One of the other speakers–this one a politician rather than a nerdy academic like me–spoke about the need to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank. (I won’t mention the person’s name, since the event is off the record.) What struck me is how weak the arguments were.
He goes on to list and to refute those arguments. This reminded me of a couple of things I recently wrote about.
1. The WaPo frames the story of the Ex-Im bank as a struggle between right-wing Tea Party crazies and sober centrists.
2. I still would think a lot more highly of left-leaning economists if they, too, would speak out against the Ex-Im bank.
But I would think even more lowly of left-leaning economists if they were less supportive of the Ex-Im bank back when a Republican was in the WH. (But I doubt they could be as malleable in their thinking as Left-leaning anti-war, privacy rights, etc. have been…)
There seem to be these periodic issues that come out of nowhere, that make no sense to me (more later), that marshal a lot of support and opposition. Political organizational capital building exercises?
I don’t expect to know much about obscure topics. But if it was important, why wait so late?
Dean Baker has written against it but it probably doesn’t get much attention because it is small potatoes and there are so many more important concerns. Has anyone done a poll on it? They are probably more unified than you may believe.
On more than just this issue, Dean Baker has shown independence and integrity