But one short reaction piece that especially struck me came from Dean Baker at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. To wit:
Most of the thousands of economists gathered this weekend at the annual convention of the American Economics Association in Denver would probably agree with MIT economist David Autor, that the big problem facing the U.S. labor market is that our workforce is not being adequately educated.Wrong. Completely, stupendously, absolutely wrong.
By contrast, the NYT devoted a lengthy article to tell readers about the dismal job market facing young lawyers. . . . It is worth noting that if Autor is right, then the NYT has seriously misrepresented the state of the legal market.
First, Autor and the other economists are correct on some small level. We do need a more educated workforce, but it must be education that fits our economic needs. Piling on random years in school does not meet that need, and a society where everyone has a law degree is no more "educated" than a society of high school dropout dunces. We need people to study medicine, hard sciences research, international business, foreign languages, etc.; a law degree for a lower-tiered grad right now is no better than an art history degree in meeting our need to be "more educated."
Second, screaming "more education" from the mountaintops is no answer to American's economic problems; rather, it's calling for a band-aid after a grenade has torn two limbs and left shrapnel all over Uncle Sam's back. We have simply farmed out everything that can be farmed out without sharing the profits of the farming even though the costs are carried by everyone. That's essentially created a class of people who are forever screwed in this economy.
What happened with law school (and in undergraduate education and by some accounts in pharmacy school and in film school and in paralegal programs) can certainly happen in every other area of education where apparent demand (boosted by naive economists, advertising, and mass media) can far outpace actual demand, causing a glut of applicants, skyrocketing enrollments and tuition, a veritable economic bubble, and a lot of aspiring, otherwise-intelligent young people getting screwed with non-dischargable debt.
People have been "getting educated" for years. There are people in my law school who are trilingual and on advanced degree number three. Generation Y is the most paper-educated in history thus far and guess what? It's no defense when there's someone in India who can do the job for cheaper. The Indians and Chinese and Vietnamese and Malaysians can educate themselves just the same as we do. Why would a degree be any defense when the Board of Directors at Company XYZ decides to move some operation overseas or to Mexico to cut costs?
Such thinking is silly and short-sighted, a thoughtless solution to a weighty, perplexing problem.
The fact that something calling itself the Center for Economic and Policy Research can neither see right through this nor see that even if it were entirely accurate the New York Times may have been dead-on accurate is rather pathetic.
Mainstream economists are "economic cheerleaders." Their main purpose is to keep up the faith of the masses. These are the same ass-clowns who stated that globalization would lead to better paying jobs in this country. These MORONS also sold the deregulation dogma to the public and politicians.
ReplyDeleteIf it serves their purpose, these economists will claim that women who paint their toenails with black polish will see a $300,000 rise in their lifetime earnings.
Dean Baker partly inspired my blog and he's right on so many other issues, but on lawyers and legal education he's surprisingly myopic.
ReplyDeleteOne of the real problems with America is the lack of an industrial policy (except where it can be disguised as military policy such as ARPA/DARPA inventing the ARPA net -> Internet). This was foisted by the "government can do no right" republicans and now we're stuck.
ReplyDeleteEconomists take a view that is highly academic and statistical - they don't value anecdotal evidence, they only look at the numbers. c.f. the "end" of the Great Recession in 2009.
ReplyDeleteWhile I respect their data-driven point of view, there is data they don't always take into account in their analysis - that is how you get 9.4% unenmployment vs. a "real" unemployment of twice that.
Basically, the problem is that the market has failed. Like an out of control self-propelled lawnmower, the powers-that-be are going to acutally have to work for a living and actually mow the lawn themselves in order to fix the mess, rather than just let the machine churn on and destroy the flowerbeds. Blame government, blame greedy educational institutions, blame industry...but don't blame twenty-somethings who merely went to school for being not properly educated. They are not responsible for outsourcing.
But, since these guys don't actually work for a living, it's easier to blame others than the real culprits and do the "hard work of working hard". Brilliant. Mission Accomplished!