Lessons Learned

Coming into this class I may have had some preformed opinions on international trade, mainly that cheap Chinese goods were going to hurt our economy. However in having Professor Bang for principles i knew i couldn't come into class and blindly argue from this perspective. Keeping as open a mind as possible in this class led me to some completely reversed thinking on several issues. The first of these issues that comes to mind is that overall, countries cannot me made worse off from trade from the Ricardian Model. This theory and others like it that we learned in the class led me to think of the economy in a more global sense. A single country can be as efficient as possible within their own borders but in the global economy we have today, that country will still be negatively impacted by the inefficiency of the other countries. My point is, is that I now look at the global economy and the need for efficiency amongst all countries of the world. How do we make this global economy as efficient as possible? I don't know but i do know/think now that we need to be mindful of the efficiency of the gobal economy and not just individual countries, or individual groups in those countries. I think one point in the class where i realized i needed to re-evaluate my stance occured when I realized I was agreeing with the unions in that we should restrict "cheaper" imports to save American jobs, well unfortunately for them, losing their jobs may be best for global efficiency.
Another valuable lesson I learned this semester was not to jump to conclusions but to realize every effect has a magnifying effect, meaning a change in one thing will cause changes in other things, even if those other things are seemingly unrelated; but its important to slow down and really think things through.