Globalization, Trade Policies Suffer in Information Vacuum

Byline: Alan Tonelson, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Imagine a national health care debate in which interested parties such as the insurance companies monopolized the key data and released it only in the most self-serving ways. The chances of getting health reform right would be minimal.

America's long-standing debate on trade policy and globalization has been overshadowed recently by the health care battle, and, generally, by the Great Recession. But its importance must not be slighted by a country choking on debt largely because it has long bought much more from the rest of the world than it sells. And inexcusably, America's chances of getting globalization right are far too slim because interested parties - specifically, outsourcing-happy multinational corporations - have for decades monopolized the key data and released it only in the most self-serving ways.

Worse, the resulting information vacuum for the public and decision-makers is knee-capping policy-making …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: Globalization, Trade Policies Suffer in Information Vacuum. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Washington Times (Washington, DC). Publication date: August 11, 2009. Page number: A04. © 2009 The Washington Times LLC. COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale Group.

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