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logo    Globalization and Imports from China


John Manzella, President of Manzella Trade Communications, has a piece in today's Dallas Morning News titled "Dont Ignore Benefits of Trade." This piece is accompanied by another by Alan Tonelson, a fellow at the US Business & Industry Council. Both pieces are responses to the question, "Should the U.S. restrict food and drugs from China until they can be certified as safe?" Mr. Tonelson says yes and Mr. Manzella says no.

Mr. Manzella's piece is curious in a number of respects. First, he has an obvious financial stake in the issue, which requires any objective reader to require him to prove rather than merely make claims. Second, his claims are weird.

"Chinese imports likely will continue to be a problem in the short term," he writes. "That's why American importers need to step up to the plate and assume greater responsibility." Well, sure, wouldn't the country be a wonderful place if American companies stepped up to the plate and assumed responsibility for the safety and effectiveness of their products? But they never have.

Then there is this: "if we were to ban all food and drugs from China until they could be certified . . . what do we say about contaminated imports from other countries? And what would other countries say about tainted imports from the United States?"

Well, shouldn't they all be banned? What's the problem here? American companies shouldn't be sending tainted products to other countries, and other countries shouldnt be sending tainted products here or anywhere else. Apparently Mr. Manzella believes that it is perfectly okay for businesses to peddle tainted products, but I'd like to see just how he'd justify that belief.

But lastly Mr. Manzella is a pot calling the kettle black; he engages in ad hominem slurs. "America's trade detractors continue to deceive the public. . . . The truth: Chinese trade benefits American businesses and families enormously. In fact, by 2010, Chinese trade is projected to boost U.S. real disposable income per household by $1,000 per year. . . ."

Hum! Projected, by 2010, and $1,000 per household per year. Well, what if the projections go unfulfilled? And $1,000 per year is $83.33 cents a month or $20.83 a week or $2.97 a day, which will be undoubtedly be reduced considerably by inflation alone. Did Mr. Manzella say that the detractors of trade are deceiving the public? All of this globalization may buy one of your kids a happy meal. Now that's one enormous consumer benefit, isn't it?

But there;s more: "And this is on top of current annual income gains of 10,000 for each American household attributable to overall trade and globalization."

Well, I don't know about you, and I don't know what attributable means, nor do I know who is doing the attributing, but I know my family hasn't seen any such gain in current annual income. After paying our regular monthly bills and purchasing our ordinary amounts of food and clothing, we don't have $800 dollars left over, and I haven't heard a single family or even economist extol the wonders of this extra money. So Mr. Manzella, don't tell us how well off we are, just show us the money, and until you do, your argument will never convince anyone who is not already a member of the congregation. Preaching to the converted isn't proselyteing.

I haven't read the studies Mr. Manzella cites in support of these figures, but my past experience with such so-called studies makes me discount them, because they are usually based on a process such as this: A macro-economic figure is calculated from some data (sometimes validly and sometimes not). This figure is then divided by some other number that represents the population, the number of families or households, or something else and then the quotient is attributed to the micro-economic entities. This process commits the elementary fallacy of division, which every college graduate should recognize.

So, yes! The globalization debate does involve deception, but it is not coming from the critics of globalization. Mr. Manzellas pot surely is black. The kettle, however, is not. (8/6/2007)