Global Middle Class Initiative: Recent and Upcoming Events

The recent turnover in Congress, combined with a wide open presidential election cycle, creates a rare opportunity to bring new ideas into the political process. The spirit of this new era will be captured by those -- from either party or no party -- who embrace innovative yet pragmatic solutions to the foremost challenges facing our nation.

At this event, the New America Foundation released a major new report outlining Ten Big Ideas for a New America, and… more

In his first book, Louis Uchitelle, an award-winning business reporter for The New York Times, examines the accelerating trend of corporate layoffs in America. In The Disposable American: Layoffs and their Consequences, Uchitelle examines rising job insecurity from its origins as a largely blue-collar phenomena in the mid 1970s to how it today affects white-collar workers as well. Arguing that we are now in an era of "downward mobility," he blows the lid off the myth that in America there… more

Featuring New America Experts

In 2002, Congress passed the most far-reaching reform and expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) since the program was established more than 40 years ago. Now, two years later, it is time to ask, how successfully have these changes been implemented and how effective is TAA in addressing the needs of workers and communities facing severe dislocations as a result of changes in international trade and investment?

The Trade Adjustment Assistance Coalition is a non-profit 501(c)(3) public policy organization, housed… more

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According to Forrester Research, nearly 4,000 white-collar jobs are leaving the U.S. a week for low-cost locales. McKinsey & Co. forecast the U.S., Europe, and Japan combined lose 600,000 of these jobs a year. In the late 1990s, science and engineering accounted for 5% of U.S. undergraduate degrees; in China, they accounted for 73%. Intel Chairman Andy Grove recently posed the question, "Do we have the national will to take productive action? When the problem becomes… more

Copies of the Fall 2003 World Policy Journal will be distributed to attendees.

Diana Farrell Director, McKinsey Global Institute, McKinsey & Company Zanny Minton Beddoes Economics Correspondent, The Economist Greg Mastel Chief International Trade Adviser, Miller & Chevalier, Chartered

 

Panelists presented findings from their analyses of declining Congressional support for trade liberalization, factors associated with that decline and discuss implications for U.S. policy. To set the context, pollster Celinda Lake provided an overview of what is currently shaping voters' views of the economy.

Edith Terry Author, How Asia Got Rich: Japan, China and the Asian Miracle Former Correspondent South China Morning Post, Globe and Mail Newspaper and Business Week

Germany, the world's third largest national economy, has lagged the other eurozone economies in economic performance since the end of its reunification boom. That growth and employment gap has widened significantly during the current cyclical downturn. Germany's stock markets have suffered the largest losses of those in any major economy from the bursting of the IT/Telecom bubble. Germany flirted with deflation in consumer prices in the last six months of 2002.

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 Sustainable Enterprise Model (SEM) proposes that the most promising solutions to these problems may lie in entrepreneurial business innovation, and that businesses can create greater value, even for themselves and their shareholders, by fully integrating environmental, social, and economic value dimensions into their business model. Richard… more

 

Over Labor Day weekend 2002, while Americans focused on the prospect of war with Iraq, the first anniversary of September 11, and the last days of their summer vacations, thousands of government officials, non-governmental advocates, and business executives gathered in Johannesburg, South Africa for the third global summit on the environment. With the world?s attention elsewhere, the World Summit on Sustainable Development was an anticlimactic conclusion to three decades of global environmental activism. What did emerge from Johannesburg… more

This autumn events in Tokyo led many observers to believe that Japan was ready to restructure its profoundly dysfunctional banking system. These hopes were soon dashed, however, as the "forces of resistance" to economic reform marshaled their resources and persuaded Prime Minister Koizumi to eviscerate the banking program. A mood approaching dejection has subsequently fallen over Japan specialists in that country and around the world.

Robert Madsen contends that the temporary surge in optimism was unrealistic. Not only are the political… more

The wave of financial liberalization which is closely linked with the ongoing process of globalization has indirectly led to significant environmental impacts. At the same time this increasingly free flow of capital has undermined the ability of national regulations to mitigate these problems. This talk proposed a framework for thinking about the environmental effects of international financial flows and for designing beneficial regulations.

In 1997, International Rivers Network followed the money for China's Three Gorges Dam all the way to an issue of bonds underwritten by several global investment banks. This discovery sparked a five year campaign - still ongoing - to press Wall Street firms to incorporate environmental and social criteria into their core businesses of lending and underwriting. Focusing on Citigroup, the presentation will outline the history and results of the campaign and what it means for the future of holding… more

Among supporters of globalization, there is remarkable disrespect for even the most basic facts. For example, World Bank data shows the vast majority of developing countries experienced slower growth between 1980 to 2000 than in the preceding twenty years. But even in light of such compelling evidence, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers told the New York Times:

"When history books are written 200 years from now about the last two decades of the 20th century, I am convinced that the end… more

Please join us as Harvey Himberg explores the role of financial institutions in foreign direct investment (FDI) and the implications of their role for the relationship between investment and the environment. Without legitimate and relatively functional national and supra-national regulatory mechanisms to set the "rules of the game" and arbitrate disputes, like those enjoyed by trade, how can FDI and its environmental impact be regulated? As of now, financial institutions are, by default, becoming the de facto arbiters of environmental… more