U.S. banks engaged in biggest price-fixing conspiracy in modern history.

[Ikonoklast]

18. How many do you need?

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-07-14/business/9307140084_1_jobs-automobile-labor-unions
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/22/18743640.php
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/interviews/reich.html



....much more.


From the Frontline interview:

Later in the summer, NAFTA takes the fore. You are passionate about this. AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland is in your ear all the time. Elsewhere in the administration, there is enormous pressure in support of NAFTA. How did the president deal with that? He had you and labor in one ear, and Rubin and Panetta in the other.

Well, personally, I was and still am a free trader. I think that free trade is inevitable and overall it helps everyone. But labor was very against NAFTA. And I remember appearing on so many stages in front of various labor groups and being booed off the stage because I was representing the president, and the president was committed to NAFTA. He was committed to NAFTA in the campaign. He said, during the 1992 campaign, "I am going to sign the North American Free Trade Act."

What was your advice to him during the debate though?

My advice to him during the campaign was to sign it.

And then later, once, Kirkland was telling you guys that it was going to be a "f-ing disaster," and you were going to come to regret it. You passed that on to the president. What was his reaction?

He shrugged. He was willing to take on organized labor over the North American Free Trade Act. I think the real issue there was what kind of priority NAFTA should get. Should it be one of the highest priorities of the administration in those first years? Should he spend a lot of political capital on it? Should he delay health care in order to get NAFTA done first? And the first lady wanted health care first. She didn't want him to expend political capital on NAFTA. She was concerned, and in retrospect she was absolutely right, that if health care came after NAFTA, then health care might never get done. Already the momentum was building for some sort of universal health care. He had the political capital to get that done, but the business community was telling him NAFTA was more important. And Lloyd Bentsen, the most senior member of the cabinet, and a man of great insight and wisdom and experience to whom the president deferred quite a bit, Lloyd Bentsen was adamant. NAFTA must come first. In fact, I remember Lloyd banging his finger on the table, "We must get this done right away." And so the president decided that that was going to get the priority. My job was to deliver the news to organized labor. And that was not pleasant, but they knew it was coming. Later in the summer, NAFTA takes the fore. You are passionate about this. AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland is in your ear all the time. Elsewhere in the administration, there is enormous pressure in support of NAFTA. How did the president deal with that? He had you and labor in one ear, and Rubin and Panetta in the other.