Perusing the New York Times today, I saw where the labor unions are starting to have some doubts about the loyalty of the new Democratic majority in the US congress. After having been whacked around for the past four decades or so, the American trade union movement is at the point now where it has to prevail on this, or risk total extinction.
“All of this is playing out”, says the Times article, “under the nervous, suspicious gaze of an army of interest and constituent groups, particularly on the left, where many fear the committee will eventually bow to the powerful interests on the pro-trade side. Organized labor in particular has been voicing concern in recent days.
‘Sandy Levin sits on a committee that has tremendous pressure on it from Wall Street,’ said Representative Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio and a longtime critic of American trade policy. ‘I hope he’ll be able to stand up for Main Street, but I don’t know.’
Mr. Levin said fears that Democrats would give up on their core demands, for labor and environmental standards, were groundless. ‘If anyone thinks that after all this work, we’re going to give it up, they’re just wrong,’ he said.
The Ways and Means Committee has rarely been known as a hotbed of economic populism. Its new 24-member Democratic majority has a voting record that is significantly more pro-trade than the House Democratic caucus as a whole, concluded an analysis of 15 trade votes by I.M. Mac Destler, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland and author of American Trade Politics.”
Okay, fair enough. But still, like the late Will Rogers is reputed to have said: “This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.” Isn’t that the truth! Because as economist Lew Rockwell pointed out, real free trade doesn’t require any laws or treaties.
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Free_trade, laissez-faire, economics, Lew_Rockwell, economics
1 comment:
"real free trade doesn't require any laws or treaties". beautiful. i don't have a problem with unions, i have a problem with politics. if unions want to get together to pressure employers - fine. if they want to get together and pressure employers by law then they can go to hell. it gotten to the point where i'm just totally disinterested in the ridiculous philosophies of government. when someone proposes some new government initiative or whatever, i totally zone out. it's silliness. regardless of the voting records, i just have such little faith that anyone in government has the slightest clue about "free markets" that anything less than a miracle for free trade barely gets my attention.
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