Billy Clinton signed NAFTA, which lead to the unemployment of millions of Mexican farm laborers. This in turn lead to our illegal immigration troubles. Globalization can be done wrong, and Obama could have staked out a position that defied the Clinton legacy of sloppy globalization. I can't think of a candidate that is supporting "play to win" globalization strategies that protect American workers. Outsourcing jobs may improve the bottom line for top corporations, but by lowering the wages of the middle class, a lowering tide will lower all boats. Free trade agreements and farm subsidies guarantee a solid bottom line for American mega-farms, but they gut the small farmer world wide. Obama could have easily taken this issue and said, stop, think, "play to win."

Rather than write an article about one particular event, why not read other stuff that he has written about the topic. In his book he is very clear that he believes a better social net and better training are an important piece of free trade agreements. He believes free trade needs to be about making America stronger, not tearing down other countries.

Both Obama and Leonard love talking about how American workers need more skills. Maybe I'm a bit sensitive on this subject at the moment, having been recently laid off for the third time, despite having an advanced degree in science. Many of the people I know who have advanced science degrees are getting out of the field if they can - one PhD level scientist that I know recently decided that running a landscaping business was more stable than trying to keep a job in science.

Both political candidates and journalists keep repeating the meme that we "need more technical skills". Those technical jobs are also moving overseas, and I'd hate to think students today are being told that science degrees are a magic bullet to combat outsourcing. The company where I used to work told us bluntly that they could hire 4 or 5 scientists in China for the cost of our salaries, and they intended to do so.

If you can hire a houseboat of full of Chinese scientists to do your job then what is the value input of your job? When we talk about training we're not talking about more training for the wrong job. We're talking about different training for different jobs. Here in NC a notoriously anti union and anti labor state we lost most of the entire textile and furniture making industries. What would be the benefit to anyone to invest any money in traing people to different jobs in a sector that doesn't exist? Moreover since it is so anti labor, those jobs were non union, lower in the wage scale and with few benefits. If you're losing a $10/hr textile mill job, then there are lots of replacement jobs in that pay range you could get. Me? I'd rather work in Home Depot than get Brown Lung. So the challenge is not to do an imaginary job better, it's to skill up a work force to switch into productive work that might not even exist today. I'm reasonably sure that most of you are doing jobs that didn't exist 30 years ago.