Tag: Trade

Union Critical Of Obama’s Economist

“For years we’ve expressed strong concerns about corporate influence on the Democratic Party,” John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said Wednesday in a statement implicitly critical of the symbolism of the appointment, no matter Mr. Furman’s economic skills.

Of particular concern to labor is the Hamilton approach to trade. While labor wants restrictions that would preserve jobs, the Rubin camp wants free trade that might cost jobs but would be offset by a broader safety net channeling more income support and job training to the job losers. Mr. Obama talks of “fair” trade agreements that include labor and environmental standards, a position that falls short of what Mr. Sweeney has in mind.

In his statement criticizing Mr. Furman’s appointment, Mr. Sweeney said, “The fact that our country’s economic policies have become so dominated by the Wall Street agenda — and that it is causing working families real pain — is a top issue we will be raising with Senator Obama.”

I had said that I was not an Obama supporter until I saw who he would choose for his VP. Well, it appears that I may not have to wait that long……he is already embracing the DLC’s trade policies….I will continue to be vigilant……but so far the choice of economic adviser has shown that labor will be in for more of the same if Obama is elected.

A Concert Of Democracies

Where have I heard that term before? For many years I have been preaching that the 2 major parties are so similar that one needs a guidebook to determine which is which. On May 31, 2008 I did a post on McCain’s proposal of a League of Democracies. Back in 2007, the Democratic Leadership Council, printed a proposal for a “Concert Of Democracies”.

Some U.S. progressives are coalescing around an idea they hope will resolve this dilemma: a Concert of Democracies. As envisioned by the Princeton Project, led by John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter, the Concert would combine non- Western nations like Japan, India, South Korea, and Australia with the trans-Atlantic partners in a global alliance of some 60 genuinely liberal democracies.

Its main purpose would be to create a more effective instrument of collective security, by reforming the United Nations if possible, or by creating an alternative venue for action if necessary. A Princeton Project report puts it this way: “If (Security Council) expansion and reform proves impossible by the end of this decade & the Concert could become an alternative forum for the approval of the use of force in cases where the use of the veto at the Security Council prevented free nations from keeping faith with the aims of the U.N. Charter.”

A coalition that includes the world’s richest countries would also be a soft-power juggernaut. It could coordinate trade and aid strategies to encourage growth and reform in developing countries. Following the precedent of the European Union and the former Soviet satellite countries, the prospect of joining the Concert would give countries strong incentives to liberalize their economic and political systems. And its decisions would arguably be more legitimate than those of the United Nations, a majority of whose members are not democratically accountable to their people.

Sorry but we “progressives” are not playing this game. This basically the same proposal that McCain came up with, or should I say , which came first the league or the concert? Both these proposals are just an attempt to circumvent the UN. These both want to put the US i9n the drivers seat, when actually gthe US has lost the control of the economic vehicle to developing countries.

This idea is just another conservative plan, whether it comes from Repubs or Dems. The DLC has steadily moved the Dem Party into the column of conservatism. I was always amazed when I would hear that Clinton is a liberal. Nothing and I mean nothing is further from the truth.  Why do I mention this, well Clinton, both of them are members of the DLC and as such are nothing more than conservatives in Dem clothing.

Mediterranean Union

This was propsed by the president of France, but it is not anything new. A similar organization was proposed by Turkey back in the 1980’s and was a no go. Sarkozy has gotten closer than anyone else. But is this a good idea?
Mediterranean countries due to launch a regional union next month have yet to agree an overall vision for the project and questions remain over Israel’s role, Algeria’s foreign minister said.

France proposed a Union for the Mediterranean last year to boost ties with the European Union’s southern neighbors and improve cooperation on trade, security and migration. The project is due to be unveiled in Paris on July 13.

Arab states are worried that joining with Israel in the union would imply a normalization of ties with the Jewish state.

“The membership of Israel was among questions we discussed and clarifications were urged on this,” Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci said after a meeting of Mediterranean foreign ministers in Algiers.

a news conference after a two-day meeting in Algiers of the 11-nation Mediterranean Forum, which includes France, Spain, Egypt, Malta, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Turkey.

The union under discussion is a scaled-back version of the original proposal which would have grouped only states with a Mediterranean coastline and involved nine new agencies and a bank.

Latin America’s Food Crisis

Even a year ago, few people would have predicted that a global food crisis would make headlines as one of the major concerns for the future of the world. Yes, critics of agrofuels warned that food shortages and price hikes would result from the headlong rush to divert land from food to fuel production. And climate change experts predicted that global warming would hit small farmers—who even in today’s world of industrialized agribusiness still produce much of what we eat—the hardest. Agricultural economists alerted the world to the dangers of leaving the food supply to a highly concentrated international market.

But all these threats seemed nascent, not imminent.

So what happened? How did we get to a full-blown crisis, with children who before were fed going to sleep hungry, with rioters banging empty pots in the streets, with mud cakes standing in as dinner?

The answer involves all the dire warnings above. How they have played out depends in part on where you are. The interplay of pests and policies, drought and dollars, futures and farmers has always made agriculture a hard call for both almanac writers and policymakers. But international trends and a case-by-case analysis show common culprits.

In the Western Hemisphere, two countries—Haiti and Mexico—reveal the forces that are leading societies into a crisis that could become permanent if deep changes aren’t made to our food and agriculture systems.

The standard explanation for the global food crisis rests on the convergence of the demand for food crops due to agrofuels, the hike in gas prices, urbanization, increased demand from emerging economies, climatic changes, and environmental deterioration from erosion and pollution.

All of these factors have played a part in the crisis. Agrofuel development has been mandated well into the future, although it may be slowing down as criticism mounts. A recent report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) blames biofuels in part for price hikes. The report concludes, “Governments need to carefully consider the impact of bio-fuels on the poor.” Gas prices are likely to remain high. With so much food moving around under free trade policies this will continue to affect the price and access.

With agribusiness corporations posting record highs (like Cargill, ADM saw profits soar from $363 million in 2006 to $517 for 2007) and investors salivating over “ag-flation” windfalls, it’s clear that what’s a crisis for some is a bonanza for others. That in itself should be a clue that the structural problems with the global food system do not lie in poor yields, “inefficient” small farmers, or climatic disasters. It’s manipulated prices; faulty trade, aid, and promotion policies; distribution and wrong priorities that are starving the world’s most vulnerable inhabitants.

Oddly enough, international solutions do not address these fundamental issues. Policy prescriptions from the wealthy countries and international financial institutions emphasize hand-outs and more free trade. They tend toward increasing, not diminishing, developing country dependence on imports and aid, and further lining the pockets of the companies that are fleecing the public.

The World Bank’s proposals include: “calling on the international community to make up the $500 million food gap required by the UN’s World Food Program to meet emergency needs,” increasing its loans for agriculture (promoting the same model that led to the loss of food sovereignty in developing countries facing today’s food crisis), “expanding and improving access to safety net programs, such as cash transfers, and risk management instruments to protect the poor” and strengthening free trade through “advocacy on the negative impacts of policies such as export bans, which create price spikes in importing countries, and the high levels of trade tariffs and subsidies in the developed world.” World Bank President Robert Zoellick, IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kuhn, and former WTO President Pascal Lamy have all used the food crisis to argue for a reinvigorated Doha Round of the WTO to deepen the free trade system. This constitutes an offensive against measures that question the international markets which helped cause the food crisis.

The mass media portrays “food riots” in Latin America—demonstrations in the streets of Haiti, women banging on empty pots in Lima, cries for an affordable tortilla in Mexico—as ominous signs of instability. Instead they should be seen as wake-up calls to fix our most vital link to each other and to life itself—the food system.

Anti-War Protests By Unions

Ports along the U.S. West Coast, including the country’s busiest port complex in Los Angeles, shut down on Thursday as some 10,000 dock workers went on a one-day strike to protest the war in Iraq, port and union officials said.

Twenty-nine ports from San Diego to Washington state that handle more than half of U.S waterborne trade ground to a halt, but shipping experts said the economic costs of the walk-out would be limited.

“We are hearing there is no activity taking place up and down the West Coast,” said Steve Getzug, spokesman of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents all 29 ports. “There is no unloading or loading.”

Finally labor is getting in the act.  But now it will be interesting to see how the government will react to this work stoppage.  I expect them to wait and see and then hopefully will over-react.