When Ralph Nader pointed out that there are no significant differences between the Democrats and Republicans it was met with responses that ranged from insult to false outrage which persists to this day among idle commentors in the blogosphere who challenge Nader’s motives, personality and commitment! One presumes they consider their own hard commenting e-politicking in favour of the Democratic party the better alternative to Nader’s decades of activism. The 2006 Democratic victory, eked out based on a sad mixture of Bush’s unpopularity and a field of ex-Republican and “Blue Dog” candidates, was the crowning achievement of this hyper-cautious citizen politician “liberal”s. The expectation then would be that we would, in quick order, gather evidence of how wrong Nader was about the difference between the two parties. Well, here is Matt Taibbi:

Tension Mounts as Antiwar Movement Challenges Dems’ Commitment to Stop the War

[…]

Neither of these Democratic leaders, after all, are Huey Newton, or even Benjamin Spock. They are not going to get up on a table, shake a shoe in the direction of the White House, shout “Fuck you, pig!” and just turn off the money, consequences be damned. No, these are career bureaucrats, political herd animals who survive year after year by clinging for dear life to the concept of safety in numbers. They will watch the bushes with great big eyes to see what is rustling back there, and when exactly two-thirds of the herd decides to bolt, they all will — not just the Democrats, but the Boehners and McConnells too, leaping over logs, tearing off big chunks of fur against the bark of trees, etc.

[…]

So maybe Reid and Pelosi really are working the phones on this one, who knows. What I do know is this; there are elements of the Democratic-crafted Iraq supplemental that are not only severely regressive but would actually tend to encourage the continuation of the insurgency. Anyone who wants an example of why the areas in which the Democrats and Republicans are in agreement are more significant than the ones in which they differ need only look at the two parties nearly unanimous endorsement of the “Benchmarks” the Iraqi government must meet, according to the supplemental. The key passage reads as follows:

(2) whether the Government of Iraq is making substantial progress in meeting its commitment to pursue reconciliation initiatives, including a hydro-carbon law…

It is notable that the hydrocarbon law comes in first place in this clause, ahead of “legislation necessary for the conduct of provincial and local elections,” reform of de-Baathification laws, amendments to the constitution and allocation of revenues for reconstruction projects. For whether or not it really was “all about oil” at the beginning of the war, the fate of the occupation really does hinge almost entirely upon oil initiatives now, as the continued presence of U.S. troops in the region may depend on whether or not the Iraqi government bites the bullet and decides to eat the proposed hydrocarbon law in question.

The law, endorsed here by the Democrats, is an unusually vicious piece of legislation, an open blueprint for colonial robbery of the Iraqi nation. It is worth pointing out that if you go back far enough in the history of this business, the law actually makes the U.S. an accomplice in the repression of Saddam Hussein, the very thing we claim to be rescuing the country from.

[…]

The proposed Hydrocarbon Law is a result of pressure from the American government on the Iraqis to draft an oil policy that would adhere to the IMF guidelines. It allows foreign companies to take advantage of Iraqi oil fields by allowing regions to pair up with foreigners using what are known as “production-sharing agreements” or PSAs, which guarantee investing companies large shares of the profits for decades into the future. The law also makes it impossible for the Iraqi state to regulate levels of oil production (seriously undermining OPEC), allows oil companies to repatriate profits, and would also allow companies to hire foreign workers to man facilities. Add all the measures up and the Hydrocarbon law not only takes control of the oil industry away from the Iraqi state, but virtually guarantees that the state will profit very little from future oil exploitation.

[…]

Moreover, let’s just say this about the Democratic Party. They can wash their hands of this war as much as they want publicly, but their endorsement of this crude neocolonial exploitation plan makes them accomplices in the occupation, and further legitimizes the insurgency. It is hard to argue with the logic of armed resistance to U.S. forces in Iraq when both American parties, representing the vast majority of the American voting public, endorse the same draconian plan to rob the country’s riches.

Current blogosphere darling (though even that tide is turning) Obama has been on the forefront of the call for the Iraqis to show responsibility. No doubt his righteous scolding will accomplish this bogus goal, more so than the death and disorder that the Iraqis are enduring as a result of our assault. Taibbi addresses such callous nonsense:

But I’ll tell you what I can do without. I can do without having to listen to American journalists, as well as politicians on both sides of the aisle, bitch and moan about how the Iraqi government better start “shaping up” and “taking responsibility” and “showing progress” if they want the continued blessing of American military power. Virtually every major newspaper in the country and every hack in Washington has lumped all the “benchmarks” together, painting them as concrete signs that, if met, would mean the Iraqi government is showing “progress” or “good faith.”

The term offered by the blog-comment-osphere for their hyper-cautious centrism is “gradualism”. Taibbi comments:

Moreover, this endorsement of these neoliberal “benchmarks” by the Democrats makes me believe a lot less in their “gradualist” approach to ending the war. If they viewed the war as much of the world did, as a murderous and profoundly immoral criminal enterprise, they would understand that morally, they really have no choice now but to refuse to send Bush even a dime more for this war.

Howard Zinn wrote recently a timely piece pointing out that we are not politicians but citizens. But for the “progressive” blogosphere, the small bits of power derived from colluding with the Democrats (which they perceive as king-making, or at best productive engagement) perhaps offer greater satisfaction than the uncertainties of citizen activism of the type practised by Nader.

We all remember the Danish cartoon controversy. You remember the one? Where most of the U.S press reported, with barely concealed glee, the horrors of the protests against the cartoons, rather than the cartoons themselves? To be fair they did comment on the cartoons i.e., as a free speech issue, as in the useless freedom to call your mother a whore. Another thing that I do not remember is any mention of the below, in the midst of the criticism of Muslim and Arab nations: It seems that the cartoons were republished in a Muslim country, not as some sort of meaningless statement as some of our press did, but with real consequences and dangers:

BBC | Yemen editor jailed over cartoons

[…]

The editor, Kamal al-Aalafi, said he had reprinted the cartoons to raise awareness, not to insult Muslims.

[…]

It seems two other Yemeni newspapers also published the cartoons.Now, I wonder if our wonderful press, the one that balks at discussing George Bush’s missing years in the military, would publish similar cartoons about say the same George Bush?

[ Link ]

This from The Observer:

Low IQs are Africa’s curse, says lecturer | The Observer

The London School of Economics is embroiled in a row over academic freedom after one of its lecturers published a paper alleging that African states were poor and suffered chronic ill-health because their populations were less intelligent than people in richer countries.

Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, is now accused of reviving the politics of eugenics by publishing the research which concludes that low IQ levels, rather than poverty and disease, are the reason why life expectancy is low and infant mortality high. His paper, published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, compares IQ scores with indicators of ill health in 126 countries and claims that nations at the top of the ill health league also have the lowest intelligence ratings.

[…]

Having examined the effects of economic development and income inequality on health, he was ’surprised’ to find that IQ had a much more important impact, he said. ‘Poverty, lack of sanitation, clean water, education and healthcare do not increase health and longevity, and nor does economic development.’

[…]

Assuming for a second that his data are correct, and that IQ measures something significant (what we generally understand by the term “intelligence”), the above seems to suffer from that old precaution about correlation and causality. There is no reason provided (at least stated in the article — I guess I have to hold down the gag reflex and go read the full paper) to justify the use of the results of a particular test (IQ) as a cause, rather than as an effect.

Vint Cerf is making noises that IDN is a huge technical challenge:

“One of the most important aspects is for the user to make unambiguous references to every registered domain name.

“Historically this has been through a small subset of Latin characters.”

[…]

Mr Cerf said that in order for other scripts to be introduced into the domain name system, there needed to be rigorous testing to ensure that users could be certain they will reach their online destination no matter which script they used.

“Domain names are not general natural language expressions. They are simply identifiers,” he said. “They must be unique. Names registered today must be able to work into their distant future no matter what characters are added.”

He warned: “A miss-step could easily and permanently break the internet into non-interoperable components.”

I respect Cerf but this seems like fear-mongering (perhaps to counter international pressures particularly on ICANN, which is today controlled by the USA) rather than a technical argument. Uniqueness of names can be guaranteed in IDN, and talk of “permanent” break of the Internet into non-interoperable components, is a bit irresponsible. Also, phishing/spoofing attacks (the concern brought up above regarding the certainty of users in accessing sites) are not unique to IDN and have been addressed both before and also within IDN. Wikipedia offers a decent introduction to IDN/IDNA that addresses many of these points, and provides information on IDNA support in applications (e.g: Mozilla/Gecko).

The opinion of Viviane Reding of the EC, quoted in the same article, are, I think, a bit more on target:

Viviane Reding, the EC’s information society commissioner, said: “Bridging the digital divide is not just a matter of screens and cables.

“It is equally important to recognise the extent and value of cultural diversity within global village of the internet. That is why multilingualism is important.”

She said that IDN was “sometimes wrongly seen as technical issue”.

“There is legitimate political imperative,” she said. “Users want to be able to use Chinese ideograms and Arabic scripts.

“There is a real danger that a prolonged delay in the introduction of IDN could lead to fragmentation of the internet name space.”

I cannot but draw parallels to the (oft-mentioned) doomsday protestations of car manufacturers regarding everything from seat belts to better mileage.

Great article about the state of things in Australia:

Australia’s Other Great Sport By Haroon Buksh:

[…]

The Australian public is increasingly being served a smorgasbord of politically charged rhetoric, an outpouring of invective masquerading as public debate. From questions of loyalty, discussions over identity, sermons about values, or warnings against extremism, the current discourse surrounding Islam and Muslims is presented in the context of an existential threat to the Australian way of life.

[…]

We should be careful, however, not to disconnect the state of modern Australia from its global context. Since 9/11, Western governments have been relentlessly and unashamedly constructing public opinion in support of their brutal campaigns at home and abroad. A campaign that was ostensibly launched to avenge the attacks on the World Trade Centres has morphed into what George Bush calls ‘the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation’.

No longer is the objective the capture of Osama bin Laden or the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure. Rather we are told the primary objective of the ‘war on terror’ is now the defeat of ‘Islamo-fascism’, an ‘evil ideology’ that seeks to return the world to a dark 7th century medieval version of Islam – the aims of which are apparently shared by a ‘section’ of the Muslim community in Australia.

[…]

The real and tangible relationship between western foreign policy and its reactionary consequences has yet to be even mildly explored. The Australian government continues to persist in its absolute state of denial and refuses to entertain such a debate. But failing to address the most critical underlying grievances is a stance that sadly threatens the lives of every Australian.

In a speech to the Conference of Australian Imams on the 16th September 2006, Andrew Robb, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, reiterated the government’s official line of holding the Muslim community solely responsible for a set of conditions generated as a consequence of a brutal and oppressive foreign policy. He stated: “And, because it is your faith that is being invoked as justification for these evil acts, it is your problem”.

[…]

It seems what the world desperately needs today is a war on ignorance, not a war on terror. As the current debate serves only to close our minds, we all have a responsibility to keep them open.

Amartya Sen has pointed out before that liberalism isn't uniquely Western and now he addresses the issue of globalisation in the same vein. Of note, here is Noam Chomsky on the term globalisation:

"Anti-globalization" is a propaganda term devised by the advocates of a particular investor-rights version of international integration. No sane person is opposed to globalization, surely not the left or the workers movements, which were founded on the commitment to international solidarity — that is, a form of globalization that is concerned with the rights and needs of people, not private capital.

And here is Sen:

TAP: Vol 13, Iss. 1. How to Judge Globalism. Amartya Sen.
Globalization is often seen as global Westernization. On this point, there is substantial agreement among many proponents and opponents. Those who take an upbeat view of globalization see it as a marvelous contribution of Western civilization to the world. There is a nicely stylized history in which the great developments happened in Europe: First came the Renaissance, then the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, and these led to a massive increase in living standards in the West. And now the great achievements of the West are spreading to the world. In this view, globalization is not only good, it is also a gift from the West to the world. The champions of this reading of history tend to feel upset not just because this great benefaction is seen as a curse but also because it is undervalued and castigated by an ungrateful world.

From the opposite perspective, Western dominance–sometimes seen as a continuation of Western imperialism–is the devil of the piece. In this view, contemporary capitalism, driven and led by greedy and grabby Western countries in Europe and North America, has established rules of trade and business relations that do not serve the interests of the poorer people in the world. The celebration of various non-Western identities–defined by religion (as in Islamic fundamentalism), region (as in the championing of Asian values), or culture (as in the glorification of Confucian ethics)–can add fuel to the fire of confrontation with the West.

[…]

[via RawStory] 

Guardian | Indian state bans Baa Baa Black Sheep
Maseeh Rahman in Delhi
Wednesday June 14, 2006

Tens of thousands of children at Indian schools have been told they can no longer sing popular English nursery rhymes such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Baa Baa Black Sheep.

In an attempt to rid schools of what is perceived as malign western influence, the school education minister in the state of Madhya Pradesh, Narottam Mishra, has commissioned a new set of rhymes written by Indians to "infuse a sense of patriotism" among five-year-olds.

[…]

This is not the first time that the Hindu nationalist BJP has stirred a controversy by tinkering with the school curriculum. In neighbouring Gujarat state, school textbooks were rewritten to categorise religious minorities including Muslims, Christians and Parsis as "foreigners" and to extol aspects of Nazism and fascism. A social studies textbook in Gujarat said: "Hitler lent dignity and prestige to the German government within a short time, establishing a strong administrative set-up."

Below is an excerpt from the NYT about the history of Western meddling in Iran, with a sub-theme (reflected in the title) that is inessential to basic understanding of the politics and motivation of all parties.

The Persian Complex - New York Times
[…]

We tend to forget that Iran's insistence on its sovereign right to develop nuclear power is in effect a national pursuit for empowerment, a pursuit informed by at least two centuries of military aggression, domestic meddling, skullduggery and, not least, technological denial by the West. Every schoolchild in Iran knows about the C.I.A.-sponsored 1953 coup that toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. Even an Iranian with little interest in his or her past is conscious of how Iran throughout the 19th and 20th centuries served as a playground for the Great Game.

Iranians also know that, hard as it may be for latter-day Americans and Europeans to believe, from the 1870's to the 1920's Russia and Britain deprived Iran of even basic technology like the railroad, which was then a key to economic development. At various times, both powers jealously opposed a trans-Iranian railroad because they thought it would threaten their ever-expanding imperial frontiers. When it was finally built, the British, Russian (and American) occupying forces during the Second World War made full use of it (free of charge), calling Iran a "bridge of victory" over Nazi Germany. They did so, of course, after Winston Churchill forced the man who built the railroad, Reza Shah Pahlavi, to abdicate and unceremoniously kicked him out of the country.

Not long after, a similar Western denial of Iran's economic sovereignty resulted in a dramatic showdown that had fatal consequences for the country's fragile democracy and left lasting scars on its national consciousness. The oil nationalization movement of 1951 to 1953 under Mossadegh was opposed by Britain, and eventually by its partner in profit, the United States, with the same self-righteousness that today colors their views of the Iranian yearning for nuclear energy.

[…]

A few other worthwhile sources of information:

• Robert Fisk's The Great War for Civilisation
• Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men

On many left lists, in the West in particular, if you talk about the unsustainability of current human population and consumption, you are often labelled a "neo-Malthusean" and further, an enemy of the common folks and an advocate of population control of the worst kind. A popular modern version of this debate is the Simon-Ehrlich wager, between conservative economist Simon and eco-activistic (and in that sense leftist) biologist Ehrlich; the twist being that it is the conservative who argues against any dangers posed by human population. For the record, Ehrlich lost that wager handily.

Ehrlich offered a newer list of criteria that Simon found unnacceptable (see link above). What is interesting about the new list is that Ehrlich finally starts thinking outside the [human] consumption trap (and the rephrasing of the issue as one of the effects of human consumption).

Recently, biologist Eric Pianka, at the University of Texas, has been in hot water over his own doomsday predictions about disease and death among human populations. I do not know the background of this guy and his affiliations. However, the following note from his website is an excellent argument of why human arrogance and ignorance, in this context, are morally repugnant.

What nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to know
Eric R. Pianka

I have two grandchildren and I want them to inherit a stable Earth. But I fear for them. Humans have overpopulated the Earth and in the process have created an ideal nutritional substrate on which bacteria and viruses (microbes) will grow and prosper. We are behaving like bacteria growing on an agar plate, flourishing until natural limits are reached or until another microbe colonizes and takes over, using them as their resource. In addition to our extremely high population density, we are social and mobile, exactly the conditions that favor growth and spread of pathogenic (disease-causing) microbes. I believe it is only a matter of time until microbes once again assert control over our population, since we are unwilling to control it ourselves. This idea has been espoused by ecologists for at least four decades and is nothing new. People just don't want to hear it.

Population crashes caused by disease have happened many times in the past. In the 1330s bubonic plague killed one third of the people in Europe's crowded cities. Smallpox and measles decimated Native Americans when Europeans transported them to the new world. HIV is a relatively new disease wreaking havoc in Africa and Asia. Another population crash is inevitable, but the next one will probably be world-wide.

People think unrealistically because they have lost touch with the natural world. Many people today do not really know where and how our food is produced, and on what our life support systems are based. As we continue paving over natural habitats, many think that we can disrupt and despoil the environment indefinitely. We have already taken half of this planet's land surface. Per capita shares of all the things that really matter (air, food, soil, and water) are continuously falling. Our economic system is based on the principle of a chain letter: growth, growth, and more growth. Such runaway growth only expands a bubble that cannot be sustained in a finite world. We are running out of virtually everything from oil, food and land to clean air and water.

Some politicians, economists, and corporations want us to believe that technology will come to our rescue. But we have a false sense of security if we think that science can respond quickly enough to minimize threats from emerging diseases. Microbes have such short lifecycles that they can evolve exceedingly fast, much faster than we can respond to them. Many bacteria have evolved resistance to most antibiotics, and viruses are resistant to just about anything. Defense always lags behind offense. So far, modern humans have just been lucky. A reactive approach to problems isn't enough, we also need to be proactive and anticipate problems before they become too severe to keep them from getting out of control.Many people believe that Earth and all its resources exist solely for human benefit and consumption, this is anthropocentrism. We should allow the millions of other denizens of this Earth some space to live — they evolved here just as we did and have a right to this planet, too.

I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us. Simply stopping the destruction of rainforests would help mediate some current planetary ills, including the release of previously unknown pathogens. The ancient Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times" comes to mind — we are living in one of the most interesting times humans have ever experienced. For example, consider the manifold effects of global warming. We need to make a transition to a sustainable world. If we don't, nature is going to do it for us in ways of her own choosing. By definition, these ways will not be ours and they won't be much fun. Think about that.

While he may be temporarily (or even entirely) wrong on the predictions about disease, he is (IMHO) absolutely right on human crowding out of other species, human faith on technology, and in particular our attitude towards the world and how we "consume" it. It is fashionable today (within the left) to dismiss this sort of thing as "new age" sentimentality or "primitivism". The argument deserves more respect.

I sometimes think Economics has more interesting questions than Physics, but less interesting answers than the latter. Perhaps that is so because an ideological position seems almost a pre-requisite before any work in the field is started. Below are a set of links on the issue of globalisation and its effects. Broadly speaking, its somewhat of the same old debate abou free market vs protectionism, but the agents are reversed, and it seems, so are some of the ideologues.

The old story was that, despite its intuitive appeal (and caution gained from the experiences of colonialism), protectionism was bad for developing nations and adopting a free market system was a quicker (and perhaps only) way to achieve economic progress. The Asian Tigers were a clear demonstration of this, it was argued. Closed and protected economies like India, which languished for decades, blossomed into dynamic capitalist success stories within years of “liberalising” their economies. China was a bit of an outlier, but could be explained away.

Then we hear from Ha-Joon Chang about the development history of today’s “first world” nations and the credibility of the critique of protectionism:

Kicking Away the Ladder:
How the Economic and Intellectual Histories of Capitalism Have Been Re-Written to Justify Neo-Liberal Capitalism

Ha-Joon Chang (Cambridge University, UK)

There is currently great pressure on developing countries to adopt a set of “good policies” and “good institutions” – such as liberalisation of trade and investment and strong patent law – to foster their economic development. When some developing countries show reluctance in adopting them, the proponents of this recipe often find it difficult to understand these countries’ stupidity in not accepting such a tried and tested recipe for development. After all, they argue, these are the policies and the institutions that the developed countries had used in the past in order to become rich. Their belief in their own recommendation is so absolute that in their view it has to be imposed on the developing countries through strong bilateral and multilateral external pressures, even when these countries don’t want them.

Naturally, there have been heated debates on whether these recommended policies and institutions are appropriate for developing countries. However, curiously, even many of those who are sceptical of the applicability of these policies and institutions to the developing countries take it for granted that these were the policies and the institutions that were used by the developed countries when they themselves were developing countries.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the historical fact is that the rich countries did not develop on the basis of the policies and the institutions that they now recommend to, and often force upon, the developing countries. Unfortunately, this fact is little known these days because the “official historians” of capitalism have been very successful in re-writing its history.

Almost all of today’s rich countries used tariff protection and subsidies to develop their industries. Interestingly, Britain and the USA, the two countries that are supposed to have reached the summit of the world economy through their free-market, free-trade policy, are actually the ones that had most aggressively used protection and subsidies.

[…]

Shortly after came the stories of the workings of the IMF and WB capped by a series of criticisms of erstwhile enthusiast Joseph Stiglitz.

Fast forward to today and we come to the role reversal, where countries like India and China are growing at near 10% rates while the US (and other parts of the West) is bogged down — of particular interest: jobs and outsourcing. And the result has been a strange morphing of positions among the intellectuals, theorists and assorted heavy-weights:

Guru of economics does an about-turn on free trade

At 89, after decades of speaking in favour of it, Paul Samuelson says it’s not such a good thing after all
Jay Bhattacharjee

A battle royale has just been initiated in the rarefied world of economic theory, although the rumblings have not yet reached these shores. The first salvo has been fired by no less a person than Paul Samuelson, and the targets he has chosen include some of his most prominent acolytes and disciples.

The MIT professor, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1970 and research mentor of countless economists, who later became major scholars in their own right, has re-assessed his entire stand on globalisation and the benefits that accrue from the process. In doing so, Samuelson has been scathing in his critique of some of his students, including Jagdish Bhagwati, once a member of his innermost circle.

[…]

The thrust of Samuelson’s analysis is that a country like China, basically a low-wage economy, will create a net negative impact on the American people, when it manages a substantial rise in productivity in an industry in which the United States was earlier a leader. Initially, American consumers may benefit from low-priced goods in their supermarket chains, but their gains may be more than neutralised by large losses sustained by American workers who lose their jobs.

[…]

Needless to say, this has not gone down well with Bhagwati (whom I like to think of as the intellectual version of Thomas Friedman ;-)). Not just a liberal like Samuelson, but also conservatives like Paul Craig Roberts have switched to a protectionist (of sorts) position, and Bhagwati takes on Roberts in the WSJ:

Top Economists Square Off In Debate Over Outsourcing[…]

[Bhagwati:]

Look at the facts for 1999-2002. The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that, counting four IT-related sectors, the jobs expanded; slowly no doubt, but contract they did not. In 2002, the number of jobs in these sectors was over 17 million.

Contrast that with the estimate of gross numbers of outsourced jobs: They were around 100,000 per annum, and the upper estimates of job loss annually over the next 15 years has been put at 225,000, which is less than 1.5% of the stock of available jobs in 2002. I must add that the net estimates show that the U.S. has many more people employed in services that are exported than are “lost” in services that are imported.

And these jobs will surely expand because the main driver of growth in our economy is our prodigious technical change. Technical change nearly always substitutes for unskilled labor, but it creates new skilled jobs, both by creating new products and processes but also because the maintenance of technology also requires skilled labor.

[…]

[C]ountless … new jobs in unforeseen and unforeseeable occupations, requiring new skills, have emerged and will continue to emerge.

True, we will need to extend our adjustment assistance programs beyond manufacturing. We will also need imaginative programs to assist the older folks who cannot readily acquire new skills for the new jobs. We will finally need to delink medical benefits from employment: a change whose time has come, now that increased exposure to trade means that flexible responses to changing opportunities are possible.

But what we do know is that protection will only compound manifold the difficulties of adjustment for our skilled workers.

[…]

[O]ur social safety net is not as strong; and the family has been frayed, so neither the social nor the personal safety net is available to meet difficult problems of adjustment to import competition. So, when the fear of job losses is high, anxiety
is immense, as now.

[…]

Astonishingly, a liberal leadership of the Democratic Party that professes to better credentials on altruism in regard to developing countries is now committed to policies that are aimed at the developing countries which are using the trade opportunity to work themselves out of poverty, while a Republican president has taken the high road on both outsourcing and on foreign investment!

I think Bhagwati is right[er] (as are people like Krugman who have made similar points) about the last point he raises, and it is interesting to note that he is willing to talk about things like safety net or the difficulty of retraining.