It's not a question of blaming trade deals OR blaming automation.

[OrwellwasRight]

65. No I guess you didn't read them.

My links did not "explain the reasons and justifications" for quantitative easing. You clearly didn't read them. At all. I'll give this post the minimal effort you deserve.

1) I posted one link related to currency manipulation, and it explained that quantitative easing, by no stretch of the imagination, could ever be considered currency manipulation. Why? Because the US's actions do not meet the seven part IMF test to determine if currency manipulation has occurred. That is what you would have found had you read the link.

2) I didn't say TPP "violates" our democracy. It undermines it, which means it weakens it, basically blows it out of the water. But no, I never said that voting for it was not allowable under our constitution, which is what violates means. So try to read more carefully. Your quotation, from the CATO institute, by the way, rather than any progressive source, is hilarious in that it too is off point, doesn't even include the terms ISDS, financial services, or food safety, so it doesn't even address my criticisms of the TPP. Let me break it down for you in small words so you can understand before running to another right wing web site for more data in support of the TPP.

ISDS stands for investor-to-state dispute settlement. ISDS is a process that allows foreign investors (and only foreign investors) to enforce their rights under trade agreements themselves, in private arbitration tribunals. Cases are not heard by judges, who would be expert in public international law and skilled at balancing the interests of the many versus the one. They are heard by commercial arbitrators, most of alternate between hearing cases and bringing cases. International arbitration is lucrative, sometimes earning the arbitrators $1000 and hour OR MORE, so the motivation for repeat-player bias that exists in domestic arbitration exists there as well.

What rights can foreign investors vindicate in these courts? Yes, your traditional right to no expropriation without compensation, but also the right against discrimination (which can be proved by even a single legislator making a comment that a particular law would be good for domestic jobs), and the right to compensations for regulatory takings, which is just a fancy word for being compensated for laws and regulations that investors don't like. The Federalist Society, which I am sure you are familiar with given your affinity for Cato, tried to make regulatory takings the law of the land in the US in the 80s and 90s. They could not do so. So ISDS is a back door to get at the international level what they could not at the domestic level.

ISDS allows compensation for acts at every level (local, state, and federal) that a panel determines violates one of the investors rights and diminishes profits of the claimant. Corporations have won cases on the basis of: receiving a logging quote they didn't; not being allowed to expand a quarry toward an environmentally sensitive area; not being given a building permit to build a toxic waste storage facility near a drinking water supply; for terminating an oil drilling contract pursuant to the exact terms of the contract; and on and on.

How does it undermine democracy? 1) It forces societies to compensate private parties for the right to govern. Even when a country passes laws and regulations in a democratic manner, it may be forced to fork over thousands or millions or even billions to a private party. That is a direct loss to democracy. 2) This potential for big pay-offs creates a chilling effect in which lawmakers and regulators are less likely to take an action once a case has been threatened.

Here are some links about the dangers of ISDS, including from your beloved Cato:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrishamby/the-billion-dollar-ultimatum?utm_term=.pn6zjkr7X3#.sseRX7JPmz
https://www.thenation.com/article/right-and-us-trade-law-invalidating-20th-century/
https://www.cato.org/publications/free-trade-bulletin/compromise-advance-trade-agenda-purge-negotiations-investor-state

If you think high tech jobs are the answer, you have not been paying attention to the a) offshoring of high tech jobs and b) use of H-1B visas to drive down wages in the high tech sector and take what used to be good jobs for people with graduate degrees to shit jobs. Just saying "hi tech" is no longer a magic word. Silicon Valley is the very entity driving down wages and inventing apps to undermine safety regulations, unions, and every tool government uses to make like livable.

Here is some more evidence for you:

Debunking the bullshit that the it is automation not trade that kills jobs:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/10/18/dont-blame-the-robots-an-interview-on-manufacturing-automation-and-globalization-with-susan-houseman/
http://www.nber.org/papers/w21906.pdf
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/the-bogus-high-tech-worker-shortage-how-guest-workers-lower-us-wages/
http://research.upjohn.org/up_workingpapers/130/

As to not lowering standards, just try reading the financial services chapter. There are several provisions about kinds of financial services rules we cannot have. Preventing us from making certain kinds of rules to try and stabilize the financial system is lowering our standards. Please try to understand what it is that trade agreements and are supposed to do before you defend them blindly. They are not about tariffs, which is what Cato likes to focus on They are about tying the hands of democratic societies to free corporations to behave however they want. Corporations do not like democracies. They do not like to have to meet standards. They do not like to be prohibited from anything. That is what trade agreements do: put straightjackets on societies to limit the ways they can control businesses. To change this, we must throw out the old trade model and write new rules that put people and the planet first. Here is one way to do that: http://www.aflcio.org/About/Exec-Council/Conventions/2013/Resolutions-and-Amendments/Resolution-12-America-and-the-World-Need-a-New-Approach-to-Trade-and-Globalization

Universal Basic Income is not only a ridiculously bad substitute for good trade policy, doesn't even make sense. Who is voting for this universal basic income, the Republican Congress? And how much do you want to hand out to people instead of letting them earn a decent living, because as of last January, the amount was $11,880 for a single person. I could not even pay my rent with what, much less have food, electricity, a phone, a bus pass, or new gloves for the winter. What a joke.