Mankiw Critiques Obama's State Of The Union Address (Or Other Countries Are Our Partners, Not Our Competitors)

Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw has a good column today in the NY Times called Emerging Markets as Partners, Not Rivals. He thinks Obama does not understand that if other nations do well, it will help our future. They will have more to trade to us. Excerpts:

"Achieving economic prosperity is not like winning a game, and guiding an economy is not like managing a sports team."

"Unlike a sports contest, which by necessity has a winner and a loser, a voluntary economic transaction between consenting consumers and producers typically benefits both parties."

"Listening to the president, you might think that competition from China and other rapidly growing nations was one of the larger threats facing the United States."

"Other nations are best viewed not as our competitors but as our trading partners."

"During the address, Mr. Obama lamented the fact that many foreign students attended colleges and universities in the United States and then returned to their countries of origin. “As soon as they obtain advanced degrees, we send them back home to compete against us,” he said. “It makes no sense.”

The president is right that we should encourage a greater number of highly educated foreigners to migrate here."

"But if these foreign students decide to return home, as many do, we shouldn’t worry that they are competing against us.

Instead, we should view higher education in the United States as one of our most successful export industries."

"When the foreign students head home, they take the human capital acquired here to become productive members of their own communities. They spread up-to-date knowledge, so it can foster prosperity everywhere."

"Nothing could be better for the United States than these thousands of American-trained ambassadors who have seen at first hand the benefits of a free and open society."