Paul Craig Roberts is an idiot spinning myths that Neo Isolations Protectionist lap up with no critical thought.
Protectionism doesn't work. It limits mature markets, not protects them. Not one Communist style Autarckcy system has worked.
What we have in Roberts is the mouth piece for people who, based on narrow personal economic views, want to rationalize their rabidly nonsensical Economic views. So they make absolutely ridiculous statements "comparative Advantage fails in the modern age". Utter rot.
We have the best sustained economic growth rates since the 1980s, growing average wages across the board, highest level of new home owners ever and 4.7% Unemployment.
If Paul Craig nonsensical theories were real EVERYTHING would be being done is SE Asia or Central America. It nonsense. Education system, access to capital, low risk, closeness to markets, Rule of Law, Political Stability, Safety etc etc etc. There are thousands of things that give a nation like the USA a comparative advantage. What Roberts and the Protectionist do not ever grasp is cost of labor is but a single issue of thousands businesses struggle with. For example, Logistics costs. The bone head Roberts never bothers to consider how that effects the ability of manufacturers to produce elsewhere. Nope he is a monotone Labor Cost fool. Too bad Capitalism is much more complex an issue then Roberts seems able to grasp. He's an Economic Idiot.
What Paul Craig does is validate the Neo Isolationists dogma. They are on the losing side of Capitalism evolving. They cling to the notion that it is some how SOMEONE else fault for their inability to evolve with the Creative Destruction in Capitalism. Paul Craig Roberts and Company are merely dinosaurs screaming has they wallow in the tar pits of Capitalism. Evolve or die Protectionists.
If a Japanese businessman uses the dollars he earns from exporting products to the US to buy stock in GE, how is any debt created for Americans?
We are selling our means of production and research to finance cheap foreign consumer goods.
Yet we produce and export more now than at any other time in our history.
Individual families are falling further into debt.
Then how has household net worth more than doubled (to an all time record) since 1994?
Paul Craig Roberts is an idiot on foreign affairs and has become unhinged in relation to the Bush administration, but he is quite right on economics
PCR is off his meds on all subjects these days including economics.