We have recently witnessed a flurry of comment in the US on the long-running stagnation of wages. Many believe that the future livelihood of the "middle class" is also at risk.

Lou Dobbs of CNN, the labour groups' think-tank Economic Policy Institute and nearly all the Democrats newly elected to Congress believe that globalisation has much to do with the economic distress of the working and middle classes. Therefore they have coherence on their side when they want to lean on the door - even to close it - on trade with poor countries and occasionally on unskilled immigration from them.