Outsourcing Gone Wild...

Free trade doesn't create unemployment. Protectionism, given the reductions in economic innovation and the stagnancy associated with monopoly power, will achieve that. There's only one instance where you can argue otherwise: a Keynesian analysis based on an understanding of the nature of mass unemployment. Are you a Keynesian all of a sudden? You fellows do flit around in your economic comment (typically by accident of course)

 

HAHAHAHA. The 1st line is simply disingenuous, even for you. Innovation? Protectionism stifles it? LMAO. All we hear is "America just needs to innovate, America just needs to innovate!", even from YOU. So tell me flip flopper, why do you have to plead for innovation under free trade? It encourages it so....much? For the majority of America's existence it was protectionist and no one EVER had to cry..."please, will someone invent something!?!?:..anything!..anyone?" This is getting ridiculous. Just quit posting.

 

The funniest thing about the 1st line. Bankers are now being laid off.

http://www.businessinsider.com/tota...organ-bofa-and-more-looking-at-layoffs-2011-6

 

I think the objection to the anti free trade crowd in this thread can be summed up in one clause, and that is that correlation does NOT equal causation.


You have done a decent job pointing out problems in society(though fail to realize things are much better than they used to be), but you have failed to demonstrate a causal relationship between those problems and free trade. That is why they ask for "empirical evidence." And just to clarify, "look around you" does not qualify as empirical evidence. As I said, you need to demonstrate a causal relationship between the things I see when I look around me, and free trade. Until you do that, your arguments are going to fall woefully short.

 

They need to start with valid economic theory and then show how, through appropriate methodology, that theory is tested. We all know that isn't going to happen. We just have mercantilism dumbed down as far as it can go. That's a shame really, as international political economy could be used- with some justification- to refer to how dynamic comparative advantage can be hindered by neo-liberal folly

 

Are you kidding me? You all just need someone you respect to say it. There is a difference. We are westerners. Cause and effect. You haven't seen the effects, the pro-free trade crowd has made nothing but gains. Of course you will fight tooth and nail to preserve it. Lie, cheat, steal, and murder to keep it. It is like a person robbing another at gun point and the cops saying, "well, you didn't prove the robber actually CAUSED the robbery, we need evidence!" What a joke. You all have been doing business with China for so long you must think that the cause is a leaf falling on the right side of a log at mid-day instead of nighttime. I-Ching dumb crap. Just move there if you like developing nations so much and with the traitors gone we can work to rebuild ours.

 

Yes Reiver, because using economic terms has worked so well in the past for your argument. Why don't you talk about comparative advantage again and our lack of "empirical" proof. LMAO. Don't worry, I'm sure newcomers won't go back and read it.

 

I'm bumping this thread for you Frodly. Please read the link in my sig. You won't believe without hearing it from someone respectable. There are plenty of people in it whose work is mentioned.

 

my arguement is that mass production needs mass consumption.....you throw a bunch of people out of work in the name of profits and then all of the sudden you have a bunch of people that can no longer afford your product!

 

Sounds like you think the invisible hand is a crock...

Crikey, you fellows are properly revolutionary!

 

those are the facts

 

To get really rich, requires a lot of rich consumers.

If your job can be easily done where labor is far cheaper, your employer has outsourced to stay alive, not to make huge profits.

 

You are basically arguing slavery is needed to sustain industry, and since Americans are unwilling to live in huts, they have done this to themselves. Such notions are absurd. There is no place, and I stress NO PLACE, even in the most desolate of places in the United States, that people could live on what those Chinese workers are making. The only way is for the actual company to supply food, shelter, and all the necessities, and then pay $136 a month to the people living in their mini-state. Which of course must be the new pursuit with wanting nullification of minimum wage laws. Threads have already started on PF about, "Americans are paid too much". However, one can see that this must be a push to try and get Americans to revolt. Surely the people in charge must know it is the inevitable. The West Virginia coal wars on a nationwide scale. Obviously would be an all out bloody revolution, but the causes of the 2 events are basically the same, with one on a grander scale.

Protections and regulations from the turn of the last century were put in place for a reason. Sure, the central government is way out of hand, but now that practically all industries are global the federal government has no power but over industry that can't leave, and the service sector being the only indian trying to feed a chief the size of our central government is a joke. The state is too big, except when it comes to tariffs where it doesn't exist, and when you consider Ivy League grads make up the majority of people in charge, one can't blame those who fallow legislation and government, from the middle to bottom rungs, for thinking a devilish plot is underfoot. There is no such thing as 1000 unfortunate coincidences in a row. Our nation has been compromised at the top level. Revolution is the only answer at this point, or we can kiss our nation goodbye.

 

now yes, because everybody else is doing it but in the beginning it was only a few in order to make a fortune by paying people in the third world peanuts!

 

Revolution will not restore the Constitution, it will abolish it and replace it with a European Social Democratic social compact.

 

The suggestion that the invisible hand doesn't operate leads to a demolition of free market economics. When did you become a Stalinist?

 

Outsourcing and automation have generated a higher standard of living for all, even the poor.

If you want protectionism to protect unskilled labor, to give them a "living wage" and protect them from global competition, you want to push our standard of living back to the 50's. Not the just standard of living of the white middle class, that didn't have to compete globally, with almost no women or minorities in workplace. But, the entire country. Women and minorities, trying to make it on unskilled, non-union jobs (unions fought to keep minorities out).

Obviously, you have never been in the military.

Before minimum wage, unskilled could get work experience, even apprentice and learn a trade. Now, there are "trade schools", that many can't afford.

Revolution, or a quality education - not this feel good crap the kids get. High tech positions are being outsourced from this country because of our failing education system.

Pay back for union support. Now, the unions don't even trust government, and our going global.

A million small service sector companies don't have the organization to buy off politicians and regulators the way global companies do.

Those "political investments" have made government get bigger, the more powerful government is, the more "value" politicians and regulators have. How much is a regulation that prevents competition? No competition, the CEO can make $100M a year.

It is counter intuitive, remove the power from government, and your remove the power from mega corporations, and reduce wage disparity.

Big money helps, and that comes from the rich.

Starting with the big bang, how many coincidences resulted in man?

That is what the Tea Party is trying to do. A bloodless revolution, that dials the government way down, and restores power to the tax payer.

But, the government has used entitlements to entrench themselves with the voter. 54M on SSI, 47M on food stamps. Are they going to vote themselves a pay cut?

In addition, both side have created vitriolic talking points that have no middle ground. Is the purpose to improve the country, or to keep the population fragmented, to prevent a voting populace united against the government.

 

+1

That requires understanding Adam's Smith's meaning of the invisible hand, which is:

Left to themselves, people as a whole will act honestly, even offsetting the damage done by the small percentage of the population that are sociopathic.​

 

I think what america is doing is more Stalinist than what I was describing. How can you get a bunch of unemployed people to buy? Where is the logic there?

 

False perceptions won't help your cause!

 

I'm sorry, you deserve a better reply... but I just cannot get past this comment. It's completely, utterly and undeniably wrong, and yet somehow perpetuates as one of the most gigantic misnomers in regards to our standard of living.

I'll be the first to admit I'm ignorant to some of these, I understand the stance and for the layman it's an easy mistake to make. I think it's the problem of taking something we do naturally, seeking out those who can do tasks more efficiently than ourselves, and applying it to a national economy.

But who's to blame? Economists? Journalism?

We're probably 1,000 times+ more wealthy than we were ~50 years ago, and yet Buck makes the comment he did and a huge number of people have the same perception, for some reason there seems to be a prevalent pessimism with regards to the state of the economy, not just currently which is understandable, but in general and even during good times.

 

Twin ignorance with influence costs and we only have half the story. The other half is understandable. We have, for example, conservatism when it comes to the income distribution. Potential losses are given a higher weight than (often less visible) gains.

On here though, as I mentioned, we have to put up with simplistic economic nationalism. The worst of the worst. One might argue that the economic nationalist would cheer an earthquake if it hurt more johnny foreigners than locals

 

Anikdote, please read the link in my sig. Reiver throws around names and theories banking on that fact no one will research it. Ricardo invented free trade, and had no intention of what it is being used for. Comparative advantage is not at play, absolute advantage is at play. Please read the link, the whole article. Would take but 10 minutes of your time. I simply want you to understand that there are economists who know exactly what is going on, my perspective is as real as any others, and the Reivers of the world thrive on people like you swallowing "the protectionists are just ignorant" whole. Please read it, not as much because I can convert you, but just so you can see how shysty Reiver is with his truly ignorant rampage of out of text theory. It is he who feeds off of your ignorance.

 

You cannot have free trade with developing nations without outsourcing taking root. Yes ground floor jobs are ugly. But just like a great structure, a nation can only stand with which its foundation can support. You all act as if you built a house or building large enough, it can stand with the foundation removed. Such notions are ludicrous, and to think my camp has to keep on explaining this with the after effects all around us and getting worse year by year, day by day, minute by minute, is preposterous. I could see the firm stance if my side was presented before free trade, but to cling on to something as your nation crumbles around you is nothing but protectionism of your pride before nation. Pride comes before the fall. The trickle up poverty of globalism is coming your way, those who think they are safe. For Americans in any venue to rely on a Brit for knowing what is best for OUR nation screams of a logic not to be trusted.

 

This made me laugh. It also sadly sums up the anti-economic stance religiously followed by protectionists

Ricardo gave us an understanding of comparative advantage (technically it was Torrens though). That improved on Smith's analysis, given we have an appreciation of how an apparently uncompetitive country will still benefit from trade. We've moved on though, with an appreciation of the limitations of static analysis and how comparative advantage is determined