AP: Key miscalculation forces Obama to weigh new path on trade

[jeff47]

17. :facepalm:

Maybe the President thought that the trade agreement would take care of workers amply with its protections that he didn't foresee a need for unions to step in and "take care" of them.

Here's why this is an incredibly stupid argument.

TAA isn't new. TAA has been around for decades. And TAA has utterly failed.

To get it, you need to get your former employer to literally say "We shipped your job overseas". Almost no company will say that. Instead, they "outsourced their manufacturing to another company". That happens to be overseas. So no TAA for you.

If you happen to have been laid off by a company willing to admit they shipped your job overseas, "retraining" is not going to turn a 40-something factory worker into a software developer or some other high-paying field.

First, it takes a while to learn it - you really need a 4 year degree to get the job. Second, a company is going to take the brand-new 20-something they can abuse the fuck out of over a 44-year-old retrained worker.

So with TAA failing over and over and over again, perhaps claiming TAA is wonderful might be a tad moronic.