GLOBALIZE THIS!

Thursday, July 22, 2004

THIS GUY AIN'T NO LIBERAL

In fact, Stephen Roach is a Wall Street shill, which means he is more interested in knowing the reality of underlying economic conditions so his employer can make gobs of money than he is in assigning blame for political reasons. Nonetheless, he ain't afraid to tell it straight about how crappy the economy has performed under Bush. In this morning's NYT:

More than a million jobs have been added to total nonfarm payrolls over the past four months, the sharpest increase since early 2000.

These gains certainly compare favorably with the net loss of 594,000 jobs in the first 27 months of this recovery. But there's little cause for celebration: the increases barely make a dent in the weakest hiring cycle in modern history. From the trough of the last recession in November 2001 through last month, private sector payrolls have risen a paltry 0.2 percent. This stands in contrast to the nearly 7.5 percent increase recorded, on average, over the comparable 31-month interval of the six preceding recoveries.

Nor is there much reason to celebrate the type of jobs that have been created over the past four months. In general, they have been at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

...Desperate to maintain lifestyles, [American families] have turned to far riskier sources of support. Reliance on tax cuts has led to record budget deficits, and borrowing against homes has led to record household debt. These trends are dangerous and unsustainable, and they pose a serious risk to economic recovery.

We hear repeatedly that the employment disconnect is all about productivity - that America needs to hire fewer workers because the ones already working are more efficient. This may well be true, but there is a more compelling explanation: global labor arbitrage.

It was only a matter of time before the globalization of work affected the United States labor market. The character and quality of American job creation is changing before our very eyes. Which poses the most important question of all: what are we going to do about it?

For starters, how about throwing Bush out of office? There may be no easy answers to this challenge, but at least in Kerry we get someone who recognizes it as a problem, and a serious one at that.

¶ 7/22/2004 09:59:39 AM

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004

SUMMER READING

If you're like me, this is what passes for summer beach reading.

I've added some new titles to my Amazon reading list: Beyond Economic Globalization.

One time while searching for books there I stumbled across a list compiled by Dan Griswold of Cato. So as not to be out done, I cobbled together my own globalization reading list to push back against Cato's ploy for ideological hegemony at Amazon.

Admittedly, most works on economic globalization devolve to hackneyed "free trade good/bad" polemics and fail to puncture the surface of the deep seated social, political and economic change spawned by globalization. Arguing about what trade does to per capita incomes only takes you so far and tends to obscure deep understanding of how (and for whom) the world really works. Hence, Beyond Economic Globalization.

Be sure to visit and rate my list so that when people search for globalization-related items at Amazon, they come across my list instead of theirs. Culture war? Bring it on!

¶ 7/21/2004 02:31:38 PM

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Tuesday, July 20, 2004

DOHA STILL GOING NO WHERE

Despite the WTO's and the US's strong arm tactics, the Doha Round of trade negotiations is still going nowhere.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, the still neophyte Director General of the WTO is rattling sabers in the FT this morning:

"The future of the DDA [Doha Development Agenda], where agreement can help lift living standards around the world, will be determined by what we do here in the next two weeks."

Not exactly. Even the most rose tinted analyses point to slim to no benefits from the Doha Round. The World Bank predicts that, e.g., Sierra Leone's per capita GDP would blossom to a whopping $592 by 2015 thanks to the Doha Round. Oh, but without Doha, it would be $583 in 2015. All this fuss for $9 each? Hell, the rich countries and the WTO could just give $9 to every Sierra Leonian rather than spending all this money shipping trade ministers around the world to convene in luxurious ballrooms and stay in five star hotel suites.

Many provisions of the Doha Round that the developed countries are pushing, say a provision for developing countries to concede to rich country technological monopolies, would actually lower incomes in the global South.

¶ 7/20/2004 09:45:51 AM

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Monday, July 19, 2004

BLAST FROM THE PAST PART II

George Bush's foreign policy is in tatters. Democrats are pointing this out, and they’re right to. But can they go beyond criticizing Bush? Can they articulate a coherent alternative to his policies?

...We are now at a tipping point...we are going to be endlessly trying to "cope" with the problems that are increasingly difficult to cope with--to "manage" situations that become inherently less manageable.

Okay, you caught me. This is actually more straight-shooting from the good folks at PNAC, Spetmeber 7, 1998. I just substituted Bush for Clinton.

¶ 7/19/2004 12:53:01 PM

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WHAT I'M READING TODAY

Here's a blast from the past--Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol, writing in the pages of the Weekly Standard:

Unfortunately, the Bush administration so far shows little sign of reversing Clinton’s feckless approach to Iraq...President Bush, in his public statements, has not even hinted at a desire to remove Saddam. -- March 12, 2001

¶ 7/19/2004 12:39:50 PM

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