Bernie Sanders (I., VT)...the I is for Ignoramus
Senator Bernie Sanders vomits a protectionist rant onto the pages of the WSJ today here (scroll). His main goal is to defend his opposition to CAFTA and he defends his position with a stunning display of willful blindness and an emotional whirligig of economic falsehoods and distortions.
He claims that the WSJ persists in its belief in free markets and trade despite all the evidence. Mr. Sanders is a world away from correct on this point. The overwhelming consensus among accepted economic thought is that free trade yields gains and raises living standards. Free trading nations across the globe are by far the richest in terms of the living standards of their citizens. He mentions that here in the US, free trade policies "have caused so much pain." Pain? Historically low unemployment, the highest degree of household wealth we've ever known, shortages of workers in numerous jobs categories, and the most manufacturing output we ever managed to produce - this is pain?
Mr. Sanders goes on to attempt to discredit CAFTA by disparaging NAFTA, saying that we essentially duped the Mexicans into NAFTA and it is a failure because they continue to stream across our borders ("dying in the desert" as he emotionally phrases it). Mexicans have been streaming across our borders for decades, well before NAFTA, for the most part because a century of the leftist, capitalism-rejecting policies of the PRI relegated most Mexicans to crushing poverty. Decades of one party rule have handicapped Mexico with the third highest foreign debt and a reputation as one of the most corrupt and least friendly places to invest and do business. Progress has been encouraging since NAFTA and since Vicente Fox broke the stranglehold of the PRI, but Mexico is starting from such a low base. More Mexicans are experiencing better standards of living but the level of poverty historically was just too high. Mexico has a long road of development ahead of it to deliver rising standards of living to the majority of it citizens. That they continue to come here is because of this tragic legacy and because the getting in free market, capitalist America is so good.
Mr. Sanders claims the Mexican agricultural sector has been decimated by cheap imports from US agribusiness. Really? Mexican agricultural output has grown over 50% since 1980, with a sharp increase in growth since, notably, NAFTA was enacted. Did you know that the 10th largest poultry company in the world is a Mexican company that employees 25,000 people, that exports to China and Russia, and is building a plant and creating jobs in Hermosillo to export chicken to the US? Can you imagine anything worse for these poor struggling Mexicans than new jobs created by export markets?
Sander's fact-challenged missive continues on with the standard tropes of protectionism - income inequality, out-sourcing, growing poverty and the demonstrably false rallying cry of "race to the bottom." These inaccuracies are too large a subject to address here, but if you want the facts and the data that demonstrate we are actually racing to the top, you can find it all here. The real situation is that in the US we have a dynamic economy that creates millions of jobs per year, grows the wealth of people from all economic strata, attracts the poor from around the world seeking economic opportunity.
Incidentally, the richest country in Latin America is one that long ago embraced trade, Chile. The Chileans are among the world's most ardent free traders and their living standards are unprecedently high for the region. Although they have a nominally socialist government, no body in Chile wants to trade in their prosperity for the anti-capitalist misery of the kind that the Venezuelans are sliding back into with food shortages and declining wages.
Latin America, broadly, has been crushingly poor for decades mainly because of its antipathy to free trade and deep embrace of socialist and populist idealogy of the ilk personified by Bernie Sanders. Who knows which way the Costa Ricans will vote, but you'd think they'd want to try something new after being so poor for so long.
He claims that the WSJ persists in its belief in free markets and trade despite all the evidence. Mr. Sanders is a world away from correct on this point. The overwhelming consensus among accepted economic thought is that free trade yields gains and raises living standards. Free trading nations across the globe are by far the richest in terms of the living standards of their citizens. He mentions that here in the US, free trade policies "have caused so much pain." Pain? Historically low unemployment, the highest degree of household wealth we've ever known, shortages of workers in numerous jobs categories, and the most manufacturing output we ever managed to produce - this is pain?
Mr. Sanders goes on to attempt to discredit CAFTA by disparaging NAFTA, saying that we essentially duped the Mexicans into NAFTA and it is a failure because they continue to stream across our borders ("dying in the desert" as he emotionally phrases it). Mexicans have been streaming across our borders for decades, well before NAFTA, for the most part because a century of the leftist, capitalism-rejecting policies of the PRI relegated most Mexicans to crushing poverty. Decades of one party rule have handicapped Mexico with the third highest foreign debt and a reputation as one of the most corrupt and least friendly places to invest and do business. Progress has been encouraging since NAFTA and since Vicente Fox broke the stranglehold of the PRI, but Mexico is starting from such a low base. More Mexicans are experiencing better standards of living but the level of poverty historically was just too high. Mexico has a long road of development ahead of it to deliver rising standards of living to the majority of it citizens. That they continue to come here is because of this tragic legacy and because the getting in free market, capitalist America is so good.
Mr. Sanders claims the Mexican agricultural sector has been decimated by cheap imports from US agribusiness. Really? Mexican agricultural output has grown over 50% since 1980, with a sharp increase in growth since, notably, NAFTA was enacted. Did you know that the 10th largest poultry company in the world is a Mexican company that employees 25,000 people, that exports to China and Russia, and is building a plant and creating jobs in Hermosillo to export chicken to the US? Can you imagine anything worse for these poor struggling Mexicans than new jobs created by export markets?
Sander's fact-challenged missive continues on with the standard tropes of protectionism - income inequality, out-sourcing, growing poverty and the demonstrably false rallying cry of "race to the bottom." These inaccuracies are too large a subject to address here, but if you want the facts and the data that demonstrate we are actually racing to the top, you can find it all here. The real situation is that in the US we have a dynamic economy that creates millions of jobs per year, grows the wealth of people from all economic strata, attracts the poor from around the world seeking economic opportunity.
Incidentally, the richest country in Latin America is one that long ago embraced trade, Chile. The Chileans are among the world's most ardent free traders and their living standards are unprecedently high for the region. Although they have a nominally socialist government, no body in Chile wants to trade in their prosperity for the anti-capitalist misery of the kind that the Venezuelans are sliding back into with food shortages and declining wages.
Latin America, broadly, has been crushingly poor for decades mainly because of its antipathy to free trade and deep embrace of socialist and populist idealogy of the ilk personified by Bernie Sanders. Who knows which way the Costa Ricans will vote, but you'd think they'd want to try something new after being so poor for so long.
posted by Donny Baseball at 9:33 AM
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