Actually, the paper does report that there may be some positive benefits for the U.S. from this, but it buries it in the last two paragraphs. This referring to a Canadian company getting hit by stimulus provisions:
To stay in business, Hayward is considering moving some manufacturing operations to the United States, potentially creating jobs here. That, Peru Mayor Jim Walker notes, is what the stimulus was supposed to be about.
“You’re trying to get America turned around, trying to put Americans back to work,” Walker said. “And if American taxpayers are paying for this, well then, Americans deserve the benefits.”
But it’s an interesting story and good for the Post for digging it up.
I resent the "Church of Free Trade" dig. Economics is science, not religion. The overwhelming majority of economists oppose trade barriers and restrictions on outsourcing.
#1 Posted by Chris Corliss, CJR on Fri 15 May 2009 at 02:23 PM
To the extent that economics is a "science," it's a dismal one, of course. The field is in disarray right now with many of its core assumptions under fire. Also, for a science, it's awfully susceptible to ideological predisposition.
There's a lot of science in some economics, but there's a lot of art in most.
#2 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Fri 15 May 2009 at 03:55 PM
I recently read several books about the evolution of the economics profession in the U.S. and how they wanted to use mathematical models to explain "growth" in its various interpretations and then extrapolate those models into policy. These models imply that growth could be infinite, benefiting people in all economies. This transnational implication makes the issue of continuous job gowth (supported by a sustainable living wage) almost moot. Financial flows of money seem to occur above and around all these trade policies. In fact, the discussion of tariffs, dutues, patent infringement, monopoly, exchange rates etc. seem to be a distracting subtext of the real discussion.
So I agree that there is more art here than endogenous and exogenous identifiable and measurable factors.
#3 Posted by m.wertz, CJR on Sat 16 May 2009 at 12:41 PM