[Sixstrings]

Yair . . .
yellowcanoe

I'm sure some politicians supported free trade agreements because it would improve the lives of people living in developing nations

Yuh think??

Cheers.

Lol I know that sounds funny, but that's the general overarching theory of liberal democracy free trade.

Have a problem with too many Mexican immigrants? Well, here's an idea, let's pass this free trade deal to ship jobs down there to raise them up so they stop coming over the border to here, and then the American rich will benefit too, what could go wrong?

Other part of the theory is that it's trade ties that encourage world peace and nations cooperating, vs. ever going to war with each other.

So that's the grand overarching theory of globalism, liberal globalism, but pols don't really vote for this because of that. It's the money that's to be made in it, by the 1%, and they're the ones that make the political donations.

I'm just being objective by the way and laying out the philosophy for globalist free trade deals -- objectively, Mexico rose up and yes that is factually good for them, but OTOH they just got a lot more poor people too (population increase) and they still kept coming over the border.

Objectively, it's good Mexico is doing better than it used to, but objectively the direct cost of that job loss is my town looking more like Mexico now. I'm an American, I do not live in Mexico, I do not live in China or Sri Lanka nor India -- I just think we should be doing things in our interests. And not just our 1% and corp interests either.

We just need to stop this, look at those trade deficit charts, it's literally "off the charts" and we're way out of line -- by magnitudes -- of any other country.

We need a real fundamental change to roll things back to pre-1980. Obama says that's the past and you can't ever go back to the past, but that's actually not true -- over centuries, we HAVE flipped back and forth from free trade to protectionism. As required, as necessary. Well wake up folks -- it's necessary now.

We just need more policies like Germany and France does, and even Canada, where they PROTECT their jobs. It's just common sense.

Obama is wrong about "you can't go back to the past," the truth is actually that history repeats and it repeats over and over again. The solutions in the last cycle are the same in this cycle.

In America at least, we need to chill out on these big free trade pacts that objectively and factually do nothing but what Ross Perot warned us they would -- a giant sucking sound of jobs leaving.

Just chill out on it, no more big globalist free trade deals, come back to us five years from now and we can have another look at it.

[Sixstrings]

The trade agreements pushed by corporate America, pushed by Wall Street, pushed by the pharmaceutical industry, are very very good if you are the CEO of a major corporation, but they are a disaster if you are an American worker. -- Bernie Sanders

Bernie interviewed on Bloomberg about fast track defeat and it's a good overall look at his views on trade deals (interview starts at 7 min):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubdxVnJIUmY

Did Barack Obama Just Lose to Elizabeth Warren?
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/barack-obama-elizabeth-warren-tpp-fast-track

Why Obama is 'absolutely wrong' on TPP and Warren is right

Furthermore, when Doctors Without Borders says TPP is a "Bad Deal for Medicine" and the Communication Workers of America publishes "10 Ways The TPP Would Hurt U.S. Working Families," it's safe to say that Warren is right to voice concerns about the controversial trade agreement. In terms of its environmental impact, Greenpeace states that it's a "multinational corporate tool for undermining environmental law" and the Sierra Club says it's a "Threat to Forests, Wildlife and Fish." So, not only could TPP hurt working families and bypass banking regulations, but it might potentially circumvent environment regulations.

When so many organizations, senators, and protesters in over 20 towns in New Zealand are against TPP, perhaps Obama should slow down and address everyone's concerns. Free trade is often good for an economy, but reckless free-trade agreements that cater to corporate interest at the expense of American taxpayers and workers could easily lead to another, even larger financial catastrophe.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/finance/241829-why-obama-is-absolutely-wrong-on-tpp-and-warren-is-right

Only thing I'd disagree with, in the above, is the assertion that these free trade deals ever can be "good" for the american economy.

Just look at the trade deficits. They're out of sight. That means lost jobs.

I posted the graphs, it's the same darn thing every time they do one of these trade deals -- and with this TPP, New Zealanders are against it too, and environmental activists that say the trade deal governing structure is a way to do an end run around environmental regulations. And, banking regulations too, as Warren has said.

The darn TPP is a big corporate takeover of the Pacific Rim, to just get whatever they want and to heck with workers and the planet or elected legislatures.

[Sixstrings]

Well that didn't take long.

This Congress, both parties, sure work really hard when it comes to the 1%!

I guess the corps wrote a bunch of checks to Democrats last night, now Democrats are for TPP after they were against it:

Senate Cuts Deal To Pass Obama's Secretive Trade Bills
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/13/senate-trade_n_7277314.html

[vox_mundi]

EU dropped pesticide laws due to US pressure over TTIP, documents reveal

US trade officials pushed EU to shelve action on endocrine-disrupting chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility to facilitate TTIP free trade deal

EU moves to regulate hormone-damaging chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility were shelved following pressure from US trade officials over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) free trade deal, newly released documents show.

Draft EU criteria could have banned 31 pesticides containing endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). But these were dumped amid fears of a trade backlash stoked by an aggressive US lobby push, access to information documents obtained by Pesticides Action Network (PAN) Europe show.

On the morning of 2 July 2013, a high-level delegation from the US Mission to Europe and the American Chambers of Commerce (AmCham) visited EU trade officials to insist that the bloc drop its planned criteria for identifying EDCs in favour of a new impact study. By the end of the day, the EU had done so.

Minutes of the meeting show commission officials pleading that “although they want the TTIP to be successful, they would not like to be seen as lowering the EU standards”.

The TTIP is a trade deal being agreed by the EU and US to remove barriers to commerce and promote free trade.

... The result was that legislation planned for 2014 was kicked back until at least 2016, despite estimated health costs of €150bn per year in Europe from endocrine-related illnesses such as IQ loss, obesity and cryptorchidism – a condition affecting the genitals of baby boys.

[Keith_McClary]

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): This Is Not About Ricardo
Posted on May 21, 2015 by Simon Johnson

There is a strong theoretical and empirical case – dating back to David Ricardo in 1817 – that freer trade should make countries better off. However, modern-day trade agreements, including those currently being negotiated, are very different from earlier experiences with trade liberalization.

The TPP is not only – perhaps not even mostly – about freer trade, and thus who gains and who loses is very much dependent on what exactly are the details of the agreement. The exact nature of the provisions matters and at this point, because the TPP text is not available to the public, we cannot be sure whom this trade agreement will help or hurt within the United States or elsewhere.

Outside of agriculture, international trade is already substantially liberalized, and thus the gains from further reductions in tariffs are most likely limited by the fact that tariffs are already quite low.

And the scope of modern-day trade agreements has expanded – primarily into areas in which the economic theory case for mutual benefits is far from clear.

Perhaps the most prominent example is intellectual property rights (IPRs), including patents. Contrary to the mutual benefits of international trade in general, there is no clear-cut theoretical case that stronger enforcement of IPRs will benefit all parties.
...
The second example is provisions that require liberalization of inward investment in oligopolistic industries. For instance, recent US trade agreements with Central America/Dominican Republic, Peru, Panama, and Colombia contain specific clauses liberalizing investment in the financial services industry (as well as government procurement and investment more broadly). Again, the theoretical case that these provisions will be mutually beneficial is not straightforward.
...
The third example is the potential for a negative impact of international trade on the quality of domestic institutions. The standard argument for mutual gains from trade assumes that international exchange of goods does not lead to changes in the institutional environment – including who has secure property rights (as in land), as well as enforceable rights as a worker (including occupational safety standards).
...
Given that these rules are secret (from us), we have no way of judging what is or is not in the TPP. Congress will vote soon on TPA, to greatly increase the odds of passing TPP, without there being first a proper public discussion of the TPP details. This is not a triumph of democracy – and it is not likely to lead to better economic policymaking.

[onlooker]

From my understanding these "deals" are constructed for the benefit of trans-national corporations so they can go forth trampling any considerations of worker or environmental protections and so they can get favorable treatment in any and all countries in which they do business. Thus the reason they prefer to keep them secret because they offer little benefit for citizens of any particular country. The only benefit is the continued race to sell things to whomever they can at the price of the continued pillaging and detriment of the planet.

[onlooker]

Forgot to add that these "deals" also benefit of course the stock markets and the banks especially the investment banks. Just business as usual really for the already rich and powerful. Of course the losers are normal people and the future viability of living on this planet for all life.

[Sixstrings]

From my understanding these "deals" are constructed for the benefit of trans-national corporations so they can go forth trampling any considerations of worker or environmental protections and so they can get favorable treatment in any and all countries in which they do business. Thus the reason they prefer to keep them secret because they offer little benefit for citizens of any particular country. The only benefit is the continued race to sell things to whomever they can at the price of the continued pillaging and detriment of the planet.

That's all correct.

But it may all come down to simple tribalism. Maybe chinese and russian people have feudal lords too, and then we have our feudal lords. And the dukes and barons and kings fight each other and drag us off to war and we wonder.. what's this really got to do with us?

But.. what if China is now a nuclear threat to all of us, etc. So that's when your feudal liege lord's problems suddenly become relevant to you.

I'm seeing some things out there that suggest this TPP is partly intended to just keep American / allied bloc together in the Pacific, versus the Chinese. In other words -- if we don't have a TPP, then it'll be a Beijing TPP.

I still don't like it -- it's still gonna ship out millions of jobs -- I'm not saying I'm for it -- but oh gosh, if we were in a real cold war slugfest with somebody, then that does begin to sway me to it. I can understand national security issues.

I guess it's the same as it's always been.. the Duke doesn't do much for we peasants.. but maybe sometimes we have to side with him, or the whole tribe goes down?

(they are ramming this tpp through anyway and it just passed anyway, but really the right thing to do is just for the love of goodness just put something in there for the working man.. like a wage hike.. if we had real Democrats in congress then that would be their position, to okay go ahead and vote for the damn thing BUT ONLY IF THERE WERE COMPROMISE IN THERE for the working man.

If American corps and neocon big strategy thinkers care so much about "america leading" in the world, then it should be important enough for them to compromise and do something for the working man too. And we should have Democrats that would at least have that position, and DEMAND COMPROMISE and not just give in to what the R's and Obama and Clinton want, without getting anything in return)

[onlooker]

Six, you are on the right track and you wish to see a hint of fairness in the world. Well, guess what none really exist at least economically. When I was in my 20's I had similar beliefs as you. I saw US while somewhat corrupt as standing up for certain human rights. Since then I have taken the red pill (Matrix) and boy have I discovered more and more incredible info. Why do I firmly believe this? Because first it makes sense and second I have seen enough dots connected and enough information to convince me. The world is about as corrupt as can be. The banks, the stock markets, the corporations and the government all working hand in hand to fix the system to their advantage. Now you may ask why? Well comes down to an insatiable greed and lust for power. Just to throw a statistic at you. 80 people have as much wealth as 50% of the world's population. The statistics that show inequality are so shocking that people initially cannot believe them. Well believe. Their is abundant data that corroborates this. Greed is the driving force , many want a piece of the pie. But also, power or status is a catalyst also. The privileged class wants to remain so. The whole system is created by them and for them.

[Pops]

Rule by the Corporations
TTIP: the Corporate Empowerment Act
by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The Transatlantic and Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnerships have nothing to do with free trade. “Free trade” is used as a disguise to hide the power these agreements give to corporations to use law suits to overturn sovereign laws of nations that regulate pollution, food safety, GMOs, and minimum wages.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/01/ ... rment-act/

[vox_mundi]

From Congressional Research Service (CRS):

U.S. Trade with Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Partners

This report presents data on U.S. merchandise (goods) trade with its Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partner countries. The data are presented to show bilateral trade balances for individual FTA partners and groups of countries representing such major agreements as the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central American Free Trade Agreement and Dominican Republic (CAFTA-DR) relative to total U.S. trade balances. This report also discusses the issues involved in using bilateral merchandise trade balances as a standard for measuring the economic effects of a particular FTA

and this is where our jobs went ...





... we'll lose a lot more jobs when TPP and TTIP are passed.

An Overview of the Employment-Population Ratio

The employment-population ratio has several properties that make it an attractive indicator for labor market analysis. It is easy to interpret and can be used to make meaningful comparisons across time and groups with dissimilar population size. Because it takes into account both the impacts of labor force participation and unemployment, it is a useful summary measure when those forces place countervailing pressures on employment.

Recent estimates show that employment as a percentage of the civilian population has not returned to pre-recessionary levels. In November 2007, the employment-population ratio was 62.9%, indicating that 62.9% of the adult population had a job in that month. This rate fell steadily during the recession and several months beyond, before stabilizing around 58.5% in October 2009. Between October 2009 and March 2014, the ratio fluctuated within 0.3 percentage points of 58.5%. Since then, the employment-population ratio has climbed slowly to 59.3%, its value in April 2015.

Welcome to the Post-Peak Economy ... There are no jobs.

Trade Promotion Authority “Fast Track” (TPA): Frequently Asked Questions

[Lore]

Recessions, depressions and slow downs are never good for the average worker. Business often finds it can do more with less. Specially these days, when you can outsource and automate.

Here is how simple it is today to manufacture and sell without any employees.

a) Research what to make and sell on the Internet
b) Find a supplier to make it on alibaba.com
c) Get samples
d) Order inventory to be sent to amazon.com for fulfillment
c) Sell on Amazon
d) Rinse and repeat

[onlooker]

Their is this book "The case against Globalization" in which a chapter is devoted to automation and how corporations really love it and seek more of it because it cuts costs. The problem of course like so much of what is happening nowdays is it is shortsighted , out to make the quick buck. Taken to it's logical conclusion over the long term, no more humans workers all robots and computers. So who is going to buy their stuff. haha

[Lore]

Their is this book "The case against Globalization" in which a chapter is devoted to automation and how corporations really love it and seek more of it because it cuts costs. The problem of course like so much of what is happening nowdays is it is shortsighted , out to make the quick buck. Taken to it's logical conclusion over the long term, no more humans workers all robots and computers. So who is going to buy their stuff. haha

Bingo, and Wall Street is wondering why consumer spending is flat.

[vox_mundi]

WikiLeaks releases documents related to controversial US trade pact

WikiLeaks on Wednesday released 17 different documents related to the Trade in Services Agreement (Tisa), a controversial pact currently being hashed out between the US and 23 other countries – most of them in Europe and South America.

The document dump comes at a tense moment in the negotiations over a series of trade deals. President Barack Obama has clashed with his own party over the deals as critics have worried about the impact on jobs and civil liberties.

... Rosa Pavanelli, general secretary of the Public Services International union, said: “It is outrageous that our democratically elected governments will not tell us the laws they are making. What has our democracy come to when the community must rely on Wikileaks to find out what our governments are doing on our behalf”

“The irony of the text containing repeated references to transparency, and an entire Annex on transparency requiring governments to provide information useful to business, being negotiated in secret from the population exposes in whose interests these agreements are being made,” she said.

[Sixstrings]

Ed Schultz was really on fire, about the TPP, on his show today. I'll post a youtube link later on if I can find one.

Obama and R's still do not have the votes in the House. Nancy Pelosi may wind up voting for it, because she "does not want to embarass the president."

South Korea was our last trade deal, under Bush, and that lost a about a couple hundred thousand jobs.

Ed Schultz was saying today that right now, thousands of steel workers in Ohio are under layoff warnings. Because South Korean steal is dumping into the American market.

Now I actually do understand the Obama Neocon view that we're trying to shore up a Pacific alliance..

But..

What are these guys in Ohio going to do..

How are they going to pay the mortgage and feed their families, does nobody give a sh*t?

A Pacific alliance is swell and all, but our people have to eat! And have a job, and a roof over their heads! We cannot give every last job to Asians, I'm sorry! It's not sustainable! Our country will collapse!

I'll tell you what pisses me off the most -- Obama and R's KNOW this is going to cost so many jobs, yet they OFFER NOTHING to mitigate that!

They could at least put a minimum wage hike in there, to mitigate the damage it will do. But they can't be bothered to do even that.

So I'm against it, they all need to take this TPP and go stick it somewhere.

Good video explaining the TPP:

WikiLeaks is raising $100,000 reward for the Trans-Pacific Partnership 'TPP'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNsHAHQh4Es

Among a lot of other things, the above video includes a clip from John Oliver talking about how tobacco companies are suing countries all over Africa, and suing Australia, and suing Uraguay over anti-smoking initiatives. Because that impacts their "expected profits."

Tiny tiny little country of Togo was so terrified by the threat of lawsuits -- Phillip Morris is worth more than the whole country is -- that they backed down from anti-smoking programs.

TPP will expand these trade tribunals, across the entire Pacifc rim. And it goes both ways, Japanese automakers could sue US if we did try to raise our minimum wage! If the trade tribunal verdicts are too punishing, we may actually lose our sovereignty and never be able to pass labor laws for our own people, or eco legislation. That's a bunch of crap right there, that's horrible, this thing needs to be defeated.

Don't be fooled. The Trans-Pacific Partnership's a bad deal
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2015/06/01/trade-deals-ship-many-good-jobs-overseas/28184599/

This issue has not been easy for me, by the way.

Because I see that all the "Noam Chomksies" and Putin's RUSSIA TODAY are all against TPP. So that makes me think they're trying to take down America.

But what has convinced me on the issue is just that Obama won't even put in a wage hike or do anything to mitigate the job loss damage from this thing. I do believe in America, and our alliances, but Obama and Republicans are going to ship off another two millions jobs. They're going to drive wages further down. If I were in congress, I'd actually vote for this thing -- on the big picture geopolitical grounds -- IF THEY HAD THINGS IN THERE to mitigate the damage to our middle and working class.

But they don't. There's not a damn thing in this TPP for working people, other than more hurt. So I cannot be for it, they couldn't be bothered to even COMPROMISE and throw SOMETHING in there for working people. So screw it, down with the TPP.

[Keith_McClary]

Perhaps the most incredible, is the email from Jim DeLisi, from Fanwood Chemical, to Barbara Weisel, a USTR official, where DeLisi raves that he's just looked over the latest text, and is gleeful to see that the the rules that have been agreed up on are "our rules" (i.e., the lobbyists'), ... the point is pretty clear: the lobbyists wrote the rules, and the USTR just put them into the agreement. Weisel's response? "Well there's a bit of good news..."

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150 ... -tpp.shtml

And, from Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/09/ ... agreement/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/06/09/ ... nialism-2/

[Pops]

wow, blue collar republicans and most democrats joined together to reject the latest transnational corporate takeover of Asia led by Mr. O

In a stunning blow to President Barack Obama and the Republican leadership in Congress on Friday, the House of Representatives rejected legislation needed to eventually pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a major economic treaty with America’s Asian allies.

While some Republican leaders had expressed optimism in recent days, the agreement's fate seemed more uncertain when Obama made a rare visit to Capitol Hill on Friday to lobby House Democrats to back it. He urged them to either support the TPP or the ancillary bill in question, which would have helped protect workers displaced by the deal. The Democrats largely applauded the president’s plea, but not enough of them voted his way.

The bill’s rejection wasn’t just a defeat for Obama. Rising sentiment against the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership overwhelmed the White House’s lobbying efforts, as well as those by business leaders and top Republicans in Congress. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who had remained silent until Friday about whether she’d back the trade agreement, joined the overwhelming majority of Democrats in opposing legislation to ensure its passage. Republican House members also defected in droves.

http://www.newsweek.com/barack-obama-tr ... tpp-342712

[Ibon]

wow, blue collar republicans and most democrats joined together to reject the latest transnational corporate takeover of Asia led by Mr. O

This rejection is part of the sentiment to push back against corporate interests and lobbyists that are increasingly controlling politicians. This theme could really gain some momentum. Push back against Citizens United and corporate financial backing of special interest candidates.

Bernie Sanders could really run with this since the collective is ripe to back a challenge to what is seen as way too much corporate welfare, corporate control and corporations too deeply influencing US policy. Trade agreements that aggravate the disparity of wealth.

I would play close attention to this theme.....