GLOBALIZE THIS!

Friday, June 11, 2004

THAT'S GOTTA HURT

Michael Berube rips Dinesh D'Souza a new a-hole, intellectually speaking.

¶ 6/11/2004 12:57:17 PM

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FAHRENHEIT 9/11

Michael Moore is a condascending, megalomaniacal, fat slob. But I will be one of the first in line to see his new movie. Even just the trailer for Fahrenheit 9/11 makes my blood boil.

¶ 6/11/2004 11:02:13 AM

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SMILE, YOU'VE BEEN OUTSOURCED

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that 4,633 saw their jobs shipped overseas in the first quarter of 2004.

As I have noted elsewhere, offshoring of service jobs does seem to be a relatively small phenomenon at present (though the mass layoff statistics cited here, as well as other statistics on trade-related job losses and imports of services do a miserable job of capturing the real situation on the ground), even my grandmother can see that it is growing rapidly and could be very, very big in a short few years. (In contrast, offshoring of manufacturing jobs is a big phenomenon).

There are many reasons to believe, measurement errors aside, that the BLS's Mass Layoff Statistics (which the Bush administration sought to axe last year, incidentally) understate the true number of job losses due to offshore outsourcing. But these job losses are really just the tip of the iceberg for their impact on the US job market, due to the job multiplier effect and to the threat effect. The latter, is probably the biggest impact right now...people are truly scared that their job (or jobs they would potentially seek, all things equal) may be sent overseas; they're afraid to leave bad jobs, afraid to demand better compensation, afraid to exercise their rights to freely associate in labor unions, etc. Businesses can use this threat of offshoring to keep their workers in line and keep wages low.

So while globamaniacs like Dan Drezner lament Lou Dobbs coverage of "Exporting America," Lou's saber rattling can actually be seen as serving a real purpose for corporate interests: keeping American workers cowering, sacred that their job may be next.

¶ 6/11/2004 10:52:42 AM

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Thursday, June 10, 2004

SOMEONE WHO WE WILL REALLY MISS

Talk about an eternal optimist.

Click here for a treat.

¶ 6/10/2004 04:44:26 PM

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I COULDN'T RESIST

¶ 6/10/2004 04:33:21 PM

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...AND MORE THOUGHTS ON REAGAN

1. Tomorrow, Reaganites will finally achieve what the Gipper failed to do in 8 years as President: shut down the federal government. (Yours truly will be at work still).

2. If the Communist system by its nature contained the seeds of its own destruction (by restricting freedoms and creating grave inefficiencies), then how could Reagan be responsible for defeating Communism? Communism defeated itself. Sure, he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." But just because the rooster crows doesn't mean he makes the sun rise in the morning.

3. Tomorrow, Reagan will receive what tens and hundreds of thousands of the victims of his policies--in Central America, Southern Africa, and elsewhere in the developing world--disappeared to unmarked mass graves never received: a fitting funeral and burial.

¶ 6/10/2004 01:57:21 PM

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I don't know which is worse. That the G8 would meet to plot a Middle East reform plan WITHOUT any Middle Eastern leaders, or that Bush never expected to make Iraq a "free" country:

"'This has been a special day for me,' Mr Bush said, 'because I never thought I'd be sitting next to an Iraqi president of a free country a year and a half ago.'"

¶ 6/10/2004 01:55:27 PM

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Wednesday, June 09, 2004

ON REAGAN AND HIS LEGACY

Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Policy Research remembers Ronald Reagan:

Ronald Reagan was a man who fought for what he believed in, and he changed the world more than probably any American in the twentieth century. He changed not only the conservative movement, the Republican party, his country and the world -- but also his opponents, known as liberals. As a result of his achievements, the typical liberal Member of Congress today sits to the right of Richard Nixon on a number of economic issues, including tax policy.

...Income was redistributed to the wealthy as never before: during the 1980s, most of the country's income gains went to the top 1 or 2 percent of households...The median real wage failed to grow during the decade of the 1980s.

...Mr. Reagan is often credited with having caused the collapse of the Soviet Union, but this is doubtful. He did use the Cold War as a pretext for other interventions, including funding and support for horrific violence against the civilian population of Central America. In 1999 the United Nations determined that the massacres of tens of thousands of Guatemalans, mostly indigenous people, constituted "genocide." These massacres -- often involving grotesque torture -- reached their peak under the rule of Mr. Reagan's ally, the Guatemalan General Rios Montt. Tens of thousands of Salvadorans were also murdered during Mr. Reagan's presidency by death squads affiliated with the U.S.-funded Salvadoran military.

But it was Mr. Reagan's efforts to overthrow the government -- democratically elected in 1984 -- of poor, underdeveloped Nicaragua that almost brought down his presidency. Congress cut off aid to Mr. Reagan's proxy army, the Contras, as a result of pressure from Americans -- led by religious groups -- who were disgusted by the Contras' tactics of murdering unarmed teachers and health care workers.

The Reagan administration continued to run the war from the basement of the White House, and paid for part of it with the proceeds of illegal arms sales to Iran. Hence the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Mr. Reagan escaped prosecution because his subordinates claimed that he had no knowledge of their crimes.

The Reagan revolution continues today: the "war on terror" has replaced the Cold War as pretext for intervention abroad, including the disastrous war in Iraq. Tax cuts for the rich and huge increases in military spending have revived the era of giant budget deficits. As the Great Communicator used to say, "There they go again."

Weisbrot sums it up well. But don't forget that he sold small weapons and a nuclear bomb to Apartheid South Africa, then vetoed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986.

¶ 6/09/2004 09:52:27 AM

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Tuesday, June 08, 2004

HIATUS

I've been on blogging hiatus for some time now. First I was travelling. Then I had my wisdom teeth out (pray you don't get dry sockey--ouch!). Then I was working a lot of overtime. Then it was just blog weariness or maybe blog ennui. It seems that so many blogs have devolved into posting links to newspaper or opinion articles. While enjoying (largely) the process of blogging and the outlet it provides, the acknowledgement that I am little more than a fringe blogger is rather demoralinzing...spending hours researching, prodding the archane depths of the globalization political economy debates so that 40 or 50 people can reflect on how I see the world (and a good number of those coming here by the fiat of Google.

I guess it's just a blogging plateau. When I used to fancy myself a budding novelist, I sometimes experienced similar feelings as I prowled the streets and cafes of Chicago's near north late at night.

I'm getting over it.

Right now I want to take the opportunity to plug a new book coming out, thanks to my good friends over at the New Rules For Global Finance network. The book is called: Reclaiming Development: An Economic Policy Handbook for Activists and Policymakers

The authors are Ha Joon Chang, renowned Cambridge development economist and Ilene Grabel, an alum of my soon to be graduate school. I was thumbing through the book last night before I left the office. It combines a very thoughtful and theoretically cohesive critique of neo-liberal globalization with a thorough articulation of alternative economic policies.

I've added this to my Globalization reading list, which you can check out here.

I've added this to my

¶ 6/08/2004 03:06:09 PM

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