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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (5322)	3/5/2004 12:41:37 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 173976

Yes, that argument is senator Schumers argument about comparative advantage. Senator Schumer is a democrat from NY, I'll bet he is chairing the discussion. His argument is from the article below. I even think it can go a step farther though, with intellectual property... Ricardo never heard of an IP economy, and the difference there is that there are two recipients of capital investment, one is your finished product and the other is the brain of that engineer who did the work. Offshoring engineering just means that you are transferring silicon valley to Bangalore india for the benefit of one generation of current CEO paychecks, at least to me. If these executives really need indian engineers maybe a compromise can be achieved where we allow them to come here on permanent (not temporary) visas, I don't know. However, when Ricardo said that free trade would produce shared gains for all nations, he assumed that the resources used to produce goods — what he called the "factors of production" — would not be easily moved over international borders. Comparative advantage is undermined if the factors of production can relocate to wherever they are most productive: in today's case, to a relatively few countries with abundant cheap labor. In this situation, there are no longer shared gains — some countries win and others lose. When Ricardo proposed his theory in the early 1800's, major factors of production — soil, climate, geography and even most workers — could not be moved to other countries. But today's vital factors of production — capital, technology and ideas — can be moved around the world at the push of a button. They are as easy to export as cars. This is a very different world than Ricardo envisioned. When American companies replace domestic employees with lower-cost foreign workers in order to sell more cheaply in home markets, it seems hard to argue that this is the way free trade is supposed to work. To call this a "jobless recovery" is inaccurate: lots of new jobs are being created, just not here in the United States. globalexchange.org

To: bentway who wrote (5322)	3/6/2004 4:09:44 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 173976

OK- I just listened to this C-span session on jobs and free trade. I am actually quite impressed with what I heard, of course there was some grandstanding but overall the POVs sounded correct, mainly that free trade is a good thing (contrary to popular belief democrats are not protectionists), and that there is no opportunity to "trade up" for US jobs lost (the training argument). One of the speakers (congressman from somewhere, Durgan?) had just come from India so they understand the technology industry jobs situation. My senator Dianne Feinstein understands the abuse of temporary work visas and their role in facilitating offshoring, she seems to be under tremendous pressure to extend the visa caps.