dagblog - Comments for "The TPP and the Washington Post"

After discussing it with

Flavius — Sun, 14 Jun 2015 03:56:55 +0000

In reply to The TPP and the Washington Post

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..

So, call center jobs. I'm

Oxy Mora — Sat, 13 Jun 2015 14:24:10 +0000

In reply to Many American jobs in service

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.

Many American jobs in service

HSG — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 23:39:30 +0000

In reply to I'm just curious as to which

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-...

Thanks Ramona for the kind

HSG — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 23:33:51 +0000

In reply to Thanks so much for this, Hal.

Thanks Ramona for the kind words.

Very well said. Food safety

Oxy Mora — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 21:33:46 +0000

In reply to For me it is less about jobs.

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.

For me it is less about jobs.

ocean-kat — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 20:57:00 +0000

In reply to I'm just curious as to which

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.

The house just voted against

trkingmomoe — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 20:24:02 +0000

In reply to The TPP and the Washington Post

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.

I watch in the evening (Chris

rmrd0000 — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 18:17:52 +0000

In reply to That's not the point. MSNBC

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

On a broader scope, this

Elusive Trope — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 17:44:26 +0000

In reply to The TPP and the Washington Post

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.

I'm just curious as to which

Oxy Mora — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 17:05:42 +0000

In reply to The TPP and the Washington Post

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