Globalization and Free Trade:Your Opinion?

[bluedawg12]

If globalization is so great why are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?

If globalization is so great then why is wheat from China the reason for the recall of pet food that contains poison from a pesticide outlawed in the US? Isn't there wheat in Kansas?

Slick talking economists baffle us with B.S. and blind us with their jargon.

Is America better off with globalization?

Is the American working/middle class better off since globalization?

Does globalization only benefit the investing class?

In fact, does anyone still care if we have a strong middle class, or not?

Does anyone think that the strength and stability of this nation is founded on a strong working middle class, the ideal of upward mobility into the middle class by the underclass?

Does globalization kill the "American Dream"?

Is there an inherent danger to a nation with a few wealthy folk at the top and a large base of working poor at the bottom? Are we heading towards a ruling oligarchy?

What’s the core philosophy on this topic here at DU?

What do DU’ers think about globalization, free trade, fair trade and why?

BTW any other articles, links or info are welcomed, I spent some time looking up this info in an attempt to educate myself, but your research and info. are welcomed as is everyone’s opinion on this topic.

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Business Lingo

Outsourcing

http://www.ciol.com/content/search/showarticle1.asp?artid=71146

Sourcing needs to become a strategic process whereby companies accept the idea of unbundling their value-chain and focus on operating it in the most optimal way to achieve transformational cost savings (30% - 60%) and transformational revenue growth. For many organizations, this type of analysis will often lead to the adoption of an outsourcing strategy.
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Free trade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_trade

In international trade, free trade is an idealized market model, often stated as a political objective, in which trade of goods and services between countries flows unhindered by government-imposed tariff and non-tariff barriers. The Laissez-Faire school holds that no other requirements exist, while students of Microeconomics, sometimes called Welfare Economics, point out that Perfect Competition is also required in order for theory, specifically the General equilibrium theorems, to apply.

Nearly all modern non-Marxist economists support the statement that free trade is a net gain to both trading partners and that the gains from free trade outweigh the losses.<1> However, the versions of Free Trade that economists have in mind when making this statement are often quite different.

Fair trade
Main article: Fair trade
The fair trade movement, also known as the trade justice movement, promotes international labor, environment and social standards for the production of traded goods and services. The movement focuses in particular on exports from the Third and Second Worlds to the First World.

Balanced trade
Main article: Balanced trade
Balanced trade is an alternative economic model to free trade. Under balanced trade, nations are required to provide a fairly even reciprocal trade pattern. They cannot run large trade deficits. If deficits appear, the surplus nation must find a way to balance out trade or risk sanctions, fees, or quotas. Critics say this may discourage innovation as one country may reduce its efforts to produce products needed by the other.

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Uncle Milty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_trade_deficit

“Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and father of Monetarism, argued that many of the fears of trade deficits are unfair criticisms in an attempt to push macroeconomic policies favorable to exporting<3> industries. He stated that these deficits are not harmful to the country as the currency always comes back to the country of origin in some form or another ...

From a mainstream perspective, Friedman's argument is believed to be correct but incomplete. In particular, it is seen by many as ignoring the intergenerational consequences of deficits. ..That money can be used to purchase existing investment assets and government bonds within country A. As a result, the return from those assets will accrue not to citizens of country A but to foreigners.

Friedman also believed that deficits would be corrected by free markets as floating currency rates rise or fall ...A potential difficulty however is that currency markets in the real world are far from completely free, with government and central banks being major players, and this is unlikely to change within the foreseable future.

Friedman and other economists have also pointed out that a large trade deficit (importation of goods) signals that the country's currency is strong and desirable. To Friedman, a trade deficit simply meant that consumers had opportunity to purchase and enjoy more goods at lower prices...

Perhaps most significantly, Friedman contended strongly that the current structure of the balance of payments is misleading... that "on the books" the US is a net borrower of funds, using those funds to pay for goods and services.

He pointed to the income receipts and payments showing that the US pays almost the same amount as it receives: thus, U.S. citizens are paying lower prices than foreigners for capital assets to exchange roughly the same amount of income...”

Loss of Jobs

http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/06/22/d406221503116.htm

US economy: Outsourcing of jobs overseas is now a reality
Zahid Hossain writes from Atlanta, Georgia

Levi's, an internationally known manufacturing company of jeans closed down its last manufacturing unit in the United States a few weeks back. If it had kept the plant going, paying its American workers $15 an hour and other benefits, it would be selling its jeans at $80. And would any American buy them? Probably not. The typical American will go to any chain-store, like Wal-Mart, for $12 a pair jeans, made in anywhere but the USA, where they pay the locals -- Bangladeshis, Chinese, Indians, or Thais -- at least several times lower than the American wages.


In the name of stock prices, corporate profiteering and bonuses, the backbone of American business is no longer performed in the United States alone. India, China, Indonesia, Egypt, Korea, and other countries have virtually become the homes for manufacturing and service sector jobs. Workers are no longer considered a valuable asset to corporate America and have become an expendable commodity, who, some say, are sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed at the expense of American families and communities.
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Growing trade deficit

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4437179.stm

US trade deficit hits fresh high

The US trade gap rose 4.3% to $61bn (£32bn) in February, data published on Tuesday showed, well above market forecasts of a $59bn shortfall.

Textile imports from China have soared this year
The US trade deficit has widened to a new high as the world's largest economy consumed record imports of consumer goods and industrial materials.

Textile imports rose sharply after the abolition of global quotas in January, with shipments from China to the US rising 9.8% in February.

The growth - fuelled by the ending of decades-old restrictions on the level of textile trade between individual countries - will increase pressure on the US government to introduce measures to protect domestic manufacturers.
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http://www.cpdsindia.org/asiapacific/globalization_tax.htm

Loss of tax revenue?

Currently, the recipient (or host) country in which investment or activity is based has the first right to tax the resulting income. The sending (or home) country then has the right to tax the income (which it need not exercise) according to whether it follows residence principle or source (i.e. territorial) principle. Under the residence principle, a country reserves the right to tax the income of its residents regardless of where in the world it is earned. The countries however do attempt to offset taxes paid abroad (i.e. to avoid double taxation) through tax credit (so long as income tax rates abroad do not exceed the income tax rates at home), through deduction of foreign taxes paid from taxable income, or a combination of methods.
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Speeches, Testimony, Papers

The US Trade Deficit and China
by C. Fred Bergsten, Peterson Institute

Testimony before the Hearing on US-China Economic Relations Revisited
Committee on Finance, United States Senate
March 29, 2006

printer-friendly document email page send comments

The Centrality of the Currency Issue

The US global merchandise trade and current account deficits hit annual rates of $900 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005, which amounted to 7 percent of US GDP, twice the previous record of the mid-1980s (as a result of which the dollar declined by 50 percent over the three-year period 1985–87). The deficits could reach annual rates of $1 trillion within the next year or so.

It is thus essential to reduce the US and China imbalances by substantial amounts in an orderly manner. The goal of US adjustment should be to cut its global current account deficit to about 3 percent of GDP, less than half the present level, at which point the ratio of US foreign debt to GDP would stabilize. China’s goal, accepted at least in principle by its political leadership, should be to eliminate its global current account surplus and stop the buildup of foreign exchange reserves.

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The Middle Class Suffers

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-07.htm
February 25, 2004 in CommonDreams.org
We Are All Protectionists Now
by Mark Weisbrot

The better-off professionals -- doctors, lawyers, economists -- have all the protection they need from foreign competition. Neither immigration nor outsourcing can lower the cost of their services.

The picture changes drastically as we move below the 27 percent of Americans who have a college degree. The protected professionals who write the rules of global commerce have been eager to expose as many people below them as possible to the rigors of international competition.

The result has contributed significantly to the most massive upward re-distribution of income in U.S. history. While income per person has risen more than 85 percent over the last 30 years, the median wage has risen by only about 7 percent.
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http://www.besr.org/ethicist/jpost/8.27.2004.html
Ethics of outsourcing
Outsourcing is the ethical mirror image of sweatshops
August 27, 2004

But there is a significant difference in the trade- off. Those who lose their jobs to sweatshops tend to be the most vulnerable workers in the economy; manufacturing workers tend to have below- average earnings and to have the most difficulty finding alternative employment. Those who lose their jobs to outsourcing are also victimized by the phenomenon, but they are relatively speaking better equipped to deal with the blow.

A North American factory worker who would be compelled to actually compete with Far Eastern labor would simply not be able to afford the necessities of life; a radiologist compelled to compete would face a drastic cut in salary and would have difficulty paying back his loans, but would be able at least to put food on the table.
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Globalization and Impact on US Workers
http://www.cepr.net/publications/global_primer.htm

Globalization: A Primer
by Mark Weisbrot <1>
October 1999

This widening gap between elite and public opinion is striking, because it is not difficult to imagine how economic globalization might lower living standards for the majority of people in the United States. For example, the idea that increasing competition from low-wage imports would drive U.S. wages downward seems only logical. And there is now a wealth of evidence, even from prominent economists who strongly favor free trade, that this has happened over the last two decades.

The fact that the real wage of the typical American worker has actually fallen over the past 25 years, as the economy had become increasingly globalized, is also an indicator that something is wrong with the process of globalization.
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http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=8073

Why Globalization Is in Trouble – Part I
Job loss and worry about identity make the West reconsider the value of trade and immigration
The dominant world powers historically pushed for globalization as a means of increasing wealth and influence. Yet those nations fret as the emerging powers of India and China embrace the same strategy. This two-part series by World Bank economist Branco Milanovic explores why both the world’s wealthiest and poorest nations fear globalization. In the first article, Milanovic argues that citizens of wealthy nations hold two concerns: job loss resulting from competition with low-wage countries and loss of national identity resulting from increasing numbers of immigrants.

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Can globalization lead to global taxes- part of the “New World Order”?

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/glotax/index.htm
Global taxes can address serious global problems while at the same time raising revenue for development. A tax on carbon emissions could help slow global climate change, while a tax on currency trading could dampen dangerous instability in the foreign exchange markets. The revenue from these taxes could support major programs to reduce poverty and hunger, ensure primary schooling for all children, and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases. Unreliable donations from rich countries will not fill this need, estimated by the UN to cost tens of billions per year. A global system of revenue-raising must be put in place to fund genuinely international initiatives.
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In the mean time, not to worry about global taxes when off shore tax havens thrive:

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/taxhaven.html

For decades, the U.S. tax code has encouraged companies like Halliburton to transfer the location of its subsidiaries from the United States to foreign countries. This is one reason why only thirty-six of Halliburton's 143 subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States and 107 subsidiaries (or 75 percent) are incorporated in 30 different countries.

There are two methods by which Halliburton lowers its tax liability on foreign income: (1) By establishing a "controlled foreign corporation" and (2) By establishing a subsidiary inside a low tax, or no tax, country known as a "tax haven."
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Impact on Trade Unions

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/11/content_381558.htm
Trade unions launch Beijing Consensus
By Qing Jize (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-10-11 21:14

Trade unions all over the world should enhance their co-operation and explore ways of working together to tackle the challenges posed by economic globalization, an international meeting in Beijing agreed on Monday.
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Globalization Opposition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalisation

In this context the global economy has grown rapidly, yet poverty persists, inequality increases, and global environmental degradation deepens.

The main opposition is to unfettered globalization (neoliberal; laissez-faire capitalism), guided by governments and what are claimed to be quasi-governments (such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) that are supposedly not held responsible to the populations that they govern and instead respond mostly to the interests of corporations. Many conferences between trade and finance ministers of the core globalizing nations have been met with large, and occasionally violent, protests from opponents of "corporate globalism".
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The off shoring of Halliburton to Dubai

http://redding.com/news/2007/mar/13/halliburton-heads-to-dubai/?printer=1/

Halliburton provided few details on its pending move, but said it was part of plan to expand its business in the Middle East and other growing markets outside North America.

The company said it would keep a corporate office in Houston and would remain legally registered in the U.S. Nonetheless, Lesar and other executives will be based out of Dubai, the company said.

A Halliburton spokeswoman declined to respond to questions about the move, including how many of its nearly 12,000 employees in Houston would be affected or when the shift would occur.

Halliburton would be one of the best-known U.S. corporations to move to Dubai, the Western-friendly boomtown that is rapidly emerging as a corporate headquarters of the Middle East.

The announcement comes as the company prepares later this month to spin off its military contracting unit, Kellogg Brown & Root, which has been the focus of heavy criticism from lawmakers for what they have described as lucrative no-bid contracts in Iraq.
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[crikkett]

1. free trade is not equal to fair trade.

and if property can travel freely across borders why can't people?

[sam sarrha]

2. it is all part of another Buzz Word.. 'New World Order' any buzz word is a ripOff for the poor and

its only purpose is to serve the Plutocracy and make more poor to make more money off of the Iron Law of Oligarchy

[Odin2005]

3. "Free Trade" has always been about developed countries screwing developing ones.

Nearly every industrialized country today required protectionist policies to industrialize, it is a fact obvious to anyone reading about the time period between 1815 and 1914. The British, the ones most associated with "free trade" ideology only became supporters of free trade because they got enough of a head start in industrializing that free trade would let them dump their mass produced goods on the rest of Europe. Free trade is all about the countries on top screwing the countries on the bottom.

Our economic problems are the result of China's protectionist policies allowing them to take advantage of our worship of free trade.

[bluedawg12]

4. Protectionism by other nations

Protectionism by other nations, that's the issue I have been wondering about.

Our pols keep blabbing about "free trade" the word "free" is a psychological tool because most think anything free is good.

But, if other countries don't practice free trade and have policies protecting themselves, we are actually at a disadvantage.

Free trade helps the investing class not the working class.

Viz a viz the loss of wokring class manufacturing jobs.

A country without a strong middle class is IMHO unstable.

[earth mom]

5. Globalization will do nothing more than turn the workers of this country into 3rd world workers.

While the rich here just get more obscenely rich by the minute. :puke:

[OhioChick]

8. You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth. n/t

[sendero]

23. Exactly..

... when is equilibrium reached? When the wages in America are as low as they are in China, India and the third world.

By the time the average American gets over the total brainwash job that's been done for 20+ years on this issue, s/he will be out of a job.

Our politicians, from BOTH PARTIES, are selling us into the poorhouse based on theories similar to Rummy's "small mobile military" theories. i.e., theories that sound great but dont' work out like dreamers want them to.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Like everything else, a little knowledge about trade is...

a dangerous thing.

Friedman is hopelessly lost in theory, as are a lot of academic economists, tending to adjust the data to his theories, rather than adjust his theories to reality. Most theoretical economic writing I've seen tends to be highly subjective and can be taken with a grain of salt. Economics is not called the "dismal science" for nothing.

At any rate, trade goes as far back as the Phoenicians, probably earlier if there were any records, and the fundamentals haven't really changed that much. Trade is necessary for growth and absolutely necessary when someone else happens to have stuff you don't have but need or want.

There is no fundamental difference between buying and selling stuff in the next town than in the next country-- the only significant differences are in currency exchanges and politics.

Historically, trade imbalances seem to have worked themselves out unless the imbalance was artificially created or maintained. The British Empire maintained such imbalances, and it was largely the unbalanced trade and colonial monetary problems that sparked the Revolution. The Spanish were much worse with their empire, and the ill effects are still being felt today. The Crusades and many European wars were fought with trade routes as the prize, and we went to war early on with Spain, China, and Japan to open or insure trading. Our entire history with Latin America and the Monroe Doctrine was to ensure that trade in the Americas was on our terms.

When we talk about trade in terms of losing jobs, we have to remember that New England lost its unionized mill jobs to the non-unionized South years ago. Where was the hue and cry over that-- replacing highly paid Northern workers with low-paid Southern ones? The migrations of US workers to and from jobs, and to and from better and worse paying ones, litter US history and most have nothing whatsoever to do with foreign trade. I don't have the numbers handy, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if we've lost far more manufacturing jobs to automation than to foreign operations-- for years before China and Mexico were players unions fought automation as their death knell. One small example is the containerization of cargo-- the longshoremens unions saw their ranks decimated when the huge gangs necessary to offload nets of breakbulk cargo were history. Steelworkers are far fewer more because the huge mills have been replaced by smaller more specialized ones, and less because of foreign competition.

For years the US had been a net exporter, and, for instance, the big three auto companies owned subsidiaries around the world. Even now, companies from McDonalds to GE see overseas profits overshadowing domestic ones. We are, and have been since WWII, pretty much in the same position as Japan setting up worldwide distribution and manufacturing operations. Times are changing, though, and we can't reasonably expect to remain #1 forever-- the question is what happens when we are no longer #1. This is the question Japan is also asking itself, as it sees its position as #2 eroding.

The subject is extremely complex, and the recent advances in instantaneous capital movement and cheap transportation have made it even more complex.

No one, certainly not me, has all the answers, or even many good ones, but kneejerk attempts to restrict trade to rectify some of its more adverse effects are extremely dangerous. A close look at the Smoot-Hawley tariffs as one of the precursors to the Depression is hair-raising.

[bluedawg12]

11. A little knowledge is a good thing.

>>“Like everything else, a little knowledge about trade is...a dangerous thing.”<<

I disagree. It’s a start. It is never dangerous to learn, even a little.

It’s only dangerous when you are the POTUS or a policy maker and have little knowledge- that’s very dangerous.

It's also very dangerous when the public has NO knowledge, a little knowledge is far superior than no knowledge where we, the public,are concerned.


>>“When we talk about trade in terms of losing jobs, we have to remember that New England lost its unionized mill jobs to the non-unionized South years ago. Where was the hue and cry over that-- replacing highly paid Northern workers with low-paid Southern ones? “<<

The north got heavy industry, steel mills, bridges, cars, coal mines (Pa.).

The south got textiles, both have nothing now.

Even then, the money from the north and south went into paying taxes for the common good. How is buying Chinese wheat helping our tax revenue?

>>For years the US had been a net exporter, and, for instance, the big three auto companies owned subsidiaries around the world.<<

Not any more.

>>Even now, companies from McDonalds to GE see overseas profits overshadowing domestic ones. <<

Along with these multi’s hiring overseas workers.

No Mcdonald, GE or Coke make up for our trade deficit.


>>There is no fundamental difference between buying and selling stuff in the next town than in the next country-- the only significant differences are in currency exchanges and politics.<<

Sure there is. We are not simply buying and selling goods. We are buying greater than selling-in terms of goods. But we are sending jobs, the basis of the economy and the basis of both buying and selling over seas. Outsourcing jobs is something quite different than selling things in distant places.

[Peace Patriot]

12. Re: third world country protectionism. As I point out below, globalization is a

difficult, complex topic--I agree with you there--but I think the entire topic needs to be expanded, and seen in all its aspects, for the best solutions to arise and succeed. Globalization. Global warming. Global justice. And global peace.

We can't just look narrowly at the US economy--and jobs and protectionist issues here. Every action here has repercussions elsewhere, which in turn rebounds back on us. If corporate corn farming for biofuels pushes up the tortilla price in Mexico, creating more acute poverty, we will see yet more illegal immigration, and, ultimately, we will see revolt in Mexico. There is a leftist revolution now being suppressed there, as it is. Illegal immigration affects jobs and wages. We will have more fuel for our cars, to drive to our three different low-wage jobs. IF we can afford the fuel. The spiral of poverty spins downward, drawing us all into it. And massive corporate corn farming is meanwhile further poisoning the environment, and making it harder to stabilize the climate and prevent more destruction of the biosphere.

The protectionism of third world countries has two aspects: The vast injustices to these countries and their peoples, in the past, that has led to vast poverty and to their inability to "catch up." OUR protectionism has destroyed them. How can they compete now, without protected markets?* But, to "catch up" with what? In what way? To "catch up" with the kind of industrialization that is destroying the planet?

For Brazil to "catch up" now--on industrialization--will likely mean the destruction of yet more of the Amazon rainforest, one of the bulwarks against global warming. And industrialization--such as Lulu and Bush are discussing (vast corporate land conversion to corn for biofuel)--can be very, very bad in the long term: vast environmental destruction, displacement of tens of thousands of small farmers, LOSS of jobs, and other devastation. Lulu wants Bush to lift US protection for US corn/biofuel producers, so Brazil can exploit this market. Neither thing--US protectionism, or Brazil's desire to vault over those protections--is a good thing. The main beneficiaries will be global corporate financial predators. The core problem is overconsumption of fuel and other resources in the US. And that is not addressed in any way by the destruction of Amazon forest for corn fuel production. We will simply move from excessive oil use--which is directly destroying the atmosphere--to excessive corn fuel use--which will destroy one of our planet's main defense mechanisms, the remaining forest land.

This is not a good way for Brazil to "catch up." Lulu may be desperate, in agreeing to it. Bush, we know, is the tool of global corporate predators, and has neither our interests nor Brazil's at heart. He is after maximum profit for the super-rich, and is utterly incapable of intelligent planning, or of concern for us, for the Brazilians or for the planet.

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*A good example is Jamaica. First they were colonized, subdued and their resources and labor greatly exploited. They ended up a basketcase, upon independence. Then the rightwing political class incurred crippling, onerous World Bank debt. They ripped off the money, leaving the poor to pay the debt. The World Bank/IMF used that leverage to force US ag products on Jamaica. Cheap powdered milk was flooded into the country, destroying the local fresh dairy farmers. They lost their farms. Their skills are also being lost, since sons and daughters will not learn them. And this was done with other US ag products like bananas. The final insult was to create a "free trade zone" at the port area, where Jamaicans cannot enforce labor laws or impose taxes, and where products are manufactured, with sweatshop labor, for direct export around the world (loaded on the tankers right out of the factory), cutting Jamaica out of the loop in every way, except for the unprotected, greatly underpaid labor in the sweatshops.

So-o-o-o-o-o, how can Jamaica recover from all this--stimulate local industry, create good jobs, achieve food self-sufficiency, restore their sovereignty, and meanwhile provide education, skills training and basic support for the poor (food for the hungry, medical care) while they recover? They need protected markets, among other things. It is a matter of justice--and, in the big picture, a matter of environmental/economic sustainability. The short term may be a loss of ungodly profit for the rich (the CEO's of US ag conglomerates and their investors), and possibly some short-term pain for US workers and small investors. But the US ALSO needs a more innovative, creative, sustainable and truly competitive marketplace. If we had the right farm policy, for instance, local US farmers would be providing most foods to local US markets--and it would be a lot better food than US corporate ag produces, and a lot better for the environment (no GMOs, no pesticides, etc.). There would be NO NEED to dump powdered milk or Florida bananas on Jamaica's market--and further, no permission to do so. Each food market would become self-sustaining, and better for the environment and the economy, if global corporate profiteering and monopolies were eliminated.

Jamaican protectionism would be only one aspect of accomplishing this. If you look at it by itself, you might say that it is selfish behavior by the Jamaicans, or anti-US, or harmful to us. But can we say that starving, dirt poor people are being "selfish" in wanting, and desperately needing, protected markets? And you can't really hark back to old trade protectionist history. Or, if you do, you have to also look at the destruction of Jamaica's economy by OUR protectionism, and our rape of their industries and resources. We have to look at things NOW, and comprehensively.

There is a justice issue. There is an environmental issue, and food issues. Is not OUR country being polluted by corporate ag, and our food chain endangered in every way by their profiteering policies, and lack of caution on GMOs, pesticides and other practices? And have their mechanization and other practices not decimated small farmers here as well, and cost many jobs? Why should we have any allegiance to them--or to the profits of bankers in Switzerland or Saudi Arabia? Those profits are obviously not being spent here, to create good jobs or support good government. Small time US investors are the main group that I can think might suffer unjustly from cutting Monsanto, or oil giants' rice farming in central California, out of the global picture, and out of our lives. Or possibly the investment portfolios for teachers or government workers. But these investors shouldn't be profiting from death in third world countries anyway. It would be a slight hardship to endure to find better things to invest in, to create a green and sustainable and peaceful world.

[Peace Patriot]

7. This is an awesome compilation, BlueDawg12! Thank you for it--and for starting

a thread on this vital topic.

It's a difficult topic to comment on--as it is to comprehend--because it is so multifaceted, and touches us and others in so many ways. A DU post today on Brazil's president Lula da Silva meeting with Bush on a plan for massive corporate monoculture in Brazil, to mass produce corn/soy biofuels for U.S. cars, is a good case in point. This dreadful plan has huge implications as to increased global warming, more deforestation and pesticide pollution, destruction of the food chain, loss of jobs (due to the mechanization of corporate ag), and harm to small farmers and the poor in general. And this is just one plan, regarding one product, in one third world country. Multiply this a million times--as to environmental and economic impacts--and you can get a picture of global corporate predation ("globalization," as presently constituted).

Here's the thread on the Lulu/Bush meeting (coming up, at Camp David). It is VERY important, and I'm the only one who has commented on it so far:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2789502

Global corporate predation is the chief cause of global warming. Just the tanker pollution alone--to cart all these goods around the oceans--is a huge impact. And it is the chief cause of the enslavement of masses of people in sweatshop labor factories. It is also a most egregious threat to every democracy in the world. It is, in essence, the theft of a country's sovereignty and the sovereignty of the people who live there. It means LOSS of the power to enact labor laws and environmental laws. It means privatization of every resource, and of all public services, for profit of the few. It means corporate interference in elections--and theft of elections. And, above all, it means massive profiteering by the rich few, at the expense of the poor and the middle class (everybody else), and massive destruction of both our local and our planetary environments.

We MUST find another way. Or it is all over for us, as a species. The human story will come to an end--in our destruction of our own planet.

We need both technical solutions and political solutions. And the invention and success of technical solutions--such as, what products we trade in, and how they are produced and distributed--is probably dependent on the political solutions coming first. For instance, in the US, we must restore transparent vote counting. We do not have the power, as a people, to address these enormous, complicated problems, without the right to vote. Indeed, that is WHY the corporate rulers took our right to vote away. We are potentially a leader in dismantling corporate rule, and creating a sustainable, just and peaceful world. We are being hampered. We have wretched leadership. Democracy is not working here. Obviously. So we need to look to the mechanism of our power as a sovereign people: our vote.

And you don't have to look far to see what's wrong: Rightwing, Bushite corporations seized our election system, during the 2002 to 2004 period, and are "counting" all the votes on electronic voting machines, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls. I mean, what can we expect from such a vote counting system--except tyranny? It's not the only problem with our elections, but it is the one that has pushed our system way far to the destructive right--fascist rule--so that all public/democratic control is in peril. And we can't begin to reform this political system, in any significant way, until we have restored transparent vote counting.

And so, here is another aspect of "globalization"--one issue, albeit a big and fundamental one, in one country--albeit one of the biggest polluters of all.

Democracy is the ONLY system we know of, which can self-correct (without upheaval and bloodshed), and in which--if it's in good working order--the collective wisdom of the majority, and the best ideas and leaders, can succeed. Politics is therefore a vital aspect of the discussion of "globalization."

Media is another. The US and much of the world are now inflicted with war profiteering corporate news monopolies. Our failure to regulate them here in the US--the failure of our democracy, with the coup de grace being secret, corporate vote "counting"--has vast implications as to the propagandizing by the corporate rulers worldwide, not just here. AP, and the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times, and CNN, and ABC/NBC/CBS, et al, dominate the discussion worldwide, not just here. And they do not have our interests, or the interests of the planet, at heart. They are shills for global corporate financial interests, war profiteers and resource/labor exploiters all over the globe.

The price of the tortilla--the staple food of the poor in Mexico--quadrupled last year, due to corporate corn monoculture for biofuels in the US. Fat corporate profits here; hunger and starvation there. (--not to mention corporate PROFITEERING from the global warming crisis--the bastards--and selling this non-solution, which will INCREASE global warming.)

Very complicated. But our very, very creative brains can handle it. Really, we can. We can save our planet and create a much better and more just and peaceful world. But we do need to grok all aspects of the crisis--political (what power do we need to acquire or restore?), economic (what do we want? what is sustainable?), social (fairness, justice), and environmental (what sort of plan is needed to address the very complicated matter of all of nature's interactions, leaving adequate room, of course, for that which we cannot imagine or test for).

Your thread is helpful. Political activists need to become more than political activists. We need to become conversant in these complicated economic/environmental issues. We are fighting not just for a political party or point of view, and not just for our country and our democracy. We are fighting for the planet and for our species. And we must not let narrow political issues or differences divide us.

[bluedawg12]

9. Our leaders have to lead on this one.

Based on the thoughtful replies thus far, I certainly agree that the topic is complex and simple answers will by no means lend themselves to anything but bumper sticker slogans.

What I am getting here is a sense of several major concepts.

1.) The complexity of the issue.

2.) That there may be a certain inevitability to global markets.
............

Rather than restating the good information already posted here, let me pose the next premise.

Given that global markets are inevitable in some sense.

Given that global markets have intended and unintended consequences, some good some bad.

Given the complexity of this (dry) topic.

Given that this topic requires some specialization of knowledge and training what can we expect from out candidates and elected officials?

Our leaders have access to the best minds in any field. They don’t have to clip and paste citations (like me) they simply call in folk from top schools or query think tanks.

Having said that, is it reasonable for us as rank and file regular citizens to expect our candidates and elected officials to:

Make this a top five priority?

To clearly address the pro’s and con’s of global markets for the American labor force and to stop the pie in the sky, “ this means some re-education of our work force but our workers will then fill newer, cleaner, more specialized jobs.”

That’s BS.

What 50 year old former steel worker is going to rise in the IT world?

I want to hear this issue in plain English and in plain talk. We all understand jobs, bills, rising costs and unemployment.


I want to hear our leaders talk about the actual impact on the daily lives of the middle class and to give us some solutions to those problems and concerns.

For example, #### talks about free trade and decries opponents as “isolationists”. really?
This from a guy who went to war as an isolationist with a coalition of the few and misguided?

Because of this thread and the thoughtful replies that show me the historic implications and consequences of free trade and protectionism we must demand that our leaders to lead on this topic.

By educating ourselves, as best as we can, we are able to ask the right questions of our leaders and know when we are getting honest answers not jargon.

[Peace Patriot]

15. Good point, BlueDawg! How does insight into globalization translate into political

positions and initiatives?

As for our leaders having access to the best information, bear in mind that the global corporate predators spend billions of dollars yearly to disinform them--with all sorts of "think tanks" and biased "studies" and bought and paid for academics. They would be better off to go talk to a Jamaican dairy farmer. Really and truly. Or the former owners and workers of some local hardware store or bookstore in Iowa or Kansas (or almost anywhere in the US), that got shoved out by Wal-Mart.

Also, I don't know if you remember that telling scene in F-9/11, in which Michael Moore can't find a Congress critter who had read NAFTA. This is partly because money rules, not the concerns of the citizenry, in our elections. What does a Congress critter care what's in the document, if the big corporations in his district and the big donors say it's great. And now, of course, it's even more because those very corporate interests are COUNTING the votes, in SECRET, no less. So our Congress critters just shovel Monsanto- and Exxon-Mobile- written laws through the rubberstamp process. Their seat in Congress, their salary, their perks, their lavish lobbying junkets, and their piece of the corrupt pie are all guaranteed.

I go back to my PRIORITY NO. 1: transparent vote counting. The first necessary step to reform.

I think what happened in '06 is that the people outvoted the machines--in an effort to get themselves a half-decent Congress. And they succeeded to some degree--although, if the war is a gage, what we have is 75% of the American people opposing the war--and its unbelievable waste of our resources--and wanting it ended, and a 50/50 Congress. Congress is still not very representative of the American people. And that's probably true on all issues. So, we MUST reform the election system. If Bushite corporations continue to control it, they can easily defy the will of the people (as they are on the war), they can continue to pick who gets to run and who can win, and they can impose another fascist dictator on us at any time. What defense do we have against it? None. In a third of the states, there is no paper trail at all, and thus no ability to even recount the votes. And the others are not much better. And we can be sure that, whatever they do with the fascists do with this secret power over vote counting will be confirmed and endorsed by the fascist media. They've done it a number of times now, and they will do it again.

We can't really have a reasonable discussion of the politics of globalization without freely chosen leaders. And until we have freely chosen leaders, we are not going to have the clampdown on corporate news monopolies that is needed to open the discussion to all views. Right now, we're getting Wall Street's view. Period.

But we do have some movement on some issues. There have been discussions/fights on "free trade" agreements, on military funding to Colombia, on the minimum wage, on rescinding some of the unfair tax cuts for the rich, on usurious credit card company policies and some other things. All to the good. I'm glad to see it. I'm glad for any sign of life in American democracy--or, rather, I should say, for any sign that the quite lively views of the American people are finally seeping into the halls of power.

I disagree with you that this issue is "dry." Tell that to the Venezuelans. Or the Bolivians. Or the Jamaicans. Or the South Koreans. Or to almost anyone suffering from WTO/World Bank/Global corporate predator policy. And if Americans were better informed, it wouldn't be "dry" here either. Is what you kids are eating, and how it is poisoning them, a dull topic? Is your job being outsourced to India a dull topic? Is the illicit drug trade that follows "free trade" a dull topic? (--with all its crime, ill health and incarceration impacts here). Is destruction of the food chain a dull topic? Are the ferocious hurricanes, and tornadoes, and freak weather patterns that are affecting everyone a dull topic? Is loss of our planet and of all life on earth a dull topic?

They shut us down, you know--in Seattle 1999. The biggest, most lively discussion of "free trade" and globalization that we have ever had. 50,000 trade unionists, environmentalists, human rights activists, religious groups, teachers, postal workers, steelworkers, and a whole bunch of other concerned folks, in an awesome protest, accompanied by hundreds of panels and discussions of these related topics. The Darth Vader cops disrupted the protest, and the corporate media slandered it, and these forces have continued to shut down, slander and marginalize any efforts since then, to focus on this quite riveting, and multi-faceted, topic.

The stories about globalization--and of peoples' resistance to it--are in fact FASCINATING, and both horrifying, in some cases, and greatly heartening in others. Just to name two: The South Korean farmer who committed suicide at the WTO meeting in Cancun--to draw attention to all the other, TENS OF THOUSANDS of farmers, in South Korea, in India and many other places, who have committed suicide because of loss of their farm land, and their way of life, to globalization policies. An enormous tragedy. And on the hopeful side: The Bolivian peoples' revolt against Bechtel Corp., which had privatized the water in one Bolivian city, and then jacked up the price to the poorest of the poor, even charging poor peasants for collecting rainwater. The Bolivians rose up and threw Bechtel out of their country--and elected socialist Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of Bolivia (and in all of South America, I believe). This huge, peaceful, leftist (majorityist) movement that has swept South America is all about globalization, and is itself a compelling story.

Dry? Dull? Nope. Economics is part of the subject. But when economics hits the ground, it is not dry. It is quite dramatic.

Some priorities for Congress on globalization issues:

1. "Physician, heal thyself!" Transparent vote counting! Publicly funded campaigns. Reclaim some our public airwaves for real political debate.

2. Ask Jamaican dairy farmers, and Saipan sweatshop workers, and other victims of "free trade" to testify to Congress. (Global Exchange would help with that.) Have a day or a week or more devoted to the testimony of US workers and US small businesspeople and US small farmers to speak to Congress on this matter. This is how to gather real information--not from "think tanks."

3. Whatever Bush is doing, stop it. You know it's bad. Real bad. And I would carefully scrutinize--with a fine tooth comb--any corporate lobbyist proposals, Republicon proposals, and DLC proposals, as well. We're in damage control mode. Far from comprehensive initiatives that address all of the impacts of globalization. Stop the bad shit! "Free trade" with Colombia. More billions in military aid to Colombia. "Free trade" with Peru. The destruction of the Brazilian Amazon with corporate cornfuel production. "Free trade" in Iraq, for godssakes! (That scene is mind-bogglingly terrible--on oil and everything else.)

4. Strong labor and environmental provisions in all trade agreements--and support for democracy and local sovereignty.

5. Re-join Kyoto, and greatly strengthen its provisions.

6. Encourage variety: Small businesses, small farms, local farmers' markets, healthy local micro-economies, people trying to save seed variety and produce variety (which may be an economic struggle), innovative 'low footprint' product development, significant tax breaks for small businesses that maintain downtown areas and strengthen communities, encourage parks, community gardens, profit-sharing businesses, public transportation, recycling of every kind. There are thousands of things that politicians can do in public policy to help create a strong, localized, green economy, as the alternative to global corporate predation and destruction. It's not just the dismantling of this corporate monstrosity that is needed, but also a new economic culture needs to be created to replace it. And, if the federal government weren't squandering our resources--and all our tax money--on war and on a police state--there is much that it could do to stop global warming and to create a positive economic climate.

The corporate press ridicules the anti-globalization movement for its colorfulness and variety--its costumes and giant puppets and circus atmosphere. But the solution to global warming, and to the many and dreadful impacts of globalization on the planet and on people, will, more than likely, require a highly complex, multifaceted, creative solution on many fronts--from micro-loans to colorfully dressed Peruvian indian farmers in the Andes, to large scale busting of corporate monopolies in the US; from restoring and protecting Jamaican dairy farmers, to a massive worldwide effort to harness the free energy of the sun; from drying our hands on our clothes instead of using paper towels in public restrooms, to a worldwide moratorium on logging and on overfishing of the oceans. A significant amount of global warming could be eliminated by small actions done on a large scale by many people--the creation of small urban vegetable gardens, slightly reduced consumption of certain products, turning off lights, planting trees, taking one less car trip per week. Perhaps we need to use "chaos" theory in sophisticated computers to track all our actions, add them up, divide them and distribute global warming surpluses and deficits among individuals and businesses. And we certainly need to take individual responsibility, to reduce our footprint in nature, every day, in little ways, that will add up to part of the solution. It is a very complex problem, requiring multiple, creative answers, and, as we do it, we will ALSO be solving the problems of global economics. The key may be variety--multiple answers--just like the variety we enjoy in nature and in people. And so maybe the anti-globalization protests and their circus atmosphere are actually a picture--a metaphor--for what is needed. A circus of solutions, all working together.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. I'm in favor of internationalization and fair trade.

[Vidar]

13. I am opposed to any government by corporate interests, global or otherwise.

[scarletwoman]

14. Two words: unmitigated evil.

I mean that dead seriously. It is the biggest and worst con that has ever been perpetrated on humanity.

It is a mechanism set in motion by people determined to gather as much of the world's wealth for themselves as possible. Those who control this wealth then control governments; and through those governments, the very lives of millions of people. They destroy ecosystems and societies and cultures. They destroy livelihoods and displace peoples. Instead of societies controlling their own economic system, an economic system is imposed from without that then controls the very fate of that society.

"Free Trade", neoliberalism, privatization -- these are just different names given to the fundamental act of sucking up the wealth produced through the efforts of the many into the portfolios of the rarefied few. It's a global resource grab, too, of course. It's colonization on steroids.

Invading Iraq was no different than chasing the Lakota out of the Black Hills once gold was discovered.

Globalization is just the same old shit dressed up in fancy economic theory to dazzle the unwary. It even goes right along with the same military component it always has -- the muscle that guarantees access to the plunder.

Our earth is being plundered and despoiled by and for the enrichment of a relative few. Their ultimate aim is the destruction of the nation-state. And, without the nation-state -- and therefore without a sovereign government -- there will be no protections for the people or the resources that should be benefitting them in common.

This is the crucial issue of our time, imho. From the predatory capitalism being practiced by the multi-nationals flow the twin ills of war and global warming. It should be fought against without quarter.

If people are to survive, corporate rule over the planet MUST be stopped.

A people without economic sovereignty is a people without control over their governments, their livelihoods, their resources, their health and their very lives.

sw

[Peace Patriot]

18. I agree. That's the bottom line: Overthrow Corporate Rule.

"If people are to survive, corporate rule over the planet MUST be stopped." --scarlet woman

------------------

It's interesting who these corporations are, and how they began. Some of them were the subsidized companies of WW II, which have grown into international monsters. They got a taste of the federal teat, and couldn't be weaned (and no one really tried), and have taken that advantage--plus our chartering of them as businesses, our tax breaks, our hidden subsidies (such as publicly funded roads), our relatively honest legal and banking systems (until recently), and the loyal and well-educated work force that we provided, and have launched themselves from our shores, as global exploiters, who have allegiance to no one, and whom no one can control (or so it seems). Others may not be from that legacy (WW II subsidies), but have followed similar paths--using us, our resources, our labor force, our trade protections, our favoritism to them--to become global oppressors.

We may still have a direct handle on some of them--through their charters (which are state charters)--once we get back our right to vote. It's not as hopeless as it may appear. For others, like Halliburton, that are disconnecting from us (or have already done so), we need the cooperation of other democracies to reign them in--with bans, boycotts, seizure of assets, protection of local resources and labor (from them), and so on.

But I stress that restoring American democracy--beginning with transparent vote counting--is the key to solving globalization and global warming. They know this. They disabled us, just as they were heading into their worst period of profiteering, with the oil running out, and all resources--forests, fresh water, fish--under stress and in decline. We are the key to stopping them. A lot of Americans feel disempowered and helpless. If they only knew in what high regard the global corporate predators consider them, they might feel better. They greatly FEAR the American people. If people only knew how the global corporate predators view our votes--and the power of the vote in this country--they would be heartened. Our vote is pure gold. It is the most powerful vote in the world. That's why they are sneaking around with these secretly coded voting machines. It would be funny, if its consequences were not so tragic.

I always say, if the South Americans can do it--after all the brutal oppression they have suffered--so can we. We are just babies in the democratic revolution game. We don't know what oppression is. The South Americans are showing us the way out of this...

1. Transparent elections (!)

2. Grass roots organization.

3. Think big.

Viva la revolución!

[earth mom]

27. Best post on this thread!

:applause:

[scarletwoman]

28. I'm delighted that you liked my post! Thank you! (nt)

[ComerPerro]

16. basically, there are two ways to impliment globalization

one is an attempt to raise the world's standard of living to that of the average US citizen.

The other, of course, is more of Friedman's approach, and is loved by right wingers. It is pretty much the opposite, lowering US citizen standard of living to that of a third world country. In this corporate dream world, American workers are forced to compete for their jobs with people who work for pennies a day.

[magellan]

17. I believe I possess a fair and succinct opinion on free trade

It sucks.

But fair trade is great and ought to be supported. I'm supporting it right now by drinking a cup of fair trade coffee.

[Jcrowley]

19. Globalization is just

business school jargon that gained general currency in the 1990's, to describe the dismantling of barriers to the movement of capital and the loss of local and national sovereignties to the interests of transnational firms, helped along by developments in telecommunications and the collapse of the two-bloc world. Globes were originally emblems of sovereignty (1614), that became playthings of merchant princes and navigators, familiar as props in Renaissance portraiture. It was the task of cartography to project the globe into two dimensions; without the resulting maps and charts the business of empire and planetary capitalist hegemony would be literally unthinkable.

New world globalization is old world colonialism and it currently is dependent not only the immeasurable greed of it's capital robber barons, ignorance of it's sycophants and apologists but on the material necessity of copious amounts of cheap fossil fuels. In short those days are over so prepare by developing your local economy. That's where things are heading either painfully or more ceremoniously.

"If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference." R. Buckminster Fuller

[EVDebs]

20. Thomas AND Milton Friedman are/were both full of S%^T

Rent the dvd The Corporation

They're psychotic ! Read the synopsis

http://www.thecorporation.com/index.cfm?page_id=312

[Virginia Dare]

21. Gave this a 5th Rec., and my comments...

Globalization is indeed the death of the middle class. My personal view is that we are headed into another Victorian style economy in this country, where you have the upper class and then you have those that serve them.

I also think we will be operating on a "pay as you go" basis. Where the rich get privileges for being able to afford things such as health care, enjoying National Parks, and driving on the roads during rush hour.

[Skittles]

22. it's all bullshit

how is it "global" to me when I cannot compete for jobs because I cannot live on the salaries they find comfortable?

[porphyrian]

24. It's only great if the workers are protected, and they aren't. - n/t

[Elwood P Dowd]

25. Where are our resident DU free trade zealots tonight?

Did the DU mods FINALLY figure out these people deserved the boot? Don't see them posting much anymore. And what about Hillary? She wants a "time out" on trade deals. Instead of a time out, I think she should be thrown out of the game. Remember 1993? Remember 1994? Remember 1996? Oh, and let's not forget Mr Bill Richardson. He was right there with them and the other republicans helping destroy unions and shipping millions of American jobs off to slave-wage countries. He too should be thrown out.

As for my opinions, I've posted dozens of trade subjects in my time on DU. Most everything I've had to say has been covered in this thread. Here is an interesting story.... http://www.laborradio.org/node/5612

Harvey sez hello.

:beer:

[Raksha]

26. K & R, and bookmarked.

I'm learning a lot from this thread, but there's just too much here to digest in one sitting, or one week for that matter.

[candice]

29. Bill McKibben's new book "Deep Economy" points out how we need to focus

on our own communities rather than rapid consumption...for our sake and for the planet. If you are lucky enough to have a farmer's market, use it regularly. The average bite of food in this country travels 1500 hundred miles, made possible by cheap oil, subsidies to agribusiness, and monocrops. Not to mention industrialized farming. Eat locally, buy locally (Wal-Mart doesn't care about your community).