http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2011/04/capitalism-is-failing-middle-class-say.htmlWe're painfully aware that the U.S. economy is generating too few good jobs and that people are mad as hell about it. What's surprising is that influential bastions of the Establishment are starting to agree with us.
The latest surprise came from the Council on Foreign Relations, an august group that has as its members high-ranking government officials, world business leaders and prominent media figures. Last month, the CFR published a working paper called "The Evolving Structure of the American Economy and the Employment Challenge" (just the kind of snoozer headline you'd expect from such an august group).
Here's the CFR's take on all that Ayn Rand crap about market outcomes, especially efficient ones, always making everyone better off in the long run:
That seems clearly incorrect and is supported by neither theory nor experience. It is true, as in the United States, that many goods and services are less expensive than they would be if the economy were walled off from the global economy, and that the benefits of lower prices are widespread. But these cost savings do not necessarily compensate for diminished employment opportunities, and it would be presumptuous in the extreme for policymakers to tell voters what their values and preferences should be. People might trade cheaper goods for assurances that a wide range of productive and rewarding employment options would be available, now and in the future, for themselves and their children and grandchildren, even if the cost of goods they consumer were to rise.
More at the link --