Economic Asininities

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Whenever there's a World Trade Organization, Monetary Fund or World Bank meeting, crowds of idealistic, useful idiots show up to riot and protest against what they call globalization and capitalistic exploitation of Third World poor people. They charge Western multinational corporations with exploiting the poor through "slave" wages and child labor. Let's examine this nonsense.



According to The Economist magazine, multinational corporations typically pay wages that are double the local wages in Third World countries but far below those paid in richer countries. That, to protesters, is evidence of exploitation of the poor -- but is it?



For argument's sake, suppose without the presence of a multinational corporation the best job a poor, uneducated Ugandan can land pays a day. A multinational corporation builds a factory and hires that Ugandan for a day, a wage well below what it pays workers in the United States. Plain common sense says that the Ugandan has been made better off by the presence of the multinational corporation and would be made worse off if the multinational corporation were politically pressured to leave. How much sense does it make to characterize an action that makes that Ugandan better off as exploitation?



You say, "OK, Williams, we understand that, but why did you call the demonstrators useful idiots?" Rich-country labor unions and some companies would benefit if higher costs and legal restrictions can be imposed on multinationals. It would mean that fewer jobs would go overseas, thus enabling union workers to demand higher wages. Fewer cheaper goods would permit some companies to charge higher prices for goods domestically produced. The idealistic, uninformed demonstrators are useful tools to achieve wage and profit objectives.



Speaking of jobs, President Bush is being criticized for the weak economy; he's not creating enough jobs. Such a criticism stands at the height of ludicrousness. Politicians cannot create jobs. Or, more accurately put: They can only create one job by destroying another.



Think about it. Suppose Congress and the president spend a million dollars for a "stimulus package." Will it be the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny who gives them the money? Obviously, the money must come from somewhere in the economy.



Since that's true, we must ask what was that money going to be used for if Congress hadn't taxed it away for a "stimulus package"? People would have spent the money purchasing goods that would have created or sustained employment. If Congress borrowed to finance the stimulus package, what activities had to be curtailed because of higher interest rates resulting from government borrowing?



By the way, if you disagree with me and insist that Congress and the president do have job-creation powers, then Williams has identical job creation powers. I can create lots of jobs simply by purchasing several hundred crowbars, distributing them to my George Mason University students and instructing them to go smash automobile windshields.



Think of all the jobs that would be created at auto repair shops. But those jobs would come at the expense of other jobs, because people having to spend a couple hundred dollars getting their windshields replaced wouldn't have the same dollars to take their children to Disneyland, thereby reducing Disneyland jobs.



In general, presidents and congressmen have very limited power to do good for the economy and awesome power to do bad. The best good thing that politicians can do for the economy is to stop doing bad. In part, this can be achieved through reducing taxes and economic regulation, and staying out of our lives.

I think it's pretty interesting that you're writing this from the vantage point of being in a wealthy country, instead of being a member of the 3rd world itself. Your words don't convince me. Like everything else you write, it's completely one sided and predictable.

Yeah, I want less government influence. Less regulation of polluters so I can choke on the air and get sick from dirty water. I want the political process and my genes given away to the highest bidder. Please, get the government off my back.

As usual you miss the bigger picture. People protest WTO meetings not just because of the narrow jobs/poverty issue you talk about but about having democratic control of what kind of world we want to live in. There is much more to this than you're written about, again, as usual. You've kind of posted a straw man argument.

...these right-wing spammers bleating about "too much government", when they keep crying for more wars, more cops, more prisons, more Patriot Acts and "Three Strikes " laws, more surveillance, more, more, more....GOVERNMENT!

IMC Editors, please disregard my earlier request concerning these idiots-let 'em post! They're getting more entertaining by the day!

many things. . . but the impact is as I've described. . . more poverty for the 3d world.

It is always thus with the left, kindly intentions, deadly results.

As for AF, the Right simply recognizes the role of government and asks that it do what it is meant to do, and not that which it cannot do. It is meant to protect the lives and liberties of citizens. . . not be a mechanism for legalized theft, as the Left would make it. Government must STRONG and LIMITED.

What the Right fails to recognize, is that by limiting government, you simply shift the role of legalized theft to those who've got the $ to do it. It then becomes the best government money can buy.

Yeah I really want to get rid of government so that everything I value can be bought off by those who've got the money to do it.

Your model of what government should be is seriously out of touch with how the real world works.