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The $700 Billion Questions

OurFuture.org Staff — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:06:49 -0400

TRADE REPORT: Will Dems Expand NAFTA In a Lame Duck Congress?

David Sirota — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:57:59 -0400

In this week's edition of The Trade Report, Democrats consider passing NAFTA-style trade deals in a lame duck session of Congress, just after campaigning against that trade policy in the fall campaign. Political analysts, meanwhile, suggest that if pressure isn't kept on Obama, he could end up backing off his own promises and passing the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. And during a week that saw Wall Street meltdown, some in Congress are trying to quietly pass a bill that would further deregulate the financial and insurance industries.

One note from the arts and entertainment world - the new film "Battle In Seattle" is out this week. Starring Charlize Theron, it looks back on the 1999 WTO protests. You can watch a Daily Show interview with Theron about the interview here and use the film's website to get in touch with your local movie theater to ask them to screen it. Also, check out the picture at right - it is (from left to right), Theron, me and director Stuart Townsend at a screening of the film at the Democratic convention. This film is absolutely terrific.

WHITE HOUSE: SOURCES INSIST OBAMA WOULD BE MORE LIKELY TO PASS NEW NAFTAs THAN MCCAIN

Though John McCain is an outspoken advocate of unpopular NAFTA-style trade deals, and Barack Obama has - at times - publicly criticized the trade model, the Hill newspaper reports that both labor officials and corporate lobbyists
believe a controversial NAFTA expansion into Colombia "has a better chance of passing next year if Barack Obama is elected president." Indeed, "Labor leaders also think that Obama, who at times talked tough against trade agreements during the Democratic primary, could seek to move the deal if elected president."

That suspicion is rooted in news this week that Obama's top aides are subtly shifting his campaign's position on the issue after originally using a populist tact to win the Democratic primary. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee downplayed the significance of trade in the widespread job outsourcing and wage cutting that has ravaged the American economy for the past decade. Even as Obama airs new television ads trumpeting his more progressive positions on trade, Goolsbee called trade merely "an issue of symbolic importance." Likewise, the Bureau of National Affairs reports that Obama's Latin America aide, Dan Restrepo, told reporters that far from opposing the Colombia trade pact as he promised, Obama now wants "to work to make it possible."

For McCain's part, he has dispatched top ally Sen. Joe Lieberman to reassure corporate donors that he continues to support lobbyist-written trade pacts. Lieberman this week penned a long editorial in Investors Business Daily beating the drum for the NAFTA expansion.

CONGRESS: DEMS PLANNING NAFTA SLEIGHT OF HAND IN LAME DUCK SESSION?

Reuters reports that congressional Democrats may be considering passing a package of NAFTA expansions in a post-election "lame duck" session of Congress. Quoting Charles Rangel, who chairs the House committee overseeing trade, the news service says "many lawmakers are loathe to vote on trade deals just before facing voters at the polls" - especially considering their populist, anti-NAFTA pledges. But that may not stop Democrats from ramming the deals through Congress immediately after the election.

To that end, Inside U.S. Trade reports that original NAFTA architect Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) "is actively advocating that Democrats would be better off having the votes on pending [trade deals] this year" because "there are likely more Republican members in this Congress than there will be in the next, which would mean that fewer Democrats would have to take a potentially divisive trade vote now." Emanuel, a former investment banker, is the House Democratic Caucus chair, yet is allegedly seeking a vote now because he knows his own party would be even more apt to reject it in 2009. In an email, an Emanuel spokesman insists Inside U.S. Trade "doesn’t have their facts straight."

The new declarations from Democrats come as the Washington Times reports that corporate lobbyists and foreign diplomats have "opened an intense Capitol Hill lobbying campaign to urge Congress to approve free-trade deals" as soon as possible. That urgent push coincides with yet another poll - this one from the Democracy Corps - showing intensifying public opposition to NAFTA-style trade policies.

WALL STREET CRISIS: WTO AS EXCUSE FOR MORE DEREGULATION

Public Citizen and a coalition of consumer groups is sounding the alarm on a stealth measure being pushed in Congress this week - yes the same week of the AIG insurance meltdown - to use the veneer of trade enforcement to further deregulate the insurance industry. According to a letter sent to lawmakers this week by consumer groups, Democratic congressional leaders are considering passing a bill - HR 5840 - that "would allow the Department of the Treasury to interpret or enter into international agreements regarding insurance policy and regulation, and then preempt state insurance laws and regulations." The bill would empower "an executive agency to become international trade and commercial agreement 'enforcer' against U.S. state consumer regulatory policy."

Support the Employee Free Choice Act

Terrance Heath — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:17:38 -0400

Sign the petition to support the Employee Free Choice Act, and make America work for working families again.

Labor Day is here, yet working families in America are having more trouble than ever before making ends meet. Rising fuel and food prices, along with health care costs, take bigger and bigger bites out of stagnant wages. Meanwhile, the same conservative movement and philosophy that gave us the economy that's devastating so many working families has undermined the rights of working Americans, and undermine the collective bargaining that once helped working Americans fight for fair and safe workplaces. The system for bargaining with employers and forming unions — that strengthened working families and helped build the middle class — has been intentionally broken. Now, we have a chance to fix it.

The Employee Free Choice Act is an important step in the right direction, because:

It lets workers choose majority sign-up, meaning that if a majority of employees sign union authorization cards, a company must recognize the union.
It guarantees workers a contract when they form a new union, by bringing in a neutral third party mediator/arbiter if the company and union cannot come to an agreement after three months.
It strengthens penalties for companies that coerce or intimidate employees in an effort to prevent them form forming a union.

Sign the petition to support the Employee Free Choice Act, and make America work for working families again.

TRADE REPORT: GOP Cites America's Richest County As Proof Economy Doing Well

David Sirota — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 11:34:21 -0400

In this week's edition of The Trade Report, Barack Obama visits Virginia to discuss how unfair globalization policies have hurt rural areas of that state - and the Republican Party responds by citing the wealthiest county in America as proof everything is swell. Meanwhile, in upstate New York, a debate over NAFTA could turn one of the most contested congressional races in the country - all while corporate front groups in Washington desperately try to claim that NAFTA is the best way to stop Al Qaeda (no kidding).

MUST READS: NYT SAYS EXTREMISTS ARE “CENTRISTS”; TRADE ACTIVIST FORCES DEMS’ HAND

The New York Times Magazine this week publishes an article by David Leonhardt attempting to explain Barack Obama’s fundamental economic ideology. To echo Philip Seymour Hoffman in Almost Famous, “it’s a think-piece about a mid-level band struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom.” And, indeed, many of its passages should make Wall Streeters wet themselves. Within the first nine paragraphs, for instance, Leonhardt bills Citigroup Chairman Bob Rubin the “center,” despite his deregulatory and pro-NAFTA policies lying far outside the center of American public opinion. That said, the article provides some interesting insights into what Obama will – and will not – do as president.

Meanwhile, the Madison Capital Times’ John Nichols reports on the successful effort to amend the Democratic Party platform to acknowledge its complicity in rigging America’s trade policy. Read the full story here.

WHITE HOUSE '08 - GOP CITES RICHEST COUNTY IN AMERICA AS PROOF ECONOMY IS GREAT

The Roanoke Times reports that as Barack Obama convened a discussion about unfair trade policies in economically ravaged regions of Virginia, the national Republican Party countered by citing Fairfax County as proof the economy is doing just fine. "It doesn't take a lot of courage to go to Martinsville and talk about trade," said U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R) said in a Tuesday conference call arranged by McCain's campaign. "What would be courageous is to come to Fairfax County, where you have 362 foreign-owned companies and tens of thousands of employees with foreign-owned firms...and take the same stand up here."

Besides the tone deafness of holding up foreign-owned firms as proof of a solid domestic economy, Davis forgot to mention that according to Forbes magazine, Fairfax County has long been the wealthiest county in the United States - a place where the median (the median!) household income is over $100,000 a year. The county is home to many of the millionaire corporate lobbyists that have been instrumental in the passage of rigged trade deals. Davis citing Fairfax County today as proof that trade policies are working for the vast majority of the country would be like Herbert Hoover citing the Rockefeller family as proof that the economy was working for most Americans during the Great Depression.

TRUMKA: "IT WILL DO LITTLE GOOD IF NEXT DEM ALLOWS WALL STREET TO TAKE COMMAND"

Bloomberg News reports that AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Rich Trumka is turning up the heat on economic issues in advance of the stretch run of the presidential campaign. In a powerpoint presentation slamming Citigroup Chairman Robert Rubin's deregulatory, pro-NAFTA agenda, Trumka said, "It will do us little good if, when the next Democrat moves into the White House, Wall Street takes command of our country's economic policy.''

Trumka has the winds of public opinion at his back. Over the last year, polls have consistently shown the vast majority of Americans want America's trade policies reformed. The problem - as it always is in politics - is money.

As reported last week, Obama's campaign is quietly courting the same CEOs that oppose trade policy reform. While there are certainly huge differences on trade between Obama and McCain's stated positions, the two campaigns are both being advised by top executives from UBS, one of the largest investment banks in the world. Indeed, the McCain campaign continues to solicit advice from UBS vice-chairman Phil Gramm, while the Obama campaign has long been shaped by Gramm's UBS boss, Robert Wolf. That kind of Wall Street influence will likely make a fair trade agenda much more difficult in 2009.

CONGRESS '08: TRADE TAKES CENTER STAGE IN MARQUIS RACE

NBC News reports that a debate over unfair trade policies is taking center stage in one of the hottest congressional races in the nation. Democratic candidate Eric Massa is hammering Rep. Randy Kuhl (R) for supporting NAFTA and CAFTA in an upstate New York congressional district that has seen its job base crushed by those pacts. As Public Citizen has already reported, the 2006 congressional elections pivoted on Democratic challengers running populist campaigns on trade. 2008 looks like it is shaping up the same way.

DLC: WHEN THE GOING GETS ROUGH, START FEARMONGERING

Ripping a page straight out of George W. Bush's playbook, the Democratic Leadership Council this week attempted to justify its corporate sponsors' trade agenda by writing a Wall Street Journal op-ed insisting that NAFTA-style trade deals fight Islamic terrorism. Yes - you read that right, and the DLC wasn't joking. They really want America to believe that passing trade deals that are unpopular both here and abroad is the way to stop Al Qaeda.

In fact, the BBC's landmark 2008 poll undercuts the DLC's fact-free rhetoric with hard data. The survey of international opinion shows widespread unease with the United States' trade and globalization policies - and that unease is particularly acute in the Middle East, where the DLC claims that NAFTA-style policies will stop terrorism.

TRADE REPORT: Your Weekly Fill of What's Really Going On

David Sirota — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:22:45 -0400

With this week's reemergence of globalization and trade as major 2008 campaign issues, we thought it as good a time as any to launch our regular report on globalization, helping you sort through what is too often an esoteric and inaccessible discourse on one of the most important set of issues we face. We are aiming to have this report out every Thursday - though bear with us as we get this product off the ground. Ultimately, we hope you consider it your one-stop must-read to keep up to date on all the economic rhetoric - and propaganda - that is now filling up the airwaves.

CAMPAIGN '08 - IS OBAMA'S RENEWED POPULISM THE REAL DEAL, OR A WINK AND NOD?

The Hill newspaper reports that the Obama economic adviser Jason Furman issued a particularly scathing statement in response to this week's Commerce Department announcement that the U.S. trade deficit hit $693 million in June.
Since the Democratic primary ended, Obama has noticeably tamped down his criticism of NAFTA-style trade pacts - even giving an interview to Fortune magazine suggesting he may not be as aggressive a fair trader as he once portrayed himself to be.

So this week's announcement, coupled with new evidence that he is focusing on trade in swing states, may signal his campaign's tack back to more populist themes - themes that Washington Post columnist Harold Myerson (and before that, yours truly) says is the best way for Obama to counter McCain's race-tinged cultural populism. Then again, at the same time Furman lashed out at the trade deficit, the Wall Street Journal reports that he "is spending this weekend in the tony Hamptons outside New York, as will many top Wall Street executives" where he will try to court corporate leaders to support Obama's campaign.

CONVENTION '08 - FAIR TRADERS IMPACT THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM

The Wall Street Journal reports that fair traders - led by Steelworkers President Leo Gerard - have used the pre-convention political lull to focus on adding stronger language to the Democratic Party's official platform - and that their efforts were successful. The final document "promises to improve the North American Free Trade Agreement," writes the Journal - a stunning rebuke to longtime NAFTA backers Bill and Hillary Clinton at a time the Denver Post reports that the Democratic convention is being quietly engineered to celebrate the Clinton legacy.

CONGRESS - BAUCUS DEMANDS MORE NAFTAs

Montana Sen. Max Baucus (D) this week told the Associated Press that he is worried that his fellow congressional Democrats are having too much success stopping NAFTA-style trade pacts. The statement follows Baucus's statement a few weeks ago - almost completely unreported - that he officially supports the passage of President Bush's Colombia Free Trade Agreement.

Though Baucus is an obscure lawmaker, he chairs the Finance Committee, which oversees U.S. trade policy. As I wrote in my syndicated column last week, that means he will be in a pivotal position to trip up what could end up being a clear election mandate demanding trade policy reform.

BUSINESS - RACE TO THE BOTTOM CONTINUES AS CHINA WAGES RISE

Fortune magazine reports that with China's wages and environmental standards gradually rise, corporations are now looking to move their outsourcing operations to countries where conditions are even more desperate. "China's actions to strengthen its environmental and worker protections are unquestionably good moves for the country, its people, and the global economy," writes the magazine. "But for outsourcers focused on rock-bottom production prices, the search is on for new low-cost countries."

Of course, this race-to-the-bottom dynamic is encouraged by a standards-free U.S. trade policy that allows companies to troll the world for the worst conditions, exploit those conditions, and sell the products of that exploitation back into the American market. Put another way, our trade policy is helping foreign governments manufacture comparative advantages out of their horrific labor, environmental and human rights records.

The good news is an unexpected silver-lining around the energy crisis: Businessweek reports that as energy costs rise, more companies are keeping operations in the United States. As much as Tom Friedmans of the world scoff at blue collar work, the magazine notes that this is "a good time for an American manufacturing renaissance."

The trend directly undermines President Bush's attempt to cite jobs as his reason to oppose the Kyoto Treaty. If carbon controls result in higher prices for fossil fuels, that may actually encourage companies to keep manufacturing operations at home, so as to avoid higher transportation costs. The challenge, though, remains reducing the cost of necessity energy - gasoline, heating, etc. for the middle class - without incentivizing job outsourcing.