Passage Of TPP Will Be A Disaster For Dems Just Like NAFTA was. I'm Really Pissed.

[TheMastersNemesis]

The Dems got hammered after the passage of NAFTA because the ones against it caved or helped the GOP. I believe it will be a disaster if TPP passes and Dems do NOT stop it. Wyden is a damn traitor and I don't understand what the hell Obama is thinking. The USA is over as I knew it with this agreement.

It is like a nuclear bomb economically on American workers. And whatever labor support the Dems had will melt away. Who the hell do you vote for if you are a wage earning. And poverty will be as endemic as the worst 3rd world nations today. Multinationals want to now go to Africa where people make $100 a year if they are lucky. 53 cents an hour would look huge.

[Hoyt]

1. I'm really surprised that Democrats are against foreign countries getting a little wealth.

Most folks in those countries see the USA, as we see the 1%ers.

A good trade agreement can help us, and foreign countries, long-term.

Sadly, some folks just don't care about other countries, and want us to continue grabbing more than our share of the world's resources and wealth.

Truth is, those multinationals could go to Africa, or wherever, before. The TPP won't change that.

As Krugman said about NAFTA -- "People I normally agree with, blame NAFTA for things caused by other factors."

[msongs]

2. presents conclusions based on facts not in evidence. nt

[QuestionAlways]

62. But why fast track it ??

We should be given time to see it, study it, debate it, and amend it. All of which Fast Tracking prevents. They have been working on this for 5 years, but nobody, except the big corporations, knows for sure what is in it. Don't rush into anything, be slow and deliberate, and know what you are getting into.

[SamKnause]

4. Hello.

I'm not sure if you are interested, but there is a great clip on

Democracy Now.

Representative Alan Grayson was on the program this morning.

http://www.democracynow.org/

3rd article down on front page.

[closeupready]

5. Trade is about WORK, not philanthropy.

[Hoyt]

9. TPP is much more than trade. Read articles by Ezra Klein and Jeff Spross.

TPP is much more than a trade agreement --

Here are a couple of what I think are balanced assessments by Ezra Klein and Jeff Spross:

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/13/8208017/obama-trans-pacific-partnership

http://theweek.com/articles/544250/what-workerfriendly-transpacific-partnership-look-like

[closeupready]

13. Then take up that discussion in your own thread.

This thread is about the TPP and its impact on US workers and their means of living and providing for themselves and their families.

[Hoyt]

14. This is a discussion that TPP will be a disaster for Dems. I don't think so.

Besides, are you empowered with censorship here?

[closeupready]

19. LOL - 'class warfare!' 'censorship!' 'protectionism!'

[bunnies]

24. Wait until the first time a signatory sues to change a law in the US...

at the taxpayers expense. How do you think that will go over?

[Hoyt]

34. They actually can't do that. Why don't you read up on the tribunals that have been in effect

for decades in something like 2500 trade agreements worldwide, including NAFTA and every trade agreement in the European Union. Maybe some small changes are needed, but they work and have for decades.

The suits can only be for violating international trade agreements and laws.

For example, if BMW builds a plant here and employees a bunch of our citizens at decent wages, they could sue if some yahoo who doesn't like Germans enacts a law that BMW has to pay a special tax or do something that other auto companies don't. Then, BMW might have a case for damages, but they couldn't change the law.

[bunnies]

43. hmm.

That is exactly the opposite of what Ive read. Especially re: changing environmental laws. I will try to hunt down the article. I could certainly be mistaken.

[nadinbrzezinski]

54. Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) authority

Search for that. You are correct, add to your search Elizabeth Warren while at it. She gave a speech on the well of the Senate on this as well.

[Hoyt]

102. And she deliberately mischaracterized the issues that can be disputed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

104. Noted, you will claim US Senators lie

to fit an agenda.

As I said, these treaties are not benefiting regular joe and jane, or Julio and Julia. or Michael or Michelle

But par for the course. (Note to self, need to get back to the actual meta study on min-wage...)

[lark]

180. Noted

That anything president Obama is for, you are for without even looking at the issue. I suppose you are also for lowering the CPI, and trading means testing and age increases in Medicare for some unspecified reductions in the loopholes for rich folks?

[bunnies]

139. Thank you! nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

145. You welcome

[daleanime]

33. So the TPP won't be a disaster....

but talking about it will be?

[zeemike]

47. The big sell job is underway

And we should buy it because a Democrat is going to make it happen.
Party loyalty trumps economic justice for the working class every time.

[daleanime]

49. Definitely part of the problem....

also they're in a rush to get in done before the next 'approved' candidate has to start fielding questions about it.

[zeemike]

69. And so Obama can sign it before he is out of office.

And then they can blame it on him..."Diden't we tell you he was unqualified?"
Our first black president will have a legacy confirming what the racist said.

[CentralMass]

251. Exactly.

[jeff47]

7. Feel free to explain how that trade agreement can help us, long-term.

"us" being defined as the non-wealthy, non-multinational corporations.

Truth is, those multinationals could go to Africa, or wherever, before. The TPP won't change that.

Then why are they pushing for the TPP? They don't need it.

As Krugman said about NAFTA -- "People I normally agree with, blame NAFTA for things caused by other factors."

That would be pre-2007 Krugman. He's changed his mind.
http://www.thenation.com/article/173593/why-was-paul-krugman-so-wrong#

[Hoyt]

12. The countries want to sell goods to us. Krugman made that statement in 2015.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/suspicious-nonsense-on-trade-agreements/

His actual words were: "I am in general a free trader; there is, I’d argue, a tendency on the part of some people with whom I agree on many issues to demonize trade agreements, to make them responsible for evils that have other causes."

[jeff47]

96. You couldn't even get to the second paragraph?

'cause starting in paragraph two, he demolishes the arguments that have been made for free trade agreements as a benefit to us.

The countries want to sell goods to us

Was that supposed to be your specific explanation of how tree trade agreements benefit us?

[Hoyt]

101. I forgot, many here don't give a darn about peasants in other countries.

With a few notable exceptions, we have the highest median income in the world.. We sucked up more than our share of the world's resources and wealth. Yet we are so greedy, the hell with folks in poor countries.

As Krugman points out, trade agreements aren't the cause of our problems.

[nadinbrzezinski]

106. Yup, you are correct

we do not care about peasants in other countries. This is part of the gift of NAFTA

http://reportingsandiego.com/2015/04/02/mexican-human-rights-commission-issues-statement-on-san-quintin/

http://reportingsandiego.com/2015/03/29/dispatches-from-mexico-expensive-strawberries-and-the-valley-of-san-quintin/

Enjoy.

[Joe Turner]

113. "Krugman points out, trade agreements aren't the cause of our problems"

Krugman being what? The center of all knowledge and truth about trade deals? Perhaps you should think outside the "Krugman" on this issue. Being a flack for multinationals after decades of them running the tables on workers is a hard sell because we have experience on our side. Yours is more broken promises that TPP will actually help workers, while further enriching the authors of TPP which coincidentally are corporate flacks too.

[nadinbrzezinski]

114. And krugman does not even say that in that piece either

[Hoyt]

123. Here are a couple of others --

TPP is much more than a trade agreement --

Here are a couple of what I think are balanced assessments by Ezra Klein and Jeff Spross:

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/13/8208017/obama-trans-pacific-partnership

http://theweek.com/articles/544250/what-workerfriendly-transpacific-partnership-look-like

[jeff47]

115. You're free to show us the way by reducing yourself to those lower standards.

Yet here you are on a computer with Internet access, reliable electricity, and a host of other benefits lecturing us about the rest of the world. And the need for Americans to suffer some more.

Just not you.

Also, you really should read past the first sentence of an article before linking it. It would avoid posting an article that actually argues against you.

Finally, still waiting for your detailed explanation of how free trade deals benefit us.

[Hoyt]

124. And you are acting like a 1%er from another country's perspective.

TPP is much more than a trade agreement -- Here are a couple of what I think are balanced assessments by Ezra Klein and Jeff Spross:

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/13/8208017/obama-trans-pacific-partnership

http://theweek.com/articles/544250/what-workerfriendly-transpacific-partnership-look-like

[jeff47]

167. Golly, you just have so much trouble managing to answer a simple question.

Once again, how does the TPP benefit us, specifically?

http://www.vox.com/2015/3/13/8208017/obama-trans-pacific-partnership

Do you actually read anything you link? Here's how paragraph 2 starts:

I'm currently in the undecided camp — until there's a final text I can run by experts, it's hard to say anything definitive

The TPP is much more than a trade agreement! Look at this article that explicitly says no one can say what's in it!!

Then there's your next article

The biggest potential problem with TPP is that past international trade deals have eroded middle-class jobs, particularly in manufacturing, while increasing incomes at the top, thus creating even more of an hourglass economy. Such concerns are balanced against the possibility of a genuine gain to the American economy, and the chance to get other countries to enact tougher labor and environmental standards.

But given how low America's trade barriers are already, it's hard to see how much more economic uplift the TPP could squeeze out, for the U.S. or anyone else.

So the TPP is good for the US, just like this article says....and the article says it isn't good for the US.

But it gets even better. The way to make TPP good for us is:

The New York Times' Eduardo Porter argued that European countries have dealt with the challenges of international trade by bulking up their safety nets and other social democratic programs like unemployment insurance, paid leave, etc. Those institutions spread the net gains to their economies more evenly amongst their workers, and shield them from job dislocations. In fact, the big way most Western countries have increased incomes for their lowest 10 percent of citizens in the last few decades is increased transfers.

So we could just tie passage of the TPP to a permanent increase in the generosity of unemployment insurance, or to nationally mandated paid sick leave and paid family leave, or to expanding the generosity and applicability of the Earned Income Tax Credit, or some similar move.

Yeah, the same politicians that have spent the last 30 years dismantling the welfare state will suddenly turn around and massively expand the welfare state if we sign the TPP.

This is about the most pathetic and fucking insane justification for doing something I've ever seen.

[ND-Dem]

250. the cheerleaders don't expect to suffer but they're ok if others do

[StarzGuy]

148. Such agreements need to be win-win and as I see it, it is...

...corporations, the 1% and other countries win and the American poor and middle class people lose; jobs, salary, retirement, Social Security, Medicare...

Hell, we're almost there at the oligarchy now. I am 100% disabled. What shall I be forced to do when Social Security and Medicare gets cut because there isn't enough income to the federal government because what's left of the good paying jobs and unions are shipped overseas? I guess, based on your point of view, I should just shut up and die already. What ever is in TPP I will bet it will be no help for me or anyone else who works or worked for a paycheck (I am a retired teacher who put in 35 years as a teacher and have had a job starting at age 17). I live in Arizona, a right to work for less state and I know first hand what such policies have done for the working stiffs here. Just saying...

[Hoyt]

149. You hope our corporations make big money and get taxed sufficiently to cover

disability, education, health care, retraining for people displaced, welfare, etc.

That's the main reason I'm for trade agreements.. We aren't going to generate it internally off people's backs providing services to each other.

[bvar22]

189. OH Yeah.....THAT is going to happen.

Our Big Corporations are suddenly going to start paying their taxes......why?
That might even be illegal under the new Trade Laws as it would interfere with Corporate Profits.

Which administration is going to raise taxes on the Corporations?

[Hoyt]

194. You change tax and wage laws, you don't disadvantage the US corporations for next 50 years or more

because you think you haven't gotten your fair share.

Fact is, without corporations, we'd still be slogging through dirt roads, relieving ourselves through holes in a shed, dying from dysentery, etc., despite government's best efforts.

With today's automation, lots of folks aren't going to find decent employment. We better hope corporations generate enough money to tax to take care of those folks. It ain't gonna happen through us providing services to each other.

That's not to say corporations don't need strict regulations, higher taxes, and a better class of management and investors -- that's a totally different aspect. I'm just glad I'm not having to pray every night to the gods that the crops in my backyard grow so I won't starve.

[nadinbrzezinski]

196. LMAO, you really think the current Congress is going to increase

taxes and solve the tax heaven issue... now that is really, and I mean this really cute.

[Hoyt]

198. Do you think disadvantaging corporations for 50 years, while we wait for a Democratic Congress

is a better approach?

Obama has managed to increase some tax rates and close some loopholes.

But tax issues are separate from trade issues.

[nadinbrzezinski]

201. Actually you are wrong, they are not

have you ever heard of tariffs? I know for free traders they are anathema, but those tariffs, are taxes. Go try to peddle that cuteness somewhere else.

[Hoyt]

203. We are talking INCOME taxes. I will try to be more precise for your benefit.

Tariffs, currency manipulation (which TPP also addresses), etc., aren't good for world trade long-term.

[nadinbrzezinski]

205. I will be more precise to you

current congress, democrat or republican, will not touch income tax. The oligarchy will not let them.

The so called liberation of trade is a new world order, for corporation and by corporations, The age of Metternich is over. Enjoy your new corporate court, and corporate government.

That is what you are essentially defending.

I am glad you are a free trader who believes in trickle down. The conditions are being set for something really ugly, nor is this new corporocracy can deal with climate change. Getting berries from Brazil in winter, is not going to help to reduce Green Gasses in the atmosphere. Try to look beyond your cheaply made goods in factories with workers with greatly diminished worker protections.

But you are cute. I gotta say it, the defense of all this is extremely cute.

[Hoyt]

213. Well, Obama has been successful in getting more money out of the wealthy.

Under Obama, the average federal tax rate paid by the top 1% of households has gone up more than 6 percentage points to an estimated 33.8% today, according to the Tax Policy Center.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/01/30/pf/taxes/obama-taxes-rich/


Think where we'd be if Democratic voters weren't so lazy when it comes tto getting out to the polla.


When it comes to Obama, it's never good enough according to some.

[nadinbrzezinski]

214. That attack on voters is not going to get any purchase

or rise from me. I really could not care less if people vote, or who they vote for. In an oligarchy it really does not matter.

Before you say it, if we vote, or for whom, is none of your concerns. But in oligarchies the vote of the little people really does not matter that much.

And as I keep telling you, we are an oligarchy. This is not my unfounded opinion, plenty of academics now singing that song.

At least I grew up in one, so this is not new to me.

But that was a cute change in tactics... I will concede that. Now let's go after the voter. lazy and all. Now that was cute.



I will now wait in awe for the next change in tactic trying to get a rise.

Is there a zen figure in the smiles?

[Hoyt]

217. Must be awful to feel helpless and conspired against.

[nadinbrzezinski]

218. Novel, now turn on me by even hinting I feel helpless

Not too original, but novel.

Ah yes, ZZZEEENNNNN!!!!!

[ND-Dem]

260. nafta was great for peasants in other countries; ask the mexican farmers how they fared!

SAN JERONIMO SOLOLA, Mexico — Look around the rain-fed corn farms in Oaxaca state, and in vast areas of Mexico, and one sees few young men, just elderly people and single mothers.

"The men have gone to the United States," explained Abel Santiago Duran, a 56-year-old municipal agent, as he surveyed this empty village in Oaxaca state.

The countryside wasn't supposed to hollow out in this way when the North American Free Trade Agreement linked Mexico, Canada and the U.S. in 1994. Mexico, hoping its factories would absorb displaced farmers, said it would "export goods, not people."

But in hindsight, the agricultural elements of the pact were brutal on Mexico's corn farmers. A flood of U.S. corn imports, combined with subsidies that favor agribusiness, are blamed for the loss of 2 million farm jobs in Mexico. The trade pact worsened illegal migration, some experts say, particularly in areas where small farmers barely eke out a living.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/02/01/107871/free-trade-us-corn-flows-south.html#storylink=cpy


Yeah, you *care*!!! It's all about the depth of your caring!!!

About a bigger pie for Cargill!!!

[nadinbrzezinski]

100. Here is the LAST paragraph of his editorial

There are reasons to support these deals and reasons to oppose them. But my immediate take is that when the US Chamber of Commerce makes a huge priority out of complicated deals, and offers an obviously false rationale, you should strongly suspect that there’s bad stuff hidden in the fine print.

Funny dat. You are having trouble reading the full articles.

For the record, I am all for trade. This country was built on trade. But these types of trade agreements are not good.

[Hoyt]

105. I have quoted that in posts to Manny. Yet, Krugman still says people have mischaracterized the

agreement. No joke, Paul.

[nadinbrzezinski]

107. And he is still having issues with what the motives of the US Chamber are

so should you, but obviously you do not...

[Hoyt]

109. I have faith in Obama and Clinton. You apparently think Obama is selling you into slavery.

[nadinbrzezinski]

110. I believe this is one of a series of really bad treaties

that are ensuring the drop in standards of living in OECD economies, not just the US. This is not about political parties... it is about a toxic ideology that took hold of the West starting with Reagan and Thatcher. It was hardened under Rubin, notice I did not mention a President, and is setting the stage for something really ugly, not just in the United States.

But I am lucky not to look at the world though partisan rose colored glasses.

[Hoyt]

111. The toxic idealology is the Nationalism and greed I see here.

You guys gave fun.. I'm gonna go debate tbaggers on the Duscussionist, I expect this kind of attitude out of them.

[nadinbrzezinski]

112. Nope, actually what is happening is the end of the nation state

and the rise of the corporatist state. US Inc, is a good diagnosis. You should read some cyberpunk. Those folks were prophets. If you prefer to live in an international system made and ruled by corporations having states as lackeys, we are going towards that, and fast. You think corporations will want to have environmental policies? Regardless the order of Metternich is over.

And have fun with Tbaggers... Some of them are actually talking the same language about the rise of oligarchy as well. So when people are starting to talk that way... I say that is a good thing.

[Hoyt]

125. The fact ignorant, racist, callous tbaggers agree with you, should be a signal.

[nadinbrzezinski]

127. What, that oligarchy is here

why should it be a signal? Oh I forgot, you are a partisan. I am a reporter, so it is not whether they agree with me, but wether they agree with the sources I have among working people, progressives outside of partisan sites. as well as liberals. These are not the same critter.

So reporting this is happening is not breaking codes, well not outside this bubble. But outside the bubble interesting things are starting to happen. For the record, the other highly partisan sites also have the same problem... cannot see what is happening in front of their noses. My job it to observe and report.

[nadinbrzezinski]

129. And I guess Princeton University is also part

of that group of ignorant racist baggers... giving you the link to the BBC article, but they link to the Princeton University Study as well.

[haikugal]

256. Wow..there it is and some of us have been saying this for quite a while now.

Eric Zuess, writing in Counterpunch, isn't surprised by the survey's results.

"American democracy is a sham, no matter how much it's pumped by the oligarchs who run the country (and who control the nation's "news" media)," he writes. "The US, in other words, is basically similar to Russia or most other dubious 'electoral' 'democratic' countries. We weren't formerly, but we clearly are now."

This is the "Duh Report", says Death and Taxes magazine's Robyn Pennacchia. Maybe, she writes, Americans should just accept their fate.

"Perhaps we ought to suck it up, admit we have a classist society and do like England where we have a House of Lords and a House of Commoners," she writes, "instead of pretending as though we all have some kind of equal opportunity here."

Pretty much says it all.

[nadinbrzezinski]

257. Talk started in 2002 or 3

then came Democracy Incorporated And as time has moved on, we are getting more and more confirmation.

At one time this could be discussed here with no issue.

[Jackpine Radical]

130. My wingnut friend told me

that it is a bad idea to step into a set bear trap.

Is that grounds for doing it?

[Populist_Prole]

140. Yes, exactly. "Trust me" has turned into "Screw you"

As a cheerleader for this agreement for reasons known only to himself, his arguments have shifted over the weeks.

In posts weeks/months past, it was basically, "this is good for you, you just don't know yet"

Has since morphed into "so what if it's bad for you....if it's for the good of the 3rd world".

Thanks for volunteering us as martyrs........

But we all know this was the meme of well heeled social liberals who sneer at the working class.

[nadinbrzezinski]

142. That is a nice thing to know

Hoyt would have had an issue walking around the crowd yesterday at SDSU... not a one happy camper since they were mostly low wage workers.

One even said the word Oligarchy a few times... I know, the horror! Some of what I heard, I was in a nice time machine to the 1930s... and I have heard similar language, just in Spanish, in Mexico.

Winds, whirlwind and all that. It is just very slow moving.

[haikugal]

252. Nadin, I have a question.

I did a search to get some information and understanding of your reference to "the order of Metternich" being over. So far all I've found is bio and that's fine but I'd like to have a better understanding of what you're saying here. Could you give me a reference? Or even a good place I might find the information. you've referenced it several times and I want to make sure I have your meaning. Thanks

[nadinbrzezinski]

253. Sure

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/44183/Austria/33361/The-Age-of-Metternich-1815-48

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Police-European-Metternich-Woodrow/dp/0521430224/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429413773&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=metternich+and+the+rise+of+the+nation+state

And the true classic from Paul Kennedy

http://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Great-Powers-ebook/dp/B004774792/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1429413803&sr=1-5&keywords=the+rise+of+the+modern+nation+state

Metternich is seen as the man that single handedly (and not really) created the modern concept of the nation state, starting with the napoleonic wars. The treaties that ended those wars are seen as the origin of the modern sense of nation, which coincides with the rise of hte industrial revolution.

The treaty of Paris of 1814 is seen partly as Metternich's accomplishment. It was not that different in some ways than the Treaty of Paris of 1919, it gave rise to many of the modern conventions.

All those have been under attack starting with the early days of globalization, but truly started with the WTO and NAFTA. They have accelerated and things that were not allowed before, like violation of national sovereignty, is now cool for a few things.

This is giving rise to a new international order that is in my view a hybrid of nation states and corporate states.

Kennedy in particular is a tour de force, because it will make clear why de-industrialization is a really bad idea.

[haikugal]

254. Thank you!

I know what I see but lack that historic education. When I was working I had little time or energy for educating myself but I tried. Now that I'm retired and have regained some of my health and energy I've been trying to remedy that.

Thanks again, I will read your suggestions. I enjoy your posts.

[nadinbrzezinski]

255. If you do not read anything else

Paul Kennedy's is a must, for anybody who wants to discuss trade and industrialization.

I admit, writing news stories when people make allusions to historical events, is easier.

I was joking with a Union organizer on Wednesday that I trained in history and now I get to write the first draft.

[haikugal]

258. Yes you do...

I don't think my father would accept that his love for Reagan, Nixon and all things on the right would turn out to be so poisonous to our country. He was certain I was a useless, brainwashed, pinko communist. Do I have to say we argued over Vietnam, race and all that we (the youth) were trying to change and ended up estranged. He died a long time ago so he missed all the excitement. If that sounds cold it isn't intended, just the facts.

Verification, always a good thing but very sad. We are in for a very bad time.

I will get a copy of Kennedy.

[Hoyt]

122. There are real gains to America to getting these rules right.

TPP is much more than a trade agreement --

Here are a couple of what I think are balanced assessments by Ezra Klein and Jeff Spross:


http://www.vox.com/2015/3/13/8208017/obama-trans-pacific-partnership

http://theweek.com/articles/544250/what-workerfriendly-transpacific-partnership-look-like

[nadinbrzezinski]

126. Did you even read your own links?

The biggest potential problem with TPP is that past international trade deals have eroded middle-class jobs, particularly in manufacturing, while increasing incomes at the top, thus creating even more of an hourglass economy. Such concerns are balanced against the possibility of a genuine gain to the American economy, and the chance to get other countries to enact tougher labor and environmental standards.

http://theweek.com/articles/544250/what-workerfriendly-transpacific-partnership-look-like

The author also states that LARRY SUMMERS yes, that LARRY SUMMERS is a soft yes, and Krugman is a soft no.

The bolded sections, you have spent all afternoon arguing against those precise points. At least I am glad you found an article that supported what the rest of the class has been telling you and why people are more than just suspicious of it.

The other article by Klein is full of the same pro administration fluff, but correctly states that every union in the country is against it. It also states, correctly, that there is both frustration and suspicion by folks who have been bitten not once, not twice, but many times, so they are many times shy. For the record, I have had my conversations with Union members, and leaders and what leaders will tell you is not pretty.

Look, I have read what has been leaked as well and it is not pretty. I also directly asked the United States Trade Representative, and the Trade Representative from Mexico a few very direct questions regarding corporate rights that are still on the table. Of course, no surprise there, they refused to answer since they are not supposed to say squat to press. It's fun to watch them run. Nothing funnier than to have the AP and AFP reporters take at a run after one of these guys in San Diego a couple years ago. One of the negotiating rounds was held here.

Tell me Hoyt, try to answer this honestly. If this is such a good thing, why did that negotiating round had armed SWAT officers inside the hotel, I mean AR-15s and I think those were MP5s. And why were every attendee, including press, told to remove the lanyards, I still have mine... one of the best lanyards ever, before walking out of the hotel? It was actually a safety brief. I get it outside, ok have that obvious security. We had ambassadors from all parties and CORPORATE NEGOTIATING TEAMS.

And outside we also had a few hundred demonstrators that were not too happy with it. So ok, security outside. we get it. Why inside? Why was the SWAT team in full gear inside? We also got some of the best photos outside.

But inside, it was very controlled what people could see, or who they could talk to. WHY? If we are all about openness, why?

I am sure you are also going to tell me this is not the case, but the Australian delegation from the heath department, not trade, need to clarify... they were rather chatty, their main concern was that big tobacco would take them to that court you think Warren misrepresented, and force them to stop the very graphic anti tobacco campaign. You think we are bad, you have seen nothing. Why? It is costing them billions, and those very graphic pictures of diseased lungs on the side of Marlboro cartons are not profitable.

[Hoyt]

135. I said they were balanced articles, more than the "Obama is turning us into slaves" bunch here.

Fact is, the world has changed and many of us aren't prepared. Criticizing Obama and such agreements aren't going to make things better. You can't protect buggy whip manufacturers in today's economy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

136. Show me where anybody has said that

I will wait... an eternity I suspect.

[arcane1]

8. Emphasis on "good" n/t

[Hoyt]

17. EXACTLY. Everything I've ever posted says "Good." Further, I don't believe Obama will endorse it

if it is not "good" for us, overall.

Unfortunately, some folks seem to believe Obama is selling us down the river for some reason.

[Elwood P Dowd]

27. Same was said about Clinton during the NAFTA debate in 1993.

"Clinton wouldn't support it if it wasn't good for us".

Either you keep falling for the same bullshit over and over, or you post that bullshit because you're here pushing the corporate agenda for someone.

[Hoyt]

31. NAFTA has been a good start for a North American alliance. As Robert Reich said,

The mistake in NAFTA was not putting in enough worker rights and environmental protections. TPP's goal is to rectify that. I believe it will be good for us, in many ways beyond trade, Elwood. I'm certainly willing to see the final draft.

Since most of us work for corporations, and depend on them for food, shelter, transporation, etc., I'm not quick to want to ban them. Regulate them yes, and that is what TPP does.

[Elwood P Dowd]

37. You would make a good comedian.

[Hoyt]

39. Glad I can make you laugh. Now if I could encourage you to actually do some research and

not rely on what people trying to garner support, donations, readership, or membership tell you.

It's like those who just yesterday were trying to convince us that the agreement wouldn't be released for public review for 4 years after it is approved, assuming it is. Well, today we find that was bull, as is a bunch of the other conspiracy stuff being spread to sully Obama and Clinton.

[Elwood P Dowd]

45. Well, I've been right 100% of the time on all the other so called "Free Trade Agreements"

starting with NAFTA. I actually purchased some of those damn monsters when they were available from the US Printing Office back in the 1990s. You're giving me the same bullshit I heard about all the others. Just look at who the biggest supporters are -- republicans, Wall Street crooks, and giant corporations. Same as before. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

[nadinbrzezinski]

52. Yeah, let's see what Robert Reich is saying, shall we...

Yet it's been devised in secret, with a disproportionate amount of advice coming from corporations and Wall Street. This secrecy is the norm since NAFTA. Most of the details that are known to the public have come through WikiLeaks. Instead, we'd like to see the negotiating texts made public, so there can be an honest and open debate.

A fast-tracked TPP would lock in a rigged set of economic rules, lasting potentially forever, before most Americans — let alone some members of Congress — have had a chance to understand it thoroughly. If the administration gets fast-track authority, it could hand a completed deal to Congress, which must then vote yes or no, without amendments and little debate, within 90 days.

And here is more...

We were both involved in the NAFTA debate — one of us as the leader of a major union, the other as secretary of Labor. No one knew how the agreement would turn out or the full ramifications of approving a trade deal without a full debate. We now know that NAFTA has cost the U.S. economy hundreds of thousands of jobs and is one reason why America's workers haven't gotten a real raise in decades. It and agreements like it have also contributed to the huge U.S. trade deficits. We now import about $500 billion more in goods and services each year than we export.

Following NAFTA with the Trans-Pacific Partnership is like turning a bad television show into a terrible movie. It will be on a bigger screen and cost a lot more money. A few might walk away happy and rich, but it won't be the audience.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-reich-trumka-tpp-trade-fast-track-20150303-story.html

There are days!!!!!

The OP is correct. NAFTA has been a disaster for US Workers, and Mexican subsistence farmers. It was baked into the cake of this form of free trade. American Unions are all, to a union, against TTP.

You can try to argue that you are in favor of it, we get it. That is your right I suppose, but the number of people screaming among the working class in all nations concerned is not just a mere trickle in that river.

Now back to work with me... minimum wage policy research and those academic papers ARE LONG. Funny, some from Professor Reich.

[Hoyt]

56. You will get to see the final text if it's finaluzed. Hopefully a few will actually read it.

Besides, I think we've seen most if the "secret" text.

As the Iran nuclear agreement demonstrates, opening negotiations create a lot of issues to.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. So why is Proffesor Reich complaining of the secrecy?

and is Senator Widen, a DEMOCRAT, lying? What about Senator Warren?

As to reading it, my dear I read NAFTA, I read the Affordable Care Act (a few versions), I tend to read this crap, like budgets as well. NAFTA had side agreements on human rights, like what was agreed to this morning, those side agreements have yet to be implemented. It had migration side agreements that have yet to be implemented.

Have an excellent day... but trust me on this. Secretary Reich is not agreeing with you. I would not use him if I were you. He is in fact, quite gobsmacked that the mistakes of NAFTA are being repeated, and on steroids.

[Hoyt]

64. Reich supported it with NAFTA. Truthfully I think he's just ticked Obama, Clinton

and others don't pay much attention to him anymore.

We can read almost every word of the incomplete documents. It's obvious few have done so.

[nadinbrzezinski]

71. Convenient

but you used him, until well, his current views no longer align.

Look, you can dismiss all that do not agree with you. I am sure you will continue to push triangulation, and neo-liberal economics. For that, TTP is just PPPURRRRFFFEECCTTT. But the opposition to this is not shallow.

Will that opposition stop it? Do oligarchies care what little people think? And do not tell me we are not one. Pretty good and solid academic studies on this now, that we indeed ARE an oligarchy.

Why do you think I could care less who runs for the white house? But I care about the policies. And the policies are not favoring the now rapidly disappearing middle class in not just the United States, but also MEXICO. Canada's is under less pressure, not because Prime Minister Harper would not love to put them under that same pressure, but there is still a safety net. So it is what it is.

And yes, I have read every leak... we do policy.

[QuestionAlways]

68. But why fast track it ?? Should we not know what we are getting into?

[nadinbrzezinski]

72. For the same reason most of these treaties are fast tracked

Some folks are really afraid to let the rest of us look under the hood. Every treaty they promise ponies and wonderful smelling farts, and every treaty we get a troll, smelly and full of warts. No wonder they do not want us to look under the damn hood.

One, ok... sure, it happens. These many... if it not a conspiracy, it sure looks like one.

[Hoyt]

74. You will know, you will get to read it before it goes to Congress.

[Marr]

170. You're just lying now.

NAFTA's exclusion of worker rights and environmental protections was not a "mistake"-- it was one of the key features. I remember the arguments from environmentalists and labor activists at the time. They were 100% correct, and completely marginalized.

Saying the TPP is about 'rectifying that mistake' is nonsensical bullshit based on absolutely nothing. The TPP is about codifying that same approach to new regions while greatly expanding on it.

[Hoyt]

171. And TPP will fix that since Canada and Mexico begged to be included in TPP.

Truthfully, I don't think most of those critical -- without even seeing the final document -- care at about foreign workers.

[Marr]

172. You've already been proved wrong (putting it generously), so you downshift into

'we don't know what's in it'.

Who do you think you're fooling with this nonsense?

[Hoyt]

173. I'm saying -- like Ezra Klein and others -- we need to look at the final document to be

presented to Congress, before assuming Obama and Clinton are in some wild conspiracy to sell us down the river.

[Marr]

174. Then you're against Fast Track authority. Oh, no-- you aren't.

Again, just who do you think you're fooling with this nonsense?

[Hoyt]

175. Even under FTrack, the documents will be available for review before Congress does a thing.

". . . . . . . any final trade agreement open to public comment for 60 days before the president signs it, and up to four months before Congress votes. If the agreement, negotiated by the United States trade representative, fails to meet the objectives laid out by Congress — on labor, environmental and human rights standards — a 60-vote majority in the Senate could shut off “fast-track” trade rules and open the deal to amendment. . . . . . ."

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/business/obama-trade-legislation-fast-track-authority-trans-pacific-partnership.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news


Are you intentionally trying to be obtuse, or does it come naturally?

[nadinbrzezinski]

177. Here is a word I think you do not understand

OLIGARGHY

Look it up. Mexico did not beg, for that matter Canada. They asked during trilateral meetings

You know why?

I will tell you why Hoyt, at least for Mexico. Have your ever heard of Carlos Slim? If you have not, google up the name for who he is in Mexican business and how much money he has. He was one of the main reasons. For god sakes I even posted his name and het worth here, on this discussion board, under this particular OP. Of course there is the rest of the Mexican Chamber, but he actually has a few Presidents and I do not mean just Mexican on speed dial.

For Canada, it was after a few meetings with the Canadian Chamber and a few large transnationals who believed not having a second byte at the apple at weakening their own labor was a bad idea.

[bvar22]

15. Sadly, some people don't care about the US Worker or the Environment.

Go ahead and send the good paying jobs overseas. It'll be good for the low wage countries to get a little wealth.
.
.
.
.
It doesn't work that way.
Have you NOT read about the destruction wreaked on Mexico due to NAFTA?
The Workers do NOT reap the benefits.
They get sick working in sewage, and many wind up in Company Housing and have to pay rent and buy their food at the Company Store and have it deducted from their wages...
which leaves many working for FREE in very unhealthy conditions.

Go tour the Mexican Border towns that were promised GOLD from NAFTA,
and instead got open sewers carrying the discharge from the new porta-factories.

[closeupready]

21. PROTECTIONIST! ISOLATIONIST! BENGHAZI!

[Hoyt]

35. So why doesn't Mexico withdraw, and why did they beg to join TPP?

Conditions in Mexico have improved under NAFTA. Maybe they haven't achieved our level of wealth, but anyone who thought that would happen overnight wasn't paying attention.

TPP also has better worker and environmental protections.

But, if Obama can't solve all the world's problems in one act, then it's not worth doing anything.

[bvar22]

42. That is some bent rhetoric.

"why doesn't Mexico withdraw, and why did they beg to join TPP"

Have you forgotten that Mexico is governed by corrupt politicians (even worse than here)
who are members of the 1% (like here) that benefit from the misery of their Working Class (just like here)?


Go see for yourself.
I have been there.
I doubt that the Mexican Officials who approved NAFTA have ever visited the horror they brought to the Mexican Workers.

[Hoyt]

48. When was Mexico in a better position? I hope they do a lot better, but they are still better

off now than before.

[bvar22]

58. Where are your stats to back up your claim?

Some links supporting your position would be helpful.

Start with the Mexican Corn Farmers.
Ask then how well NAFTA has worked for them?



I'll wait.

[Hoyt]

63. How about those who will get jobs at the new Audi plant?

No question that economic events affect groups differently.. Heck, our auto industry ruined the buggy whip shops.. Do you think most people think they were better off before Ford? Personally, i'd e fine with living on dirt farms, no running water, life expectancy of 40 or so, little education, etc. But, I don't think most would.

The world is changing, we better keep up.

[bvar22]

70. Again, dodge noted.

Do you believe that posting an unrelated word salad will fool people at DU?

[Hoyt]

77. Take a few minutes and look it up.

Since you are lazy, here's a gdp growth chart after NAFTA:

[TheKentuckian]

116. What does randomly pointing at GDP growth have to do with the conversation?

Who reaps the rewards of those gains is the story as always and I'm putting my bet on they were funneled to the top just like all the productivity gains, rising markets as well as GDP growth here.

[Hoyt]

120. Who reaps the rewards is not the purpose of a trade agreement. That's something entirely

different. But, it's a lot easier to make sure the money gets where it belongs -- workers -- if there is something there to be distributed. No trade and there is not way for workers to benefit.

The chart shows the money is there, but Mexico chose not to distribute it properly, at least at this time. It may be the think that reinvesting the money will build more industry that will eventually benefit more people.

Trade produces the income. Taxes and wage laws determine what happens after that. But, no trade, and there is little to tax or distribute.

[TheKentuckian]

137. Your argument previously was that it helped workers and GDP growth was presented as evidence.

Now you have scurried back to asserting that this is to what? Create potential that with the right mixes of policies could possibly benefit working class people.

Well, that simply isn't a compelling rationale at all. Let's get those necessary policies in place or the potential is of little beneficial consequence and a bizarre thing to be pressing. As structured about everywhere pumping up the wealth disparity makes the other crucial policies ever less plausible.

In the current environment you are burning down the village while claiming to want to save it.

[Hoyt]

138. Nope.. My argument was GDP increased dramatically. It's up to domestic policy to get it to the right

people.

That's different from trade law that helps produce distributable income.

Fact is, to pay people decently, improve healthcare and edycation, etc., you gotta have the income in the first place. Otherwise, you'll just whine your life away with no real hope of relief.

[nadinbrzezinski]

141. But a few economists, including from El Colegio de Mexico disagree with you

and compared to previous periods of Mexican history, it is actually quite stagnant. You might want to go argue with Mexican specialists on this. And yes, Mexico is considered an emerging economy, but also the policies that you are being critical of Mexican government officials, increasing inequality and the rest of it, including the glass hour economic structure, that Sieglitz and others have mentioned, is ALSO PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES.

For the record this rabble rouser was the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President during the Clinton administration.

Here

Chairman -- June 28, 1995 - February 10, 1997
Member -- July 27, 1994 - June 28, 1995

Let me reference you once again to Rubin, Summers and Neo Liberal economic thought.

You might want to read into this rising inequality that is not an Obama phenomena, before you put those words into people's keyboards. It started with Reagan, and things like the end of Glass Steegal, did not help. This has been a generational process, at this point multi generational, and they have been very successful. And you know what? I report on this shit anymore, but I make a point to look at the big picture. That big picture is not pretty.

Ed. Clarity

[Hoyt]

147. Did you look at the GDP chart? I think it speaks for itself.

[nadinbrzezinski]

178. No it does not speak for itself

not when you have people from ITAM, Colegio de Mexico and other institutions of higher learning sounding like Stiglitz and Picketty. Many economists around the world are calling neo liberal economics for the fraud they are. And this is not about Clinton or Obama, before you put that into my keyboard again.

For that matter even some of the who's who of the neo liberal class is starting to have second thoughts. Or you are telling me you have not read recent Alan Greenspan?

Sorry, you do not get to play put the tail on a chart (instead of the donkey) that you are presenting fully without context. I research this crap. I read actual academic papers, and things are not sunny and shinny and great.

Oligarchies are not going to work that way. By the way, we are one.

In Mexico regular folks have a name for what you are doing. It is a double entendre, and could be considered an insult. But what the hell. I despise porristas.

[Hoyt]

185. The money came in, it just wasn't distributed properly. Trade deals don't involve the latter.

You don't get it. If there is no/little money coming in, you can't get it to the workers and people who need it. But the distribution is not up to a trade agreement. That's another issue there, and here.

Being "one," means nothing if the money isn't there to get your fair share.

[nadinbrzezinski]

187. No the one who does not get it is you

you are defending the indefensible. You keep defending the indefensible. So I will ask. HAVE YOU DIRECTLY BENEFITED IN INVESTMENTS from NAFTA? Then it would make perfect sense.

Nor are you getting this, SINCE NAFTA the Mexican Economy has actually been more stagnant, with a slight bump early on when AMERICAN FACTORIES left for the free trade zones, maquiladora regions, and then all that crashed when those same companies took their portable factories, and moved to Vietnam and China. Some are now coming back to both Mexico and the US, but not enough to make up for the losses, and that was dependent on the cost of moving finished goods across the pacific.

These trade agreements have made this far easier to do this. Corporations follow cheap labor, and Mexican labor was too expensive, so now there are efforts afoot to make it cheaper again. Don't you love neo liberalism? I know you do.

In the meantime, and this is why the Mexican economy is quite sluggish, in particular in the industrial sector, the native Mexican textile industry disappeared, almost overnight. The same happened to the shoe industry, and leather works. Some of that is starting to come back. So you know I know people personally who had to close their factories, businesses built over the course of 40 + years who had to close. You know how many thousands of union workers lost their jobs? Instead they had maquiladoras, where their job protections and ability to a union was greatly diminished. Since you are so damn concerned about workers... really.

Now let's talk field workers. Many of them moved to the US in a well known migratory wave in the 1990s, because they could not find a job in those factories that came and left. So they came to the United States, at times illegally recruited, for the record, by corporations like Tyson foods.

So as I said, you do not get to play pin the tail on the chart. Not without getting an education in the process.

[Hoyt]

190. I can assure you I have not benefited; however, I know people who have bought some nice

Martin guitars and ukulele, made in Mexico, that saved them a bunch over American made Martin instruments.

Our economy, in fact the world's economy, is quite "sluggish." Why would we expect Mexico's to be any different. Without NAFTA, and plants like Audi moving there, it might be drowning, not just sluggish.

Interesting, that both Mexico and Canada begged to be allowed into the TPP. I guess they don't quite see it like you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

195. Tell me in what way did those workers really benefit

you do know what the conditions of maquiladoras are? Or the abuses. You should do some reading.

And I am not talking 2008 on being sluggish, I am talking 1990s, booming US economy.

We get it, you are a free trader. Just do not expect not to get pushback.

And your characterization that they begged is wrong. There was no begging, They asked, at the trilateral meeting in Monterey if memory serves, after the side meetings with the US Chamber, the Canadian Chamber and the Mexican Chamber, and the latter, while he is not the president, Carlos Slim had a lot to do with it.

And you are correct, a person like Carlos Slim who has a net worth $75.9 Billion

He is the second wealthiest man in the world, he does not see it like I do. You are correct. He stands to make even more money than god and has PRESIDENTS ON SPEED DIAL, and I do not just mean the Mexican president.

I am glad you are on the side of the Waltons, another winner in this party... or the Hilton's another winner in this party.

They should pay you, I am not sure how well.

Regardless, I notice that you ignored all the economic data (real world) given to you, including the lack of REAL UNION PROTECTIONS FOR MEXICAN WORKERS. After all, one requirement of NAFTA, free trader be proud now, was the weakening of Art. 17 of the Constitution ergo WORKER RIHTS.

[Hoyt]

197. Simple answer -- they could be a lot worse off.

Taking my meds don't make me young again, but they darn sure make me better off than I'd be without them.

The TPP has some of those protections, but it won't matter to you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

200. Ah sure they could be a lot worst off

so just having one quarter of the population, instead of one third being food insecure is ok with you?

Yeah you are right, things could be far worst. The Zapatista revolt, which had as it's direct cause NAFTA could have succeeded in taking over the whole country. That would have been a disaster for US corporations.

Don't worry, people are starting to pick up arms since they are a tad irked with these conditions.



And no, I am not kidding. Of course it is not just NAFTA that irks them, but rarely are revolts due to a single cause.

I just love how you defend the indefensible... they could be worst off... here is a hint hoyt. Mexican labor IS worst off under NAFTA. Those labor protections that were enshrined in the Mexican Constitution of 1917 were greatly weakened as part of the agreement. You keep, on purpose I suspect, missing the rewriting of Art. 17.

And you know they are going to get better under TTP. You have an inside track? Or you are talking out of both sides of your mouth? You missed the part about SECRET right? Or are you again telling me Senator Wyden, one of the great critics of this secrecy, or Warren are lying. Let's not forget former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who you quoted until we quoted back to you that part.

[Hoyt]

202. That's why the TPP is good for them, and they want in.

"I just love how you defend the indefensible... they could be worst off... here is a hint hoyt. Mexican labor IS worst off under NAFTA. Those labor protections that were enshrined in the Mexican Constitution of 1917 were greatly weakened as part of the agreement. You keep, on purpose I suspect, missing the rewriting of Art. 17. "

TPP includes some of those protections.

[nadinbrzezinski]

204. So they are going to rewrite art. 17 and reverse the structural reforms

and further privatization of the economy by Pena Nieto? No they are not.

You are living in fantasy, Nothing personal, but you are.

Normal people, outside of the porristas, you are one... get it. This is not going to benefit workers anywhere. This is about corporate rights.

Now if you are Sam Walton, or now his kids, you are dancing a jig, IF you are Carlos Slim, you are dancing a jig. If you are a worker, you worry.

[TheKentuckian]

150. It makes no difference if the money is never distributed other than making bad even worse.

[TDale313]

176. Trickle Down Economic bullshit.

Send all the monies to the tops, trust the companies and politicians. They'll make sure you're ok, really.

Your GDP chart? All the gains have gone to the top. All of them. Quite literally.The middle class has been treading water- going backwards, actually. And it's thanks in large part to shitty "free trade" deals like this. They don't want what's in it to be public knowledge. There's a reason for that. In fact the intent was to keep details classified for four fucking years after it was approved. But I'm sure there's nothing bad in this thing. Like, ya know, letting companies sue countries for lost profits if they enact regulations the companies don't like (one of the few things we do know about)

Sorry, every instinct in me is screaming this is really bad news. You don't ram something like this through as fast as possible with no disclosure if it's not.

[nadinbrzezinski]

121. i can mention one outstanding name

who has made a tidy sum out of this. Carlos Slim. Don't get me wrong. The man works hard for his money. and still drives himself to work. But damn... he has made a tidy sum out of the privatization of TELMEX. He is currently worth, according to the slackers at Forbes, a tidy 76.2 billion dollars.

Now pay at TELMEX... average, according to the Union, US$2.952 . Not for lack of trying, since the rest of the workers at other companies that Slim owns, among them TELCEL, the largest cell phone provider. They fear Slim intends to fuse both companies. The union fears that at that moment the relatively good pay will go away, since the union would be dissolved.


Of course, one of the major problems in the post NAFTA Mexico is that the economy is quite stagnant. This is according to the Colegio de Mexico, who should have more than just a clue on these matters. They are the premiere research institution in the country.

They write and I will translate:

Sin embargo, la tasa de crecimiento económico ha sido baja si se compara con
el desempeño de México en etapas anteriores y con el de otras
economías emergentes.

However, the economic growth rate has been low when one compares this to previous eras, and with other emerging economies.

http://www.colmex.mx/gpm/images/PDF/III_ECONOMIA.pdf

It is what it is... I should do an article on NAFTA and the economic reality, it is time to finally save that PDF

edited for clarity

[bvar22]

79. It has been 21 YEARS since NAFTA passed.

...and all these wonderful provisions that were going top protect Labor & the Environment are still NOT in effect.

Hillary AND Obama both strongly disagree with the picture you are trying to forge about the wonderfulness of NAFTA.

[Hoyt]

80. Since Canada and Mexico are part of TPP, Obama is in fact renegotiating it.

Guess you missed that in your rush to criticize Obama and Clinton.

[bvar22]

88. You must have missed the "immediately renegotiate" in your rush to criticize me.

Your rose colored Magic NAFTA glasses must be a little too dark.

I'm STILL waiting for you to produce quotes about how well the Mexican Corn Farmers are doing after NAFTA.

[Hoyt]

93. You have to look at a country overall.. Small corn farmers were losing before NAFTA, just like,

buggy whip manufacturers.. Auto workers, and other manufacturing workers, have done better - not unlike the USA when small dirt farmers went to work for Ford, etc.

[ND-Dem]

246. If I hear someone repeat that right wing "buggy whip manufacturers" crap one more time...

[Hoyt]

248. Buggy whip manufacturers short for: Palm Pilot, big long green paper spreadsheets, manual typewriter

getting film developed, movie rentals, classified ads, paper maps, public pay phones, VCRs, Fax machines, tube hi fi amps, phone books, lots of print magazines, floppy disks, record stores, many clerical positions, Adobe Flash Developer, cotton pickers, Oakum Pickers, ship's boy, urine specialists, chimney sweep, leech collector, gong farmer, and a lot more things that are pretty much gone nowadays.

I'll try to vary it just for you. Hopefully, you'll get the message that the world is changing and as much as we may want to, we can't stop it.

[ND-Dem]

249. so boring

[haikugal]

259. Makes me want to reach out and touch somebody ... Damn!

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. I would love you to tell this to Mexican workers

who have to take work at a lower wage than they used to.

I would love you to tell this to Mexican field workers at the Valley of San Quintin in Baja.

Has it ever occurred to you that since the De La Madrid administration Mexico has been on a neo liberal economic route that has created quite the oligarchy and not benefited most of the working class?

Damn... up is down, and war is peace.

[Hoyt]

78. Pay rates and tax rates are not part of trade agreements.. That's another aspect.

Fact is Mexico's GDP has risen steadily since NAFTA.

It's a hell of a lot easier to increase minimum wages, taxes, etc., when your country has more income and a better future.. Might take raising taxes, minimum wage, etc., but that is not trade related.

[nadinbrzezinski]

81. Nice dodge

and you obviously were not there for the big sale... better living, higher wages, yes, that was promised.

The adds that the Mexican government runs promoting this bilge, are you writing them? I hear the pay is lousy, but these posts sounds like what runs every so often.

Look, labor protections are also way down from when they were before the re-write, required by NAFTA, of Art. 17 of the Constitution.

I dare say...you are a fan of anything passed by a D... even when it is not necessarily good. At least I grew up in an oligarchy... so used to it.

[Hoyt]

86. There are protections in the TPP. NAFTA boosted Mexico's economy

That's money available for workers if the government gets off its ass.

[nadinbrzezinski]

89. Like in the US where the US Congress has not passed

a wage increase in over a decade?

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, which translates to $15,080 for a full-time, year-round worker in the U.S.

Tell me you come up with these ones on your own? For the record, the Mexican Minimum wage is actually indexed for inflation. Just that CONASAMI sets it low, for starters. It is also set by regions. But just like in the US, productivity is up, GNP is up, though the Banco de Mexico does not agree with you that all is that great, and by the way, the Mexican economy has slowed down to near crisis levels. Won't bother with the Banco de Mexico since it is all charts, and most people prefer a well written story, but here you go from Forbes

http://www.forbes.com.mx/economia-de-mexico-el-vaso-medio-lleno/

Sorry it is in Spanish. I won't translate either. Suffice it to say, that is just one source of the current crisis. The Banco de Mexico is near declaring the country to be in a recession. Suffice it to say that things are not that good... might have to do with a huge political crisis, of both trust and revealing the weakness of the federal government, (Ayotzinapa) but that is way too much inside baseball I s'pose. Oh and this neo-liberal shit has made it to the streets and street talk.

People, real working people, outside partisan sites like this one or the equivalent in Mexico, have a deep disdain for the neo-liberal agenda and NAFTA, don't get me started on TTP. The most extreme even speak of the reforms, the 13 reforms that Pena Nieto has imposed, are meant to sell the country and the country's resources to foreigners, but you know, that is cool I guess. All is talk until people pick up arms, and in some places in Mexico that is starting to happen and I am not talking Cartels.

[Hoyt]

92. Most of that rant has nothing to do with trade agreements.. While I probably agree with a lot of

that, do you actually think a trade agreement, or any other piece of legislation, is going to solve all the world's problems.

I agree the minimum wage should be increased substantially here, but I don't expect a trade agreement to accomplish that.

I get you and many others - including myself - are unhappy. But that's not going to get solved overnight.

[nadinbrzezinski]

94. Except that this is what boosters promised

in all three countries. So forgive me for not blaming people for pointing to trade agreements as one source of worst pay and job flight.

You might not expect that, but when you have the USTR saying that this (insert magical trade agreement here) will increase wages, standards of living and jobs, people sort of expect their government not to lie. And let's forget about the certainly obscure U.S.T.R...(though I have the propaganda from state filed away), when a PRESIDENT says that (clinton after the signing of NAFTA, Bush after the Colombia Trade, or Obama after CAFTA), I tend to forgive people for believing their leaders. We press critters will QUOTE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES when he says that.

And people, I know they are funny that way, WILL READ that, and for some reason, not anymore, believe that crap. Especially with NAFTA.

Funny thing, the same happens when the President of Mexico states the same shit, in a different language to his own PRESS CORP. For some silly shitty reason, press tends to quote Presidents. And the Canadian Press will do the same when in the case of NAFTA it was PM Mulroney singing the praises.

So forgive me. I cover this shit regularly, and these days if the U.S.T.R, and I get emails regularly from the office of the U.S.T.R, I am in the email list, sings the praises of a trade treaty, I need to check if indeed they are correct by reading, not just the treaty (when available), but a lot of shit from people who have a clue. Forgive me for saying this, but that is not you. What you are doing though is plenty of dodging and not really facing facts. These treaties are not good for the American middle class. or for that matter other middle classes.

But when both CATO and Brookings at times are singing from the same fucking sheet of music, in this case regarding the possible end of the WTO ... pigs are flying and we are having a problem with these treaties. Yes, CATO quoted Brookings, and not in a negative way.

Pigs do indeed fly.

I think we are both wasting our time, for the record.

[stillwaiting]

159. Just so you know, your never time is never wasted here.

Thank you for pushing back when and where it's needed.

Your perspective is highly valuable to many.

[ctsnowman]

193. .

[Skittles]

143. people who defend such bullshit are usually benefiting from it

they will pull all kinds of scenarios / stats out their ass to support their claims

[nadinbrzezinski]

144. In this case not even pulling stats from ass

Problem is, I read this shit for breakfast, so I can actually pull the actual reality out of multiple PDFs from specialists.

[bvar22]

76. Please post thses "better worker and environmental protections"...

from the TPP text,
along with the international enforcement mechanisms and penalties for violations.

An "agreement" that has no (or impractical) enforcement mechanisms or penalties is no "agreement" at all. It is salve.

[nadinbrzezinski]

83. The worker and environmental protection are there

it is part of the side agreements. As you wisely point out, the enforcement is lacking.

Also part of those side agreements, free migration between nations... I am still waiting for a migratory lawyer to test this one in a U.S. Court.

[bvar22]

20. "Truth is, those multinationals could go to Africa,"

Well, NOW they can,
but they had to get rid of Gaddafi first.
He blocked the Western Banks and the IMF from accessing the resources of North Africa for many years.

” For all his dictatorial megalomania, Gaddafi is a committed pan-African - a fierce defender of African unity. Libya was not in debt to international bankers. It did not borrow cash from the International Monetary Fund for any "structural adjustment". It used oil money for social services - including the Great Man Made River project, and investment/aid to sub-Saharan countries. Its independent central bank was not manipulated by the Western financial system. All in all a very bad example for the developing world.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD27Ak01.html

SO the Disaster Capitalists (IMF & Western Banks) piggy-backed on the legitimate Arab Spring to join an ongoing Civil War in Libya to
take out the major obstruction to their economic rape of North Africa.

USA! USA! USA!

[sabrina 1]

22. I'm really surprised that Democrats support Foreign Corporations undermining our Environmental laws.

Repubs won't mind that at all of course, but Dems? We fought so hard to get them in place, why on earth would a Dem be in favor of FOREIGN corps destroying them?

[JDPriestly]

44. The problem is that the profits earned from the trade that these trade agreements

produce are not invested in the US or shared with American middle class and poor people. The profits are hidden and sequestered in countries like Switzerland, the Bahamas, even Belgium.

So the trade agreements mean lost jobs, low wages and sacrifice on the part of most of us in America. (I'm affected. There is a movement to reduce Social Security payments which will reduce our primary source of income and the hullabaloo about Social Security is to a great extent due to the fact that payroll taxes that are collected have not risen that much because the wages have stagnated. Greedy folks like Chris Christie find that appalling.)

Other factors may have caused some of the wage stagnation. But our trade agreements have contributed enough. And we can do something about the trade agreements. And by doing something about the trade agreements, we can signal to those on the winning side of our economy that we are determined to regain a livable share of our economy.

So I strongly oppose the TPP.

If you like TPP, then what is your proposal for passing the TPP, bringing industry and work back to America and improving the economic outlook for ordinary Americans?

What is your proposal for reviving our economy and ending wage stagnation and the excessive export of work and industry to developing countries?

I have read many of your posts but I don't think I have read any proposal for you that answers the underlying reasons Americans oppose these trade agreements. I don't want to be rude, but supporting the trade agreements without recognizing and responding to the damage they do in America is a cop-out. It is sheer propaganda of no value to anyone. So I am waiting to read your solutions to the economic crisis that the trade agreements exasperate and perhaps cause.

And no. we do not have to accept imports from other countries. At one time, a great deal of our tax revenue was from tariffs. That is a possibility. We dropped tariffs for political reasons. They were great as tax revenue sources.

[Hoyt]

50. Profits related to a foreign corporation operations here, are taxed here.

I do agree that corporations hide profits and something needs to be done with that.

But foreign companies who set up plants in the middle of nowhere USA do provide better jobs than were there before, and people beg for those jobs. It's hard to argue that is not good for them..

[Elwood P Dowd]

82. In most cases they are not taxed here.

They use transfer pricing to make sure the US operation makes no profits. All the profits are shifted to the home country or to a subsidiary set up in a tax haven.

[Hoyt]

85. I think those are domestic corporations who take that approach to avoid some taxes.

I think Burger King recently tried that. It only saves them some taxes, not all that would otherwise be taxed.

But, we were talking about companies like BMW, Siemens, etc.

[JDPriestly]

87. As an aside. Did you see this?

One of the problems with a trade agreement like the TPP which, as a lay person, I think resembles the loosely organized and fiscally disjointed European Market of today, is that there is so much room for manipulation of currency rates and other economic malevolent wizardry.

Here is an interesting discussion of Greece's challenges in extricating itself from having entered into an economic union that was rather loosey, goosey and caused all kinds of problems.

The TPP, regardless of what is in it creates a judicial system with apparently the ability to impose monetary judgments on countries (however they are to be enforced I do not yet know) but does not create any means for dealing with imbalances in trade and debts, etc.

The TPP makes no sense to me whatsoever. NAFTA is horrible enough in that it is creates economic responsibilities and provides no means for relieving the tendency toward imbalances in payments.

Here is the video:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017259239

The TPP like NAFTA before it is a recipe for disaster. I'm not an economist. But I can work puzzles and problems, and there is no method for recovering from the economic imbalances that these trade agreements invite and maybe create.

They are just crazy agreements. They result in the transfer of debt into a kind of nameless abyss and create banking systems in which charlatans who know how to shift debt and buy and then destroy national assets have a field day.

[erronis]

53. There seems to be only one cheerleader in this thread - perhaps Hoyt could answer.

Since I'm entering my graying years and won't be earning/consuming much anymore, I can't get too excited about the benefits/damages that something like this bill will cause. Well, maybe I should care about my children (5) and grandchildren (8+?). Will each of them be able to yea/nay this treaty if it affects them? Or is it one of those cast-in-concrete type things? If so, why?

Why was this pushed through in so much secrecy? I still have not read any rationale discussion on why it was hidden from everybody except the multi-nationals.

Maybe a wiser person could synopsize the goods and the bads, the backroom negotiations, the quid-pro-quo. Maybe this person could give a projection about how this will benefit the middle class in this country (US) in terms of improved living conditions and wages.

[Hoyt]

95. There are actually a number of people here wanting to wait until Obama

reaches an agreement, if that even happens.. It will then be released to everyone who actually wants to read it before Congress gets it.

Most of them are tired of debating people who haven't even read what is available, and think Obama has been trying to sell us down the river since he took iffice.

Personally, since I'm having to type on a phone right now, I think it will be easier to go over and debate the Tbaggers on the Discussionist.

I think Obama realizes this is a lot bigger than just trade and is good for our future in many ways, but he's got to convince people who believe he's trying to sell them into slavery.

I bet I'm your age too. Quite frankly I'm worried about the young folks (who, BTW, will be paying our social security benefits). I think we've become so myopic, that we will fail to solidify our future for them. It will impact you and me.

[bvar22]

207. BOGUS.

Hoyt says:
"I'm worried about the young folks (who, BTW, will be paying our social security benefits)."

No. Reagan "fixed" that when he raised FICA deductions.
Today's Working Class is paying for our parents,
AND for ourselves.
(Why spread that Republican BS here. Trying to scare the kids?)

[Hoyt]

212. And young folks will be paying for the next group of retirees.

Reagan did nothing but kick the can down the road.

[bvar22]

215. Yeah....kicked the can down the road until 2037.

If Obama had fulfilled his campaign promise to Raise -the Cap on Social Security,
then there would be no future problem what-so-ever.

So lets see:
*You strongly support all "Free Trade" Treaties

*You oppose Social Security.


Are you sure you are in the right place?

[Hoyt]

216. No I am not against Social Security, just people who think today's worker

is paying for present returners and THEMSELVES.

THAT 2037 becomes yesterday if we stop paying in. Sorry, but that is the frightening truth. I support policies to shore it up, including raising the cap, which by the way only solves part of the problem.

Question - Apparently you don't worry about anything 20 or so years out. Just how long is your horizon? That might explain a lot of your views on TPP, which is long-term leguslation?

[Art_from_Ark]

84. Well, TPP certainly won't help small farmers in Japan

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024089103

[djean111]

90. Bullshit. It is not WE who are grabbing wealth, it is the 1%. The corporations. NOT American

workers. Wages here have been going down and down. How can you even spout this stuff? We should be happy to be making $2 an hour? Because that is the aim of this thing - not to raise up, but to push down.

[rhett o rick]

97. I doubt that any Democrats are as bad as you portray. We've seen parts of this

and people like Sen Sanders and Sen Warren have and they see it hurting the working class. No one, NO ONE has given one iota of evidence that this could possibly benefit the working class. It was put together by major corporations that have their own bottom line in mind. I respect Krugman, but he hasn't explained how this might help the working class.

As far as other countries getting better wages and conditions, that's so much bunk. Look to Mexico and see that the profits all go to the 1%.

[Joe Turner]

98. Truth is bad trade agreements have degraded the American Workforce

And there is plenty we could do about it if the corporate class didn't have so much sway over OUR government. Germany, Finland and Sweden live in this world, deal with multinational corporations, low 3rd world wages, and they have seen their national wealth go up. And it's because they do what we don't. They look after their national interests, put limits on trade with 3rd world nations, and keep their corporations in check. Truth is, American is one of the few countries that buys off on free and open trade. And we got the poverty to prove it.

[Babel_17]

99. Sure, there's something to that

But remember, arguments similar to that are used when companies bail from one state to move to a poorer one. And afaik, we usually don't favor such moves.

Union workers make more than lots of non-union workers. We generally oppose seeing them become unemployed as non-union workers replace them.

Yes, a rising tide raises all boats, and we should cheer on the development of poorer nations. But we shouldn't cheer on what amounts to being a race to the bottom. I still remember when a shoemaker that left the USA to go to South Korea, ended up leaving South Korea. Their workers there wanted raises.

So, imo, there's a depressingly small amount of "big picture", doing good by doing well, happening here.

[jwirr]

133. So what makes you think this is going to be any better for foreign countries than it is for us?

NAFTA did not do much for Mexico. And the majority of this law is to help the corporations by giving them the right to override national sovereignty. They are the ones who are going to get the wealth. If they can sue us for hurting their profits then they can sue those countries as well.

[Mnpaul]

230. It's like the folly of the Vietnam War

Communism or Capitalism, the workers in the rice fields get diddly squat either way.

[jwirr]

231. Exactly. I am old enough to remember a time when it was sometimes different. Under FDR our

country created the middle class and provided a safety net for the poor. It was a start. We should not be surprised that the corporations and banksters hate him to this day.

I think it was the mix of capitalism and socialism that made this possible. Until raygun and his buddies destroyed it.

[Mnpaul]

234. I too remember the days

I just posted this elsewhere in the thread, do you remember back when we didn't really need food shelves and they were few a far between? I think many here don't realize what we have lost because it happened before they were born. They take many things for granted and don't realize how fast that can go away.

[jwirr]

236. I agree. I see it in the younger ones in my family. They know we are in trouble but do not

understand the extent of it.

From memory we not only had a middle class and a safety net but we had hope. We had a world where we cared about the helpless like my daughter and we were in the 60s trying to make that life inclusive through LBJ's war on poverty. Even poor families like mine could have dignity and find help to improve our lives.

Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. We almost did not see it slipping away.

[Mnpaul]

239. I fear

that the whole thing will have to crash and burn before people realize that we need to go in a different direction.

[jwirr]

241. Yes, a good example is the number of young families that just accept that they will not have

social security when they are older. I get the feeling that they think it is inevitable and that "oh, well." I also remember the elderly when I was young who did not have social security. Two members of my family committed suicide because of they had not income to fall back on and had to rely of "reluctant" family members.

When my youngest grandson told me that I screamed at him "you won't have it because you won't fight for it".

[X_Digger]

134. Another position that you're on the wrong side of. Why does that not surprise me?

I shouldn't be surprised at this point, but.. well, I thought that was a bridge too far.. even for you.

[drynberg]

162. BALONEY. THE TPP IS SUPER SECRET, IS BEING PUSHED HARD TO BE "FAST TRACKED"...WHY?

Fact is, the TPP is just a cover-up for a corporate rob of power, not at all about the poorer nations of the earth. What happens if a nation is appealing the suit for "future profits" denied? It gets ruled on by corporate lobbiests, not real judges. The TPP is the worst agreement in our nations history and has to be defeated, not fast tracked.

[PatrickforO]

163. OK, I hear you, but...

How can you justify the provision that calls for local environmental regulations being able to be overthrown by an international tribunal staffed with corporate lawyers? Seriously, the idea that foreign corporations (or even American ones) can go into a country and challenge its regulations and laws in some tribunal independent of its legal process and then have no recourse after the tribunal has made its decision basically undermines the governments of all nations and hastens us on the way to oligarchical corporate governance.

And, you know, what is good for GE isn't necessarily good for you and me.

So, even though you make an international populist point, which is a valid one, I believe TPP too flawed for us to ratify. Plus, I'm in workforce development - have been for many years, and I have seen what NAFTA did to our economy. Regardless of what Krugman says, NAFTA is directly responsible for the loss of at least 800,000 jobs, many of which were good union jobs that paid well, and had pensions and benefits.

These lost jobs were replaced by lesser paying service jobs with few benefits. Basically, the American middle class took a big hit with NAFTA. And, yes, I care about a strong American middle class because I've watched over the years as neoliberal and neoconservative policies have taken more and more of what I had and made my future and the future of my family all that much more precarious.

What we really should be doing, instead of further hurting worker rights by free trade agreements that continue to benefit the very few corporatists at the top, is dismantling capitalism and working to reverse the dominant (capitalist) world culture's elevation of the individual good over the common good. Profit IS a dirty word, and we need to reorganize our society around people having enough, and preserving the world for our children and grandchildren.

[fasttense]

169. You are a true "free" trade believer. Ronny Raygun and Milton thank you

All the past trade agreements have done is move jobs to low-low wage countries and unfairly make us compete with slave wage workers. The only ones who have profited off of these arrangements are wealthy multinationals who manufacturer in low wage countries then import those items and sell them here in the US. NO one, no corporation, no business has a right to use our markets and infrastructure (mostly for free) to sell their crap here in the US. It is Not a God given right that everyone should sell their crap here in the US. Workers and obviously our environment continue to suffer under these unfair agreements.

China, Japan and many other countries use VAT taxes as hidden tariffs and subsidize their fledgling industries to ensure their success. Then they sell most of their cheaply made products here in the US. Without the US as a main importer of goods, the world economy would be seriously hurting. The TPP is just more of the same crap that has ravished our economy and made the uber richer even richer at the expense of the American middle class.

Obama will be blamed for TPP like Bill Clinton was blamed for NAFTA. The corporate oligarchs always use a Democratic leader for cover.

"Despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution assigns to Congress the power “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations” — not the president — the executive branch is devising this trade scheme with business elites from a few hundred corporations. The businesses’ representatives have free access to see and comment on the wording of proposed trade provisions, while congressmen are kept in the dark. Non-profit companies have been locked out as well. Even Democrats have been unsuccessful in begging the Obama administration to see what is in the works. Senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), and Robert Menendez (N.J.) have petitioned the administration because the “process has excluded both Members of Congress and key stakeholders.”" http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/congress/item/20065-how-to-pass-disastrous-trade-agreements

If it just so great, why all the elaborate secrecy? Because it is so awful it would never pass if any non-"free" trader read it.

[lark]

179. What is there "good" in this treaty?

EVerything I've seen so far has been unrelentingly bad. Corporations being able to sue the US because their profit levels aren't as high as they anticipated because of labor or environmental laws and this treaty protects their profits, not the workers or environment?
This is a totally terrible treaty once you get to the part where it talks about enforements. Their is no enforcement for violating labor laws or environment law, zero, the only enforcement and it's a really really strong one, is for profits.

Yes multinationals could always go to Africa, but the infrastructure isn't there so that's why it hasn't happened. That's not the big issue with this treaty at all, it's the putting American workers on par with those in 3rd world countries that's huge.

[99Forever]

206. Horsepucky

If it's so fucking great, it wouldn't be kept secret from the American people.

You really think we are stupid, don't you?

[maddiemom]

221. If only the wealth the U.S. was "grabbing" were spread among its citizens.

[MFrohike]

247. I'm surprised, myself

I'm surprised that with all the stories and leaks, anybody is still claiming this is a trade treaty. Perhaps you should take a long, hard look at the section dealing with financial regulations and then put that high horse back in the stable. Unless, of course, you think that unregulated capital flows will help other countries.

[jeff47]

3. No, it won't. Who else are you going to vote for?

Now, stop whining and support only "electable" candidates.

[WillyT]

6. Yep... Gonna Be A REAL Interesting Vote... And THAT... Won't Go Unnoticed...

Democrats better think real hard before they vote to approve this crap.

If there was ever a time for a Democratic led filibuster... this will be that time.

[bvar22]

36. I thought the same about CAFTA,

and dutifully turned on CSPAN to watch the vote.
The players all knew American was watching,
so the final vote was delayed until 2:AM.

The last hour was a circus with so much vote switching/trading that it was impossible to follow.
The Dems realized that in order to pass CAFTA, they would need at least two traitors to play Judas, and, of course, they found just enough to make sure that the agenda of The RICH passed once again.

[zeemike]

67. And that is how the game is played

Not every democrat needs to put his head on the chopping block, just enough to pass.
And if one should get his head chopped off at the polls there is a job waiting for him that pays a lot more and with benefits.

And that way it preserves the notion that the Dems are for the working people to keep them coming back for more...we lost, but if you vote for us next time we will stop it...send us money so we can fight against those evil Republicans.
The good cop bad cop works every time on us.

[Mnpaul]

235. Yeah, wasn't CAFTA great

It allowed multinational corporations to privatize the water supplies in Central America. They were overjoyed when someone came in and agreed to sell them the water they got for free before CAFTA.

[Autumn]

237. I remember that game. Remember it well.

That's probably in the playbook for this one too.

[misterhighwasted]

10. Agree. This will be be dumped on the shoulders of every DEM. 2016 is at stake.

WTF are they thinking.

OBAMA ! Wtf WHAAA???

When ya see the corps involved like Haliburton, Big Pharma..WOW..and citizens who fear the sovereignty of the USA, have no recourse.

This feels like the final move of a coup on America.
With the push for privatization of our VA, USPS, Public School System, and by defunding & weakening the IRS I expect that to be the next dept approached, and the big secret TPP deal, I really really fear what is happening to our democracy.

[blkmusclmachine]

11. http://www.thecommentator.com/system/articles/inner_pictures/000/005/415/original/obama-laughing.jpg

[Dont call me Shirley]

16. Call your Senators, Representatives and Whitehouse to express your opposition to this global

corporate coup' d'états.

Whitehouse Comments: 202-456-1111

United States Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121

PLEASE CALL, EVERYONE! I did today!

[Duppers]

28. +100

[Octafish]

18. TPP is great for Plutocracy...

For the rest of us, not so much.

"You can't help those who simply will not be helped. One problem that we've had, even in the best of times, is people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice." -- President Reagan, 1/31/84, on Good Morning America, defending his administration against charges of callousness.



You want more Trickle-Down Voodoo Reaganomics?

Then Friend Larry Summers.

Evidence of an American Plutocracy: The Larry Summers Story

By Matthew Skomarovsky
LilSis.org
Jan 10, 2011 at 19:31 EST

EXCERPT...

Another new business model Rubin and Summers made possible was Enron. Rubin had known Enron well through Goldman Sachs’s financing of the company, and recused himself from matters relating to Enron in his first year on the Clinton team. He and Summers went on to craft policies at Treasury that were essential to Enron’s lucrative energy trading business, and they were in touch with Enron executives and lobbyists all the while. Enron meanwhile won $2.4 billion in foreign development deals from Clinton’s Export-Import Bank, then run by Kenneth Brody, a former protege of Rubin’s at Goldman Sachs.

Soon after Rubin joined Citigroup, its investment banking division picked up Enron as a client, and Citigroup went on to become Enron’s largest creditor, loaning almost $1 billion to the company. As revelations of massive accounting fraud and market manipulation emerged over the next years and threatened to bring down the energy company, Rubin and Summers intervened. While Enron’s rigged electricity prices in California were causing unprecedented blackouts, Summers urged Governor Gray Davis to avoid criticizing Enron and recommended further deregulatory measures. Rubin was an official advisor to Gov. Davis on energy market issues at the time, while Citigroup was heavily invested in Enron’s fraudulent California business, and he too likely put pressure on the Governor to lay off Enron. Rubin also pulled strings at Bush’s Treasury Department in late 2001, calling a former employee to see if Treasury could ask the major rating agencies not to downgrade Enron, and Rubin also lobbied the rating agencies directly. (In all likelihood he made similar attempts in behalf of Citigroup during the recent financial crisis.) Their efforts ultimately failed, Enron went bust, thousands of jobs and pensions were destroyed, and its top executives went to jail. It’s hard to believe, but there was some white-collar justice back then.

SNIP...

Summers also starting showing up around the Hamilton Project, which Rubin had just founded with hedge fund manager Roger Altman. Altman was another Clinton official who had come from Wall Street, following billionaire Peter Peterson from Lehman Brothers to Blackstone Group, and he left Washington to found a major hedge fund in 1996. The Hamilton Project is housed in the Brookings Institution, a prestigious corporate-funded policy discussion center that serves as a sort of staging ground for Democratic elites in transition between government, academic, and business positions. The Hamilton Project would go on to host, more specifically, past and future Democratic Party officials friendly to the financial industry, and to produce a stream of similarly minded policy papers. Then-Senator Obama was the featured political speaker at Hamilton’s inaugural event in April 2006.

Summers joined major banking and political elites on Hamilton’s Advisory Council and appeared at many Hamilton events. During a discussion of the financial crisis in 2008, Summers was asked about his role in repealing Glass-Stegall, the law that forbade commercial and investment banking mergers like Citigroup. “I think it was the right thing to do,” he responded, noting that the repeal of Glass-Stegall made possible a wave of similar mergers during the recent financial crisis, such as Bank of America’s takeover of Merrill Lynch. He was arguing, in effect, that financial deregulation did not cause the financial crisis, it actually solved it. “We need a regulatory system as modern as the markets,” said Summers — quoting Rubin, who was in the room. “We need a hen house as modern as the food chain,” said the fox.

CONTINUED...

http://blog.littlesis.org/2011/01/10/evidence-of-an-ame... /

These are the richest times in history, with seven-eighths of all wealth ever, per David Stockman, Ronald Reagan's own Budget Director. Until we see economic fairness restored through fiscal and other government policies, laws and regulations; the rich will keep getting richer, the middle class will continue dissolving into the new poor, and the poor will become the super-majority.

[bullsnarfle]

223. "and the poor will become the super-majority."

and then comes the revolution (if not sooner)

[ananda]

23. Politicians think they can do this kind of thing ...

... because the majority of the people don't know the details
nor do they know what this agreement will mean for them,
the country and the world.

But if people became informed, that would be a different matter.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. Some of us in independnet media try

but ... I really cannot compete with major media. And that is by design.

[ananda]

40. Thank you for your efforts.

..

[truebrit71]

186. x10000000

Really interesting information you've presented in this thread....

[Gman]

25. Such high drama. It's not a disaster.

And Democrats will do just fine, than you very much. You seem to look for and relish perceived trouble for Democrats.

[treestar]

158. True and if NAFTA was such a "disaster"

why are we all still alive? The recession was from the housing bubble and the Bush-initiated wars.

[Mnpaul]

232. NAFTA was a disaster

Have you ever wondering why so many Mexicans fled their country? I have worked with many of them. Have you ever spoken to them?

Wages in the US have been flat for many workers in the US for decades. Do you even realize what this country was like pre 1980? In the seventies, there were few food shelves. No need for them. Two guys in the class above me bought new cars working part time after school. They paid cash and did it with no help from their parents.

[n2doc]

29. It is no surprise that Obama is pushing this

Who do you think is going to pay for his fancy library and expensive speaking fees when he retires? The Clintons showed the way.

Really some days it just seems like there is no hope, and the only change is for the worse.

[FairWinds]

30. I want to try to be respectful of "Hoyt" here, BUT . .

I think a person who argues that Americans who oppose the TPP
". . just don't care about other countries, ." is being deliberately deceptive.

In fact NAFTA was and is horrible for average people in ALL THREE COUNTRIES,
but perhaps most of all for Mexico which per NAFTA was flooded with cheap US
corn, displacing millions of small farmers and contributing mightily to creating
the failed state that Mexico is today.

Like NAFTA, the TPP is actually not at all about the well being of average people.
It is a new Bill of Rights for Multi-national corporations.

And it is quite properly opposed by working people ALL OVER THE WORLD, NOT JUST IN THE US.

Hoyt surely knows some of this.

If anyone doubts what I write here, I'll be glad to post the reactions of working folks from
New Zealand (where I spend a little time), Australia, Japan, Canada, or some of the other TPP countries.

If it takes a mass uprising to stop this (like the WTO in Seattle), I say get it on.
When will people finally say "Basta Ya!" (Enough already!)

[Maedhros]

41. Some people will defend ANYTHING, regardless of how heinous, if their hero supports it.

cf. destroying Libya, jailing journalists, executing citizens without due process, etc.

[MisterP]

32. well if the Dems don't lose regularly they can't blame the voters

and crack down on the party's left every other year

[JDPriestly]

38. We don't have to choose between trade and no trade.

We can negotiate agreements country by country and protect American workers by dealing on a cooperative basis with each developing country and limiting the amount of products we allow into our country.

Sooner or later this "free" trade mania is going to blow up in America's face unless we do something to tone it down.

That trade is not "free" to the families who want to own their own homes and earn enough to keep the water running in their homes and pay the electricity bills, etc.

If we are going to export jobs, we had better understand that we are also exporting our healthy lifestyle. The cheap imports are expensive if you are unemployed or earning minimum wage.

[Faryn Balyncd]

51. You are absolutely correct. Thanks.

[Babel_17]

103. Thanks for that reminder!

The framing of the arguments sometimes makes me forget, or obscures, important points like that.

[Mnpaul]

238. and our Constitution delegates that task to Congress

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states: “The Congress shall have the power…to regulate commerce with foreign nations,” among other duties and responsibilities.

I see no mention of trade lawyers in there, do you?

Fast Track should be rejected on the grounds that it is unconstitutional.

Any treaty that is not agreed to by a 2/3rds vote should be rejected as well.

[99th_Monkey]

46. Bill gave us NAFTA, Hillary will give us TPP

Clinton Trade Deals = shit sandwiches for everyone but huge corporations.

[randome]

55. How, specifically, do you think TPP will destroy American workers?

I always see a lot of hyperbole and soundbites but nothing specific.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Stop looking for heroes. BE one.[/center][/font][hr]

[Art_from_Ark]

73. It will apparently destroy a lot of Japanese agriculture,

that is, small farmers who make up the bulk of agricultural production in Japan, so it will also undoubtedly have repercussions for small agricultural producers in the US as well. The TPP, as debated in the Japanese parliament, is not for the little guy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024089103

[jeff47]

118. There's not really any small agricultural producers left in the US.

The small operations are boutique - your certified, 100% organic, locally-grown, lovingly praised while picked and gently carried $7 apple comes from a small farm.

Everything that goes into a jar of Motts is industrial-scale.

As a result, we won't get hurt too badly agriculturally - the damage was done decades ago. We'll just be hurt by manufacturing jobs having new and exciting low-wage places to move to.

[Art_from_Ark]

119. That's a shame

When I was in high school, one of my teachers had a vineyard and he sold his produce directly to Welch's.

[dreamnightwind]

151. In my area in northern California that is not true

You can call them boutique if you like, but there is a lot of ag out here that is small and lovingly produced. Much of it, though not all, is certified organic.

You won't find many of their products in a store like Safeway (not sure what chains are in your area), but a large and growing segment of the population here cares enough to pay a little extra (and it isn't that much more in most cases, not sure why you say $7 apples).

I still buy some of my food from chains (I still eat some processed food, getting better at avoiding it though), but I buy most all of my produce at local markets who stock food from local organic growers. I'm extremely broke but do it anyway because I believe in it. Many many people here do the same. If that is not true elsewhere, hopefully it will be soon.

Anyway, I just wrote because I didn't want to see this important movement dismissed as non-existent when it is alive, well, and thriving here in Sonoma county Ca.

I don't know what impact something like the TPP will have on this, but I'm certain it wont help it any, and it will be harmful in many other ways.

[Art_from_Ark]

153. Most Japanese produce farmers grow food in the way you describe.

Some of them even go the extra mile by actually wrapping vine and tree fruits such as grape bunches and pears in bags so they don't have to use pesticides. And a lot of strawberry and melon production is done under the cover of small vinyl "houses", or even in greenhouses, to keep the bugs out. But you can buy their produce in supermarkets. Some products even have packaging that shows pictures of the farmers who produced them.

[dreamnightwind]

155. Interesting

Are you in Japan? I've never been there, would like to someday but not likely to happen.

I always think of the Japanese as very corporate, though admittedly I know little about their actual lives. I've watced a few shows, I recall a good one on LinkTV that followed some troubled guy's life there, it gave a seemingly real view of how at least some people live over there, still I don't know much, surprised and delighted to read that they grow produce like that.

My ex-wife worked for a non-profit years ago, and her job was they would send her to farms all over the central valley of California to work with farmers who requested assistance converting their farming methods to organic farming methods, pretty good work to do. She had a college degree in a related field, actually one of those make-your-own-curriculum deals where she worked with an advisor to create a customized degree to enable her to do such work. I know this type of ag is happening in more and more regions, though it is not yet mainstream. Nice to hear that you can buy such produce in Japanese supermarkets, I would love to see that happen more here, or better yet for small local stores to become the norm.

[Art_from_Ark]

244. Yes, I am in Japan

Although rice has to be grown out in the open, other crops can be grown under more controlled conditions, without the use of pesticides. Here are some examples:

http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=ビニルハウス&oe=UTF-8&gfe_rd=cr&hl=ja&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=v8syVZ3UPMXCmwXL_4EI&ved=0CDQQsAQ&tbm=isch

[dreamnightwind]

245. Cool image search

Need to get to work in my own greenhouse...

You in Japan for long? I love seeing different cultures, at least for awhile. Have a good one.

[Art_from_Ark]

261. I'm in Japan for the long haul

I was planning to spend just a couple of years here, but somehow ended up becoming a permanent resident.

[jeff47]

165. You're actually agreeing with me.

I used hyperbole in describing the small growers. Hence things like $7 apples and "lovingly praised while picked".

The point is they're producing a very small fraction of agriculture in the US, and that small fraction is not broadly available (may not be in supermarkets, not used when making processed food). Broadly-available agriculture is all industrialized.

[dreamnightwind]

225. sort of

You claimed

"As a result, we won't get hurt too badly agriculturally",

so your post was dismissing TPP's impact on our ag.

My point is that TPP might adversely impact what I consider to be the most important segment of our agriculture, the farmers who are doing it the right way.

It has taken a huge grassroots effort to get as far as we've come shifting ag techniques away from monoculture, pesticide, and irrigation driven ag to a sustainable and healthy technique. If that gets wiped out by the TPP, I don't consider that not getting hurt too badly, that would hurt a lot.

By the way, I often do agree with your posts.

[jeff47]

226. Except that sentence wasn't the end of the post.

You claimed

"As a result, we won't get hurt too badly agriculturally",

so your post was dismissing TPP's impact on our ag.

No, keep reading. The damage was already done long ago. The few that are left are serving a niche market quite successfully, and that niche will remain because the people buying those products are explicitly rejecting industrial farming.

[dreamnightwind]

227. Stunned that you persist on this line

I really don't care about nor really understand the distinction you seem to be making, have it your way and say you won, whatever.

What I do care about, and the reason I responded to your post in the first place, is that sustainable organic farmers have a legal and political environment in which they can continue their transformation of ag techniques.

The post you responded to was about these same issues for the Japanese. You said it wouldn't impact the U.S., so I wanted to put the issue of U.S. alt ag out there as something that could be adversely impacted by TPP, because your post did not give that impression, or at least when I read it I didn't think so, and I would like that issue to be clearly out there to any others who read your post. That is all I care about here.

I don't know if the TPP would hurt these farmers, though I suspect it might. Do you know anything specifically?

Have a good one.

[jeff47]

228. We have an example, and little reason it wouldn't happen again.

I don't know if the TPP would hurt these farmers, though I suspect it might. Do you know anything specifically?

No other country on the planet has our scale of industrial farming. Since we do industrial agriculture cheaper than anyone else, we are very unlikely to see industrial agriculture from other countries flow to the US. And "alt ag" in the US is already competing with US industrial agriculture.

In the US, we're at the point where one industrial farmer "farms" hundreds of acres. The level of mechanization means there's not much money to be saved in lower labor costs - the combines cost the same price worldwide, and they're already here.

We also have an example from NAFTA. Pre-NAFTA, Mexican farmers were more-or-less doing "alt ag", yet supplying the vast majority of Mexico's food. Mexican farmers had not invested the money in industrializing their operations.

Pre-NAFTA, most US farmers had spent the money to industrialize their operations, with a very small "alt ag" industry.

Post-NAFTA, the Mexican farmers were put out of business by US industrial farmers. Post-NAFTA, US industrial farmers slightly increased their operations. And the US "alt ag" industry grew much larger as more US consumers turned away from industrial agriculture.

There's no particular reason to not expect this pattern to repeat if the TPP goes into effect. Japan's "alt ag"-like farmers will be hurt as US industrial agriculture takes over Japanese supermarkets. US "alt ag" will continue to compete in the US against US industrial agriculture, with programs like "Buy Local" that exclude Japanese "alt ag".

[dreamnightwind]

233. Thanks for your response

I have read a little about the post-NAFTA transformation of Mexican ag since you mentioned it to me some time ago, something I had been largely unaware of.

I just used the term alt ag for lack of knowing a better one, it's a mixed bag, organic, cover crops to reduce water use and pests, planting fields with multiple crops in the same field, I am no expert, my ex is, but farmers use a lot of different combinations of these techniques, some of which are not strictly organic, so I don't have a good label for it. Some it these techniques are being used in larger scale farming, though not to any great extent yet, mostly small farms.

Couldn't a TPP-established tribunal prevent things like labeling product origin or production technique? If so that could do a lot of damage to our domestic efforts.

[jeff47]

117. Same way NAFTA did.

Large corporations seeking the lowest-paid workers in the country with the least environmental regulations.

So, many manufacturing jobs left the US and went to Mexico.

Meanwhile, the highly mechanized US agriculture industry utterly annihilated Mexico's agricultural industry - Mexico still had mostly small farmers.

That produced a lovely pool of desperate people who would sign up for very low wages and bad working conditions in the brand-new factories.

In return, US got a loss of manufacturing jobs and higher corporate profits - lower manufacturing costs did not result in lower prices. Instead, the benefits went to executive salaries, dividends/buybacks and profits. Good if you're a Ferrari dealer. Not so good if you used to work in a factory.

[randome]

164. Supposedly, Obama sees the TPP as a rewrite of NAFTA.

With environmental concerns 'baked in'. Since we haven't seen the final draft yet, we're only speculating about what it will contain.

'Fast track' is not, of course, the same thing as rushing through it. It means no amendments, simply vote up or down. (I know you know this, jeff, I'm putting this out there for anyone else who doesn't.)

But Congress will still take their time deciding whether or not to approve so we'll have the opportunity then to dissect it.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[bvar22]

209. "Baked in" environmental concerns are worthless...

...without a strong enforcement mechanism and penalties exceeding the profits.
Will we be building new TPP jails to house the law breakers?
Which countries of the TPP will agree to jail these billionaire law breakers?




A law without effective enforcement and penalties is no law at all.

[randome]

222. I hope there will be something with teeth in it.

It needs to be more than about exchanging products.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Treat your body like a machine. Your mind like a castle.[/center][/font][hr]

[bvar22]

224. As soon as we start putting BIllionaires and Wall Street Bankers who break the law in JAIL,

I might find some hope for "Free Trade".
Until then, its just another way to drive down wages and benefits ,
and enrich the Ownership Class.

Can you IMAGINE "Too Big to Fail" on an international level?

[treestar]

157. +1

As usual, about this stuff.

[ibewlu606]

59. Kicked!

Look for HRC to stay mum about this. She is a huge TPP supporter.

[mmonk]

60. Me too but let's be honest. Rightwing ideology and triangularization won.

I love DU but just look around. Cluelessness.

[AzDar]

65. ...From the man who promised to 'renegotiate NAFTA'...

He knows better...so full of shit he would make two piles.

[Mnpaul]

240. He told us that

He told a different story in a interview with a Canadian station.

[dgibby]

66. " And poverty will be as endemic as the worst 3rd world nations today."

And, that is the goal. How can you have a global economy without a level playing field? And in order to have a level playing field, you have to bring down first world economies to third world levels. Greedy bastards won't be happy until we're all standing in bread lines, breathing toxic air, and drinking contaminated water.

[colsohlibgal]

75. You Can't Dress This Trade Deal On Steroids Up

If passed it will indeed be a global plutocratic coup. In no way will this be good for the non gilded set. It will be Perot's giant sucking sound X 100. I think Stephen King nailed it when he said (cleaned up version) you can frost a...piece of feces up but it's still a piece of feces.

Any so called progressives trying to rationalize this are not really progressive and I know Obama apologists can rationalize with anybody.

[sadoldgirl]

91. This is terrible

I fear for the environmental laws, and we have few enough of them as is.

I wonder how the Unions will react to this concerning the 2016 elections.

Well, I was shocked when the POTUS shouted in India in 2010 that
outsourcing was great and the future; now he is proving his
convictions.

[democrank]

108. Stop the passage of TTP!

[840high]

128. +100

[blackspade]

131. I'm disgusted.

[jwirr]

132. The party is definitely going to take the blame. Cannot see how any Democrat can not realize

this.

[Mnpaul]

242. and the Republicans are handing them the fail

just like last time. Here you go, piss off your voters.

[DeSwiss]

146. You get what you vote for.

- You were played, and you voted for liars. It's as simple as that.



K&R

[nationalize the fed]

154. +1 Truth cuts like a knife

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

152. Nightmare.

[Vinca]

156. For the life of me I can't figure out Obama on this one.

Whatever legacy he might have had will be gone along with more American jobs.

[nadinbrzezinski]

181. I can. this is a multigenerational project

to transform the international order. It really matters little who is in the white house.

For all I care it could be Sanders or Warren. They would protest a tad more, but this is about the power behind the electeds. It is not you, it is not me. Why Princeton calls what he live under an Oligarchy.

[Dem_in_Nebr.]

160. Buddy can you spare a dime?

Once I built a Railroad
made it run ...

One of the saddest songs ever.

[PatrickforO]

161. It sure will. That's why we must oppose it tooth and nail.

[GoneFishin]

166. Posters please stop trying to defend the indefensible. I believe NONE of it. I question

whose side those posters are on and their sincerity. It smells like propaganda. Their motives are questionable.

TPP will be a disaster for the working class and U.S. sovereignty, and anyone who does not have a stake in seeing it rammed through can see that.

[FairWinds]

168. By a margin of two to one . .

the American people are opposed to TPP fast track -

http://fasttrackpoll.info/

Before the NAFTA vote 26 GOP Senators signed a statement that
they'd vote against it if it contained ANY protections for workers
or the environment. Their demand was met.

They will surely do the same thing again.

Glad to have Sherrod Brown's backing on this issue, and
that I gave him a donation - which I rarely do.

I'm mad as hell and ready for an uprising.

Veterans For Peace

[liberal_at_heart]

182. How can you possibly be pro Labor and pro TPP?

[DCBob]

183. I think many are over-reacting to this.

Its a trade bill not a middle class jobs bill.. of course the focus is on business. There are many legitimate reasons to push this but I think the most important is simply to increase trade and ties with our Asian friends which will help block China from dominating that region. No doubt there may be negative effects but the bottom line is the benefits far out-weigh the negatives.. imo.

[Elwood P Dowd]

208. And a small minority here are either being overly naive or

they are corporate operatives cleverly masquerading as Democrats. Just take a look at who are the biggest cheerleaders for TPP. Its the same crowd that gave us NAFTA and all the other free trade deals that have turned to shit for working class Americans. The biggest cheerleaders are the Wall Street crooks, CEOs for giant multi-national corporations, the republican leadership, and DINOs.

[DCBob]

243. I tend to have a more global than nationalistic perspective.

All things considered I think this deal with be good for the world. Of course it may negatively impact some people and some businesses, but overall the benefits will outweigh the negative.

[rury]

184. No. Read further before you set your hair on fire.

Comparisons between NAFTA and TPP

https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/04/16/bringing-trade-agreements-21st-century?utm_medium=email&utm_source=obama&utm_content=1+-+httpmybarackobamacomAbouttheTradePromoti&utm_campaign=em15_x_econ_20150417_x_x_sea_ofa&source=em15_x_econ_20150417_x_x_sea_ofa

[GoneFishin]

188. Don't be fooled by the propagandists. TPP will be a fucking disaster for working folks.

[raindaddy]

191. Democrats actually defending secret trade agreements..

That hand corporations the power to undermine local, state and federal laws they feel undermine their never ending quest for more and more profits.

Anyone wonder why less than 30% of America identifies with the Democratic party anymore and the 18 to 30 age group nolonger even bothers to vote? Well here's the reason.

[americannightmare]

192. A disaster for politicians...

no matter which corporate party, will be the least of our concerns...

[FairWinds]

199. Once again, it is worth repeating that . .

working and middle class people all over the world oppose these deals.

They are NOT in the interests of average people anywhere.

And they mostly are not even about "trade" at all - they cover such areas
as patent protection for Big Pharma, and other corporate rights.

As the AFL-CIO notes, the TPP has no commitment to "International Labor Organization core labor standards or even whether the labor provisions will be enforceable."

Until it explicitly does so, we have to oppose it.

[And by the way, the fast track authority will also cover the EU-US trade deal, which is much bigger than TPP.]

TIME TO GET MAD !!

[LondonReign2]

210. But it will be awesome for Republicans masquerading as Dems in the Third Way!

[INdemo]

211. Ask Elizabeth Warren what she thinks of the TPP

again...She will give you the same answer every time. It sucks..Its Nafta on steroids

Now asked Hillary about the TPP and she will talk in circles for a while and never give you her opinion..

[maddiemom]

220. I was teaching a summer class of teenagers with various learning disabilities when NAFTA

was still under discussion. We discussed "current events in the news" each day. Once interested, they were often very sharp. NAFTA bothered them enough to have them continually following and bringing it up daily. Concerned with finding jobs with little chance of higher education, they were understandably puzzled and upset.

[ucrdem]

229. Have you read it?

The parts I've read are basically about regulating trade, i.e., making it easier for signatory countries to sell their goods to each other and harder for bootleggers to get a piece of the action. That's what the Intellectual Property draft is all about, and that's the one that Jules put up on his Ridiki-leaks site with a scary introduction that as far as I could tell had nothing to do with the draft.