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 ...
You’re not making any sense. I somehow compelled you to act like a third-grader?
Until we figure out a way to fully internalize the costs of Kool-Aid Drinking Free Trade on its advocates, I suggest we promote Free Trade between countries with comparable standards of safety, sanitation and respect for human rights instead-- with a little bit of slack cut for third world countries which are aspiring and actively working toward meeting those standards such as Turkey or India.
Kool-Aid Drinking Free Traders are really no different than the industrial revolution era sweat-shop owners who polluted the air and rivers at will and argued it was an entitlement they were owed by society in return for all the jobs they created.
Good post.
What's this, 'I'm gonna tell Mommy stuff?".
You can do better than that.
I need to disabuse you of the nonsense incorporated in the propaganda of union thugs and other hardened socialists?
Post articles to refute the content, not attack the people, if you would.
We shouldn't question the motives of radical socialists like Julianne Malveaux and Robert Reich on a conservative site? If you're using people like this to build your case, such as it is, maybe you really don't have a case in the first place.
And then we can see who it is that you look to as THE pristine people and organizations upon which to rely for your globalist ideals.
I guess we just don't define the term globalist in the same manner. Since when does individual liberty, smaller government, a free market economy, lower prices for consumers and more choices for consumers equate to globalist ideals?
Don’t have to . . . I was paraphrasing Jim Robinson.
No, no, no! You don’t understand! Some economist writes a guest column for the NYT, and he’s a lib! Some economist writes a paper for EPI, and he’s secretly a conservative!
What if a combination of 1 2 and 3 resulted in US based companies having a competitive advantage and being able to win more marketshare here at home?
What if? You tell me.
No, but I get it... screw em...we don't need em. Its all buggy whips these days.
But also in foreign markets we have to gain equal access. We are not doing business on equal terms here.
Jackass McCain thinks the fix is only in having some worker go to junior college... LIKE HELL IT IS.
I'm glad you agree that these socialists' ideologies SHOULD NOT be in dispute on a conservative forum; however, it is their very ideologies which are, nevertheless, at work in the schools as well as the globalist goals in the American economy, a point which Schlafly, a well-known and respected conservative champion, has more than adequately laid out in several of her articles.
True
but we grow more food than ever.
True, but the key word here is WE grow our own food. It has not been outsourced as of yet to another country for the most part
Why is higher productivity bad?
Productivity is great. It allowed Henry Ford to make a car for the masses.
Now that's funny....because it is YOU who act this way.
If that is your primary concern, then it would be more effective to reform our corporate tax code, instead of slapping what essentially amount to new taxes on consumers and producers that use imported products.
so what? Henry Ford dropped the price of the model T by 75% in a few years.
Of the approximately 6 to 7 articles I posted, you are claiming they are "propaganda of union thugs and other hardneed socialists?" You mean to accuse and include ALL my posts with your commentary: Phyllis Schafly's articles which I posted (approx. 3) and Lou Dobbs (which I posted approx. 2), as well as 1 post citing information from other sources which back up Schlafly's and Dobbs claims?
I think you must be repeating 2nd grade, lol.
I think you just got busted, and feel like an idiot.
Excellent! The protectionists on this thread disagree.
Ping me when you’ve graduated elementary school, fofl.
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