http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/21/AR2008122102171.html?hpid=topnews

In hard times, analysts say, nations are more inclined to take steps that inhibit trade, often with dire consequences. Trade restrictions imposed by countries trying to protect domestic industries in the 1930s, for instance, escalated into a global trade war that deepened and prolonged the Great Depression.

Count on politicans to due the wrong thing.