Today's heated rhetoric in the US over the exporting of jobs and unfair trade reminds me of the so-called economic headlines in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Only then it was Japan Inc. and Japanese Yen, now it's Indian Silicon and Chinese Yuan. Only then it was automobiles and electronics, now it's software and sneakers. Only then it was insecurities over industrialism and inflation, now it's insecurities over security and dollar depreciation. Only then, that was then, and this, this is now - or is it?

Interesting enough I believe all of these issues can see their own shadow by way of contrasting the question:

why is it that in Canada it's the so-called left that most adamantly opposes so-called free trade, while in the US it's the so-called right that most adamantly opposes so-called free trade?

Seldom are these two poles of the North American political spectrum in sync; many would suggest that these two spectrums barely overlap. In the US, the Canadian left is tantamount to empirical communism, while in Canada, the US right marches to beat of Wagner. And yet on this one issue, this one ECONOMIC issue - free trade, the Canadian left and American right seem to be marching to the same apocalypse now. Why now?