The MIS-SELLING Of The TPP

[Segami]

One of the great blog posts of all time was from Daniel Davies, who declared — apropos of Iraq — that

"...Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance..."

It’s a good dictum; and if you see a lot of lies, or at least misdirection, being used to sell a policy you should be very, very concerned about said policy. And the selling of TPP just keeps getting worse.

And the selling of TPP just keeps getting worse.

William Daley’s pro-TPP op-ed in today’s Times is just awful, on multiple levels. No acknowledgment that the real arguments are not about trade but about intellectual property and dispute settlement; on top of that a crude mercantilist claim that trade liberalization is good because it means more exports; some Dean Baker bait with numbers — $31 billion in trade surplus! All of 0.2 percent of GDP!

But what really annoyed me, even if it’s not necessarily the worst bit, was this:

But today, of the 40 largest economies, the United States ranks 39th in the share of our gross domestic product that comes from exports. This is because our products face very high barriers to entry overseas in the form of tariffs, quotas and outright discrimination.

Actually, no. We have a low export share because we’re a big country. Here’s population versus exports as a percentage of GDP for OECD countries:



Population isn’t the only determinant — geography matters too, as the contrast between Luxembourg (in the middle of Europe) and Iceland shows. But claiming that the relatively low US export share says anything at all about trade barriers makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

If this is the best TPP advocates can come up with, this is not looking like a good idea.


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/the-mis-selling-of-tpp/?_r=0

[tridim]

1. Do you want a future Republican admin to oversee this instead of Obama and the Democrats?

If not, what is it that you do want? Unregulated, corporate run, closed trade?

[tennstar]

4. Lol

You mean the drill baby drill president
The spy on everyone president
The jail whistle. Blower president
The king of corporate president
I am no longer playing lesser of two evils
Does that help you with Harper?

[tridim]

9. What the fuck are you blabbering about Mr. Ignore?

[Populist_Prole]

5. "oversee this"?

I don't want it. It's bad. It shouldn't exist. Doesn't have to. It was conceived and crafted by the corporate interests to ( yet again ) solidify their gains. People talk as if it's inevitable unstoppable force and just somehow has to happen. It doesn't.

This is the death knell of the working class; I don't give a damn which party oversees it.

Full disclosure: I'm a firebrand economic populist. While I'm not indifferent to social issues, I'm not willing to let us become impoverished in the hopes of getting social issue crumbs.

[el_bryanto]

8. Great Response

and yes the scare tactics used by those who want to support the administration or who think the TPP is good policy are grating, to say the least.

Bryant

[tridim]

10. So, no trade, ever.

Fuck the rest of the planet. Got it.

[Populist_Prole]

15. Fuckin' A

As long as oligarchs are in control of the process, "no trade ever" is music to my ears.

You want to fall on a grenade and smoke you own livelihood, kiss the plutocrat's asses and play do-gooder for "the planet", go right ahead. Don't mess with mine, sunshine.

[jwirr]

7. Most democrats are not supporting it. And none of them have had any say in the matter. Just a

bunch of corporate lobbyists. If this was about trade I would say go for it but this is about corporate profits and power. IMO the multi-international corporations can fend for themselves. They are not representing us anyhow.

[tridim]

11. Why don't you trust our Democratic President?

[jwirr]

13. Let's turn that question around on this issue why should I? I do not sign onto anything that I

cannot see first. And yes I know he has done a lot of good things also but there have in his administration economic things that did not help any of us. And he made many a deal w/Rs that cut things that we needed.

Further more I am in good company: Unions, environmental groups, Etc.

[Populist_Prole]

16. Because he's beholden to corporate interests

For reasons known only to himself.

At least I know where you're coming from: You're a team player. I'm not.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

2. Where are the crowds of people wanting this?

If Obama wants to support something America WANTS he should push the ERA.

[valerief]

3. On yachts and private jets. nt

[lark]

6. His true base

He's definitely doing their wishes, not ours.

[IDemo]

14. Dropping McDonald's job applications out the window onto the peasants below

at the Chicago Board of Trade building.

[KoKo]

12. And, as Dean Baker Said:

There are few policies that show the split between elite opinion and everyone else as clearly as trade policy. On trade we see a remarkable convergence of the leadership of both parties against their base, with the elites firmly behind the leadership against what they view as the ignorance of the masses.

As is often the case, the ignorance rests largely on the side of the elites. If that seems surprising, after all these are highly educated people, remember these are people who could not see the $8 trillion housing bubble whose crash wrecked the economy. There is little reason to believe their understanding of economics has improved much in the last seven years.

For the elites, trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) are a no-brainer. After all, do we want autarky? Globalization is a natural process and standing in the way is like trying to block the flow of the Amazon River.

They acknowledge that some people get hurt, like autoworkers and textile workers, and the more liberal ones feel really bad about that. But the answer is not to try to turn back the clock on globalization; the answer is a few dollars in trade adjustment assistance to try to get these workers prepared for the global economy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026694912

[MaggieD]

17. How do you turn the clock back on globalization?

Serious question.

[Elwood P Dowd]

18. Manufacture a few thousand guillotines. (nm)