Asia has absolute advantage in the price of labor. The mobility of first world capital and technology means decline in employment in high value-added tradable goods and services in the first world. The displaced workers will drive down first world wages in non-traded goods and services.
The debate between “PCR” (Paul Craig Roberts) and others underscores the fatal problem among libertarians of relying too heavily on Utilitarian arguments. Outside of the fatal problem of relying too heavily on Utilitarianism, there is also the strategical problem.
Gerard Jackson takes on Greenspan’s insane policy of encouraging debt-funded consumption instead of allowing a liquidation of mal-investments: http://www.brookesnews.com/041201usrecession.html
The New Jersey legislature recently responded to calls for reforming state automobile laws. Some claim that these laws will increase competition. Given the track record of this legislature in regulating auto insurance, there are good reasons to be wary of this legislation. Does it really improve this situation overall, or is it just another payoff to special interests? The answering of this question requires some analysis of the New Jersey auto insurance system.
Gephardt’s Revolution Begins with a Global Minimum Wage (La Times and many other sources): What at first appears to be a case of extreme economic ignorance might as well be a plot to dis-employ all workers of the world who are not members of the labor unions he expects to fund his presidential campaign.
Yes, says William H. Gross in the Washington Post: “The United States is overextended, not just militarily but economically. We are trying to do too much, borrow too much, spend too much, and sooner or later we will have to suffer the consequences. We are a country in the beginning stages of what can best be described as hegemonic decay.
Two separate articles today comment on the same underlying theme: that much of government economics statistics are wrong.
The first, from Gerard Jackson , points out the problem of trying to make meaningful analysis from aggregate data, which can be misleading. He says:
There are real potential markets and economic justifications for going to the moon; it just depends on who is actually going. From my studies over the past 6-7 years of the engineering and business side of space development, I believe that private ventures are fully capable of profitably developing space even without government help. The potential markets are there, and while financing is tough, it is not impossible.
Reuters: The U.S. agency that provides a safety net to company pension plans will announce a $10 billion deficit this week, a congressman said on Tuesday, warning that it raised the prospect of a taxpayer bailout. It would be a record deficit for the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), which a year ago reported its worst year ever and has seen its deficit only grow since then.
