Trade & Globalization

In 1913, a young Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote in a private letter that a war among the major European powers would be so deadly and destructive that it could not be imagined. In 1914, he learned differently.

There are so many historic examples of war being so unlikely, so terrible in its prospect that it just "could not" happen. And yet it did.

That is why, in the large sweep of history, people who want to see peace should never underestimate the potential for war. Even those, like the mistaken Roosevelt, who feel rising prosperity is an antidote to conflict.

Why aren’t Republican presidential candidates talking more about job training?

Wherever they go on the campaign trail, candidates are asked about off-shoring, layoffs, and wages. Despite the strong U.S. economy and near full employment, middle class anxiety is real.

The crisis that brought down Paul Wolfowitz from the presidency of the World Bank has laid bare a chasm existing between the United States and European countries since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Wolfowitz, 63, was deputy defense secretary and one of the principal architects of the Iraq war in the administration of US President George W. Bush before he took the helm of the World Bank in June 2005.

Even at that time, European countries opposed to the war felt badly about the choice made by Bush, but resigned themselves and went along with it...

JONATHAN MANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Building dreams in Dubai. A tiny synthetic city-state has transformed itself and is now literally changing the landscape around it, making its own new world out of oil money and ambition.

Hello and welcome...Joining us now to talk about it is the author of that "National Geographic" piece, former Reuters correspondent based in Dubai, Afshin Molavi, now of the New America Foundation...Let me ask you first of all, Dubai does not have all that much oil compared to its neighbors. So where's all the money coming from?

Over the past decade and half, two pivotal developments have come together to create the conditions for what could be a new golden era of faster economic growth and rising prosperity. One development involves the technological advancements and other changes associated with the new economy, which have substantially increased U.S. and world productivity growth. The bursting of the tech bubble in 2000 may have put an end to the hype surrounding the new economy.

Now may hardly seem the time to imagine a more global future, let alone do so with optimism. Most of us are hard pressed just to maintain the illusion that the present system is not breaking down, to deny with conviction what everyone knows -- that the grand trade liberalisation project is, at best, on life support.

FROM: Karen Kornbluh
SUBJECT: America's Promise in A New Century
DATE: August 6, 2004

Americans are concerned as they have not been since 1992 about the future of their way of life in a global economy. They sense that their kids may be part of the first generation that does worse than its parents and they don't understand how this can be so when they are "working hard and playing by the rules."

The fundamental challenge for human institutions in the 21st century is to create and maintain a sustainable combination of economic, social, and natural environmental conditions in an increasingly global and commercial civilization.

The large scale movement of capital in the form of financial flows and foreign direct investment is a relatively recent phenomenon despite the fact that international trade has been an important part of commerce throughout the industrial era. Such flows have constituted a major and perhaps defining part of the process of globalization over the past two decades. At the same time, the environmental problems created by industrialization have also grown to have global range, particularly as they are replicated around the world, largely as a result of international capital and technology flows.

The ongoing debate over the environmental impacts of private foreign direct investment (FDI) has focused primarily on the role of multinational corporations (MNCs) in implementing diverse standards in countries at varying levels of social, economic and political development. Since the international debt crisis of the late 1980s foreign investment flows have become increasingly important, financing current account deficits as well as sustaining economic development.