Dakota Beacon

Actually, the typical free-market interferer is a combination of an truth-twisting ideologue, ignoramus, and fool.

A fundamental element of the union mentality onto which liberals have hitched their political wagons has always been the call to "protect" American jobs. In the union boss's mind, a company that is losing money must be forced to keep everyone employed at full pay and benefits. The "thinking" seems to be that the ability of a business to pay employees is in no way tied to profitability. Company management is simply greedy.

The same union "thinking" also holds that company management exhibits greed by wanting to move operations overseas where labor and other costs are a fraction of U.S.-based costs. The union genius contends that cost structures that don't include profit-smothering union contracts should be ignored when a company considers locating overseas.

How many times have Americans heard similarly childish arguments from union thugs and liberal politicians?

Which takes us to the "thinking" of the self-impressed Ohio Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown. The Senator's call for restricting our' spending choices drags the job protection racket to new depths. After praising actions to restrict a company's ability to choose where to locate operations, Brown declared that he "would love to go anywhere in the United States and have a public debate to show the public and show the American people how much this [international trade] has undermined our sovereignty, our wealth, our manufacturing base." The Senator promptly declined an invitation from George Mason University Economist Don Boudreaux and Fox Business Channel's John Stossel to conduct the debate on Stossel's show.

Brown's position constitutes the same tired old call to restrict global trade in order to "protect" American jobs.

Dumb and dumber.

To get directly to the heart of the matter, let's go to Mark Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance, Carpé Diem, where the professor exposes economic fallacies. Perry points to a quote from Bison Gear & Engineering Corporation Chairman Ron Bullock in the Washington Examiner:

More effective foreign competition has led to increasing manufactured-goods trade deficits and the loss of 7 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 1980.

To which my fellow Cajun, Boudreaux, replies,

This account – repeated ad nauseam – would be more plausible if it were also the case that U.S. manufacturing output, during this same time, had declined. But this output rose. Manufacturing output today is nearly 100 percent higher than it was 30 years ago (see chart). Importantly, manufacturing output is up while manufacturing employment is down for a reason that is cause not for the pessimism that universally attends accounts such as Mr. Bullock‘s but rather for optimism. That reason is substantial growth in productivity, which is the only source of sustained and widespread prosperity.

Let's use two graphs from Perry to discuss Boudreaux's analysis. (Discussion continued below.)

Since 1975, while manufacturing output doubled, manufacturing jobs decreased by eight million. It is utterly idiotic to claim that the decrease occurred due to overseas cost efficiencies. The decrease happened because of American ingenuity--American efficiencies. I made the same argument several weeks ago HERE, where I discussed how the free market's natural destruction of jobs allows new markets to emerge and absorb not only the employees vacating the destroyed jobs, but also incrementally more new jobs.

When will liberals ever "get it?"

Never.

Expecting liberals to get it is an exercise in frustration and disappointment. Clear-thinking voters must defeat the liberal menace at the ballot box. This is the only way to stop liberal politicians from interfering in natural economic processes.

History is clear on the track record of interference: Markets and economies grow much stronger over the long term when political interference is minimized. Keeping the "helping hands" of all-knowing libs out of the economy will spur a healthier and stronger economy.

Reality will then have made liberal interference look dumb--which it always does.

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© 2010 Chuck Rogér