QuoteProject
Tariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than are saved.
Thomas Sowell
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Protecting jobs through tariffs can inadvertently harm the economy by raising prices and reducing sales.

This quote by Thomas Sowell illustrates the unintended consequences of implementing tariffs intended to protect jobs in the steel industry. While the goal is to save certain jobs, the reality is that higher prices for steel can lead to reduced competitiveness in global markets, resulting in fewer sales and potentially more job losses overall. It emphasizes the complexity of economic policies and highlights the importance of considering their broader impacts.

Themes

TariffsJobsSteel IndustryEconomyPrices

In practice

Example use cases

A speaker at an economic conference discussing the implications of tariffs on global trade.

More from Thomas Sowell

Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens.
Thomas SowellRead
Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.
Thomas SowellRead
One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When they do something that makes no sense, devious reasons are imagined by conspiracy theorists, when in fact it may be due to plain old ignorance and incompetence.
Thomas SowellRead
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
Thomas SowellRead
The real problem, both in discussions of mass shootings and in discussions of gun control, is that too many people are too committed to a vision to allow mere facts to interfere with their beliefs, and the sense of superiority that those beliefs give them.
Thomas SowellRead
Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today's half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again - and have repeatedly led to disaster. Most of these ideas are not new. They are just being recycled with re-treaded rhetoric.
Thomas SowellRead

Similar quotes

The societies which have achieved the most spectacular broad-based economic progress in the shortest period of time are not the most tightly controlled, not necessarily the biggest in size, or the wealthiest in natural resources. No, what unites them all is their willingness to believe in the magic of the marketplace.
Ronald ReaganRead
The strongest argument for free enterprise is that it prevents anybody from having too much power. Whether that person is a government official, a trade union official, or a business executive. If forces them to put up or shut up. They either have to deliver the goods, produce something that people are willing to pay for, are willing to buy, or else they have to go into a different business.
Milton FriedmanRead
If the practice persists of covering government deficits with the issue of notes, then the day will come without fail, sooner or later, when the monetary systems of those nations pursuing this course will break down completely. The purchasing power of the monetary unit will decline more and more, until finally it disappears completely.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
I'm an entrepreneur trying to let the American people know that it's not immigrants that are causing economic problems, it is the fact that our economy is advancing in ways that is making human labor less and less essential.
Andrew YangRead
The laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them ... It is not so with the Distribution of Wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely. The things once there, mankind, individually or collectively, can do with them as they like.
John Stuart MillRead
A clear lesson of history is that a 'sine qua non' for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system.
Janet YellenRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Thomas Sowell | QuoteProject