Allen Galbraith’s 10 Ways To Think For Yourself

Thinking for yourself is one of those skills you learn as you get older. Many folks have a really bad habit of blindly following what an authority figure would say without ever questioning the reasoning behind it. Another example would be doing something a certain way as this has always been the way it has been done.  Allen Galbraith put together some strategies that will help you develop your thought processes, to think in a more independent fashion. If you can think of any more methods or strategies, let him  know by submitting a comment to his site or to Streetsideinvestor.

1. If in doubt - ask a question.   Don’t be afraid to question things. Don’t be afraid to offer a question even though other people in your peer group have not questioned before.

2. Place experience over authority.   If one reflects upon what the authority figure is conveying to you, does it pan out with your real life experience? For example, if someone tells you that all red heads are moody - have you experienced this in your life? Hah!

3. Understand People.   Does the person communicating with you have an agenda that might be influencing what they are telling you? What is motivating this person? Why do you think they think this way?

4. Don’t feel you have to follow the crowd.   Remember the old adage - if Johnny put his hand in the fire does that mean you have to do that too?

5. Trust your feelings.   Trusting your “gut instinct” about something is often an over looked trait. If something does not feel right to you there is probably something wrong (or at least something seriously flawed) with what you are being told.

6. Remain calm.   Remaining calm and collected will help you remain objective and help you to think clearly. If you get caught up in a heated debated and loose your cool, your capacity for rational thinking is diminished.

7. Gather the facts.   Like any good thinker would do - gather all the facts before making a judgment. Ask yourself do you have all the facts? Are there gaps in your knowledge that is keeping me from the truth or from the solution to a problem?

8. Look at Things from Different Perspectives.   If you are trying to solve a problem - try coming at it in a different way. If one way hasn’t worked for you - try a different one! Try and see ideas or concepts from different perspectives. For example, would someone growing up in Japan think the same way about a subject as someone from Ireland?

9. Cultivate Empathy.   It is easier to understand why people think the way they do if you understand their situation.

10. Be Brave.   It takes courage to stand up and say “I don’t agree with you.” Be kind to yourself, be patient and don’t give up. If you want to learn how to think more independently -it does take time.

Take a Look At This Slideshow From Businessweek.

Pretty Interesting Slideshow on what China needs to pay extra attention to (AND FIX) these next few decades. Areas ranging from their stock exchange to retirement is crappy and it’s getting worse. #1 Gov’t Official’s Political Corruption is ruining it for everyone and China’s own good.

Why China’s Problems Could Keep It From Becoming The Next Superpower. Thanks To Their Gov’t Officials

If a mayor announces a plan to reclaim hundreds of acres from the sea and build a massive industrial complex, only a few years later you’d see busy factories, families are living in thousands of new apartments, and 10,000 workers have launched Phase Two. This is the side of China that awes the outside world. The mainland’s extraordinary ability to mobilize people and capital to accomplish daunting feats in record time is the reason it has averaged annual growth of 9.5% for three decades. Why, then, is it so hard for this same government to crack down on exporters of dangerously tainted seafood, toothpaste, and medicine, despite years of warnings by local and foreign experts?

The party has talked for decades about building a social safety net, yet as the working population ages the government isn’t investing nearly enough to head off looming crises in health care, education, and pensions. China spends more than Japan on research and development, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD), but its record of innovation is underwhelming. The same policies that have been so successful at boosting the gross domestic product, it turns out, undermine initiatives that might move China’s economy to a higher level. In its pursuit of growth at all costs, China skimped on investments needed to provide basic affordable health care and the regulatory machinery that can enforce environmental, safety, and corporate governance regulations nationwide.

The root of many problems is China’s power structure. Although Beijing holds a monopoly on politics, local Communist Party officials enjoy wide latitude over social and economic affairs and have huge professional and financial incentives to spur GDP growth, which they often do by ignoring regulations or lavishing companies with perks. Even if Beijing has the best intentions of fixing problems such as undrinkable water and unbreathable air, it is often thwarted by hundreds of thousands of party officials with vested interests in the current system. Conjuring ancient Confucianism, President Hu Jintao harps repeatedly on the need to attain a “harmonious society,” implying that China today is anything but. In March, Premier Wen Jiabao labeled the economy “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated, and unsustainable.”

To their credit, Chinese officials have unveiled a blitz of corrective measures. Beijing is launching new health-care initiatives, regulating food producers and pirating, trying to tame the runaway stock market, and passing stringent environmental rules. And in 2006 alone, nearly 30,000 officials were prosecuted for corruption. If problems persist, the world will have to keep living with a giant trade partner that can’t guarantee safe products, control piracy, or curb pollution. China could keep growing rapidly for years, but a scenario of dysfunctional administration calls into question whether it will really become an economic superpower. What Beijing does lack is the will to overhaul a political structure that gives party officials down to even the smallest villages huge influence over many facets of economic life.

The roots of China’s ersatz capitalism go back to devil’s bargains made in the 1980s and ’90s to accelerate China’s takeoff. Late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping declared it was O.K. to “get rich,” a green light for legions of cadres to discard their Mao suits and rush into business, often by setting themselves up as middlemen or grabbing stakes in communal assets. Beijing also granted great latitude to provincial and local officials to manage development and social services such as education and health care. The two requirements: Remain loyal to the party and meet high economic-growth targets. That explains why many mainland companies have financial ties to county, city, and township governments. In terms of China’s pollution dilemma, the central government struggles to impose its will on local officials nationwide. A 2006 OECD study says that while pollution fines are rising, they’re usually far below the cost of installing equipment to cut pollution. And authorities often negotiate down the charges. “For the sake of their own political scorecards, some local officials have joined forces with businesses seeking windfall profits,” Pan Yue, SEPA’s deputy chief.

The misplaced economic priorities explain the decrepit state of social services. Compared with spurring growth, social services got the short end of the stick. Government surveys show that nearly half of Chinese say they can’t afford to visit a doctor when ill, 70% lack health insurance, and 30% refuse hospitalization due to cost. Of course, the system is corrupt. Hospitals earn most of their revenue selling drugs, and get kickbacks from pharmaceutical suppliers—creating an incentive to overprescribe.In China, everything seems to come down to the cozy relationship between government and industry. Some 95% of the stocks on the Shanghai bourse are state enterprises, and last year no private companies were permitted to list there. Although, 14 state enterprises did. The reason: By floating 10% to 30% of their shares, state companies can ease their dependence on bank loans without ceding any real control, while insiders make windfalls on the stock offering.

The list of shortcomings in China’s economic model is long, but is it fair to expect any different? It took the U.S. and Europe centuries before they developed modern financial systems and methods for ensuring food safety, providing pensions, and protecting the environment. Americans tend to think China should be held to the same standards that we have today, disregarding that we had the same problems ourselves in the not-too-distant past. So how can China tame the unregulated, raw self-interest that flows from Deng’s historic compromise with the party and the people? By getting the party out of business.

How to Decode the Psychology of the Morning Meeting

Where you sit influences where you stand. If you take away their Brooks Brothers suits, Manolo Blahnik shoes, and BlackBerrys, managers are little more than naked apes–social mammals with primal methods of expressing group power hierarchies. Over the past few years, psychologists and consultants have begun to decode the secret meaning of office behavior and to understand one of the business world’s deepest mysteries: Why do people tend to sit in the same place at routine meetings? For instance: a senior female executive at a major global company. She’s hardworking, bright, and well-liked, but she had one big frustration: People often ignored her ideas at meetings. Why? Because she always sat against the wall instead of at the table.The person with the most power determines how everybody else positions themselves around the typical rectangular or oblong office table. As a rule, leaders like to sit at the end of the table facing the exit so no one can sneak up on them. From there on, things get quite complicated, according to Sharon Livingston, a clinical psychologist.  Livingston has met with more than 40,000 people in her career at dozens of large companies and has found that people fit into one of seven personality types based on where they sit, which she explains using the nomenclature borrowed from Snow White’s seven dwarves.

Those sitting opposite the person leading the meeting tend to be Grumpy or Doc, or a combination of the two.  Grumpy is openly argumentative and may be hard to control. Doc is the person who faces off against the leader to show off his or her intelligence. The person who sits on the leader’s right is Happy–a yes-man. In her Web-based questionnaire that quickly determines one’s dwarf personality, 59% of the 20,000 people who have taken the test fall in the Happy category. “We’ve been trained in American society to be helpful and support the leader,” says Livingston. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for ignoring the issue entirely. Some experts believe that if too many people are worried about where they’re sitting it signals a dysfunctional group. “If there’s a strong insecurity, people are more aware of all the trappings like, What am I wearing? Where do I sit? When a team is functional and has a high amount of trust, you worry less about those details.”

 Before you put this article into action and try to sit next to the boss (or vice versa), remember it’s better to take the back row and get asked to the front versus taking the best seat and get told to move, common sense rules.

Let’s Face It: The World Is A Stage

In a thought-provoking book published last year, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton suggest that the overriding impact of leadership on performance is a myth, or at least only a half-truth. 30 years ago, in reviewing research on leadership, Pfeffer concluded at that time that actions of leaders most often explain no more than 10% of performance. Such things as a company’s operating environment, the economy in general, or its long-run success or failure account for more of its current performance.Pfeffer concludes that it may be quite important for leaders to perpetuate the myth of having significant control over performance. As employees, we expect it of our leaders. In our behavior, we defer to leaders. And that reinforces their tendency to act like what we expect of leaders. According to this line of thinking, it may require that a leader act out the role, concealing real feelings in the process. In short, it suggests that some part of leadership is theater that perpetuates the half-truth that leaders are indeed in control.When asked about leadership challenges, Andy Grove, legendary former CEO of Intel, once commented: “Well, part of it is self-discipline and part of it is deception—deception in the sense that you pump yourself up and put a better face on things than you start off feeling. But after a while, if you act confident, you become more confident. So the deception becomes less of a deception.” It may be important for us to believe that our leaders have control over performance, whether or not it is true, particularly in times of turmoil or concern about the future. So to what degree should leaders become thespians, creating an impression that fits expectations? Is some part of leadership about creating the myth of being in control while subtly transferring it to others in the organization?

36% of Europeans in five countries name America as the No. 1 danger to world peace

Europeans consistently regard the United States as the biggest threat to world stability. A survey carried out in June by Harris Research for the Financial Times shows that 32% of respondents in five European countries regard the United States as a bigger threat than any other state. Yay for us.

In the U.S. itself, North Korea and Iran are seen as the biggest risks. However, the youngest American respondents share the Europeans’ view that the United States is the biggest threat, with 35% of American 16- to 24-year-olds identifying their own country as the chief danger to stability. The latest poll comes in the wake of the “surge” that has increased U.S. forces in Iraq to about 160,000 troops, but has not been accompanied by political breakthroughs or a dramatic reduction of violence.”It is evidence of the continued estrangement between the European public and the Bush administration, in spite of a real improvement in official ties,” said Ron Asmus, head of the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund, which works to bolster transatlantic ties. “It is proof that the next president will be confronted with the major challenge of improving America’s image abroad, starting with Europe and our main allies.”

European poll respondents — who come from Spain, France, Germany, Italy and Britain — are increasingly concerned about China, which 19% perceive as the biggest threat, up from 12% last July. Meanwhile, 17% identify Iran as the biggest threat, 11% Iraq and 9% North Korea.

Taiwan’s President Chen Causing Trouble

President Chen Shui-bian said Taiwan will press ahead with a controversial referendum on whether the self-ruled island should apply for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan, dismissing U.S. objections as appeasement of China. Chen’s defiant stand, outlined in frank language during an interview Friday, raised the prospect of a rocky period in Taiwan’s relations with the Bush administration and a rise in tension across the volatile 100-mile strait separating Taiwan from mainland China.China and the United States have complained that the referendum, which would have little practical effect, in fact is designed to promote a change in the island’s official name, from Republic of China to Taiwan. This, both governments charged, could be read as a unilateral change in the island’s status, something China’s leaders have said they will not tolerate. China has said the island must one day reunite with the mainland and has vowed to use force if necessary to prevent a decisive move toward independence — such as changing the official name to Taiwan.President Chen stated that he cannot understand on what grounds the Bush administration voiced objections. “Is it about the matter of holding a referendum itself?” he asked. “Or about joining the U.N.? Or about using the name Taiwan? What is there to oppose in any of this?” Officials in Washington should not worry so much, he said, because applying for U.N. membership under the name Taiwan would not affect the island’s official name, which is defined elsewhere. As a result, he added, it would not constitute a violation of the pledges he made to the Bush administration to avoid changes — including changing the name — that could be viewed as provocative by China and perhaps lead to a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

The United States, under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, has pledged to aid Taiwan in defending against any attack by China. It is unclear whether this would mean military intervention. But with the war in Iraq consuming attention in Washington, the Bush administration is eager to avoid having to face such a choice.

The Uphill Game of Oil Corruption 

A decade ago, geologists found signs that one of Africa’s least-known countries, the tiny island nation of São Tomé and Principe, might hold a king’s ransom in oil. The first drop of oil has yet to be produced. But these days, little São Tomé may have attracted ample supplies of something else, federal investigators suspect — oil-related corruption. All of this might not seem unusual in Africa, where oil and corruption often go hand in hand.

In recent years, a steady stream of activists like the Columbia University economist Jeffrey D. Sachs have gone there to try to make sure that any energy boom would benefit its 150,000 people, rather than politicians and companies.“Oil can be a blessing or a bane for a country,” Mr. Sachs said. “The theory was to help São Tomé avoid the resource curse.” Mr. Sachs and other activist’s mission: To prevent the country from following in footsteps of other African countries where corruption and waste typically follow oil. In Nigeria, the continent’s largest producer, most people live on less than $2 a day while politicians have stolen or squandered billions. Things, however, have not quite worked out that way. The recent Justice Department indictment of William J. Jefferson, a Democratic congressman from Louisiana, contends, for example, that he solicited a bribe from a company seeking his help with an oil-related dispute involving São Tomé. Separately, federal authorities are investigating a small Houston-based company whose only assets are large holdings in São Tomé to determine if it bribed the country’s officials. At that time, the Texas company was owned by some wildcatters and an enterprising Florida businesswoman named Noreen Wilson. In 1997, Ms. Wilson signed a $5 million contract that gave ERHC, which was then known as the Environmental Remediation Holding Corporation, exploration rights in São Tomé for 25 years. The contract was soon described by some outside experts as extremely lopsided. Soon afterward, Ms. Wilson resigned from ERHC during an investigation of the company by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But she appeared to retain an interest in the island’s future; in 2001, for instance, she apparently reached out to Mr. Jefferson for help. The attorney general’s report may have precipitated last summer’s raid on ERHC’s Houston offices by the F.B.I. Among other things, F.B.I. agents took a file marked “William Jefferson,” a reference to the Louisiana congressman, a publicly filed subpoena shows.

A Columbia University team and others helped draft a new oil law that contained safeguards to make sure São Tomé spent its oil-related revenue properly. The team then traveled around the country, holding meetings on cocoa plantations and in churches, where they explained to residents how the new statute would protect their interests. Unfortunately, by late 2005, some companies that won blocs in the zone controlled jointly by São Tomé and its neighbor were headed by Nigerian businessmen with political ties but no oil experience. In addition, the report found some large multinational oil companies were so suspicious of ERHC that they decided not to bid and added that ERHC “may have made improper payments to government officials.” Whatever the case, ERHC has emerged thus far as the biggest winner in São Tomé. Over the last year, it has sold off various rights to its holdings in São Tomé, making tens of millions of dollars in the process.

Fradique de Menezes, the country’s president, who met on several occasions with Mr. Jefferson, did not respond to repeated requests to be interviewed for this article.

Must See Intent To Deceive

Investors lost another round at the Supreme Court when the justices imposed a strict standard for shareholder lawsuits seeking to recover losses from companies accused of fraudulent business practices. The 8-1 opinion written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will make it harder for groups of investors to file lawsuits alleging they lost money because company officials violated federal securities laws.

A lawsuit will survive only if the facts alleged in it are “cogent and compelling” in pointing to an intent to deceive investors, Ginsburg wrote. Those factual allegations must be at least as compelling as “any opposing inference” suggesting innocence, she added. The standard will be applied at the very start of a securities fraud case, meaning many lawsuits may be tossed out at the earlier stages of a court battle. The high court is being asked to clarify what legal hurdles investors must clear in a case with far-reaching repercussions for class-action lawsuits against public companies. Such suits have helped shareholders recover billions of dollars following the wave of corporate scandals. Under the 1995 changes, a securities fraud complaint must allege facts giving rise to a “strong inference” that defendants acted with an intent to deceive investors.

Millions in Stock Converted to Cash to Avoid Campaign Conflicts

Bill and Hillary Clinton have dissolved the blind trust that has managed their investments since they entered the White House in 1993, converting all stocks to cash to avoid financial conflicts as she runs for president, according to documents to be filed today with federal ethics officials. The documents reviewed by The Washington Post provide the most complete accounting of how the Clintons accrued the $5 million to $25 million in the trust — nearly all since leaving the White House — through investments in foreign companies, oil giants and drugmakers without their input or knowledge and without public disclosure.

The Clintons were told earlier this year by federal ethics officials that they would need to reorganize their blind trust to comply with laws for presidential candidates, which differ from those for senators. The couple chose instead to dissolve the trust on April 27 and to convert all their stocks to cash to avoid any questions about possible conflicts of interests. The former president has also derived substantial income from speeches to companies and interest groups as his wife runs for the White House, earning nearly $6 million in the first five months of this year on top of the $40 million he earned over the previous five years, the documents show.

Presidential candidates frequently must answer questions about their investments — especially those involving companies whose records might conflict with the candidates’ positions or policies. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), for instance, promptly divested stocks this spring in companies that do business in the Darfur region of Sudan after those stocks attracted attention. Likewise, former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) has fielded questions about his consulting work and $1 million-plus stake in a hedge fund whose overseas tax breaks and investments in subprime lenders raised questions of conflicts with Edwards’s positions on those issues.

If it disappeared tomorrow, I don’t think people would miss it very much

Established after World War II — the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and what is now called the World Trade Organization — is buckling under the weight of globalization, trade disputes and the ambitions of rising economic powers in Asia and elsewhere. The World Bank and its sister institution, the monetary fund, were established in 1944 at Bretton Woods, N.H., to secure the international economy. The bank was supposed to rebuild Europe and reduce poverty elsewhere with grants and loans. The monetary fund tries to avert financial meltdowns by monitoring countries’ economic policies. Today, however, all three institutions are facing questions about their relevance in a global economy.

Eckhard Deutscher, a German development official who serves as the dean of the World Bank’s directors, called for a re-examination of the role of all the institutions. “The international community also needs to look at the whole system. There are governance problems across the board,” says Mr. Deutscher. The most immediate issue the bank and the fund must face, experts said, is who governs them. Paul D. Wolfowitz, the president of the World Bank who resigned last week, was appointed by President Bush as an architect of the Iraq war. Well, no wonder! The recent bank crisis erupted over a narrow dispute over charges of favoritism against Mr. Wolfowitz. “The Wolfowitz situation exposed what an antediluvian system the bank has,” states Kenneth S. Rogoff, professor of public policy and economics at Harvard, referring to how the head of the organization is chosen.

Last year, the World Bank’s cumulative lending to China was $40 billion for 274 projects. China is now an export superpower, sitting on more than $1 trillion in reserves, and is so wealthy that it recently announced its own $20 billion program of loans and credits to Africa. So… why did they loan to China? More than $14 billion of the bank’s lending went to ’so called middle income’ countries like China and India. The bank borrows the money at low cost because of its peerless credit rating, then lends it at slightly above that rate. The money it makes on the loans helps pay the bank’s overhead, including the salaries of its 13,000 employees (and a few sideline pockets). In 2000, an advisory commission created by Congress and headed by Allan H. Meltzer, professor of political economy and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, recommended stopping loans to middle-income countries and converting loans to the poorest countries to grants. “The basic problem for the bank is that it’s hard to see what good it has done anywhere,” Mr. Meltzer said. Another problem for the bank, however, is that while it lends and makes grants to the world’s poorest countries ($9.5 billion last year) the bank itself has become marginalized in the overall global effort for the poor. World Bank figures show that the bank’s own contribution to the poorest countries amounts to only about 7% of the government-backed aid they get from 230 international aid agencies, including regional development banks and special funds in Europe for disease, education, maternal health and other programs. Large sums are also going to poor countries through private foundations. Like the World Bank, the fund is becoming more marginal. The world economy has been so successful that the fund, which helped bail out Mexico, other Latin American countries and several Asian countries in the 1990s, is now underemployed.

“In the past I have called for the abolition of the I.M.F.,” said former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, who is also a former Treasury secretary. “If it disappeared tomorrow, I don’t think people would miss it very much.”  Many economists say that the fund will be needed when, inevitably, the next crisis occurs. The Bush administration has nonetheless made no secret of its disdain for the monetary fund, saying that the institution has been “asleep at the wheel.” The World Trade Organization, established in 1995 as the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, is struggling mightily to salvage the current round of trade talks that started five years ago at Doha, Qatar. A crisis mood has descended over the talks, with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. warning that if they fail, a new era of protectionism could be ushered in. The fear is that the World Trade Organization, which is supposed to promote trade, will become a vehicle for lawsuits and protectionist actions threatening higher barriers, leading to a slowdown in the global economy.

And It Looks Like It Might Be: An Antigouging Bill Voted

The House yesterday voted 284 to 141 to pass a bill that would make gasoline price gouging a federal offense. In the Senate, Democratic leaders were scrambling to introduce an energy bill, the first since they took control of Congress. A committee also held a hearing on whether oil industry mergers have contributed to higher fuel prices. Many Republicans seemed prepared to support the bill despite a White House veto threat. The 284 House members who voted for the bill included 56 Republicans.The legislation would give federal authorities the power during presidentially declared energy emergencies to investigate and prosecute anyone selling fuel at a price that is “unconscionably excessive” or “indicates the seller is taking unfair advantage of unusual market conditions.” The measure would give the Federal Trade Commission the power to investigate price gouging and punish violators.

Now You See Why Jumping The Fence Is Easier

An estimated 1.5 million legal immigrants in the United States who have been waiting as long as seven years to bring husbands, wives and small children to live with them. Instead of giving them new hope, a bipartisan compromise bill now under debate on the Senate floor would only make their plight worse, senators, lawyers and immigrants said yesterday. It is a minefield for those who have been waiting for years in the bureaucratic labyrinths of the immigration system. If the bill passes, they said, millions of foreigners already in the legal pipeline could face even longer waits than they do now. Supporters of the bill, including the White House, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, and Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican, say it would help aspiring legal immigrants by eliminating the backlog of about four million visa applications within eight years.  A total of 440,000 green cards — as visas for legal permanent residents are known — will be set aside during each of the eight years to reduce the backlog.

“This bill is a disaster for nuclear families, especially if they have obeyed the law,” said Paul Donnelly, an adviser to American Families United, an advocacy group for legal immigrants. “If you talk about family unification and you don’t talk about nuclear families, what do you mean?” Currently, there is no limit on the number of green cards for foreign spouses and children of American citizens. When foreigners are granted green cards, they too are entitled to bring their spouses and minor children to live in the United States. But legal immigrants who marry foreigners living abroad after they have become permanent American residents have to get in line to bring them in, and the line is at least four years long.

Tough Times Ahead For American Truckers If The Bill Goes Through

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill yesterday that would delay and make substantial changes to a Bush administration program to test the ability of Mexican truck drivers to operate safely in the United States. The legislation sponsored by Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., won approval 411-3 in the House but faces uncertain prospects in the Senate. The administration plans to open the border to unlimited travel by Mexican trucks under a one-year demonstration project that could start as early as July 15.  The bill also requires Mexican truck drivers to be able to read and speak English in one of several provisions authored by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., charged that unlike in the United States, Mexico does not restrict the number of hours in a day that truck drivers can operate. Many Mexican drivers use illegal drugs to stay awake, he said. Melissa DeLaney, a spokeswoman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said she was unaware of the specifics of Mexican law. She also stated drug and alcohol tests for Mexican drivers would be conducted at certified labs in the United States.

What’s the Mexican gov’t have to say about all of this? “While the legislative process has yet to conclude, the decision of the House today raises questions about the commitment of most of its members to comply with international trade obligations,” the Mexican Embassy said in a statement. The border was supposed to be opened to truck traffic starting in 1995 as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed by the United States, Mexico and Canada.And what about America truck drivers? “If we allow the truckers to cross, they will be in this country and able to take jobs away from our local companies, especially small trucking companies,” Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego said. “That puts all our guys out of business if the administration proposal is allowed to go through.” DeFazio charged that NAFTA proponents are pushing for open borders because they want to save money by shipping goods from China directly to Mexico, where they would be transported by Mexican trucks into the United States. Administration officials contend the elimination of trade barriers promotes efficiency, resulting in lower costs and increased prosperity for both Mexico and the United States. Yeah right! Somewhere, plenty of pockets are filling up too fast.