My main concerns with the TPP, TISA, TTIP, etc. are not job losses but the

[JDPriestly]

122. Actually, Wilson favored more trade too.

It was a nice-sounding idea that has failed miserably in its current form regardless of who was for or against it.

There may be a way to organize international trade that is fair and imposes the penalties for bad business decisions on the people who make those decisions and lifts the boats of all working people and not those who are willing to work for the lowest wages in terms of currency valuations.

(I do not believe that those who work for 89 cents an hour, say in Viet Nam, live at the standard that 89 cents an hour would buy in the US.

You could barely buy a few French Fries for 89 cents and hour in the US. A Metro fare in Los Angeles is $1.75 for a one-way ticket to one location. So, one of the problems with international trade is currency manipulation and the cost of living in the US which is very high (maybe even higher in some other countries).

As we have seen in the Euro Market, you can't have free trade when you don't have one single currency. It just does not work. The potential for the manipulation of currency evaluation is just too great a temptation.

Climate and lifestyle, economic expectation, work ethics (Germany's work ethic and skill level allows its workers to compete favorably against just about any other working population), customs, culture, all kinds of factors make free trade very unfair to a lot of vulnerable people. Most people around the world don't want to be inundated with too much culture from other people's countries. Too much is the key. We are all interested in and enjoy international culture but we feel at home in our own. American culture has displaced a lot of healthy community culture and life in some places. I say that as one who has lived in several countries. It is disconcerting at times to see the displacement of cultural values and the sense of estrangement that accompanies that not just in the US but in other countries too. It isn't nostalgia for the good old days that I am talking about, but rather the strength that comes from cultural diversity and how we are losing a bit of that.