« Monkeys and Typewriters | Main | Free Trade, Unilaterally» Don Boudreaux
May 09, 2007
Wolf in the hen house
Russell Roberts
How have we gotten to the point of sufficient pandering and economic ignorance that the President appoints someone whose job it is to do for the manufacturing sector what lobbyists are being paid to do for other sectors?
Martin Crutsinger of the AP reports (HT: HodakValue):
President Bush has chosen a former U.S. Navy rear admiral to be his point person in advocating for American manufacturers, the White House announced Friday.
Bush nominated William G. "Woody" Sutton to be the new assistant Commerce secretary for manufacturing and services, a post sometimes referred to as the president's manufacturing czar.
The administration created the position in 2003 in an effort to blunt attacks that Bush had not done enough to prevent the loss of nearly 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2001, a job loss critics blamed in part on unfair foreign competition from countries such as China.
We can only hope that it's just pandering. Why should taxpayers pay to have someone promote one sector's interests at our expense? Listen again to Adam Smith:
The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
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Comments
Russ:
Don't worry, of course it is cheap and insincere pandering.
The wealthy who own the administration want a stronger Chinese economy and cheaper labor in the US and that is what Bush is working toward.
Next thing you know, Bush will invent a Dep't of Education, subsidize college, and professors will be paid more for not working very hard. I'm sure glad that can't happen!
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt | May 9, 2007 1:24:06 PM
That Smith quote will turn up (truncated) in The Times tomorrow as a result of your last posting of it. This underpaid freelance thanks you for the reminder of it.
Posted by: Tim Worstall | May 9, 2007 2:38:45 PM
Related question: Why do the Bushes insist on having a czar for everything? Drug czar....education czar....manufacturing czar. Pretty ironic to use such a command economy term when they try to present themselves as champions of freedom.
Posted by: tw | May 9, 2007 3:15:25 PM
Tim Worstall- you should read what Adam Smith wrote about the apothecary! Apparently, their profit was as excessive and evil as Pfizer's is today . . .
. . . ah how it never changes.
Searchable Walth of Nations here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3300
Posted by: Al | May 9, 2007 4:46:27 PM
Rustbelt- are you saying public universities should be privatized? Because I've heard worse ideas . . .
Posted by: Al | May 9, 2007 4:50:08 PM
AI,
Some of the protectionist commenters like to make ad hominem gibes against Profs. Roberts and Boudreaux for their tenured positions. Requests for explanations on how tenure and trade is linked has been fruitless.
That rustbelt did it in a thread that weren't really about trade is new, at least to me.
Posted by: Henri Hein | May 9, 2007 9:34:05 PM
Isn't the entire Commerce Department simply a promotional tool for business? Like they need a subsidy for that.
Posted by: Sean Hackbarth | May 9, 2007 11:32:12 PM
The loss of manufacturing jobs that made possible a middle-class lifestyle for millions out of the depression is not something to be taken lightly. However, we can't say whether overall this was a good or bad thing for the nation unless we know what were the replacement jobs. Did we replace manufacturing jobs with McJobs? Do we have any statistics that would pertain to this question?
Posted by: David P. Graf | May 10, 2007 12:24:34 AM
"The loss of manufacturing jobs that made possible a middle-class lifestyle for millions out of the depression is not something to be taken lightly."
Ah, but we still have a middle class that is proportionately doing very well when compared to their peers at any other time in history. And quoting the number of two income homes as if they "have" to be doing so is one of the bigger lies of the day. People choose to "have" to work more simply so they can have more.
Putting the above quote in context, the Luddites said very similar things in the 19th century because they lacked the foresight to see a nation built on factory/manufacturing labor.
"Did we replace manufacturing jobs with McJobs?"
The middle class thrives today, and you know full well that 'they' don't work at McDs.
www.bls.gov
It's an absolute trove of info. . .
Posted by: Ray G | May 10, 2007 12:45:27 AM
Ray G. - My father and father-in-law were both able to buy homes, cars, raise families, send their kids to college and enjoy a comfortable retirement all on a single breadwinner's income. Do you really think many of us can do the same today?
Posted by: David P. Graf | May 10, 2007 8:16:44 AM
"Ray G. - My father and father-in-law were both able to buy homes, cars, raise families, send their kids to college and enjoy a comfortable retirement all on a single breadwinner's income."
What a wonderful fact. What does it have to do with anything? Should I go find some examples of fathers who couldn't buy homes, raise families, send kids to college and enjoy retirement on a single income?
Posted by: Keith | May 10, 2007 10:51:59 AM
Keith - you missed the point. That is - how easy is it today to maintain a middle class lifestyle without both spouses working?
Posted by: David P. Graf | May 10, 2007 10:29:50 PM
David Graf
The definition of middle class is not constant. Middle class today means living in a larger home, it means being healthier, driving more cars, having more televisions, and having access to a large range of goods not available when your father was buying a home. Asking whether one income is enough today is comparing apples with oranges.
I don't think there can be any serious question that living standards for the middle class today are much higher than 40 years ago. On every measure the middle class has more. Working conditions are more pleasant and safer. Higher female participation in the labour market, which you seem to think is bad, must be because the cost to women of going to work is outweighed by the benefit of doing so. This is a truism in a free society.
Posted by: ben | May 11, 2007 4:22:13 PM
Can a single-earner family thrive today? Absolutely. Most just choose to do otherwise.
Look at your own budget and ask if your house needs to be as big as it is, or your car as nice. Consider the amenities you purchase that simply didn't exist in your parents' or grandparents' time such as cable/satellite TV, cell phones, computers/internet, etc.
What it comes down to is that we have two-earner households because those earners believe it to be worth doing, not because it is necessary, or "not easy" to do otherwise.
Posted by: Noah Yetter | May 11, 2007 4:31:53 PM
Noah, that's a good way to put it. Another way is to point out that the increase in two earner households has come about mainly because of increased participation in the workforce by women. Mr Graf would have you believe women are working because either a) they have to to survive, or b) they are trying to keep up with the Jones.
But the rather more plausible explanation is that women are not content to sit at home when they have the freedom to be working. That freedom has come about in part because of changing attitudes and also due to innovations that have sharply lowered the amount of time required to run a household.
Posted by: ben | May 12, 2007 1:09:20 AM
How difficult do you think it would be to live in a 1,700 s.f. house in the suburbs, driving something equivalent to a Plymouth Satellite, watching a 13 inch black and white TV (using rabbit ears), etc., etc.? Not much, I think. That was the standard of living in the 1960s. My parents were happy with that.
For that matter, how expensive would it be to live with 1987 vintage appliances? I bet you could get an IBM AT for next to nothing.
A single earner today could live much better today than a single earner in our parent's generation.
Posted by: M. Hodak | May 13, 2007 9:47:15 AM
Posted by: laptop battery | Oct 13, 2008 3:38:49 AM
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