whatsoever. I laughed when one person from the audience asked, "Mr. Dobbs, can we get you on record advocating any specific policy at all?" Dobbs is really more of an old school news anchor. He prefers the non debate debate. He just wants to make emotional statements while protected from criticism and he only puts real policy suggestions in his books. He then pretends that you are taking him out of context if you mention something he wrote in his books. MWG I think I saw the same episode. He refused to admit to being a protectionist, but in the same breath would say we shouldn't have to compete with Chinese slave labor, but then would refuse to offer any steps the govt. should take to curb such "unfair" trade.You would think being trained at Harvard in economics he would be able to come up with a coherent argument and some policy ideas based on data/facts (or at least his interpretation thereof). Hell, even Paul Krugman can do that. danielkuehn You hit the nail on the head.It's actually why I haven't been sure if he's really a protectionist or if he just makes emotional pleas about workers. But many of the things Don pulled out were pretty specific. danielkuehn These are really good quotes Don. It's impressive you were able to stomach the book. I've never had any inclination to read it - but whenever I've seen him on TV he was way too vague for me to actually put my finger on what he thinks on these issues.He would make reference to environmental and labor standards, and currnecy manipulation, etc. - and he would talk about how we have a tough time competing with cheap labor. He gets a little too sentimental about manufacturing, but he makes fine (if bland) points about keeping our competitive edge. And of course he points out how some trade devastates certain industries and regions. To me, none of that is really protectionist - some of it is fallacious, some of it isn't - but it's mostly just vague.Here, though, he sounds pretty clear about tariffs, quotas, etc. I never knew what to think about Dobbs before (mostly because I never cared enough to check it out in more detail) - he always seemed so wishy-washy. But this is pretty unequivocal stuff you quote. NoodleBake Dobbs is the devil. He is human excrement. Dewindj Love it. speedmaster Dobbs constantly contradicts himself and clearly doesn't understand the basic fundamental issues. Carl The EconGuy Seems to me a silly debate about the definitions of terms. To DB, a free trader is one who believes that no restrictions on free trade can ever be efficient. But LD is (I guess) what I'd call a "balancer." He's all for free trade if it leads to balance in trade, i.e., X-M=0. He does not like that balance to be negative, because he thinks that this leads to dependence on foreign capital, esp. when that capital is only used to fund current govt expenditures. He forgets that capital is fungible, so no matter where the foreign capital is invested, it contributes to US capital formation. LD probably also believes that a structural budget deficit is corrosive -- a position for which there is no real empirical evidence. So, he's a balancer. He's for free trade, except when he's not, which is when he thinks it feeds a bloated govt. But a nation can live and grow with capital imports and negative trade balance for long, long periods of tim, much to the irritation of a simple balancer who thinks in simple nationalistic terms. I would not take LD seriously on any of these issues, he's a motormouth without professional standing. Can't see why it's even worth debating him on these elementary fallacies. johndewey carl,I appreciate and agree with everything you wrote after the first sentence. I do not agree that debates about definition of terms are silly. If we allow tyrants and demagogues to redefine our language to suit their political purposes, I fear we risk the erosion of our freedom. Our laws are written using words which have specific meanings. We do not want those meanings to be alterable to suit the needs of one party or interest group.Rumors are that Lou Dobbs would consider runniing for president as a third party candidate in 2012. He doesn't have a chance of being elected. But there are enough ignorant people who vote that Dobbs could be a spoiler just as Perot was in 1992. We need to expose the demagoguery of Dobbs every chance we can. speedmaster Well-done! Do you have a link to the video of the original exchange? I'd love to watch it. Don Boudreaux I looked for a link to a video of the April Stossel show, but I can't find one. Thanks. speedmaster Dr. B, I found it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtZ5bLTtvLoI'm actually embarrassed /for/ the guy. MWG Prof. Boudreaux, I wish you would show a little more disdain for the people you debate with. Seeing this debate and recalling the one you had with the female union rep (I can't remember her name...) I can see you are, no doubt, a gentlemen, but I believe these enemies of freedom deserve to be kicked when they're down... but that's just me. ; ) blog comments powered by Disqus var disqus_url = 'http://cafehayek.com/2010/08/lou-dobbs-protectionist.html '; var disqus_container_id = 'disqus_thread'; var facebookXdReceiverPath = 'http://cafehayek.com/site/wp-content/plugins/disqus-comment-system/xd_receiver.htm'; var DsqLocal = { 'trackbacks': [ ], 'trackback_url': 'http://cafehayek.com/2010/08/lou-dobbs-protectionist.html/trackback' }; (function() { var dsq = document.createElement('script'); dsq.type = 'text/javascript'; dsq.async = true; dsq.src = "http://cafehayek.disqus.com/disqus.js?v=2.0&slug=lou_dobbs_protectionist&pname=wordpress&pver=2.33"; (document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0] || document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0]).appendChild(dsq); })();Previous post: Deficient Economics
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