In The News

Excessive Profits Erode Security

November 15, 2005
President Bush’s current tour of East Asia, specifically mainland China, challenges the scruples of his Administration’s prevailing foreign policy. Intensely critical of undemocratic regimes from Iran to North Korea, the US, in the case of China, has let political concerns wither on the wayside in the wake of its more pressing economic needs. An editorial in the Taipei Times warns of “the...

Greenspan Says Globalization Driving U.S. Current Account Gap

Craig Torres November 14, 2005
The US current account deficit has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching an unprecedented 6.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product. Outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan attempted to explain the widening of that gap yesterday, arguing that the gap reflects “a pronounced new phase of globalization.” Globalization, says Greenspan, has weakened “home bias”—the tendency to invest in one’s...

The Global Sweep to Mop Up the World's Oil Resources

November 14, 2005
China is scouring the globe for energy with which to fuel its economic boom. It has found much of that energy in Africa. Dangling promises of aid and development in exchange for access to oil, Beijing has forged partnerships with a growing number of countries south of the Sahara. The Chinese are not uneasy about dealing with African regimes considered too corrupt or too brutal by the West....

Globalization Rocks, but African Leaders Fail to Understand It

Franklin Cudjoe November 8, 2005
African leaders often describe globalization as an exploitative force keeping Africans in poverty. But in fact, it is the inept and corrupt governments of African countries which are robbing their citizens of the economic freedom to compete in the world market. Many leaders subvert their countries’ constitutions entirely in order to retain power and continue to feather their own nests with...

The Final Outcome of Summit: Two Americas

Andres Oppenheimer November 6, 2005
The fourth Summit of the Americas has fractured the hemisphere into two blocs—one consisting of Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Paraguay, and Uruguay; the other consisting of most of the rest of the Americas—that could not even agree on a joint post-summit press conference. They certainly do not agree on the fundamental issue behind the split: free trade. There is hope for agreement in the...

Prepare Now for Sino-Indian Trade Boom

Niraj Dawar October 31, 2005
China and India are natural trading partners, but years of political hostility have prevented the two from taking full advantage of their complementary relationship. That is changing: Sino-Indian trade may skyrocket from $14 billion annual in 2004 to as much as $450 billion in 2010. Multinational corporations now need to change their business models if they hope to profit from this new surge...

The Fate of ‘Made in the USA’

Robert J. Samuelson October 28, 2005
The specter of declining industry has loomed over the USA in recent years. As the imperatives of free trade and globalization send jobs and factories across borders and beyond oceans, the American worker and the American CEO both recognize they’re in a bind. American manufacturing, once the hallmark of the nation’s booming business, now faces a tenuous future. Robert J. Samuelson, writing for...