November 15, 2015
The NYT devoted an article to a report put out by the British Bankers’ Association that claimed that new regulations were making the British industry less competitive internationally. This is presented as being a serious problem that should concern people.
In fact, people who believe in free trade should not care any more about the possibility that the U.K. will lose jobs in finance to foreign competition than if it loses jobs in textile manufacturing to foreign competition. The standard free trade argument — that all right-minded people are supposed to accept — is that the economy operates at full employment. This means that if bankers lose their jobs to international competition they will simply shift over to the sectors in which the U.K. has a comparative advantage. Only a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal protectionist would worry about losing jobs in textile manufacturing or banking to international competition.
It also would have been helpful if the NYT included the views of a critic of the banking industry in this article.
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