Posted on 01/16/2008 4:01:09 AM PST by LowCountryJoe
Rochester
IN the days before Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary in Michigan, Mitt Romney and John McCain battled over what the government owes to workers who lose their jobs because of the foreign competition unleashed by free trade. Their rhetoric differed — Mr. Romney said he would “fight for every single job,” while Mr. McCain said some jobs “are not coming back” — but their proposed policies were remarkably similar: educate and retrain the workers for new jobs.
All economists know that when American jobs are outsourced, Americans as a group are net winners. What we lose through lower wages is more than offset by what we gain through lower prices. In other words, the winners can more than afford to compensate the losers. Does that mean they ought to? Does it create a moral mandate for the taxpayer-subsidized retraining programs proposed by Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney?
Um, no. Even if you’ve just lost your job, there’s something fundamentally churlish about blaming the very phenomenon that’s elevated you above the subsistence level since the day you were born. If the world owes you compensation for enduring the downside of trade, what do you owe the world for enjoying the upside?
[Snip]
One way to think about that is to ask what your moral instincts tell you in analogous situations. Suppose, after years of buying shampoo at your local pharmacy, you discover you can order the same shampoo for less money on the Web. Do you have an obligation to compensate your pharmacist? If you move to a cheaper apartment, should you compensate your landlord? When you eat at McDonald’s, should you compensate the owners of the diner next door? Public policy should not be designed to advance moral instincts that we all reject every day of our lives.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Late to the thread...
Deep thought for the day:
“Intellectually superior Alphas are the top-dogs. Servile, purposely brain-damaged Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons toil away at the bottom.”
You got that right!
You need to be careful. Milton Friedman probably had tenure, probably so did Dick Armey. These threads are always littered with people questioning the motives of this person or that person (”he works for a company that has operations in China” ring a bell?). They are textbook ad hominem attacks. Don’t fall into that tarpit.
Strength through total unemployment!
Aside from self-esteem issues, if you could get everything you wanted and needed for minimal costs, how much work would you pursue? My guess is, is that unless you view work as fun and more satisfactory than leisure, you would prefer to work less and have the income enough to pay for cheap goods? Am I correct? Work (time spent earning an income) is a cost in order to consume and live.
Best to read them first, though.
I believe in free trade.
I don't beleive in the Kool-Aid Drinking Free Trade philosophy which equates open borders with free trade and MFN status for a hostile country like China with an allied country like Japan.
It is much like the immigration "advocates" who want to blur the lines between legal and illegal immigrants.
People with common sense can tell the difference. But most of our policy makers lack common sense.
I read everything I post....and you’re an easy read too.
So far, so good.
In America, we can provide not only each category of need, but a proper range of choices to fit the individual wants in each category of need by making the items here with American workers and trading amongst ourselves.
This still happens and we still trade amongst ourselves, do we not?
We became a world power doing that very thing; we've become a debtor nation by abandoning that very thing.
Wrong! We became a wealthier nation through trade.
What is the sense of becoming dependent on other countries that bear us no love...
We're not dependent. We choose to get quality goods at less cost. And the best thing is is that government here do not plan these things...consumers make choices and so do businesses that deliver the goods we consume.
...couldn't care less about us beyond our wealth.
Maybe not. But the individuals and businesses from these countries sure like having as wealthy customers. And, guess what. Our decisions to consume cheaper goods cause individuals to realize value, allocate their labor resources better, and live better because of it...creating more wealth in the process.
It is madness, but it is globalism, and engineered, not for the good of our people, but by those who desire the extreme power dependence bestows on the granter.
Individuals making choices is engineered? You don't have a firm grasp on the reality of voluntary transactions, do you?
From my view point, anyone who argues for this idiocy, works toward it and throws their hearts and minds behind it is, at best, stupid, and, at worse, a traitor to our nation and its people.
From my point of view you do not know your subject matter, are a doom & gloomer, and do not understand capitalism or Homo economicus very well.
I am not a planner or policy maker (titles I abhor). If consumers decide that American-made cars from firms that assemble them in the northern states no longer providing value, who am I to suggest that we should protect these manufacturers from having to innovate, do business better and more profitable, or go by way of the horse carriage manufacturers?
Trust the markets — both the firms that have to satisfy consumer wants and do it profitably and the consumers who seek to be satisfied within their budgets and at low enough costs — if you’re really conservative. If you don’t want to trust the market, then maybe the Leftists have a more appealing platform.
Indeed!
Does this moron not understand that NO ONE lowered their prices.
Apparently not.
In fact, EVERYTHING has gone up!
Sure, sure, and real wages have not. Can you believe it!?
Do you suppose he really thinks free trade is also fair trade?
good question: I suppose that this guy actually believe that people voluntarily trade with one another to make themselves better off than before they exchanged their stuff. Can you believe that $%it?
Well, here's a little tidbit for him. It's NOT! It's not free and it's not fair.
I with you, dude. We need the kind of trade where we get stuff for free and have to give up nothing in return. That's the real kind of free and fair trade!
The US ALWAYS gets screwed in ANY and ALL trade deals.
You're right, man, the government, and U.S. citizens as a whole, are being screwed over when we -- the United States as an entity -- exchanges stuff with foreign governments (also as an entity). When the United States (as an entity) exchanges with others, we should be getting our stuff for FREE; that's the only FAIR way to do it.
There's a lot of people who posted to this thread who should learn that lesson...but they wont. They like their government to intrude on their liberties and, more disturbingly, the liberty of others.
So what? Would you like for EU countries to dictate our protections in oredr to accept trade? Do not answer. Any answer that you would give would likely kill someone else's liberty to make their own decisions. You talked of sovereignty in this post that I'm responding to, is that a one-way street? What about consumer sovereignty? Believe in that?
Well, that is the problem, it isn't individuals trading it is Governments that are still pulling the strings and calling the shots.
What!?
So, U.S. business is under a handicap of competing with nations that do not have the same restrictions we do.
Because most restrictions are a good thing, right?
Moreover, these trade agreements have organizations which punish nations with trade sanctions if they do not comply with their rules, violating that nations sovereignty.
Dennis Leary moment (two words): voluntary membership.
Free trade is simple, remove all international hindrances for individual to do business, including the import-export bank.
But domestic hindrances can stay. Look, you're the one who thinks the trading partners that we trade with should reside in countries with restrictions and regulations like ours in order to do business. Stop talking out of both sides of your mouth and get principled.
God willing, my side will win out only if people have a deep appreciation for and understanding of economic liberty and the stop embracing and believing the non-sense coming from the anti-capitalist Leftist.
Well, seeing that on this thread, someone else had to remind you of the text of what you posted, and you yourself are unwilling to discuss what you've posted after repeated requests, it's permissible to infer that you are unable.
No job is ever fully protected but that's what everybody would want as long as they enjoy their job enough. Professor Lansburg works for a private college that has to satisfy their students. If he wasn't doing this, he;d be replaced. Perhaps if you were as talented and knowledgeable as the professor...
Did someone say, "ignorance"?
lol! transparent, even.
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