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On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 11:52:19PM -0400, Matthew Rosewarne wrote:
> On Friday 26 October 2007, Toby DiPasquale wrote:
> > Markets are not zero sum and they have never been. Wealth is not zero sum;
> > it can be created and destroyed. The trade that you describe is not a
> > waste because it creates wealth in both directions of trade. Again, please
> > read the Econ101 textbook.
>
> Look, there's no reason to make this hostile. I am fully aware of the
> principles of market captialism and did not refute them. I also just stated
> that the market is _not_ zero-sum. I do, however, consider the current trend
> to abandon industry in the US to be a very costly mistake in the long term,
> regardless of its positive short term impact. Can I say for sure?
> Absolutely not, only time can determine that. I was hoping to reply to your
> above post as well, but if you're going to disregard everything I say, I
> don't see the point in trying. I'm sorry if I've not been clear, I thought I
> had been, but misrepresenting my words doesn't make for a reasonable
> dialogue.
Its not at all hostile. You made some outrageous statements of opinion. We
(zuzu and myself) do not agree. This is called "discourse". However,
personally I feel you are not equipped to have a rational economic
discourse. I believe this because I find it extremely hard to believe that
someone could simultaneously be well-informed regarding basic economic
principles and also believe that we are in some kind of imminent danger of
collapse because we are witnessing increased competition in some markets.
I am not an expert in economics by any measure, but I know that increased
competition is not a bad thing and therefore have to conclude that your
logic is faulty or you are conflating "history" with "economics".
As well, you're misinformed as to the strength of the manufacturing sector
in the US today: its quite strong. Its seen job losses, yes, but productivity
and efficiency gains. That does not indicate to me that we "don't make
anything anymore" which is essentially what you are claiming. The
concurrent job losses and increased efficiency of the US manufacturing
sector are both due to increased competition from China, Korea and Japan
and to a lesser extent, Mexico. In the grand scheme of things, this
situation improves all involved. All involved are forced to become more
efficient and focus on their comparative advantages, allowing the others
to focus on theirs, to the benefit of the market as a whole (and here's
the key point: even people who aren't directly involved in the
competition).
You also overstate the percentage of the economy that is "intellectual" by
which you are most likely referring to the tech sector. Health care trumps
the tech sector by a good margin and we lead the world in that area due to
our peculiarly free-market stance on drug policy (save the stem cell
debacle). The US economy is increasing the number of high-skill jobs, yes,
and that is a good thing as, right now, that is our comparative advantage
and we should, by definition, be focusing on that.
Finally, trade is much more globally intertwined than you are allowing
for. National borders are a political artifact. People are still people
and will seek to gain an edge and if they have to cross a border to do it,
they will. If that activity is wealth-creating in both directions, then
this is a good thing both in that it forces efficiency by creating or
increasing competition and also that both parties are made better off by
having had the opportunity to trade. Remember: people don't buy things
they don't want. Self-sufficiency is a myth: its not achievable on the
scales we are talking about.
>From my perspective, your argument centers around the US somehow losing
its current place of power in the world because we don't produce enough
physical goods. Please allow me to illustrate how this is false: The US
currently has this wonderful machine to create low-price, high-quality
cars. We take corn from Iowa and we send it into this black box and out
come cars.
This black box is called "Japan".
Are you seriously proposing that we stop using this black box and use an
inferior one because the box doesn't happen to be within our borders? This
argument is identical to "baseball will be destroyed because they are
allowing steroid use to run rampant". Obviously not so: ticket sales are
on the rise and so are TV viewings. People want to see interesting games
and if the players on steroids provide that, they'll get airtime and
money.
I'm not sure if what you're advocating is protectionism or isolationism,
but history is replete with the failures of both strategies.
P.S. As this is seriously off-topic, I'll be hereafter silent on this
issue. This list is already off-topic enough.
--
Toby DiPasquale
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