Because Sirota’s diatribes are always so much fun, take a look at todays. Shockingly, he’s attacking Obama again, but in a rather bizarre way.
Sounds good so far – sounds like we’re going to get some honest straight talk about how the rules of trade are rigged to protect patents, copyrights and intellectual property, but not to protect human rights, union rights, wage levels or the environment, and that such a tilted playing field unfairly forces Americans to compete with slave labor. But that’s not what we get from Obama. He immediately goes on to say the following, and then moves on to another subject:
“At that point parents start saying why aren’t we doing everything we can to prepare our young people making them adept at math and science so that they can get the jobs of the future and be the innovators of the future? Why wouldn’t we invest in early childhood education to bring every child up to par? Why wouldn’t we start paying our teachers more and help develop training for them to recruit the best and the brightest for the classroom? Why on earth would we start increasing the cost of student loans at the precise time we know that our young people are going to be needing a college education more than ever?”
Yes, it is the Great Education Myth – the idea that if we only just made everyone in America smarter, we would solve outsourcing, wage depression and health care/pension benefit cuts that are the result of forcing Americans to compete in an international race to the bottom. As I wrote recently in the San Francisco Chronicle, this is one of the most dishonest myths out there, as the government’s own data shows that, in fact, all of the major economic indicators are plummeting for college grads. You can make everyone in America a PhD, and all you would have is more unemployed PhD’s – it would do almost nothing to address the fact that the very structure of our economy – our tax system, our trade system and our corporate welfare system – is designed to help Big Money interests ship jobs offshore and lower wages/benefits here at home.
I’ll accept Sirota’s take on most free trade agreements–they don’t turn around and provide support to workers who will lose jobs and mostly the standards are pretty useless. I’m not as skeptical as he is of being able to get them to work since the only real reason they don’t is a lack of will on our part. In a world dominated by the US if we insist on certain condidtions for easy access to our markets, we can set reasonable rules.
But what he confuses with the education myth babble is that education is a necessary though not sufficient condition of economic growth. One can point towards stagnating wages for most levels of educational achievement, but not point out that an individual with more education almost always does better than an individual with less education. So even with stagnating wages one does far better by obtaining a higher level of education.
There is a deeper problem with his claim as well. The assumption is one of the economy being a zero sum game where there is only so much money to go around. Especially with a highly educated workforce this isn’t true. A more highly educated workforce innovates and creates opportunities.
For all the strawmen David complains about, the notion that anyone wants to get everyone a PhD is silly and shows a stunning lack of awareness about the current educational system. Beyond that, while I think some of his criticisms of Friedman are decent, Friedman is the first guy to say that government should provide a safety net including universal health care and social supports.
When I think about a highly trained workforce I think about high school graduation rate around 90 percent in our cities with 60 percent of those students going on to college or tech school. Right now? In many cities you see a 50 percent graduation rate.
That’s wasted human potential and even if you fix all those things wrong with the American economy that David argues to fix, economic growth and future opportunity is tied to having a highly educated workforce. It isn’t just oversees competition that requires that, it’s also technological advancement. Workers seeking high wage jobs whether factory work or other require a far higher degree of education to do the job well.
But here is my frustration with the point even more. He poo-poos Obama’s statement about early childhood education as not being about a structural problem in the economy. That is silly bullshit. Really silly bullshit. Not only do we have a moral responsibility to provide children with opportunity, we have a moral responsibility to give them the tools to successfully take part in democracy which education helps. Who votes the least? Those without a high school degree. Who are those without a high school degree? Kids who start out behind in kindergarten.
Now all of this is also a good investment because children who are better prepared upon entering elementary school also tend to do better economically and tend to get into less trouble as they are growing up costing society less.
Circling back to Barack Obama, this is really what annoys the hell out of me when it comes to Sirota. Sirota says he want a progressive leader, but then acts like leading on early childhood education and care is just buying into a myth. It’s not a myth that regardless of whether you fix US economic policy that improving a child’s chances is largely dependent upon improving her educational opportunities. If they aren’t losing out to someone in Asia, they are losing out to someone in another neighborhood, another city or another state.
Working in a modern factory isn’t the same as working in factories at a time when a high school diploma or less would be fine. That will never be the case again either and globalization will pit American workers against other workers in the world–yes, it would be nice to make that a more even competition, but even if it is, education will be critical to Americans doing well.
Kids in inner city neighborhoods aren’t going to find decent jobs when they grow up if you correct the inequities in US trade and tax policy, but they still don’t have technical degree or even a high school education.
Perhaps David isn’t familiar with these problems, but suggesting they aren’t important or brushing them off with this:
But it is downright destructive to peddle the idea that paying teachers more or better funding the No Child Left Behind Act will be th majore key to solving the problems inherent in a globalization policy that incentivizes slave labor, sweatshops, union busting and environmental degradation.
Of course, what Obama said of education is true. It’s just that education isn’t sufficient, but it is every bit as necessary as the policies Sirota is advocating. Those policies to varying degrees may be necessary for workers to improve their lives, but they are not sufficient either.
This is one of those places where there’s a real dispute between the labor liberals and a lot of the rest of the party.
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.
===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.
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.
>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.
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.
but, what do you expect from a hillarybot.
Old-line labor has lost the globalization battle. There are no reasonable laws that we can enact to counter 50 cent/hour labor costs.
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.
Sirota has great points about how tax laws contribute to keeping the cost of outsourcing low and I think the criticism of only education being the answer is a legitimate criticism, but he’s attacking a guy who voted against CAFTA–not the free trade Democrats who ignore there is a problem (which I used to fit into, btw, and not all that long ago).
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.
I like David Sirota. I don’t like David Sirota’s seeming vendetta against Obama. Sirota’s articles are making valid points, including this education one. But the way he chooses to frame his articles is the problem.
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.
It seems that sirota does have some bug about Obama. Don’t know why.
Some people think it’s cool because of the media attention. But, if he looked carefully, Obama did not go out and call the press to cover him all the time. I’m sure he likes it but, it’s the media that is following.
If he prefers someone as a runner and they are getting squeezed due to the coverage, it is not excuse to bash a good person who is very charismatic and liked by people. That other person’s time will come.
I did look on his blog and he is talking about archpundit and trying to say you are wrong. go figure.
The thing is that there is something beyond temporary media facination going on here. People were going crazy since summer before the media noticed. And his supporters know he is more than just a temporary flirt. It’s something much more. Maybe that bothers Sirota.
Sirota has the same bug that I do. Obama has started moving in the wrong direction. I’m old enough to remember when John Kerry was a Liberal, back when he was against the war (Vietnam) before he told us in the debate that he would do exactly what Bush would do, but somehow things would miraculously work out ok if a Democrat did it. And now I see Obama speaking lots of words that no longer mean anything. I’m damn tired of Liberals turning into Neo-Liberals and expecting us to follow them there.
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.