FOREIGN TRADE: The Cost of Not Importing

In no other field except politics do Americans talk such "pure jabberwocky" as in discussions on international trade. So said Vergil D. Reed, vice president of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, before 400 businessmen at the 23rd annual Boston Conference on Distribution this week. The jabberwocky, said Reed, was a hangover from the pre-1914 days when the U.S. was a big debtor nation and had to strive for "a favorable balance of trade." As a result, said Reed, most Americans still "believe profoundly that exporting is desirable, that exporters are gentlemen, scholars and benefactors of the human race, that...

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