05/16/11

Free Trade? Cheap Labor.

There was a lot of controversy with the NAFTA agreement.  NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement, an agreement that was to eliminate  barriers for trade and provide a fluid flow of trade and investment between Canada, US, and Mexico.  It was a hard debate that spanned through two presidencies, through Bush senior to Clintons Administration. Mexico belive they would benifit the most, and that it would help boost their economy, and immigration from Mexico to the US

In the New York Time article by By Elisabeth Malkin, “After 15 Years, Nafta’s promise, unfulfilled”   Even though Mexico’s exports have exploded in recent years, there is still a surge of Mexican crossing the boarder for a better life in the US.  Many Mexicans abandon their home and land and head North.  Things were even harder when China enter the World Trader Orgaization, enabling many companies to take their factories to China and pay even lower wages.  In my opinion, Nafta almost seemed like a legal way for companes to go into poor countries, and legal exploit these people for cheap labor.

It was important for free trade to work because many hoped it would curb migration over the southern border, but free trade is just not enough.

 

05/15/11

Financial regulation


Since Great Depression, there was the worse economic crisis on the Wall Street at 2008. However, Obama administration gave five Financial Regulation Proposals to recover the crisis. First, Obama wanted to “promote robust supervision and regulation of financial firm”. The Second point is to deconcentrate financial markets. Third is to pretest consumers from financial abuse. Fourth is “reforms must address operational issues that tie regulators hands”. Fifth is regulating international financial institutions.
source: http://seekingalpha.com/article/143774-obamas-financial-regulation-proposal-the-devil-is-in-the-details

During Clinton presidency, Clinton established fiscal discipline to reduce the Government spending, pay off national debt and extent Medicare solvency. Also, he opened foreign market; he had 300 free and fair trade agreements with other countries. Especially, he ratified the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993 and Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China in 2000. This created 22 million new jobs due to export goods aboard.
source:http://clinton5.nara.gov/WH/Accomplishments/eightyears-03.html