The fate of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USCMA) could now lie in the hands of U.S. Labor Parties, as the Wall Street Journal reports that Democrats are unlikely to support the measure without labor backing. As Steny Hoyer, House Majority Leader, said in a statement, “it would probably be doubtful that we will be able to get there if we don’t come to an agreement with the workers of America who feel that they have been badly hurt by NAFTA.”
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The World Economic Forum recently released the annual Global Competitiveness Report, naming the United States the number one most competitive economy in the world for the first time since the early 2000s. According to the report, the nature of economic competitiveness is shifting, as economies are “increasingly transformed by new, digital technologies,” which are “creating a new set of challenges for governments and businesses.” The United States is followed by Singapore, Germany, Switzerland and Japan.
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Seattle Times recently told its readers that if they’re hoping Seattle-area rents will get cheap, they better not hold their breath. While the rental market has cooled in recent months, as vacancies and new projects have brought landlords to offer big incentives for tenants, “that doesn’t mean Seattle is suddenly a utopia for apartment hunters. In fact, it is among the priciest cities in the U.S. for renters—having grown 155 percent in twenty years—and steadying prices have come “only after seven straight years of large rent hikes that have made Seattle unaffordable to anyone not making decent money.”
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