Lou Dobbs, a voice against outsourcing jobs

[video=youtube;mYM8MIXCvQQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYM8MIXCvQQ[/video]

Lou Dobbs is a voice against excessive outsourcing and immigration that has been used to keep American wages down.
While you might not agree with all of his views, I think even many Progressives can appreciate his concern about ensuring decent wages, and the exploitation of immigrant labour.


Lou Dobbs has written a book, "War on the Middle Class", that discusses how low wages and unemployment are being caused by big business special interests lobbying for access to much cheaper foreign labor, to replace American workers. Though a self-described Conservative, he holds especially harsh criticism of the Republican Party.

Obviously, neoliberals (like the leaders in the Republican Party) and Austrian economists do not like him. Dobbs does not place as much unquestioning faith in the free market, nor does he believe American workers should be made to compete with the mass poverty and unemployment in the third world. In fact, Dobbs blames the current economic crises on the very policies which the neoliberals have enacted.

 

Standard zeros sum game bobbins. US does have poverty problems, but that reflects- for example- an over-abundance of low paid labour. The 'war on middle class' stuff is low brow, demonstrating no understand of the labour market and how wages are derived.

Neo-liberalism has to refer to the hegemony of the financial class. Those using it to refer to trade liberalisation aren't being cunning as, for example, such a result is consistent in market socialism (using trade liberalisation to bypass problems created through economic planning)

 

I like Lou Dobbs and think he is correct on most accounts. His position was so strong against illegal immigration that it probably cost him his job at CNN. Everyday he would come out blasting and provide evidence of new forms of illegal immigration.

Reiver is correct to some extent. Dobbs is too fixated on border security to recognize some of the benefits of immigration and possibly more loss of liberty from border security. Additionally, his arguments were more emotionally based without rigorous statistical methodology to look at the financial impact of illegal immigration. From a human rights perspective it is an anathema. From a financial perspective it is a mixed bag especially for farmers and small business owners.

 

Yes, on most accounts. I do not agree with him on everything. For example, he believes schools with better academic performance should be given more funding. I just do not agree with this. But he does (in his book) make a good point about such a large portion of taxpayer funding being wasted on administration and never actually making it into the classroom. Dobbs also seems to have a fair perspective on workers unions, supporting decent wages and good working conditions, but also expressing anger at the corruption and incompetence found in so many unions, and the stagnation they cause to any reform.

That is probably because he sees immigration being intentionally used to lower wages. The first thing Dobbs is concerned about is American jobs. He is angry that big business is bringing in lower cost skilled workers from India, China, and the Fillipines instead of paying decent wages to unemployed Americans.

I agree that there could be a potential threat to civil liberties. But if the benefits of all these low cost workers are so good, why is Mexico so poor? I think we can see that good paying jobs are more important than low cost labor for the wellbeing of an economy.

 

His argument is ignorant, nothing more

 

You keep ascerting this claim. I thought I made it clear that lowering costs will not necessarily help Americans if it takes away job opportunity.
You believe that lower cost of labor will create more jobs, but I just see this as counterintuitive. Plenty of arguments could be made for just the opposite effect.

I just do not see how it makes any sense to outsource when there are so many Americans unemployed, when even the ones that do have skills are earning only sub-par wages.

 

It doesn't. Even outsourcing has been found to increase job opportunities (essentially deriving a finer form of comparative advantage). Your argument is based on nothing more than an ignorance of the economics.

 

Capitalism will not work across world boundaries (countries) because one country has no concern for the good of mankind or the environment while the other does. The unconcerned countries allow children and poor people to work endless hours with no protections. Should this be rewarded? Until all countries abide by the same principles, the most caring will be defeated by the uncaring due to the money they save by treating human beings as cattle and the environment as a trash dump. Unless all contries abide by the same standards, only tariffs will level the playing field so the most responsible and caring will recieve the greater benefit instead of the worst. Tariffs will be a cost (tax) incurred by the uncaring for not caring.

 

Utter bobbins! There is no race to the bottom. If there was we wouldn't see, for example, world trade being an integral part in the fight against absolute poverty

 

Rather ironic. Historically, economic colonialism was achieved through world trade (the British Empire for example). Free trade was a means for European nations to buy up all the natural resources of the subject nations. Obviously these subject nations were not happy about this, and many are still resentful even to this day, because their countries were drained of wealth.

But back to the modern day... Yes, world trade is reducing inequality between different countries. But it is also increasing inequality within every country. There are many specific cases where international trade is making poverty worse. For example in Mexico by putting wheat farmers out of work and making the staple traditional food corn tortillas unaffordable to the poor, unfortunately corn cannot be grown on these former wheat farms because it requires so much water. Or Nigeria where most of the oil profits are not trickling down to the common people, and where oil spills ruin the livelihoods of whole fishing villages.

 

Free trade was encouraged to enable a more stable environment such that wealth opportunity isn't threatened. Hegemonic stability theory for you! Of course all that can be bypassed through multilateralism

 

This video comes up as being relevant to what Lou Dobbs was saying, and it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d70KhYzBhT4

Has outsourcing and immigration been used to keep American wages down, or is it that a supply of cheap keeps demand for ours down? What incentive is there for our business to fund our people being educated and employed when they can bypass it and make money?

Supply and Demand has not fixed the problem it has created the problem, and now it cannot fix it because of the same principles that created it.

 

Why do you think virtually every country with greater trade importance (i.e. imports/exports as % of GDP) has lower working poverty than the US?

 

Give more data such as the countries you define with "greater trade importance," and up to date data on their working poor as in increasing or declining.

Isn't this out of date:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_poor#US_compared_to_Europe

"As European governments respond to the crisis by pushing for deep spending cuts to close budget gaps and greater flexibility in their work forces, “the population of working poor will explode,” said Jean-Paul Fitoussi, an economics professor at L’Institut d’Études Politiques in Paris." http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/w...ing-ranks-of-working-poor.html?pagewanted=all

"More than half of Asia's population — 1.8 billion people — live on less than US$2 a day; more than 600 million of them try to survive on less than US$1 a day. With food prices now soaring, most of Asia's "working poor," who are already struggling on degraded lands, in sweatshops, on streets and at homes, risk further destitution." http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2008/05/19/2003412355

There are very few in our economy that live on less than $2 a day, due to welfare state generosity, so they cannot be the countries you are talking about.

"Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) along with eight other congressional Democrats are eating on a budget of about $4.50 a day to show solidarity with food stamp recipients who receive $32.59 a week."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/31/food-stamps-congress-budget-cuts_n_1068336.html

So please, give more data, I am not a member of the Psi Corps.

 

Its difficult to find countries with lower rates of import/export as a % of GDP. Makes the "trade is our doom" bobbins look particularly childish

 

No results found for "rates of import/export as a % of GDP".

Got "exports divided by imports" and “trade-to-GDP ratio” but cannot find out what import/export fits in to an equation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J_curve#Balance_of_trade_model

2009 "Imports of goods and services (% of GDP)" China "22" France "25" Germany "37" USA "14"
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.IMP.GNFS.ZS

"Merchandise trade (% of GDP)" 2009 China "44.2" France "39.8" Germany "62.0" US "18.9"
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TG.VAL.TOTL.GD.ZS

I am not quite understanding imports divided by exports as a % of GDP?

Maybe this is how you should have worded it:

"virtually every country with greater trade importance" (i.e. "Merchandise trade (% of GDP)") "has lower working poverty than the US?"

Cross referencing is a pain, got something already correlated for us?

I think there is a movie though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import/Export

Should we watch that?

 

Again you ask me to hold your hand through every aspect. Rates of import/export as % of GDP is a standard means to summarise the importance of trade flows to an economy. The World Bank will, for example, provide them in their free on-line data sources. And no, I won't be copy and pasting the web address. I just can't be arsed

 

"In international economics and international trade, terms of trade or TOT is (Price of exportable goods)/(Price of importable goods)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_trade

"The value of a country's exports relative to that of its imports. It is calculated by dividing the value of exports by the value of imports, then multiplying the result by 100."

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/terms-of-trade.asp#ixzz2086A6rhC

"The terms of trade measures the rate of exchange of one good or service for another when two countries trade with each other.

For international trade to be mutually beneficial for each country, the terms of trade must lie within the opportunity cost ratios for both country.

We calculate the terms of trade as an index number using the following formula:

Terms of Trade Index

ToT = 100 x Average export price index / Average import price index"
http://tutor2u.net/economics/content/topics/trade/terms_of_trade.htm

That makes perfect sense, but for some reason if we flip it around to imports / exports we get screwed. Learn that in elementary school.

I guess you got some other thingy going on.

So, let's summarize, you are refusing to answer your own question with data, and say "I won't be copy and pasting the web address. I just can't be arsed":

"Why do you think virtually every country with greater trade importance (i.e. imports/exports as % of GDP) has lower working poverty than the US?" (Reiver)

I just cannot seem to find imports / exports at the World Bank.

 

I already know you can copy and paste from the likes of wikipedia. To demonstrate the magnitude of trade (i.e. importance to the economy) one would refer to imports/exports as % of GDP. The US import % in 2010 was 16%. Compare that, for example, with 71% for the Netherlands (chosen randomly just as an indicator). World Bank data!

 

Sorry, I cannot find "imports/exports as % of GDP" in searching the World Bank site. So show me a web page of theirs that has "imports/exports" in the formula. Show me their math.

 

I would if I could be bothered. I'm not here as a librarian.

 

Well isn't that Special? {said in church lady tone}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmwqnqL3Hbg

Since you said, "I would if I could be bothered," therefore, now we have established you are not using "/" as a logical operator, but as a mathematical operation.

You asked:

"Why do you think virtually every country with greater trade importance (i.e. imports/exports as % of GDP) has lower working poverty than the US?"

One could corelate usable data with "lower working poverty" but not unusable data. How one gets "greater trade importance" by dividing imports by exports, when increasing that ratio means less imports can be purchased.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terms_of_trade#Multi-commodity_multi-country_model

The little "x's" representing exports are on top of the "/" and the little "m's" representing imports are below.

If you want to use "/" as a logical operator and go back to post #16 where I said:

"2009 'Imports of goods and services (% of GDP)' China '22' France '25' Germany '37' USA '14'";

Or, you could use 2009 "Exports of goods and services (% of GDP)"
China "27" France "23" Germany "42" USA "11" http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.EXP.GNFS.ZS

And then corelate those numbers with "lower working poverty"; feel free.

Since you have established that we are dealing with a ratio of imports / exports. Let's play with the above numbers as if they mean something.

China 22/27 France 25/23 Germs 37/42 USA 14/11

Percentages, thinking in terms of terms of trade, but with your funny math of dividing imports by exports, "Imports of goods and services (% of GDP)" / "Exports of goods and services (% of GDP)":

81 108 88 127

Makes us look good. Certainly if we divide imports by exports it "makes the 'trade is our doom' bobbins look particularly childish."

Percentages, as in like terms of trade, "Exports of goods and services (% of GDP)" / "Imports of goods and services (% of GDP)":

122 92 113 78

Makes us look bad.

"Greater trade importance," more exports than imports (as % of GDP), would be China and Germany, yet as stated Asia has a vast sea of working poor. And we know Germany inherited some from the commies. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/08/us-germany-jobs-idUSTRE8170P120120208

 

Again, lots of words and no content. You were asked a simple question: Why do you think virtually every country with greater trade importance (i.e. imports/exports as % of GDP) has lower working poverty than the US? Try to answer it without an essay of fluff

 

Correlation does not imply causation. The two may be linked, but the question is: which one is the cause and which one the effect? I think it is higher levels of disposible income that lead to more consumption/imports, or certain industrial export driven economies. Same thing with education. I think wealthier countries provide more education because they are wealthy, not the other way around.

 

The empirical analysis into gains from trade is substantial. You of course ignore it. The theoretical analysis into gains from trade is substantial. You of course ignore it. It stands to reason that you will also ignore that virtually every country with greater trade importance has lower working poverty than the US.

The conclusion is obvious: trade is used as a red herring, typically by people clueless about economics