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Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

> I find it ironic that publications such as the NYT which often (rightfully IMO) put a lot of weight on the scientific consensus on issues such as climate change, are much more reactionary when it comes to issues such as free trade, relying more an personal antidotes and political rhetoric.

I don't find it surprising at all, workers are real people out there. Economics is messy and when you're the one being marginalized you don't say "well at least on average the country is better off" when you can't feed your family. If climate change had as accurate a barometer as unemployment you would see radically different coverage.

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Economics is messy, but the free trade and consumer choice are very basic tenant of economics which lie at the foundation of economics. This is not one of the messier, controversial aspects of econometric models.

I don't think this is accurate. Piketty throws a big wrench in any assumptions which rely on increases in the average being disseminated widely throughout the economy. Economists have mostly made this assumption before Piketty, and the field hasn't really caught up to accounting for this effect. Globalization seems to be one of the major drivers of capital's advantage vs. labor in capturing a disproportionate amount of growth of late.

So, wealth distribution is a controversial topic in economics right now that is highly relevant to the conclusions that can be drawn from econometric models that deal with global trade.

The equations say we're better off overall, but not what to do with the marginalized citizens. It's not surprising that they are both vocal and talked about in the NYT.

Imagine you get laid off and the rest of your former co-workers all got raises that together equal more than your former salary. Everyone is better off, but how does that help you feed your family?

Do you make the same argument for those displaced by technology? All those ad-execs replaced by ad-words. All those film developers replaced by digital cameras.

Surely society could make these machines illegal as well and make a few better off at the expense of many.

Straw man argument. Technology increases have been around forever. The difference is now, capital gets to play wage arbitrage in places where labor can't roam to create an equilibrium. That is not free trade as defined.

No, but those topics are also discussed widely in the NYT. For example, Rochester got absolutely whacked by Kodak's downfall:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/business/at-kodak-clinging...

Whole industries being wiped out is a problem, doubly so when an industry is the majority of a region's GDP. It's not the end of the world, but it's certainly worthy of discussion.

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