The numbers you quoted would need a lot more analysis before they’d come even close to proving your point. I’m not saying NAFTA is a bad thing, just that there’s a lot more that goes into unemployment figures then NAFTA and those need to be analysed as well.
I agree with your rant about under-skilled workers praying for a return of 6-figure salaries for people who read “HTML For Dummies.” How valuable did those people think their skills were if they were able to acquire them so fast? I say that as someone currently employed in IT (with a BS in EECS, internships, experience, etc.).
That’s the most bizarre thing of this “brown peril”. Unless I am missing something important, unemployment hasn’t changed much, especially if you account for the dotcom bust, 9/11 and the ensuing recession. What’s all the rhetoric about?
Talking of H1-B visas, even at the tech bubble’s peak, the cap was 165,000. A percentage of this 165000 people out of a total of 250 million were non-US citizens. And, anyone who knows how the H1-B program works can tell you, companies aren’t fond of sponsoring these visas. If they can get a skilled US citizen, they’ll take it.
And another thing: in the past, when I’ve complained about work issues, all too often I’ve received a dismissive, “Just feel grateful you have a job.” (Not here, but just generally.) Well, doesn’t that adage have as much merit with regard to the 6-figure IT person as with the guys in the mail room?
I know I constantly live with the fear that my job will be outsourced or downsized (not in a paranoid way, but just as a coping mechanism in a world where no job is secure). IT people/others affected by globalization will have to learn to live with that fear. It’s painful, I know, but I feel you DO end up working smarter and in a more self-beneficial way, “putting yourself first” more.
Anyone wanting to show their compassion for developing nations can easily show commitment to these concerns by sending their paycheck to the country in question. As for playing fair with trade or sending American jobs overseas, fuck that. The United States government exists to protect and better the lives of its citizens, not implement policies based on some Mary Poppins fairytale. I would love to see a candidate run for office on the platform of sending jobs overseas to better other nations. Any guesses on how many votes that candidate would get?
The best thing for the people of the United States OVERALL is free trade. While free trade brings painful dislocations to specific groups, America AS A WHOLE is made richer by engaging in free trade. This was true when David Ricardo first observed comparative advantage, and it remains true today.
Why this simple truth evades politicians and policymakers and media figures is a mystery. Oh, wait, it’s not: the benefits of free trade, while outweighing the costs, are diffuse in impact, while the costs fall narrowly. It’s easier to mobilize a few thousand disaffected Silicon Valley programmers than it is to moblize the many millions who have all benefited in small-but-real ways from the efficiencies of free trade. As long as politicians are more interested in their reelection rather than in pursuing beneficial economic policies, protectionism will continue to rear its ugly head.
And one additional observation: NAFTA has fuck-all to do with programming jobs going to India. NAFTA involves the US, Canada and Mexico. Not India.
“And one additional observation: NAFTA has fuck-all to do with programming jobs going to India. NAFTA involves the US, Canada and Mexico. Not India.”
Exactly, Dewy! NAFTA=NORTH AMERICAN Free Trade Agreement.
About a year after NAFTA was approved, I was talkin’ to a cowboy. He was cussin’ NAFTA, claiming it had caused beef prices to go down. “All that damn cheap Mexican beef they’re sendin’ in here.”
So I showed him a report from a reliable source indicating that since NAFTA started, the U.S. had exported more beef to Mexico than it had imported from there. His response? “I don’t care what they say, NAFTA screwed us some kinda’ way. I know it did.”