Minister for everything Stephen Joyce wrote some nonsense in the paper today about how trade agreements and more exports will mean more jobs:
I would like to make the point that trade access is hugely important for a small country like New Zealand.
Without fair and equal trade access we can’t sell as much of our goods and we get less for them. And that means fewer jobs.
This make-work bias is as bad as those who oppose trade agreements on the grounds of an anti-foreign bias. Trade affects the composition of employment, not the number of jobs. Paul Krugman spent a good part of the 1990s trying to explain that to the general public and public intellectuals.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments