Check it out, cats and kittens, as Ben and I briefly kibbitz on current events (healthcare and taxes) before getting into a discussion of trade policy with our illustrious guest Lori Wallach, with whom I’ve worked closely on these issues, and Chad Bown, who brings a smart take from the more traditional econo-corner.
Oh, and then there’s a snippet of this burning hard bop vibes solo Bobby Hutcherson (I beg of you, listen to the whole track and tell me if it’s not extremely cookin’), and a topical trade joke from Ben.
The “check it out” link takes me to YouTube and Marvin Gaye. How do I get to the podcast?
My bad. Fixed now.
A new policy is needed to govern offshoring by protecting the theft of public intangible capital.
Trade policy currently protects the theft of many types of private IC such as patents but ignores the theft of public IC. The theft of public IC occurs when business operations at a company with jobs and factories are first established in America with public IC created as a result of public investments in IC such as non-profit and public education that get translated into business IC and then moved offshore with proven business capabilities (both tangible and intangible capital) consisting of knowledge, tools, technology and processes.
Trade imbalances don’t measure the flows of IC.
Regulations on offshoring should require repayment of the apportioned public investments that produced the IC used for manufacturing operations at a company with a tax of at least 40% on the value of traded goods sent back to America from offshored factories.