Chaos Magnet

Pareto-improving moves

Daniel Drezner suggests that I don't understand that in some cases one person can be made better off without someone else being made worse off. Of course I understand that. I just don't think that moving high-paying tech jobs overseas is one of those situations. And looking at the first few comments on his posting, it looks like I'm not the only one who thinks the likelihood of companies buying "targeted insurance products" to cushion the effects to workers displaced is, to say the least, unlikely.

Drezner quotes the report's suggestion that "at least theoretically, displaced U.S. workers will find new jobs in more dynamic industries." Why do I suspect that's double-speak for "lower paying jobs somewhere else"? Sure, a coder can get a job flipping burgers, but is that really an improvement for anybody but corporate shareholders?

So no, I don't understand how this is good for American workers. I'll tell you what else I don't understand. I don't understand how you can tell me that effectively eliminating overtime will create more jobs, when it's now cheaper to have fewer workers and make them work longer hours. I don't understand how a member of Congress can say that poor working families don't deserve a tax credit because they pay no taxes, when a much larger portion of their income goes to gasoline taxes, sales taxes, and other taxes that don't scale based on economic class.

I don't understand why we as Americans, we have allowed ourselves to become so complacent to what is clearly unfair.

Maybe it's just that John Dickinson was right, as quoted in 1776: "A poor man will fight to the death to protect the possibility of becoming rich, rather than face the reality of being poor."

I hope not.

(Additional note: Daniel Drezner actually has an impressive CV. I'll definitely be checking out some of his other writing.)

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