LAW FROM THE CENTER

George Will, in today's Washington Post (subscription), writes about the flap over President Bush's economic advisor, Gregory Mankiw, saying publicly that it's a good thing for the economy to ship mid-level paying service jobs overseas. He blames both the Speaker of the House and the two front-running Democrat presidential nominees for conducting a witch hunt against a statement Will endorses:

It is difficult to say something perfectly, precisely false. But House Speaker Dennis Hastert did when participating in the bipartisan piling-on against the president's economic adviser, who imprudently said something sensible.

John Kerry and John Edwards, who are not speaking under oath and who know that economic illiteracy has never been a disqualification for high office, have led the scrum against the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, N. Gregory Mankiw, who said the arguments for free trade apply to trade in services as well as manufactured goods. But the prize for the pithiest nonsense went to Hastert: "An economy suffers when jobs disappear."

So the economy suffered when automobiles caused the disappearance of the jobs of most blacksmiths, buggy makers, operators of livery stables, etc.? The economy did not seem to be suffering in 1999, when 33 million jobs were wiped out -- by an economic dynamism that created 35.7 million jobs. How many of the 4,500 U.S. jobs that IBM is planning to create this year will be made possible by sending 3,000 jobs overseas?

Hastert's ideal economy, where jobs do not disappear, existed almost everywhere for almost everyone through almost all of human history. In, say, 12th-century France, the ox behind which a man plowed a field changed, but otherwise the plowman was doing what generations of his ancestors had done and what generations of his descendants were to do. Those were the good old days, before economic growth.

Yeah, yeah George, we get your point: jobs in areas we have a comparative advantage in are good, while jobs in areas we don't have a comparative advantage in are bad. Anyone taking Economics 101 knows that Georgie Boy.

But Will completely misses the point about the current debate. It's one thing to pontificate behind closed doors that the loss of some jobs, while tragic, may lead to even more jobs down the line. It's another thing for the President's chief economic advisor to publicly proclaim that the wholesale exporting of jobs to other countries is "good." It shows a callous insensitivity for those who have lost jobs, and a general disregard for the inherent worth of employment. What would happen if Chairman Greenspan went to Capitol Hill and, during testimony, told Congress that the fact that the current wholesale export of jobs to other countries was a "good thing?" We don't know, because it wouldn't happen. He may think it, but he would never say it. Greenspan likes his job too much. It's obvious Mankiw doesn't, so it's time for Bush to revoke that job if he wants to retain any credibility on economics and jobs. This is the kind of political blunder someone running for dog catcher wouldn't make, much less the top economic advisor in the nation.