Be Creative, Not Protectionist

[adios]

Basically what Kerry has offered up on the employment front is protectionism ditto for Edwards. Fiorina wrote the following:

"That's why I tried to provoke debate last month when I said, "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore."

This is basically right IMO and reflects reality. There are plenty of job opportunities but many high paying jobs require education and training that far exceed the high school level if you will. The unemployment rate is generally less among the more educated and trained.

Be Creative, Not Protectionist

By CARLY FIORINA

Nineteen years ago, a group of leaders from American business, labor, government and academia issued a report that raised alarm bells in Washington. The report argued that America's ability to compete in world markets was eroding in the face of emerging industries and low-wage workers in Japan and other Pacific Rim nations.

The President's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, as the group was called, had a simple message: America's workers have always been the best, most creative workers in the world, but they needed a national strategy for competitiveness that was as innovative and creative as they were. Rejecting arguments for protectionism, the commission called on the public and private sectors to invest in keeping America strong in the world-wide economy -- by promoting R&D of new technology, improving education and training, and lowering deficits to improve the cost of capital for business. If that formula sounds familiar, it should. It's exactly the strategy America pursued in the late '80s and '90s, creating more than 35 million new jobs and producing the longest period of economic expansion in our history -- including a whole new IT sector, whose jobs pay, on average, 75% higher than other jobs.

That commission's message seems more relevant than ever as the debate over the outsourcing of white-collar tech jobs heats up in this election year. Once again, our leadership is being challenged -- not by Japan, but by emerging nations like India, Russia and China. What makes this challenge different is that these nations not only share rich educational heritages, but they are investing heavily in innovation and R&D to help drive the next generation of growth. In China, IT spending is increasing at an annual rate of more than 15%.

Not only do our competitors have increasingly knowledgeable work forces, but they can compete for jobs that were once the sole province of the developed world. There is much outcry over this new reality, but not much constructive action. That's why I tried to provoke debate last month when I said, "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore." Now, more than ever, other nations are developing the skills to compete for jobs that would have historically been done by Americans. We shouldn't assume that they won't make an effort to win them. But we should work to keep America what it has always been: the world's most resourceful, productive and innovative country.

Thus far, attention has focused on a handful of companies, like HP, which have sourced some jobs to other countries. As happened with Japan in the late '80s, everyone from presidential candidates to unions to state legislatures to Congressmen are offering protectionist proposals to limit or prohibit the practice. Jobs are a gut-wrenching issue. And there's no question that companies that source jobs overseas have an obligation to help workers left behind get the tools they need to find jobs and succeed. But let's not forget the lesson that Japan itself learned in the '90s: when you build walls to protect your own workers, in the long run you end up hurting them.

Any job losses to foreign countries are particularly painful when the U.S. economy is failing to produce net job gains. Every job is important because each one represents an American's livelihood and ability to raise a family. Yet spending our time building walls around America will do nothing to help us compete for the millions of new jobs being created. Instead, we must focus on developing next-generation industries and next-generation talent -- in fields like biotechnology, nanotechnology and digital media distribution; around issues like IT security, mobility and manageability -- that will create long-term growth and jobs here at home, while raising all of our living standards in the process.

That's why the eight member-companies of the IT industry's think tank, the Computer Systems Policy Project, have invested $80 billion in R&D, capital expenditures, education and employee training here the past three years alone. We're betting on -- and investing in -- America. It's why HP, with a market presence in 178 countries, will always be based here, and why we have 60,000 workers here -- because America is the most innovative country on earth. It won't stay that way if we run away from the reality of the global economy. We must do what Americans have always done -- work to keep our country in the lead, by making it the most competitive and creative of all nations. We don't have a second to waste. The rest of the world isn't waiting.

Ms. Fiorina is chairman of Hewlett-Packard.

Updated February 13, 2004

[pretender2k]

IMO the world economy is in the process of a major change. The USA is changing into an information society and is going to suffer the same types of problems it did when it moved from an agricultural society to an industrial society. Neither the Republicans or the Democrats are going to find an easy solution to the umemployment problem. I believe it is only going to come through education and it is still going to be tough for awhile. One thing that has to happen though is people have to get over the idea that they deserve a job. Personally I think they should eliminate the minimum wage entirely. As it stand it is not a livable wage and it just gives corporations a minimum standard to go by. Granted many people would be hurt initially by this move but they would learn their own value and when some one could walk in with a set of skills and demand a wage the companies could choose what level of employee they wanted, cheap or quality. It would also give people with lower skills a way to get started when the quality employees would no longer settle for minimum wage.

[adios]

Thanks for your thoughts. M has made similar points about the minimum wage. There's certainly a case for eliminating it but it won't happen. I think there's a case for eliminating or at least curtailing unemployment benifts as well.

It was interesting watching the Democratic presidential "debate" yesterday. Every candidate blasted NAFTA when asked about creating jobs. NAFTA was enacted 11 years ago during the Clinton administration with a Democratically controlled House of Representatives (not sure about the Senate). Kerry voted for NAFTA too. The claim by some who thought NAFTA was a bad deal is that it cost the US 750 thousand manufacturing jobs. I think it's debatable whether or not these jobs would have been lost anyway as manufacturing jobs been in decline for the last 40 years and it's basically due to increases in productivity. I agree with your statement:

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IMO the world economy is in the process of a major change. The USA is changing into an information society and is going to suffer the same types of problems it did when it moved from an agricultural society to an industrial society.

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and this statement:

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Neither the Republicans or the Democrats are going to find an easy solution to the umemployment problem. I believe it is only going to come through education and it is still going to be tough for awhile.

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There's plenty of low paying jobs around. My concern is this. The Democrats obviously want to end free trade in it's current form. They make noises about what amounts sweat shops costing Americans jobs which is in itself debatable. They claim that they will insist that our labor laws and environmental laws be enforced in countries that are importing cheap goods and services. The only way that I see to do this is impose protective tariffs on these goods and services. The Democratic candidates NEVER are asked how they will get other countries to comply. Besides the possibility of igniting major trade wars, the prescription for an economic slowdown is higher prices for goods and services; higher taxes; and restrained government spending. These were the basic policies of Herbert Hoover prior to the great depression.

[George Rice]

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I believe it is only going to come through education and it is still going to be tough for awhile.

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I think that there are a number of problems with this. First there are a large number of people that can never be educated to any useful level. Why, because they just aren't smart enough. And this is a large percentage of the people. You'll never hear politicians talk about it, but just look around you. And I'm not talking about people you have differences of opions with. I'm talking people who can't balance a check book, read beyond the 3rd grade level, etc. Just think how many people drink themselves into a stupor after work, on the weekends, at the ball games, etc. Just look at the people on the cops shows. Your going to educate these people? True, some of these people would have turned out better with a better education, but most would wind up that way regardless. So what would you do with all these now unemployable people?

Second, the rest of the world is also being educated. This means we will have to keep at it or be surpassed. While this looks like a good thing on the surface, there are drawbacks too. Not least among them is the time required to do this. Who wants to spend their whole life working and furthering their education? There are other things to life. Also, the more time we spend working and educating ourselves the less time we'll have to be consumers, which will have an impact on that aspect of the economy. But we will have no choice but to do just that, because other less fortunate areas of the world will be willing to do this. Since salaries, on average, will go down in this nation, it will be harder to afford continuing our education. That will lower even further our expendable income.

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One thing that has to happen though is people have to get over the idea that they deserve a job.

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That sounds fair enough. Will those who do the hiring stop hiring their relatives? I think not. As the number of jobs shrink in this nation (and that will happen, at least at first, connections will be just as improtant as education. The more people who are educated, the more improtant connections will become.

Corporations want to oursource jobs overseas for one reason--salaries are much lower. The first effect of this will be a loss of jobs in this nation. The next effect will be the lowering of the average wage in this nation. Eventually, the wages of other nations will grow higher and they will become a larger portion of the consumer base. This will create more jobs, some of which will be here in the US. But this will take many decades to level out, if not more than a century. And given the much lower standard of living in most other nations, our standard of living almost has to be averaged lower than it is now. Explain that to the electorate.

Another aspect of a global economy no one talks about is that it will almost certainly require a global political system to work. At least at it's most efficient level. And I don't see this nation going along with that.

[George Rice]

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They make noises about what amounts sweat shops costing Americans jobs which is in itself debatable. They claim that they will insist that our labor laws and environmental laws be enforced in countries that are importing cheap goods and services.

[/ QUOTE ]

How would you compete with lower wages in other nations? How would you compete with nations with no or little labor and/or environmental laws? The only thing I can see being suggested is lower wages here and eliminating labor and environmental laws. Do you have another idea?

[adios]

I originally wrote:

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They make noises about what amounts sweat shops costing Americans jobs which is in itself debatable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why don't the Democrats quantify this George? It's debatable how many jobs are lost to sweat shops in my mind. Where's the data? Here's an article among many that claim most jobs lost in the manufacturing sector are lost to productivity gains:

Some Jobs Lost May Never Come Back (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19996-2003Nov28?language=printer)

Some Lost Jobs May Never Come Back
Improved Productivity Allowed Manufacturers to Reduce Payrolls Permanently
By John M. Berry
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 29, 2003; Page E01


Nearly a quarter of a century ago, when the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States peaked at just shy of 20 million, General Motors Corp. provided 454,000 of them, more than any other company in America. It took that much labor for GM assembly lines to turn out about 5 million cars and trucks a year.



Today GM makes roughly the same number of cars and trucks, but employs just 118,000 people as a result of a drive to become more efficient and cut costs to survive against ferocious global competition. In the past five years alone, GM has cut the amount of labor required to assemble a vehicle by 30 percent, to just 24.44 hours, according to the Harbour Report, which tracks such data for the industry.

GM's experience illustrates what has happened throughout U.S. manufacturing over the past two decades. From 1979 to 2000, U.S. factory output nearly doubled while the number of manufacturing jobs fell by 2.3 million. Since early 2001, through the recession and slow recovery, 2.8 million more factory jobs were cut.

Some of those jobs disappeared because of rising imports, the movement of jobs overseas and other factors. But most by far were eliminated because companies used new technologies, management techniques and other methods to achieve huge gains in productivity -- the amount of goods and services produced per hour worked.

The job losses have had devastating effects on many workers and their communities, recently raising the pressure on President Bush and Congress to help manufacturers, particularly before next year's national elections.

But economists agree that most of the decline in manufacturing employment was the unavoidable result of companies' need to become ever more efficient -- with all the pressures on them intensified in recent years by a weak U.S. economy. And the jobs lost to productivity gains will not come back, regardless of what policymakers do in Washington.

Meanwhile, rising productivity gains have directly benefited consumers overall in many ways, particularly in recent years.

In the auto industry, for example, competition has been so strong that both domestic and foreign automakers have been forced to pass on much of their cost savings to buyers in the form of lower prices. The "foreign" competition has been particularly fierce because automakers with overseas headquarters will build about 7 million cars and trucks this year in highly efficient U.S. plants.

Because of competition and the lower costs, the price of new motor vehicles in the United States, adjusted for quality changes, is no higher today than it was in 1994.

Companies also can pass on some of the cost savings to their employees in the form of higher wages, while maintaining their profits, which benefit shareholders. Overall, productivity gains allow the nation's standard of living to rise.

Economists emphasize the many reasons for manufacturing-job losses. "It's a combination of things," said White House economist N. Gregory Mankiw. "A long-term trend and a short-term business cycle."

Many manufacturing jobs vanished because consumers and companies found less-expensive imports. And while many of those goods are made by foreign companies, many others are manufactured by U.S. companies that shifted operations overseas in search of lower labor and regulatory costs. More than one-fourth of manufactured goods consumed in the United States are made abroad -- about twice the share in the early 1980s.

Other jobs -- such as many in food service, and accounting and other administrative activities -- were once included in the national tally of manufacturing jobs because they were performed in-house by manufacturing companies. But they are no longer counted as such because the manufacturers hired outside firms to do the work.

The 2001 recession accelerated all those long-term trends at the same time it sharply reduced demand for most manufactured products. The business-investment boom of the late 1990s reversed with a vengeance, as companies reduced purchases of computers, airplanes, telecommunications equipment and heavy trucks, among other things.

Moreover, even during the slump and the hesitant recovery that followed, manufacturing productivity continued to climb. In October, factory production was 5 percent below its pre-recession peak. But the number of manufacturing jobs had plunged over the past three years by almost 2.8 million, a decline of more than 17 percent.

In sharp contrast, employment last month outside of manufacturing was virtually the same as before the recession. In other words, while many non-manufacturing jobs were eliminated since early 2001, about as many others were created. Recently, job growth outside of manufacturing has been strong enough to more than offset the continuing loss in factory jobs, the number of which fell in October for the 39th month in a row.

In 1999 and 2000, when unemployment was 4 percent and many employers struggled to find qualified workers, there were some complaints about the long-term loss of factory jobs. But the complaints were largely drowned out by the booming economy.

Today, with unemployment at 6 percent, the continuing loss of factory jobs and the notion that trade is the culprit have produced a potent political issue. Democratic presidential candidates and members of Congress constantly attack Bush for pursuing economic policies that have produced few new jobs. Congressional Republicans, particularly those from industrial regions, are also uneasy about political fallout that could affect their reelection campaigns next year.

The administration responded by announcing a new position, assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing, but no one has been named to the post, which has not been funded with an appropriation, a department spokesman said.

Bush last week imposed limits on imports of Chinese bras, knit wear and bathrobes. But the loss of jobs in the textile industry is not new. Over the past decade, textile employment has fallen from about 850,000 jobs in 1994 to about 300,000 recently.

Meanwhile, members of Congress have proposed a variety of measures to help manufacturing firms, including tax breaks and relief from a variety of regulations. Several of them have called for a reduction in China's skyrocketing trade surplus with the United States and a halt in the movement of jobs to China and India.

The National Association of Manufacturers called for legislation and regulatory changes that would reduce business taxes, health care costs, product liability judgments and the cost of complying with government regulations. They also want the Bush administration to keep pressure on China to stop pegging the value of its currency relative to the U.S. dollar, or at least raise the peg substantially. That would make American products more competitive in China and raise the cost of Chinese exports to this country.

Economists note, however, that manufacturing's share of U.S. employment has been declining for 40 years -- since long before China's recent emergence as a major influence on the world economy.

Moreover, the same drive for manufacturing efficiency boosted productivity in other countries, including China, resulting in a similar combination of falling factory employment and growing output.

Since 1979 both Britain and Sweden shed a larger share of their factory jobs than the one-quarter lost in this country. Germany lost a fourth of its manufacturing jobs just since 1991, and Japan lost 16 percent of its factory jobs since 1995, according the U.S. Labor Department. Brazil's manufacturing employment fell 20 percent in the past seven years. In most cases, rapid growth of productivity has been the primary reason for the losses.

And in China, a wave of investment, some financed by U.S. and other foreign firms, has begun to upgrade and expand China's inefficient industrial base. That has caused labor productivity to soar, albeit from a level far below that of the United States. From 1995 to last year, factory efficiency rose 134 percent, which allowed China virtually to double its manufacturing output while shedding more than 15 percent of its factory jobs, a greater percentage decline over the seven-year period than occurred in this country. However, very strong economic growth more recently may have erased some of those losses.

The U.S. job losses prompted several members of the House Financial Services Committee, mostly Republicans, to ask Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in July whether the decline in manufacturing employment was a threat to the American economy. To the apparent surprise of the members, the reply was, "No."

"Even though manufacturing as we measure it has been going gradually down relative to the economy as a whole, we have shifted our resources towards those most effective parts of manufacturing," Greenspan said. "You go into a textile weaving plant . . . and I know they're producing the same product, but I can assure you they are producing it very differently, with far more technology and a wholly different infrastructure of production."

Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski (D-Pa.) pressed Greenspan. "Is it unimportant for us to have manufacturing jobs to have a successful economy in the future? . . . Where's the minimum that we can go to in manufacturing without losing added value in creation of wealth in our system?"

"What is important is that economies create value," Greenspan said. "Whether value is created by taking raw materials and fabricating them into something consumers want, or value is created by various different services which consumers want, presumably should not make any significant difference so far as standards of living are concerned."

If a nation has the necessary income, and there is no concern about access to foreign-made goods, "the capability to purchase goods is there. . . . Then I think you can argue it does not really matter whether or not you produce them or not."

Jerry Jasinowski, who is an economist and president of the NAM, is resigned to the fact that many of the factory jobs cut will not reappear. But he is also proud of the fact that productivity growth in manufacturing has consistently outstripped that of the rest of the U.S. economy, yielding great benefits to the nation overall.

In the past two decades, "manufacturing productivity grew at double the pace of overall productivity growth. . . . This increase in productivity has enabled the economy to grow faster without inflation and has been passed through to workers in the form of higher [inflation-adjusted] wages," says a report published by the Manufacturing Institute, an arm of the NAM.

Both Mankiw and Jasinowski expect to see manufacturing employment start to rise again at some point, now that the U.S. economy is expanding at a faster pace. But the timing will depend on how much the economy grows next year and how much of the added demand for goods and services can be met without hiring additional workers. And that, in turn, will depend, as always, on how fast productivity increases.

Are you claiming that Mexican imported goods are produced by sweat shops? How many of our imports are produced by sweat shops? If it's an insignificant amount (which I suspect it is) it's not worth talking about.

I find it hilarious that the leftists complain about American cotton farm subsidies hurting West African farmers and their ability to export cotton (they convinced me that they were right btw) and then complain about not having enough barriers to trade to protect factory jobs as if that's a viable long term solution.

[pretender2k]

I could go on for ever about the problems in education. I have three kids in school right now and I see the problems first hand.

1. A lot of kids just don't care.

I have a couple that seem to think that if the just pass that's OK. I still haven't figured this out and haven't been able to motivate them. Even though I have one that is a straight A student, I am most likely to blame for the ones that are not doing well. It is hard for me because I do not understand this attitude. I was always a good student. I got alot of my self esteem from doing a job well whether it was on the farm or in school. My kids that aren't doing as well do seem to have self esteem issues. Although I take responsibility for this there are some fundamental things that the schools are doing now that aid in this problem. The attitude of rewarding students for effort reguardless of results needs to end. Where is the insentive to do well when you can just do and be rewarded almost as much.

2. Education needs to reform to the age we are entering.

I was completely bored in history in school because all they taught were events and dates. In this day and age more than ever that information is immediately available for anyone looking for it via the internet. In the past couple years I have become an avid reader of history and I am absolutely amazed at what I missed. They need to teach concepts. The main advantage to knowing history is not repeating the same mistakes and learning from the successes. Teach them why things happened, what lead up to the event to make it happen, and what consiquences came from the event. Make them think. Getting an A for memorizing a bunch of dates won't help one bit when they get into the work force. Having the ability to look at a situation and figure out what to do and what will happen if you take or don't take that action.

3. The number one change I would make.

Since I have been out of school, I started reading books on success. Books like "How To Win Friends And Influence People", "The Magic of Thinking Big", any book by Og Mandino, etc. The kids need to see that there are certain rules to success reguardless of what you do. If you do not have good skills with other people you will limit your chances of success in any endeavor. These books also tell about other people going through hard times in their life and how they got through them. If nothing else the fact that I know other people have gone through these things has helped me in times when I had problems. These books will also give the kids basic tools to deal with situations in life and show them that what ever you do there are consequences, even if you do nothing you will suffer the consequences for having done nothing. I think that alone would go along way in solving the drug and alcohol problem.

We have gone from an agricultural sociaty to an industrial society and now we are moving into a new era. Why are we still using the same basic education system we used in the agricultural society?

[George Rice]

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1. A lot of kids just don't care.


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This was the case when I was in school too. You just can't see the purpose of education at that point in your life. You are having everything provided for you and that's the only world you know. Adulthood seems like forever away. So it's the job of parents to motivate their children to want to learn. It's not easy and I suppose you must start long before they actually start school.

Easy for me to say, I don't have children. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

I agree about just memorizing dates. But if I remember correctly, they tried to teach more than that but we just didn't care. Also, when you teach why things happen you run into disaggeements by educated people why things happened. Politics creep into it and no one can agree what should be taught.

Most of my non-scientific knowledge came after school. Life forces you to learn other things. It might be best to just concentrate on mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, reading and writing. A basic foundation is the most important thing. After that, a person can teach themself anything they care to learn about.

[George Rice]

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Are you claiming that Mexican imported goods are produced by sweat shops? How many of our imports are produced by sweat shops? If it's an insignificant amount (which I suspect it is) it's not worth talking about.

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I have no idea. I've never been to Mexico. I suppose some of them are. And I think most of our imported clothing is made in sweat shops. And this includes name brands. On the other hand, high technology items like automobiles, cameras, computers, etc. are generally made by skilled workers in industrialized nations.

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Why don't the Democrats quantify this George? It's debatable how many jobs are lost to sweat shops in my mind. Where's the data?

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I haven't studied it. Maybe the have but their opponents challenged their numbers. Maybe they can't and it's just politics. But obviously jobs are being lost overseas. And this situation is getting worse. I agree that increases in productivity have reduced jobs too. And the combination of both make the situation worse.

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and then complain about not having enough barriers to trade to protect factory jobs as if that's a viable long term solution.


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Generally, there shouldn't be barriers unless barriers are up against us. But competition against nations with no labor and/or environmental laws isn't fair either.

As an apparent Bush supporter you might want to change the subject. Bush will lose in November precisely because of the jobs situation in this nation. Everything else is just secondary. No amout of explaining will cause those who lost their jobs, or those who are afraid of losing their jobs, to blame anyone other than Bush. Mark my words.

Of course, there is another terrorist attack, all bets are off. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[adios]

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I have no idea. I've never been to Mexico. I suppose some of them are.

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But you really don't know. So my assertion (in so many words) that sweat shops is a probably a red herring goes unrefuted.

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And I think most of our imported clothing is made in sweat shops. And this includes name brands.

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How do you define sweat shop and which name brands are we talking about?

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On the other hand, high technology items like automobiles, cameras, computers, etc. are generally made by skilled workers in industrialized nations.

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Actually if you read the article the number of workers required is much less than 40 years ago. It's been a continuing downward trend.

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I haven't studied it. Maybe the have but their opponents challenged their numbers.

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They don't provide any number George that's the point. It's pure pandering.

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But obviously jobs are being lost overseas.

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Again George did you read the article I posted? Jobs haven't been lost in the service sector they've been lost in the manufacturing sector and the vast majority of those jobs have been lost to productivity gains. If you can't quantify the amount how can you make an arguement that it's a significant number. And if protectionist measures are adopted how much of drag to economic growth will higher prices be?

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And this situation is getting worse.

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Actually that isn't true. Over the past six months I believe about .75 million net new jobs have been created in the economy including 112,000 in January of 2004.

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I agree that increases in productivity have reduced jobs too. And the combination of both make the situation worse.

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Since the net number of jobs is positive over the past 6 months how is that worse?

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Generally, there shouldn't be barriers unless barriers are up against us.

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Basically this is the strategy of the US.

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As an apparent Bush supporter you might want to change the subject.

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Why? Being a Bush supporter has nothing to do with discussing my views on the economy and the employment outlook and why I think protectionism is wrong.

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Bush will lose in November precisely because of the jobs situation in this nation.

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Could be, I've posted the same thing on this forum many times. The Democrats are pandering. They offer no solutions. It certainly doesn't mean they won't win though. If people are disatisfied enough they'll just say let's try somebody else.

pretender2k wrote the following:

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Neither the Republicans or the Democrats are going to find an easy solution to the umemployment problem.

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I believe that this is very true.

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No amout of explaining will cause those who lost their jobs, or those who are afraid of losing their jobs, to blame anyone other than Bush. Mark my words.

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Have I stated anything to the contrary? George the king of misdirection.

[George Rice]

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But you really don't know. So my assertion (in so many words) that sweat shops is a probably a red herring goes unrefuted.

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Unrefuted by me. That doesn't mean someone else can't refure this.

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How do you define sweat shop and which name brands are we talking about?

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Nike comes to mind.


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Actually if you read the article the number of workers required is much less than 40 years ago. It's been a continuing downward trend.


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Unfortunately the population is increasing. Also, people are living longer and working to older ages.

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They don't provide any number George that's the point. It's pure pandering.


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And I said it may just be politics. The other party does the same thing.

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Jobs haven't been lost in the service sector they've been lost in the manufacturing sector

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Jobs haven't been lost in the service sector because most of these jobs require the person to be physically in the US. It's pretty hard to mow your lawn, deliver your mail, and hand you your fast food hamburger from India. Also, service sector jobs tend to pay less than manufacturing jobs.

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And if protectionist measures are adopted how much of drag to economic growth will higher prices be?


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If the jobs are here now, keeping them here will not raise prices, except for inflation. Moving them overseas will lower them. That's great if you don't lose your job or have to take a low paying service sector job.

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Since the net number of jobs is positive over the past 6 months how is that worse?


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Because the job growth should be higher to compensate for a larger workforce and for the lost jobs under Bush's watch.

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Have I stated anything to the contrary? George the king of misdirection.

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The entire paragraph was:

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As an apparent Bush supporter you might want to change the subject. Bush will lose in November precisely because of the jobs situation in this nation. Everything else is just secondary. No amout of explaining will cause those who lost their jobs, or those who are afraid of losing their jobs, to blame anyone other than Bush. Mark my words.


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Did I accuse you of saying anything contrary? I can't find it in that paragraph or anywhere else for that matter. I made an observation. And you call me the king of misdirection? You still fool nobody. And your arse is showing too.

[sam h]

I'm not going to defend Kerry's proposals, because I don't know them that well and probably wouldn't like them much anyway, but here are a couple general thoughts.

1. Education

IMHO, better education at every level is a huge imperative for both long-term growth and better employment. It's not even just a question of training of genius engineers, its a question of increasing the productivity of the workforce sufficiently to outpace wage differentials across countries.

Reforming American education, by pretty much all accounts, is a gargantuan problem, on par with comprehensive health care reform. But Bush's policy is a complete disaster. To run heavily on a committment to education and then NOT FUND No Child Left Behind was an unbelievably cynical stroke of manipulation. There is absolutely nothing that the administration has done that should convince anybody that improving education is a real priority for them.

2. What is Protectionism?

Basically, all countries are protectionist to some degree in that nobody just lets the market determine the fate of national firms. Through industrial policies, targeted subsidies, infrastructure projects, the ways in which contracts are handed out, all governments "protect" firms in the sense of giving them a leg up on the competition. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. The crucial analytic problem is whether the action will make the firm more competitive in the long run or just make it lazy and complacent. The latter is the stereotype (often well-earned), but sometimes the former can be true.

3. Workforce Dislocation and Unemployment

We are in the midst of a big transition, but its not a smooth one. Economic models do not do justice to the wrenching and destructive societal effects of large-scale changes in production. It's easy for people who are well-educated or advantageously placed in society to say, "Well, people will just adjust to the new realities." But there is a huge human cost there, and it should be recognized. There are generations of people who are not going to just simply adjust, and it is partly the role of government to provide opportunities for retraining and skill acquisition.

It also should be understood that we don't really know what the parameters of this new economy will be. If you look at advanced industrial countries, it seems like there are three options for how to deal with employment: 1) Maintain fairly high employment, but with a ton of hardly livable jobs in services (our model), do the same but have them in the public sector and pay a bit better (Scandinavia), or maintain fairly high unemployment and cushion the fall with social benefits (Germany). There is absolutely no reason to expect that the new economy, in whatever form, will not include a vast class of "losers." Just like all such losers throughout history, some of these people will get the short end of the stick through their own mistakes, more will basically be born into situations in which only a tiny minority are fortunate and talented enough to escape.

IMHO, it is the ethical responsibility of society to give a hand to those who, through random chance of birth, are so disadvantaged right off the bat. How you want to go about this is another question. But if you're not going to support a quasi-welfare state, then you certainly should be in favor of heavy educational investment. The hypocrisy of trumpeting the importance of "American meritocracy" and then doing nothing to remedy all of the basic inequities of the system is unbelievable to me. This is basically the Bush stance, and it is all the more ironic since he, in his own monstrously unqualified person, has put the lie to the idea of American meritocracy to begin with.

[adios]

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I'm not going to defend Kerry's proposals, because I don't know them that well and probably wouldn't like them much anyway

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Right you're not missing anything, nothing there really.

I appreciate your cogent and well thought out post. Thanks for sharing your insights. I don't share all of you viewpoints entirely but I agree with many of the points you made. Don't necessarily agree with your assessment of Bush but I respect your assessment none the less. Excellent post IMO and I thank you for your response.