From: pjm@anegada.sps.mot.com (Patrick J. McGuinness)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,sci.econ
Subject: Re: NAFTA
Date: 17 Aug 92 17:03:12 GMT
Organization: Motorola Inc., Austin TX

In article <Bt4r48.12C@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
>>>  . . . no one has made a very 
>>>  convincing case one way or the other.  NPR said yesterday 
>>>  that estimates range from gaining 150,000 jobs to losing 
>>>  400,000 jobs. 
>>
>>The prospect of losing 400,000 jobs should not greatly concern people (aside
>>from those directly inconvenienced, of course).  Employment in the 
>>U.S. rose from 99.3 million in 1980 to 117.9 million in 1990.
>
>  This was also an exceptionally booming persiod in the US economy and
>  that boom was fueled by massive private and corporate debt buildup
>  combined with a bizzare Republican form of Keynesianism: a huge defense
>  industry buildup.   These conditions were unsustainable.   

This claim about an increase in debt during the 80's is common,
but it is not valid. Private and corporate debt was, in proportion to
the economy, no larger in 1988 than in 1981. Defense spending was not
especially high, as compared with say the 1960's.

>>We could sacrifice the gains from specializing and trading in order
>>to delay this adjustment period, but in my opinion it is better to sacrifice 
>>some of what we gain by allocating more resources to helping people adjust.  
>>Probably a good education system is the best preventive measure.  
Absolutely true.

>>A government unemployment insurance scheme which offers benefits only to 
>>those who appear to need retraining and are willing to accept it may be 
>>helpful, albeit expensive.  A tax collected from employers who don't
>>provide x hours of training per employee per year has been suggested by 
>>some, and sounds promising.  
>
>  But none of these are part of NAFTA.   And this is my point.  I'll
>  happily support NAFTA if the needs of those who will suffer as a result
>  of it are addressed.  I'd prefer less-government-intrusive means than
>  what you suggest above, but one way or another I want to see that this
>  issue is ADDRESSED. 

Well, what do YOU suggest? How would YOU address it?
(Seems to me any 'addressing' of it would have to be outside NAFTA.)

>  (like my earlier complaint about the health care subject this is a
>   good illustration of the weakness of conservative thinking these
>   days:   The liberal solutions to the problem are all based on
>   government, since this is their philosophy.  But at least the 
>   liberals are intellectually honest enough to admit that there IS
>   a problem.  The conservatives pretend there's no problem and so
>   allow the liberals to own the issue.

I beg to differ. The reason that conservatives might seem not to have
solutions is that the dominant media doesn't tell you what they are
thinking, while they are only too happy to relay any news release sent
out by liberal groups like the Children's Defense Fund, NDRC, and
Nader's Public Citizen.  However, you will find that, if you ask,
you can get more than your fill of conservative (and classical liberal)
ideas and solutions to our economic and social problems, from folks
at the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, etc.
Conservatives suffer not from a lack of ideas, but a lack of advertising.

---
Pat
Xref: sparky talk.politics.misc:40675 talk.abortion:32500 alt.politics.bush:2173