If globalization is so great why are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?
If globalization is so great then why is wheat from China the reason for the recall of pet food that contains poison from a pesticide outlawed in the US? Isn't there wheat in Kansas?
Slick talking economists baffle us with B.S. and blind us with their jargon.
Is America better off with globalization?
Is the American working/middle class better off since globalization?
Does globalization only benefit the investing class?
In fact, does anyone still care if we have a strong middle class, or not?
Does anyone think that the strength and stability of this nation is founded on a strong working middle class, the ideal of upward mobility into the middle class by the underclass?
Does globalization kill the "American Dream"?
Is there an inherent danger to a nation with a few wealthy folk at the top and a large base of working poor at the bottom? Are we heading towards a ruling oligarchy?
What’s the core philosophy on this topic here at DU?
What do DU’ers think about globalization, free trade, fair trade and why?
BTW any other articles, links or info are welcomed, I spent some time looking up this info in an attempt to educate myself, but your research and info. are welcomed as is everyone’s opinion on this topic.
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Business Lingo
Outsourcing
http://www.ciol.com/content/search/showarticle1.asp?artid=71146Sourcing needs to become a strategic process whereby companies accept the idea of unbundling their value-chain and focus on operating it in the most optimal way to achieve transformational cost savings (30% - 60%) and transformational revenue growth. For many organizations, this type of analysis will often lead to the adoption of an outsourcing strategy.
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Free trade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_tradeIn international trade, free trade is an idealized market model, often stated as a political objective, in which trade of goods and services between countries flows unhindered by government-imposed tariff and non-tariff barriers. The Laissez-Faire school holds that no other requirements exist, while students of Microeconomics, sometimes called Welfare Economics, point out that Perfect Competition is also required in order for theory, specifically the General equilibrium theorems, to apply.
Nearly all modern non-Marxist economists support the statement that free trade is a net gain to both trading partners and that the gains from free trade outweigh the losses.<1> However, the versions of Free Trade that economists have in mind when making this statement are often quite different.
Fair trade
Main article: Fair trade
The fair trade movement, also known as the trade justice movement, promotes international labor, environment and social standards for the production of traded goods and services. The movement focuses in particular on exports from the Third and Second Worlds to the First World.
Balanced trade
Main article: Balanced trade
Balanced trade is an alternative economic model to free trade. Under balanced trade, nations are required to provide a fairly even reciprocal trade pattern. They cannot run large trade deficits. If deficits appear, the surplus nation must find a way to balance out trade or risk sanctions, fees, or quotas. Critics say this may discourage innovation as one country may reduce its efforts to produce products needed by the other.
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Uncle Milty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_trade_deficit“Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and father of Monetarism, argued that many of the fears of trade deficits are unfair criticisms in an attempt to push macroeconomic policies favorable to exporting<3> industries. He stated that these deficits are not harmful to the country as the currency always comes back to the country of origin in some form or another ...
From a mainstream perspective, Friedman's argument is believed to be correct but incomplete. In particular, it is seen by many as ignoring the intergenerational consequences of deficits. ..That money can be used to purchase existing investment assets and government bonds within country A. As a result, the return from those assets will accrue not to citizens of country A but to foreigners.
Friedman also believed that deficits would be corrected by free markets as floating currency rates rise or fall ...A potential difficulty however is that currency markets in the real world are far from completely free, with government and central banks being major players, and this is unlikely to change within the foreseable future.
Friedman and other economists have also pointed out that a large trade deficit (importation of goods) signals that the country's currency is strong and desirable. To Friedman, a trade deficit simply meant that consumers had opportunity to purchase and enjoy more goods at lower prices...
Perhaps most significantly, Friedman contended strongly that the current structure of the balance of payments is misleading... that "on the books" the US is a net borrower of funds, using those funds to pay for goods and services.
He pointed to the income receipts and payments showing that the US pays almost the same amount as it receives: thus, U.S. citizens are paying lower prices than foreigners for capital assets to exchange roughly the same amount of income...”
Loss of Jobs
http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/06/22/d406221503116.htmUS economy: Outsourcing of jobs overseas is now a reality
Zahid Hossain writes from Atlanta, Georgia
Levi's, an internationally known manufacturing company of jeans closed down its last manufacturing unit in the United States a few weeks back. If it had kept the plant going, paying its American workers $15 an hour and other benefits, it would be selling its jeans at $80. And would any American buy them? Probably not. The typical American will go to any chain-store, like Wal-Mart, for $12 a pair jeans, made in anywhere but the USA, where they pay the locals -- Bangladeshis, Chinese, Indians, or Thais -- at least several times lower than the American wages.
In the name of stock prices, corporate profiteering and bonuses, the backbone of American business is no longer performed in the United States alone. India, China, Indonesia, Egypt, Korea, and other countries have virtually become the homes for manufacturing and service sector jobs. Workers are no longer considered a valuable asset to corporate America and have become an expendable commodity, who, some say, are sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed at the expense of American families and communities.
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Growing trade deficit
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4437179.stmUS trade deficit hits fresh high
The US trade gap rose 4.3% to $61bn (£32bn) in February, data published on Tuesday showed, well above market forecasts of a $59bn shortfall.
Textile imports from China have soared this year
The US trade deficit has widened to a new high as the world's largest economy consumed record imports of consumer goods and industrial materials.
Textile imports rose sharply after the abolition of global quotas in January, with shipments from China to the US rising 9.8% in February.
The growth - fuelled by the ending of decades-old restrictions on the level of textile trade between individual countries - will increase pressure on the US government to introduce measures to protect domestic manufacturers.
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http://www.cpdsindia.org/asiapacific/globalization_tax.htmLoss of tax revenue?
Currently, the recipient (or host) country in which investment or activity is based has the first right to tax the resulting income. The sending (or home) country then has the right to tax the income (which it need not exercise) according to whether it follows residence principle or source (i.e. territorial) principle. Under the residence principle, a country reserves the right to tax the income of its residents regardless of where in the world it is earned. The countries however do attempt to offset taxes paid abroad (i.e. to avoid double taxation) through tax credit (so long as income tax rates abroad do not exceed the income tax rates at home), through deduction of foreign taxes paid from taxable income, or a combination of methods.
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Speeches, Testimony, Papers
The US Trade Deficit and China
by C. Fred Bergsten, Peterson Institute
Testimony before the Hearing on US-China Economic Relations Revisited
Committee on Finance, United States Senate
March 29, 2006
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The Centrality of the Currency Issue
The US global merchandise trade and current account deficits hit annual rates of $900 billion in the fourth quarter of 2005, which amounted to 7 percent of US GDP, twice the previous record of the mid-1980s (as a result of which the dollar declined by 50 percent over the three-year period 1985–87). The deficits could reach annual rates of $1 trillion within the next year or so.
It is thus essential to reduce the US and China imbalances by substantial amounts in an orderly manner. The goal of US adjustment should be to cut its global current account deficit to about 3 percent of GDP, less than half the present level, at which point the ratio of US foreign debt to GDP would stabilize. China’s goal, accepted at least in principle by its political leadership, should be to eliminate its global current account surplus and stop the buildup of foreign exchange reserves.
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The Middle Class Suffers
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-07.htmFebruary 25, 2004 in CommonDreams.org
We Are All Protectionists Now
by Mark Weisbrot
The better-off professionals -- doctors, lawyers, economists -- have all the protection they need from foreign competition. Neither immigration nor outsourcing can lower the cost of their services.
The picture changes drastically as we move below the 27 percent of Americans who have a college degree. The protected professionals who write the rules of global commerce have been eager to expose as many people below them as possible to the rigors of international competition.
The result has contributed significantly to the most massive upward re-distribution of income in U.S. history. While income per person has risen more than 85 percent over the last 30 years, the median wage has risen by only about 7 percent.
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http://www.besr.org/ethicist/jpost/8.27.2004.htmlEthics of outsourcing
Outsourcing is the ethical mirror image of sweatshops
August 27, 2004
But there is a significant difference in the trade- off. Those who lose their jobs to sweatshops tend to be the most vulnerable workers in the economy; manufacturing workers tend to have below- average earnings and to have the most difficulty finding alternative employment. Those who lose their jobs to outsourcing are also victimized by the phenomenon, but they are relatively speaking better equipped to deal with the blow.
A North American factory worker who would be compelled to actually compete with Far Eastern labor would simply not be able to afford the necessities of life; a radiologist compelled to compete would face a drastic cut in salary and would have difficulty paying back his loans, but would be able at least to put food on the table.
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Globalization and Impact on US Workers
http://www.cepr.net/publications/global_primer.htmGlobalization: A Primer
by Mark Weisbrot <1>
October 1999
This widening gap between elite and public opinion is striking, because it is not difficult to imagine how economic globalization might lower living standards for the majority of people in the United States. For example, the idea that increasing competition from low-wage imports would drive U.S. wages downward seems only logical. And there is now a wealth of evidence, even from prominent economists who strongly favor free trade, that this has happened over the last two decades.
The fact that the real wage of the typical American worker has actually fallen over the past 25 years, as the economy had become increasingly globalized, is also an indicator that something is wrong with the process of globalization.
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http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=8073Why Globalization Is in Trouble – Part I
Job loss and worry about identity make the West reconsider the value of trade and immigration
The dominant world powers historically pushed for globalization as a means of increasing wealth and influence. Yet those nations fret as the emerging powers of India and China embrace the same strategy. This two-part series by World Bank economist Branco Milanovic explores why both the world’s wealthiest and poorest nations fear globalization. In the first article, Milanovic argues that citizens of wealthy nations hold two concerns: job loss resulting from competition with low-wage countries and loss of national identity resulting from increasing numbers of immigrants.
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Can globalization lead to global taxes- part of the “New World Order”?
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/glotax/index.htmGlobal taxes can address serious global problems while at the same time raising revenue for development. A tax on carbon emissions could help slow global climate change, while a tax on currency trading could dampen dangerous instability in the foreign exchange markets. The revenue from these taxes could support major programs to reduce poverty and hunger, ensure primary schooling for all children, and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases. Unreliable donations from rich countries will not fill this need, estimated by the UN to cost tens of billions per year. A global system of revenue-raising must be put in place to fund genuinely international initiatives.
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In the mean time, not to worry about global taxes when off shore tax havens thrive:
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/taxhaven.htmlFor decades, the U.S. tax code has encouraged companies like Halliburton to transfer the location of its subsidiaries from the United States to foreign countries. This is one reason why only thirty-six of Halliburton's 143 subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States and 107 subsidiaries (or 75 percent) are incorporated in 30 different countries.
There are two methods by which Halliburton lowers its tax liability on foreign income: (1) By establishing a "controlled foreign corporation" and (2) By establishing a subsidiary inside a low tax, or no tax, country known as a "tax haven."
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Impact on Trade Unions
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/11/content_381558.htmTrade unions launch Beijing Consensus
By Qing Jize (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-10-11 21:14
Trade unions all over the world should enhance their co-operation and explore ways of working together to tackle the challenges posed by economic globalization, an international meeting in Beijing agreed on Monday.
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Globalization Opposition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalisationIn this context the global economy has grown rapidly, yet poverty persists, inequality increases, and global environmental degradation deepens.
The main opposition is to unfettered globalization (neoliberal; laissez-faire capitalism), guided by governments and what are claimed to be quasi-governments (such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) that are supposedly not held responsible to the populations that they govern and instead respond mostly to the interests of corporations. Many conferences between trade and finance ministers of the core globalizing nations have been met with large, and occasionally violent, protests from opponents of "corporate globalism".
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The off shoring of Halliburton to Dubai
http://redding.com/news/2007/mar/13/halliburton-heads-to-dubai/?printer=1/Halliburton provided few details on its pending move, but said it was part of plan to expand its business in the Middle East and other growing markets outside North America.
The company said it would keep a corporate office in Houston and would remain legally registered in the U.S. Nonetheless, Lesar and other executives will be based out of Dubai, the company said.
A Halliburton spokeswoman declined to respond to questions about the move, including how many of its nearly 12,000 employees in Houston would be affected or when the shift would occur.
Halliburton would be one of the best-known U.S. corporations to move to Dubai, the Western-friendly boomtown that is rapidly emerging as a corporate headquarters of the Middle East.
The announcement comes as the company prepares later this month to spin off its military contracting unit, Kellogg Brown & Root, which has been the focus of heavy criticism from lawmakers for what they have described as lucrative no-bid contracts in Iraq.
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