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Highlands Today

Basic Facts

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Jesse James

Published: January 15, 2008

I know editorials are opinion pieces, but opinions that make it to your editorial page should have at least some remote basis in fact. What facts do you have to back your assertion that the rising number of voters registering as independents reflects dissatisfaction with the major party candidates? Surely, you don't mean there is a tide of support for independent candidates, since for all practical purposes there aren't any. Do you have surveys, polls, interviews, etc. to support your statement?

Worse, you then lapse into repeating the insipid populist pabulum that we have sent so many jobs overseas that wages have not kept pace with the economy. You really should check the facts. Trade has increased over 10-fold since 1960 to nearly $3.5 trillion –– more than one fourth of our total economy. If it caused unemployment and lower living standards, we would all be on welfare by now. Instead: Real GDP more than doubled, we added 81 million jobs, real per-capita and median incomes rose by a third, inflation and unemployment fell to historically low levels. We still manufacture twice as much as China and the combination of manufacturing, mining, and agriculture as a percent of our GDP remains at near record highs. Yes, the number of people working in manufacturing is declining. The same is happening in nearly every country, including China (where the number of workers in manufacturing has fallen 10-15 percent in recent years). We are witnessing the same miracle in manufacturing today that we saw in agriculture in the mid-20th century. Fewer people making more. It doesn't mean we have more unemployment; it means we have more stuff.

Your column then switched from economics to assail the "special interests" you claim are fouling up government. I might agree, but I'm not sure you know a special interest when you see one. Your paper has long supported special protectionist trade barriers for citrus and sugar. You even shamelessly published industry press releases as fact. For example, you wrote a few years ago that citrus was a vital $9 billion industry. At the time official Florida Department of Agriculture data put the total annual value of citrus at slightly over $300 million and a minuscule part of the state economy. Similarly, you stated that the loss of import restrictions on sugar would immediately put 40,000 Floridians out of work permanently. There was zero data to support this nonsense. You apparently did not see this as a "special interest" but as a need for a "level playing field." A tip: Whenever someone wants a level playing field, he is trying to get the government to legalize picking your pocket. Our second home is in Texas where the local papers endorse continuing subsidies for cotton growers despite record harvests, prices and farm incomes. They do not support special interests, but level playing fields for the small cotton farmer. Are the NRA and AARP special interest groups and supposedly sinister, or are they citizen advocacy groups, which is okay.

Finally, most everybody out here is against "pork barrel" spending, but when FEMA dropped $125,000 on the local fire department to buy a pickup truck to fight grass fires, well that was an investment in local infrastructure.

Prediction: All the talk of "change" in the political campaign – won't change anything.

Jesse James
Avon Park

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