Greedy Globalists

WASHINGTON — At home and abroad, globalization is under increasing stress. From Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez announced plans last week to nationalize critical industries, to Thailand, which has imposed new controls on foreign capital, countries are embracing long-discredited economic strategies. In Geneva, multilateral talks aimed at a new global trade pact remain deadlocked. "The idea of globalization and continued societal embrace of openness seems to be in a very deep sense of crisis," says Rawi Abdelal, a professor at Harvard Business School.

The ebbing enthusiasm for additional integration is particularly noteworthy coming after four consecutive years of global economic expansion. That's what makes the pervasive gripes over globalization — the free flow of goods, services and capital across national borders — so striking. "Despite the relatively favorable average income gains of the past few years, a common feature of the political context in economies around the world is the fragility or weakness of public support for openness and economic integration," Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said in a speech last week. As perhaps the world's most globalized economy, the USA benefits enormously from increasingly integrated markets and financial flows.

• JJ Commentary: Globalism, a concept being pushed by the New World (Dis)Order “elitists” who want to rule and reign over the world, is being exposed for the power hungry, greedy gambit it is.