Charles McMillion makes a point.
...Over the past 30 years of lobbying by the financial sector in
Washington and support by naive academics for "free" trade, the normal,
small U.S. trade surplus in goods and services has turned into an
unbroken torrent of 30 consecutive annual deficits that now total an
astounding $9 trillion of which $7.7 trillion is for manufactured goods.
As Detroit demonstrates, production, businesses and jobs lost to
imports are not merely "displaced" and automatically moved to other,
more productive and higher-wage uses -- as many economic theorists still
claim. In fact, the Labor Department has tracked workers displaced by
cutbacks and closings since 1979 and most such workers -- especially in
manufacturing -- are either permanently forced out of the paid labor
force or eventually forced to take sharp cuts in pay, benefits and
hours.
The cuts in compensation for displaced workers reflect the drive
to less productive jobs and businesses that are protected from import
competition in industries such as health care, education, entertainment,
tourism, retail sales and now many levels of "homeland" security. Over
the past 30 years of worsening trade losses, all of the net new jobs in
the United States are in services. Most all of these jobs have been
immune to outsourcing or imports -- although this, too, is changing
quickly.
THAT is not what makes Krugman and his fellow-traveler pointy-headed academics stupid, although it's a big part.
HERE is what makes him a Stupid:
...Detroit is ridiculed for not adequately adapting to the low-wage
global and subsidized "market," with New York Times columnist Paul
Krugman literally raising the cliche of "buggy whips," blithely urging
Detroit to find a new competitive advantage. (Who wants to buy autos
today?)
Like others, Krugman is silent about any new industries, jobs or
businesses that could provide good salaries to hundreds of thousands of
people in Detroit and millions elsewhere in the country who have been
displaced by surging imports.
Krugman and the rest of the Theoretical Class (read: rulers-with-Ph.D.) haven't a clue as to what will "replace" the jobs now vanished from the auto industry.
Not. A. Clue. Nonetheless, they pontificate.
Here's Geg Mankiw completely flaying Krugman's Detroit argument:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/mwrfrev
I see that Capper's Crowd of ignorant sluts is still active.
ReplyDeleteAnd that the syphilis has affected their brain, as is usually the case.
Comment removed....
This is just what I've been saying for a while now -- not about Krugman, whom I ignore, but about the problem of the economy. If there's going to be widespread prosperity of the kind industrial society got us, we need some analog that creates not just a producer but a consumer class.
ReplyDeleteI think I do know what the future looks like: I think it looks like biotech. But the people who will have the greatest demand for biotechnology are going to be those with the least capacity to obtain new income, or to take new jobs of the sort the industry will create. (I.e., the elderly, followed by seniors generally, followed by the middle-aged.)
So we can't expect the job to be the source of income for biotech-consumption, but we need those with the greatest demand to be able to actualize that demand by having ready access to the resources for consumption. That's what will continue to drive new investment and expansion in the biotech industries.
It's a solvable problem, but not on the current model.
Christian values at 11:16 a.m. on display, eh, Dad29?
ReplyDeleteAnd nice Christian values you let on this board, Dad29. Links to gay porn?
ReplyDeleteWhat a terrible Christian you are, Dad29.
Yet the, would be, Dad found links to the Guardian offensive enough to delete.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble with legacies is that they seldom have the talent of their forefathers.