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The Presidential campaign is featuring trade as never before.
Ross Perot made trade a big issue in 1992 in important ways, but
neither major party deviated from the binary good-bad logic.
Aargh - trade is good. Don't confuse me with other stuff.
The
NPR Democratic debate yesterday was without cameras and without an
audience. Three issues were pre-arranged, including China which
essentially means trade policy with a focus on China. I wrote
about this yesterday. The NPR format has been widely praised, while the CNN/YouTube format has been criticized.
Clinton and Huckabee are reputed to be saying it's time for a free-trade debate.
Tony Blankley, Gingrich's former press secretary, writes about this in
a conservative blog, townhall.com. Blankley himself says he was a
free trader without questions, but now is a free trader with questions.
Blankley
cites Paul Samuelson's 2004 article in the Journal of Economic
Perspectives, in which the influential Samuelson said it is wrong to
assume trade is win-win and also wrong to assume that the wins exceed
the losses.
Samuelson argues: "Correct Ricardian theory does imply that
worldwide real income per capita does gain so that winners' winnings
will suffice worldwide to more than compensate losers' losings." But
Samuelson worries that the wealthy countries (the United States, above
all) may be the losers, while India, China and other developing
countries may be the winners.
What the country (and the Republican Party) needs is an intelligent,
nonbelligerent debate, not the mere recitation of ancient maxims that
may or may not be valid in a world in which potentially 2 billion
Chinese and Indian workers suddenly have been thrown into the world
labor market. Maybe that won't put severe downward pressure on American
wages (and salaries of many white-collar workers), but it ought to be
worrying.
Blankley also cites the October 2007 Wall Street Journal poll
showing Republican voters believe, by a 59-32 margin, that free trade
has been bad for America.
Big money props up the free trade
myth. Max Baucus represents Montana, a state that is not
populated with free traders. Yet he is a free trader. Why?
Almost 91 percent of the money Baucus received from individuals,
or $3.45 million, came from out of state, according to figures compiled
by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Just over 9 percent,
or $353,000, came from Montanans. ... The single top contributor
was investment banking giant Goldman Sachs, with $50,200.
Case closed.
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