"there’s reason to believe the link between falling unemployment and rising wages has been severed"

[stillwaiting]

58. The "US's position" is the position of the multinational corporate lobbyists.

They have probably written the TPP. They have had widespread access to the TPP over a long period of time, and their lobbyists surely have lots of their wishes and desires included within it.

Do you really believe they will be lobbying for legislation that will make generating profits abroad more burdensome? Do you really believe that they are writing this legislation and aggressively lobbying for it so that jobs will be more attractive for Americans instead of making things easier for them to make more profit everywhere they do business? They have the interests and well-being of American citizens in mind even if it comes at a cost to their bottom line when creating the TPP?

These multinational corporations have no loyalty to any one nation's citizens. Their loyalty is to their bottom line, and they have approved (if not written) this "trade" agreement.

I think you are naive about the extent to which corporations get to actually write legislation in this country as well. Lobbyists hand drafts over to legislators all the time that seem to make it into final legislation. I see no reason to believe that they haven't been able to do the same with the TPP (especially since it would be even easier to do behind the cloak of secrecy that surrounds it).

And, I just don't believe that they would be willing to drive up their costs in the short-run. I don't buy that for a minute. I need to see and read the TPP before I could ever begin to support it. Have you read it? If not, how could you be so sure about the arguments you are making on its behalf?

If a cadre of hundreds of corporate lobbyists are clamoring for this agreement, then I am definitely against it until I have seen it, read it, and understand the ramifications of it. I have no idea how anyone could feel differently in today's political climate.