Sometimes, Mexicans protest NAFTA.
Out on the campaign trail, Barack Obama is criticizing Hillary Clinton for supporting the passage of NAFTA during the 1990s. But he says that even though the free-trade agreement has cost American jobs, canceling the treaty now would harm the economy more.
Once a new U.S. President takes office next year, Mr. Calderon would like to start a conversation about "rationalizing and integrating the trade, investment and labor markets of North America" -- the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Good luck to him on that: With a GOP victory comes a campaign promise to seal the border, while it has become Democratic orthodoxy to all but repudiate the North American Free Trade Agreement that was a signal achievement of the Clinton Presidency. NAFTA has produced most of Mexico's new jobs.
Who'd have thought in 1995 that the President of Mexico would some day caution his neighbors not to stray too far from the mutual benefits of open markets? But just now, the Calderon arc is pointing both nations in the right direction. We hope the next U.S. President agrees.
Did jobs leave the United States to take advantage of cheaper Mexican labor? Of course, some did. Were American workers pressured to cut wages, because of Mexican competition? Of course, some were. But that happened because of Mexico, not because of NAFTA. Mexico would not disappear if NAFTA did. From the standpoint of American workers, NAFTA and its successors are just scapegoats. The fact is, China has since passed Mexico as the prime out-sourcing threat, even though we have no "free trade" agreement with China.
Let's therefore stop scapegoating the Mexicans and the Chinese, and accept that they must have their role, which they will largely determine by their own actions, in the world in which we all live. Let's concentrate, instead, on getting things right for workers right here. Let's raise wages, create jobs, support unions, deliver services -- and especially, let's cut the inequalities in our structure of pay.
Attorney General Mike Mukasey.
The Bush administration and Congress are waging an ongoing war of words over an aspect of the war on terrorism: electronic surveillance.
The administration is not backtracking. It warned on Friday of what could have been an even worse degrading of our intelligence collection capacity which, at least for now, turns out not to be as dire because the telecoms have decided to continue cooperating. But the administration maintains that intelligence has been lost already because of the House's failure to pass (or, indeed, even permit a vote on) the Senate bill; it admonishes that the industry could well change its mind; and it adds that — even if the industry keeps cooperating — the loss of the Protect America Act authorities going forward will continue to degrade our intelligence-gathering capacity.
The administration's strategy became clearyesterday: there will be no compromise. The Democrats will back down and pass the Senate's version of the surveillance bill (with retroactive immunity for the telecoms), or they will be consistently attacked for exposing the country to risk.The strategy continued today.
For the second day in a row, Republicans boycotted talks to reconcile the Senate and House versions of the surveillance bill. And then Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Michael Mukasey got in the act...
Will he win this time? (No.)
Ralph Nader is running for president again. He's widely blamed for taking votes from Al Gore in 2000 and handing the presidency to George W. Bush.
The automobile fatality rate per miles driven was less than one-third as high when "Unsafe at Any Speed" was published as it was back in the 1920s. But facts never carry as much weight as a dramatic vision of "corporate greed" sacrificing helpless consumers until they are rescued by "consumer advocates" and federal regulations. For the left, Nader was playing their song and they danced to it.
In one of his earliest writings, Nader said, "the consumer must be protected at times from his own indiscretion and vanity." In other words, he wanted the Ralph Naders of the world to be able to dictate to consumers and producers alike. It's all about him. So is running for president.
Nader insisted this morning that there’s a real hunger in the country for a third-party candidate, but there’s ample evidence to the contrary.
To be sure, it’s likely that Nader’s ability to influence election results has passed. After “peaking” in 2000, with 2.7% of the popular vote, Nader dropped to 0.38% in 2004 (which was even worse than the 0.7% he garnered in 1996). It stands to reason that he’ll fare no better in 2008.
But given all of this, why bother? Why would someone with an impressive legacy on behalf of consumers take additional steps to make his enemies happy, his allies resentful, and his reputation tarnished?
