by Scott Horsley, NPR
The Obama administration is hoping to win quick approval for its new free-trade pact with South Korea, but that deal may be held up by two trade agreements with Colombia and Panama that the White House says aren't ready yet. House Republicans insist that all three be considered together.
Updates
03/07/11
By Ian Fletcher, The Huffington Post
Skepticism about free trade is often stigmatized with ad hominem attacks. These mostly come down to variations on the following:
"Protectionists are dummies, losers, incompetents, hippies, rednecks, dinosaurs, closet socialists, or crypto-fascists."
Thomas Friedman's version in The World is Flat (the Das Kapital of Globalism) runs thus:
Let's face it: Republican cultural conservatives have much more in common with the steelworkers of Youngstown, Ohio, the farmers of rural China, and the mullahs of central Saudi Arabia, who would also like more walls, than they do with investment bankers on Wall Street or service workers linked to the global economy in Palo Alto, who have been enriched by the flattening of the world.
03/04/11
In February, job growth in the manufacturing industry showed promise by adding 33,000 jobs, but also revealed areas where uncertainty has a dampening effect on job creation. Manufacturers still have a long, long way to go in the economic recovery.
03/04/11
R-CALF USA has just released its 2011 report titled “U.S. Trade Balance in the Trade of Live Cattle, Beef, Beef Variety Meats, and Processed Beef: Decades of Neglect,” and the picture it paints is that the promises made by free trade idealists have not materialized for cattle producers, and the U.S. continues to accumulate huge trade deficits in beef and cattle under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), as well as the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
03/02/11
Watch the video here:
Click below to see videos of everyday Americans who are living every day buying and using American goods - and in doing so, creating jobs right here at home.
02/28/11
U.S. manufacturers and machine shops purchased a total of $446.76 million in machine tools and related products and supplies during December 2010, according to the monthly U.S. Manufacturing Technology Con-sumption report. The total indicated a rise of 40.9% over the $318.18 million in sales recorded for November 2010, and up 104.8% over the $218.16 million of sales for December 2009.
In addition, the December total brings the total 2010 manufacturing technology consumption total to $3,236.00 million, an 85.3% increase over the total sales for 2009.
02/25/11
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Last year, Barack Obama committed his administration to doubling U.S. exports in half a decade.
The good news: He is on the way. U.S. exports of goods and services grew in 2010 by 16.6 percent.
Bad news: U.S. imports, starting from a higher base, surged by 19.7 percent.
02/23/11
The majority of Americans say the United States has lost its position of being the world's strongest economy by allowing its manufacturing base to whither and shift offshore. They want the federal government to focus on creating a national manufacturing strategy that leads to more jobs and a rebirth of manufacturing.
02/22/11
By Ian Fletcher
I'm going to ask the reader to forgive the somewhat personal nature of this post, as personal experiences are sometimes revealing about larger issues.
Earlier this year, I was excited to organizing a debate, under the auspices of the San Diego World Trade Center and held on the campus of California State University, San Marcos, on the wisdom of free trade as a policy for the U.S. My opponent was going to be the respected Dan Griswold of the libertarian Cato Institute.
02/22/11
by Tim O’Brien
Courtesy of Daily Kos
The changes going on in our nation and state have been so rapid and devastating that many people, including most elected officials, are in a mode merely to cope with and get through the immediate problems in front of us. But, especially in our present crisis, those immediate problems are not going to truly get better unless we confront the real reasons for our present crisis and the solutions that are needed to build a better future.
It needs to be said. The real problem is outsourcing. The real reason that our economy is in a shambles and, thus, causing the revenue problems for our federal, state and municipal governments, is that Wall Street and the big corporations they run have been undercutting the paychecks of middle class American families by outsourcing to low-wage places in the world.
