Hello, I hear many people saying that the loss of manufacturing is currently a very big problem and that manufacturing needs to come back. They claim the reason that it is a big problem is because manufacturing jobs are generally high paying while service sector jobs are generally low paying. Therefore, offshoring caused the loss of high paying jobs.

I understand that offshoring high paying jobs is problematic. However, I don't understand why offshoring manufacturing jobs in the past is still a problem now. Are manufacturing jobs inherently high paying while service sector jobs are inherently low paying? In Canada, construction jobs are high paying, although, in other places, such Thailand, they do not pay very well. Moreover, jobs in grocery store within Canada were previously decently high paying positions in the past, yet are extremely low paying now.

I understand that many manufacturing jobs are considered more skilled than many service positions, but, if the wages paid is determined by supply and demand, this shouldn't preclude service jobs from paying decent wages or becoming high paying jobs. Therefore, the society is not dependent upon manufacturing for decent paying jobs.

When wages were increasing and grocery stores were paying living wages, the economy was organized on demand side / Keynesian economics in order to drive down unemployment. Driving down unemployment increased demand for employees and drove up wages. This happened recently in the US in 2017 and 2018 due to massive government spending (although, unfortunately, with the clashing of taxes causing massive public debt).

Could we not just return to actively combatting unemployment to drive up wages in the service sector, rather than blaming our woes on the loss of manufacturing?

Marx has Das Kapital, Smith has The Wealth of Nations, what is the book for Keynesian economics? Thanks.

I made this question on the austrian_economics community but... I didn't get any reply

Which heterodox economic theories would be best at solving these issues?

fiscal policy could possibly employ workers and begin constructing infrastructure which further would possibly decrease unemployment, but if rate of growth is down, wouldn’t fiscal policy like this run deficits?

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I've started a new blog focused on economics and social welfare. Would love to hear your comments.

Note: deliberately being provocative in my style, not for the faint of heart. But hopefully funny!!

https://president-of-the-galaxy.medium.com/too-expensive-is-a-steaming-pile-of-dogs-t-e54450869235

Hopefully the title is self-explanatory, but to go into a little more depth:

I think with a divided government here in the US and the republicans pivoting to Austerity talking points it’s safe to say that stimulus during COVID will be inadequate if it goes through the legislative branch. There’s been a lot of talk from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party about forgiving student debts via executive action. Putting the question of political feasibility or political capital cost aside, would this help to stimulate the economy?

Hey everyone,

With what looks to be a second national lockdown, on top of the damage caused by the first and the state the Spanish economy was already in, are there any economists in the room that would have a guess what is in store for Spain in the near future?

The Gov. looks set to do very little to help business make it through this extremely tough period and many have already had to close.

Are we looking at a Greece-style default situation and economic chaos very soon? EU funds may or may not come through any time soon, and I have just seen that a large proportion of them have been allocated to the Gov.'s Equality Ministry.

As a non-economist, I am really concerned (living here) the state might got completely bankrupt. Is that even possible? What does happen if a state literally "runs out of money"? Sorry for the stupid questions, but any informed views or insights would be very welcome.

Cheers

https://preview.redd.it/pjngs4y85fv51.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=5d44fe5f0d8b4bae960645b47e84978ea14d83a0

All of the data above comes from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Economic Database.

If the minimum wage had been tied to hourly labor productivity beginning in 1956, it would be $25 today, or 23.1% of U.S. hourly labor output. I'm not necessarily arguing we take it that high, but I am saying we can afford it. Probably raising it overnight to that level would be detrimental, but phasing it up to that level over years and tying it to labor productivity could help to permanently rectify the inordinately unequal distribution of income and wealth in America.

It could even reduce unemployment levels in the long-run by shifting purchasing power towards those with a greater propensity to consume.

Here's a working paper that discusses the employment nonimpact of minimum wage hikes: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/168030/1/895926792.pdf.

We just published an article about Mr. Friedman in honor of his 108th birthday. I know he was a firece critic of your particular theory of economics, but I wondered what you all have to say about his?

This is a book who rely Capitalism and it's representants by the point of view from Keynes with some aspects from psychanalism of Freud (the death drive). It explains how the capitalist acts it's investments with the death drive.