Employment Declines of a Magnitude Not Seen Since 1944-45

SG comments on Economist Brad DeLong's Blog - scroll down

Free trade, as advocated and practiced to date, has always held the promise of job flight as companies race to the wage bottom. Robert Reich promised that we wouldn't miss those nasty, dangerous blue-collar jobs as we all retrained to be manipulators of symbols and ideas. Then it turned out that Indian and Chinese programmers could manipulate symbols and ideas just as well, and for a tenth the price!

Now economists will have us retraining endlessly, hoping to hold our lives together until all those new job categories (bed-pan attendant, burger-flipper) bubble up from our new economy. Don't worry, it will all sort out somewhere down the line, and your great-grandchildren will enjoy wage parity with Chinese workers. In the meantime, we can get cheap sweaters, electronics and MRI readings! And isn't it swell that the entrepreneurs that are organizing all that offshoring are getting rich!

I propose the dissolution of the traditional college campus. Why pay tens of thousands annually to send your children for overpriced instruction from tenured economics professors when they can learn the same nonsense at a tenth the price from Indian economists over the internet?

It is past time to re-examine the assumptions that are the foundation of the free-trade religion that passes for science in the academic community.