Shooting Fish in a Barrel

N. Gregory Mankiw is a Marie Antoinette Class quant type, with a very public platform. Recently he expounded on free trade. Much of it is baloney, but this bit

To be sure, expanding trade hurts some people in the short run, especially those in import-competing sectors who have to find new jobs. That fact may call for a robust safety net and effective retraining. But it does not undermine the conclusion that free trade raises average living standards.
[my bold]

deserves shooting. Like a fish in a barrel.

I wonder how he feels about all those coal miners? Not to mention that, being a card carrying economist he knows better, citing "average living standards". Given the continuing income skew towards the 1%, and documented destruction of the remaining 99%, that cite rather then median income (or, as even some Trumpians cite, vis-a-vis 1970s income) which has barely budged since the OPEC oil embargo sent the economy into the ditch. IOW, any data analysis of known skewed distribution, income or wealth or widget weight using mean rather than median (or some other skew reducing/removing measure) is politics, not analysis.