As for education, go beyond all the blathering words and ask a simple question: Are the actual proposals going to increase the level of education of human beings…or are they just going to funnel our tax dollars into large academic institutions with no particular care whether real education actually ends up taking place?

I’m not convinced, and the more I see the less convinced I become.

He is framing his articles, and writing his headlines, to attack Barack Obama. He cherry-picks things Obama has said and uses those to attack Obama.

He could just as easily frame his article around the issue, and point out where Obama said something and punch a hole in the quote.

I have no problem with vetting Obama, with putting him under the microscope. However, Sirota’s (as I stated) articles are coming off as an unhinged attack. This is not good for Sirota, either. It seems to me that it diminishes his value as a commentator on these subjects. To me, it harms Sirota’s credibility.

There are ways to rationally discuss an issue, which Sirota is typically very good at. There are ways to explore a candidates record, without getting personal. This feels personal, and that’s why it bothers me. Sirota seems to be obsessed with destroying Obama. It doesn’t matter how liberal Obama’s record is, it only matters that he offended Sirota.

Sirota seems to be applying an insanely difficult test to obtain his approval. I would ask, who meets with Sirota’s approval? Who has the goods to be what Sirota wants in a candidate? I can’t imagine anyone does. And while I know that Obama is the big news right now, I don’t understand Sirota’s obsession with discrediting him. He is to the left of every legitimate candidate or potential candidate out there. He is to the left of Sirota’s buddy Ned Lamont.

I don’t think there is anything Obama can do that would meet with Sirota’s approval.

Atrios has made this point many times–trade generally increases the overall growth in an economy, but there are certainly losers along the way and that benefit should partially be redirected to make sure those folks aren’t any worse off. We don’t do that. We have some small programs, but nothing like Nicholas’ point and we do need a substantial program–and as Vasyl points out we need that with or without more trade agreements.

Let me give you a specific example that shows how Sirota misses an important point.

He criticizes Obama’s plan to relieve car companies of legacy health care costs trading those costs for higher CAFE standards because it is a corporate give-a-way.

But let’s think about this. One big reason there are fewer high paying automotive assembly jobs is because the costs are fixed in other countries related to health care.

You might argue universal care is the ultimate answer and that’s true, but what do you do in the mean time? Well, I’d like to ensure that the rate of loss of those jobs is reduced or even for it to level out.

In Sirota’s partisan rage about corporate give-a-ways a very practical solution to saving high wage factory jobs is dismissed. It’s easy to rail against corporate give-a-ways, but in this case the corporate give-a-way results in more competitive car companies and thus more good factory jobs and a better environment. It literally evens the playing field with foreign competition as well with health care costs being manageable as they are in countries with universal health care.

There’s an additional problem that Obama gets criticized on this that’s related. One of the points single payer advocates like to argue (and I’m not against the idea) is that it cuts down on costs because the paperwork is reduced.

That’s true, but Obama points out that there is a significant cost to doing that–namely a huge sector of the economy where people are employed to shuffle paper related to health care claims. So if we suddenly switch to single payer what do we do with those people? The US, by looking to make the switch this late is stuck on a path dependency that is very problematic.

Now, perhaps there is a way to get to a single payer and transition the industry, but that needs to be thought out before we put a lot of people out of a job. I don’t care if United Health Care executives take a hit, but I do care that the guy from the Nine loses his job.

Or, just perhaps, there is another way to look at providing universal care. I’m not sure, but it’s not a simple binary choice if you are worried about workers.

It seems to me that the solution is to work on policies that increase wages in other countries. One way to do this would be to require labor law reform in countries which seek free trade agreements with the US. Fifteen dollar and hour jobs will certainly be outsourced to countries that pay $1/hr; it’s less certain that those jobs will be outsourced if the wages rise to $5 or $6 (because of the costs of outsourcing).

The other part of the equation is to increase the value of American workers. That’s were education reform comes into the picture. Arch is absolutely right that the kinds of jobs we should be creating here require a minimum level of education, and we should be concerned about the high school graduation rate. If we have a well-educated workforce, we can expect that those workers will earn higher wages simply because they are worth more.

There’s a lengthier debate about this issue that probably shouldn’t be played out in comments. (For example, increasing wages overseas creates new markets, but has a detrimental effect on the environment.) Nevertheless, the exchange between Nicholas and Archpundit is an important and interesting debate.

Sirota’s voice should be part of the debate. But it bothers me when he uses an issue on which there is still only a developing Democratic consensus to beat up on a particular politician. This debate — what to do about disappearing jobs that pay good wages — is simply too important to be used as a bludgeon against individual politicians who share the same goal of reducing income disparities.

Exactly. Over on Maxspeak, one of the economists there pointed out that Sweden (I think? Maybe Norway.) spends 2% of GDP on trade adjustment assistance. 2% of GDP. That’s an astounding figure; roughly 1/10th of the US federal budget. Even one-tenth of that would be an extraordinary amount.

>Sirota likes to say that no one wants to stop globalization, and that’s not really the main point–it’s inevitable as is gravity, but you can manage trade and gravity to make it helpful instead of painful.

Right, but I think that Sirota would say that the free trade Democrats aren’t trying to manage g11n in any meaingful way; they’re just spouting nostrums about how more investment in education is going to save us without doing the hard (and expensive) work of compensating those whose jobs are lost to free trade.

I should say that my personal politics probably fall closer to yours than Sirota’s on this one.

And this is partly why I’ve become far more skeptical about trade agreements. In theory, NAFTA had the kind of retraining that we use for base closing, but that doesn’t really happen.

There are ways to incorporate some of the retraining into someone like that’s life, but it takes income supports which Bush wouldn’t support. We can fix those problems from unfair trade agreements through better policy, but ultimately, the problems will still be around. Sirota likes to say that no one wants to stop globalization, and that’s not really the main point–it’s inevitable as is gravity, but you can manage trade and gravity to make it helpful instead of painful.

For example, SEIU President Andy Stern is not necessarily anti-education. But when I went to a book signing and people asked him about education, he tried to avoid talking about it. He says education is a distraction from larger issues of income inequality, that X out of the top Y fastest-growing job categories don’t require a college degree, etc. When questioners ask him “what about education” he really tries to end the conversation. Again, he’s not anti-education; he specifically talks about both early childhood education and moving to small schools as good public investments. But I suspect that what he and Sirota are trying to do is end the “education is a silver bullet” myth. Recall that in the 2004 debates, Bush’s answer to the hypothetical unemployed steelworker was essentially to go back to community college. You’re 40 and you have two kids and a house; how absurd does that sound? Or “if you think about it, the No Child Left Behind Act is really a jobs act”. ?!?!?!

The responses to free trade coming from both sides of the aisle on this front are very unsatisfying. “More education” is fine and dandy for the future generation, but it does little to nothing for the current generation. Going back to school isn’t really an option unless you’re in a two-income household and can take the massive hit in income & assets while you’re in school. Education will help pull some people into the middle and professional classes, but it probably won’t do much about inequality per se.

For a comparable situation, no one tells the towns hit by base closings that their problems will be solved if they go back to school.