It used to be that supply and demand applied to workers and wages within Canada. But globalization has changed that, argues economist Jeff Rubin. When the whole world is your market, there is never a dearth of workers willing to do the same job for less money. On the Agenda, he lays out his arguments for how free trade ruined the middle class, the topic of his new book, “The Expendables: How the Middle Class Got Screwed by Globalization.”
Planet Money: Why Did The Cow Cross The Border?
Lately, we’ve been nerding out about cattle. Specifically, about this one particular set of facts. Every year, the United States exports 500 million tons of beef to Mexico. But every year, the United States imports 500 million tons of beef from Mexico.
We heard this, and thought: How is that possible? Why are we trotting all these cows back and forth across the border? We sent a reporter to the border to find out. The answers to those questions explain a lot about how trade works.