CommonPrejudice

Labour Standards

Interesting article at Washington Monthly on international labour standards and how big corps inspect their factories.

I have one criticism though. The author T.A. Frank says:

The problem that arose for Nike and many other companies, however, was that the media, starting in the 1990s, began to run stories on terrible labor conditions in factories in Asia. When consumers started to get angry, Nike and many other companies were nonplussed. We're just buying these shoes, they said—it's not our business how Mr. X runs his factory. And they had a point. If, for example, I learned that my dry cleaner was paying his employees less than minimum wage, I might feel bad about it, but I doubt I'd spend hours vetting alternative dry cleaners for labor compliance. I've got too much else to worry about in life, including my shirts.

I'm sorry I don't believe they have a point at all. As the writer probably knows (a former factory inspector) this is the old argument. And his analogy doesn't work. A much better one would be that in general I have been quite satisfied with my local dry cleaner but I hear that all my friends are using a dry cleaner across town that is infinitely cheaper. So I go there. Then I find out about what the dry cleaner pays - though I strongly suspected as much when I went there in the first place - but continue to use it, or switch to some other dry cleaner that charges the same price. You see, the difference between Frank's analogy and reality is the companies actively seek out the "cheaper dry cleaner." So they always have been "vetting," just for cost not labour compliance.

But overall the article is good. Nike actually comes out looking like they have taken the vast amount of criticism in the 90s to heart and, at least comparatively speaking, act reasonably. Walmart, on the other hand, are the SOBs that you would completely expect.

The New 'White Trash'

As the United States heads into its important congressional elections it is widely recognized that triviality and superficiality are playing an ever increasing role in determining the victors come election time.

Many, myself included, have spent a fair amount of time criticizing the lack of substance, the distractions away from issues of paramount importance, the excessive consumerism and the corrupt democratic practices. However, we probably don't spend enough time looking for causes, beyond the stereotypical anti-American bias. Der Spiegel editor Gabor Steingart's new book is excerpted in the online Spiegel site, offering a class perspective on the causes and realities of this detachment and superficiality, specifically relating to globalization and the burgeoning "white trash" class in Germany and throughout western Europe:

The destitute laborer of old had something that today's poor no longer have: He knew who the enemy was; he had a class identity; he often even had a well-developed culture. He sang songs, fought his political fights, founded associations and idolized social theoreticians, even if he didn't fully understand them....

We know, for example, that today's proletariat is richer than the worker of generations past. Indeed, with a little skill, he can tap into the coffers of the state's social safety net, which provides him with access to an income comparable to those of police officers, warehouse workers and taxi drivers. Thus, it is not material poverty that separates him from others.

Rather, what stand out are the symptoms of intellectual neglect. The poor of today watch television for half the day. These days, television producers even refer to what they call "Underclass TV." The new proletariat eats a lot of fatty foods and he enjoys smoking and drinking -- a lot. About 8 percent of Germans consume 40 percent of all the alcohol sold in the country. While he may be a family man, his families are often broken. And on Election Day, he casts a protest vote for the extreme left or right wing party, sometimes switching quickly from one to the other. [Of course there is no significant extreme left party in the U.S.]

But the main thing that sets the modern poor apart from the industrial age pauper is a sheer lack of interest in education. Today's proletariat has little education and no interest in obtaining more. Back in the early days of industrialization, the poor joined worker associations that often doubled as educational associations. The modern member of the underclass, by contrast, has completely shunned personal betterment.

He likewise makes little effort to open the door to the future for his own children. Their language skills are as bad as their ability to concentrate. The rising rate of illiteracy is matched by the shrinking opportunities to integrate the underclass. The Americans, not ones to mince words, call them "white trash." ...

It really seems that more than anything this age of previously unknown riches and crass consumerism has led to an astounding anti-intellectualism to the point where there is a palpable hostility to rationality and common sense. And,as Steingart says, there seems to be no desire to remedy the situation through education or a concern for the world their children will inherit.

When the leader of a nation with the capacity to unleash wars of tremendous peril and destruction can be determined by 'who you would rather have a beer with' it can only mean that there are serious societal problems that go infinitely beyond party politics. Now the state of the world as it is today - with global warming presenting monumental challenges and the war in Iraq killing hundreds of thousands of people -it is certainly understandable why every effort must be made to dethrone the criminal clan currently occupying the White House. However those partisan Democrats who believe that a change in the government is anything more than a short term solution to the current chaos are clearly missing the forest for the trees.

Unless societies as a whole can begin to deal with the profound lack of interest in simply educating oneself and striving to create a more just, sustainable and peaceful world in the rapidly changing social and political environment globalization brings, it becomes almost impossible to view the future of this planet in any sort of optimistic fashion.

On that note, how bout' those 'skins. Man they suck this year.

Protest Against CAFTA in Costa Rica

In the last country not to ratify CAFTA, the opposition to the Central American trade deal took to the streets yesterday:

Around 10,000 Costa Ricans protested on Monday against a free trade deal with the United States, calling on the legislature to reject the agreement.

The demonstrators marched through the streets of San Jose and other towns to protest against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) that will remove trade barriers between Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

A General Strike continues today. One survey had 70% of the Costa Rican people believing that the trade deal would benefit the U.S. more than Costa Rica - which makes sense because it almost certainly would.

A couple of months ago I started a post on Costa Rica and the trade deal but didn't complete it. I'll mention a couple of things now that I had planned to then. First, Costa Rica is pretty well split between supporters and opponents of the deal. Last spring's election saw current president Oscar Arias beat challenger Otton Solis by only 18,167 votes out of 1.4 million cast. (The final result took weeks to sort out and Solis's claims of irregularities were rejected by election officials. Sounds familiar doesn't it. Amazing how the pro-US candidates squeak by and election authorities reject any claim of irregularities. I guess you just have to chalk it up to pure good fortune)

Now look at what Arias said a couple of months ago after being sworn in:

Sovereignty is not defended with prejudices or slogans but with work and with concrete plans to bring prosperity to Costa Rica. Isolating Costa Rica from great movements in the modern world is a reactionary cause and a betrayal of the country's youth,...

He is learning well from his Washington mentors. Rejection of a free trade deal with the United States is by no means - obviously - a path to isolationism and certainly not a betrayal of the country's youth. It is simply absurd to claim it is. The so-called free trade deals with the US have often resulted in an almost perverted from of development with laborers and agricultural workers paying the stiffest price while the rich become much more so. One only needs to look at what effect NAFTA has had on Mexico to see this. (See here, here and here for example). And Arias has made an even more ridiculous claim:

Nobody would invest a penny in this country if we're not part of the free trade deal with the United States.''

Of course this is nonsense. Europe is certainly interested in expanded trade relations with Latin America and the Costa Rica has many trade options within the Western hemisphere itself without having to resort to an abandonment of its economic sovereignty under a trade deal with an infinitely larger and more powerful nation that cares little beyond what it can gain for itself.This is even more the case under the Bush clan. A couple of months ago, in preparation for the congressional elections now just two weeks away, Bush made commitments to House members from textile producing states to make changes to CAFTA to ensure passage of CAFTA. This included a deals to preserve pocketing and lining business in the U.S and to protect U.S. cotton and man-made trouser business in Nicaragua. Do you think they will play fair? From an AP story last April:

Despite skepticism among U.S. labor groups and Congress, those agreements have been an unqualified success for American exporters. For example, U.S. exports to Chile have almost doubled, to $5.2 billion (€4.19 billion) last year, in the two years since the two countries signed a deal, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said.

But among Latin Americans, the dollar diplomacy has left a bitter taste.

"Nobody who sat across the negotiating table from the United States came out of the talks feeling they got a fair deal," said Peter Hakim, president of the nonpartisan Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. "And many feel they’ve been outright cheated."

Part of the failure to impress is attributable to a surge of leftist leaders in Latin America, who’ve deftly capitalized on the region’s traditional protectionism and mistrust of Washington.

But even economists concede that free trade has barely helped the region reduce widespread poverty, which has remained stagnant for decades.

Moreover, the pacts may end up hurting farmers and rural peasants who make up almost half of Latin America’s 500 million people. By permanently locking in trade preferences, countries entering trade deals are effectively turning a blind eye to the $17 billion (€13.68 billion) that U.S. farmers receive annually in government subsidies, making it extremely tough to compete.

Of course this doesn't stop such Tommy Friedman wannabes like Andres Oppenheimer from depicting opponents as greedy or looking out for themselves while at the same time the other side simply has Costa Rica's best interest in mind.

...Not surprisingly, powerful business people and union leaders who could lose their protected fiefdoms if forced to face greater international competition argue that the country's economic opening has widened the income gap. Free trade supporters counter that a growing economy benefits everybody, and that the failure to lift more people from poverty stems among other things from ridiculously low tax collection levels.

There is an abundance of evidence that the path to economic and social development in Latin America is far more complex than simply throwing open the doors to foreign investment. Even Oppenheimer notes what has happened in Costa Rica as the Wasington Consensus model began in the country.

...Part of the problem is that, as newly released census figures show, Costa Rica's economic expansion in recent years has greatly benefited the rich, but has failed to do much for the poor. While the top 20 percent of the population increased its per capita income by 96 percent between 1988 and 2004, the bottom 20 percent of the population saw its income rise by only 7 percent, the figures show...

Arias however does not appear to favour dialogue this time (he won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping end the wars in Central American in the 1980s by doing just that). Rodrigo, his brother and cabinet spokesperson said Monday:

Demonstrators are asking the government to withdraw the free trade agreement from the legislature: a demand we cannot accept. This government is acting coherently, as it announced in its campaign for office. This agreement is needed by the country.

With a nation so divided on this issue it would seem to be more prudent to undertake a more conciliatory position, open up a dialogue and perhaps best of all, hold a referendum on the free trade deal, especially given the extremely narrow margin of victory in the election last spring. But whereas dialogue can be used to stop war, this is about money and apparently there can be no compromise here.

This is What We're Talking About

Could it be any clearer? (via Oil Wars)

...Tony Blair urged  [Evo Morales] use his power responsibly, which is like Mark Oaten lecturing the Pope on sexual continence. Condoleezza Rice accused him of "demagoguery". The Economist announced that Bolivia was "moving backwards". The Times, in a marvellously haughty leader, called Morales "petulant", "xenophobic" and "capricious", and labelled his seizure of the gas fields "a gesture as childish as it is eye-catching".

Never mind that the privatisation of Bolivia's gas and oil in the 1990s was almost certainly illegal, as it took place without the consent of congress. Never mind that - until now - its natural wealth has only impoverished its people. Never mind that Morales had promised to regain national control of Bolivia's natural resources before he became president, and that the policy has massive support among Bolivians. It can't be long before Donald Rumsfeld calls him the new Hitler and Bush makes another speech about freedom and democracy being threatened by freedom and democracy...

Four days before Morales seized the gas fields - on May 1 - an even bigger expropriation took place in an even poorer country: the African republic of Chad...

In 2000, the oil companies gave the government of Chad a "signing bonus" of $4.5m, which it immediately spent on arms. Then, at the beginning of 2006, it simply tore up the law it had passed in 1998. It redefined the development budget to include security, seized the fund set aside for future generations, and diverted 30% of the total revenues into "general spending", which, in Chad, is another term for guns. The World Bank, embarrassed by the fulfilment of all the predictions its critics had made, froze the revenues the government had deposited in London and suspended the remainder of its loans. The Chadian government responded by warning that it would simply shut down the oil wells. The corporations ran to daddy (the US government) and, on April 27, the bank caved in. Its new agreement with Chad entitles Deby to pretty well everything he has already taken...

So, on the one hand, you have a man who has kept his promises by regaining control over the money from the hydrocarbon industry, in order to use it to help the poor. On the other, you have a man who has broken his promises by regaining control over the money from the hydrocarbon industry, in order to buy guns. The first man is vilified as irresponsible, childish and capricious. The second man is left to get on with it. Why? Well, Deby's actions don't hurt the oil companies. Morales's do. When Blair and Rice and the Times and all the other apologists for undemocratic power say "the people", they mean the corporations. The reason they hate Morales is that when he says "the people", he means the people.

Really, read the whole thing. Seriously I am going to throw up the next time I hear Bush or Rice or Blair talk about human rights and democracy. Just shut up and go away. For the sake of humanity.

No More Debt in Nigeria

Nigeria has paid off its debt. Good news right? You bet. Those international creditors have had it rough over the last few years. And c'mon, the poor have always been poor so what does it matter?

The Jubilee Debt Campaign, a pressure group, notes that the $12.4 billion that Nigeria has paid back over the past six months is more than the G8 club of rich nations will give away in debt relief to poor countries over 10 years.

"Twelve billion dollars in Nigeria would have gone a long way towards saving children, immunisation, healthcare, all kinds of  things," Professor Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium  Project, told British lawmakers last year.

"But the donors got greedy. They said, 'Take the oil revenue that you have responsibly been saving up, and instead of investing it in your needs, give it to us'," Sachs complained.

You see it is about the principles. There are lessons that need to be learned. Sure, 75% of Nigerians live on less than a dollar per day, but some people just need new Hummers and exotic vacations. Priorities people.

(image of Nigeria from world-crisis.com)

Local Development, Not Open Borders

In an argument similar to mine on immigration and development, Tom Philpott from Grist Magazine adds an environmental perspective. Here is his part of his solution:

... An environmentalism that challenges this fundamental status quo has real potential to bolster sustainability. By developing and promoting local production for local consumption on both sides of the border, the U.S. economy can wean itself from its schizophrenic addiction to disenfranchised Mexican labor. And the Mexican economy can begin to work for its own citizens, not for the global investor class.

To do so means forging cross-border coalitions to challenge the assumption that state power exists to promote long-distance trade. One place to start: the 2007 Farm Bill, which Congress will soon take up. The bill will govern how the government subsidizes agriculture. Since the 1970s, the federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars rewarding bulk production of environmentally ruinous commodities like corn, which also threaten rural livelihoods in Mexico.

Let's work to rewire federal farm policy to promote organic agriculture destined for nearby consumption. Ending the commodity-corn subsidy alone will instantly provide relief to beleaguered rural Mexicans now contemplating a hazardous trip north to a nation that both relies on and scorns them.

While in the comments Patrick believes it not likey to help much in the United States then goes on to discuss the myth of the labour market even within current borders:

...  I suspect that this ends up being something else a few people can do that reduces their personal contributions to the "problem" without affecting the overall situation.

   About wages and the size of the workforce.  The general idea that most people accept is that if the workforce is smaller, than wages will go up.  This may be somewhat true in very limited cases, but the basic idea is based on the myth of the free labor market.

    Corporations such as Wal-mart don't really compete for workers.  Their very size means that they dominate a workplace sector (local retail) so much that they can impose any terms they want.  So, the idea that a dissatisfied worker can pressure his/her boss by threatening to go elsewhere, well, it is unrealistic.

    Over the last forty years (or so), real wages for the vast majority of the work force have fallen.  (The high tech bubble of the late 80's and 90's only created high paying jobs for a very few people) ...  This has been true in times of both high and low un-employment.

    Fast food chains are an interesting example.  In the mythical free market, when there was a shortage of workers, they would raise wages to attract more.  [Their] cost would be passed on to their customers in the form of higher prices.  But wait!  For many of them, the prices they charge are set by the franchise holders.  So, since they cannot "freely" raise prices, they cannot "freely" raise wages.  Unfilled jobs remain unfilled, and the pressure becomes not to hire more workers at higher wages, but to make the existing workforce put in more hours.
...

  Wages generally go up under three circumstances.  First, when workers join unions.  The problem these days is that unions are weak or non-existant in many sectors.  Second, when government forces action by setting minimum wages.  Third, they go up slightly to keep workers satisified and in regards to inflationary pressure (however, this kind of increase is weak, and is why real wages have fallen so far behind inflation in recent years).

     Don't believe me?  How about a reality check.  Are wages generally higher in large cities (New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco) with lots of people (including undocumented workers)) or in rural areas with few people (and presumably less competition for the jobs that exist)

I do agree with Patrick that the labour market is in fact much more of a myth than a reality within a country's borders, and therefore opening up the borders really wouldn't be enough of a solution to the huge number of Mexicans leaving their country. However, in my last post I argued for some forms of protection in order that a country like Mexico develop at a local level and I believe Philpot's ideas are consistent with this. As well, my motive in previously suggesting open borders for workers was really an attempt to point out the hypocrisy of those who on one hand preach free trade, while on the other demand that the borders be walled off. And while I have some hesitation in stating that Philpott's plan for locally produced agriculture would work well in American society, I do believe it could be effective in Mexico, which is where poverty relief is so desperately needed. In addition, taking into account a study* that indicated the presence of unskilled Mexican workers in the U.S. between 1980-2000 caused wages for unskilled American workers to be 8% lower than they would have been had the Mexican workers not been there, local development within Mexico will also benefit the American working class. And in any case, the United States is rich enough to take care of its own if it truly choses to (as long as much of the working class votes for Republicans and against their economic interest it can be fairly concluded that they haven't chosen this path as of yet.)

[Sidenote: In his discussion Philpott notes an expression from Mexico that I hadn't heard before, but is at the core of my argument:

There's a saying in Mexico that for every bushel of corn you dump on us, we'll send you ten workers.

It would be nice if this perspective was somehow introduced into the debate. It is shameful that so-called progressive are not doing so.]

* ("Professors George Borjas and Lawrence Katz of the National Bureau of Economic Research recently calculated that the real wages of US high school dropouts would have ended up 8% higher in 1980-2000 if unskilled (and mostly illegal) Mexican workers had been kept out, even if higher-skilled immigration had continued at the existing rate.")

More On Immigration

Previously I have come out strong against the very concept of restricting the movement of labour under the prevailing economic trade agreements that allow capital virtual free access to the economies of developing nations.

Frankly I am appalled, but not surprised, by how the issue is debated within the United States. The debate focuses solely on how immigration effects the United States while virtually no attention is paid to the root causes of the massive flow of the impoverished labourers from Mexico and much of the rest of Latin America to their rich northern neighbour.

Nevertheless, even if one is sympathetic to my position, certainly a valid criticism is that it is unrealistic. So in that vein I would like come at this issue from a more realistic perspective.

One thing many Americans fail to appreciate is that Latinos don't want to leave their families, their friends, their homeland. (The family ties in these cultures are much stronger than they are for Canadians and Americans, without question). They come because they have to.

Building walls not only is impractical, it is so very short-sighted. People, when faced with no other option, will try to come no matter how high the wall is built. And the current state of their economies and societies leaves far too many in this situation.

What has to happen is some serious development in Mexico and throughout Latin America. As long as these countries simply serve as client states of the U.S. and fail to drastically expand the middle class and drastically reduce poverty, then the immigration issue will never, ever go away.

And it is my position that this kind of development will never occur under trade arrangements that treat the developing countries as if they were at the same level of development as the rich countries. Local industries will not develop and neither will the middle class to a sufficient degree under prevailing mainstream economic theory, that is neo-liberalism. Until now the contrary has almost always occurred; that is the majority of locally owned industries, businesses and farms remain stagnant or collapse as foreign capital and multinationals of the rich, developed nations overwhelm the economy (local certainly does not mean local subsidiaries of giant multinationals who end up repatriating the majority of their profits). And if a government attempts to curtail the foreign multinational's single-minded pursuit of profit by attempting to institute fair taxes and worker and environmental regulations the company will simply flee to some other sucker country who doesn't treat them so "harshly." Further, spending on the critical areas of health and education can not be carried out in the developing nations as long as the IMF and the World Bank continue to insist on the implementation of various forms of their infamous structural adjustment programs. Of course this is done to satisfy the foreign investors who would not take kindly to any reduction of debt repayment. Further, so much of Latin American debt is accumulated interest which, as is its nature, snowballs.

Now all of this is not a railing against trade in general, nor a cry for an irrational protectionist system. Some industries need to be protected but this must be done on case by case basis, evaluating the pros and cons.  For example, to wipe out all tariffs on imported beans and corn in Mexico guarantees a massive social upheaval as innumerable farms are wiped out. Unemployed and desperate farmers then head to the already polluted and over-populated capital and/or to the border to look for work on the other side simply to feed themselves or to send money back to their families. On the other hand it makes no sense to have tariffs and subsidies so high that the local farms are seriously inefficient. Those who can produce reasonably efficiently should be protected while those who really are hopelessly inefficient can not expect to continue on like that. Of course adequate social problems to help those who can't compete at all must be in place, as well, in the case of the Mexican farmers, the opportunity to maintain small plots of land to feed themselves.   

(It disgusts me to no end to hear the racist idiotic rants of ignorant Americans such as the clown I recently heard on CNN scream that 'we don't know why they come; to look for jobs or to murder and bring diseases." The vast majority, whether legal or illegal work very hard yet earn very little while still managing to send as much as they possibly can back to their family in their native countries. These so-called disease carrying murderers have more ethics and scruples than a thousand morons like this one I heard on CNN ... or the Mike Savages of the country)

Additionally these developing countries must be granted some serious debt relief if a slowdown to the influx of immigrants is desired. This, with a reasonably caring government at the helm (something that is finally becoming much more predominant throughout Latin America) will result in the capacity to invest heavily in the vastly underfunded social areas of health and education. This in turn will, without a doubt, result in more people staying home, living with their loved ones and pursuing their version of the American dream.

There is only one solution to the immigration crisis and you would be extremely hard pressed to find anyone in the mainstream media who is talking about it. The solution is to deal with the poverty and underdevelopment in Latin America in a serious and profound manner. And if you disagree with my approach outlined above and you believe that this can only occur through absolute unrestricted "free trade" then open up your goddamn borders.

[Finally back on line]

A Follow Up on Immigration

I would like to add a point to my post on immigration the other day. The standard rationale for not having open borders is that, given the much higher standard of living in the United States, Mexicans would flock over border in overwhelming numbers. That, undoubtedly, would occur to some degree. Nevertheless I couldn't give a damn as I don't believe Mexicans are any less worthy of earning a decent wage than Americans.

One of the main arguments against totally unrestricted trade between underdeveloped and developed nations is that without adequate protection of the infant industries trying to sustain themselves under brutal international competition the underdeveloped nation is condemned to be mainly a supplier of primary products and cheap labour for foreign multinationals (very cheap labour as the race to the bottom continues). Development in any meaningful sense of the word must include some degree of economic diversification along with some local industrialization (so wages, local return of investment, tax income, etc rise). So now you have these hypocrites worrying that a huge influx of Mexican labour would lower the standard of living for American workers. Too bloody bad. I don't recall hearing much concern from those in power in the United States about the massive influx of American capital wrecking havoc on the Mexican farmers' standard of living. No, not much at all.

On the other hand, two countries that are relatively equal in development, such as Canada and the United States it makes absolutely no sense to impose restrictions on the free movement of labour under the NAFTA free trade agreement. As I've said, you can't have one without the other. (And, yes, of course, decent environment and labour standards must be outlined and enforced. This isn't the 19th century)

Free Trade without Free Labour is a Travesty

My position on the immigration issue: Simple. As long as there are free trade deals with the relative free movement of goods, services and most importantly, capital, then there must exist as well the free movement of labour and universal labour standards. Anything else is unfair, unethical, and quite possibly racist.

(Ironically it is the rich United States which clamors the loudest for free trade while maintaining many a subsidy. A New York Times article in 2004 noted that while "a typical farmer in Mexico receives $722 a year in government subsidies, the average American farmer receives more than $20,000.")

So what happens without the free movement of labour? Livelihoods and lives destroyed as free trade wrecks havoc on local economies. In Mexico, with NAFTA in effect, it has been the farmers that have been hit the hardest.

According to a 2004 report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at least 1.5 million Mexican farmers have abandoned their work under NAFTA. In the aforementioned NYTimes article, it was noted that "By the end of 2002, one third of all Mexican pig farmers who had farms when NAFTA was implemented had been driven out of business." (“NAFTA to Open Floodgates, Engulfing Rural Mexico,” Dec 15, 2002). Additionally the Carnegie Report noted while from 1994-2002 foreign investment led to the creation of 500 000 manufacturing jobs (nice jobs those), 1.3 million jobs in the agricultural sector were lost (where 1/5 of Mexicans work). Further wages are lower today than when NAFTA took effect.

A 2004 report by the Public Citizen and the Global Resource Action Centre for the Environment found that (via GlobalPolicy.org):

NAFTA has eliminated 99 percent of Mexico's agricultural tariffs, meaning, for example, that since 1994, the amount of U.S. corn dumped -- sold at subsidised prices -- on the Mexican market has increased 15-fold. Similarly, the amount of U.S. beef going into Mexico has doubled, poultry has tripled and pork imports have quintupled, adds the report. "Farms by the hundreds of thousands have been driven into bankruptcy, creating havoc in the Mexican countryside," the document says. "Three-fourths of the Mexican population now lives in poverty, up 80 percent since 1984."

So not surprisingly at all many Mexicans flee their homeland, family and friends purely for economic survival. And what kind of jobs are waiting for them when they arrive (if they get past the militia)? From today's Washington Post:

The seven sheepherders were eating lunch in a trailer with no toilet, heat or water, its leaky roof held down by a rope.

A lunch break, especially one together, was a rare event. But they were celebrating, sort of. Lambing season was ending. That's when the ewes give birth and the sheepherders who come to this country on three-year work visas put in their hardest 12- to 16-hour days, seven days a week.

Still, the sheepherders were steeling themselves for spring. From late March until fall, sheepherding is almost unbearably lonely. Each herder is driven deep into pastures far from town or even a paved road. For weeks on end, he sees no one but the boss, and rarely does he have a cellphone or radio...

... Schneider (Chris Schneider, executive director of Central California Legal Services in Fresno) had hoped that the publicity surrounding last year's report (which found that 91 percent of sheepherders' trailers had no toilet) would embarrass the ranchers into complying with the law -- or prompt the state Employment Development Department (EDD), which inspects the sheepherders' living quarters, to step up scrutiny.

Instead, he found sheepherders using shovels to bury their waste. Old water jugs, some lined with mold, provided for their drinking, bathing and cooking. Trailers were powered by car batteries.[the pay in California is about 800$ a month, while in Wyoming, with the cold winters they get 650$ a month.]

In 2001 a law was passed by the California state legislature that declared that sheepherders were to "have adequate housing, with toilets, heat and potable water. They were to get graduated raises, from $800 to $1,300 a month at present, and they were to get vacation." However, according to Schneider, in reality little has changed. The president and spokesman of the Western Range Association (who had lobbied against the 2001 law) was unavailable for comment. You see:

He was in Peru, recruiting sheepherders.

No kidding.

There are two simplistic myths that are implicit in the arguments of those who have supported the policies of organizations like the IMF and World Bank.

The first is that economic growth invariably leads to poverty reduction and a healthier society. I plan to offer a series of articles on world poverty in the coming weeks and this issue will be explored.

The second myth is that increased trade automatically leads to internal development. Now it appears Rubens Ricupero, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, has managed to get a good grasp of the obvious.

Countries can't benefit from easier access to foreign markets unless they get help to improve their infrastructure, train staff and attract investment, said Rubens Ricupero, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development. Without that help, nations simply can't supply the products even if consumers want to buy them, he said.

"I think there is more to the equation that trade brings development than trade negotiations, because we have to make countries capable of trading," Ricupero said.

"People still think that (increased production capacity) will automatically follow trade negotiations, and I think this is the big delusion."

He pointed out that countries in sub-Saharan Africa have enjoyed special low tariffs on exports to the European Union for 30 years, yet many still are the poorest countries in the world because they don't have the capacity to produce and export.

These are not earth shattering revelations. Does it take 30 years to figure this out?