Many people -- including a lot of economists -- inhabit an echo chamber where "globalization=good, protectionism=bad" is a sacred dogma. But the investor's inv

Many people -- including a lot of economists -- inhabit an echo chamber where "globalization=good, protectionism=bad" is a sacred dogma. But the investor's investor, Warren Buffett, has said that tariffs would be good for the US [1] [2]. Protectionism/mercantilism works, but what we have is a half-and-half system: Goods, services, and capital can move relatively freely through US borders, but labor cannot. Throwing open our borders to trade -- Nixon's visit to China, NAFTA -- resulted in real US wages that have been stagnant for decades. I.e., in many jobs, our workers are still competing against overseas workers, without those workers physically moving to the US. Those third-world workers don't have to worry about all the silly laws we have regarding minimum wages, limited workweeks, child labor, environmental protection, workplace safety, etc. If we want to keep those policies, and still have good jobs available to our citizens, we have to ditch free trade. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_Certificates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_Certificates [2] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/11/10/352872/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/...