Nobel Laureate: Globalism Has Been Ruinous for Americans
How Offshoring Has Destroyed the Economy
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, Counterpunch, 31 May 2011
These are discouraging times, but once in a blue moon a bit of hope appears. I am pleased to report on the bit of hope delivered in March of 2011 by Michael Spence, a Nobel prize-winning economist, assisted by Sandile Hlatshwayo, a researcher at New York University. The two economists have taken a careful empirical look at jobs offshoring and concluded that it has ruined the income and employment prospects for most Americans.
To add to the amazement, their research report, “The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge,” was published by the very establishment Council on Foreign Relations.
For a decade I have warned that US corporations, pressed by Wall Street and large retailers such as Wal-Mart, to move offshore their production for US consumer markets, were simultaneously moving offshore US GDP, US tax base, US consumer income, and irreplaceable career opportunities for American citizens.
Among the serious consequences of offshoring are
- the dismantling of the ladders of upward mobility that made the US an “opportunity society,”
- an extraordinary worsening of the income distribution, and
- large trade and federal budget deficits that cannot be closed by normal means. These deficits now threaten the US dollar’s role as world reserve currency.
Phi Beta Iota: Everything killing the USA today was properly briefed to the Senate and the White House in the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's. The missing ingredient was INTEGRITY on the part of the listeners. Intelligence without integrity is irrelevant; integrity without intelligence is dangerously uninformed.
