Dean

i'm just this lazy, and, you have the # in front of you, so, how much of the 68% GDP increase in Mexico happened between 87 and 94?

because, as you know, but, apparently the WaPo does not, NAFTA didn't go into effect in 1987.

Thanks for this post. You know, I'd really appreciate a post where you suggested news sources that you consider good ones. The economist, maybe? I'm curious.

You are right that the WaPo piece on this is poorly done and full of misinformation (if not outright disinformation). However, it would seem that the big story here is that NAFTA really was not all that big of a whoop in any direction, including on income distribution, although I cannot prove that. I happen to think that proposals to "renegotiate" it would be a serious mistake at this point. It is part of our existing relationships with our two neighbors, and both of them are currently pretty pissed at us with good reason on various grounds. This would be pissoff from the left, not wanted and not really very useful, a political con job for people who think there is more to this than there is.

For me, the weird question about NAFTA is why in Mexico it continued to stimulate the border maquiladoras over the rest of Mexico. For those all worked up about NAFTA, the basic effect was already there with the maquiladoras, which were already in under the wire. It was the rest of Mexico that was supposed to be opened up, but in fact most of the action has continued to be in that weird border zone.

I confess that this outcome made wrong questions I used to ask before NAFTA came in on regional economics tests. I would ask what the effect of bringing in NAFTA would be for the regional distriution of economic activity within Mexico. Given that there was to be no change in status for the maquiladora zone, which had been growing much more rapidly than the rest of the country, I had the "correct" answer being that it would help growth in the rest of the country relative to the maquiladora zone. That has not been the case, but aside from the lousy transportation system in Mexico, I have no idea why.

In any case, that outcome simply reinforces the point that NAFTA barely did anything at all. If it had, I would contend that the not-so correct "correct" answer on my old tests would have been "correct" after all.

BTW, while I see reason to be skeptical about recent bilateral free trade deals, I think that much of the recent anti-trade hype going on among the Dems, is just their equivalent of the anti-immigrant hysteria going on among the Republicans, two sides of an equally ugly coin.

It's worth noting the Washington Post's coverage of national accounts has improved dramatically. While they're now claiming a four-fold increase in Mexican GDP since 1987, they previously claimed a seven-fold increase after 1993.

From the golden oldies:
http://beatthepress.blogspot.com/2006/04/surprising-news-on-mexico-at.html

Just like SSI, the Post editorial page is trying to protect the Mega Rich from any syphoning of their burgeoning wealth to help the middle class or the poor.

The Post continues attacking social programs and defending trade deals that are primarily underwriting the profits of multi nationals at the expense of the middle and lower classes of both countries.

Something's dropped out of the fifth paragraph, next-to-last sentence: "Of course [China?] has been growing even more rapidly for the last two decades."

BR says: In any case, that outcome simply reinforces the point that NAFTA barely did anything at all.

Nonsense. As Dean said: NAFTA was about putting non-college educated workers in direct competition with their low-paid counterparts in Mexico, while maintaining the protection for the most highly paid professions (investment bankers, doctors, lawyers, editorial page writers). This redistributes income upward.

Reverse Robin Hooding is serious. Not only does it hurt people, many more than it helps, it's ultimately bad for democracy. And the false equivalency of equating this legitimate worry with the pants-wetting of consevatives re immigration (based on false data and fantasy) is also nonsense.

love it: "If the Post editorial writers use a consistent measure, we can expect to see warm praise for Zimbabwe's extraordinary growth on the editorial pages in the near future"....
Dean, keep on making economic review both informative and entertaining!!

Hasn't Jamie Galbraith been saying this for 10 years? That NAFTA was the most overrated (in any direction, positive or negative) than any large trade measure in recent memory? You had the Clinton trade representatives saying that NAFTA was going to create millions of new jobs, boost the economy by an infinite measure, knock off 10 pounds of excess body fat, improve your sex life and your golf game. Meanwhile you have Jeff Faux and his ilk claiming that NAFTA destroyed 20 billion jobs on both sides of the border, put millions in poverty, increased suicide by 200% and was single-handedly to blame for the declining quality of prime-time network programming.

Thirteen years after the fact, it would be nice if both "sides" made an effort to actually assess it half-honestly.

Qrrazy Cat,

Well, because of the free entry of goods from the maquiladora plants already in place and the associated free flow of capital to them, this competition you mention was already in place. Given that little development occurred after NAFTA outside of that zone, it did not change things much.

Actually, the biggest blow was to Mexico through the unequal deal involving corn (maize), where the US got to keep subsidizing it while the Mexicans stopped. Upshot? Massive outmigration from the poor ejido corn/maize farms into the industrial work force, which is the major explanation for the stagnation of wages in Mexico. Anyway, neither the Post nor Dean mentioned this particular doozy of an item, but then it does not involve all kinds of breast beating by Americans about how those nasty Mexicans are doing terrible things to us.

The "nasty Mexicans doing terrible things to us" is the pants-wetting rightwing's immigration stance; the legitimate worries of causing increasing competition for low wage people while protecting high wage people is people in those high-end positions, from many countries especially ours, doing terrible things to us.

Your equating the two is nonsense.

The worst of what happens with agreements like NAFTA is not so much jobs going south physically, but jobs going south, as employers in countries such as the USA find initiate a race to the bottom (along with safety and environmental standards).

Megan Mcardle lays the smack down on Dean!
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/12/department_of_awful_statistics_2.php

Yet again, the sanctimoniuos Dean Baker, inveterate critic and self-righteous extraordinaire, requires his own critic.

Anon?! Meg uses a different series to argue that real GDP rose by about 100% not 84%. BFD as compared to WaPo's claim that the increase was 300% (7.1% per annum v. 3.1% per annum). WaPo was in the National Review region of stupidity. Meg v. Dean was more akin to a rounding error.

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