Economics Thread

[Jaw]

I still think there’s some question on the causal relationships and some over-generalizing happening here. Free trade does not need to be about Wall Street or income inequality, and manufacturing jobs aren’t necessarily what drives higher wages. I don’t doubt that there’s a lot of connective tissue between global trade and the change in American workplaces, but I would challenge how much of the degradation of the one-income household is due to the shift in employment type rather than the shift in employment practices.

Do you think something other than offshoring has been a larger force in the shift in employment type?

 

[mqt]

Do you think something other than offshoring has been a larger force in the shift in employment type?

I don’t, but I don’t know that I agree with the premise that the shift in employment type is the primary force driving the rest of the ills you’re describing. The push to claw back profits and bust unions may have been aided by the new employment types, but the push would still be there regardless. I think the current environment is being driven most by a lack of anti-trust enforcement by both sides and the rise of corporate private equity and the financial tools they use to drive profit regardless of what it means for the companies they’re acquiring, and that would be present with our without offshoring.

 

[nsacpi]

I don’t, but I don’t know that I agree with the premise that the shift in employment type is the primary force driving the rest of the ills you’re describing. The push to claw back profits and bust unions may have been aided by the new employment types, but the push would still be there regardless. I think the current environment is being driven most by a lack of anti-trust enforcement by both sides and the rise of corporate private equity and the financial tools they use to drive profit regardless of what it means for the companies they’re acquiring, and that would be present with our without offshoring.

Thomas Philippon lays out what you are talking about in magisterial detail in his book: The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets

 

[mqt]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1952766450373906774

Gotta say, my doubts were never that increasing tariffs wouldn’t increase tariff revenue.

 

[nsacpi]

And I would add that no one here has doubted that protectionist policies such as tariffs are effective in preserving jobs making toasters or sneakers. We could have saved those jobs and factories. We can make them return to American shores. No one disputes that. The question is whether that is a wise or desirable thang.