This port deal with the UAE is how free trade and globalization works.

Of course there are all sorts of financial ties between our ruling family and the ruling families of the UAE, but that's par for the course.

Granted that free trade and globalization benefit corporations and our financial elite.

And our pundits tell us it's good for the rest of us too. Of course our leading pundits are millionaires themselves and their jobs depend on sucking up to wealth and power. They are hardly impartial in their advocacy of free trade and globalization.

Thirty years ago the average corporate CEO salary was around 30 times that of the average worker in the corp. Today the average corporate CEO salary is around a 1000 times that of the average worker.

Money talks in our political system. Is it no longer realistic to expect our government to put the interests of ordinary people above the interests of the financial elite?

Do board members have anything, pro or con, to say about free trade and globalization?

Here's Paul Krugman's column from yesterday's NY Times about increasing income inequality in our country:

Graduates versus Oligarchs
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Monday 27 February 2006

Ben Bernanke's maiden Congressional testimony as chairman of the Federal Reserve was, everyone agrees, superb. He didn't put a foot wrong on monetary or fiscal policy.

But Mr. Bernanke did stumble at one point. Responding to a question from Representative Barney Frank about income inequality, he declared that "the most important factor" in rising inequality "is the rising skill premium, the increased return to education."

That's a fundamental misreading of what's happening to American society. What we're seeing isn't the rise of a fairly broad class of knowledge workers. Instead, we're seeing the rise of a narrow oligarchy: income and wealth are becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small, privileged elite.

I think of Mr. Bernanke's position, which one hears all the time, as the 80-20 fallacy. It's the notion that the winners in our increasingly unequal society are a fairly large group - that the 20 percent or so of American workers who have the skills to take advantage of new technology and globalization are pulling away from the 80 percent who don't have these skills.

The truth is quite different. Highly educated workers have done better than those with less education, but a college degree has hardly been a ticket to big income gains. The 2006 Economic Report of the President tells us that the real earnings of college graduates actually fell more than 5 percent between 2000 and 2004. Over the longer stretch from 1975 to 2004 the average earnings of college graduates rose, but by less than 1 percent per year.

So who are the winners from rising inequality? It's not the top 20 percent, or even the top 10 percent. The big gains have gone to a much smaller, much richer group than that.

A new research paper by Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, "Where Did the Productivity Growth Go?," gives the details. Between 1972 and 2001 the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 percent per year. So being in the top 10 percent of the income distribution, like being a college graduate, wasn't a ticket to big income gains.

But income at the 99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint.

Just to give you a sense of who we're talking about: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that this year the 99th percentile will correspond to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of $1,672,726. The center doesn't give a number for the 99.99th percentile, but it's probably well over $6 million a year.

Why would someone as smart and well informed as Mr. Bernanke get the nature of growing inequality wrong? Because the fallacy he fell into tends to dominate polite discussion about income trends, not because it's true, but because it's comforting. The notion that it's all about returns to education suggests that nobody is to blame for rising inequality, that it's just a case of supply and demand at work. And it also suggests that the way to mitigate inequality is to improve our educational system - and better education is a value to which just about every politician in America pays at least lip service.

The idea that we have a rising oligarchy is much more disturbing. It suggests that the growth of inequality may have as much to do with power relations as it does with market forces. Unfortunately, that's the real story.

Should we be worried about the increasingly oligarchic nature of American society? Yes, and not just because a rising economic tide has failed to lift most boats. Both history and modern experience tell us that highly unequal societies also tend to be highly corrupt. There's an arrow of causation that runs from diverging income trends to Jack Abramoff and the K Street project.

And I'm with Alan Greenspan, who - surprisingly, given his libertarian roots - has repeatedly warned that growing inequality poses a threat to "democratic society."

It may take some time before we muster the political will to counter that threat. But the first step toward doing something about inequality is to abandon the 80-20 fallacy. It's time to face up to the fact that rising inequality is driven by the giant income gains of a tiny elite, not the modest gains of college graduates.

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my degree is in internatonal business and i spent a few years studying the theories that are purported to support globalization and they are a bunch of crap..... adam smith and david ricardo are the two most quoted for their theories on comparative advantage..... adam smith wrote the book "the wealth of nations" where the phrase "invisible hand that controls the market" came from....... either of these guys would be rolling over in their graves if they knew how todays crooks are quoting them to support theories that have no bearing on todays world and are flawed to the point of having no credit........

a great book for anyone who wants to learn more about globalisation is "when corporations rule the world" by david korten

the wto is a much greater threat to the security of the people of this country than al qaeda is or anything you will here on the news

globalisation is nothing but a sell out of the bottom 95% of the WORLD by the top 5% of the worlds rich

todays tidal wave of illegal immigrants from mexico has ties to globalisation too...... all the factories that left the USA and set up on the other side of the border in mexico are now leaving mexico for cheaper places because the labor is now TOO EXPENSIVE IN MEXICO....so all those laborers are allready on the border so why not just hop it and keep looking for work up north............NAFTA also put over 2 million of mexicos corn farmers out of work with cheap corn from the mid west so you have more jobless to add to the tidal wave of immigrants......

The eventual gift of globalization is that the lower 90% will at some point be at the same level. While that would be a good thing in Africa or China where the average worker earns less than a thousand dollars a year it isn't such a good thing here at home.
Catapiller now has a two tiered wage structure where older vested workers earn almost twice what new workers earn for the same job. The cost of living didn't just drop by half for those younger worker but their earning power did. The rich really do keep getting richer, it isn't just a phrase.

That's exactly right, Stever. And when Bubba is just another coolie he won't understand why because they won't tell him why on his "Made in China" TV. His main worry in life, other than not really being able to afford that six pack, will still be that the libs are after his guns.

I was surfing the net tonight and found this article which explains what free trade and globalization is doing to American far better than I ever could. Please read this and think about what it means for the America our children and grandchildren will live in.

Wonder why our ports belong to foreigners now? This is why:


It's The Dollar, Stupid!: When Americans No Longer Own America, Thom Hartman

The old concept was that if there was a dollar's worth of labor in a pair of shoes made in the USA, and somebody wanted to import shoes from China where there may only be ten cents worth of labor in those shoes, we'd level the playing field for labor by putting a 90-cent import tariff on each pair of shoes. Companies could choose to make their products here or overseas, but the ultimate cost of labor would be the same.

Then came the flat-worlders, led by misguided true believers and promoted by multinational corporations. Do away with those tariffs, they said, because they "restrain trade." Let everything in, and tax nothing. The result has been an explosion of cheap goods coming into our nation, and the loss of millions of good manufacturing jobs and thousands of manufacturing companies. Entire industry sectors have been wiped out.

These policies have kneecapped the American middle class. Our nation's largest employer has gone from being the unionized General Motors to the poverty-wages Wal-Mart. Americans have gone from having a net savings rate around 10 percent in the 1970s to a minus .5 percent in 2005 - meaning that they're going into debt or selling off their assets just to maintain their lifestyle.

At the same time, federal policy has been to do the same thing at a national level. Because our so-called "free trade" policies have left us with an over $700 billion annual trade deficit, other countries are sitting on huge piles of the dollars we gave them to buy their stuff (via Wal-Mart and other "low cost" retailers). But we no longer manufacture anything they want to buy with those dollars.

So instead of buying our manufactured goods, they are doing what we used to do with Third World nations - they are buying us, the USA, chunk by chunk. In particular, they want to buy things in America that will continue to produce profits, and then to take those profits overseas where they're invested to make other nations strong. The "things" they're buying are, by and large, corporations, utilities, and natural resources.

Back in the pre-Reagan days, American companies made profits that were distributed among Americans. They used their profits to build more factories, or diversify into other businesses. The profits stayed in America.

Today, foreigners awash with our consumer dollars are on a two-decades-long buying spree. The UK's BP bought Amoco for $48 billion - now Amoco's profits go to England. Deutsche Telekom bought VoiceStream Wireless, so their profits go to Germany, which is where most of the profits from Random House, Allied Signal, Chrysler, Doubleday, Cyprus Amax's US Coal Mining Operations, GTE/Sylvania, and Westinghouse's Power Generation profits go as well. Ralston Purina's profits go to Switzerland, along with Gerber's; TransAmerica's profits go to The Netherlands, while John Hancock Insurance's profits go to Canada. Even American Bankers Insurance Group is owned now by Fortis AG in Belgium.

Foreign companies are buying up our water systems, our power generating systems, our mines, and our few remaining factories. All because "flat world" so-called "free trade" policies have turned us from a nation of wealthy producers into a nation of indebted consumers, leaving the world awash in dollars that are most easily used to buy off big chunks of America.

Thanks SS! That about explains it all.

Aunty M, I don't think that most Americans can compete on the world stage when it comes to survival of the fittest. Eating Sea gulls, snails, bugs sticks and leaves, will be easier for some than others in getting use to. Especially those people already experienced with 3rd living (countries) that will move here and find the pickings to be easier and better than what they were use to. And once outlaws (road warriors) control the petro, most people will have to learn to make a living without the automobile. With early birds getting all the worms, a lot of baby boomers both rich and poor want be able to survive the competition. So to assume that making a living is predictable when based on assumptions and experiences that have never been truly tested on a level playing feild with X factors incorporated is inappropriate. I did watch the movie "Soilent Green" so maybe the government already has a plan. Just as their was a Katrina hurricane plan.

aunty- your confusing me....he said surviving not making a living...i keep reading his post and your post and im not sure where the disconnect is...... it looks like you both have very similar views.....and i agree with both of you.

personally i am getting ready to get my garden going this week and i will be growing more of my own food this year than ever before.....im excited to learn how to stage things so i can have a perpetual harvest going over many months and not just a bunch of food at once in the fall

Aunty M, I don't think that most Americans can compete on the world stage when it comes to survival of the fittest. Eating Sea gulls, snails, bugs sticks and leaves, will be easier for some than others in getting use to.

I said most Americans, not all. I think that you are correct regarding the bennefits of livng in a communal situation, under that scenario. Sorta like, what the hippies did in the 60's and 70's. Not sure if the smaller communes will be able to protect themselves from the larger more aggressive ones.

There is one area that I am more familiar with than most, and that is Alternative or preventive medicine. I practice the healing arts (Traditonal Chinese Medicine... Bastyr alumni)and currently enrolled at the Ayurveda Academy studying for my BAMS certificate. I don't think bartering will be a problem for people such as myself. There will be plenty of sick people to go around. Hospitals and pharmacies will be in short supply thereby, medicinemen as myself, will manage just fine, thank you. Health is a huge issue facing baby boomers. We have many cronic illnesses that are life threatening, without the current medical infrastucture. High Blood pressure, diabeties and mental health, will surely take it's toll, without the convenience of the local pharmacy or community health centers, that are well staffed and supplied. I didn't mention the many degenerative diseases, or the complications of obesity that is associated within this cycle of dysfunction.

I think the statement I made earlier speaks for it's self, and doesn't refute anything that you said, but only adds the X factors that were not dealt with during the great depression era. In those days, one could walk across the rivers on the backs of Salmon, as most of this countries land in those days was in the hands of American's or it's Government, and not foriegn companies and Countries, as it is now. Those foriegn companies would have their people exploiting their land, and the scavaging american's would be considered tresspassers on their land, when gathering leaves, sticks and snails,etc., in a one world scenario

HBP and diabetes does not always need medical intervention. A simple change in lifstyle (like being forced into changing eating habits) can correct many medical conditions. In a "depression" situation, many folks would wind up in better health, not worse. In fact, today's obesity epidemic could be partly blamed on the great depression. Those who endured that hardship had a tendency to "over feed" their offspring. The next generation followed suit. Add in fast and convenience foods, and tocacco, and it's easy to see where much of our problems lie.

I would agree that life style changes do make a considerable differnece with health. Not sure if it's the great depression that's to be blamed for the oberity of today. I think it has more to do with the quality of the foods today. Many of the foods today are devoid of nutrients, due to over cooking and processing, thereby triggering the over eating. Food being deficient in nutrients will result in us eating more, in order to make up for the deficiencies, therby causing us to store the useless stuff as fat. Results is the fattening of America. I'm not only speaking of fast foods or frankenfoods, but also the many raw and processed foods containing toxic and poisonous pesticide residue. Genetically modified foods are not natural and could be the cause of many of the illlnesses we see today. Disease prevention and healing starts with the foods we choose to eat. Organic and raw, fruits and vegetables, should be eaten whenever possible in order to get the maximum benefits from those foods. In the old days, food was grown by local farmers or the home gardener, whereas today that is the exception and not the rule.

BTW, Seagulls probably taste more like pigeon than chicken, but since I've never had either Your guess is as good as any.

Aunty I'm sure you're right about the attitude of depression era people, when it came to serving size. What I am illlustrating is that it's not just an issue of serving or portion size, but also issues of quality of food (generating excessive hunger) and life style(sedentary). In those days you would eat a steak(Non Mad Cow) the size of a plate, but then go out and play all day, or do hard and demanding physical work that burned to fuel. Today we still eat huge portions of nutrient depleted food(cause and effect), but there is a difference today, in that we sit on our ar*# all day on the couch, in a chair or at the computer (games,et.) while living a sedentary lifestyle. Those are a couple of the X factors I am referring to. At any rate this is the America we live in today, and the people to consider in that scenario. "If they would only," does not represent the true reality of health condition today, but more like looking with hind site and 20-20, of current situation. I still say eating better quality or more nutrious food, will help to solve the majority of cronic diseases as well as obesity. Just by sayings no to Trans Fats, bleached flour and sugar, GM foods, as well as the artificials, pesticides and Mad Cow,(did I leave out any) ones health will improve.

Red wine. That's the secret to health and longevity. Pinto beans muy picante and red red wine.

Red wine = moderation

I make really good homebrew. I'm thinkin' I'll be rich ... or too drunk to care.

Bush is over in India saying Americans should welcome India as a competitor.

From an article in the NY Times:

"Mr. Bush strongly defended the outsourcing of American jobs to India as the reality of a global economy, and said the United States should instead focus on India as a vital new market for American goods.

"People do lose jobs as a result of globalization, and it's painful for those who lose jobs," Mr. Bush said at a meeting with young entrepreneurs at the Indian School of Business, one of the premier schools of its kind in India. Nonetheless, the president said, "globalization provides great opportunities."

Mr. Bush said there was a "300-million-person market of middle-class citizens here in India, and that if we can make a product they want," then "all of a sudden, people will be able to have a market here."

SO:

1)Bush is strongly defending the outsourcing of American jobs to India.

2) "if we (us Americans) can make a product they (them folks in India) want," then "all of a sudden, people (us Americans?)will be able to have a market here."

BUT: if we can make a product they want, so we "have a market" there, wouldn't the production of the "product they want" be outsourced to India or some other cheap labor country?

Does Bush even understand what he is saying?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/04/intern...CUahE/we8e45wFA

It doesn't have to be complicated. Some things are just common sense.

If it would pay to outsource your job to a low wage country, your job is in danger.

First it was textile workers to have their jobs outsourced. Then a load of other manufacturing jobs. Now its gotten to computer programmers! it's hard to say how it will all end.

Real wages of American wage earners will go down under globalization. How could they not go down?

The funny thing is bush tries to defend the outsourcing by saying Americans need to educate themselves better for 21st century jobs.

What types of jobs does he think are being outsourced? Minimum wage jobs? So the only jobs that will be left here are fast-food, mortgage broker, ditch-digger, etc. How much education do those require?

Do I need more than my computer science degree to have a job in the 21st century in America?

That dude really is clueless.

Suggestions for Bush Outsourcing:

Immigration: Mexico

Drug Enforcement: Columbia

Atomic Energy: North Korea

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms: Dick Chaney


Medicare Part D Prescription Program: Christian Science Church

Enforcement of sexual abuse of children laws: U. S. Catholic bishops


Census Bureau: Young Republicans

Federal Emergency Management: The Robin Hood Society

National Academy of Science: The Flat-Earth Society

Office of Management and Budget: General Motors and Delta Airlines

Homeland Security: Hamas

Federal Elections Commission: OPEC

Aunty,
"JLH, Keep posting the stuff you dig up on DU. There's an aweful lot of ex military guys I know who are too young to have some of the illnesses they do, including my hubby."

Glad that you are following this very serious issue AM. It has been a concern of mine for some time now. The issue is real and people are suffering from exposure to radiation, one of the most toxic of contaminants none to mankind. The following will help to illustrate it.

Depleted Uranium
Kills Indiscriminately

By Christopher Bollyn
American Free Press
3-3-6


ORMOND BEACH, Florida -- An alarmingly high percentage of U.S.
military personnel who have served in Iraq have been afflicted by a
variety of health problems commonly known as Gulf War Syndrome.
Exposure to uranium spread through the use of depleted uranium (DU)
weapons is thought to be the primary cause of the high rate of
chronic ailments and mortality among Gulf War vets.

While initial casualties from the first U.S. invasion of Iraq were
light, long-term casualties from the 1991 war ultimately exceeded 30
percent, according to Terrell E. Arnold, former Chairman of the
Department of International Studies at the National War College. The
long-term casualty rate from the current war in Iraq, Arnold says, is
likely to be much higher.

Official statistics of killed and wounded from the 15-year long war
against Iraq do not reflect the veterans whose service-related
injuries only become apparent after they return from Iraq. The
official death rate of those killed and wounded in Iraq does not
include these vets, many of whom suffer slow and painful deaths as a
direct result of their service. Dustin Brim was one of them.

Lori Brim lost Dustin, her only child, when he died at Walter Reed
Hospital in Washington at the age of 22 on Sept. 24, 2004, after a
six-month battle with what was eventually diagnosed as Non-Hodgkins
Diffuse Large Cell B Type Lymphoma. When Mrs. Brim asked the doctors
how her young, healthy, strong son had contracted cancer all they
would say was ?bad luck.?

Her caseworker and nurses at the hospital were more forthcoming with
information. At different times during the six months nurses would
take Mrs. Brim aside and urge her off the record to do some research
on DU. Asked whose idea it was for Dustin to join the Army in summer
2002, Mrs. Brim said, ?It was mine.? As a single mother, Mrs. Brim
had approached an Army recruiter out of concern for the well-being of
her son. She thought the Army would be good for her son by giving him
some discipline and direction.

Dustin had not wanted to join the Army, his mother said. But Dustin
was never meant to be in a war zone, she added. The U.S. Army
recruiter had promised her, that as her only child, he would not be
sent to war. Mechanically inclined, Dustin became an Army mechanic,
an E-4 specialist serving in the 1st Maintenance Company under the
541st Maintenance Battalion from Fort Riley, Kan., and was deployed
to Iraq in August 2003.

Dustin?s work in Iraq involved working on disabled Army vehicles,
including tanks, which his unit repaired and retrieved, or if damaged
beyond repair, destroyed with explosives on the spot. Most of these
vehicles, having been in the battlefield, would have been heavily
laden with DU and other toxins. Dr. Doug Rokke, former director of
the U.S. Army?s Depleted Uranium Project, said that mechanics like
Dustin are not properly prepared or protected to be working on DU
contaminated vehicles.

Mrs. Brim said that her son had not even been equipped with a pair of
gloves, let alone a mask or protective garb. The Army?s failure to
inform and instruct its personnel about the dangers of DU exposure is
one of Rokke?s main concerns. At Christmas 2003, Dustin surprised his
parents with a visit home. It was the last time Mrs. Brim would see
her son in a healthy condition. A photo of Dustin taken in Iraq in
February 2004 shows him smiling and strong.

In early March, however, Dustin began to complain of abdominal pains.
He went to the doctors on his base 11 times during the month
complaining of severe pain and constipation that lasted for weeks. He
was sent back to his job and told to ?work it out.? During the last
two weeks of March, he wrote to his mother telling her that his pain
was unbearable.

On March 31 he passed out from pain and breathlessness. His sergeant
happened to be with him and took him to the doctors who thought he
had gall bladder problems and sent him to the hospital in Baghdad.
The next day, April 1, was Dustin?s 22nd birthday. After being
assessed and heavily drugged, the doctors allowed him to call home to
tell his mother that he had cancer.

In Baghdad, the doctors had discovered that Dustin had a huge
cancerous tumor on his esophagus, which severely restricted his
breathing, a collapsed lung, the loss of a kidney, numerous blood
clots and a tumor progressing on his liver. The doctors could not
believe that Dustin had been turned away so many times for medical
help and still manage to endure as long as he did in his magnitude of
pain while carrying an 80-pound pack on his back, his mother said.
Dustin was flown to the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, and
then to Walter Reed Hospital.

?The story of Dustin Brim is just one more avoidable tragedy of our
insane use of uranium munitions,? Rokke said. ?When I lost Dustin, I
lost myself,? Mrs. Brim said. ?This is something that should not have
happened. There is something going on but no one wants to talk about
it on the record. I am sharing my son?s story with you in the hope
that perhaps it will make a difference.?

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/depleted_uranium_kills.html

So Aunty, John Lee, if what the article says about the long term casualty rate from the first Gulf War due to DU is true, does that mean our military personnel in Iraq now are at risk? And what about the Iraqis?