For the 1946 mindset harping about the TPP, they should learn to count first.

[CK_John]

Since we produce very little of what we want or need and our population is only 300 million consumers vs ! billion in India and 1 billion in China we are no longer the most valued customer we once were.

We are still a player but we don't command terms like we did just a few decades ago. It's time to get real, I'm sure the administration is doing the best it can and it will not cost us jobs because there are no jobs to lose.

Cyber-era productivity can not produce enough jobs for us or any other modern economic system. TPP is a Hail Mary situation to stave off economic ruin for a while.

[PoliticAverse]

1. Unfortunately, we have no unrec to lose... n/t

[truebluegreen]

2. +100

[karynnj]

31. It is times like this that a unrec was VERY useful

There may be a lot to debate on the trade treaties, but saying there are no jobs to lose - with no supporting information - adds little.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. So what you're saying, then, is that we need TPP?

[CK_John]

4. Basically yes, we don't have a very strong hand, go in any dry goods store and we don't make many

of those items. Until we do we are a net importer.

[Bluenorthwest]

22. The United States is the world's second largest manufacturer of goods, a few years ago

China took a slight lead and is the largest. The US is second largest. You keep harping that we don't make anything, but we make more than any other nation but China, and they have a far larger population. So you can talk about a 'dry goods store' as if it was 1896 all you want, we are still a manufacturing behemoth.

[dionysus]

42. what people often don't understand is that despite decades of offshoring, we still manufacture TONS

of stuff here.

[NuclearDem]

10. GIVE ME YOUR TPP

[solarhydrocan]

5. if it was the transparent trans pacific partnership "agreement"

we might know more about it and be able to discuss it like Citizens instead of being blindfolded and treated as consumers/slaves.

Washington DC is supposed to work FOR us. Not concoct trade "agreements" (in 1946 treaties were required to do what TPP will do) in secret.

What exactly is in the Trans-Pacific Partnership?
Salon.com

It’s hard to know. While negotiations started in 2007, most negotiating documents and draft chapters are classified. Stakeholders — including 600 corporations but also several labor unions including the AFL-CIO — can see the draft text, but the public and Congress cannot.

Nevertheless, a few draft chapters have been leaked. Some of the more controversial aspects that have been revealed include making medicine in poor countries much more expensive, banning “Buy American” preferences in our procurement procedures, rules that may force the deregulation of the financial sector, and a new part of the agreement that might force the privatization of state-owned assets. I asked the U.S. trade representative what this meant for a set of American public assets — Amtrak, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the North Dakota state bank, and state-owned power plants...

...I spoke with a few other international trade experts, and they gave me some more detail on what is in it. Lori Wallach, of Public Citizen, says the agreement strengthens investor provisions, allowing a whole set of new disputes to be removed from the U.S. courts and remanded to international tribunals run by corporate trade attorneys.

Some of these include natural resource concessions from the federal government, contracts to run utilities (public-private partnerships), and procurement contracts relating to infrastructure construction. In order words, if a government entity wanted to prioritize awarding a government contract to a local firm, the TPP would allow foreign firms to challenge this as a TPP violation. And the challenge wouldn’t be in an American court, it would be held in an international tribunal...much more
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/23/everything_you_wanted_to_know_about_the_trans_pacific_partnership/

"Since we produce very little of what we want or need ..."- CK_John

See Rep. Slaughter's comment @ 1:33

"We can't call ourselves a superpower if everything in the world that we need...is made somplace else and we have to import it" -Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-NY

A nation that can't build a new SF Bay bridge and has to barge one over from China is a nation that is dependent.

We need to make EVERYthing we consume. Screw this globalism crap. A self sufficient nation is a healthy and prosperous nation.

You want to "compete" with wage slaves in Vietnam who make $0.25 per hour? You won't be able to buy Obamacare mandatory insurance on that pay- let alone put a roof over your head or eat.

[CK_John]

7. It boils down to we need them more than they us, and they are setting the terms,

they don't do public.

We can talk but they don't need to listen. It's a new era get with it.

Besides it will go to the Senate for ratification, if terms are agreed to.

[librechik]

13. +++++++++

[randome]

18. How many agreements are made per year? Hundreds? More?

If every single move the government makes is put up for a vote, nothing would ever get done. Not saying I'm in favor of the TPP being negotiated this way, just pointing out that it's not so simple as letting citizens decide everything.

That's why we elect representatives.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Out there, each night, a billion stars are born and die.
While here, asleep, a billion dreams begin to fly.[/center][/font][hr]

[tkmorris]

39. How many? Of this reach and scope? Zero.

And you know that. Your argument is disingenuous.

[KoKo]

33. Excellent Post and Read...Welcome to DU!

[NoOneMan]

6. Sure. Those billions of Chinese and Indians in concentration camps (Apple factories) sure have sway

Riiiiiiiiiiiight. We will cower to their economic might.


Anyone in China or India that has any significant amount of money to rub together and an ounce of sense is buying their way through the immigration lines of Canada and US, where their kids can study while buying the trash their people make at the local Walmart.


These arguments are all about how we are just uncontrollably caught up in the wake of globalization and just have to keep trying, hoping something different will come of it. Sure, if you think globalization is now a permanent part of human civilization that we cannot ever retool, rework or question, yeah, in that context hurray to the TPP. Calling Ross Perot now....

[NuclearDem]

8. Ha, you think TPP is actually about trade.

Oh God, that's rich. It's about giving multinationals a horrendous amount of power in the TPP countries and destroying environmental and labor laws.

[jsr]

12. Corporations over Nations

It enshrines the "corporations are very important people" doctrine on a global scale.

[X_Digger]

9. Bill, is that you? Go back to Hillary and tell her you fell off the wagon again.

Third-way NAFTA tripe sucks monkey balls, Bill.

[Javaman]

11. ...

[bemildred]

14. Are you saying we can't compete? nt

[CK_John]

15. Compete in what? How fast we buy their stuff? China just sold their own people 1 million bicycles.

They build stuff, we also buy that stufff. Until that changes, all we can do is pay the bill and shut up.

[Bluenorthwest]

19. Can you state the percentage by which China tops the US in manufacturing? We are second

largest in the world. They are indeed first. But what is the gap? And if we 'produce very little' why are we the second largest manufacturer on Earth?

[bemildred]

20. Ah, we don't compete. Quite. nt

[Lasher]

16. How would the TPP stave off economic ruin for awhile?

Since you have claimed this is so, I'm hoping you know how that would work.

[CK_John]

21. A system that is not self sufficient like ours can not succeed.

[Bluenorthwest]

23. We are not a system, we are a nation and no nation has ever been fully self sufficent.

It's that simple. Name me a self sufficient nation, now or in history, which does no trade, imports nothing, exports nothing. You can't. No such nation exists. Never has.

[Lasher]

25. Then if we cannot succeed, why bother?

It was you who said the TPP would "...stave off economic ruin for a while." But you don't seem to know what it would do to delay this inevitable demise that you predict.

[CK_John]

34. They have been at this since 2007 and still no agreement. Also I'm not in on the

talks, you and I will have to wait until it gets to the Senate.

[Lasher]

44. So if we don't know anything yet about the TPP then why support it? Blind faith?

If our economy is in such bad shape, then shouldn't we be trying something different? There's 14 current Free Trade Agreements that have been ratified over the past 3 decades - a period of time that coincides with economic decline of the US middle class.

Why is it that you expect different results from doing the same thing over and over?

[Bluenorthwest]

17. this 'we produce very little' meme runs counter to the fact that the US is the second largest

manufacturing nation, China has a slight edge in recent years and is the top manufacturing nation. US is second, then Japan, Germany, Korea, Brazil, France, Russia....
The world's second largest manufacturer manufactures very little? Are you also wishing to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge for a hundred bucks?

[CK_John]

24. No one in the US makes a bicycle, go to Sears, Walmart, Dollar stores and tells

me we're number 2 in making stuff.

[Bluenorthwest]

32. There are bikes made in the US, there are no bikes at the Dollar Store.

I'm sorry but I don't accept that any person or nation has to be #1 or they are nothing. Not how I think. China as one billion more humans than we do. Should we seek to out work them, with 4X the workers than we have?
It's just twisted to claim that the second largest manufacturer 'makes very little' when the world would disagree with you. We are no longer #1. So what?

[jeff47]

43. Actually, lots of bicycles are made in the US.

So let's get back from your non-sequitor to the problem with your argument:

You claim we don't make anything. Reality is we are the #2 manufacturer on the planet.

So your argument that we must do something is pretty dumb since it comes from a massive error on your part.

[bhikkhu]

40. ...and we're the third largest exporter in the world

while we also have a relatively low level of trade, at 25% or so ( http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TG.VAL.TOTL.GD.ZS ). Which would tend to support the opposite notion - that we are a significant producer, with a healthy domestic market and a limited dependence on international markets, comparatively.

I've no idea whether that becomes an argument for or against the TPP (about which I am far from making up my mind), but those are the level facts.

[Spider Jerusalem]

41. Second largest manufacturer by dollar value, or by volume?

And what does the US manufacture? Heavy equipment, military hardware, firearms, aircraft, motor vehicles. Manufacture of consumer goods has mostly shifted overseas.

[PDJane]

26. The US does manufacture a lot of 'stuff.'

The problem is that it mostly doesn't manufacture consumer goods anymore. It manufactures guns, military weaponry, helmets, troop carriers, etc.

This is, of course, the reason that the US gets into so many wars and arms so many dictatorships; it allows a better balance of trade. Time to get out of the business of war.

[Jackpine Radical]

27. All of that for a lousy 20 cents??

[Iggo]

28. I know there's a progressive way and a conservative way....

....but it's starting to smell like there's a third way.

[grahamhgreen]

29. Bringing our factories back home is good for America. Right?

[grahamhgreen]

30. Have you read it? If so, please share.

[LiberalAndProud]

35. Limiting governments' ability to regulate

industry is not for the betterment of the health and welfare of the people either here or there. Your analysis is shallow, misguided and just plain wrong. The globalists will have their way, but I will be damned if I'll smile while asking for a second helping. Screw that nonsense.

[Bradical79]

36. What specifically in the TPP is beneficial?

Your post sounds a bit random and doesn't seem to address anything I've heard from people who are actually familiar with the proposed agreement.

[SomethingFishy]

37. Considering that you and everyone else has no fucking idea what is actually

in the TPP agreement, then I really can't figure out why you claim to know what the effects are going to be.

[Chan790]

38. I'm going to say the same thing I said to the last 5 TPP evangelists...

you're in the wrong place and probably the wrong party if you support TPP/TPIP.

[Cleita]

45. Since all the delegates and our government are conducting all

their meetings in secret, it doesn't bode well. What are they trying to hide from the populations they are about to screw? If you have any inside information please tell us. Also, I was around in 1946 and the mindset then was to protect our domestic industry and economy against international and global monopolies with the emphasis on "no monopolies". It was regarded as bad for competitive free trade for any one industrial sector to be owned by only one or two entities. Economists then thought it would stifle free enterprise.