Don’t miss the #1 bestselling author of Why Your World Is About to Get A Whole Lot Smaller, Jeff Rubin at Wordfest! His newest book, The Expendables: How the Middle Class Got Screwed By Globalization is an exhilaratingly fresh perspective that is at once humane and irascible, fearless and rigorous, and most importantly, timely. This event features an on-stage interview, followed by an audience Q&A, and book signing.
About The Expendables: How the Middle Class Got Screwed By Globalization
Real wages in North America have not risen since the 1970s. Union membership has collapsed and full-time employment is beginning to look like a quaint idea from the distant past. If it seems that the middle class is in retreat around the developed world, it is.
Jeff Rubin argues that all of this was foreseeable back when Canada, the United States, and Mexico first started talking about free trade. Labour argued then that manufacturing jobs would move to Mexico. Free-trade advocates disagreed.
Today, Canadian and American factories sit idle; more steel is used to make bottlecaps than cars. Meanwhile, Mexico has become one of the world's biggest automotive exporters. And it's not just NAFTA. Cheap oil, low interest rates, global deregulation, and tax policies that benefit the rich, all have the same effect: the erosion of the middle class.
“Growing global inequality is a problem of our own making” – Jeff Rubin
And solving it won't be easy if we draw on the same ideas about capital and labour, right and left that led us to this cliff. GDP is growing, the stock market is up, and unemployment rates are down, but what you’ll learn from this book is that even the good news is only good for one percent of us.
About Jeff Rubin
Jeff Rubin was the Chief Economist at CIBC World Markets, where he worked for over 20 years. He is the author of many award-winning books including The End of Growth, and The Carbon Bubble. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance (CIGI). He lives in Toronto.
Curiouser?
Also by Jeff:
- “Canada Isn't So Different. It Could Go Populist Too” — The New York Times
Books:
Books will be available for purchase at the event by local bookseller, Owl's Nest Books.
If you want to purchase the book in advance:
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