It's not been a mystery at all for about 200 years, that might be why. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776: "If a foreign country can supply us with a comm

It's not been a mystery at all for about 200 years, that might be why. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776: "If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished ... but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage