Quotation of the Day…

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… if from pages 343-344 of Alfred Marshall‘s August 25th, 1903, Appendix to his 1903 study “The Fiscal Problem” as this document appears in Official Papers of Alfred Marshall: A Supplement, Peter Groenewegen, ed. (1996):

On the subject of imports and exports there is a common belief that a nation profits by exporting, and loses by importing goods. This belief is surely the result of a confusion of thought, which could scarcely have arisen, were it not the case that the use of money tends to obscure the real course of commercial transactions. The individual trader is accustomed to regard his bargain as completed when he has received money in exchange for his goods, and to estimate his profit according to the money so received. He is justified in doing that, only because the possession of the money enables him to command other goods or services which he may desire. His bargain is not really complete until the money has been further exchanged for these commodities, and it is in the shape of these commodities that he finally receives the equivalence of the goods which he has sold and his profit on the transaction as well.

Exactly the same is true of international trade.