I Read the News Today

On a day when the Register Guard front page informs me that 25 workers at Emerald Valley Kitchen, including my sister who is raising three kids, are about to lose their jobs, and another Springfield plant is set to close with the loss of 100 jobs, and the interior pages tell me that local RV makers Monaco Coach and Country Coach are cutting back pay, and the UO's economic index is down 10% from it's baseline in 1997, it was quite a relief to turn to the editorial pages to find George Will assuring me that the economy was humming along just fine.

Apparently, sales on "Black Friday" were up more than three percent over last year! And Americans spent seven percent more than they did last year on that fateful day! On a one day snapshot, spending is up! up! up! Will warns us against reading too much into it, then proceeds to read too much into it (but with question marks for plausible deniability).

Is this evidence that the recent deleveraging of indebted households has breathed fresh life into personal consumption, which normally is 70 percent of economic activity? Is it evidence of underestimated strength in the economy in which more than 93 percent of those who want to work are employed(!), and more than 93 percent of mortgages are being paid on time? Is it evidence that Washington's jaw-dropping interventions with hundreds of billions of dollars are having their intended psychotherapeutic effects?

I would speculate that the slight increase in day-after-Thanksgiving sales is evidence of none of things. Off the top of my head, I would offer that increased sales might be due to 1. the shortened holiday calendar this year; 2. the need for people to take advantage of sales in a depressed economy; 3. the willingness of retailers to report higher than actual sales in a vain hope of spurring an temporary economic "recovery."

The point of Will's column, however, is not to argue that the economy is doing well, but to warn against interfering with the market forces that have delivered an economy with its low levels of unemployment and foreclosure. I mean if nothing is really wrong, there's no need to go fixing anything, right? Right? Black Friday sales?

It seems that Obama is promising job creation or, if all else fails, to stem the tide of job loss. This is all balderdash to Will. As Will demonstrates, absolutely without reference to population growth, there has been an average increase of 1.5 million new jobs in the US each year since the Eisenhower administration. Now, this statistic combined with the fact that the newly-elected President is talking merely about stemming job loss might be cause for concern. I mean, it seems like a lack of job growth when it is almost a given portends a gloomy economic forecast. Depressing really. Not to George "Sunshine When It's Raining" Will!

In recent years, in normal conditions, the economy has "lost" tens of millions of jobs through capitalism's "creative destruction" (Joseph Schumpeter's phrase). It also has created a few million more than that, which is why the destruction is creative.

I am sure George will (ha!) appreciate it if we skip right past that "in normal conditions," so we will. Ah,! "creative destruction" is there nothing you can't do? Each time an American loses a middle-class income paying job, an angel gets its wings two more jobs are created unloading goods at the local Wal-Mart. Progress! And this is really the heart of Will's column, the argument that free trade, despite all (no all!) indications to the contrary, has been a success for the American economy. Heaven forbid, we mess with free trade,

Should jobs "saved" by, say, protectionist policies that interfere with free trade be balanced against jobs lost when export markets are lost to retaliatory protectionism?

Will asks, rhetorically. Of course we should do nothing to damage our booming export sector. Why, if you combine American know-how with our inherent grit and determination, no one can out-manufacture the good ol' U.S. of A.! I mean, if we could open up that damn China market, why we could sell a billion toasters over night! Or cars! Think about a billion Indians all driving Hummers! Let's pray to Jeebus that nothing interferes with that plan. (Certainly not anything as short-sighted as bailing out the automakers long enough to enable them to retool their cars so that they might produce one an Indian would want to buy. That would be communism of the worst sort!) So we may lose millions upon millions of "jobs," but through the miracle of creative destruction, we'll also gain millions and millions of "jobs." Following Will's lead we will not even begin to wonder if "jobs" always equals "jobs."

You see, global free trade is all just a system of trade-offs, you lose your job making tasty organic salsa for $15 an hour with benefits, but you gain a job at Sam's Club selling salsa made in Asia! If no one can afford to buy RVs, that's okay!, you can get a job...well...um...there's always job training at the local community college! (And, by the way, look at all them trees out there just going to waste. I bet someone could make a pretty penny chopping all them trees down, then someone, somewhere could make them into a cheap table that you may be able to afford to buy one day.)

Of course, Will doesn't care about the loss of good jobs. Whereas our labor has a practical range of about 30 miles, his capital can be invested anywhere. When our jobs go to Mexico, India, or China, so does Will's money. (Thank God we have the US military to make sure that he'll get it back!) Plus, his job isn't going anywhere. You can't outsource this top-notch level of obfuscation, it takes decades of blindly spewing right-wing free market talking points to be this oblivious to what is happening all around you.