NewsTrust - Trade - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Independent)

Sen. Chase talks about the importance of fair trade - YouTube

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

YouTube - By Maralyn Chase - May. 08 (Opinion) - video

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We Decide How to Share Gains

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Stan Sorscher - May. 02 (Opinion) - Multinational employers steadily move work offshore, and lay off thousands of workers. We've cut funding for education; student debt is over a trillion dollars. We've terminated pensions, weakened unions, made work more contingent and more precarious. Wal-Mart cuts hours to avoid paying for health care. Some elected officials demonize teachers, and public employees, and turn public opinion against any regular worker daring to hope for a higher standard of living. Globally, workplace insecurity and inequality are at historic levels.

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Charts: How Much Danger Do We Face From Homegrown Jihadist Terrorists?

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Dave Gilson - Apr. 24 (Opinion) - More MoJo coverage of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings Perhaps the most unusual thing about the Boston Marathon bombing is that it happened at all. While we've seen all manner of terrorist bomb plots since September 11—the Times Square bomber , the underwear bomber , even the guys who fantasized about destroying the Sears Tower —all have been thwarted by the FBI, the perpetrators' own bumbling, or both . If one or both of the suspects in last week's attack, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were motivated by radical Islamic beliefs , then they will have the dubious distinction of being the first domestic jihadists to have set off a bomb on American soil since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. While America has been fixated on the threat of Islamic terrorism for more than a decade, all but a few domestic terror plots have failed. Between September 11 and the end of 2012, there were no successful bomb plots by jihadist terrorists in the United States. Jihadists killed 17 ...

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How Science Can Predict Where You Stand on Keystone XL

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Chris Mooney - Apr. 17 (Comment) - On February 17, more than 40,000 climate change activists—many of them quite young—rallied in Washington, DC, to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, which will transport dirty tar sands oil from Canada across the heartland. The scornful response from media centrists was predictable. Joe Nocera of the New York Times , for one, quickly went on the attack.

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How Walmart, ExxonMobil, and Coke Buy Latino Friends in Congress

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Andy Kroll - Apr. 08 (Opinion) - In late February, some 70 guests arrived for dinner at a hotel near Washington, DC's Union Station. Nine members of Congress were there, including Reps. Rubén Hinojosa (D-Tex.), Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), and Gloria Negrete McLeod (D-Calif.), as was former Labor Secretary Hilda Solis . Also in attendance were lobbyists and executives for Fortune 500 companies and big industry trade groups. Lonnie Johnson, a lobbyist for ExxonMobil, sat next to Hinojosa at dinner; Walmart lobbyist Ivan Zapien gave the closing remarks . Exxon, American Gas Association, Darden Restaurants, and Coca-Cola had underwritten the event. That was how, seven weeks into the 113th Congress, as lawmakers began work on immigration reform and a tax code overhaul , powerful corporate lobbyists scored premium access to politicians. The dinner was organized by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI), an obscure offshoot of the 27-member, all-Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus . ( Caucuses are factions of ...

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Hong Kong Dock Workers Strike Against Long Hours, Low Pay

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Global Voices - By Oiwan Lam - Apr. 04 (Opinion) - A strike by Hong Kong dock workers demanding a pay raise and protesting arduous working conditions is delivering a costly blow to the city's port operators and winning widespread sympathy from the public.

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Democrats Are Undermining Wall Street Reform, Too

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Erika Eichelberger - Apr. 03 (Opinion) - Many of the laws that Congress passed to rein in big banks in the wake of the 2007 financial meltdown have yet to go into effect, but lawmakers are already working to dismantle them. And it's not a partisan thing either. A group of 21 House lawmakers—including eight Democrats—is pushing seven separate bills that would dramatically scale back financial reform. The proposed laws, which are scheduled to come before the House financial-services committee for consideration in mid-April, come straight on the heels of a major Senate investigation that revealed that JP Morgan Chase had lost $6 billion dollars by cooking its books and defying regulators—who themselves fell asleep on the job. Why the move to gut Wall Street reform so soon? Financial-reform advocates say Democrats might be supporting deregulation because of a well-intentioned misunderstanding of the laws, which lobbyists promise are consumer-friendly. But, reformers add, it could also have something to do with Wall Street ...

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CPA Members Visit 105 Congressional Offices

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

prosperousamerica.org - By Sara Haimowitz - Mar. 15 (Press Release) - Fixing the trade deficit was CPA’s number one issue. The U.S. has the worst trade performance of any country in the history of the world. President Obama and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative wrongly push increased “two way trade” which results in record trade deficits and a massive transfer of industries, jobs, intellectual property and wealth to other countries.

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Facing the Threat of the Trans-Pacific Treaty

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

The Tyee - By Raul Burbano, Kristen Beifus, Manuel Pérez-Rocha - Mar. 08 (Opinion) - Since NAFTA was signed almost 20 years ago, all three North American countries have seen good jobs vanish, worsening income inequality, public services weakened through underfunding or offloaded to the private sector, increased food insecurity (in particular in Mexico), and ecosystems on the point of breaking. NAFTA promised a flourishing North American economy that would benefit all. In Jan. 2014, NAFTA has been in place for 20 years and the promised trickle down benefits have not been realized by communities.

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Good Trade Policy: Three 'Thought Experiments'

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Stan Sorscher - Feb. 22 (Opinion) - what if -- and here is the third thought experiment -- we could write trade agreements that protect investor rights and help grow trade AND protect the environment, AND honor human rights and labor rights, and raise living standards. A balanced global agreement will produce prosperity and redeem the promise of globalization. Senator Merkley from Oregon recently outlined two reasonable trade practices that would raise living standards, promote democracy and preserve the environment. It's not hard to come up with more.

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The Strategic Importance of Keystone XL

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Michael Klare - Feb. 12 (Opinion) - This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website. Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the "dirtiest," carbon-rich oil on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the US Gulf Coast.

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European Mammals Make Like Gérard Depardieu, Flee to Russia

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By James West - Jan. 16 (Comment) - By 2080, Russia might witness a vast mammalian invasion, as sub-arctic European animals flee global warming and adapt to a thawing tundra. New textbooks may need to accommodate never-before-seen communities of species as climate change pits predator against predator beyond the Russian steppe. That's what a group of Swedish researchers predict in a new climate change study published in the journal, PloS One . "North Western Russia will be some kind of hotspot of species richness," said Christer Nilsson, an ecology professor, via Skype from Umeå University in Sweden. "Species will be on the move and there will be new combinations of species." Red and fallow deer, wild boar, the Eurasian badger, rabbits, mice and beaver will all be on the move as new tracts of habitable land open up. Fallow deer, heading to Russia John Kent/Flickr In a surprising twist, Professor Nilsson and his team found that most species in the Barents Region, which includes the northern half of Norway, Sweden, ...

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Could This Scary Report Get Americans to Care About Climate?

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Chris Mooney - Jan. 15 - Lately we're being bombarded by news about just how dramatically climate change is transforming the United States. Early last week, we learned that 2012 was by far the hottest year on record in the lower 48. Late Friday came another gut punch : a draft of the third US National Climate Assessment. The report describes, among other things, a future of disappearing coastlines, a staggering rise in average temperatures of up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (~6 C) this century, and more frequent heat waves and weather extremes. What's more, it bluntly states that our modest efforts thus far are "not sufficient" to avert these devastating futures. If we don't do a lot more to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the report warns, the warming will "accelerate significantly." From a public opinion perspective, it's hard to think of a more propitious moment for the arrival of such a document. Polling suggests that Americans are increasingly aware—and unnerved—that our world is changing rapidly. They've ...

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No on Lew

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Bernie Sanders - Jan. 11 (Opinion) - As a supporter of the president, I remain extremely concerned that virtually all of his key economic advisers have come from Wall Street. In my view, we need a treasury secretary who is prepared to stand up to corporate America and their powerful lobbyists and fight for policies that protect the working families in our country. I do not believe Mr. Lew is that person.

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China’s Great Dream

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Daily Beast - By Melinda Liu - Dec. 30 (Opinion) - Beijing’s new communist party boss, Xi Jinping is inspiring his countrymen with talk of a Chinese renaissance.

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Unprecedented lockout of stakeholders from TPP negotiating venue

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

infojustice.org - By Jane Kelsey - Dec. 03 (Statement) - “It is patently obvious that our government is actively attempting to block us from having private interactions with negotiators who have their own concerns or want more information in areas they lack expertise, or are simply polite enough to respond to requests for meetings.” “The previous round held in New Zealand in December 2010 was widely criticised for its secrecy – including by journalists trying to find out what is happening. It looks positively transparent when compared to what we are now confronting, which is hugely depressing and totally unacceptable.”

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Cracking Down on China Means Cracking Down on Mitt Romney

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - By Dean Baker - Oct. 02 (Opinion) - In short, the issue is not really one of finding a president who is prepared to stand up and be tough against a cheating China, the issue is finding a president who is prepared to stand up and be tough with U.S. corporate interests. Romney can certainly blame President Obama for not taking the tough stand against U.S. corporations in his first term. The question is whether there is reason to believe that Romney would be any tougher on his friends and former business partners.

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Portugal: Massive Protest Against Troika Sparks Momentum

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Global Voices - By Sara Moreira - Sep. 17 (Opinion) - The biggest demonstration of the last decades in Portugal took place on September 15 2012 , under the anti-austerity motto "Screw troika! We want our lives". Nearly 1 million people took to the streets to protest against the government. Beyond discontent, bloggers are reflecting on new citizenship paths that might follow.

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GOP Convention, Mitt Romney Haunted By Ghost Of George W. Bush

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Dan Froomkin - Aug. 30 (Opinion) - his absence is not just physical; it's metaphysical. That's because Bush's very existence belies two of the most critical selling points of GOP nominee Mitt Romney's presidential campaign: That tax cuts for the rich will create jobs, and that Romney is bringing a fresh new approach that can turn the country's fortunes around. "What they want to go back to is exactly what Bush did then, and that didn't work,"

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Dave Eggers' Gem of a New Novel Goes Right After the Decadence and Heartlessness of Corporate Capitalism | Alternet

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Chris Hedges - Aug. 28 (Review) - Dave Eggers’ gem of a book, “A Hologram for the King,” is a parable about the decadence, fragility and heartlessness of late, decayed corporate capitalism. It is about the small, largely colorless men and women who serve as managers in our suicidal outsourcing of manufacturing jobs and the methodical breaking of labor unions. It is about the lie of globalization, a lie that impoverishes us all to increase corporate profits.

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Morsi: Between Human Rights and Extremism

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Informed Comment - By Juan - Jun. 30 (Opinion) - Egyptian President-elect Muhammad Morsi addressed an enormous crowd in Tahrir Square on Friday, paying homage to the revolution that allowed him to come to power through the ballot box. The headline item in his speech was the following: “Dr. Muhammad Mursi . . . pledged to secure the release of all political prisoners, saying, ‘I [...]

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So-Called Free Trade -- Bad Policy and Wrong Debate

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Stan Sorscher - Jun. 18 (Opinion) - Everyone I know is in favor of trade. I am 100 percent in favor of trade. The issue is not "trade." The issue is good trade policy, which raises my standard of living, or bad trade policy, which lowers it. Similarly, I am in favor of capitalism. Even so, we can have real, significant, meaningful, legitimate debates about good rules for capitalism and bad rules for capitalism. I am in favor of banks. We deserve serious policy debates about banking.

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Punk Economics: Lesson 3

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

YouTube - By David McWilliams - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Irish Economist David McWilliams discusses the dangers of playing games with liquidity, in Lesson 3.

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Brian O’Shaughnessy on the VAT

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

tradereform.org - By Brian O'Shaughnessy - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - The question is not whether we have new taxes, high taxes or low taxes. The question is whether we have smart or dumb taxes in relation to promoting economic growth and international competitiveness.

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How, Exactly, Does Trade Bring Prosperity?

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Stan Sorscher - Jan. 11 (Opinion) - I work for a labor union in the aerospace industry. We are 100% in favor of trade. We make products the rest of the world wants to buy. With increased trade we expect more prosperity. Instead, we see the American economy de-industrializing and job security at historic lows. So, what's going wrong?

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