Working Life

   Last week, I wondered whether the president would keep his campaign promise about NAFTA. Today, Colombia is on my mind because of this piece in The Wall Street Journal: President Barack Obama discussed a pending free-trade agreement with his Colombian counterpart Saturday and dispatched his trade representative to discuss U.S. concerns over Colombia’s treatment […]

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   You may remember–this is old history…a year ago so this might seem like eons ago–that during the Democratic 2008 primary campaign, there was a huge surprise: we learned that NAFTA was a bad thing. Who knew? I couldn’t keep track of all those candidates running for office who suddenly had discovered something that a […]

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   While we are distracted by the minor problem of the financial crisis, and shoveling mountains of cash into the hands of private investors who will enrich themselves (again), there is the small matter of the so-called "free trade" deal with Panama that keeps poking its nose above ground. There are murmurings that there will […]

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   Two things caught my eye this morning. Item #1: If you want to know how the power has shifted in the world of banking, The Financial Times has a fascinating full-page story entitled "The fearsome become the fallen". It compares the rankings of the leading banks in 1999 to the rankings right now, as […]

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  Yes, that is the underlying message delivered today by one of the world’s leading financial publications. For many of us, this is no surprise: you had to be truly ignorant to pretend like the economic system was a success just based on the growing divide between rich and poor over the past decade, and […]

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  When many people voted for "change", they embraced the idea that the parameters and language of our policy debate had to be altered. Nowhere is that more evident than on the topic of trade. Now, there is legitimate concern that the president may not live up to his rhetoric when it comes to so-called […]

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  With the collapse of the financial system, we are witnessing one obvious spectacular failure of the wonders of the "free market". Let’s not forget, though, the other part of the wonderful "free market": the grueling hours, despicable conditions and substandard wages that half the world live in, all a product of the fine system […]

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   Later today, the International Labor Organization will release a sweeping report on global wages. I’ve got a copy and here is the upshot: wages declined in most countries, inequality increase and, thank you very much, a lot of that can be blamed on the wonders of so-called "free trade".   The ILO is an […]

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  Hear me out: this is an argument as much about the place of workers’ issues in the future Administration, as it is an argument for making John Edwards the next Labor Secretary.   When it comes to tackling the economic crisis, the president-elect has been pre-occupied, personnel-wise, with the question of who will be […]

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Yes, to begin, let’s posit that a president with the lowest approval rating in the history of polling has no credibility about any subject of importance–and, in fact, most of the country would like, as David Letterman joked, to let Barack Obama start his new job right away. But, the current president’s pronouncements that the […]

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