Alan Blinder's recent about-face on free trade, as described in Wednesday's featured Wall Street Journal front page article, provides a lot of food for thought.
Within the very long article, a key section, from my point of view, refers to Greg Mankiw, who, in 2004, as Bush's chairman of the CEA, stated,
"Does it matter from an economic standpoint whether items produced abroad come on planes and ships or over fiber optic cables?....Well, no, the economics is basically the same...More things are tradable than...in the past, and that's a good thing."
The point is not that education, or even "skills," per se, protect against Ricardian effects of trade. It is simply the ability to add value. If it can be added elsewhere, then workers in first country are at risk. Theoretically, given certain assumptions of transportation costs and timeframes, an Indian could replace your local shoe shiner.
As always, Americans have to innovate. And some 'innovations' may be less lasting or successful than you would imagine. For example, my father has tossed out his PC, for an iMac. Microsoft's subcontinental Indian 'helpless' desk finally drove him to reject the brand wholesale. I have read of other call centers returning to US shores, as Americans find themselves furious over poor communications with distant customer "service" reps.
Blinder is, I think, being somewhat foolish in cataloging his "little list" of occupations, with his assessment of their ability to be outsourced offshore. Such replacement of US labor is a function of speed and uniqueness of delivery of solutions to customer needs, not merely the availability of educated people on other continents, connected by packet networks of voice and/or data.
It's one thing for a company to choose locations from which it will serve its customers. It's quite another for a country to begin enforcing those choices by fiat. The US is, fortunately, still not France. Let's hope Alan Blinder doesn't influence too many politicians, or it soon may be headed in that direction.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
Politics In The Age of The Blog & YouTube
Thursday's Wall Street Journal carried an excellent editorial by Dan Henninger concerning the current implications of a long-ago technological competition between telephonic circuit switching, and today's prevalent data packet switching. Allowing for a little confusion and oversight of AT&T's engineers developing packet switching for their backbone network with the coming of ESS switches, he is correct in noting that we are now seeing ramifications of the eventual domination of communications technology by packet switching networks.
Henninger's example is the recent anti-Hillary YouTube video, which I discussed in this recent post, developed by Phil de Vellis. If you still need any more evidence of how useless so-called 'campaign finance' regulations are, consider this example. de Vellis said he did the clip 'in a Sunday afternoon with "some software".' So much for raising $100MM to run a multi-media campaign. Now, a major presidential candidate's supporters can develop and air free spots on YouTube for nothing. And talk about exposure!
As usual, the Feds are running behind. This week, failed Democratic presidential contender and habitual coiffed-and-sore-headed Senator John Kerry demonized Bush supporter and ambassadorial nominee, Sam Fox, for his 527 Swift Boat financial support in the 2004 campaign. Going forward, that sort of issue may be moot. Who will need that kind of support for independently-produced, supportive videos on a multitude of burgeoning, free video clip sites?
Henninger also theorizes, correctly, I believe, that voter appetites for, and consumption of, political media is becoming shorter. YouTube clips, instead of whole 30 minute programs.
How wild is it that de Vellis uses a real "1984"-styled Orwellian video clip, modeled on the infamous Apple Superbowl ad, as a "really real" political statement today? Art/life/art/life....
Can you even tell anymore which is the "art," and which is the "life?" The de Vellis ad really smacks Hillary where it hurts- her stuffed-shirt, overbearing, arrogance and put-on attitude of actually caring what anyone else thinks. Maybe voters have finally caught up with the pols.
Henninger's example is the recent anti-Hillary YouTube video, which I discussed in this recent post, developed by Phil de Vellis. If you still need any more evidence of how useless so-called 'campaign finance' regulations are, consider this example. de Vellis said he did the clip 'in a Sunday afternoon with "some software".' So much for raising $100MM to run a multi-media campaign. Now, a major presidential candidate's supporters can develop and air free spots on YouTube for nothing. And talk about exposure!
As usual, the Feds are running behind. This week, failed Democratic presidential contender and habitual coiffed-and-sore-headed Senator John Kerry demonized Bush supporter and ambassadorial nominee, Sam Fox, for his 527 Swift Boat financial support in the 2004 campaign. Going forward, that sort of issue may be moot. Who will need that kind of support for independently-produced, supportive videos on a multitude of burgeoning, free video clip sites?
Henninger also theorizes, correctly, I believe, that voter appetites for, and consumption of, political media is becoming shorter. YouTube clips, instead of whole 30 minute programs.
How wild is it that de Vellis uses a real "1984"-styled Orwellian video clip, modeled on the infamous Apple Superbowl ad, as a "really real" political statement today? Art/life/art/life....
Can you even tell anymore which is the "art," and which is the "life?" The de Vellis ad really smacks Hillary where it hurts- her stuffed-shirt, overbearing, arrogance and put-on attitude of actually caring what anyone else thinks. Maybe voters have finally caught up with the pols.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
George Bush's Presidential Stands
As the Gonzales US DA firing flap continues, it is a pleasure to see George Bush remain resolute and warn Frisco Nan not to use subpoenas as fishing licenses.
Ditto his stand on the Iraq war resolution in the House. Bush has served notice that he will make the Democrats enact a binding resolution, affecting funding, if they insist on attempting to usurp Executive Branch powers, albeit probably unconstitutionally.
As I glanced at this week's Economist cover, I saw that they have portrayed Bush, Rice and Cheney as "Besieged." I think this is a common tactic that the press uses when they do not agree with a politician- painting him or her as 'isolated,' 'besieged,' or 'out of touch.' In this case, however, I see all of Bush's stands as completely appropriate.
The war in Iraq is but a part of a religious conflict, begun by radical Islamists, that has been building since the middle of the inept Clinton administration's term. Gonzales' firing of the US attorneys is totally legal, whatever the cause. They serve at the pleasure of the President, period. Nobody in the mainstream press, save the Wall Street Journal, is reminding Americans of Slick Willie's wholesale firing of every one of the 93 sitting US District Attorney, in order to get the Whitewater and Madison Trust investigations delayed or shut down.
President Bush is doing the right thing on both issues, and his timid Republican party members, in both Congressional Houses, should be happy he has a spine. Because they have, by and large, lost theirs. Granted, the House Republicans limited defections on the Iraq resolution, but a few of their number still jumped ship.
When they look back on this era, Republicans will see Bush as a steady, confident President, who did not shy from confrontation with a petty, vindictive, and probably temporary Democratic plurality in the House and Senate.
Ditto his stand on the Iraq war resolution in the House. Bush has served notice that he will make the Democrats enact a binding resolution, affecting funding, if they insist on attempting to usurp Executive Branch powers, albeit probably unconstitutionally.
As I glanced at this week's Economist cover, I saw that they have portrayed Bush, Rice and Cheney as "Besieged." I think this is a common tactic that the press uses when they do not agree with a politician- painting him or her as 'isolated,' 'besieged,' or 'out of touch.' In this case, however, I see all of Bush's stands as completely appropriate.
The war in Iraq is but a part of a religious conflict, begun by radical Islamists, that has been building since the middle of the inept Clinton administration's term. Gonzales' firing of the US attorneys is totally legal, whatever the cause. They serve at the pleasure of the President, period. Nobody in the mainstream press, save the Wall Street Journal, is reminding Americans of Slick Willie's wholesale firing of every one of the 93 sitting US District Attorney, in order to get the Whitewater and Madison Trust investigations delayed or shut down.
President Bush is doing the right thing on both issues, and his timid Republican party members, in both Congressional Houses, should be happy he has a spine. Because they have, by and large, lost theirs. Granted, the House Republicans limited defections on the Iraq resolution, but a few of their number still jumped ship.
When they look back on this era, Republicans will see Bush as a steady, confident President, who did not shy from confrontation with a petty, vindictive, and probably temporary Democratic plurality in the House and Senate.
Monday, March 26, 2007
The Obama-Friendly Video of Hillary
For those of you who haven't seen this video, I've embedded it into this post, courtesy of YouTube. The takeoff on Apple's infamous 1984 SuperBowl commercial is priceless.
However, what I found most remarkable was a discussion on Tucker Carlson's program about this video. Both Republican and Democrat guest strategists and consultants alike expressed extreme discomfort with an uncontrolled, unauthorized, zealous supporter making an attack video such as this, on the cheap, and throwing it up on YouTube, to be seen by millions instantaneously.
As the beneficiary, Obama Bim Baden would seem to be innocently chortling over the razor-sharp barb that is this political commercial. And it's free to his campaign. But, to a person, Carlson's panel agreed that Obama's campaign staff must now be cringing, awaiting the inevitably muddier riposte from an enraged Hillary supporter.
Clearly, Presidential and, as George Allen and other candidates learned last cycle, Senatorial elections are changed in the era of YouTube. Clever, motivated freelancers, mavericks, are going to be doing "favors" for their chosen candidate. And some of those efforts will doubtless shove a campaign off its message, or perhaps even knock it off balance, with a hastily-required, and unexpected apology.
The whole thing is priceless. Perhaps the McCain-Feingold nonsense really is moot now. With this sort of advertising available on YouTube for free, perhaps we have less to worry about campaign finance law muzzling of free speech.
Regardless, this video apparently marks the beginning of a radical new era in Presidential campaigning.
However, what I found most remarkable was a discussion on Tucker Carlson's program about this video. Both Republican and Democrat guest strategists and consultants alike expressed extreme discomfort with an uncontrolled, unauthorized, zealous supporter making an attack video such as this, on the cheap, and throwing it up on YouTube, to be seen by millions instantaneously.
As the beneficiary, Obama Bim Baden would seem to be innocently chortling over the razor-sharp barb that is this political commercial. And it's free to his campaign. But, to a person, Carlson's panel agreed that Obama's campaign staff must now be cringing, awaiting the inevitably muddier riposte from an enraged Hillary supporter.
Clearly, Presidential and, as George Allen and other candidates learned last cycle, Senatorial elections are changed in the era of YouTube. Clever, motivated freelancers, mavericks, are going to be doing "favors" for their chosen candidate. And some of those efforts will doubtless shove a campaign off its message, or perhaps even knock it off balance, with a hastily-required, and unexpected apology.
The whole thing is priceless. Perhaps the McCain-Feingold nonsense really is moot now. With this sort of advertising available on YouTube for free, perhaps we have less to worry about campaign finance law muzzling of free speech.
Regardless, this video apparently marks the beginning of a radical new era in Presidential campaigning.
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