‘Not much solace’ in ‘getting from here to there’
Posted by jswain on April 12th, 2007In his recent conversation with Princeton economist Alan Blinder, Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal pointed out that some are rethinking “their assumptions about free trade” as a result of news like Citigroup’s plans to cut 17,000 jobs and move 9,500 to “lower-cost locations.”
In Blinder’s comments, a few things stand out, including that he feels in the end the U.S. has much to gain, but he worries about “getting from here to there”:
“Well, what has to happen is a whole lot of people, many millions of people, are gonna lose jobs to foreign competition. And a whole lot of other people — overlapping but not exactly the same people — are gonna gain jobs. And we in America don’t do a very good job of taking care of our job losers.”
“And if you go to a real person…and say ‘You know, it may be a rough 20 years, but then things will be fine’ . . . that’s not much solace.”
Blinder’s thoughts on how the U.S. remains prosperous: 1) Don’t succumb to protectionism, 2) Do a better job of taking care of displaced workers, 3) Train kids for the jobs that will be available in 20 years, not for jobs that have “migrated overseas,” and 4) Don’t hang on to “sunset industries,” instead specialize in “sunrise industries.”
We’re not sure if Blinder has visited one of America’s high-tech manufacturing facilities lately. If he had, he’d come away convinced that manufacturing is poised to do great things. In this, one of the most innovative and productive periods in world history, we can’t simply dismiss manufacturing to the “sunset.” The U.S. must be a leader in manufacturing. From nanotechnology and robotics, to lasers and biotechnology, the U.S. must be a producer of what we need and what the world needs.
What we can find solace in is that the 21st Century economy is about innovation and a highly skilled workforce, and in those things, the U.S. is and can continue to be a leader.
