Donald Trump is pushing ahead with his protectionist agenda, and possibly with good reason. There were over 17 million manufacturing jobs in the US in 2000, in the 10 years that followed, China joined the WTO and the US lost about a third of those jobs. In this edition of the Debunking Economics podcast Phil Dobbie asks Steve Keen whether protectionism is valid in this day and age. What of the conventional philosophy that trying to do everything locally avoids economies of scale and pushes prices up for everyone? Steve’s argument, you need a complex economy to produce efficiency and innovation. It’s the lack of protectionism that has stymied growth in many economies. But there are exceptions, especially for an Elon Musk fan boy like Steve!
EU politics
The Real News – Is Jeremy Corbyn’s “anti-Semitism Crisis” a Smear Campaign? (Pt. 1/2)
“What is happening now is exactly what was happening in Nazi Germany in the 1930s”. No, not the National Front, but the Labour Party. Really? Beside corporate Media and supporters of Israel, no one seems […]
Austerity
Aufhebunga Bunga: Quinn Slobodian – Order Not Freedom
On the unexpected origins of neoliberalism. Auhebunga Bunga talks to Quinn Slobodian, author of Globalists, about how neo-liberals look back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the League of Nations. Why does neoliberalism talk about freedom, […]
Paradox is proponents of free trade still hang onto the notion that their respective countries should have positive trade balances with everyone else – impossible. Throughout Britain’s domination of world trade in 19th century it had a negative trade balance.