J.D. Vance isn’t weird, but his ramblings on economics are. The senator earlier this year dismissed economics as “fake” in a rant about modern refrigerators. He expounded at a rally last week in Henderson, Nev.: “We believe that a million cheap knockoff toasters aren’t worth the price of a single American manufacturing job.”
That’s a strange place to preach from the populist pulpit, considering that the number of manufacturing jobs has nearly doubled in Nevada in the past two decades and grown faster than in any state since the start of the pandemic.
Pace Mr. Vance, U.S. manufacturing jobs aren’t leaving for China. They are shifting from the Rust Belt, Northeast and West Coast to Sunbelt states such as Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Florida, which have young and growing workforces, cheaper energy, lower taxes, right-to-work laws and proximity to trade partners, especially Mexico.
It’s true that U.S. manufacturing employment has declined since the start of the century. Mr. Vance blames China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, which gave Beijing increased access to the U.S. market. But that’s only part of the story. Technology also increased labor productivity, enabling manufacturers to produce more with fewer employees.
The combination of cheap Chinese imports and more efficient U.S. manufacturing kept prices down and increased Americans’ purchasing power. In the two decades before the pandemic, prices for clothes, furniture, appliances, toys and televisions declined, often sharply.
…..
Cheap labor isn’t the reason manufacturers are building new factories in the Sunbelt. Wages for manufacturing workers in Texas now rank among the highest in the country. Instead, they are foremost seeking a business-friendly environment, something China increasingly lacks, and a large pool of industrious workers who can pass a drug test.
Mr. Vance’s toaster line may win some votes, but his prescription for higher tariffs won’t bring back Midwest manufacturing jobs.
Chris Freiman weighs in on the ill-consequences of rent control. A slice:
Suppose Caroline is an extraordinarily talented surgeon who has received a lucrative job offer at a big city hospital. She’s looking for nearby housing. Dave is a professional Youtuber who films his content in an apartment near the hospital, although he could do his job anywhere. Without rent control, Caroline could outbid Dave for the apartment, which, again, would be the efficient outcome. It’s more important that a surgeon live near the hospital so that she can perform surgeries than that a Youtuber live near the hospital because he enjoys the local coffeeshops. But if rent controls cap the amount that Caroline is able to offer for the apartment, she’s not able to outbid Dave and he may well end up with the apartment instead. And if Caroline is unable to secure nearby housing, she may be unable to accept the job. This outcome is not only bad for her, it’s also bad for the patients who would have benefited from her surgical expertise. So while rent control with exemptions is better than rent control without exemptions, it is still unable to match the productive and allocative virtues of a free market.
The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board understandably asks:
Does anybody in politics understand tax policy these days? The Biden-Harris Democrats want to raise tax rates to Thomas Piketty French socialist levels. Republicans want to cut taxes, but they want to do so for specific groups to buy their votes. They’ve all lost the growth plot.
Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle isn’t impressed with Kamala Harris’s record on crime. A slice:
If and when Harris is asked to defend her previous remarks, expect to hear one talking point again and again: that violent crime is down from its pandemic peak and, in many U.S. cities, is actually a smidge lower than it was in 2019, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. She’ll say this because it’s true (and because it’s great news). But that won’t necessarily soothe voters, who are worried about a lot more than the homicide rate. They’re worried about the air of lawlessness that pervaded a lot of public spaces during the pandemic and still hasn’t cleared.
David Harsanyi isn’t fooled by Biden’s scheme to politicize the U.S. Supreme Court.
The July 28 presidential election in Venezuela is causing trouble for Brazilian President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. The 78-year-old leftist has spent his adult life endorsing Fidel Castro while claiming to care deeply about human rights and democracy. He’s mostly gotten away with it. But now he’s up to his neck in the defense of the military dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro as the Venezuelan tries to steal an election.
There’s a fallacy about an evolved Lula being a vegetarian rather than a meat-eating man of the left. You know, he’s no longer a real communist. But his treachery in Venezuela suggests he’s as red as a raw steak. There’s nothing remotely civilized about putting the goal of ideological domination above the lives of millions of innocent Venezuelan civilians, as he is doing.
