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Regarding "The end result will be an overall equalization of wages for Americans, Mexicans and Canadians."

This may be true for the example of trucking and trucking unions, but a basic idea in globalization is "competitive advantage." That means people do what they're best at, and get paid accordingly. Since the U.S. is supposedly more educated and innovative than third world countries, there are more people in the U.S. who can get into jobs that require more education and "mental work", and thus be paid more than someone with less education and/or opportunity to do "mental work". If you're a truck driver though, you're going to have a lot more people competing for your job.

This isn't just theory to me, either. I lost my computer programming job five years ago because: a) the economy slowed and India was much cheaper, and b) I got older (and my salary got higher) and I didn't upgrade my skills. You can't sit in the same job for decades anymore, you've got to keep training and pushing yourself. If you don't, you'll be competing with people who are climbing the ladder and would love to have your job, but at less pay. The more labor unions encourage workers to not have to compete, the more they make those workers obsolete and too expensive.

The thread so far seems to be headed in a conspiracy direction, but I thought I'd throw in a point of basic economics. Should I be flamed as a "globalist?" I believe that we need to control our borders (fences are good), that George W. Bush seems to have a unholy alliance with Mexico (and Saudi Arabia), and we should stop giving money to the UN. That being said, I still don't think we should try to make the U.S. less competitive or we'll end up like General Motors (which looks like a likely victim of another economic principle, "creative destruction.")

Great post! I worked my way through college and graduate school as a Teamster, working on loading docks two or three nights a week (and full time during the summers)and going to school full-time during the day. The pay was great, but the labor was back-breaking (I have souvenir aches and pains to this day, twenty years later...). I worked as a "casual" meaning I was not on the seniority list at the trucking company, but was a Teamster and could be called in to cover for someone on vacation, or if someone called in sick, etc. So, if you wanted to be called, you had to bust your butt when you showed up, or they would not call you back again.

I still remember some of the older union guys telling me to "pace myself" (in other words, slow down) because I was making them look bad by moving freight at a pace they would not match. I was in a pickle, because I had to hustle if I wanted to keep getting work. I remember thinking then that the whole system was inherently inefficient and was not a sustainable business model. The continued consolidation of the trucking industry and the dwindling ranks of the Teamsters are bearing witness to that.

The days of making middle-class wages doing manual labor are quickly drawing to a close. I keep a pair of my old, worn-out safety shoes from that job in my closet, to remind me of the alternative life I would have lead if I'd not completed my education.

Your post resonated with me, because it is the truth. You must upgrade your skills or be replaced by someone younger and hungrier (i.e. willing to work for less pay) than yourself.

This may be true for the example of trucking and trucking unions

This is true for every wage earner except for government employees. If government employees were to have their wages subject to the 'competitive advantage' of globalism, then effectively the government would have to cease to exist.

In your discussion of economics, you are excluding the fundamental purpose of this nation, to protect individual rights in nation of self governing citizens. No economist under a constitutional government, nor any corporation or politician may force an individual to pay the price for an economic theory such as globalization. Yet this is what is happening. It is disheartening to see American citizens adopt the collectivist view that individual citizens must sacrifice their rights because ' the U.S. is supposedly more educated and innovative than third world countries', and individuals can just 'change' whenever the government globalists decide they must. People should be able to change if that is what they desire, but a government and group of corporations that create catastrophes in the job market to force people into changing is not a free system of government.

If I may also add, it isn't the "free market" that is driving these changes that are forced on the American citizen. Our own government is actively working against us by their wholesale giveaway of entire industrial sectors in the WTO trade talks. In the Uruguay round our manufacturing base was explicitly given away as a bargaining chip so that countries would allow Direct Foreign Investment by International corporations. In the Doha round, our ag sector will be decimated, it is being used as a bargaining chip as well.

Our government is playing a chess game with our domestic economy and our citizen's lives to give transnational corporations 'competitive advantage'. What they are doing is in effect, taking all authority citizens have in their own governments, for domestic issues and domestic economy and allowing the transnational corporations complete control of the supply chain. Our government has been populated with individuals who do not uphold the core function of the American government, protection of individual rights and defense of the Constitution, instead dedicating their efforts to promote the destruction of these core functions of government and transforming into a body whose sole purpose appears to be to grant more and more power to the transnationalists, and remove power from individual citizens.

That means people do what they're best at, and get paid accordingly.

You have bought into globalism without much thought. The wages will be globalized. Didn't you watch the computer programming jobs migrate to India? They'll come back just as soon as the already skilled and experienced software engineers in this country are satisfied with making $6,000 per year.

The scenareo will be repeated for all walks of life. That is where this is headed. Can you really see it any other way?