David Brooks Strikes Again

The NY Times's David Brooks strikes again in his column for today: Who's Afraid of the New Economy. Touting a new report by Third Way, Brooks tries to convince readers (& himself?) that the economic future is rosy. And rosiest of all for the U.S.

First thing he doesn't tell you is that Third Way is an organ of the Democratic Leadership Council, which is firmly pro-globalization. Then he tries once again to pooh-pooh the bad economic signs for America:

1. We don't need to worry about high consumer debt because "household assets have risen faster than debts." That's only true, of course, if you look at the aggregate for all Americans. For individuals at the bottom or lower middle--not true at all. Why do you think there have been so many people filing bankruptcy, and so many mortgage loan defaults that they're starting to affect stock prices of mortgage lenders?

2. The "vast majority of job losses are caused by technological change, not outsourcing."

But: (a) he has no way of knowing that, and (b) he seems to once again be playing the semantic game of talking about jobs that are "lost," defined as jobs that once existed here and have now been shipped overseas, leaving out the many "new" jobs that were created overseas that would have been created here absent globalization.


David Brooks: my nominee for dishonest globalization cheerleader of the decade.