Monday, June 18, 2012
Robert Oak — China's Indigenous Innovation Policy Bigger Threat to the U.S.. Economy Than Offshore Outsourcing
Is the US getting the short end of the stick in the Chimerica relationship through shortsightedness? Robert Oak says yes, and finds it alarming.
Read it at The Economic Populist
China's Indigenous Innovation Policy Bigger Threat to the U.S.. Economy Than Offshore Outsourcing
by Robert Oak
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4 comments:
This is an example of why I question the free trade position of mainstream MMT.
We're giving up jobs and skills to the Chinese, and in return we get cheap merchandise that eventually ends up in a landfill.
There are externalities associated with free trade that the market does not take into account -- pollution, personal hardships associated with job loss, wage suppression, knowledge, and the waste of human resources.
Mosler's suggestion to maintain a core US manufacturing base by requiring the military to purchase Made-in-the-USA has partial merit, but mostly isn't realistic. It might work for steel, but it won't work for computer chips.
Even if the chip is made in the USA, the chip materials and the chip-making equipment will often be foreign.
The knowledge required to be proficient at manufacturing is not something that can be acquired quickly. If we were to be cut off from foreign suppliers, it would take us years, if not decades, to ramp up domestic production.
Andy Grove has been warning for some time about loss of capacity to innovate because of trade policy.
Peter Kinder, The Loss of American Manufacturing Jobs II: Intel's Andy Grove on 'How to Make an American Job'
Maybe it is time for the brilliant managers of the multinational corporations to wake up and realize that the Chinese are communist and their government can’t be bought out the way other governments like the one in DC are. Besides it seems sort of comical that when our jobs are leaving it is great for the corporations, but when corporate technology is being held captive that is not so great. In fact, most of the corporations say they are above nationalism. It will be interesting to see if they are above communism.
"This is an example of why I question the free trade position of mainstream MMT"
To be fair, this position is not a part of core MMT framework. Rather it is a viewpoint held by some within the MMT community.
Many other viewpoints are possible within the framework.
Yours is one with which I agree.
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