New Study Shows that Establishment Economists are Wasting Our Time

economyincrisis ^ | January 29, 2016 | Michael Stumo

[central_va]

Establishment economists will defend to the death the idea that trade does not destroy jobs. Yes, I’m serious. They believe that. Really.

Instead, they say, job losers move into other jobs so there is no net job loss. They also assume that trade deals cause no change in the balance of trade.

This matters because when economists study the TPP and other trade deals, their models find no job losses and no future trade imbalances because those bad things are simply assumed away. Those net negatives cannot happen and are not even worth inquiring about. If you think you observed trade deficits and job losses in the real world, you are simply mistaken.

That is why we cannot trust the trade deal cheerleaders at the Peterson Institute or the World Bank.

[central_va]

Adjustment in local labor markets [after trade liberalization] is remarkably slow, with wages and labor-force participation rates remaining depressed and unemployment rates remaining elevated for at least a full decade after the China trade shock commences. Exposed worker experience greater job churning and reduced lifetime income. At the national level, employment has fallen in U.S. industries more exposed to import competition, as expected, but o􏰀setting employment gains in other industries have yet to materialize.

[SaveFerris]

Yeah, they take jobs at Subway for 16 hours a week, if they can find even that.

This whole “recovery” is a joke. A sizeable portion of the middle class has ceased to exist. The ripple effect is a lot of strip mall stores that used to survive are gone. I see a lot of this in the Midwest. Even gas stations that were around for two decades are gone. I have been surprised when I go by the dark ruins of a station I used to frequent only years ago.

[Sequoyah101]

PHONY RECOVERY! It never has been.

The Dow 30 has grown at a paltry 3% annual rate of return since 2008. That is the equivalent of just about NOTHING!

Yup, the stores are disappearing. The ripple effect of crap jobs or no jobs is accumulating. We may never recover.

[mjp]

Happily, an important economic study was just released showing – GASP! – that there are net job losses, reduction in lifetime incomes for workers, and trade imbalances that result

It depends on what kind of economic system we actually have. Is it a mixed economy hampered by libtard labor demands and libtard controls, or a platonically ideal free market economy with a free market in labor and money wage rates and prices free to fall when necessary? In a true free market economy, unemployment would be temporary because money wage rates would be free to fall to the point where businesses could begin hiring again, And even a temporary reduction in average money wage rates does not mean the same thing as a reduction in real wage rates for the average worker, because prices would be falling at the same time. And with the passage of time, the increase in economic progress and resulting increase on overall prosperity would benefit everyone who participated in the system.

[SaveFerris]

I’m sorry to tell you this. We will never recover.

It would take decades with broad changes.

The economic time-bomb will go off before that.

The gov’t will have a hard time paying the interest on the debt they owe.

Cities, States and the Fed will try to raise taxes to cover the difference. It will have the calculated effect of a slower economy.

I’d prefer to be wrong. I miss the good old days. I used to throw $20 at dinner without even batting an eye. These days, a $20 bill (Mr. Jackson) is as rare as an Obama transcript, or daddy.

Still, I prefer a successful businessman, who is pro-2A at the helm, over Lying Hillary Benghazi Bathroom Server Clinton.

[SkyPilot]

I agree. I don't see our nation recovering to the glory days either.

Double that sentiment because of debt, and our importing the Third World pagans.

[Sequoyah101]

Progress eh?

So sad.