Racing To The Bottom

The spectre of a "race to the bottom" is increasingly prominent in debates about globalization and also within federal systems where the mobility of both capital and individuals prompts fears of interjurisdictional competition with respect to taxes and environmental and welfare standards. While there has been no shortage of either political rhetoric or academic theorizing on this subject, empirical studies have been in shorter supply. This volume seeks to fill that gap by asking: Are Canadian provinces engaged in a race to the bottom and, if so, what are the consequences? It will be of interest to public policy practitioners, as well as to students and scholars of economics and political science.

Everyone wants: High schoolers to graduate well-prepared for jobs. Improved STEM literacy. Greater achievement for inner-city children. Happiness for all children. So why are liberals spending billions of dollars working against those goals? In Race to the Bottom, Luke Rosiak uncovers the shocking reason why American education is failing: Powerful special interest groups are using our kids as guinea pigs in vast ideological experiments. These groups’ initiatives aren’t focused on making children smarter—but on implementing a radical agenda, no matter the effect on academic standards. Nonprofits pump billions into initiatives meant to redress racial inequities. Rather than fixing the problem, districts with a big gap between white and black test scores hire consultants who claim the tests are meaningless because they are “racist.” These consultants’ judgments allow school districts to ignore their own failures—ultimately hurting minority students and perpetuating racism. That is just one example. Drawing on his years in investigative journalism, Rosiak did a deep dive into school files, financial records, and parents’ stories. What he found is that nonprofit influence has crept into the educational bureaucracy all over America. Corrupt school boards and quack diversity consultants abound. Teachers drawing government pay claim it’s unsafe to return to in-person school, but “double dip” teaching in-person private classes. And amid all this focus on money and equity, academic standards are crumbling, which hurts American kids in ways we’ll be suffering for decades. Race to the Bottom is the first comprehensive exposé of the way radical ideology and self-serving administrators are destroying academic quality in America’s K-12 schools. Rigorous and deeply-researched, this is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our kids.

Equal parts adventure and STEM, Rebecca E. F. Barone's Race to the Bottom of the Earth: Surviving Antarctica is a thrilling nonfiction book for young readers chronicling two treacherous, groundbreaking expeditions to the South Pole—and includes eye-catching photos of the Antarctic landscape. "Riveting! I raced to the end of this book!" —Alan Gratz, New York Times bestselling author of Refugee In 1910, Captain Robert Scott prepared his crew for a trip that no one had ever completed: a journey to the South Pole. He vowed to get there any way he could, even if it meant looking death in the eye. Then, not long before he set out, another intrepid explorer, Roald Amundsen, set his sights on the same goal. Suddenly two teams were vying to be the first to make history—what was to be an expedition had become a perilous race. In 2018, Captain Louis Rudd readied himself for a similarly grueling task: the first unaided, unsupported solo crossing of treacherous Antarctica. But little did he know that athlete Colin O’Brady was training for the same trek—and he was determined to beat Louis to the finish line. For fans of Michael Tougias’ The Finest Hours, this gripping account of two history-making moments of exploration and competition is perfect for budding scientists, survivalists, and thrill seekers. "A nail-biting tale of adventure, tragedy, and superhuman determination—and also a luminous example of how our present lives are shaped by our immeasurably deep connection to our past." —Elizabeth Wein, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Code Name Verity "A huge treat for adventure story fans—not one, but two incredible races across the fearsome and fascinating Antarctic!" —Steve Sheinkin, New York Times bestselling author of Bomb and Undefeated

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s only authorized book revealing the inside track on his final year of racing and retirement from the driver’s seat. “Time was running out on my charade… My secrets were about to be exposed to the world.” It was a seemingly minor crash at Michigan International Speedway in June 2016 that ended the day early for Dale Earnhardt Jr. What he didn’t know was that it would also end his driving for the year. He’d dealt with concussions before, but concussions are like snowflakes, no two are the same. And recovery can be brutal, and lengthy. When NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired from professional stock car racing in 2017, he walked away from his career as a healthy man. But for years, he had worried that the worsening effects of multiple racing-related concussions would end not only his time on the track but his ability to live a full and happy life. Torn between a race-at-all-costs culture and the fear that something was terribly wrong, Earnhardt tried to pretend that everything was fine, but the private notes about his escalating symptoms that he kept on his phone reveal a vicious cycle: suffering injuries on Sunday, struggling through the week, then recovering in time to race again the following weekend. For the first time, he shares these notes and fully reveals the physical and emotional struggles he faced as he fought to close out his career on his own terms. In this candid reflection, Earnhardt opens up about his frustration with the slow recovery, his admiration for the woman who stood by him through it all, and his determination to share his own experience so that others don’t have to suffer in silence. Steering his way to the final checkered flag of his storied career proved to be the most challenging race and most rewarding finish of his life.

Critics of free trade have raised the specter of a race to the bottom, in which environmental standards collapse because polluters threaten to relocate to pollution havens in the developing world. The flaw in the race-to-the-bottom model is that its basic assumptions misrepresent the political economy of pollution control in developing countries.Critics of free trade have raised the specter of a race to the bottom, in which environmental standards collapse because polluters threaten to relocate to pollution havens in the developing world. Proponents of this view advocate high, globally uniform standards enforced by punitive trade measures that neutralize the cost advantage of would-be pollution havens. To test the race-to-the-bottom model, Wheeler analyzes recent air quality trends in the United States and in Brazil, China, and Mexico, the three largest recipients of foreign investment in the developing world.The evidence clearly contradicts the model's central prediction. The most dangerous form of air pollution - suspended particulate matter - has actually declined in major cities in all four countries during the era of globalization.Citing recent research, Wheeler argues that the race-to-the-bottom model is flawed because its basic assumptions misrepresent the political economy of pollution control in developing countries.He proposes a more realistic model, in which low-income societies serve their own long-run interests by reducing pollution. He concludes with recommendations for international assistance measures that can improve environmental quality without counterproductive enforcement of uniform standards and trade sanctions.This paper - a product of Infrastructure and Environment, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to study the economics of pollution control in developing countries. Please contact David Wheeler, room MC2-529, telephone 202-473-3401, fax 202-522-3230, email address [email protected].

The twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of the groundbreaking classic, with a new introduction First published in 1993, on the one-year anniversary of the Los Angeles riots, Race Matters became a national best seller that has gone on to sell more than half a million copies. This classic treatise on race contains Dr. West’s most incisive essays on the issues relevant to black Americans, including the crisis in leadership in the Black community, Black conservatism, Black-Jewish relations, myths about Black sexuality, and the legacy of Malcolm X. The insights Dr. West brings to these complex problems remain relevant, provocative, creative, and compassionate. In a new introduction for the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, Dr. West argues that we are in the midst of a spiritual blackout characterized by imperial decline, racial animosity, and unchecked brutality and terror as seen in Baltimore, Ferguson, and Charlottesville. Calling for a moral and spiritual awakening, Dr. West finds hope in the collective and visionary resistance exemplified by the Movement for Black Lives, Standing Rock, and the Black freedom tradition. Now more than ever, Race Matters is an essential book for all Americans, helping us to build a genuine multiracial democracy in the new millennium.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower—a riveting thriller and “all-too-convincing chronicle of science, espionage, action and speculation” (The Wall Street Journal). At an internment camp in Indonesia, forty-seven people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When epidemiologist Henry Parsons travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will have staggering repercussions. Halfway across the globe, the deputy director of U.S. Homeland Security scrambles to mount a response to the rapidly spreading pandemic leapfrogging around the world, which she believes may be the result of an act of biowarfare. And a rogue experimenter in man-made diseases is preparing his own terrifying solution. As already-fraying global relations begin to snap, the virus slashes across the United States, dismantling institutions and decimating the population. With his own wife and children facing diminishing odds of survival, Henry travels from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia to his home base at the CDC in Atlanta, searching for a cure and for the origins of this seemingly unknowable disease. The End of October is a one-of-a-kind thriller steeped in real-life political and scientific implications, filled with the insight that has been the hallmark of Wright’s acclaimed nonfiction and the full-tilt narrative suspense that only the best fiction can offer.