Economists say that free trade agreements like TPP, which are unpopular with voters and have driven the campaigns of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders,are good for the American economy overall, as long as dispossessed employees are provided with assistance. But they never are.
TPP
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
7 Comments. Leave new
TTP is equivalent to removing all the fire doors of an aircraft carrier. Take away the firewalls of national borders, and disease (of all kinds) will freely infect the entire planet. The TPP is a genocide-enhancer.
DanD
The only national borders that matter are Israel’s, goy.
Is that a MOSSAD mole masquerading as JH? Oh, sorry master … .
DanD
Just think how much money could be saved by outsourcing the CEO and his sycophants (“officers”)
Instead of a seven figure salary, you could get one for a dollar day. If you wanted a more experienced one, look no further than Japan. Their CEOs typically have six figure salaries. Toyota’s CEO is the lowest paid among the top Auto makers. yet they’ve been kicking the Big Three’s butts for decades.
Clinton pushed through NAFTA. Are all US Walmarts now filled with Canadian and Mexican products? I don’t think so. Bush, jr gave China MFN status, not free trade at all. Are US Walmarts filled with Chinese products?
But the TPP excludes China completely. It is, first and foremost, a trade artillery barrage against China. And (probably more importantly) it prohibits the Asian signatories from letting their citizens buy cheap, illegal generic drugs when a major international drug company has a patent (a lot of those pharmaceuticals are not US, but they still pay their baksheesh to US politicians).
As America’s most accurate columnist, Friedman says, the TPP is a big boost to American companies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/opinion/let-trump-make-our-trans-pacific-trade-deal.html
And I ALWAYS believe Friedman. I know that the US selflessly transformed Iraq from a brutal dictatorship into a peaceful and prosperous democracy, but the Iraqis were so stupid, the US had to spend far too much money to accomplish that great favour to Iraq, and the US could not afford to do that again (except for Libya), because Friedman told me so.
«But the TPP excludes China completely. It is, first and foremost, a trade artillery barrage against China.» Not really. It is misleading to think of the so-called TPP as a trade treaty, even if the usual suspects constantly refer to it as such ; rather its essence lies in its Chapter II, which deals with investment, and more specifically mechanisms to resolve conflicts between investors, on the one hand, and state actors on the other. The treaty (Article II.18) allows investors to submit claims against state actors (but, nota bene, not the other way ’round) to be adjudicated by a tribunal comprised of three so-called «arbitrators», one chosen by the claimant (i e, investor), one by the respondent (i e, state actor) and one, the presiding arbitrator by agreement by the two parties or, If such agreement cannot be reached, to be appointed by the Secretary-General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). In this manner the adjudication of such disputes is taken out of the hands of national courts and left to the tender mercies of so-called arbitrators, who as a matter of course will be lawyers specialising in investor-state disputes….
The reason, I suggest, why China was not allowed to participate in the negotiations leading to the TPP text is was that other parties, in particular the US, were quite aware that the Chinese government was unlikely to allow jurisdiction over disputes between foreign investors and the Chinese state relating to activities taking place in China to be transferred to a judicial organ outside the country. Given the importance of China in trade within the region (and the importance of such trade for the profits of the great transnational corporations, it strikes me as unlikely that the primary objective is to unleash a «trade barrage» on China. Rather,it seems to have been to first establish a set of rules governing trade in the region, in the creation of which China would have had no input, and then invite China to accede to the fait accompli of the Treaty, which, willy-nilly it would have to do in order to continue trading on reasonably equal terms with its major partners….
Subtle chaps, these lawyers….
Henri
Getting a little behind the times here, eh? Starting to follow the mainstream “non-issues” in an attempt to “stay relevant”? The gutting of the middle class continues on both sides now, unabated, and ignored by an angry, ignorant majority of people who, because they are so ignorant, can’t understand shit for shinola, and given their lack of attention span for much of anything, are in for another kick in the ass, eh?