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While I very much enjoyed the narrative of plucky Houseman and her cross-tabulation-of-truth battling against elites, smug in their complacent certainty, I’m al

While I very much enjoyed the narrative of plucky Houseman and her cross-tabulation-of-truth battling against elites, smug in their complacent certainty, I’m also skeptical of it. I spent most of this century in the UK, and the narrative there was always that these jobs have gone away, they are not coming back, that’s why things say ‘Made in China’ on them. This seemed to be the conclusion of other EU countries too. Germany was very deliberate in its approach to manufacturing for export. I find it very hard to believe that the US alone could come to a radically different conclusion than the rest of the world about the largest economic trend of recent times, because no-one had examined numbers. The surprising thing is that as a politician you can say what you like, and journalists have neither the ability or interest to examine it before spreading. This seems to be what happened with the automation narrative.

jdietrich 8y ago
Likewise. Were people really arguing that offshoring was irrelevant to the decline in American manufacturing? I don't follow American politics, but it seems completely absurd that anyone would make such a claim. If true, then it's no wonder that Trump won the election.
- archgoon 8y ago
  I don't recall this (everything was really due to Automation) being a serious bone of contention by anyone. The articles the article links to are all "This is totally counterintutive, but is it true?", which is basically just clickbait. As far as free trade philosophy was concerned during the election, Trump (and Bernie) got Hillary to back down from supporting the TPP, which seems to support the idea that politicians believed that outsourcing was reducing manufacturing jobs in the US. So as far as American Politics were concerned, everyone, including the free traders, believed that free trade hurt manufacturing jobs at home. It seems that the author is making this entire scenario unnecessarily political and polarizing. "Rogue Economist finds blinding obvious flaw by incompetent elites"; which, given that this is Houseman (one of the economic elites), it's very much kinda not?
jedberg 8y ago
> I spent most of this century in the UK As a side note, I love this phrasing. I mean, it's only 17 or 18 years depending on how accurate you are with when a century starts, but it just sounds so long. I'm going to start saying that I've lived in the Bay Area since before the turn of the century, because it sounds cool.
- foota 8y ago
  Why stop there? It was also the beginning of the new millenia.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Yeah but "since the turn of the century" is a much more common phrase than "since the turn of the millennia".
- confounded 8y ago
  On reflection, it’s pretty bizarre phrasing (no idea why I used it) but I’m glad it was enjoyable :)
joe_the_user 8y ago
I think the story "it's not China, it's automation" is fairly recent claim. The big story they quote is the NYT in 2016. As I remember things, since the 1990s or even 80s, sending manufacturing jobs overseas was the program, with the main justification then being "there will be better jobs in their place". But just in 2016 you had instead "really, it was automation". Now, you complete the cycle with "sure it was China but we were sure it was automation, big woops..."
- js2 8y ago
  Indeed. Quoting from link below (February 1, 2000): > President Clinton claims that the recently signed trade agreement with China “creates a win-win result for both countries” (Clinton 2000, 9). He argues that exports to China “now support hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” and that “these figures can grow substantially with the new access to the Chinese market the WTO agreement creates” (Clinton 2000, 10). But it then prophetically goes on to argue: > China’s entry into the WTO, under PNTR with the U.S., will lock this relationship into place, setting the stage for rapidly rising trade deficits in the future that would severely depress employment in manufacturing, the sector most directly affected by trade. China’s accession to the WTO would also increase income inequality in the U.S. https://www.epi.org/publication/issuebriefs_ib137/ https://www.epi.org/publication/issuebriefs_ib137/
tootie 8y ago
That has been the narrative trend in the US for many years as well. Ross Perot based his entire presidential campaign on it and that was 1992. It was just never supported by data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sucking_sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sucking_sound
- mistermann 8y ago
  > It was just never supported by data. Perhaps because it was a predicted outcome of future events. As discussed in the article and here, it turns out he was more or less correct, does it not?

jdietrich 8y ago

Likewise. Were people really arguing that offshoring was irrelevant to the decline in American manufacturing? I don't follow American politics, but it seems completely absurd that anyone would make such a claim. If true, then it's no wonder that Trump won the election.

archgoon 8y ago
I don't recall this (everything was really due to Automation) being a serious bone of contention by anyone. The articles the article links to are all "This is totally counterintutive, but is it true?", which is basically just clickbait. As far as free trade philosophy was concerned during the election, Trump (and Bernie) got Hillary to back down from supporting the TPP, which seems to support the idea that politicians believed that outsourcing was reducing manufacturing jobs in the US. So as far as American Politics were concerned, everyone, including the free traders, believed that free trade hurt manufacturing jobs at home. It seems that the author is making this entire scenario unnecessarily political and polarizing. "Rogue Economist finds blinding obvious flaw by incompetent elites"; which, given that this is Houseman (one of the economic elites), it's very much kinda not?

jedberg 8y ago

> I spent most of this century in the UK As a side note, I love this phrasing. I mean, it's only 17 or 18 years depending on how accurate you are with when a century starts, but it just sounds so long. I'm going to start saying that I've lived in the Bay Area since before the turn of the century, because it sounds cool.

foota 8y ago
Why stop there? It was also the beginning of the new millenia.
- jedberg 8y ago
  Yeah but "since the turn of the century" is a much more common phrase than "since the turn of the millennia".
confounded 8y ago
On reflection, it’s pretty bizarre phrasing (no idea why I used it) but I’m glad it was enjoyable :)

joe_the_user 8y ago

I think the story "it's not China, it's automation" is fairly recent claim. The big story they quote is the NYT in 2016. As I remember things, since the 1990s or even 80s, sending manufacturing jobs overseas was the program, with the main justification then being "there will be better jobs in their place". But just in 2016 you had instead "really, it was automation". Now, you complete the cycle with "sure it was China but we were sure it was automation, big woops..."

js2 8y ago
Indeed. Quoting from link below (February 1, 2000): > President Clinton claims that the recently signed trade agreement with China “creates a win-win result for both countries” (Clinton 2000, 9). He argues that exports to China “now support hundreds of thousands of American jobs,” and that “these figures can grow substantially with the new access to the Chinese market the WTO agreement creates” (Clinton 2000, 10). But it then prophetically goes on to argue: > China’s entry into the WTO, under PNTR with the U.S., will lock this relationship into place, setting the stage for rapidly rising trade deficits in the future that would severely depress employment in manufacturing, the sector most directly affected by trade. China’s accession to the WTO would also increase income inequality in the U.S. https://www.epi.org/publication/issuebriefs_ib137/ https://www.epi.org/publication/issuebriefs_ib137/

tootie 8y ago

That has been the narrative trend in the US for many years as well. Ross Perot based his entire presidential campaign on it and that was 1992. It was just never supported by data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sucking_sound https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sucking_sound

mistermann 8y ago
> It was just never supported by data. Perhaps because it was a predicted outcome of future events. As discussed in the article and here, it turns out he was more or less correct, does it not?