You won't get that from me. I am Skeptic.
A Los Angeles Times editorial today again urges us to "embrace" free "trade," which is the misleading term they and others use to imply that when barriers to international movements of goods, services, and capital are eliminated everything will be in balance. The New York Times also regularly exhorts us to "embrace" this globalization. Indeed, this is the view of so many other elites that it can be fairly called conventional wisdom. I wrote this letter to the LATimes, and I invite anybody else to help me "embrace" the conventional belief with evidence and analysis.
Clearly the Times believes every agreement that encourages movement of goods, services, and capital across all international borders is good for America. What’s your best argument why we should believe that?
Can you make the case with real-world data? If you don’t know how much the winners won or the losers lost, how can you say the net was positive?
If you make the theoretical argument that trade benefits both nations, how do you deal with the fact that trade theory assumes full employment in both nations and no cross-border movement of capital? The most significant effects of our “trade” agreements are freer capital flows, and there is no full employment anywhere.
And what exactly is our retrained and better educated work force going to make here and export? Even traditional export powerhouses like Boeing and Caterpillar are manufacturing more abroad and less at home.
BTW, I wouldn't normally put this letter on my blog until after the LATimes rejected it, but I am highly confident they will not print it, in part because they did print my letter on another subject less than 2 weeks ago.