[onlooker]

well i am happy to discover that our so called "democracy" is still functioning at least a tiny bit in so much as the executive branch is trying to bypass the legislative and the supposed will of the people. Of course congress has and is constantly assailing worker and human rights here in US and abroad. Not to mention environment. This to me is like democracy on life-support showing still a sign of life.

[yellowcanoe]

Another aspect of these free trade treaties is eliminating the ability of countries to require that raw resources be processed locally. A sticking point with the Canada - Europe trade deal which isn't yet in effect is that Newfoundland wants to continue to be able to set minimum limits for how much fish must be processed in Newfoundland. Considering that it takes more labour to process fish than it does to catch it, why should Newfoundland be put at risk of having all their raw fish sent out of the country for processing? There is little enough employment in many Newfoundland communities without also sending the fish processing jobs away too!

[onlooker]

Well the whole point of these treaties and deals is to produce maximum profit for corporations. Of secondary concern are jobs in any country, environmental standards in any country or any factors that affect your average person. No country is immune. I recommend to those interested a book "When Corporations rule the world" by David Korten. We basically live in a plutocracy - kleptocracy world

[Sixstrings]

Considering that it takes more labour to process fish than it does to catch it, why should Newfoundland be put at risk of having all their raw fish sent out of the country for processing? There is little enough employment in many Newfoundland communities without also sending the fish processing jobs away too!

Canadians need to really watch these trade deals.

You're going to lose everything you ever liked about your country, everything that ever made it special and different from the US.

Newfoundland fish will get processed in China. You'll be just like the USA. A playground for that Canadian Gustra bankster guy (the uranium guy that was thick in with Bill Clinton), a playground for Canada's oligarchs and 1% and everyone else can just suffer and you'll see all the social system end in Canada, too.

Canada will be gone, forever. That's what these free trade deals will reap. The entire point of it is to bring you guys down to the level of Hondurans, Sri Lankans, Vietnamese, Chinese -- and if it's a deal with Europe then guess what your Newfoundland fish will wind up shipped to Poland and Ukraine one day, for processing.

Wherever the labor is cheapest. That's the entire point of these free trade deals, it's precisely why 1% capitalist owners love them so much.

(free trade expansion can be overall good and pro growth, WHEN IT IS NOT TOO MUCH AND TOO FAST. So for example, EU was doing okay taking on Poland and Baltics and Czechs, now add in Hungary and Romania and the boat starts to get a bit rocky. Then if Ukraine eventually gets in it, they really need to stop at that point.

For the US -- NAFTA was actually too much. Mexico was simply too poor, and too massively populous.

But now -- good God -- they want to throw us all into the melting pot with the entire Pacific? BILLIONS of poor, in China, in India, in Vietnam, in Sri Lanka, on and on.)

[Sixstrings]

OH, AND BY THE WAY FOR THE EUROPEANS ON THE FORUM --

You're going to wind up with all our American GMO modified corn and produce, that you never wanted.

You're going to wind up with all our meat that's pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, and raised in horrible factory farm conditions. All those small scale, high quality, European farmers WILL lose their jobs eventually. The old jobs will be replaced with more muslim tenement projects -- where the immigrants don't have jobs either, and just sit and stew all day and get angry.

So see the free trade stuff is a great leveler -- it's bigger than any law that could ever get passed in any country's legislature -- it's gonna level out Europe down with the USA, and the USA down with China.

We'll all be eating rice with plastic in it, like the Chinese do, by the time it's over with.

It's already happened before -- toxic Chinese drywall was a massive issue in the US. Cost untold amounts of money as homeowners had to pay to strip that crap back out of their house and replace it. Then for a while there was a bunch of toxic Chinese dog food that was killing a lot of pets. And then toxic Chinese plastic toys, with lead paint. On and on like that.

That's what free trade means -- getting rid of your European safety standards, and your European living wages -- bringing you down to Chinese level instead, and the 1% capitalist owners pocket the massive profits that are in between those two.

[onlooker]

That's what free trade means -- getting rid of your European safety standards, and your European living wages -- bringing you down to Chinese level instead, and the 1% capitalist owners pocket the massive profits that are in between those two.

A race to the bottom, the lowest common denominator.

[Keith_McClary]

Canadians need to really watch these trade deals.

You're going to lose everything you ever liked about your country, everything that ever made it special and different from the US.

It's called Harperland.

[Keith_McClary]

A couple more TPP rants:

APRIL 27, 2015
All Opposed, Say "No"
Obama, Corporate “Free Traitors” and You!
by RALPH NADER

APRIL 27, 2015
Hobbling Democracy
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and The Covenant of Secrecy
by BINOY KAMPMARK

[AdTheNad]

Talk about a deal with the devil - maybe the TPP passing is the only way to get the oil co's to stop funding climate change denial and stop the delays to action we have seen over the past few decades. Then they will just demand payment for the fossil fuels on their balance sheet rather than digging them up.

[Sixstrings]

Canadians need to really watch these trade deals.

You're going to lose everything you ever liked about your country, everything that ever made it special and different from the US.

It's called Harperland.

edit: oh nevermind, I have to stop rambling, here I go again on this forum.

bottom line, shorter version:

* Canada has been becoming more like the US

* NAFTA was great for 1%, it was actually very good for Mexico too -- it's just that Mexico is a bottomless pit of need and poverty, plus just had millions of more kids, so that they still have a poverty problem even after we gave them our jobs.

* NAFTA was worst for the American people, the lower 99%.

* Our politicans -- Democrats like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, all the Bushes, R's and Obama -- always sell the 99% right down the river, on every trade deal.

It's beyond comical. With every new trade deal they tell the same fictions, about trickle down job creating and Vietnamese buying American made cars, when Americans don't even make cars anymore and those jobs already went to Mexico in another trade deal.

So they push these new deals, and nobody ever calls them on the facts of the last deal -- like how South Korea only imported 20,000 American cars, and exported 420,000 cars. That deal was a massive job killer, for Americans anyway.

Over and over, the trade deals lower wages further, and ship ever more jobs offshore. It's so bad now, there's talk about using radiologists in India to take jobs here, and just have them read xrays over the internet.

Even a lot of Obamacare office work, went to India.

Now they want a Pacific NAFTA, with India, with China, with Vietnam, with the whole ocean.

[Keith_McClary]

Similar issues with the EU trade deal:
Stephen Harper’s Canada-EU trade deal sideswiped by Europe’s U.S. fears
Canada’s prime minister is taking credit for jobs created by a free-trade deal that may never exist.
Fri May 01 2015

Stephen Harper is already taking credit for jobs he says will be created by the Canada-European Union trade and investment pact. He may be premature.
“Put very simply, it’s because our government negotiated a free-trade deal,” the prime minister said in March after Honda announced plans to export an unspecified number of autos to Europe from its Alliston, Ont., plant.
“This is an example of what our government is doing.”
There were only two problems with this pre-election bit of braggadocio.
First, Honda says its planned exports to Europe will create only a “modest” number of jobs.
Second, and more important, the Canada-EU deal, formally known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), is by no means a done deal.
Growing opposition inside Europe to a similar free-trade pact being negotiated with the United States has already sideswiped CETA.
At the very least, this opposition promises to delay the EU’s final ratification of the Canada deal. It could derail it.
The problem is a section in both the Canadian and draft U.S. treaties giving non-judicial trade panels the authority to overrule laws — including those dealing with environmental protection — that interfere with the profitability of foreign corporations.
Canadians are already familiar with this system. A similar chapter in the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement has been used successfully by U.S. companies to overrule Canadian federal and provincial laws.
Initially, most Europeans didn’t notice when this investor-state dispute system was written into CETA. In fact, it is probably fair to say that initially most Europeans didn’t notice the deal with Canada at all.
That changed in 2013 when Washington and Brussels began negotiating a U.S.-EU pact that included a CETA-style investor-state dispute chapter.
Suddenly, trans-Atlantic trade became a political issue.
Europeans may not care much about Canada. But they do care about the U.S., particularly when faced with the possibility that EU laws, on matters ranging from genetically-modified foods to animal welfare to cultural protection, could be overturned by American big business.
In Austria and France, legislators passed non-binding resolutions against investor-state clauses in the proposed U.S.-EU treaty, known formally as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
The French government said it was opposed. So did Germany’s Social Democratic Party, the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition.
And to forestall the possibility of U.S. corporations using their Canadian subsidiaries to accomplish the same ends, these critics said they would oppose similar investor-state dispute mechanisms in CETA.
For Harper, all of this is a political embarrassment. He has twice pronounced CETA a success, first in 2013 when an agreement in principle was hammered out and again last fall when formal negotiations ended.
But CETA still has to be ratified by the EU’s European Parliament. Members of the socialist bloc, the second largest in that parliament, say they oppose the treaty as written.
Depending on the outcome of an unrelated court case, CETA may also have to be ratified by each of the EU’s 28-member nations.
Negotiators now are supposed to be merely cleaning up the language of the final CETA text, adding a comma here or a period there. But press reports say some on the European side want to make substantive changes as well. In effect, that would re-open the entire treaty.
Council of Canadians chair Maude Barlow, who opposes CETA, is buoyant. She says the whole deal could unravel.
“It’s not going to be adopted in this form,” she said. “It’s not.”
She may be overly optimistic. Powerful business interests within the EU support deals with Canada and the U.S. European politicians may be critical now. But politicians can change their minds.
In Germany, Social Democratic leader Sigmar Gabriel, who is Merkel’s economy minister, had been a fierce opponent of investor-state dispute mechanisms in both the Canadian and U.S. pacts. He has now reversed his position.
Still, the Canada-EU deal is not quite the solid triumph Harper had wanted. In fact, it does not yet exist.
It could stay in limbo until the EU and the U.S. sort out their arrangement. It may not happen at all.

[onlooker]

So you mean to say he is taking credit for something that has not yet happened. How typical of a politician

[Plantagenet]

Hillary supported Bill's NAFTA bill, and supported Obama's TPP while she was secretary of state, but now she is ducking the issue.

Meanwhile Bernie Sanders who has always opposed NAFTA and the TPP, and is speaking out lout and clear against the TPP.

I can't figure out why rank and file Ds who supposedly oppose the TPP support O for President as he sneaks in the TPP? Same deal or Hillary--- why do Ds support Hillary for president, given her lying and waffling on the TPP.

IMHO the Ds should withdraw their support from O to show their opposition to the TPP. While they are at it the Ds should give Hillary the boot and start backing Sanders----


HOPE! CHANGE! TPP!

[onlooker]

Haha, Plant not going to happen. Democrats and Republicans are united in liking these deals because it pleases their Corporate masters. Candidates like Bernie are just footnotes now in the pages of history just like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader.

[Lore]

They want to work with Paul Ryan.

[onlooker]

whose Paul Ryan?

[Sixstrings]

Hillary supported Bill's NAFTA bill, and supported Obama's TPP while she was secretary of state, but now she is ducking the issue.

I actually read an article quoting John Boehner. Boehner criticizing Clinton for not speaking out in favor of TPP -- he said she's just sitting on the sidelines, letting the President "twist in the wind" on the issue. Kind of hilarious, you know something's afoot if you've got John Boehner helping Barrack Obama.

Democrats have enough votes in the House to actually kill fast track. Obama has been lobbying hard, but a lot of the reps in Congress are saying, "I dunno about this fast track on free trade deals for the next 6 years stuff, I dunno.. some of my voters are saying these trade deals just always screw them over.."

So, it all comes down to Hillary. Republicans and Obama need HRC to come out in favor of it. Boehner is saying Hillary has always been for free trade deals, but she won't say anything right now because she's playing politics in her primary. (my opinion: well gee, TPP *should* be an election issue and let's debate it and all decide, is it the end of the world if this Trans Planetwide Oneworld Government Trade Partnership" waits until after the next election?

I mean, what's the big rush right? Just put it off. And talk about a wage bill for Americans, instead, there's an idea.) But I digress.

Hillary won't say anything about the TPP because she's waiting to see where the wind blows with Warren and Sanders and other real Democrats.

Meanwhile Bernie Sanders who has always opposed NAFTA and the TPP, and is speaking out lout and clear against the TPP.

Bernie Sanders is a real Democrat. Clinton is a centrist -- she will go whatever way any particular wind can take her, if that destination means money and power for the Clinton Family. In the 90s, Bill Clinton gutted welfare and yelled about rappers (Sista Soulja) to pander for conservative votes. He courted the banks.. now he courts Russia to sell out America's uranium.. that's the Clintons, they are for sale.

Populist and progressive voters, that have a D rep in congress, need to put the pressure on. If you've got a R rep, then that's a forgone conclusion of course -- free trade deals for all time, leading to one world globalist government.

(I need to look this up and see how a Ted Cruz votes on the trade thing, if he were against it then I wouldn't trash him so much. Wake up republicans, your populists are supposed to be stopping the one world gov stuff, and right wing populists are supposed to be protectionist too.)

I can't figure out why rank and file Ds who supposedly oppose the TPP support O for President as he sneaks in the TPP? Same deal or Hillary--- why do Ds support Hillary for president, given her lying and waffling on the TPP.

Here's the deal with the Democratic Party -- it became the party of government workers, environmentalists, and hollywood / wall street. Not working people. It's working class, and middle, that's affected by the trade deals.

So Dems just don't give a sh*t Plant, they gave up the working folks a long time ago. But now the CC activist Dems don't like the TPP because that's going make Chinese environmental regulation the standard for half the planet, the entire Pacific basin. So it's more about the eco opposition, the greens have a lot of power. Workin' people have none, but there's a tad of a coalition here between working class TPP opposition and CC activist TPP opposition.

To be fair and objective by the way -- there are many big ag farm operaterors, and some other exporting sectors, that do want the TPP. They just don't happen to hardly employ any Americans, and we've got Mexicans all on the farms anyway, not Americans. And then intellectual copyright interested business does want the TPP, which is understandable. That'll become a nightmare too though. Frickin' record labels and Hollywood suing everybody all the time. Copyright nazis. We won't hardly be able to communicate with each other, globally.

I could link a youtube but someone in another country tries to pull that up and it will say "not available in your country."

Overall -- it's a free trade thing like NAFTA was, it's going to further devastate what is left of working and middle class, and it is true that it will really devastate the environment, and it's going to make us more like China.

So depending on what you do for a living, is where you stand. If one works in media and wants more global copyright, then you're for it. If someone works for or owns a multinational / exporting business, then you'd be for it.

TPP is like a lot of things -- it will financially hurt most people, and then really help some people. And then the eco issue, it will hurt the planet a lot more.

So figure out where you stand on it folks, maybe call or mail your congressman and let him know.

Because they are about to vote on Obama-Boehner's fast track which means ALL FUTURE FREE TRADE DEALS, potentially for the next two presidents, will already have this grandfathered fast track. Talk about a hoodwink and scam, that's not even small d democratic. There will be no debate in the future, no releasing the details like if a Jeb Bush comes out with a pan south american trade union deal -- it'll just have fast track already, from what Obama and Boehner are wanting congress to pass.

WHY CAN'T WE EVER GET A "FAST TRACK" FOR THE WORKING CLASS? WHY IS IT ALWAYS A "FAST TRACK" FOR BANKSTER AND BIG CORPORATION STUFF? Can someone explain that to me, precisely why a "fast track" is needed to bypass our Constitutional system?

And they can't even wait for the debates and election, we're about to have? This SHOULD be a campaign issue. For goodness sake. Obama and Boehner SHOULD release all the details, right now, it's outrageous they keep it secret from everyone -- the deal is actually classified secret, it's a state secret, illegal to talk about if you somehow know the details on it -- they keep it secret from the public and demand reps just vote for the fast track.

IMHO the Ds should withdraw their support from O to show their opposition to the TPP.

Democratic base may do that, because of the eco issue -- otherwise, they don't care about working people. Working people + the eco people, then maybe we can stop it, just maybe. How about some tea party help too, listen tea party guys, you really want a one world government? That's what the TPP is, read up on it.

[Sixstrings]

If by some miracle Bernie is elected, like the Clintons get arrested for their Russian uranium Clinton Family Slushfund Foundation dealings and all that's left is Bernie for the nominee,

then he has already said Robert Reich would be his treasury sec. I may be wrong, but I think Reich was always against bank de-reg and that was the other guy guys in the clinton admin that were for it.

But I do like Robert Reich, I've always liked him, and you guys know that otherwise there are plenty of Democrats I gut level do not like and can't stand. Reich is alright though, always got a good feeling about him.

So here's what Reich says about the TPP:

Trans-Pacific Trickle-Down Economics

Have we learned nothing from thirty years of failed trickle-down economics?

By now we should know that when big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy get special goodies, the rest of us get shafted.

The Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts of 1981, 2001, and 2003, respectively, were sold to America as ways to boost the economy and create jobs.

They ended up boosting the take-home pay of those at the top. Most Americans saw no gains.

In fact, the long stagnation of American wages began with Reaganomics. Wages rose a bit under Bill Clinton, and then started plummeting again under George W. Bush.

Trickle-down economics proved a cruel hoax. The new jobs created under Reagan and George W. Bush paid lousy wages, the old jobs paid even less, and we ended up with whopping federal budget deficits.

Then came the bailout of Wall Street in 2008. It was sold as the means of preserving the economy.

It ended up preserving the jobs and exorbitant pay of bankers, but millions of Americans lost their shirts. Small savers were wiped out, and homeowners never got the refinancing they were promised.

No conditions were put on the Wall Street banks for what they were supposed to do for the rest of us in return for our bailing them out. None of their top executives even went to jail for causing the crash in the first place.

Here again, nothing trickled down.

Now comes the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

It's being sold as a way to boost the U.S. economy, expand exports, and contain China's widening economic influence.

In fact, it's just more trickle-down economics.

The biggest beneficiaries would be giant American-based global corporations, along with their executives and major shareholders.

Those giant corporations initiated the deal in the first place, their lobbyists helped craft it behind closed doors, and they're the ones who have been pushing hard for it in Congress -- dangling campaign contributions in front of congressional supporters and threatening to cut off funding to opponents.

These corporations made sure the deal contains provisions expanding and protecting their intellectual property around the world, but not protecting American jobs.

Supporters of the deal say it contains worker protections. I heard the same thing when, as secretary of labor, I was supposed to implement the worker protections in the North American Free Trade Act.

I discovered such provisions are unenforceable because of how difficult it is to discover if other nations are abiding by them. On the rare occasion when we found evidence of a breach we had no way to force the other nation to remedy it anyway.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is far larger than NAFTA -- covering 40 percent of America's global trade.

If it's enacted, American workers and consumers will be made even worse off because of another provision that allows global corporations to sue countries whose health, safety, labor, or environmental regulations crimp their corporate profits.

It establishes a tribunal outside any nation's legal system that can force a nation to reimburse global corporations for any such "losses."

Big tobacco is already using an identical provision to sue developing nations that are trying to get their populations off nicotine. The tobacco companies are demanding these nations compensate them for lost cigarette sales.

This provision would mean less protection from corporate harms here in America. It would require that when the potential cost of a new health, safety, environment, or labor protection is weighed against its potential benefits, the cost of reimbursing corporations for lost profits is added in.

I've been through enough regulatory wars to know this added cost could easily tip the balance against protection.

The arguments in favor of the deal aren't credible. The notion that the Trans Pacific Partnership will spark American exports doesn't hold because the deal does nothing to prevent other nations from manipulating their currencies in order to boost their own exports.

The argument that the deal will help contain China makes even less sense.

Does anyone seriously believe American-based corporations will put the interest of the United States above the interests of their own shareholders when it comes to doing whatever China demands to gain access to that lucrative market?

Big American-based corporations have been cozying up to China for years -- giving China whatever American technology China wants, letting China "partner" with them in designing new generations of technology, and allowing China to censor their software and digital platforms -- all in exchange for a crack at Chinese consumers.

What we should have learned by now about trickle-down economics is that nothing trickles down.

If the Trans-Pacific Partnership is enacted, big corporations, Wall Street, and their top executives and shareholders will make out like bandits. Who will the bandits be stealing from? The rest of us.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/transpacific-trickledown-_b_7200392.html

My opinion:

* Obama has not even bothered to give a speech about this, to the American people, to explain it to us and maybe see if we agree with him.

* Obama has not even done what George Bush did on the Korea pact, and AT LEAST release the details of the trade agreement so that the public can see it and discuss it before our reps vote on the fast track!!!! Obama has kept the deal classified as a state secret.

* TPP covers 40% of all American trade, it's bigger than nafta, it's huge.

Bottom line for me -- you wanna ram this thing through Congress? Then show me a $15 minimum wage bill attached to it, and something in there for our green folk like dohboy, and then okay maybe you can have your Trans Planet Trade Corporate Partnership.

But otherwise -- go stick the TPP somewhere. What a joke. Democrats don't even bother to attach some things that their own consituents want, anymore, to these ideas Republicans want so bad. Corporations want a trade pact so bad, then give us what we want, or go stick it somewhere.

If TPP passes -- more jobs will go offshore, new one world gov tribunals will be set up, it'll be a bunch of stupid lawsuits. And then Big Tobacco suing poor Uraguay, or Paraguay or whatever it was, just because they want to get their people off cigarettes. Now you all know this ain't right.

We are heading into election season, this Trans Planet Partnership does not need to be passed and rammed through in such a big rush, the right thing to do is put it off and let the public SEE the details and let's have it as part of this upcoming campaign and let democracy work.

We should ALL be able to agree on that, NO FAST TRACK, at least. It needs debated, Jesus, this issue is 40% of all trade and ceding some sovereignty, it's as big as war, it can't have a fast track it must be debated and open to amendment -- that is called democracy, there is no FAST TRACK in the Constitution.

And p.s. -- the real answer on this thing is that it is TOO SOON TOO FAST. We CANNOT get this much hooked in with China and Vietnam and all over the place, at this point in time. It is too soon, those other places are not ready for it, all they will do is drag us down to their standards -- environmental and wages and all of it.

In the future? Give it another 10 years? Then okay, it will be time by then, but it is not that time yet.

Address American poverty first, and get our people ready for it first. Then okay, then they can come back to us with their big trade deal for the global corps.

Eventually there will need to be some standards for copyright and other things but Asia is just not ready for that yet and it is too soon and will be bad for us to go doing this with them right now. Alternatively: pass SMALLER deals. One on copyright. One on pharma. One on this, one on that, over time, and fully debated and discussed and thought about and everyone knowing about the details.

This TPP is just one big hot mess all at once, it's too big.

We all know what's going on here, don't we? Obviously. The big global corporations give money to Obama and the politicians and they just want their deal that's good for them to be rammed through without even a debate.

This thing is bigger and worse than Obamacare. People actually need health care, but they don't even need this trans planet partnership. They are rushing to fix something that ain't even broke -- screwing with 40% of our trade economy, who knows how many hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans it could throw out of work. That korea deal alone, caused 80,000 auto job loss.

I can't even catch a breather to go look into the Korea deal because they're already ramming a Pacific wide deal -- Obama and Boehner saying right now right now it's gotta be right now -- and then old Jeb Bush may win and I already know his ideas, he wants a trans south american trade thing.

[Sixstrings]

I'm sorry for posting so much lately, I'm just doing a deep dive on some issues.

Nobody has posted anything in FAVOR of tpp. Well here is a oped in favor of it:

Trade deal vs. fact-free uproar: Our view

Though the deal has not been finalized, much of its success or failure will be decided in the next few weeks. That's when Congress decides the terms under which the agreement is considered.

To have any chance of passing, Congress would have to agree to something called trade promotion authority, giving itself the right to accept or reject the deal, but not amend it.

Committees in both houses of Congress have done just that, but the Senate committee larded up its bill with amendments designed to alienate other countries.

One would require the TPP to include language banning all countries involved from participating in boycotts against Israel. Another, on human rights, is designed to keep Malaysia out. Yet another, on currency manipulation, is designed to irk the Chinese. More are planned when the bill reaches the Senate floor.

These poison pills were conceived largely by Democrats who lost interest in currency manipulation years ago, probably couldn't find Malaysia on a map, and were furious at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just weeks ago.

Their goal is to kill the deal.

That would be a shame. A major agreement is going to happen, one way or another. China is pushing an alternative plan, one that does not include any countries in the Americas, and that Asian countries would turn to if the trans-Pacific deal falls through.

That approach would freeze U.S. exporters out of the fastest growing region in the world. It would also enhance China's economic power and its influence over its neighbors.

The pan-Pacific deal, on the other hand, would help the U.S. retain a key role in the region, while promoting competition that would give consumers more choices and lower costs.

Democrats, however, are wedded to unions who blame trade, and trade agreements, for the decline in manufacturing jobs.

Theirs is a simplistic view that ignores the fact that manufacturing output has nearly doubled since the late 1990s, showing that technology is the real job killer.

No one wants Congress to stifle technology because it has so many upsides. Trade has upsides as well, for exporters of high-tech goods, software, pharmaceuticals, agricultural goods and more.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/05/03/trans-pacific-partnership-tpp-trade-deal-congress-editorials-debates/26843027/

Here's the PRO tpp argument:

* They're making a "China bank" argument here, that US must join it or else China has a backup plan to have an Americas-exclusive pacific partnership, and then we'll "lose influence," blah blah. I say go screw the Chinese, we don't have to bow down to them one way or another. If they want our food, they'll buy it anyway -- there's an awful lot of them, no? They'll be wanting our food, no? Well, let them buy it if they want it.

And they will still want our iphones, and frankly, they should be happy we make our iphones in their country as it is. We can't lose anymore jobs, I'm sorry Asia, we are tapped out. The well has run dry.

American globalist companies like Apple will still do just fine -- Americans have a creativity and innovation edge that Asians do not quite have. It's not like any non-US China pacific area trade pact is just leaving us behind.

* The oped argues that nafta never killed jobs, that it's automation and tech that kill jobs.

That's partly true, but not wholly. WE ALL KNOW, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US, IF YOU ARE OLD ENOUGH, THEN YOU ***KNOW*** NAFTA IS WHAT SET THIS PLACE DOWNHILL. THE JOBS ALL SUCKED OUT JUST LIKE ROSS PEROT SAID THEY WOULD, WE KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE, WE SAW IT WITH OUR OWN EYES.

Corporations, our President, and John Boehner and Hillary Clinton are outrageously out of touch with the people.

They need to start thinking about the AMERICAN region, and give the Pacific region a rest for a few years. Work on America first, fix the poverty here first, then come talk to us about a trade deal.

Our farmers have food to grow. We're running out of water as it is, we don't even need to do more farm production as it is, Jesus. Our farm corps will be just fine though, the world will only get hungrier and they'll want to buy our food whether we are in their TPP or not.

Truly fix the poverty in America first, get the economy going right first, get a living wage out there, get Americans out of poverty -- then come talk to us about your tpp.

That's really the bottom line on it. Put a $15 minimum wage bill onto this thing, and make sure green issues truly are reasonably looked after in the agreement, and then okay. But they won't do that, will they, because the whole point of it is to go employ a million Vietnamese workers for a dollar a day, not to have American wages starting at $15 an hour right? That's the whole point of a nafta, lower wages, higher profits for the 1%, right?

They can take their tpp and go stick it somewhere, and come back to us when it has something in it that makes it so great we're all yelling how bad we want this TPP. Put some amendments in it, that's called democracy, don't just have Christmas Day for the corporations and nothing in there for working people. But make it real, we want us much as corporations and stockholders get out of it, and not one nickel less.

Power to the people, say NO to the Koch Brothers and Hillary Clinton and Obama and John Boehner, vote Bernie Sanders:

[Sixstrings]

This is interesting. Last go around with NAFTA, Bill Clinton went with Republicans and got NAFTA passed with 40% of congressional Democrats.

Now though, as Obama comes to Democrats, hand in hand with John Boehner, for Pacific NAFTA -- 80% of Democrats are against it:

Many Democrats Turn Their Backs on Free Trade

WASHINGTON — Two decades ago, President Bill Clinton needed Republican support to win a bitter battle over the North American Free Trade Agreement. He also garnered 40 percent of congressional Democrats, including almost half the party’s senators.

President Obama may also win some close trade votes — first with the approval of a bill giving him so-called fast-track authority to negotiate the huge Trans-Pacific Partnership and then when the deal itself moves through Congress. This time, more than 80 percent of congressional Democrats will oppose the president.

Democrats have turned decidedly protectionist in the decades since the passage of Nafta, which have coincided with increasing globalization and steep losses of American manufacturing jobs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/us/many-democrats-turn-their-backs-on-free-trade.html

The momentum on these trade deals is so huge, our global corporations have put so much time and money and their little hearts and souls into them (but not we, their employees), that it's just like an inevitable mountain that's so hard to defeat. They pass the fast track first. And then the vote that comes up is just yes or no for the trade deal, no amendments allowed.

There may be a chance here though, to stop this thing, with Obama having only half the Democratic support that Clinton did for NAFTA.

House has already approved it, R majority. It's all up to the Senate.. and anything the holdouts can try, to stop this thing or slow it down at least.

EDIT: The day Al Gore sold the American people on NAFTA. He said Mexicans were going to buy a bunch of car tires from the USA and create so many jobs here, but Ross Perot was right:

Ross Perot vs. Al Gore NAFTA Debate FULL! 1993
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=455&v=5XEziSYRqhU

Now it's 2015. Obama wants a Pacific NAFTA, far bigger than the Mexico NAFTA. He won't even release details of the deal, much less debate anyone on it. We can't even get a debate in the Congress on it, only fast track vote, then yes or no.

"A good deal should sell itself, that's just plain talk." -- Ross Perot

Oh man he was a hoot! Miss old Perot -- I don't know where Sanders is going or if he'll be a loyal party foil or fizzle or what, but if there's a bit of Perot in him then that will sure be a treat.