tagged w/ NAFTA
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Recently, former Secretary of Labor made some valid observations on President Obama’s speech in Kansas about economic equality. He said that he was encouraged and is willing to help the President bring a mandate in his second term. Mr. Reich, on his blog elaborates the key points which will help bring about economic equality:
- Tax Financial transactions
- Use tax revenue to create good schools and access to higher education
- Resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act
- Cap the size of Wall Street
- Require big banks that got bailed out to modify mortgages of Americans that owe more than their homes are worth.
These points are very insightful but overlook some facts: President Obama has tried to implement these ideas but has been obstructed by Congress- on both sides of the isles. Furthermore, I blame Mr. Reich and the Clinton Administration for putting the U.S. economy in this position.Recently, former Secretary of Labor made some valid observations on President... more
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The United States is negotiating one of the biggest free trade agreements in history and there is barely a peep about it on the news. Years ago, Ross Perot warned that if NAFTA was implemented there would be a "giant sucking sound" as millions of jobs left this country. It turns out that he was right. Starting on Tuesday, the next round of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (also known as the "NAFTA of the Pacific") will begin in Chicago. We have already seen the Obama administration push hard for free trade agreements with Panama, South Korea and Colombia and the administration is making the Trans-Pacific Partnership a very high priority. Membership in the "NAFTA of the Pacific" already includes Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. The United States, Australia, Peru, Malaysia and Vietnam are scheduled to join. Canada, Japan and South Korea are also reportedly considering membership. So once this "free trade" agreement is ratified, will we hear another "giant sucking sound" as millions more of our jobs are shipped overseas?The United States is negotiating one of the biggest free trade agreements in history... more
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NAFTA was supposed to be an agreement to benefit trade in the U.S. Instead, it's only taken away American employment.NAFTA was supposed to be an agreement to benefit trade in the U.S. Instead, it's... more
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A newly leaked U.S. diplomatic cable originally written over six years ago confirms that the agenda to merge the United States, Canada and Mexico into an integrated North American Union has been ongoing for years, debunking claims made consistently by the corporate media and establishment talking heads that the NAU is a baseless “conspiracy theory”.
“The cable, released through the WikiLeaks website and apparently written Jan. 28, 2005, discusses some of the obstacles surrounding the merger of the economies of Canada, the United States and Mexico in a fashion similar to the European Union,” reports the National Post.
“An incremental and pragmatic package of tasks for a new North American Initiative (NAI) will likely gain the most support among Canadian policymakers,” the document said. “The economic payoff of the prospective North American initiative … is available, but its size and timing are unpredictable, so it should not be oversold.”
While serving to confirm the agenda to integrate the United States, Mexico and Canada into an EU-style political and monetary union, the Wikileaks cable will come as no surprise to those who watched Alex Jones’ 2006 documentary Endgame, in which precisely the same information was outlined, with particular focus on the Security and Prosperity Partnership, or SPP meetings.
The mission to create a North American Union was also discussed in September 2006 during a closed-door meeting of high-level government and business leaders in Banff, Canada.
Despite the manifestly provable factual basis of the matter, during the 2008 presidential election the establishment media attempted to smear Ron Paul by attributing the notion of a move towards a North American Union to him and then claiming it was a non-existent “conspiracy theory,” when the veracity of the issue was readily documented from the very start.
A Newsweek hit piece subsequently claimed that Ron Paul’s concerns over a NAFTA superhighway, a North American Union or a regional currency were completely baseless, and yet the newly leaked cable states U.S. diplomats were busy discussing a “move forward with continental integration, including a possible common currency, labour markets, international trade and the borders of the three countries,” as well as “easier access across the U.S. border,” more than six years ago.
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 3, 2011
You can't snicker and giggle away the New World Order.A newly leaked U.S. diplomatic cable originally written over six years ago confirms... more
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By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
This week marks the final edition of the Weekly Audit. It has been a pleasure compiling the best financial and economic writing in the Media Consortium. Thanks to all the contributors whose work we’ve showcased and to all the loyal readers who have shared in this experience.
Debt Ceiling 101
As the Weekly Audit wraps up, we’re looking ahead to some critical economic issues facing the country. Christen Simeral and Veronica Beebe of The American Prospect explain what the debt ceiling is and why the debate over raising it is shaping up to be the political battle of the year.
In short, the debt ceiling is the maximum amount the government can borrow. The debt ceiling is currently $14.294 trillion. At the current rate of spending, we’re due to hit the wall around May 16, if Congress doesn’t vote to raise it. Usually, raising the debt ceiling is a formality. Congress has voted to raise the debt ceiling 10 times in the last 10 years.
If the debt ceiling isn’t raised, the government can’t take on any new spending commitments. Worse still, the government may not have the cash it needs to pay tax refunds, Social Security payments, and other critical disbursements. Failing to raise the debt ceiling would hurt the U.S.’s credibility in global markets, making it more expensive for us to borrow money in the future.
The war on unions
All across the country, right wingers are trying to turn union workers into scapegoats for the nation’s economic woes.
Right wing media baron Andrew Breitbart tried to frame some labor history instructors at the university of Missouri by deceptively splicing together hours of classroom footage to make it look like the professors were advocating violence and sabotage, Dave Gilson of Mother Jones reports. The unedited video shows that the instructors are discussing the bloody history of the American labor movement, in which violence has overwhelmingly been perpetrated by management against workers.
NAFTA reprise
Multinational corporations are renewing their lobbying push for more NAFTA-like trade deals, Michelle Chen reports for Colorlines.com:
The construction giant Caterpillar is reportedly planning to treat its workers to steaming cups of Colombian coffee in the coming weeks, to warm them to the benefits of doing business with their “partners” in Latin America. While employees enjoy their break, lobbyists will be working hard, in their name, to peddle so-called “open markets” in Colombia, Panama and South Korea.
Chen reports that lobbyists for multinationals are besieging Congress to push for three new accords. The Panama deal is expected to be first on the agenda. Advocates for fair trade have been fighting these deals since the George W. Bush administration.
The push for deregulated international trade is on at the state level, too. The conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is handing out boilerplate resolutions to state representatives urging Congress to approve the trade deals. Chen notes that the Koch Foundation is among the major backers of ALEC.
High gas prices
Gas prices have long been seen as a bellweather of the electorate’s state of mind. When gas is cheap, incumbents rest a little easier. When gas prices rise, challengers start licking their chops. Daniel J. Weiss and Valeri Vasquez report in Campus Progress that rising gas prices are frustrating consumers and enriching speculators:
This year “it’s like déjà vu all over again.” Oil prices are rising to heights not seen since 2008. Oil rose from $85 per barrel to $112 per barrel in a little more than two months—a whopping one-third leap. Gasoline prices have followed along, rising by 70 cents per gallon—or 23 percent—during this same time. As our economy struggles to recover from the Great Recession, Americans are again forced to pinch pennies to afford their commute to work, school, and worship. Meanwhile, oil companies prepare to reap record profits in the first quarter of 2011.
The authors note this combination of rising pump prices and soaring corporate profits looks an awful lot like the oil shock of 2008, which helped push the economy into recession.
Archives from The Weekly Audit can be found here and will remain posted at this site. If you’d like see more top news and headlines from independent media outlets, please follow us on Twitter, or fan The Media Consortium on Facebook.By Lindsay Beyerstein, Media Consortium blogger
This week marks the final edition... more
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By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Too often, the immigration debate in this country ignores the role U.S. foreign policy plays in fueling unauthorized immigration. But as the Obama administration continues to stall on immigration reform in the United States—all the while moving forward with two contentious trade agreements with Colombia and Panama—the connections between the two are worth examining.
CAFTA impoverished Salvadoran famers
During President Obama’s tour of Latin America last month, ongoing mass protests underscored the U.S. government’s own hand in stimulating unauthorized immigration to its borders. Reporting on the president’s visit to El Salvador, for example, Juan Gonzales of Democracy Now! notes that hundreds of Salvadorans gathered to demand the renegotiation of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which devastated the country’s agricultural sector, impoverishing and displacing farmers. Considered alongside the country’s tragic history of U.S.-backed military repression (which Democracy Now! explores in greater detail), it should be no surprise that El Salvador is the second largest source of undocumented immigrants to the United States.
NAFTA displaces one million Mexican farmers
The first, of course, is Mexico—which has its own sordid history of U.S. involvement. As Michelle Chen at Colorlines.com explains, “the deregulation of agriculture under [the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s] coincided with the devastation of Mexico’s farm sector, displacing some one million farmers and driving many northward across the border in search of work.”
While NAFTA created considerable economic opportunities for U.S. businesses eager to conduct business in low-wage Mexico, it also allowed American farmers to flood the Mexican market with government-subsidized corn—destroying the country’s own corn industry and bankrupting thousands of agricultural workers.
Obama’s 180 on Latin American policy
It’s worth noting that Obama, during his presidential campaign, promised to overhaul NAFTA on the grounds that “our trade agreements should not just be good for Wall Street, it [sic] should also be good for Main Street.” Yet, as Steve Ellner argues in the latest issue of In These Times, Obama gradually abandoned his initially critical stance on Latin American policy—choosing instead to “placate rightist critics.” Ellner adds that Obama’s shifting position on the pending (CAFTA-modeled) trade agreement with Colombia—moving “from opposition…to lukewarm endorsement…to vigorous support—is just one example of his turnabout on Latin American policy.”
While Obama has taken some steps to address potential labor abuses in the agreement (NAFTA and CAFTA’s absence of such measures is a key criticism of the deals), trade unionists in Colombia and the United States alike have voiced skepticism:
Communications Workers of America President Larry Cohen argued against the agreement by pointing out that 15 million Colombians representing 82 percent of the working population are not recognized as workers and thus under the law “have no rights.”
Big Business funds paramilitary killings in Colombia
The skepticism is well founded, as the United States has a long history of favoring business interests over the rights of workers—both at home and abroad. Earlier this month, for instance, evidence surfaced that the Cincinnati-based Chiquita Brands International may have hired Colombian paramilitary groups “responsible for countless killings” as security for its Colombian facilities. This is in spite of the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) concluded an investigation of Chiquita in 2007, ruling that any money paid out to the paramilitary groups—one of which was a designated terrorist watch group—was extorted, and that “Chiquita never received any actual services in exchange for them.”
Jim Lobe and Aprille Muscara of Inter Press Service report that the documents were released by the National Security Archive (NSA), an independent research group, on the same day that President Obama met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to discuss labor rights in the pending trade agreement. According to Michael Evans, NSA’s chief researcher on Colombia, the evidence against Chiquita is clear.
“What we still don’t know is why U.S. prosecutors overlooked what appears to be clear evidence that Chiquita benefited from these transactions,” he told IPS.
U.S. banks launder billions for Mexican drug cartels
Even more recently, news broke that the federal government failed to prosecute a number of U.S. banks guilty of laundering billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. New America Media/Al Diá reports that Wachovia (now owned by Wells Fargo) alone moved $378.4 billion for cartels through money exchangers and $4.7 billion handled in bulk cash between 2004 and 2007. Yet this past March, the federal government formally dropped all charges against the bank, per a settle agreement reached the previous year, and despite Wachovia’s indirect role in financing a five-year drug war that has taken countless lives and continues to drive unauthorized immigration to the United States.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.By Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Too often, the immigration... more
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Now, I never aim to inspire defeatism, but today I aim to inspire disillusionment, which is a very different thing. I think we can all agree it’s a good thing to be without illusion, and right now there are far too many of us who believe in this illusion that the folks at the top got their through legitimate means, and maintain their position through legitimate means, that The Man’s game is a fair one.
The Man? Yeah. Normally, I don’t like abstractions like this, but for the sake of understanding our economic situation, I find it’s easier to understand if we lump the so called “captains of industry” together into one entity. If we lump the Wall Street Banks, the Globalist Chemical Companies, the Globalist Factory Farms, the Military Industrial Complex, everything that isn’t Labor, into one entity. Because it really is, us versus them.
Right now we’ve got a Republican President who is pretending to be a Democrat, and we’ve got a Republican Party who is trying to send our nation back to the time of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” We had a regressive corporate shill in Clinton who totally fucked working people of America over with NAFTA and the WTO. We had regressive corporate shills in GW Bush and Reagan who busted unions and rolled back labor protections, environmental protections, consumer safety protections, all in the name of the fuckers at the top making shit loads of money while you die of cancer because of their pollution in your air, water and soil.
An illusion we need to dispense with is that we all share equally in our nation's prosperity, that a rising tide lifts all boats, as it were.
Truth is, as the rich get richer, we get poorer, which is clearly demonstrated by this chart you can view over at StateOfWorkingAmerica.org
The lower 90% of Americans, by income bracket, have actually seen their mean wages decline since 1977, while the top 1% by income bracket, have seen their income balloon wildly, seeing their already absurdly high income triple, while our income has declined. We’re working more today, for less money.
Another illusion is that most people you know are middle class. This is bullshit, pure and simple.
Most people who think that they are middle class are actually working poor, and hover just above the poverty line.
And to the Union Labor in WI, who is saying publicly that they’re willing to negotiate all their benefits away... This isn’t a time to be negotiating. This is a time to get aggressive. Shit is getting serious, people are losing their homes, the whole fucking economic system is collapsing, and people are suffering. This is the time to go for the whole goddamn cake.
Why? Well, there’s something you should know:
It was never in the plans for you to make any money, to make anything of yourself.
It was never in the plans for anybody but the rich, the REALLY rich, to get ahead in life.
That is an illusion started with the Horatio Algers stories of rags to riches. We love these stories here in America. They show real life examples once and a while as fluff peices on the nightly news. But these cases are extreme statistical outliers, you’re more likely to get rich playing the lotto than by working hard and keeping your head down. It doesn’t matter that it’s never going to fucking happen to you. The Rags to Riches story still a cornerstone of the American Dream. But Horatio Algers wrote fiction, and dreams are fantasies experienced while asleep.
You are poor. How do I know? I don’t. But by pure statistics alone, I’m certain you are. You might be in denial about this, but the truth remains, you’re poor.
You’re just one severe illness away from being homeless, and losing everything, but maybe you don’t know it. There are middle class people, people with insurance, who get cancer, cap out on their claims, lose everything, and die homeless. And with cancer rates rising every passing year, this is lottery game you’re far more likely to win.
Unless things begin to change, and I mean REALLY CHANGE, you're going to be poor FOREVER, too. And your kids are going to be poor. My generation is the first generation that will do worse than their parents. Not because we’re lazy, but because the free-market economic system is collapsing in on us, and we’re being forced to take shittier jobs, without union protection, without benefits, with lower wages. Thanks to NAFTA and the WTO, my generation has to compete with children in China who are literally working for rice. We have to compete with workers in Mexico who get paid 7 cents and hour. Unless we change things, we’re going to keep getting poorer and poorer.
When you get poorer, the rich get even richer.
How? That’s just the rules of the game. The game called “Free Market Capitalism.”
The Super Rich, the parasites down on Wall Street, they own the whole goddamn Monopoly game. They own the playing board, they own the shoe and the thimble and the scottish terrier, they own the dice, and they own the money. They are The Man. We all play by their rules. Don’t beleive me? Have you checked your credit score lately? Oh, it doesn’t look so good does it. Maybe that’s because you have too much credit card debt. Or not enough credit card debt. Or maybe you don’t pay your statements off fast enough. Or maybe you pay your balance off too fast. Or maybe it’s just all just fucking bullshit set up by the bankers on Wall Street to control your spending habits so they can steal even more of your goddamn money by making interest off of your debt.
So, What are the rules?
The rules go like this: you work for them your whole life, give up every waking moment to earn that money that you so desperately need to stay alive, and then when you get it, you pay rent back to your capitalist master for permission to keep living. So that you can keep living to do what? To keep working, until you get too old to work and become either social securities problem, or if social security is gone by then, you become your kids problem. And if your kids can’t support you because they’re competing against workers in Mexico who get 7 cents an hour, then you end up on the street curb with the rest of the trash that nobody wants.
You’re a fool to think that the money you earn is ever really yours. That money is owned by The Man, and he’s only lending it to you temporarily, so that you THINK you’re making progress. They’ll take it back from you soon enough. And no I’m not talking about taxes. The Man gives you just enough of their money so that you stay just happy enough, or just confused enough, that you don’t fully realize you’re being totally fucked every moment of your life.
Every breath you take, they are snatching their money back from you. You want to buy food so you don’t starve to death, you pay The Man. You pay Kraft Foods, Inc and you pay Con Agra and you pay Monsanto. You can’t get to your job by public transport so you have to buy a car. You get your loan to buy your from The Man.
The Man charges you interest on this new debt you just created, and The Man immediately begins to trade your debt with his buddies, as if it were money.
If time is money, it stands to reason that money is time, and when you are in debt, you owe your time on this earth to the Man. When the man is trading your debt like money, what he’s really doing is trading your life away. He is selling derivatives on his ownership of your every breath. He’s trading in futures of YOU, with the implicit guarantee that you’ll keep slaving your sorry ass to the bone so that The Man can turn more profits, because you promised to give The Man back all the money he just gave you and then some.
So now you’re working for The Man for free. How does it feel to be a slave? Shut up, go watch TV. Don’t talk politics. How dare you question America, the greatest best country on earth that god ever gave to man? Gave to man? Or gave to The Man?Now, I never aim to inspire defeatism, but today I aim to inspire disillusionment,... more
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In January Steven Hansen observed that, through November, the trade deficit for manufactured goods was the equivalent of 1.3 million workers earning the median manufacturing wage in the U.S. Well, the trade deficit has been with us in a major way for nearly two decades. I am reminded of the 1992 presidential campaign where one of the three candidates, Ross Perot, argued against the adoption of NAFTA, The North American Free Trade Agreement. The other two candidates supported NAFTA.
Perot is famous for his statement that a free trade agreement that was not a two way street would create a “ giant sucking sound” of jobs going south to the cheap labor markets of Mexico. Both of Perot’s opponents (George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton) argued that NAFTA would create jobs in the U.S. because of business expansion.
However, the goods balance of trade for the U.S. with Mexico has been negative and steadily growing over the years. In 2010 it amounted to $61.6 billion, which was 9.5% of the total goods trade deficit last year.
So Perot has been vindicated in his opinion; expanded free trade has not been accompanied by an increase in jobs in the U.S. relative to the vast numbers of jobs created in the rest of the world as NAFTA became just a stepping stone on the pathway to global commerce.
Veronique de Rugy has produced a graph which shows how manufacturing output and manufacturing employment have varied over the years 1975 – 2010.
Read more here:
http://econintersect.com/wordpress/?p=5769In January Steven Hansen observed that, through November, the trade deficit for... more
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Yank the husks off ears of corn grown in the mountains of southern Mexico, and you may find kernels that are red, yellow, white, blue, black or even variegated.
It's only one measure of the diversity of the 60 or so native varieties of corn in Mexico. Another is the unusual adaptation of some varieties to drought, high heat, altitude or strong winds.
Plant specialists describe the native varieties of corn in Mexico as a genetic trove that might prove valuable should extreme weather associated with global warming get out of hand. Corn, one of the most widely grown grains in the world, is a key component of the global food supply.
But experts say Mexico's native varieties are themselves under peril — from economics and genetic contamination — potentially depriving humans of a crucial resource.
Farmers are punished at the marketplace for selling native corn, and some types are dwindling from use. Perhaps more significantly, genetically modified corn is drifting southward and mingling with native varieties, potentially bringing unexpected aberrations and even possible extinction.
At stake may be more than just curious and exotic types of corn, grown in small fields alongside beans and then ground into tortillas after harvest.
"With climate change," said Aldo Gonzalez, an indigenous Zapotec engineer with long, flowing black hair who's at the forefront of protecting native varieties, "new diseases could occur, and the only place in the world where we can look for existing varieties that might be resistant is in Mexico.
"These varieties of corn might at some point save humanity."
Corn is not only a crucial crop in Mexico but also a symbol in a nation that's the birthplace of the grain. Maize likely originated from a grass-like, tasseled plant, teosinte, in southern Mexico. Scientists say humans domesticated corn 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.
In the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Mayans, gods create humans out of cornmeal, allowing the "people of corn" to flourish.
Through the centuries, varieties of corn adapted to different soils, altitudes, temperature conditions and water availability, and Gonzalez said the seed stock handed down in his village in this corner of the Sierra Juarez range in central Oaxaca state probably wouldn't grow well just a few miles distant.
"In the sierra here, there are varieties of corn that grow as high as 3,000 meters," Gonzalez said, or nearly 10,000 feet. "There are varieties that can be planted in swampy land or that you can plant in semidesert areas. They may not be very productive but they have allowed people to survive."
Native varieties of corn have fed humans for millennia in Mesoamerica.
"The elders understand the importance of various types of corn because they had their fields in different places under different conditions," said Lilia Perez Santiago, an agricultural engineer who works for a state forestry bureau.
Perez was among the activists behind a petition in 2000 to the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation, a panel created under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The petition claimed that genetically modified corn, altered to be pest resistant or herbicide tolerant, had drifted to southern Mexico and begun contaminating native varieties.
Four years later, the panel recommended to Mexico that it suspend modified corn imports and adopt strict labeling rules to allow the public to identify food products that contained such corn. Mexico ignored the recommendations, arguing that the ruling came into conflict with its obligations to open markets under trade pacts.
In late 2009, the government permitted a subsidiary of a U.S. conglomerate, Monsanto, to test genetically modified corn on isolated plots of about 240 acres in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas states in the north.
The head of Monsanto Mexico, Jose Manuel Madero, said at a news conference two weeks ago that the federal government demands further tests before allowing commercial farming of the genetically altered corn.
Madero said modified corn was in use in 20 countries around the world and would help Mexico raise agricultural productivity, cut its reliance on food imports and slash the use of herbicides, thereby protecting the environment.
Several scientists have joined a Mexican grass-roots campaign, known as Sin Maiz No Hay Pais, or There Is No Country Without Corn, to oppose the import or harvest of genetically changed corn.
"We have a nationwide survey that shows genetic contamination in Guanajuato, Yucatan, Veracruz and Oaxaca (states). We also know of some large-scale plantings in Chihuahua," said Elena Alvarez-Buylla Roces, a molecular geneticist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
She said lab analysis showed that some native varieties already carried altered genes.
"There is no possibility of coexistence without contamination," Alvarez-Buylla said. "One gene can make a large difference. Do we want to run the risk?"
Black-market brokers already sell genetically modified seed corn to farmers in the north of Mexico, opponents say, and bags of unmarked genetically altered corn have been found in the far south.
"The bags of corn are not secure. During transport, some bags break open and fall out. So there are many possible ways of contamination," Perez said.
The vast majority of farmers of native varieties select seeds each year to save for the next harvest, thus making what Alvarez-Buylla described as "active, dynamic genetic elements" prone to aberrations from genetic drift of altered corn.
Scientists don't know which varieties could prove useful for climate change.
"We don't really know if there is a variety with the most promise. Promise for what?" Alvarez-Buylla said, adding that future climate conditions are unknowable.
While the government maintains seed banks for native corn, Alvarez-Buylla said, "This is not a diversity that can be preserved in a laboratory."
cont.
Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/02/107954/mexico-cradle-of-corn-finds-its.html#ixzz1Cxc4CThDYank the husks off ears of corn grown in the mountains of southern Mexico, and you may... more
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A great, easy to understand how Democrats and Republicans are working together on destroying the Middle Class.
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The Bush tax cuts are now extended. What cost $3.4 trillion over the past decade, 80% of which accrued to the wealthiest households and U.S. corporations, will now cost another $802 billion over the next two years and a projected $4 trillion over the coming decade.
But the Bush tax cut extension just passed by a political elite increasingly united on economic policy—a ‘Repo-Demo’ Party dominated by corporate interests—is only the first of three phases in a new policy offensive designed to protect the incomes of the wealthy and corporate America for another decade, to be paid for directly by middle- and working-class America.
Phase two: draconian spending cuts
The second phase will likely be implemented in the next three months, before the ceiling on the federal debt has to be lifted. It will take the form of massive spending cuts in the U.S. budget, targeting Social Security and Medicare in particular.
Phase three: revising tax code to help the wealthy
As part of this general revision, the Bush tax cuts will likely be made permanent for the rest of the decade to come. In addition, personal income tax brackets for the wealthiest households will be reduced to no more than three, possibly two, with a top rate for the wealthy or no more than 28%, representing a return to Reagan years.
To pay for the tax code rewrite and even more concessions to wealthy households, investors and corporations, the middle class will pay more. Adjustments to the Alternative Minimum Tax, AMT, for the middle class will be phased out. And the mortgage interest tax credit will be eliminated in stages as well.
The key question: Will any jobs be created?
Corporations are today sitting on a cash hoard of more than $2 trillion, according to the business press, not investing or creating jobs. Why should increasing that hoard another $500 billion or so result in anything different? That’s the key question conservatives and the ‘Repo-Demo’ Party elite must answer—but are avoiding. That’s the question the media should be asking, but about which they remain conspicuously silent.
Obama’s 2011 ‘Stimulus 2’ will thus prove no more effective than his 2009 ‘Stimulus 1.’ The past decade has produced repeated tax-cut heavy policies targeting the rich and corporations: Bush II and a Republican Congress 2001-06. Bush II and a Democratic Congress 2006-08. Obama and a Democratic Congress 2008-10. And now Obama and a de facto Republican Congress.A great, easy to understand how Democrats and Republicans are working together on... more
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Why Do Mexican Workers Head North Pt2 - Tim Wise: U.S. corn exported to Mexico at 19% below cost of production, based on his study.
Bio
Timothy A. Wise is Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, and leads its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program. With a background in international development, he specializes in agricultural policy and rural development. He is involved in ongoing research in the areas of: Sustainable Rural Development, Beyond Agricultural Subsidies, Mexico Under NAFTA, WTO and Global Trade. He is the co-author of the book (in English and Spanish), Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico, and The Promise and the Perils of Agricultural Trade Liberalization: Lessons from Latin America. He is the former executive director of Grassroots International, a Boston-based international aid organization. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from Tufts' Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Department.Why Do Mexican Workers Head North Pt2 - Tim Wise: U.S. corn exported to Mexico at 19%... more
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Timothy Wise: Mexican agriculture was undermined by NAFTA and companies like Smithfield.
Bio
Timothy A. Wise is Director of the Research and Policy Program at the Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, and leads its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program. With a background in international development, he specializes in agricultural policy and rural development. He is involved in ongoing research in the areas of: Sustainable Rural Development, Beyond Agricultural Subsidies, Mexico Under NAFTA, WTO and Global Trade. He is the co-author of the book (in English and Spanish), Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico, and The Promise and the Perils of Agricultural Trade Liberalization: Lessons from Latin America. He is the former executive director of Grassroots International, a Boston-based international aid organization. He holds a Masters in Public Policy from Tufts' Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Department.Timothy Wise: Mexican agriculture was undermined by NAFTA and companies like... more
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On October 31st, 2010 Pontiac officially died. After 84 years and approximately 40 million vehicles sold, the Pontiac brand is no more. Pontiac actually built its last car almost a year ago, but on October 31st GM’s agreements with Pontiac dealers officially expired. So say goodbye for the final time to the GTO, Bonneville, Firebird, Sunbird, Grand Am and Grand Prix. No more vehicles with the beautiful red arrowhead emblem will ever be manufactured. The company that produced muscle cars that so many millions of American boys grew up worshipping has passed on. In this life, nothing lasts forever, but it just does not seem right that Pontiac is gone.
Back in the 1960s, Pontiac was only behind Chevy and Ford when it came to U.S. vehicle sales. However, by 2009, Pontiac had fallen to 12th place and was struggling badly. In the end, General Motors finally pulled the plug.
The following is how the New York Times recently described the sad passing of Pontiac….
Pontiac, the brand that invented the muscle car under its flamboyant engineer John Z. DeLorean, helped Burt Reynolds elude Sheriff Justice in “Smokey and the Bandit” and taught baby boomers to salivate over horsepower, but produced mostly forgettable cars for their children, will endure a lonely death on Sunday after about 40 million in sales.
Most of us that have owned Pontiacs will never, ever forget them. Pontiac made some really fun cars. However, it is undeniable that the quality did decline over the years. A couple of years ago I rented one of the newer Pontiacs and I found myself deeply disappointed.
It just shows that you can’t take anything for granted. At one time Pontiac made some of the greatest cars in the world. But that day has long since passed.
Unfortunately, the same thing is happening to America on a much greater scale.
Once upon a time, the United States was the greatest manufacturing machine in the history of the world. But today, America is being deindustrialized at a staggering rate.
In 2008, 1.2 billion cellphones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States? Zero.
A recent article on the Economy In Crisis website described some of the sad signs of deindustrialization that we have seen over the past decade….
Televisions have not been made in America since 2004. The last vending machine made in America was in 2003. The Mattel toys that children love to play with ceased to be made in America in 2002. And in June, the last factory in America that made silverware shut its doors for the final time.
As I wrote about yesterday, America has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001.
The U.S. economy is being radically transformed, and most Americans don’t even realize it.
In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.
Will we eventually get to the point where barely anything is still made in America?
Well, the truth is that the economy would probably totally collapse long before we ever got to that point. The pillars of the economic machine that once made America the envy of the world are being kicked out right from underneath us, and our fragile economy simply cannot take much more of this.
Right now the American people are very, very angry about the state of the economy, but most of them still believe that if they just vote in the “correct” politicians that all this can be fixed in just a couple of years.
But that simply is not true. The U.S. economy is in the process of dying, and at this point neither political party has shown even the slightest ability to slow down the unfolding horror.
So say a prayer for Pontiac and for all of the Americans that used to work for that once great car company, but at this rate the rest of the U.S. economy will be following Pontiac into oblivion very rapidly.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/goodbye-pontiac-–-yet-another-sign-of-how-rapidly-america-is-being-deindustrialized.htmlOn October 31st, 2010 Pontiac officially died. After 84 years and approximately 40... more
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A tenth of Mexico's population could surge north to escape climate-triggered crop failures, study claims.
If climate change worsens drought in Mexico, crops could fail and people be forced to migrate, says a new study.
A wave of up to 6.7 million migrants from Mexico could head to the United States to escape the ravages of climate change on crops, say the authors of a new study. The findings are claimed to be the first to thoroughly quantify how shifts in global climate might affect human migration from one region to another.
The study's authors, from Princeton University in New Jersey, say the United States should prepare for the arrival of up to 10% of Mexico's adult population over the next 70 years as a result of falling agricultural productivity due to climate change.
According to the Pew Hispanic Centre in Washington D.C., there were 12.7 million Mexican immigrants in the United States in 2008.
But the study has also provoked ire from immigrant-rights advocates, who say the findings could be used to advance anti-immigration causes. In the United States, Mexican immigration is a contentious issue, and tough new immigration laws in Arizona, which borders Mexico, have sparked national debate in recent months.
The latest study is likely to fan the flames, as it warns of exacerbated environmental, economic and social problems that unmanaged and unexpected climate-related migration could bring to both the United States and Mexico.
"It would behoove them as scientists to shift their focus," says Lorenzo Cano, associate director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston in Texas, who is an activist for immigrants' rights. "[This is] research that will contribute to the xenophobia that is already running amok in our country today."
Down on the farm
Publishing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,1 environmental scientist Michael Oppenheimer and economist colleagues set out to develop a model that quantitatively predicts the potential size of the problem of mass human migration spurred by climate change. The team focused on cross-border migration from Mexico to the United States as an example.
Applying standard statistical techniques common in economics, they used Mexican state census data to infer the flow of emigration. They then correlated this with data on how changes in climate had affected maize (corn) and wheat productivity in different Mexican states during the same time. In this way, they estimated the sensitivity of Mexican emigration to alterations in crop yields due to climate change.
The resulting figure — that a 10% reduction in crop yields leads to an additional 2% of the population emigrating — was then applied to what might happen under the scenario proposed for 2080 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in which levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have stabilized at 555 parts per million, and global temperatures are 1–3 °C above recent temperatures.
Keeping other variables constant, the authors modelled the results for a series of different levels of agricultural adaptation that Mexican farmers might undertake to mitigate the effects of climate change.
In the worst-case scenario of no adaptation, crop yields dropped by 48%; in the best-case scenario, with major adaptations, crop yields fell by 10%. The authors estimate that this would spur the emigration to the United States of between 1.4 million and 6.7 million adult Mexicans (or 2–10% of Mexico's current adult population).
"This is obviously just the opening gun [for the model]," says Oppenheimer. "We want people to be looking at other border regions to build up a global picture."
He said the team had thought hard about how their results might be used before undertaking the work. They decided that it was better to provide the information, which would be "of interest" to policy-makers, and to do their best to ensure that it was not used for the wrong purpose.
Baseline facts
"We certainly don't want these results to be misused as another hammer against immigrants," Oppenheimer says, adding that the team is not making value judgements or specific policy recommendations, but simply trying to determine the "baseline facts" so that policy-makers can decide what to do.
But others disagree, saying that it is wrong to make Mexican immigration to the United States the focus of the climate-change problem and that the study lacks context.
"Mexican migration is part of the solution to many of the current [US] labour market demands," says Cano. "The scientific community should explain this within the context of any studies focusing on the impact of climate change."
Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an anti-immigration group, says the group did not consider that "bad news" was "good news" for its cause, but that the study highlights a serious problem. "This could be yet another area that Mexico neglects," he adds.
Others identify assumptions in the study that could mean the predicted size of the immigration flow is too large.
Neil Adger, an expert on climate-change adaptation at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, who is evaluating human migration issues for the next IPCC report, says the study does not consider the possibility that crop yields in the United States could also be drastically reduced by climate change. "This would reduce the demand for labour and dampen the flows suggested," he says.
cont.A tenth of Mexico's population could surge north to escape climate-triggered crop... more
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The rift created by free trade: The first rift this implies is between people who obtain most of their income from work and people who obtain most of their income from returns on capital. People in the latter category obviously want all labor to be as cheap as possible. People in the former category want the labor they consume (directly or embodied in goods) to be as cheap as possible, but the labor that they produce and sell, namely their own wages, to be expensive.This implies the possibility of an electoral coalition in which one part of society treats itself to cheap foreign labor at the expense of another. (http://www.freetradedoesntwork.com/Excerpt_from_Free_Trade_Doesnt_Work_Ch_12.pdf)
....Four congressmen have now moved a bill to repeal NAFTA. Superficially, this means little, as passage of this bill is unlikely in the near future. But more fundamentally, it means a lot because, unbeknownst to most Americans inside and outside the Washington Beltway, free trade is inexorably losing its base of support on Capitol Hill.
This means, for a start, that President Obama's recent brave-faced pledge to move forward with his proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (interestingly, the dread phrase "free trade agreement" has been carefully left out of the name) is quite likely dead on arrival. Obama himself may know this and may have staged this gesture simply to placate foreign nations and domestic corporate interests.
The lack of any change on trade issues in the Oval Office has distracted most Americans from the fact that in recent years there has been an inexorable movement away from free trade in the House and Senate, driven by the public's relentlessly rising skepticism of free trade.
For example, according to one analysis by Global Trade Watch, no fewer than seven Senate and 30 House seats flipped from pro- to anti-free trade in the 2006 election. Seventy-three percent of winning Democratic candidates in that election emphasized trade as an issue in their campaigns, while 72 percent of losing Democratic candidates did not. Not a single candidate of either party ran on free trade as a positive agenda, and not a single opponent of free trade was ousted by a free trader, in either the House or the Senate. Six anti-free-trade Democrats - Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and Jim Webb of Virginia, plus Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont - captured seats formerly held by free traders.
This trend continued in 2008. Thirty-six new free-trade opponents were elected to the House: 13 in contests against incumbents, 20 in battles for open seats, and three in special elections. (Eight free-trade opponents lost, so the net gain was 28.) And seven new free-trade opponents were elected to the Senate: Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Udall of Colorado, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Al Franken of Minnesota.
Ian Fletcher
http://www.truthout.org/thinking-unthinkable-could-america-repeal-nafta58717
image: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/feb06/images/Free-trade%20cartoon.jpgThe rift created by free trade: The first rift this implies is between people who... more
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The 4th annual Zapotec Feria of the Cornfield - Globalization and the Natural Resources - was held in Santa Gertrudis, Sierra Juarez on February 7-8. Organized by the Union of Social Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca (UNOSJO), this year´s event was attended by representatives of UNOSJO´s 24 affiliated communities, participants from all over Mexico, along with a large international presence of activists from Uruguay to Wales, Turkey to the United States, as well as a 15-strong delegation of German Organic farmers.
This year´s theme was focused on the dangers of contamination from Genetically Modified (GM) Corn, with a showcase of indigenous corn based culture and food sovereignty.
“We plant corn for the well-being of the communities,” said community leader, Rodrigo Santiago Hernandez during the opening plenary, emphasizing the importance of the culture of corn for the Zapotecs.“If we don’t cultivate corn, we have no life. It is central to our existence. We are the people of corn.”
Or as the old saying goes – no hay pais, sin maiz (there is no country without maize).
Community President, Baltazar Felix, elaborated, “To be a campesino or campesina allows us to respect and understand the profound worth of our madre tierra (mother earth). Corn is the basis for our expression of autonomy and central to our usos y costumbres (practices and customs), which represent our Zapotec culture and indigenous way of life. “
Contaminated maize was first detected in Oaxaca in 2001, resulting in a serious threat to the biodiversity of the native species, because, as explained by Ana de Ita from CECCAM (Center of Studies for Change in the Mexican Countryside), “ genetically-modified crops have the potential to cross-breed with native crops, altering the evolution of the entire population”.
Pandering to the lobbyists from the bio-tech and agricultural industry interests like Cargill Corporation and Monsanto, the Neo-liberal PAN government of President Calderon reversed the 1998 ban on genetically-engineered seeds this March. Twenty-five pilot projects sowing transgenic seeds were begun in Northern Mexico. Genetically modified pollen has the capacity to travel great distances via wind or water sources, thereby threatening to contaminate the whole Mexican corn race.
cont.The 4th annual Zapotec Feria of the Cornfield - Globalization and the Natural... more
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LOS ANGELES - Barred from using lead in children's jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows.
more at link
NAFTA and GATT was a bipartisan effort, led by Al Gore and Newt Gingrich b/c both parties are owned by the NWO. If we support the Freedom of Currency Act, Industrial Hemp Act and End the Fed, all proposed by Ron Paul, we can save this country and protect our children.LOS ANGELES - Barred from using lead in children's jewelry because of its... more
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