Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Right, but Sebby tells us that those new members of the middle class in China will be "snuffed" as low-wage labor jobs move elsewhere. Because, you know, the amount of labor needed is not only zero sum now but declining over time. Because, further, it's obvious that the billion or so people in China, India and the rest of the developing world that have moved out of abject poverty and into the global middle class don't consume any more than they used to.

Only negative things have dynamic effects. Positive things don't.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Just a reminder: The prime-age employment-to-population ratio remains at levels that before 2010 we would have characterized as depressed and indicating substantial economic slack.

It is true that things are improving. It is also true that we are many years into a recovery which can't last forever.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There are a lot of US jobs created by globalization.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Globalization drives inequality. So do many other things. Full stop.

No. Automation is interchangeable with it for these purposes.

See above. See also, tech's severe (not "extreme") acceleration in recent decades.

Well, when you put the rabbit in the hat so authoritatively...

Every riff's been played before (even Cohen's "secret chord"). Show me a man who expects to hear something previously unsaid and I'll show you a seriously frustrated motherfucker.

You should work for the GOP wing of climate deniers using this sort of logic.

I was unaware of this. Oh, dammit... I just shit my pants again.

It's regionalism, which allows the developed regions to retain their advantages over the non-developed ones. It also curbs labor arbitrage. How is this not obvious?

Perhaps its doesn't so much worsen it, but sustains it at present levels, as the labor arbitrage necessary to allow developing nation labor to enjoy more work and better pay is curbed.

They don't care. Hell, I don't care. I just like being the guy who cites the Law of Unintended Consequences and says, "Ha ha" when shit happens.

I think they're also high on the hubris they can tame risk and manage society.

Have you ever engaged in a conversation where you weren't carefully guarded, even at loss of any truly interesting discourse, to seem like the most clever and deeply thoughtful person in the exchange?

Most amusing is your criticism of me for saying what's been said many times before. You realize neither you (nor Brad DeLong) has said anything new. I'll grant that at least your repackaging is grammatically much better than his.

They are. But I'm also agreeing with you that there could be a policy fix. There probably will be, but not in our lifetimes.

I've never met an aside I wasn't willing to indulge.

I couldn't agree more with the approach. But it seems we long ago passed the point at which eating the elephant in bites was an option. I see great similarity between our environmental and economic situations.

This is why I'm not really freaked out by Trump. Nobody ever does anything significant without a severe crisis. If that clown brings it on, so be it. I'd rather get it over with now and leave a better world for the kids than find more ways to kick the can down the road and lave it blow up in their faces more spectacularly later.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Thanks! While we're reminding each other of stuff:

Right, but:
Hey, look! If monetary policy is at all effective (I'm open to arguments that it isn't!) the low rate environment has done more than prop up asset prices (not even sure it's meaningfully done that).

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

How is that good?

How is that not bad?

You're not bothered by Trump because ultimately you're a Trump voter. What you want most is to stick it to people who you find smug and condescending and you don't much care who gets hurt (because you're confident it won't be you) to make it happen.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You posted a link to an article. I tried to read it, and couldn't figuring out what it was arguing or adding. If it's not saying anything new, fine, but then I'm going to close that tab instead of reading it. At least it's clear what Delong is saying.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This is a positive side to the process the article I cited described.

But this is not much comfort to labor. As the wages in developing economies increase, the firms doing the arbitraging move to cheaper labor locations. When that happens, the wages in the developing nations freezes or drops with the lost demand for it.

And I'm not so sure that once the wages and skills increase, those developing nations have a workforce that can compete. When ACME Widgets leaves Indonesia for Africa, its Indonesian workers are not going to run out and start a competing entity with their labor and the leftover plants.

I'd run that clock back 40 years. But then, would we have had the great American Century? A lot of the golden years from WWII onward accrued from our dominance and exploitation.

The question is, when is that some point? Because if you're among the labor losing in the game right now, in the US or any other developed nation, what time frame do you care about beyond your work life expectancy? On what rational basis would you vote for anything that causes greater competition?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Delong's next sentence:

And the short term trend may be favorable, but the long term trend is not. That is the bigger point. Saying that things are improving is whistling past the graveyard. As is dismissing problems as political.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It is good for labor in developed nations. That's just a fact. I don't think it's good, but what I think is immaterial. The question on the table was the impact on developed nation labor.

See above.

Flattery will get you everywhere with yourself. But here's pro tip - masturbation provides a much better payoff.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

If technological change drives inequality, then does globalization really make a difference? You could have trade wars and less global economic integration and still have technological change driving inequality. Seems like this is an important thing to sort out before trying to do something about it. And to do that, you need to drill down a little more. Which would also be interesting.

I don't understand why you think we are getting something over with now and will get to a better world for the kids. Trump could really fuck things up in a way that doesn't sort itself. For example, if you think that US participation in the Paris Accord is good, then Trump pulling us out would be bad, and it's hard for me to see how that would naturally lead to a reaction that would undo the bad. Maybe it will, but I'm not taking it for granted. Maybe Trump makes things worse in a way that's hard to fix. For example, by reducing trust, that people have in their government, or that other countries have in doing deals with us.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

As wages increase and lots leech to lower labor cost locations, they will see their wages drop or freeze. Their middle class can pick up the slack, but the growth will be pared.

It's all about where you are, and the timeline. If you're developed nation labor right now, the timeline is ominous. You'll favor protectionism. It won;t work, of course... But you'll hope it can. And when it doesn't, and there are lots of you who are pretty pissed, let's hope someone like Ty is in charge and suggests serious policy fixes (debt forgiveness and universal basic income to start... both of which will have positive economic impacts which will ease some of the pain the working classes will be feeling).

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

They work in concert. Both do it, but together, they move it forward at a rate that makes policy fixes to address their negative impacts difficult.

(I also don't think they could ever exist without each other, for obvious reasons.)

True. But with globalization, the process is accelerated. More knowledge shared more quickly, etc.

Agreed. But... this is a limited forum.

Agreed. But I don't think so. We've got a lot of advantages to burn, even with that screwball in charge.

Capitalism has reached Marx's self-devouring point. We need a system reboot. What we have now does not deserve trust.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

God, you loved Econ 101 didn't you? This is like listening to the kids who thought they understood the world based on getting through a text book while hung-over back in the 80s.

Fundamentally, the dominance of America int he post-war years had to do with the strength of our unions, the consuming power of union workers, and the age and efficiency of our industrial plant. Stronger unions over seas at the time would have been great for the American union worker, increasing the number of consumers of their products and nipping the wage competition in the bud. Our multinationals had a vested interest in keeping wages low abroad and exploiting the raw materials produced there, as well as some of the industrial production, but that benefit accrued to only a sliver of the economy, not working folks.

Higher wage costs abroad have happened very quickly. Ten years ago when we were structuring international ops there was focus on wage costs abroad; now you see less of that and more focusing on competitive advantages abroad, like available engineers to hire. The US meets labor needs here only by importing educated folks from abroad; if those people don't stay after coming to school here, the operations will leave and the whole set of jobs, professional, skilled, and unskilled, will leave with them. But that labor availability has more to do with whether company X hires here or in China than competitive labor costs.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

1. Where has this happened? I can think of places where it happened due to outside meddling (colonialism & cold war and soft imperialism) and authoritarian misrule, but none caused by globalization.

2. You're completely leaving out the increased demand for stuff that comes with rising wages in the developing world.