Dan,

As someone who is one the fence on the RTB issue, I was very interested to read your chapter fragment. To be honest, I thought it was pretty weak.

You cite three empirical arguments for RTB. I thought your reasoning against 1 and 3 was minimal, and even 2 was only somewhat compelling.

You then mention assumptions made by those who espouse RTB, such as corporations will "always" prefer lax regulatory standards. "Always" clearly is not necessary to believe RTB, and your choice of IP as contrary evidence is poor-- that isn't even remotely related to the issues concerned with RTB.

The whole paper felt more like a lawyer trying to trip up a witness on technicalities rather than dealing with the meat of the issue.

Sure, we can throw away these jobs -- after all, machine tool engineering is just the sort of low value added occupation that is a drag on our economy.

But what exactly will this trade adjustment assistence entail? What do you retrain a 50 year old engineer to do? Maybe they can teach -- oh wait, their will be no students for their classes as younger people recognize that highly technical engineering fields aren't worth the effort. Better to get the Poli Sci degree and become a lawyer. No way the ABA is going to let jobs be outsourced.

Maybe these experienced engineers can get jobs as 'management consultants' with McKinsey Global Associates. Or greeters at Walmart. Everyday, in every way, free trade is making us better and better.

"This is no longer people criticizing the Department of Labor for one or two cases. This is a systemwide problem," said Howard Rosen, a former congressional staffer who now heads an organization calling for changes in the trade adjustment program."

I've been spending a lot of time working in Michigan, and as far as I can tell the fastest growing industry there is home foreclosures - and the worst of the auto problems haven't hit yet.

The 2006 GOP candidate for governor had closed an Amway factory in Michigan and built a factory in China, and the GOP can't figure out why he lost. Dumb.

And just what is the TAA going to train people for?

Repeat after me:

"Do you need a cart today?"

"Fries with that?"

The political backlash, as evident in Ohio, is gathering steam.

"This is no longer people criticizing the Department of Labor for one or two cases. This is a systemwide problem," said Howard Rosen, a former congressional staffer who now heads an organization calling for changes in the trade adjustment program."

I've been spending a lot of time working in Michigan, and as far as I can tell the fastest growing industry there is home foreclosures - and the worst of the auto problems haven't hit yet.

The 2006 GOP candidate for governor had closed an Amway factory in Michigan and built a factory in China, and the GOP can't figure out why he lost. Dumb.

And just what is the TAA going to train people for?

Repeat after me:

"Do you need a cart today?"

"Fries with that?"

The political backlash, as evident in Ohio, is gathering steam.

Listen, as much as I like economics but could never put it into practice, I got the idea of free trade. It made sense to me. I understand it, accept it, and like it quite a bit. So I agree with you that these guys are off base. Yet, as much as I hate the idea of protectionism, I can understand why people in Ohio voted for someone like Sherrod Brown. So my question to you, someone who has more formal training in this area than I do, is, what can we do to make the situation better than hasn't already been tried or needs to be tried again? Should we invest in infrastructure, covering the state in broadband wiring and/or making it wi-fi accessible? Should we invest in the university system? Should we restructure the tax code? Should we do something more direct with the powers of government?

In the end, of course, it's up to the people, but I always get the feeling that the government can do something more. So please, tell me what you think.

I'm not trying to pick a fight, before anyone thinks that. As I indicated earlier, we are on the same side.

Dan, instead of just blogging about the issue, why don't you start voting for politicians who support your position on trade i.e. Republicans. The Democrats have no incentive to support your position on trade given that you have voted for them anyway in the past two election cycles and every incentive not to listen to you as they rely heavily on union support.

Picking up on the last two comments, let's remember that it wasn't just the people of Ohio who voted for Sherrod Brown, DAN voted for Sherrod Brown, or at least her political comrades. So the question is not, how can we make free trade more appealing to the benighted masses, but how could we make educated academics who pretend to believe in free trade act on those beliefs?

Personally, I doubt that the "herd of independent minds" in academe could ever be induced to act in a principled fashion, but I'm open to suggestions.

Speaking from Ohio, Sherrod Brown is most definitely a guy.

Ohio has 164,000 fewer jobs than the day George Bush took office (using George as a benchmark). Real incomes are down during an economic expansion. Personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures have been epidemic.

So do any of you really expect Ohioans (or Michiganians) to be enthusiastic about trade policies that make people in California more prosperous and people in Ohio less prosperous?

The protectionists continue to overreach. Whether you lose your job because of technical change, new intra-US competition, or new foreign competition, you're in equally bad shape. And those who gain from these changes are equally obscure though very real.

If a lost engineering job is supposed to justfiy protectionism, then it also justifies outlawing technical change and putting up trade barriers between states or even counties. The idiocy of such policy is evident; the propaganda use of "victims" to support protectionism is arguing in bad faith.

"DAN voted for Sherrod Brown, or at least her political comrades..."

Isn't he living in Massachusetts and teaching at Tufts?

There's a certain degree to which we can group people together based on the positions or actions of some, but you are overreaching here. It'd be like me suggesting that a vote for any random Republican is a vote for a segregationist who happens to be in the party as well.

Your point it not well-taken, Brian. If voting for any random Republican meant that the U.S. Congress was materially more likely to implement segregationist policies, I wouldn't ever vote Republican, but it doesn't mean that. In contrast, voting for any random Democrat does mean that the U.S. Congress is materially more likely to implement protectionist policies.

That is why, as Eugene Volokh has argued at some length and convincingly, one should generally vote the party, not the candidate.

I wonder if focusing on showing the lack of current RTB effects is the way to go. Perhaps RTB is not so much a bad thing as some think. It is possible that the benefits outweigh the costs (I have no idea; I'm just speculating).
Also, by speaking so often of the RTB issue, the idea gets spread that a good way to make profit is to cut costs by looking for cheap labor and low regulation, rather than looking for good markets. So to does the idea that the way to attract investment is to lower standards. Maybe by focusing on what to do right, one can distract businesspeople and political leaders from what not to do wrong. Otherwise, RTB theory may become self-fulfilling. Lack of knowledge and creativity may be the only reason it hasn't caught on yet.
Before anyone says it, I realize that nearly everybody who is anybody has heard of the strategies (go to where the standards are low, and lower standards), but political pressure comes from below, and not everyone in the world has heard of this idea yet.
Also, even if businesspeople might have heard of it, they may not think of it often enough for it to compete with other ideas, such as good will, or good PR, or protection against the side-effects of environmental disasters. Talking of it all the time will remind them.
Anyways, that's one theory as to what is going on in global trade. Any thoughts?