Anything you can do, I can do meta.

In conclusion, the data appear to show that the real factor in goods job creation (or loss) is the relationship between productivity and production, which unfortunately leaves little room for protectionism (even sans the trade war implications that would create), as unless productivity falls precipitously we would see no net job creation from any such endeavor.

By the way, this all jibes with much of the Jacobs I’ve been reading. Cities and the Wealth of Nations has been wrenching around everything I thought I knew (or had been taught) about economics. The more I learn, the more a large national economy (*cough* essentially the aggregate of many separate urban economies *cough*) seems to behave like an incredibly complex biological system. That oldest of economic metaphors, the human body, really is perfect. We are ourselves meta-organisms, and so are our social/economic constructions.