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Who Said the Following?

ArchPundit December 13, 2006 4 Comments

“And while upgrading the education levels of American workers will
improve their ability to adapt to the global economy, a better education
alone won’t necessarily protect them from growing competition…In other
words, free trade may well grow the world-wide economic pie — but
there’s no law that says workers in the United States will continue to
get a bigger and bigger slice.”

====

“This doesn’t mean however that we should just throw up our hands and
tell workers to fend for themselves…I am optimistic about the
long-term prospects for the U.S. economy, and the ability of U.S.
workers to compete in a free trade environment — but only if we
distribute the costs and benefits of globalization more fairly across
the population.”

Necessary and Sufficient Conditions

ArchPundit December 12, 2006 9 Comments

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.

Oh yeah, Pinochet’s Dead

ArchPundit December 12, 2006 No Comments

A Tale of Two Editorials:

Trib:

Pinochet seized power in 1973 in a coup that ousted leftist President Salvador Allende. Pinochet’s defenders insist he was a patriot who did only what was necessary to protect Chile from the Communist tide that was sweeping Latin America. Under the guidance of University of Chicago economists, he installed free-market reforms that helped Chile become a model for the region. But he also jailed, tortured or executed thousands of political opponents, according to a civilian commission appointed by his democratically elected successor.

WaPo

AUGUSTO PINOCHET, who died Sunday at the age of 91, has been vilified for three decades in and outside of Chile, the South American country he ruled for 17 years. For some he was the epitome of an evil dictator. That was partly because he helped to overthrow, with U.S. support, an elected president considered saintly by the international left: socialist Salvador Allende, whose responsibility for creating the conditions for the 1973 coup is usually overlooked. Mr. Pinochet was brutal: More than 3,000 people were killed by his government and tens of thousands tortured, mostly in his first three years. Thousands of others spent years in exile.

Allende was no saint, but this is foolishness of the type that leads people to say rape victims were asking for it. Saying Allende was a poor President, doesn’t change the fact that he was the duly elected President of Chile. If he was that bad, there is a removal process in all countries to remove a President from power. If Pinochet and his allies wanted to do that, they could have done so through Constitutional means that respect, you know, that democracy thing. They didn’t. Instead they killed people and then they killed thousands more in an attempt to make Chile like the United States. Chile was stable for Latin America before that. It is still recovering from the effects of the military rule.

On top of it, great advocates of freedom, like Milton Friedman, helped him do it.

Apologizing and Clarifying

ArchPundit December 12, 2006 7 Comments

A response to this post is from Elizabeth Edwards and her comments can be found here–for a lot of reasons I believe this is actually Elizabeth Edwards and as soon as I finish this post I’ll follow it up with an e-mail.

Usually I would let a post like this slide, figuring life is short and no one bats 1000%. But I also know how lore is built, particularly on the internet. The post itself is a great example of that actually, moving from a post elsewhere about the 2004 differences between David Axelrod and me (David Axelrod knows that I like him personally then and now) to a conclusion in this post that I was, well, a pretty awful sort of person altogether, with an odd reference to Mudcat Saunders. Mudcat and I are a dear friends; I have always respected him and I think the feeling is reciprocated. It has been that way from the beginning and I have remained one of his strongest cheerleaders. The post is simply wrong. Wrong on the facts but most wrong in the huge leaps it takes.

But listen, wives have a tough time in this. Do I want the best for John? You bet, but not one smidgen more than Christie Vilsack or Cindy McCain do for their husbands. And these women will — when and if the time comes — spend a lot of themselves in the campaign that bears their husband’s — and their — name. They will know although it is not their campaign, it is their life that will be affected. It was unfair in 1992 to suggest that Hillary not speak up in Bill Clinton’s campaign; it is unfair to suggest that if one of us expresses our opinions, pro or con, on anything that we are being petty and certainly unfair to suggest that we are being vindictive.

You can have at me. You don’t have to like all you see. None of us ever expects to bat 1000%. But — and this is not just for me but for all the spouses — be fair.

First, an apology–the post wasn’t clear in what I was saying and several other people I talked to noted that to me. I’m sorry for giving the impression that she has a bad relationship with the two people listed, though I think it’s safe to say the professional relationships were strained at times. It was sloppy writing and I’m sorry for hurting Elizabeth Edwards’ feelings. She is an incredible woman and doesn’t deserve that.

Second, the point I was trying to make was that she has people who absolutely love her and people who absolutely hate her. I think that’s very accurate and even her strongest advocates will say that. I don’t see that as a bad thing because one thing that such loyalty brings are people who will work their asses off for you and I intended for the point to be made with the rhetorical question of what is the problem then? What is clear in my mind isn’t always so clear in my writing. There are a couple testimonials to her in comments that fit with other descriptions I’ve heard previously and they are quite touching.

And the post isn’t about spouses only, though they often are the most frequent category of person fitting into this sort of problem. I think any candidate who had a remarkably talented wife would be stupid to not include her or him in the campaign–as some pointed out this sort of complaint that the wife is involved is often a sexist point.

The point was supposed to be far more narrow and clearly from the reaction, I didn’t make it very well which is my fault and I can’t blame Elizabeth Edwards or some commenters for calling me on it because I reread the post as a neutral observer I’d probably have come to the same conclusion.

So the point was supposed to be in regards to her handling of consultants and staff was problematic because she tends to micromanage and many would say she cuts people out of the loop. That’s a management problem. It’s also what probably endears her to those who love her and so it’s a double edged sword. But here is the key to what I meant:

The problem then? Campaigns cannot be run when the entire staff has to answer to someone outside the traditional hierarchy. It creates fear and people tend to avoid taking risks.

To me the problem isn’t the spouse is involved, it’s that in this case, as I understand it, there are problems with the way the campaign is managed with people answering to more than one voice at the same time. Elizabeth Edwards is free to disagree on that point as well–in fact, she’s welcome to a front page posting if she so desires.

It is great that she reads blogs and that she sticks up for herself. It shows one of many reasons she is considered very smart politically (as I did say–many think she’s the brighter of the two which is pretty high praise given John is pretty smart himself).