I'm not faulting Nike. Nike is only playing by the rules.
I'm faulting the rules.
Trade agreements like the Trans Pacific Partnership protect corporate investors but lead to even more off-shoring of American jobs.
They make it safer for firms to relocate abroad -- the Cato Institute describes such investor protections as "lowering the risk premium" on offshoring -- thereby reducing corporate incentives to keep jobs in America and upgrade the skills of Americans.
If the Trans Pacific Partnership goes into effect American wages will be dragged down by further losses of manufacturing jobs.
All workers with similar skill levels face downward wage pressure when Americans displaced from better-paying manufacturing jobs join the glut of workers competing for non-offshorable jobs.
Jobs being lost to imports pay Americans higher wages than the jobs left behind . Government data show wages in import-competing industries (e.g. manufacturing jobs) beat those in exporting industries overall.
We can't educate our way out of this. American workers with a four-year college degree are also highly vulnerable to job offshoring, according to a study by Princeton economist Alan Blinder.
He found that the one out of every four American jobs in finance, information technology and professional services could be offshored in the foreseeable future.
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