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Robert Samuelson is an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post. He has joined others repeating how globalization and free trade have been wonderful until it became true. Their binary logic is whether we want another Smoot Hawley Tariff or not.
Samuelson is the latest to publicly dither on his "beliefs". And I purposefully use the word "beliefs", though I avoided using the adjective "hollow" and "unfounded".
For years, we've argued over whether this or that industry and its workers might suffer from imports and whether the social costs were worth the economic gains from foreign products, technologies and investments. By and large, the answer has been yes. But the harder questions, I think, lie elsewhere. Is an increasingly interconnected world economy basically stable?
There's a lot to unpack in that paragraph. "By and large, the answer has been yes." Samuelson feels he must repeat his faith before questioning it. No proof that the "answer is yes." But you don't get a chair at the Very. Serious. People. table unless you have been believing what they repeat over and over and over. It meets the "by and large" test. Which is not a test. It is a mere personal belief. Fine... believe what you want... but don't inflict it on us without proof.
He goes on to wonder about the "mysterious forces" that are causing the financial crisis. Hmm. Mysterious. Can you say record trade deficit? Stagnant incomes? Unparalleled shifting of production from American production to consumption from overseas? Thus, no savings, and our former creditor economy trying to make a debtor economy into something good, and failing in the process?
Threatened by cognitive dissonance*, Samuelson must therapeutically assert his desperate "belief":
The good that globalization has done is hard to dispute.... In the United States, imports and foreign competition have raised incomes by 10 percent since World War II, some studies suggest. Job losses, though real, are often exaggerated.
Current free trade policy... which I want to change... and "globalization"... which is happening regardless of trade deals... are related but different. Samuelson really is blending them. But his assertion of 10% increased income since WWII is kinda funny. Comparing us to a war devastated state of affairs, 60 years ago? Is that all you've got? And only 10% at that?
Imagine all the growth we have foregone because we buy stuff and do not produce it. What would your home's financial affairs look like if you only bought, and produced very little?
* Cognitive dissonance: This is the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.
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