[tdadams]

It has to do with the inescapable fact that someone in Bangalore will do your job for a tenth of your salary ...

Most people on these threads are your typical bitter Buchananite. You think you're entitled to the job of your choice no matter what the economic circumstances dictate.

[Tokhtamish]

Invariably on economic threads we have strutting fools of libertarians envisioning themselves heroic Ayn Rand ubermensch, their iron jaws set defiantly into the wind, their capes fluttering behind them, sneering at anyone who is obviously so weak and degenerate and incompetent to be jobless in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. In short, spoiled, obnoxious children.

Business thinks only short term. Bean counters only think to their bonuses. Grownups who have actually lived and worked in the corporate world know that it is absolutely nothing at all like John Galt or Dagny Taggart so romanticizing the "free market" the way libertarians do is incredibly naive. The reality is vastly closer to "Dilbert" than "Atlas Shrugged".

It is society's job to think in the long term. That means making sure the economy serves society's goals, not subordinating society to shareholder equity. Buchananites understood this. They were the ones crying out in the wilderness when the Dow was 13,000 and the want ads were like phone books. They knew that "free trade" would wipe out whole sectors of the American economy, leaving only devastation in its wake. As things turn out, they were obviously right.