Re:Smog in Western U.S. Starts Out as Pollution in Asia, Res...
by dragonwriter on Monday March 06, 2017 @06:04PM
(#13806910)
Not really; even with the smog the US has now that this contributes to, it is far less than before regulation, and shifting comparative advantage away from dirty manufacturing hasn't reduced the average rate of aggregate growth in the US.
The economic problems experienced everywhere but the top of the income distribution in the US are entirely distributional problems, not aggregate activity problems, and they stem from policies which have deliberately shifted retained gains up the distribution over the past 40 years or so (Reagan's tax shift being a major early contribution.) "Job losses" to outsourcing and immigration are convenient distractions because they are easy to conceptualize, but they don't really reflect the substance of the real problems.
The economic problems experienced everywhere but the top of the income distribution in the US are entirely distributional problems, not aggregate activity problems, and they stem from policies which have deliberately shifted retained gains up the distribution over the past 40 years or so (Reagan's tax shift being a major early contribution.) "Job losses" to outsourcing and immigration are convenient distractions because they are easy to conceptualize, but they don't really reflect the substance of the real problems.