Posted on 02/09/2008 4:21:41 PM PST by Halgr
Economists Rethink Free Trade It's no wholesale repudiation, to be sure, but something momentous is happening as doubts begin to creep in
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Many ordinary Americans have long been suspicious of free trade, seeing it as a destroyer of good-paying jobs. American economists, though, have told a different story. For them, free trade has been the great unmitigated good, the force that drives a country to shed unproductive industries, focus on what it does best, and create new, higher-skilled jobs that offer better pay than those that are lost. This support of free trade by the academic Establishment is a big reason why Presidents, be they Democrat or Republican, have for years pursued a free-trade agenda. The experts they consult have always told them that free trade was the best route to ever higher living standards.
[snip]
Yet concern is rising that the gains from free trade may increasingly be going to a small group at the top. For the vast majority of Americans, Dartmouth's Slaughter points out, income growth has all but disappeared in recent years. And it's not just the low-skilled who are getting slammed. Inflation-adjusted earnings have fallen in every educational category other than the 4% who hold doctorates or professional degrees.
[snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
Michael Reagan on Raegan style free trade. It ain’t what todays free traders would like us to believe.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelReagan/2007/10/10/where%e2%80%99s_the_fire
My goodness, the Free Trade troika will have a collective stroke....
When 60% of rank and file GOP members (who were polled) say “no mas” to free trade, something is cooking.
No wonder all of those free trade bills are stalled in the Congress, the Dhimmis are not dumb enough to charge the hill of that much public disapproval of the matter.
Hurrah for our side
;-)
Yes, this generation of politicians are giving us managed trade (badly managed at that) and calling it free. Purely Orwellian Newspeak. We don’t need government to give us free trade. We need governments to get the hell out of the way of free trade.
Something to re-think, indeed.
Exactamundo!
Absolutely.
Thanks for the link
;-)
Also, the following is related to the current and has already been posted, I believe:
A New Deal for Globalization
Kenneth F. Scheve and Matthew J. Slaughter
From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007
So, does it mean we don’t believe in market any longer? After all, no market works the way economics text books say.
“What to do? Blinder argues for a big expansion of unemployment insurance and a major overhaul of the poorly performing Trade Adjustment Assistance program (TAA), which retrains manufacturing workers whose jobs disappeared. More vocational training and wage insurance, which would partially reimburse displaced workers who take new jobs at lower pay, also figure in his proposals. Both Clinton and Obama—and even Republican Senator John McCain—have similar ideas.”
Why the F*&* should we expand welfare when we can keep the high paying jobs by putting up trade and tax barriers to prevent outsourcing of middle and upper middle class professional jobs?
This genius would rather put people who were earning $75,000 prior to their job being offshored to Bangalore on long term welfare rather than penalize companies for outsourcing?
The Article mentions Slaughter....look who he works for and what he really thinks.
Free trade is good for all economies...but we don’t have have “free” trade with the major players. We let their goods in for free, and they slap tariffs and other barriers on our goods and services. That ain’t free trade.... thats just sucker trade
Socialist economists with hidden agendas, constituencies to protect and really afraid of a real free market rethink free trade.
ping!
Sounds like socialism to me???
“Duh”.
Ping
"A CALL TO ACTION What to do? Blinder argues for a big expansion of unemployment insurance and a major overhaul of the poorly performing Trade Adjustment Assistance program (TAA), which retrains manufacturing workers whose jobs disappeared. More vocational training and wage insurance, which would partially reimburse displaced workers who take new jobs at lower pay, also figure in his proposals. Both Clinton and Obama—and even Republican Senator John McCain—have similar ideas.
That's not enough, says Slaughter. He sees a need for some form of income redistribution to spread the gains from free trade to more workers."
yitbos
Blinder mentions training/retraining(equality of opportunity) and then goes on to mention wage insurance(or wage insurance for senior workers), which leads into equality of outcome.
Then Slaughter mentions income redistribution and a "New Deal for Globalization", which are definitely equality of outcome.
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