News

I was just reading a blog on the Huffington Post. The full article is more of a rant but I am thinking about the idea in the last paragraph.

It is not about "protectionism" nor about so-called "free trade." The question is: what are the rules? Right now, trade deals are structured primarily around the interests of capital and investment. And, with all due respect to Rangel, his deal with the Administration barely scratches the surface. In fact, I've never believed that side agreements on labor and the environment will change much (because they are almost impossible to enforce) until the very nature of these deals are changed.
The real challenge is to scrap the NAFTA-style trade deals. The only way to do that is to start with a blank page and start with the following premise: trade is about trying to improve the standard of living of communities. When you answer that premise, then, labor rights and the environment are addressed as fundamental pillars of any agreement--not grafted on as an after thought. And, then, and only then, would we ask the question---how do corporations help society reach that goal?

So I now have something to mull over in this debate just as I was becoming bored with dicussions of free trade and guidelines that never seemed to be enforceable. For the article he is ranting about go to "New York Times"