http://counterpunch.com/roberts02192007.html
Paul's what you'd call an off-the-reservation 80's supply-sider. Like better-known guys who play economist/prophet of doom on TV, Paul likes to rage against the transnational project to de-industrialize America, job-strip the nation's skilled and educated, and generally run this graceful land down to Haitian status. That is to say, Paul is running with the right-flank libertarians as part of the present rising tide of national populism.
Unfortunately, his economics leaves much to be desired. Of course, as my dad, Wild Bill Paine, always said, "cheerleaders don't have to do the blocking and tackling, son" -- so I guess it don't matter much when Paul, trying to explain why the real global system just don't work like in the textbooks, writes of "the two conditions on which comparative advantage depends":
What's wrong with this? Let's start with the fact that number two is prolly built in to every conceivable multi-market system, and forms the basis of all trade, but in the present system it is rendered irrelevent by currency manipulation, where a national advantage can become absolute across the board, as we north Americans face today vis-a-vis trade with East Asia.
- Capital must be immobile internationally and seek its comparative advantage in the domestic economy, not move across international borders in search of lowest factor cost
- Countries have different relative cost ratios of producing tradable goods"
And as for number one -- having met the pillar, here's the post: for condition number one to hold, we would need to wipe out the entire international credit system. So the Roberts sine qua non conditions for international trade are a combination of the impossible, with the wildly, futilely excessive.
Having said that, though, I have to admit the piece is a nice attack on the shameless trans-nat shilling of one Michael Porter, of Harvard Yard and something called the Council on Competitiveness. Even if Porter's economics is barely press-room quality, at least he knows who's behind all this job massacreeing:
This argument [by the aforementioned Coun on Comp] shows that the report is written from the standpoint of what is good for global firms, not what is good for America.It made some sense when General Motors claimed that what is good for General Motors is good for America, because when the claim was made General Motors produced in America with American labor. It makes no sense to make this claim today when what is good for a company is achieved at the expense of the American work force.
