Economic Appreciation 101

"I think we really need to appreciate what we have in the U.S. economy. That we benefit greatly from openness and competition. Our economy is by far the world's strongest. Because it's built on openness … to people of all nationalities, new ideas, investment, openness to competition, and it's a model that others try to emulate. And if you're sitting here in this country, you don't see it like you do when you're traveling around, and when I traveled around the world and everywhere I went, where people would welcome me, they welcomed me because they wanted to know about economic best practices. They wanted to know how we did things in the U.S., often, and how it would be applicable to particularly the developing world. And so we need to cherish what we have, we need to strive to keep it this way, and I think it's our proven record of success that lets us advocate free trade, open markets, here in the United States and around the world."

~Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson