Square in ucla. This is about 1 an hour and 15 minutes. Steven greenhouse was a reporter for the New York Times for 31 years and spent his last 19 years at the time that the labor workplace reporter covering topics ranging from poverty to fight for 1 15 fast food disasters and bangladesh. Hes also the author of the awardwinning books the big squeeze tough times for the american worker. Please give a warm welcome to mr. Steven greenhouse. [applause] good evening and welcome to the discussion discussing a hot topic the globalization served as global elites in the course of the news we see article after article about how the workers in youngstown and base their Economic Growth and those against globalization are often beneficiaries of globalization. They use their mobile phones assembled in china. For the big show an excellent panel of experts to discuss globalization tonight. The president of the World Trade Center los angeles previously served as the los angeles secretarygeneral and as the director of International Trade for the port of los angeles. Kathryn stone is akatherine ston labor and Employment Law at the school of law an and awarded a guggenheim fellowship and a fellowship for her work on the changing nature of employment and globalized world. Jerry is an economist of ucla school of management where he focuses on asian economies and also works on the Anderson School of Economic Forecasting of the california and u. S. Economies. The founder and ceo of the trade group that helps governments of Collateral Development groups to shape the Public Policy with learning strategies in support of trade and obligation. Starting with a question from jerry. President trump said last june globalization has made those very, very wealthy but its left millions of workers with nothing but poverty and heartache. Whats your reaction to the president s remarks . When you think about globalization, you have to ask the question isnt it obvious shouldnt we just say yes and get to the reception here and it isnt so obvious the data is convoluted because theres a lot of things going on and one major event that is going on that keeps ubut keepsus from gettingf this is at the same time that we have had globalization over the last 15 because we didnt see this in the early kind of have to nafta but we have seen the rise of the robots and that has meant firms are substituting capital for labor but also those are complements with information intensive workers. So we are seeing much more interest on that and that would occur even without any trade. So, when we look at the data do we think they are mixed together so you have to ask what is more important to get the solutions . More than 4. 8 manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Much of this is related to the agreement and i will pose a few. The Global Economy isnt working for the majority of people in the country and the world this is an economic model developed by the elite to benefit the economic elite. I think it is certainly true particularly since about 2000. And i think that theres been a huge rise in productivity which is reflected with a big boost in automation and technology but there is also a big impact on trade and i think different economists have differed on what is responsible and how many jobs and ive seen estimates that talk about anywhere from 2 million to 3. 5 million. The other being the result of technology but theres no doubt played a big role so for that point of view there is also a big cost. They havent been adequately compensated or supported by other economic programs that would make them winners as well i came away with the feeling that it is good for companies that could invest anywhere in the world. Its not good for the workers in the United States but it might be good for the industries in sri lanka. Do you think that globalization benefits the elite mainly disproportionately. Of course there are textbooks results. The trade in theory is supposed to have gains for all people and that is what we see in th the sy so indeed there are some negatives that i would cite in multiple studies they found that the competitive impact on the u. S. Economy of imports coming in because of the shifting. We are at the bridge of an economy that is enabling people in every walk of life to provide services to companies all over the world. They are companies that are selling online 5 on the expert on average to about two countries. When we look at retail sellers 90 of the export are the globalization and companies that we should encourage the workers to graduate into that and contribute to work. As often happens, the people that are hurt the most i want to discuss for a few minutes globalization in california. The port of la, Silicon Valley did a little exporting as well. I think california has benefited greatly from the globalization and there are a lot of victims. If we look at how they participated and dominated the efforts we sense the monetary currency to happen and now 60 or 70 years later it becomes harder to swallow at that point. There are winners and losers from the very beginning. California because of our committee and the Manufacturing Base in china we benefited more than anybody else. 43 come to the port of la and at the agricultural aspects from california we export a lot of those goods. I think you mentioned that they created. The main target of the decline in the factories attributed to china please note we dont have the Free Trade Agreement with china. Lets imagine that we are all taking a stroll and need several shoppers, one buying a samsung machine or a pair of jeans made in mexico o were shoes made in brazil and we posed the question for the walmart shoppers, the globalization that only serves to delete. How would you respond to that question and what would you tell them . First of all, how did you get my Shopping List . I think that answer is going to be yes. Especially if they are living in dayton ohio but maybe more especially if they are in santa monica. Yes, globalization hurts workers and helps to elite. Its easy to explain and it takes about a half an hour and at least most of them get it but the issue is exposed to different places and the problem is with policy we can treat all of those that lost their jobs the same and that is the plaintiff was made earlier some Industrial Workers that are in their 30s are quite prepared to move into the new economy with appropriate guidance. Some are like in the grapes of wrath and that is a different kind of policy. And i think our policies that are policies that use hammers but need scalpels. I want to make one other quick point and that is the manufacturing some abroad but here we are manufacturing about 150 of the of the remaining in effect during the 1990s with only 60 of the workers. So theres a lot of things happening in this economy, and the trade is one of them. But it is only one of them. Lets say we are taking a trip in main street ohio and we used to work in steel mills. Economists say globalization is great. Its the overall economy come it gives consumers more choice what do you think they are going to tell you and what should be done quite they will say that it might be good for them but its not for us in places like Youngstown Ohio or upstate new york where i lived for many years were outside of pittsburgh or detroit if well see people devastated particularly people that have manufacturing jobs in the past, high paid jobs with good benefits often with unions. They tend to be low paid working as fast food establishments and working parttime and retail or Home Health Aides. So what is happening is the high paid jobs have left and the low paid jobs have not just filled in the gaps but actually multiplied. Theres been a huge shift to the service jobs a but the lowend service jobs have multiplied and are continuing to do so and to increase tremendously in the next ten years and manufacturing jobs are predicted to continue their decline. So this gets back to something about what should be done, but its nothing in the nature of the universe that says being a Home Health Aid has to be a bad job it could be a good job with decent pay and steady hour hourd steady benefits. There could be a union and so the fact that people have different jobs in our economy is true those are jobs that are very low paid and its hard for people to support themselves or pay their rent if they are only earning eight or 10 an hour 24 hours a week but theres nothing that says that couldnt change and one thing with the changing some of the walls for example to make it easier for the workers to unionize so they would have more Bargaining Power. We might also think about those kinds of retraining or various other kinds of social benefits that make it possible for people to reenter the workforce and get some Bargaining Power so when they get new jobs, the jobs are better than those they lost rather than it being a steady decline. Like many professional economists, you say that it helps increase efficiency, helps lift up Economic Growth worldwide and gives consumers more choice. Why then does it get such a bad rap . President trump, Bernie Sanders and so many others attacking globalization a of it is considered a general good . I think that it is an easy target first of all. Very much what jerry said, it is a march of being the changing technology. Defectives of china are no longer listed as run by the workers. There are three d. Printers there as well so this is a global phenomena i phenomenon ir adjustment worldwide and graduating to a new economy where i will give you a kind of juxtaposition that tells the story. Some of you may remember around the time of the election, there was a story about two ladies in a factory in indianapolis and this was a time when they were still talking about moving to mexico to manufacture and they said if trump doesnt deliver on those we will go a different way during the election. 150 miles down the road there is a guy named travis who started his own business in 2004, retail for motorcycle products and a couple years later he started to sell online and today he started the business with 7,000 today he exports 130 countries and 40 of the sales come from exports and of these storie these storie potential from india and from all around the planet these are the people writing on globalization. The bridge of the historic period where for the first time it is possible to have the town square at the global level essentially where they come together and transact. We are right now at this phase to do this but it takes the cooperation of all of this to a line. So germany is in theory more than the United States because it is a higher percentage of the gdp that goes to trade, imports and exports and it doesnt have a bette better rap in germany tt does in the United States. So i ask you why this globalization gets such a bad rap here and i think one reason is that we do not as a nation do enough for the losers in globalization. Let me ask why do you think, what about the United States prevents us from doing enough to help the losers . Going back to david and the theory of competitive advantages which is the 200th anniversary of the publication of that the interview shows if you have countries even with different resources and levels of wealth they are still benefited by trade but it doesnt say anything about whether different groups and countries are benefited by trade so all the benefits can go to the top or they can be spared in an egalitarian way. Its each nation as a blackbox anblack boxand so i think the qf whether who benefits from trade is a question of whether there are distribution mechanisms within a nation to not just compensate losers that restructure the way the labor markets work in ways that make it possible for everybody to flourish and if so i think the problem in the United States as weve gone the opposite direction it made it harder to form the right to work laws enacted that make it hard to unionize. We have attacks on Public Sector unions endeavor since Ronald Reagan federal policy so it is not a surprise that the labor share of gdp has fallen and the rates have fallen into you get these workers that have lost in the global marketplace who are not getting any resources or dont have the resources themselves to be empowered to protect themselves. I want to ask you that and bring an aspect of pop culture into this. I was in germany going to the trade show and to talk about the industry for points youre looking at the next generation. The entrepreneurs are innovative but overall it is americas number one, number one in obesity, there i theres a numbf issues we have that we are proud of our paths in this story earlier about the two ladies that want trump to bring back their old job into this older gentleman and down the street is looking towards the future. The solution to what you are saying as well especially with the auto manufacturing. We already know that you can blame mexico for a lot of this. A lot of the components are going directly to mexico and about 60 of their severe integrating in this approach. So that is what he do. I think that cultural aspect has attributed to it but if we get the next generation and even retraining for workers t of worw about ecommerce and that 95 of the consumers of the purchasing power is outside of the United States, america is not going to be number one if we continue to think we are number one. So changing that view will get us to the stuff to do something about it. If we go back and think america was great lets go back there again im afraid we might look to far in the past and other countries will take off without us. A couple of comments related to the discussion. There is an economic theory. Its the theory of International Trade. The unfortunate thing is that says there was increasing inequality in the u. S. And decreasing inequality in places like china but the fact is theres this increasing inequality elsewhere and thats why i say the number of things going on that are kind of important and the second comment is there is no case in the economic history of the world where protectionism has improved the life of the country in fact we take argentina in 1911 with the ninth richest country in the world and it hasnt moved much since then and that is for a number of reasons but protectionism certainly was one of them and then to your earlier question, i think that it is easy for politicians to go and say somebody took your job and its hard for them to say the world has moved on your job is not coming back and here are the kind of things we are going to do to help you move into the economy. I would sub at the first one is an easier way to get votes. If you have a question on culture and globalization, we hear a lot jobs have been lost globalization, but here in los angeles, looking at hollywood, its helped create a lot of jobs. Can you discuss that . When we talk about the globalization we think about exports and imports and we need to think more about the project investment. You have seen especially after the recession and increase in this investment coming from asia and china and by the way its repeated itself 30 or 40 years ago from the uk and a number of places but lets focus on china for a second, real estate life, weve seen the downtown boom like ways we havent seen a long time and a lot of it has t had o with the investment. Did that only helped the kiwis . Again, they are the investors that will get a lot of the return and obviously going to benefit greatly however there will be workers, Hotel Workers and by the way we are creating new hotels and new residential residence iresidents into theses will actually support the Convention Center and now we are able to attract big conventions we were not able to attract before becaus because if you lot San Francisco and las vegas, they were able to attract even San Diego Comic Con and others within a twomile radius of the Staples Center and Convention Center so now you are talking about the investment having this entire effect of creating more jobs in various sectors coming to it its so yes, i think that again they will benefit more. However, the Common People are as well not to the same extent that dont get me wrong it is not just that everybody is going to win. I think in globalization with competition someone will lose it is just basically what do we do with those people that are not going to be winning. Construction is one of them are rapidly growinthemore rapidf employment in california the last couple of years. Those are good middleclass jobs, so it is not only the elite that have been supported by this construction in downtown la. It does grow but the percentage of construction declines as to the wages, so there has been a dropoff in the construction wages nationwide overtime and it is no longer quite the path to success that it used to be for high school graduates. The other jobs that come in unfortunately like the Hotel Director or lowpaying jobs and so the problem isnt that there are not jobs. The bigger problem is they dont give the kind of stability and life that jobs used to and its not just this. I would never advocate these adoption of policies because that is a path to poverty for a nation but i do think what we need to focus on the distribution measures that cracked or somehow compensate for the effect and i think one is not just from trade with automation and also just managerial theories have changed so the firms no longer necessarily want a stable longterm employees, they want flexibility, they want to be agile to be able to change the skill mix because they had global competition and changing technologi