Posted inUncategorized

Leggy, blonde coed hooker wrecks world trade talks

Years ago, when I was a reporter in San Diego, we had a contest: Who can bore readers with the fewest words in the lede (the winner, at three words: "Otay Water District," as in, "Otay Water District directors voted Tuesday to…" — the reader would have moved on to the hockey scores after only three words).

Nowadays the winner is "world trade talks." A funny thing, that, considering how much globalization has revolutionized American lives, for good and ill, while most Americans haven’t been paying attention. So prop open your eyeballs as I note that world trade talks collapsed yesterday.

I suspect something more fundamental changed. The failure of the Doha Round of talks may well mean the end of the trade paradigm that has prevailed since the end of World War II. This is the biggest news story that will get the least attention.

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Posted inPolitics: National

When we say NAFTA, what do we really mean?

NAFTA figured heavily into the Democratic primary in Ohio, yet most of the news coverage and the debates themselves proved unsatisfying. We were served the canard that NAFTA helps consumers but hurt manufacturing jobs. NPR made it sound as if the trade agreement’s consequences are ancient history. The Democrats were more muted on NAFTA in Texas, where Laredo has boomed as a trade port.

Of course, NAFTA is a proxy for trade liberalization and globalization. China has hurt Ohio manufacturing more than Mexico. So, too, have the domestic automakers, undergirding the state economy, that continue to make boring, homely cars that fewer Americans want to buy.

But the real issue goes deeper even than that, and any fixes will be problematic. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make them.

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