151–160 of 265 posts
Just because Krugman thought globalization would turn out better does not mean isolationist policy would have improved things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The problem in the U.S. was much the same problem we've always had: free trade became synonymous to opposition to government intervention. All the free trade bills in the U.S. invariably included funding for re-education and R&D to help manage dislocation and build competitive advantages, but they were meager financially and suffocated by neglect. And that's because these measures were considered "government interve…
> Starting at the bottom of another career hierarchy at the age of 40 is a complete disaster, you will be out-competed by 22 year olds who cost alot less, are easier to train, have less grievances about a low salary, are okay with the bottom rung, and do not have huge expectations. Only if those 40 year olds believe they're entitled to higher pay just because they're older. The number of available jobs in a given car…
1) Older workers have naturally benefited from annual pay increases over the course of decades, so that even if they're in a non-senior role, they would take a sizable pay cut if forced into a new career entirely.
2) Older workers often need higher salaries because they have families to support (along with the many costs associated) which young workers do not. It's a naturally unbalanced situation.
I don't think there is a solution that doesn't screw over a double-digit percentage of the workforce in at least some way. UBI might be a mitigation strategy, but as long as there's an endless supply of young people, older workers who lost the career game for whatever reason will get screwed.
> But after the Cold War ended, the debate over trade (Krugman’s Nobel-winning specialty) became a proxy for a larger intellectual struggle over free markets versus government intervention. This is the crux of it. The notion that economics, as a field, was blindsided by the rapidity and extent of economic dislocation doesn't match the history. Such a narrative is a whitewashing of a particular clique of superstar eco…
The biology is clear: emotional identity is locked into the limbic system early on. Nation states know that too thanks to all the money they’ve spent on propaganda research.
That’s my concern with the kids & Internet, Facebook. One can get “soothed” into poor association between feeling and truth: “when I feel like this, my brain feeds me a bad fact.” like brown people are to blame for my status as a temporarily embarrassed millionaire.
If anyone is wondering why US society has stood still that’s why: in post WW2 we kept telling each other bullshit spoon fed to us via TV which we are seeing now was curated by industry via omission.
Free market only works when everyone follows the same rules. When you have a player like China who is dead set on taking advantages of the rules but never taking the responsibility, you create an one-sided situation. Trade is not just an economic issue. It's a political issue when you have China in the game.
You want US global allies to enforce an artificial market, which I'm not really against at all. Its just very silly to call that a free market action if China's actions aren't.
I think that's something where diversity in the field could have helped.
The big question I’ve been struggling with in regards to the free trade debate is this: Is cheap labor a legitimate source of comparative advantage? I increasingly don’t think that it is. Yes, we get products more cheaply. But those products are made in countries with fewer labor restrictions, often in places that are not democratic, where workers cannot vote for changing laws. We’re effectively saying we want democr…
The thing is, for those workers in "poor" countries, this is a step up . My wife can tell you what two months' work for $300 meant to subsistence farmers in Guatemala. They were happy to get it. You may say "Sure, they're poor and exploited, but that doesn't make it morally right for us to exploit them just a little less ". I agree, up to a point. But insisting on first-world working conditions (including pay) mean t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sympathetic to that idea, to some extent. Foreign workers would indeed be happy to get a marginal increase in their income, even if those wages and working conditions are well below developed-country standards. But, then, aren't we just making a trade at that point? I will fire 100 local blue collar workers, and hire 100 foreign workers who will do their job for less. I hurt 100 people, help 100 people, and along…
It is generally thought of as immoral to rend one person in order to help one other. Not when it comes to buying things, which is what this situation is. Blue collar workers in the US (or other developed nations) don't have a moral demand on you to purchase their labor at the same rate forever. If someone across the street (or across an ocean) is selling the same product for less money it's perfectly fine to buy it f…
This is an astounding comparison that seems to aim to reduce questions of exploitation down to questions of personal morality, rather than the actual historical development of the systems we have and the ones we like to see. Is it immoral to switch phone providers? I don't think so. Is the system in which switching a cell phone provider can actually harm labourers morally questionable, even on the grounds that liberal egalitarians set out? For sure.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If someone across the street (or across an ocean) is selling the same product for less money it's perfectly fine to buy it from them instead. The people across the ocean in this instance are working obscene hours under deplorable conditions. When you take your business to these overseas firms you are effectively telling your local workers "these are the conditions I think you ought to be working under." Except it's…
In some cases they are, but as the people across the ocean have gotten richer (much much richer) their working conditions have improved dramatically. Success!
I doubt that there was ever any illusion that if financiers could arbitrage labor rates between nations that they would. Hence the expectation always was that living standards among nations would tend to equalize. Post WW II the US had about 50% of the global GDP. The situation was huge inequality between nations. That was politically untenable and the solution was seen to be development of other nations' economies.…