This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 24, 2004.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Tariffs and other protectionist measures are easy to display on charts and estimate mathematically,

but it's harder to see the real world consequences for people and the businesses they own.

Cato's Paul Best tells a story in our Free Society magazine

about the substantial costs imposed on the very businesses tariffs were

supposed to help. When we talk about trade and the economics of trade, the consequences of trade, the

consequences of trade policy, the incidents of tariffs versus who actually technically pays the tariff.

It can all be a little high-minded and we can talk about numbers and charts all day,

but to the extent that there are actual

human beings with companies that have to deal with protectionism in some way. Well, it's extremely valuable for, you know, the 90% of Americans

who aren't looking at charts all day like we do at the Cato Institute.

So you have detailed a story in Free Society magazine

that I think has a lot to offer.

Can you talk about this company

and their background to start?

Sure. Well, let me start off by saying that, you know, the problem with messaging around

tariffs and the tariff conversation in general is that the policy has dispersed cost.

So everyone is a little bit poorer.

Everyone's a little bit worse off from consumers to businesses.

But then there's concentrated benefits.

So the officials who put these policies in place

...