He should first be aware that Romania is in Eastern Europe.

It's far more likely that it's because liberalized trade benefits me considerably while holding out no serious risk of doing me any harm.

I respect your honesty, Kevin. But sooner or later, someone in Bangalore is going to be able match your sophisticated understanding of the nuances of American politics.

Be thankful you've got Inkblot and Domino on your side.

I'm generally in favor of liberalized trade myself, but the odds are high that this has nothing to do with my ever-so-nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the underlying economics. It's far more likely that it's because liberalized trade benefits me considerably while holding out no serious risk of doing me any harm.

The latter rather presumes the former. It seems to me its just as likely that the empirically-demonstrated benefits to so-called "free trade" to mega-capital class (to which, by all evidence, you do not belong) at the relative expense of just about everyone else has been spun by those who do benefit (with the advantage of their massive wealth) to create an impression among people who lack a sophisticated understanding of the underlying economics but who identify with the capitalist elites aspirationally, such as professional workers, that they, too, are benefitted by so-called "free trade".

For the blue collar workers, its harder to spin them as benefitting, and easier to get them voting in line with capital's interest in national elections by pointing to some other concerns (scary foreigners, mostly). As long as there aren't national referenda on trade policy specifically, that is.

Blue collar schlubs aren't the only ones who vote in accordance with Heckscher-Ohlin logic

You will never be mistaken as a populist. That's for sure.

As one of the schlubs you refer to, I still remember your post 2 or 3 years back where you declared that everybody gets July 4th off.

I respect that you know that you are wearing blinders, but...

The thing is that Ireland has benefited tremendously from EU accession - and not just the elites. So its rejection of the treaty has not gone down well with other member states. I remember Polish farmers were bitching endlessly ahead of accession but now you won't hear a peep from them - they are now flush with subsidies

How boring...

I'd rather talk about another sick, deviant Young Republican.

Reuters is now doing its reporting on the US financial markets from Bangalore (via Krugman). Journalists are no longer safe.

Kevin Drum: I'm generally in favor of liberalized trade myself, but the odds are high that this has nothing to do with my ever-so-nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the underlying economics. It's far more likely that it's because liberalized trade benefits me considerably while holding out no serious risk of doing me any harm.

I'm glad you're finally admitting that "liberalized" trade isn't always win-win.

Not that we actually have liberalized trade, just trade that's been quite selectively liberalized (guess who benefits from the selections).

Ditto for Tom Friedman.

Helps if you marry an heiress.

Blue collar schlubs aren't the only ones who vote in accordance with Heckscher-Ohlin logic.

Most "blue collar schlubs" aren't as dumb as the stereotypes would have it - they know where their bread is buttered. It's more often the pseudo-sophisticates that are so mesmerized by sophistry and propaganda that they don't understand the trade-offs.

I'd be surprised if the Irish vote against Lisbon were motivated primarily by feelings about trade. Is it not more likely that basic Irish nationalist feeling would be stronger among that part of the population that does not travel abroad frequently and has no emotional attachment to "Europe"?

The Irish vote would be troubling to the crowd in Brussels because they'd recognize other countries might hold the same referendum and get similar results.

I'm generally in favor of liberalized trade myself, but the odds are high that this has nothing to do with my ever-so-nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the underlying economics.
Economic theory is based primarily on invalid and outdated theories, so the more steeped on is in economics, the farther one is from understanding the dynamic forces of today.

My take on the FISA vote, with a breakout of the more surprising and egregious turncoats and a link to the roll call, here.

Passive Pelosi™ herself led the hit parade, followed, stunningly, even by one-quarter of the Congressional Black Caucus, who you think would know MUCH better about illegal spying.

Be thankful you've got Inkblot and Domino on your side.

Posted by: thersites

Who said I was on Kevin's side? It's Marian that feeds me the treats, in bed no less.

Joe Buck: Reuters is now doing its reporting on the US financial markets from Bangalore (via Krugman). Journalists are no longer safe.

Good. These are the clowns who've been cynically or more likely mindlessly promoting "free" trade and outsourcing. Let them have a taste of their own medicine.

While we're at it, let's drop the citizenship and residency requirements for Congress. It's not as though they vote for American interests anyway.

Oops, "a on June 20, 2008 at 3:09 PM" is me.

If you keep telling people that "free trade" is raising the GDP while at the same time informing that they've lost their job, well eventually they will catch on.

Trade does raise GDP. That is empirical. Trade does not lift all boats and discriminates against many segments of the economy, which is also empirical. Blue collar schlubs and Wallace Democrats have historically been convinced that raising GDP is good for them, despite their loss of economic reward. As their economic losses continue to escalate they turn their attention to restricing trade and immigration rather than to reconfiguring the political economy to redistribute the growth in GDP that trade does provide. Ideology prevents them recognizing we can keep trade and raise all boats at the same time.

You might Samuel Brittan's endorsement of the Irish vote (in today's FT) instructive.

You might Samuel Brittan's endorsement of the Irish vote (in today's FT) instructive.

I believe that it is Samuelson-Stopler logic, not Heckscher-Ohlin. I'm sorry, I am in a quibbling mode.

In the long run liberalized trade helps everyone. There are positive ways of mitigating the short-term negative effects, primarily public-sector led investments in infrastructure, including investments in people, i.e. advanced education. Liberalized trade is not the problem. The problem is the Republican's cramped approach to dealing with the economy and where they choose to put tax dollars, such as stuffing them up the Halliburton hole.

While this comment may be partially applicable, a few other things should be noted about the Irish vote. First, from my anecdotal experience with my Irish relatives, the Irish are not necessarily generous hosts to foreign workers. For a country that has exported its children to other countries for 150 years, the Irish are incredibly racist and bigoted against foreigners.

Secondly, the Irish received enormous subsidies from the larger, richer EU countries for 20 years. Now, they are being asked to give more than they receive, as Ireland has gone from being a third-world backwater to a Celtic Tiger. Well, it turns out they just like receiving money, and don't like giving to the less fortunate.

The Irish should be the first in line thanking the EU and trying to make it stronger. Instead, they are ungrateful and resentful. Wealth has not made the Irish any better.

I voted against the Lisbon treaty. I'm 62, female, well educated, well travelled, lived abroad and, like most Irish people, very much in favour of the EU.

I felt with the Lisbon Treaty, we were giving away our sovereignty..no commissioner (commissioners elect the future president), reduced representation in an enlarged parliament,and a v reduced veto, in common with other countries. We all feel there is a great deficit of democracy/accountability in the EU and this was going to make things worse for us...then, there were these top German and French officials as well as Barroso, insinuating we were a little bunch of nobodies on the edge of nowhere and we would surely be punished if we rejected the treat, a minority within a minority holding up 470 million people or so! Maybe we'd even be put on a lower track within the EU, even excluded. That was the death knell. We are v tired of our own breed of arrogant politicians who are deaf to the democratic voice...now, we would have deafness from Brussels, as well.The local publican here told me she didn't know anyone who was voting yes..

Rummy's right; the tables have now been turned on Eire and they're not quite so generous.

Mega-agreed with "a" on the journalists. Fortunately, your local community paper isn't in quite as bad a boat.

In the long run liberalized trade helps everyone.

In the long-run, we're all dead and neoliberal trade helps no one. In any reasonably meaningful timeframe, the evidence does not suggest that so-called "free trade" helps everyone, or even the majority, or even a large minority. The evidence is that it improves aggregate performance, to be sure, and also that it accelerates the rich-poor gap and makes it harder to cross and reinforces existing ethnic inequities in the distribution of wealth and increases ethnic violence. Most of those are observed on both the more well-developed and less well-developed side of neoliberal trade arrangements, though the actual increases in violence are mostly seen on the less-developed side.

That neoliberalized trade ought to help everyone is a conclusion drawn from idealized assumptions that assume (among other counterfactuals) efficient, competitive markets both internally and internationally, which, rhetoric aside, neoliberal trade does not produce in practice.

@cmdicely

Thank you! Every time somebody makes a steady state, aggregate-level argument about the benefits of free trade I want to pull my hair out.

What does the transient response of the economy look like to a sudden infusion of low-wage workers? Wanna guess?

If as you said aggregate performance is improved than the only problem is distributing the gains fairly and broadly. Liberal trade policies do not prevent that from happening.

I don't know what neoliberal trade means and I don't like to use "free trade" in discussions because it's too loaded from years of use in rhetoric, but liberalized trade seems clear enough-- avoid barriers, tariffs, etc. Those are negative responses to the problem of inequitable distribution of the gains. There are positive responses to the dislocations that occur from globalization. Liberalized trade is a spectrum with one end being an ideal, perhaps never realized, and the reality being the best, least inefficient arrangement we can accomplish given the complexity of markets and various polities.

I say protect people not weak businesses. Also, I disagree, liberalized trade has a good track record when liberals run the show and balance it with good tax and public program policies.

dennisS: If as you said aggregate performance is improved than the only problem is distributing the gains fairly and broadly.

In other words, the only problem is that it doesn't happen.

BTW, even the theory that it results in aggregate gains is based on a long list of assumptions, amongst which are that trade is balanced. Our trade (current account) deficit is over 6%/GDP and rising. Does that sound balanced to you?

I don't like to use "free trade" in discussions because it's too loaded from years of use in rhetoric, but liberalized trade seems clear enough-- avoid barriers, tariffs, etc.

Oddly enough, your definition of liberalized trade seems remarkably like the definition of free trade. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and shits like a duck, it's probably a duck.

Of course free trade might not be so bad. When do we get some? Our trade agreements from NAFTA on have done little to improve it. Mostly they've been investment agreements and requirements to reduce safety and other regulations to the least common denominator.

Of course trade agreements have lowered some tariff barriers, but they've also increased the power of government granted monopolies called "intellectual property". That's the antithesis of free trade.

Lastly, everything has been grossly distorted by currency manipulation and the barriers many of our trade partners (eg China) keep in place.

If something (safety and environmental protections in trade agreements or pegged currencies) is broke let's fix it, instead of sabotaging something else (trade) that delivers results.

By-the-way, if Democrats, at this point in our fight with Republican market fundamentalists and crony capitalists ransomed liberalized trade for benefits to working people I'm in favor... to an extent. I see value in taking steps backward if it means leaping forward later.

In the long haul Smoot-Hawley type barriers just hurt us all. I wish we could skip that bargain and go straight to proactive positive solutions like public sector investments, which provide jobs and make us more competitive while eliminating the need to protect failing businesses just to keep people employed.

The Lisbon treaty was rejected for a number of reasons. The Yes campaign, led by all the main political party was half-hearted, expecting the usual Irish vote of Yes to Europe. The No campaign had the usual Sinn Fein\Socialist grouping but also a strong right wing grouping, worried about abortion, and other "European liberalisations". These grouping got out early and had a strong core vote by April or so. The treaty, itself, was incomprehensible, almost like footnotes to a contract. For example, the entity referred to in subsection 17.2.19 will be modified to be brought into line with subsection 13.4.23. Finally, there were continuing reports that European ministers were shelving "controversial" declaration or edicts until after the vote, this did not make people feel comfortable.

A couple of comments on some stereotypes here in these comments. Most Irish people have travelled quite a lot in Europe. I agree that there has been more distrust of "too many foreigners" in the country but Ireland and Britain were the only EU countries that allowed the newly added EU-ers such as the Poles to come and work freely. This is not allowed by the preaching Germans, French or Italians.

The referendum failed because of a poorly executed Yes campaign, a well financed No campaign (some from very shady sources, more on this side of the pond), an increasing level of distrust of the EU among all its citizens and the arrogance of the commission and the EU hierarchy.

Re the FISA vote... I am just stunned!

Could not read the site at link posted above by socraticgadfly, but really this is just horribly depressing.

Both sides totally bought and paid for. How are *we* a beacon of Democracy when uh, we HAVE no Democracy.

I am sad.

Re the FISA vote... I am just stunned!

Could not read the site at link posted above by socraticgadfly, but really this is just horribly depressing.

Both sides totally bought and paid for. How are *we* a beacon of Democracy when uh, we HAVE no Democracy.

I am sad.

Re the FISA vote... I am just stunned!

Could not read the site at link posted above by socraticgadfly, but really this is just horribly depressing.

Both sides totally bought and paid for. How are *we* a beacon of Democracy when uh, we HAVE no Democracy.

I am sad.

Kevin,

I don't think the Irish vote had anything to do with economics. The EU is already an integrated economic union. That was the whole point of the EU. The new treaty wouldn't have changed that at all. It would only have created a new, unelected EU bureaucracy that would have purported to carry out an EU foreign and military policy, and would have had the power to override national laws on all sorts of things. Whether this would be a good thing or a bad thing, it has no relationship to trade relationships.

Thank You.
John Kilts gained 30 Billion in equity for Gillette and a 168 million dollar cash out for himself, while it ONLY cost 6000 people their jobs.

Thanks for that info! I spent a couple of decades prostrate to the Zulu god and never knew about this bit of trivia.

"At the tone..........."

Thanks to Teasie and Darren upthread for their informed and interesting comments on the Irish EU vote.

A little late to the party, but to paraphrase the French daily Liberation, the Irish voted no for a number of reasons having nothing to do with the question posed - for the most part. I suspect the same would happen in the UK; people would choose not to answer the more complex question asked, and instead take the opportunity to vent against the EU generally, the Government of the day, immigration policy etc.

There's no doubt that this isn't a suitable question for a referendum; this is the very issue that representative government is for. The problem is that reading the runes that there appears to be a rather large disconnect between the EU and its citizens - this points to the need for them to do a rather better advertising job and try to bypass the skeptical press that exists in so many EU states.

Anyway, this is probably the subject of a blog all to itself.....

as dbl pointed out, as far as I understand the "treaty" related to foreign affairs matters, not to the economic union...of course this doesn't mean the vote itself wasn't influenced by folks' concerns with economic issues...perhaps people are simply sceptical of poorly-explained initiatives devised by the euro-elites! after all, the eu has not managed to get significant measures approved by popular vote in recent years