tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1846305408381850041.post8628704092432864081..comments2022-05-16T08:03:18.301-04:00Comments on remarK's Remarks: The Coming Post-Job EconomyLawrence J. Kramerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06765377230733211459noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1846305408381850041.post-11375218006188525522011-02-24T11:08:23.340-05:002011-02-24T11:08:23.340-05:00Mike - Thanks for the comment and compliment. And...Mike - Thanks for the comment and compliment. And welcome. May I ask how you came to this blog?Lawrence J. Kramerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06765377230733211459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1846305408381850041.post-62404957664039687802011-02-23T22:10:14.554-05:002011-02-23T22:10:14.554-05:00I am not an economist, but I must say that's t...I am not an economist, but I must say that's the most intelligent essay I've read about trade in ages.<br /><br />What I have never been quite able to figure out is just why MSM sources such as Forbes and the WSJ engage in such consistent intellectual dishonesty regarding trade, other than the easily discernible fact that they are mostly soft-hands bicoastal types who care more about saving $2 on an electric fan than they do about the fate of manufacturing workers in Illinois.<br /><br />Thank you for openly trashing two shibboleths in particular :<br /><br />(1) The notion that our manufacturing productivity is the envy of the world, when it is really a symptom of our encouraging most labor-employing manufacturing to be shipped overseas and leaving primarily things like refineries & power generation, and the heavily protected military-industrial complex.<br /><br />(2) The insistence that boosting aggregate demand will translate directly into jobs for unemployed Americans, without acknowledging how much of the added demand will be satisfied by overseas producers now that our productive base has been hollowed out.<br /><br />I read an article a few years ago (i.e., pre-crash) in which the author expounded on how much better off borrow-and-spend America was with its trade deficits than frugal Germany was with its surpluses. It was the kind of self-serving, counterintuitive sophistry that the American financial media seems to have a positive genius for. All the author was really saying was that it feels better to run up your credit card than to pay it off later. I thought most adults understood that implicitly, but apparently many of the grown-ups who live between Canada & Mexico don't quite get it.Mike Walshnoreply@blogger.com