That sounds like one of those questions that the press throws at Rumsfeld during Pentagon press briefings. To which Rumsfeld always answers, "That is unknowable."
You don't have those statistics either, because nobody does. It would be impossible to ever figure out. The best anyone can do, which is what Sowell does, is to state conditions before and after NAFTA was passed. To go through every hiring and firing decision made in the last N years, determining for each one whether it was motivated or caused in some way by NAFTA, is an exercise in futility. You would literally have to be God to do that task, because you have to actually know about all the hiring and firing decisions that went on (which no one does), plus be able to read minds and follow chains of indirection that might go through 50 firms before a relation to NAFTA could be found.
Asking for data that is impossible to acquire is a cheap rhetorical trick, and nothing else.
Then we have the known unknowns.
Perhaps the trade surplus growth with Mexico before and after NAFTA would be a good indcator? I would think Sowell would be gleefully offering that as an indication his is right.
Asking for data that is impossible to acquire is a cheap rhetorical trick, and nothing else.
Not at all. It is asking that what is being stated in a manner implying it is a fact be shown that it is indeed fact, not just conjecture or opinion on the part of the author. If what he is claiming in this article is truth, the data would have to be available. Would you let an author of the opposite opinion get away with stating that opinion as fact without in some manner supporting it?