Quotation of the Day…

Tweet

… is from the May 1930 letter, signed by 1,028 economists, sent to Washington, DC, to plead against enactment of the Smoot-Hawley tariff:

We are convinced that increased protective duties would be a mistake. They would operate, in general, to increase the prices which domestic consumers would have to pay. By raising prices they would encourage concerns with higher costs to undertake production, thus compelling the consumer to subsidize waste and inefficiency in industry. At the same time they would force him to pay higher rates of profit to established firms which enjoyed lower production costs.