|
It used to be that those watching us plunder ourselves with
lobbyist-written trade agreements were cast aside and insulted by those
Very.Serious.People in Washington. They called us "protectionist"
for questioning why our trade surplus turned into the biggest trade
deficit in human history. The political epithet was designed to
cast us into the outer darkness, where there is only weeping and
gnashing of teeth.
Now folks like Sebastian Mallaby are gnashing
their teeth. Cognitive dissonance is excruciating for Mallaby -
because the economic facts are hammering his ideology and it is so hard
to keep rejecting the facts. Mallaby is a wacko free trader that repetitively writes in
the Washington Post, without evidence, the constant "all
trade agreements are good and everyone else is
misinformed" message.
The Dem presidential candidates don't like
NAFTA anymore. Mallaby is really upset. His ideology is
crashing around him. What is left?
Meanwhile, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have pushed trade populism beyond the point at which it can be easily forgiven.
Quite a lot of trade populism can be forgiven, even if it is
intellectually dishonest. Like it or not, trade liberalization has
stalled, so mild populism makes no practical difference. ... But it's
one thing for Democrats to call for a timeout on negotiating new trade
treaties and another to threaten violence to existing ones.
Intellectually dishonest. Ha, ha. The pot calls the kettle black. And get this claim!
It's not that difficult to explain that U.S. manufacturing output
has gone up, not down: It simply isn't true that production has been
shifted en masse to Mexico or even China.
You can explain whatever you want Mr. Mallaby. Proving it is a bit tougher.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed