Once again Tom Friedman justifies his position as dean of American idiots with newspaper columns:
BERLIN — I strongly support President Obama’s efforts to conclude big, new trade-opening agreements with our Pacific allies, including Japan and Singapore, and with the whole European Union. But I don’t support them just for economic reasons.
While I’m certain they would benefit America as a whole economically, I’ll leave it to the president to explain why (and how any workers who are harmed can be cushioned).
Repeatedly Mr. Friedman has praised elitism. That’s the obvious source of his fondness for what’s happening in China. Someday the scales will fall from the world’s eyes and they’ll realize that what has happened there is a disaster of world historical proportions that has largely gone to benefit a handful of elites. I guess it’s all worth it if Beijing has a shiny new airport.
In his writings on trade, the foundation of modern views on the benefits of trade, David Ricardo never said there were no losers. There will be losers as a result of the trade pact being negotiated and they will be ordinary American workers. There is no way to “cushion” them without goring an entire herd of sacred cows which means it won’t happen.
The classical economists lived in a world where money was backed by gold or silver and where banks could not create money. I would suggest that these were unspoken, but fundamental, premises of their theories. It would be interesting to see how they would view their theories in today’s financial system.
Friedman doesn’t know he’s an elitist. He probably buys Obama’s line that Barry grew up poor and worked hard* to make it, and that the Chinese leadership are all prols that benefited from the gentle nurturings of Maoist communism.
Seriously, can you point to anything that indicates Friedman ISN’T that stupid?
* You think it’s easy voting “PRESENT” all the time?
I am willing to go on record stating there is no possibility Friedman has studied Ricardo in any more detail than a quick glance at wikipedia.
This is a blunt excerpt from Larry Johnson’s blog. Whatever lines it crosses in crassness, IMO, is buffered by the stark honesty within it’s sharpened words. It ties the lawlessness in Baltimore together with our lackluster, superficially contrived economic polices together with the new trade agreement being proposed. All of it appears to be nothing more than advocating whitewash approaches, rather than countering real problems with real long term solutions.
I love that part about “the mushroom treatment.” It visually rings so true!
I’ve read his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation and his correspondence with Thomas Malthus. The latter is particularly fascinating since the two men couldn’t have been farther apart.
The manufacturing base has been crumbling for a long time. It isn’t just Obama & the Dems that haven’t done jack shit about that.
He should have mentioned the part where job growth has, on net, gone to immigrants, who do the jobs Americans just can’t get.
It is possible to cushion american workers but it is unlikely that we will do it because we lack the infrastructure and the mental habits. We have no comprehensive listings of laws and regulations. I recently found out that Pennsylvania hasn’t even finished codifying its own laws (they’ve only been working on the project since 1970).
Without that list of laws and regulations we can’t make a list of laws and regulations that have a negative effect on labor demand. We can’t create a list prioritizing them by effectiveness and thus we can’t take the bottom x% off until the cumulative effects of this deregulation increases labor demand to the point where the losers on free trade aren’t hurt too badly because there are other positions elsewhere waiting for them.
The GOP would do well sponsor putting out the raw information to accomplish these things in governments it controls. As a side effect, this would also increase their appeal to the technically oriented. Anybody who believes that in at least certain circumstances the private sector can run things better would be in favor of gaining the information to figure out where and when that actually is true. Right now most people don’t have the attitude that hiding that information in the bowels of the bureaucracy is an unfriendly act that gums up the proper workings of the republic. When we gain that attitude we will be well on our way to fixing what ails us.
Never said it was. Quite to the contrary there’s a bipartisan consensus, the “Washington consensus”, that favors a set of policies that has accomplished what we’re seeing around us.
However, Obama is the president now. He wasn’t just walking down the street one day, pulled into a van, and made president. He went after the job and now he’s got it. It’s up to him to do something other than to blame his predecessor.
This White House has never produced a plan that would restore full production and has never produced a plan that would produce full employment, both for political reasons.
Right now we have both cyclic and structural issues. As far as I can see what has been done about the structural issues has actually made things worse. The only things that can be done about the cyclic issues are temporary. That’s conventional Keynesian theory.
TMLutas:
So long as the will to increase laws and regulations exceeds the will to enforce them or even codify them systematically as is the case now what you’re suggesting will never be accomplished.
Friedman doesn’t get that Ricardo claimed an overall benefit in terms of output and real wealth, while in people terms most could in fact lose out. I don’t think Friedman sees people when he looks at us little ‘uns.
Or else he’s assuming that more can be extracted from those who would benefit and put to the service of those who don’t. I don’t see a lot of evidence for either of those propositions. I think we’re right at the historical high water mark for taxation. And I also think that centrally planned, administered, and implemented schemes for helping the poor always work out pretty well for the planners, administrators, and implementers but never so well for the poor.
Never said it was.
Sorry, that was directed at the Larry Johnson quote.
Keep in mind that Johnson is a Clintonista.
Keep in mind that Johnson is a Clintonista.
Dave, what I’ve read in Johnson’s other rants is that he’s pretty much an equal opportunity critic of politicians from both parties — including Clinton, especially when analyzing her most recent “scandals.”
Ice, Johnson was zeroing in on Obama’s part, in not providing incentives for industrial growth, and not necessarily leaving off the accountability hook or exonerating any of the administrations before his term in office.
However, Obama is the president now. He wasn’t just walking down the street one day, pulled into a van, and made president. He went after the job and now he’s got it. It’s up to him to do something other than to blame his predecessor.
The superficial quality of policymaking during Obama’s lengthy time in office, more often than not, is either minimized or goes unnoticed by his acolytes. To this day they buttress their comments with references to GWB’s economy that was left for Obama to “fix.” It seems to be an “inheritance” that never ends in giving excuses for Obama’s lackluster effectiveness, both domestically and abroad.
That’s one quality I don’t remember his predecessor having, of always throwing the ball backwards. Being mired down in a controversial election, with a dot com boom busted, followed by the trade center tragedy and a plummeting economy, Bush’s first year was not exactly a cakewalk. He also had to deal with the aftertaste of some of Clinton’s not-so-great foreign and housing policies which ultimately added to the challenges facing his denigrated presidency. But, the memory of the left mainly talks about the transient surplus that was squandered on his watch, and not the fact that he mostly shouldered the blame rather than deflecting it back to a past leader.
Keep in mind that Johnson is a Clintonista.
Didn’t know, don’t care, not like Bill did anything about it, or Hillary will.