Here’s what I mean about Krugman, and it really illustrates his shift from the economic to the political. He never really stakes out a clear position on outsourcing/offshoring, but he’s certainly not anti- :
Emphasis added. Economists don’t talk about “wedge issues” or basing policy on them. This was from 2004, so who knows what he’s basing his opinion on now and how much of a “wedge issue” this has become.
He’s weaseling, as puddleglum and John says. If he came out and flatly said ‘I’m opposed to outsourcing and offshoring, and it’s definitely bad for America’ he’d lose whatever cred he still has with serious economists, and pretty much at that moment he’d have jumped the shark. However, he can’t really come out and support it, since the base he’s playing to (which is pretty wide, and doesn’t include just liberals…this is bipartisan ignorance) and it’s not something they want to hear. So, instead, he weasels, trying to sound like he’s saying what people want him to say while, in fact, not saying that at all.
It just adds to the fun that he’s attacking Romney on this, and based on the rather silly and slim evidence thus far provided that Romney is an outsourcer/offshorer (as well as corporate raider and probably a baby duck killer who revels in kicking puppies and declawing kittens…with a dull spoon!).
-XT
He gave a very specific reason why outsourcing can be bad - it leads to lower wages and benefits for people at the companies who now have the job. But not all outsourcing requires this. As I mentioned, outsourcing payroll or legal work is not going to result in underpaid accountants and lawyers. Most companies designing chips outsource (and usually offshore) the fabrication of these chips, and this isn’t done to reduce labor costs. But if you think income inequality is an issue, then outsourcing often contributes to it, in cases where the economic advantage is lower wages.
But it is definitely all political, and I’m glad to see the Dems for once not dilute the message with ifs ands and buts.
Rpmney as a businessman cared about his (Bain’s) profit - he can’t come back now and say he really cared about the good of the country.
But what Bain did was to cut costs at the companies it bought, and outsourcing is one of the first things you do when you want to cut costs. All Romney has to do is to defend it the way he would if he were CEO and not running for office. It is not our fault if the American public might not get the nuances. The party of “death panels” can hardly complain about that.
Yet the examples used by the Dems thus far, at least according to FactCheck, don’t pan out. Either Mitt wasn’t there when they happened, or what happened is being exaggerated to ridiculous lengths or spun for effect.
As for ‘The party of “death panels” can hardly complain about that’, my take is the same as it’s always been…all’s fair in love and politics, and what’s good for the goose is good for the Gandalf. Both sides obviously do this stuff, so anyone claiming that their side is pure like the driven snow while the other side is the epitome of slimy dogness are pretty much delusional. Personally, I think this is a brilliant tactic on the Dems part.
-XT
I’m not getting a clear sense of where you stand on this. Do you agree that Krugman was implying, if only by omission but quite clearly nonetheless, that outsourcing and offshoring are both bad? Most others in the thread seem to agree, I’d be interested in knowing why you don’t. The reasons that you state for outsourcing being a potential positive are perfectly valid, but they are your reasons. The only ‘positive’ that Krugman mentions in that article related to outsourcing is couched in the following terms
and is immediately followed by
I think he is in fact, doing the things I attributed to him in the OP. Note that I never said he’s explicitly against outsourcing. Just that he is implying as much in this article.
Also, I feel slightly stupid for going against my own OP, but I remembered that there has actually been a pretty convincing case made out against some forms of off-shoring by Shih and Pisano at Harvard. They basically argue that offshoring manufacturing is a bad move, not just because it takes away low-cost manufacturing jobs, but because true innovation in products requires physical proximity and involvement in the manufacturing process. From the abstract of their article.
Yeah, I think I see what you’re saying. He wrote detailed analyses of economic issues in the past, but you wouldn’t know it from his New York Times columns of late. But I still say, so what? Unless there is something factually wrong with the column under discussion, I don’t see any “hack” work here. He’s writing for two very different audiences.
It’s not a crystal clear stating of where he stands, but the fact that he would advocate putting up speed bumps to outsourcing doesn’t suggest he’s crazy about it.
As for switching from economic to political writing, isn’t that what you would expect when reading an Op Ed column in the New York Times? What, if anything, is inherently wrong with political writing?
Outside looking In! If everyone had opportunity to live and work in a third world country, I believe our opinions would be shaped a bit different. Most Americans know little about struggling to survive in a manner that so many other people around the world is what their daily lives are about. This is a fact of lives and theirs really not much we as Americans can do about this. Sure, American companies outsourcing can and will provide a better quality of life for the average workers in a third world country. But a largest part of the profits goes to a few elite and officials in the government. I could turn this around to US companies, outsourcing helps the bottom line, which most of the profits again will go to the CEO’s and other top ranked executives along with investment firms and banks. And where does this leave the average common worker in America? We have been seeing it for the past decade or so, and most likely will not change anytime soon.
Major reforms in our government is required and our current 2 party system is doing nothing but making money for them selves and kicking the bucket down the road.
Why do we need the 2 party system?
The majority of Americans need a voice and we could have that voice if:
You tell me!
Which of course is why Germany pays their auto workers more than the US and still produces more cars (total, not per-capita). If there is anything about the pay scale of Americans that is out of whack it is the compensation of CEOs. The ratio of average worker pay to CEO compensation is much different here than in other industrialized countries.
America is not competing on a level playing field. Most other countries have some sort of industrial policy, a better system of paying for higher education, and vocational training. That is not to mention the currency manipulation that China is doing.
And of course your “pay twice as much” example is totally pulled out of your ass.
What he’s doing is creating an impression that outsourcing and offshoring is bad, a notion that plays to the base, albeit doing so in a weaselly fashion so as to create deniability of any such intention if called on it. Why? Because that would contradict his own prior strong position, one held by most economists, that these practices are beneficial on balance.
The issue is not with his writing taking on a different style for a different audience. It’s with his writing flipping his own opinions for political reasons. His choices are to be transparent about his opinion and lose his base a bit, refute his prior opinions and lose all credibility in the world of economics, or choice 3 (which he has selected): dance around it to score political points.
…or you’re programmed to like cool gadgets…
Dunh DUNH DUNNNNHHHH!
Regarding the writing style, it is an issue, albeit a minor one, when you simply criticize Krugman for writing one way for a newspaper audience, and another for whatever audience the essay John Mace linked to was for. I know it wasn’t addressed to the average, non-economist, New York Times reader. But yes, the more important issue is what Krugman believes, and what he writes about those beliefs.
If it can be shown that Krugman has “[flipped] his own opinions for political reasons”, he should deservedly be criticized for it. In reading the essay I again linked to above, I see no specific mention of either outsourcing or off-shoring, but a dense discussion of free trade, most of which I freely admit went right over my head. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is pro free trade, right? 
Can you be for free trade in general, but against outsourcing/off-shoring? Are the essay and the NYT article contradictory? If not, Krugman is in the clear.* If so, criticize away.
*I say this based upon the essay and article under discussion here. I don’t know anything else about Krugman’s other writings on outsourcing/off-shoring.
When Krugman writes…
…to me he is clearly creating an unfavorable association with outsourcing. He implies, ISTM, that the principal error in Romney’s position is the assertion that outsourcing to American firms is okay, something to which Krugman seems to take offense. “‘Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People’s pockets.’ This is undoubtedly true, once you take into account the pockets of, say, partners at Bain Capital (who, I hasten to add, are, indeed, people). But one of the main points of outsourcing is to ensure that as little as possible of what corporations earn goes into the pockets of the people who actually work for those corporations,” he sniffs, adding, “Why, for example, do many large companies now outsource cleaning and security to outside contractors? Surely the answer is, in large part, that outside contractors can hire cheap labor that isn’t represented by the union and can’t participate in the company health and retirement plans.” You know what he might have added there? “And by the way, that’s how it ought to work and we should look to install no material barriers, a notion I have advanced myself.” Somehow that point is missing. I wonder why?
Or consider this:
How, exactly, do you read this? Outsourcing is a principal destroyer of middle class society, it implies. He generously allows though that Mitt didn’t do so single-handledly. How nice.
Again, what’s missing here? See anything odd about the sentiment he advances in his weaselly fashion, something in conflict with the well-established positions he (and most respected economists) have held regarding outsourcing? This is more than simply dumbing down economics. This is pandering at best and at worst (IMO) seriously misleading in the interest of scoring a false political point. He should be ashamed.
Agreed. Krugman writes “one of the main points of outsourcing is to ensure that as little as possible of what corporations earn goes into the pockets of the people who actually work for those corporations.”
I guess you could categorize that as “taking offense” and “sniffing.” You might also say he just feels that corporations reducing the earnings of their by workers by outsourcing isn’t a good thing.
Maybe Krugman is pandering and/or misleading here. As I’ve said, I don’t know anything about what he’s written on outsourcing/off-shoring elsewhere. But I’ve read in this thread more than once how what Krugman is saying in the essay and the NYT article contradicts beliefs that he has stated previously. I’ve seen nothing in this thread to back that up.
Is Paul Krugman a liar? I have no idea. However, I do know that the best way to demonstrate that he is wrong on some position is probably not to start your argument off with a completely unsupported premise.
Let me get this straight. The author assumes out of the blue that Krugman has in mind Ron Paul or Austrian economists. I love the “or” part, btw. Nice to have more than one choice in your strawman. He then goes on make his argument based upon this assumption, while hilariously and ironically linking to the wikipedia page for strawman, and accusing Krugman of using a cheap debating ploy.
Utterly laughable. I stopped reading when I picked myself up off the floor.
I’ll move on then, since I don’t know how else to explain it and I provided you examples. Krugman the economist is a proponent of free trade and, like most economists, suggests that barriers to outsourcing and offshoring will produce bad effects and should not be installed. That sentiment is not only conspicuously missing from Krugman the editorial writer’s work, he takes it a step farther, implying that such practices are destructive and conducted by bad people who care not for the poor middle class. I don’t know how that could be missed, and one needn’t be an economist to see it. Here, in case you missed this gem:
The process of destruction? That doesn’t seem like a loaded term to you, one that he is associating with outsourcing to foreign countries? Seriously, how do you think he feels about outsourcing and offshoring after reading that editorial? Does he seem like a proponent? If you didn’t know better, would it surprise you to find out he is?