I have been writing a lot of questions lately and getting ready for some fake quiz bowl next week, so apologies to the three or so of you who read this blog. You might want to use the RSS feed.
This post from Working Life hits home with me as someone who lost a job a few years ago and was eligible for (but never got; I got a new job first) TAA assistance. I am a little confused by the folks that are so against free trade. I am not sure how they think that their middle-class lifestyles will be maintained if you make the economy less productive than it already is, by closing the door to your customers. The United States is the world's largest consumer market, and every business in the world wants to sell their stuff here, but no government is going to open the doors to U.S. companies if our doors are closed to theirs.
So, I'm not sure how we save middle class jobs if we roll back free trade. If the American market isn't big enough to buy the things you want to sell (at high wages, remember -- prices will have to be raised), then all those great manufacturing jobs that we've created are going to go out of business in a hurry. I don't care how little the CEO makes -- no company that doesn't make money will employ workers at any wage for very long.
In response to the distorting effects of farm subsidies that one commenter brought up, you won't see me defend them. That, and the very interesting post about education that the sociology professor posted, I'll deal with another day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment