Working Life

   Reaching back all the way to NAFTA (oh, so ancient history…1993), there has been a complete lie and sham underlying virtually every trade deal post-NAFTA–don’t worry, so-called "free trade" advocates tell us (including free trade zealots Bill Clinton and Robert Reich) about these deals…we will put in place "labor protections" to make sure workers […]

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   Sigh. Dumb economics again–promoted by a whole lot of good Democrats who just cannot embrace the idea that you cannot fix so-called "free trade" deals by pretending to retrain people for new jobs. It’s a false, cruel promise. At first glance, it looks like a hard fight on behalf of workers: Forty-one Senate Democrats […]

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   Guarantee you this won’t merit front-page news: Progress on a free trade deal with Colombia has cleared the way for the White House to seek Congressional approval of a package of trade agreements that includes pacts with South Korea and Panama, as Republicans have demanded. Obama administration officials said Wednesday that they expected technical […]

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    Why doesn’t Bill Daley, the White House Chief of Staff, just come right out and say it: we’re going to ram through these so-called "free trade" deals because, dammit, we need that corporate cash for the re-election campaign? Just be honest. Stop coloring it in the phony Republican-corporate rhetoric of "job creation". Then, at […]

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   Every so-called "free trade" deal that has shimmied its way through Congress has been greased with legalized bribery, starting with NAFTA in 1993, which was the king of all "what will buy your vote" deals. But, the biggest scam, in my opinion, is the "retraining" workers are offered in return for…sacrificing their middle-class livelihood […]

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If you share the belief that the greatest economic challenge we face is stopping the stupefying global class warfare underway, then, we have to be quite clear about the tools that support the attack against decent living standards for people and a fair sharing of the wealth. So-called "free trade" is right up there on […]

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   This should be an amusing sideshow: In the speech, Camp will describe Obama as a recent and largely disingenuous convert to a pro-trade agenda, according to excerpts of his remarks reviewed by POLITICO. “Under the Democrats’ control, we did not hold a single hearing on our pending trade agreements since they were signed three […]

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I just got off the phone with a reporter who wanted my thoughts on the appointment of Bruce Reed as Joe Biden’s chief of staff. My first though, sarcastically, was that I wondered whether Bernie Madoff would now be brought in to oversee Consumer Protection…of course, an exaggerated observation but I wonder: Who will speak […]

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The jobs crisis is really devastating. We all know the numbers on how many people are out of work. But, the truth is that just calling for more jobs is not enough–because what we lack in the country is GOOD-PAYING JOBS. And wages are not coming back.   The Wall Street Journal reports what many […]

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The political adage is correct: elections have consequences. We know about the takeover of the House by Republicans and the hit Democrats will take in the reapportionment process. But, the greatest threat to the American Dream is going to come from a determined assault on the labor movement.   The New York Times has this […]

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