Thomas Palley

Around the world there are growing rumbles about globalization, and these rumbles are not confined to activist anti-globalization movements. In East Asia, the financial crisis of 1997 left a jaundiced sense of globalization, though robust economic recovery has tempered that. Globalization’s standing has also been badly damaged in Latin America by the meltdown of the Argentine economy in 2000 and successive financial crises in Brazil in 1999 and 2001. In Europe, new fear about globalization is surfacing in a range of countries. In Poland it has taken the form of concern about foreign capital taking over the Polish banking system, and foreign takeover fears also permeate France and Italy. In France and Germany, working people link globalization with pressures to dismantle the social democratic state. (more…)

China’s President Hu Jintao will visit Washington DC next week (April 20) where he will meet with President Bush. For the last several years, China’s under-valued exchange rate has been imposing large costly distortions on the American economy. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has taken no action. Instead, it has allied itself with multi-national corporations who are profiting handsomely from the current U.S. – China economic relationship, which allows them to import cheap Chinese products on which they earn huge margins. If the President won’t take decisive action to get China to significantly revalue its exchange rate, Congress should. Here is an economic indictment against China that justifies such action. (more…)

One of my all time favorite rock albums is The Who’s “Who’s Next” and one of my favorite tracks on that album is “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Right now there is much talk of a housing bubble, making for the possibility that a lot of people are getting fooled. (more…)