It Pays To Be Ignorant

That was the name of a hit radio and TV show some sixty to sixty-five years ago.

We're reviving it today. 

America is rebelling against intelligence; it is exalting stupidity.

As I have said before, it is stupid to argue that trade restrictions will create jobs.

At best, trade restrictions will change the composition of jobs.

Economics is all about feedback mechanisms.

Curb imports, and, other things being equal, you reduce the volume of dollars flowing overseas.

When supply falls relative to demand, prices rise.

A rise in the price of the dollar means that overseas customers must offer more local currency to buy a given amount of dollar-denominated goods and services.

In consequence, US exports fall, again, of course, other things being equal.

Employment shifts from export industries to those that make the goods or provide the services that were formerly imported.

That's a bad bargain: Wages and salaries tend to be higher in export than in import-competing industries.

Of course, trade has hurt some people.

But it is not the villain popularly portrayed.

The loss of manufacturing jobs in this country is overwhelmingly the consequence of escalating automation.

Curbing trade won't revive manufacturing employment.

To do that, you'd have to destroy computer hard drives.

Perhaps this will become the next demand of a certain political figure.

Nonsense obviously appeals to people who have come up short in the real world.

Those who have succeeded are supposedly smart, or at least have the right educational credentials. 

Therefore, to inveigh against success is to scorn smarts.

In this context, the reaction against reason is readily comprehensible.

We used to believe that, in a democracy, people will gravitate to a candidate who speaks intelligently about the issues, which, in the case of trade, means discussing methods of increasing the scope of trade adjustment assistance to improve the skill set of those adversely affected by imports--the preoccupation of at least one candidate.

More broadly, resentment over trade will recede only when we can reduce educational disparities and their effect on earnings potentials--another subject of interest to that candidate.  

The gap between the median earnings of the college educated and those without a high-school diploma is getting wider. It was less than $30,000 in 1980; it is over $45,000 today.

Ignorance may indeed pay off for that nattering nabob of nonsense--the other presidential candidate. 

But it sure doesn't pay for the people he is trying to mislead.