Pro-TPP arguments show desperation

[Javaman]

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/5/pro-tpp-arguments-show-desperation.html

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Leading the list of failed arguments was a condescending editorial from USA Today directed at unions that oppose the TPP because they worry it would cost manufacturing jobs. The editorial summarily dismissed this idea. It cited Commerce Department data showing that manufacturing output has nearly doubled since 1997 and argued that the job loss was due to productivity growth, not imports.

It turned out that the table used in the editorial did not actually measure manufacturing output. The correct table showed a gain of only 40 percent over 17 years. By comparison, in the prior 10 years, when our trade deficit was not expanding, manufacturing output increased by roughly 50 percent.

USA Today eventually acknowledged the error but left the text and the criticisms in the editorial unchanged. Remarkably, the headline of the editorial referred to the opposition to the TPP as a “fact-free uproar.”

Another big swing and miss came from Bill Daley, a former commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton and a former executive at JPMorgan Chase who briefly served as chief of staff in Barack Obama’s administration. Daley published a New York Times column pushing the TPP by arguing for the virtues of trade. The piece was chock-full of errors and misleading comments, with the best line being the claim that the United States ranks near the bottom in the ratio of exports to GDP because of the barriers put up to our exports.

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