Let's clear the air around TPP

[whereisjustice]

This is what free trade means:

[daleanime]

1. K&R.....

[djean111]

2. Oh, hey, they just need to soak those fish in bleach and then package them up with no

label of origin - and you can buy them at your grocery store! Picky picky picky.

[Hoyt]

3. Another view --

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5531434e/turbine/la-automexico-la0015388326-20140123/600/600x338

Workers assemble Honda Fits at a new factory in Celaya, Mexico, last year. Ford and Toyota plan to spend $3.5 billion on new factories and expansions in Mexico, helping fuel an auto industry boom in the country. (Honda)

Wages aren't up to US standards, but they are a lot better than Mexico's standard. They'll increase more as conditions improve.

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ford-toyota-mexico-factories-20150417-story.html

[Autumn]

5. So our unemployed Americans just need to move to Celaya, Mexico

in the new factories and expansions they will spend $3.5 billion to build in Mexico? Thank you for that honest look at the TPP. You in one post managed to lay out exactly what will happen to America with the TPP. You should make your post into a stand alone OP


http://www.trbimg.com/img-5531434e/turbine/la-automexico-la0015388326-20140123/600/600x338

Workers assemble Honda Fits at a new factory in Celaya, Mexico, last year. Ford and Toyota plan to spend $3.5 billion on new factories and expansions in Mexico, helping fuel an auto industry boom in the country. (Honda)

Wages aren't up to US standards, but they are a lot better than Mexico's standard. They'll increase more as conditions improve.

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ford-toyota-mexico-factories-20150417-story.html

I salute you Sir, a pro TPP poster just showed exactly why the TPP is so bad for America

Workers at the auto assembly plants south of the border earn an average $5.64 an hour compared to $27.78 for their U.S. counterparts, according to the Center for Automotive Research, an industry think tank in Ann Arbor, Mich. Those at the parts suppliers earn just $2.47 an hour. Workers at U.S. auto suppliers average $19.65.

That part really hit home with me. I used to work in after market automotive manufacturing. I made good money. Of course it's gone now I was unemployed from 2008 and finally quit looking for a job in 2012.

Maybe I should move to Mexico since conditions will improve

[Hoyt]

6. Those workers in Mexico were making 50 cents a day before. Mexico is not unlike America

60 years ago. They'll get better, buy American goods, visit here if they can stand the bigotry, etc. Someday we'll be integrated, and one country for all practical purposes.

As to the difference in pay, some is due to unions, and some is due to the American companies being successful all around the world. I'd much rather work for success company, than some small local one that doesn't even have to provide workers comp, health insurance, etc.

I'm also not a Nationalist like my Tbag neighbor who hates feriners and is fine with the fact we stole more than our share of the words wealth and resources. It's time we started helping countries like Vietnam that we destroyed 50 years ago.

And, yes, I am sorry for displaced workers here. That's why I am for taxing multinational corporations heavily and using the proceeds for training, jobs here, health care, education, etc. We aren't going to get that by trading among ourselves and isolating ourselves from globalization.

[Autumn]

9. I made 19 dollars an hour and had health insurance I could afford to use.

I'm also not a Nationalist either. I can see that you hope to see the service industry grow as our jobs go to "countries like Vietnam that we destroyed 50 years ago." Our young people can be easily trained to ask Would you like fries with that? You ignore that fact that the politicians are pushing their "right to work" shit bills in every state they can. And like the TPP "right to work" does not mean what you think it means.

I would like my fucking government and the politicians and Presidents whose wages the American tax payer pays for to look out for me and my countrymen.

Have a nice day.

[Hoyt]

23. Our young people can be trained to do jobs that un/limited-skilled workers can't do.

Sound like a Nationalist to me.

[Autumn]

27. Name the jobs that un/limited-skilled workers can't do that our young people will be trained for?

Last edited Thu May 14, 2015, 09:30 PM - Edit history (1)

Jobs that will pay a living wage?

Crickets? Crickets? Crickets? Crickets? Crickets? That's it?

[jeff47]

10. And those workers in America are now making zero cents a day.

Yay! Trade!!

They'll get better, buy American goods, visit here if they can stand the bigotry, etc. Someday we'll be integrated, and one country for all practical purposes.

Why would they buy American goods? There is no special "American-only" magic when assembling goods. They will buy Mexican goods because they are cheaper.

Except their factories will be shut down in 60 years, with assembly moving to some other 50 cent a day country.

I'm also not a Nationalist like my Tbag neighbor who hates feriners and is fine with the fact we stole more than our share of the words wealth and resources. It's time we started helping countries like Vietnam that we destroyed 50 years ago.

We can help them while not simultaneously destroying ourselves. But that doesn't make Wall Street as much money next quarter.

And, yes, I am sorry for displaced workers here.

That's why I am for taxing multinational corporations heavily and using the proceeds for training, jobs here, health care, education, etc.

Tell me how you get a 50-year-old ex-factory worker a job writing computer software. Or any of the other STEM jobs that were supposed to be our saviors with NAFTA. Be sure to remember the rampant ageism in STEM jobs, and H1B visas and outsourcing of those STEM jobs.

We aren't going to get that by trading among ourselves and isolating ourselves from globalization.

We already have free trade agreements with almost all of the countries in the TPP. That's not isolationism, despite your desperate need to incinerate that strawman in order to support the TPP.

The only significant economy in the TPP where we don't have a free trade agreement is Japan. They have a whopping 1.2% tariff on US goods. So you think 1.2% is a massive barrier? Golly, sales taxes must be absolutely destroying the US economy.

[Autumn]

14. What American goods do you see being made here in this future you see that they can buy?

Health care, education, etc? We are becoming a service nation. How do you export those service jobs that are replacing factory work here? We have trade agreements with just about all of the countries in the TPP. There is no isolation.

[upaloopa]

33. Great for Mexico. We don't live there and we can't

buy the cars they make there.
Race to the bottom America is in the lead yea TPP!

[Estevan]

45. +1

Thank you for being brave enough to say what is right and logical. It seems like some liberals are no different from the fringe wing of the conservatives in their rigid thinking when it comes to this issue.

[jeff47]

46. Yes, we need a free trade agreement with the countries where we already have free trade agreements

And those liberals are crazy dogmatists for pointing out those economies are already "open" to our exports.

There must be trade barriers, since the TPP is a free trade agreement! They've got to be around somewhere....

[Hoyt]

50. I've found the view quite disappointing.

[L0oniX]

49. "taxing multinational corporations" Nice dream ya got there.

[G_j]

59. how much retraining does it take

to flip burgers?

[Cerridwen]

8. Actually, if conditions improve in Mexico, I imagine people coming to the US from Mexico

may gradually drop off. Hardly an over-night sensation, for sure; just a possibility. Should that occur, it could improve employment opportunities for people in the US.

I do have a question for you, though. If the TPP does not pass, will multi-national corporations stop outsourcing jobs, start paying higher wages, and work to address the horrifically disparate economic circumstances of their employees? I guess that's several questions or a multi-part question; depending on your interpretation.

BTW, being able to see various sides of an issue, isn't necessarily being pro/con. It's just being able to see various sides of an issue.

[jeff47]

11. They won't be paying more or re-shoring jobs.

Because we already have free trade agreements with almost all of the countries in the TPP.

The only significant economy where the TPP cuts tariffs against US goods is Japan. That tariff is currently 1.2%. If you think 1.2% makes us uncompetitive, you'd have to think sales taxes in the US are utterly annihilating the US economy.

The TPP isn't about trade. The backers of the TPP want to claim it is about trade because that is a much easier sale. If it was about trade, it would involve countries where there currently are significant trade barriers.

The TPP is about capital. Right now, foreign investment is much riskier than investment in the US - we have a stable government with a long, stable judicial history in which to assess risk. You don't have to worry about a coup/revolution suddenly taking away your stripmine.

The TPP is designed to reduce risk for capital, so that US capital can be more safely used to fund foreign businesses.

[Cerridwen]

12. And if it doesn't pass? How does that change? Does it change?

Thanks for your answer, btw.

Will the change (should there be any) be good/bad/indifferent/noticeable for "We, the People"? Or is it, "just business as usual" and the continuation of the status quo?

I keep reading about what "will happen" should it pass. I haven't found much that explains what happens if it doesn't.

[jeff47]

16. If it doesn't pass, pretty much nothing changes for labor.

We're still high cost-of-living, we're still very low social support, and we're still low-union so the executives still get all the money.

What we would "lose" by TPP not passing is US capital would continue to be more likely to stay in the US. Which means lower funding costs for startups/expansions in the US, creating more US jobs. At about the rate we're currently doing so.

What capital loses is higher profits via foreign investment.

There really isn't anything good in the TPP for people in the US who are not wealthy. There are benefits to workers in other countries.

[Cerridwen]

18. Hmmm. Thank you for more "food for thought."

Geez, I'm full of...clichés this morning.

[Ford_Prefect]

20. It stops the Perpetual Profiteers from unfettered rape of the planet and its local economies.

The major purpose of this "agreement" seems to be by-passing local and regional government regulation, legal protection of natural resources, public health, and labor rights. If the TPP fails the outcome will be those resources, rights and the legal processes which protect them will stand free from fear that the corporations so regulated will sue the living and the dead for every penny of profit they imagine to be owed to them.

[Cerridwen]

22. And if any of those countries don't have those protections in place?

Does the TPP then enforce stronger, weaker, or no protections? If the TPP doesn't pass and a country has weak or no protections, then it's just status quo.

I see the list of countries includes: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam.

[Ford_Prefect]

53. TPP and TPIP could gut financial reform here.

How specifically could Dodd-Frank be changed?

Warren pointed to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed trade deal between the United States and the European Union that’s been under negotiation for several years.

Major financial institutions have been lobbying heavily on this deal—which is not surprising, since the major financial centers in the United States and Europe would be affected. JPMorgan Chase, MasterCard, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and VISA have all lobbied Congress on fast track and TTIP, along with TPP, in the past six months, according to company disclosure forms.

What might they want? Like with TPP, we don’t know all the details of TTIP yet, but advocates have many fears. One is that the Federal Reserve’s plan to impose separate liquidity requirements on foreign banks might be scotched; Inside US Trade reported in 2013 that the EU wanted to address that rule, which it thinks is “discriminatory.” Liquidity requirements were a crucial part of Dodd-Frank and force banks to have a certain level of assets they can sell off in the event of a crisis. European regulators have traditionally taken a lighter touch on such requirements. That same report suggested that compliance rules on derivatives—another key part of Dodd-Frank—were under negotiation.

Relatedly, there is a fear common to many trade deals: If TTIP is enacted with lower financial regulations than what exist under Dodd-Frank, and with exemptions for foreign banks, American banks could reincorporate in signatory countries to sidestep US regulations.

TPP contains similar language and provisions and would result in similar severe consequences.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/207041/could-fast-track-ultimately-destroy-dodd-frank-yes

This is not about maintaining the status quo. This is about keeping what is left after the Vulture Capitalists have stripped everything they can via Off-shoring production and finances, once they have moved corporate headquarters to Dubai or some other tax haven.

[Cerridwen]

54. Did you mean to reply to me? I was talking about other countries and you're

talking about here in the US which is also an important set of factors but I was wondering about other countries, too.

And if any of those countries don't have those protections in place?

Does the TPP then enforce stronger, weaker, or no protections? If the TPP doesn't pass and a country has weak or no protections, then it's just status quo.

[Hoyt]

61. Oh, yeah, advanced European countries and Canada, Japan, etc., are going to sign

an agreement that ruins their country.

[Autumn]

13. A question for you. What improvement in employment opportunities for people in the US do you see

occurring when people stop coming to the US from Mexico because our factories have moved there? What jobs do you imagine the people who currently come here from Mexico hold and what do you think they are paid here?

As for your question I don't see multi-national corporations stop the out outsourcing of jobs, paying higher wages, and working to address the horrifically disparate economic circumstances of their employees even if the TPP does pass. That's my opinion.

[Cerridwen]

17. What improvement do I see? None or not much to crow about.

What jobs and what do they pay; I already know the answers to those. I live in a place in which "illegal immigrants" and those who just look like they are, are frequently robbed of their cash payments for day labor work, work in the desert heat during the summer, and whose presence in the country has allowed exploitive employers to reduce wages so low as to drag down union wages and prevailing wage. Many work as labor in construction and lawn service and many women work as house cleaners for the "wanna impress my friends." In other words, they provide cheap labor.

I know the answers to those and quite a few others.

I don't see a trade agreement passing or not passing changing those circumstances. I think "it's just business nothing personal" will continue to be a "value" embraced by too many people in the US. I think as long as there are people dying in poverty, exploitive employers will continue to exploit workers and shove down wages.

I think as long as "profit is king," We, the People are fucked.

And that's my opinion.

[Autumn]

21. Now see that's just what I see.

And having been raised in a farming community I have seen worse. As a young student needing money I have even worked along migrant workers doing the back breaking labor in the fields picking crops.
I get a little offended when I see trade agreements being championed by people who think that in some magical way the corporation will give up their greed in their quest for every last penny of profits they can steal on the backs of the people who work.

Who the hell knows? I can only form an opinion based on my life experiences. I live on one fourth of the income I lived on in 2007 when my job left the country.

[Cerridwen]

24. I agree.

We all suffer in the name of the prophet known as profit.

"The love of money is the root of all evil."

Since I'm full of clichés this morning, the above seems to fit.

[upaloopa]

34. Why should they come here when we are also a third

world country? Instead of reducing us to their level why not raise them up to ours.

[Cerridwen]

37. Precisely.

Though I don't think the entirety of the US is yet at third world levels, there are definitely people living in similar conditions in many places in the US.

"Instead of reducing us to their level why not raise them up to ours." Precisely.

[jtuck004]

43. You are aware that the immigration from Mexico has been down for the past few years, yes?

While about 10 million Americans have fallen into poverty, followed by another 50 million who moved into near poverty, 4 million FAMILIES who were foreclosed on and thrown in the gutter with no recourse, while bank$ter/donors were made wealthy by policy

Since NAFTA passed 60,000 manufacturing plants have closed. TPP will likely accelerate that, from what little has leaked from the thieving bastards writing it, You are correct - that could increase employment opportunities here, for printing food stamps, manufacturing cardboard for homes, soup kitchens, french fry servers and bedpan emptiers.

Jobs one can live on, not so much.

You are correct, however, whether the TPP passes or not, corps are going to keep doing what they do.

But that's kind of like saying there is no point in making rape illegal, since it is going to happen anyway.

Seems like we should at least try to protect our most vulnerable, instead of just throwing up our hands. Not everyone sees that, proving that just because one is open-minded doesn't mean they have an ounce of compassion. Then again, they've probably got theirs, so no skin off their nose.

[Cerridwen]

47. No, I wasn't sure if that was true or not. If true, good news?

The question mark at the end of "good news" is because it would depend on why immigration is down.

As to what I think about the type of jobs, see my reply #17.

What jobs and what do they pay; I already know the answers to those. I live in a place in which "illegal immigrants" and those who just look like they are, are frequently robbed of their cash payments for day labor work, work in the desert heat during the summer, and whose presence in the country has allowed exploitive employers to reduce wages so low as to drag down union wages and prevailing wage. Many work as labor in construction and lawn service and many women work as house cleaners for the "wanna impress my friends." In other words, they provide cheap labor.

I know the answers to those and quite a few others.

As far as "that's kind of like saying there is no point in making rape illegal, since it is going to happen anyway" or, another way to put it, "that's just the way it is, why do anything?" I didn't make that point.

Also in reply #17, I did say:

I don't see a trade agreement passing or not passing changing those circumstances. I think "it's just business nothing personal" will continue to be a "value" embraced by too many people in the US. I think as long as there are people dying in poverty, exploitive employers will continue to exploit workers and shove down wages.

I think as long as "profit is king," We, the People are fucked.

And that's my opinion.

(On a quick side note; making something illegal without the resources, follow-through or will to enforce those measures might make us/me/you feel better, but it's still hardly a solution to a problem. See for example: "...the huge backlog of untested rape evidence" from this article at rainn.org)

[jtuck004]

60. Given our unemployment, and our reliance on mcjobs to pretend at an economy for most working people,

it turns out that it is easier to be poor in a poor country than a rich one.

And since we have largely quit investing in anything but perpetual war and terrorism, many no longer see the point in such a dangerous journey.

The ones we get now are fleeing violence in their states, not so much coming across the border for jobs, since they can serve fries and empty bedpans where they are at. NAFTA helped with that, by moving thousands of good manufacturing assemblies/jobs there, on the assumption that our economy would be strong enough to take it. It wasn't, of course, and was already dying by the time they did that, but it was for their rich and connected friends, not working people. Kinda like TPP, but using Vietnam, others to dilute China's economy.

NAFTA and it's ilk milk what was built here, and when that is gone, the levels of wealth will be lower for most of the people of all the countries concerned, and tens of millions more will be living a life of servitude to bank$ters, and leaving the same for their children.

But yeah, I agree with what you said, we are fucked. Because I don't see anything but more of the same for the foreseeable future.

[AgingAmerican]

15. "Wages aren't up to US standards"

They make $2 an hour. Capitalists don't increase wages without unions.

[Hoyt]

25. I'm fine with unions, but there are only 11.5% of workers in unions nowadays.

I actually think skills and demand for skills has more to do with pay.

Poor countries won't go to our wages overnight. It didn't happen here, it won't happen there until there is a lot of investment in the country.

[think]

30. Union leaders in 3rd world countries are still getting murdered and the TPP doesn't protect that

sickening stuff really....

AFL-CIO's Trumka: USTR Told Us Murder Isn't A Violation Under U.S. Trade Deals
By Michael McAuliff - Posted: 04/22/2015 7:32 am EDT

WASHINGTON -- Defenders of the White House push for sweeping trade deals argue they include tough enforcement of labor standards. But a top union leader scoffed at such claims Tuesday, revealing that administration officials have said privately that they don’t consider even the killings of labor organizers to be violations of those pacts.

Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, testified to that claim at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on legislation to grant President Barack Obama so-called fast-track authority to cut at least two new enormous trade agreements with Pacific Rim nations and the European Union. It appears to be the first time anyone has revealed such a stance on the part of a U.S. government that has been touting its efforts to improve wages and working conditions among its trading partners, relying in part on trade agreements.

But Trumka charged that the labor standards included in those trade deals are poorly enforced, and that before he would back the White House’s push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, he wanted to see tougher labor provisions that could be enforced.

"When you say, ‘Oh these are some standards, they’re better than no standards,’ we were told by by the {United States Trade Representative} general counsel that murdering a trade unionist doesn’t violate these standards, that perpetuating violence against a trade unionist doesn’t violate these agreements,” Trumka said, directing his remarks to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who backs the deals

[Hoyt]

31. Murder is a violation under the nation's laws, period. No need to put it in a trade

agreement, any more than putting speed limits in it.

[AgingAmerican]

38. Unions = middle class

No unions means no wage increases. Without unions in these countries they get sweatshops, suicide nets and concertina wire facing inward to keep people from escaping slave labor factories, which is exactly what is happening in China right now.

[think]

39. No. Human rights SHOULD be addressed in trade agreements. Supporting countries that allow abuses is

immoral and repugnant. Turning a blind eye to murder and human rights violation is just plain WRONG.

In Guatemala alone 68 union activists have been murdered since 2007:

Guatemala: 68 Union Leaders Murdered before a Single Arrest
MARCELA ESTRADA JUNE 3, 2014 AT 2:19 PM

On Saturday, Guatemala’s Ministry of Justice announced the capture of three individuals responsible for the murder of trade unionist Carlos Hernández. Hernández was secretary of culture on the executive committee of the National Union of Health Workers, and one of many in the long list of trade unionists murdered each year in Guatemala.+

~snip~

Since 2007, a total of 68 trade union leaders and representatives have been murdered, and a high number of attempted murders, kidnappings, break-ins, and death threats have been reported, along with torture. Yet, before the capture of these three individuals, not one culprit had been brought to justice.+

The many years of unaccounted murders have “created a culture of fear and violence where the exercise of trade union rights becomes impossible,” according to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).+

~Snip~

http://panampost.com/marcela-estrada/2014/06/03/guatemala-68-union-leaders-murdered-before-a-single-arrest/



How can any say that we should trade with a country that fails to protects workers rights?

[upaloopa]

35. Man you just don't get it do you?

There isn't going to be "our standard" we are going down to their standard! Wake the fuck up!

[BeanMusical]

55. "Wake the fuck up!"

I seriously doubt that it will ever happen.

[AgingAmerican]

36. Your 'fine' with them?

No unions = no middle class. Every country on earth with a large middle class has strong labor unions, no exceptions. Mexico, Vietnam, etc will never see good wages with out strong labor unions. Before Unions there were rich and poor people and a tiny sliver of middle class.

Giving poor countries our jobs won't do anything to boost their wages. All it will do is make us poorer.

[fasttense]

26. Really? You think $2.47 an hour is good?

"Those at the parts suppliers earn just $2.47 an hour."

Lucky for Mexicans that their taxes pay for their medical care and tuition.

Corporations do not move to cheap, cheap labor countries like Mexico to pay the highest wages in the country. They move there to pay the lowest wages they can con them into. If you you think the corporation is going to voluntarily raise those wages after they purposely moved there to pay low, low wages, then you should buy a bridge I have for sale.

If those factories were NOT selling their crap here in the US, then they couldn't be moving their factories OUT of their own countries. Without the remains of the US middle class to buy up those cars, they could not have those factories. Lucky for those huge corporations that we now let Mexican truck drivers drive thorough out the US without much in the way of inspections or permits. But soon that US middle class will disappear. And even at $5 an hour those workers will never be able to afford the crap they make.

[Hoyt]

32. They earned 50 cents a day before. Typical Nationalist response -- they are selling crap.

Seems to me people have wanted that crap since Japan sent transistor radios here, and VW sent the Beetle.

[AgingAmerican]

40. You are the one pushing RW neoliberalism

You are projecting

[fasttense]

57. The corporations make the crap. Not the workers in the factories.

It's crap when we bail out automakers and they abandon and desert our cities. It's crap when they are given blanket immunity from law suits for their dangerous vehicles in their bail out agreements. It's crap when their product creates so much pollution it's killing the entire planet, and yet they can make less polluting crap but don't. It's crap when governments give tax cuts and subsidies to mega corps and then they move out.

If you think the same corporations that destroyed Detroit and got bailed out by our tax dollars are going to save Mexico with huge salaries and wages, you need to study how capitalism really works.

[sabrina 1]

29. And when the TPP passes, US wages will decrease to the same level as the 'better than usual'

Mexico standards. There will be a Global standard. How great it all is, WE get to help RAISE the wages in Third World countries by accepting the same wages, well there won't be much choice, it's either that or receive no wages, these very generous Multi National corporations are now willing to pay those workers in Third World nations.

What is not to like? We 'liberals' get to help the world's workers! That's what we are all about, no?

Nice talking point, nice attempt to emotionally manipulate American workers. I've noticed that, the implication that Liberals are just too mean to want to help workers in other countries.

[woo me with science]

63. Notice how this response was carefully ignored by the corporate debater.

The truth is that global corporations have devastated countries before ours, and they will devastate countries after ours if they are not stopped. The corporate goal is *never* to improve the living conditions of employees in ANY country. The goal is to grow profit. That is what corporations do, and they will exploit, moving from one country to another and squeezing nations and workers into husks, in pursuit of that goal. Our wages will fall, and so will the wages of the next nation forced to compete with the next lowering of the bar for wages and working conditions.

What utter horseshit, these arguments about improving standards for workers. Giving these global corporations more power, letting them override democratic governments, means giving them the means to create global slavery, and corporate morality, which values profit alone, will not hesitate to do exactly that.

[grahamhgreen]

44. I'm an American. You love Mexico? Move there.

[LanternWaste]

58. Certainly bemusing to see imaginary red and blue lines given precedence over actual people.

Certainly bemusing to see imaginary red and blue lines given precedence over the health and well-being of actual people born on the other side of the imaginary. No doubt, we as a species place quite a bit of emotional investment into those imaginary constructs which predicate hunger on one side and X-boxes on the other.

Must be tough though, for a rational mind to come to that realization and watch as the irrational simply justify that Debs was a dirty-pinko-hippy when he said "I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth; I am a citizen of the world."

But, what is a day without at least one or two really juicy justification to better validate as real that which is imaginary and perceive that fateful and naked emperor as fully clothed...

[grahamhgreen]

62. Americans are real too. We need jobs too. We need a living wage too. Screwing American

workers over is not the solution to Mexicos problems. You want to help Mexico at the expense of my family, Freinds, community, and country??? Move.

[historylovr]

4. A wonderful legacy to leave for our children.

Corporations über alles!

[99Forever]

7. Bingo.

[Dont call me Shirley]

19. The uber-rich kings of their corporate kingdoms cannot evade the earth disaster they are creating.

[840high]

28. k/r

[raouldukelives]

41. There are people that believe in climate change & addressing it.

And there are people who place the rights of multinational corporations and profit above it.

Nobody pushing for this is concerned with the world they will leave for future generations, for wildlife or nature. Only in short term luxury for themselves mortgaged off the backs of the future of all living, and soon to be extinct, lifeforms.

[tridim]

42. Do you honestly believe President Obama is pro-pollution all over the planet?

If so, wow. I don't even know what to say to you. Seek help maybe?

[Autumn]

48. Yes let's fucking clear the air. This is also what free trade means. People will fucking die:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026671182

[Jamastiene]

51. There will be no clear air with TPP.

And I just finally got some glasses.

[Jack Rabbit]

52. K/R

As betrayal goes, the TPP is not a knife in the back. It is a battle axe to the skull.

[d_legendary1]

56. And when the country gets big enough to start making labor laws

They'll simply pack up shop and go do it in another third world shit hole and rape it raw.