The TPP and the Washington Post

    The Washington Post's jihad against American workers continues with its latest [June 10] unrestrained attack on critics of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Since March, the newspaper that Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos purchased in 2013 has promoted the multi-lateral free trade deal in a number of lead editorials.

    Currently, Republican House leaders are trying to round up enough votes to grant President Obama Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). If TPA is granted, the House and Senate would only have the right to vote up or down after negotiators finalize the TPP's language. This would almost certainly lead to the bill's passage.

    Based on those sections of the TPP that have been made public or discussed by insiders, my sense is that the TPP will almost certainly be a bad deal for the American people. The American working class is likely to be hardest hit, especially if the pact is approved without emendation. Nevertheless, the Post's full-throated support would be a little easier to take if it presented, or attempted to present, a cogent defense of the proposed pact.

    Instead, the editorial is long on harsh rhetoric against Democrats who refuse to support the TPP but largely fact-free. Maryland Congressional Representatives Chris Van Hollen and Donna Edwards have both declared their opposition to the bill. Interestingly, the Post trains all of its ire on Democrats. The few Republican holdouts are excused for refusing to concede to Speaker John Boehner on the ground that the trade deal is one of “President Obama's priorities and Mr. Obama is a Democrat”.

    Apparently, this form of rank partisanship is acceptable to the Post. On the other hand, Democrats who buck their leader are “saying a lot about the current state of American politics in general and the Democratic Party in particular – none of it good”. Ignoring the Republican opposition to the TPP, the Post slams “organized labor” for “using the current battle to polarize Congress further by enforcing a strict Democratic party line against trade agreements.”

    The Post insists that “the [postwar] expansion of prosperity both in the United States and abroad has vindicated” the view that free trade is in America's best interest. But the newspaper provides no specific examples of American industries that have benefited from free trade. Moreover, it ignores the plethora of data that free trade deals have led to job loss and income stagnation. Hard-right conservative Patrick Buchanan's critique of free trade is far more compelling than the Post's attack ad in favor of it.

    In two particularly moving paragraphs, Buchanan describes negative impacts of free trade:

    The average U.S. family has not seen a rise in real wages in 40 years. This is directly traceable to the loss of more than one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs. And that loss, that deindustrialization of America, is directly tied to the $10 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I. Writers who celebrate how U.S. imports have risen in this month or that year almost never mention the trade deficit for this month or that year. Perhaps that is because the United States has not run a trade surplus in four decades, whereas, in the first 70 years of the 20th century, we never ran a trade deficit. Trade surpluses add to GDP; trade deficits subtract from GDP.

    And when in a company town the company closes the factory, the town often dies. And all the little satellite businesses—bars, diners, food stores, pharmacies—that rose around the factory, they die, too. The tombstones of countless dead towns across America should read: Killed by Free Trade. Tenured economists on college campuses call this “creative destruction.”

    After summarizing arguments in favor of and in opposition to globalization, economist Ellen Frank concluded back in 2003:

    Whatever else they have wrought—more jobs, fewer jobs, more or less poverty—globalized trade and production coincide with greater inequality both within and between countries. The reasons for this are complex—globalization weakens unions, strengthens multinationals, and increases competition and insecurity all around—but the data are clear. Markets do not distribute wealth equitably.

    Significant increases in wealth disparities both internationally and within the United States over the past twelve years have only strengthened Frank's conclusion. Yet the Post insists that any result other than passage “would represent a setback for the U.S. economy and for the country’s standing in the world.”

    What explains the Post's indefensible position on the TPP? Well, the paper was never the liberal champion some on the left and right have made it out to be. But, there can be little doubt that every editorial in favor of the TPP puts a smile on its new owner's face. The company that made Bezos over $20 billion and allowed him to purchase the Post for 1/80 of that amount is a global behemoth. Successful execution of Amazon's business model depends on low wages and the cheap and easy flow of goods across natural and man-made borders.  Personally, Bezos has expressed strong libertarian leanings with a particular preference for deregulation, anti-labor, and other business-friendly policies.

    In sum the Post's editorial page is championing a trade pact that, if enacted, will lead to job loss, hurt wages, and increase the wealth gap. It is doing this by attacking labor and those Democrats willing to stand up to corporate interests. The Post's influential opinion page is arguing that our government, which represents 350 million Americans, should ignore the interests of the many and do that which is urgently desired by one multi-billionaire who just happens to own the paper.

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    Thanks so much for this, Hal.  Well done. The trade agreement is deliberately confusing but you've made some of it clearer.  The editorial and op-ed pages are for opinions but if the opinions drift over into content, there's a problem.  I don't know if that's happening yet, but Bezos' ownership of the Post was always going to be worrisome, no matter what Bezos promised when he took over.  He's a corporatist.  How could it not be a conflict of interest?

      The same is happening with MSNBC.  Morning Joe is leaning more and more rightward and now they've given one of Glenn Beck's Blaze cohorts the 6 AM hour.   But there's always the internet, and until they stop us from spreading the word, we're free to get the truth out.

    Thanks again.  Sharing.


    I'm out of the loop. Who is coming to MSNBC from the Blaze?


    Looks like it was only for one week.  But, still. . .really?

    http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=28721


    MSNBCs ratings lag behind Fox. Fox skews older and probably stays with them all day. The bulk of the MSNBC audience probably checks online sources frequently and are less TV dependent for news.


    That's not the point.  MSNBC has always leaned more left than central.  AM Joe did not lean true right until recently--soon after Comcast bought out Microsoft and is now the majority owner. 

    They got rid of Ronan Farrow--a good thing--but they also got rid of Joy Reid, one of the best.  Andrea Mitchell isn't afraid to show her Rightness anymore and Chuck Todd rears his ugly head entirely too often.  I watch MSNBC often during the day so I see the shift.  It's happening.
     


    I watch in the evening (Chris, Rachel, and Lawrence). I rarely watch CNN or Al Jazeera . Thx for the info.


    Thanks Ramona for the kind words.blush


    I'm just curious as to which American workers would be harmed by this agreement.


    For me it is less about jobs. Free trade has already won across most of the world. American manufacturing is mostly gone. This bill will likely make it worse but only marginally. It's environmental issues, safety issues, the TPP court, and enforcement issues. They are all interrelated and most of them also affect America's ability to compete.

    One does not have to be Chinese to care about the environmental destruction in that country. It's an important issue alone, but that lax environmental legislation also makes it more difficult for America to compete is a side issue. One does not have to be Malaysian to care about slavery in that country or human trafficking. This issue also stands alone. But as we're finding it hard to compete with slave wages how much harder to compete with actual slaves. One does not have to be Bangladesh to care about safety conditions in that country's factories.

    We rely on foreign governments to enforce what ever regulations we agree to. That's fine with countries like Germany or Japan that have robust democracies with  responsible and accountable governments. But many of these countries are oligarchies that have repeatedly ignored standards agreed to in previous deals.

    One big issue for me is food safety. Already past agreements have included a requirement that food safety regulations be "scientifically justifiable" that have been used to attack efforts to limit the use of pesticides, GMOs, and food additives. They have also been used to challenge laws on food labeling. There are already problems with seafood from Vietnam and Malaysia that are reportedly dangerously contaminated.

    Doctors without borders has claimed that the massively generous patent protections for pharmacuticals in leaked TPP documents would be a threat to global health. It would make vaccines unaffordable in poor countries. It would extend patents for minor changes in medicines that offer no additional therapeutic value to patients which is already a problem with patent protections in America. This has resulted in the amount and availiabilty of cheaper generics. Once again, while this is mainly an issue of compassion for me, the health of poor nations does affect America's health in this much more interconnected world where contagious diseases can spread across the globe in days.

    How much it will affect American jobs is the least of the TPP's problems for me. But all of the issue I'm concerned about do lessen our ability to compete. What little I know from the leaked documents leads me to be against this deal. And since so little of this classified document has been released I have to trust the word of those who have security clearance to see the deal. People whose values and word I trust much more than Obama's. Like Elizabeth Warren and Sanders who have come out strongly against it.


    Very well said. Food safety is an extremely important issue to me. 

    I have not had strong feelings against this trade agreement. On the other hand, strangely enough, I'm happy over the vote in the House---for the reason that I hate carrying water for the Republicans, especially when we seldom extract our pound of flesh from them in the process. Democrats should link this in future--an improved deal---with a trillion dollars of infrastructure spending, for example.


    Many American jobs in service sectors that have hitherto been spared the worst impact of globalization would be at increased risk of being off-shored according to the Communications Workers of America.  Also, the CWA says, some of the few remaining jobs in our once-mighty manufacturing base would likely be lost.  http://www.cwa-union.org/pages/10_ways_the_tpp_would_hurt_cwa_represente...

    If the past is prologue, then the CWA's analysis is fundamentally correct.  http://www.epi.org/blog/whats-wrong-with-the-tpp-this-deal-will-lead-to-...


    So, call center jobs. I'm almost tempted to say, good riddance. Which leads me to kind of a philosophical train of thought.

    Americans are huge consumers of services. Do they have choices, or are they forced by total economic corporate strangulation to have only one option in each sector?

    I think there is enough competition left that there are choices. If I make a call and get robot English, I hang up. Eventually I will buy a service or related product where I have the most satisfactory service experience.

    If a service provider switches to an even lower level of service and a call center worker loses his job to a robot speaker in the third world, I feel bad for the service worker. That company is eventually going to lose market share and the employee is at risk anyway.  

    The ultimate opportunity for any worker, assuming they are continually improving their skills, is to work for a successful enterprise and to be able to contribute and grow within that enterprise. If a trade agreement really restricts the possibility of such successful enterprises from thriving in this country then it is bad.

    A call center job is not an operative I would use to send a free trade agreement down the tubes, but perhaps this trade agreement is really a piece of crap for a lot of other reasons.

    In any case, I am actually happy this deal has been side tracked for the time being---maybe Democrats can get something in return, like minimum wage hikes and infrastructure spending.

    I run a small services company. People are the core of the business. Skimping gets me nowhere. There are a great many other companies like mine. They are not going to lose customers by switching to inferior products, services or employees.  


    On a broader scope, this passage stood out:

    The few Republican holdouts are excused for refusing to concede to Speaker John Boehner on the ground that the trade deal is one of “President Obama's priorities and Mr. Obama is a Democrat”.

    We all know (or should know) that the Republicans have done everything to block anything that would be a success for Obama, and Democrats in general, even if it is good for people, the economy and small businesses. This is vile partisanship at its worst.


    The house just voted against the worker training part of the trade deal.  With out the worker retraining the Democrats will not vote for fast track in the Senate. Gamesmanship to scuttle the deal.  Some of the house Democrats voted against the retraining so it would fail this way fast track would fail.  


    After discussing it with Administration insiders Krugmann describes himself as a "lukewarm opponent " of TPP.

    Trying to responsibly reach a position I Googled  "The thing about tariffs is .. they do the trick" and came up with .........myself, 4 years ago on Dagblog. As a more than lukewarm opponent in principle  of US trade deals it would have taken a more than lukewarm endorsement by Krugmann to convert me. As it is I'm remaining comfortably in the hell no camp.

    Both supporters and opponents wrote  this week about the issues with respect inter alia with   intellectual property  that affect how they stand.. When elephants struggle the little animals get stepped on so I'll stay out of this one and just remain  a clueless anti free trade voice in the internet wilderness..

     


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