Benjamin Franklin's words resonate today: "To lay duties on a commodity exported which our friends want is a knavish attempt to get something for nothing. The statesman who first invented it had the genius of a pickpocket. Most of the statutes, acts, edicts, and placards of parliaments, princes and states, for regulating, directing, and restraining of trade have either political blunders or jobs obtained by artful men for private advantage under the pretence of public good. In general the more free and unrestrained commerce is, the more it flourishes. No nation was ever ruined by trade."