Study: "Trade" Deal Would Mean a Pay Cut for 90% of U.S. Workers

[pa28]

From Public Citizen

The verdict is in: most U.S. workers would see wage losses as a result of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a sweeping U.S. "free trade" deal under negotiation with 11 Pacific Rim countries. That's the conclusion of a report just released by the non-partisan Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

Wage stagnation is no mystery. Raising the minimum wage is great but we need to start thinking in terms of treating the illness rather than applying band-aids to the battered remains of labor.

Pressure does work. Call your Senators and Congressman and tell them to vote "no" on fast track authorization for the TPP.

[leftstreet]

1. NAFTA, TPP - the Democratic party should be ashamed

[jtuck004]

16. They are proud of it!

How does one know when they have crossed the front lines in the battle onto the other side when everyone is wearing the same uniform...?

[Enthusiast]

50. The President admitted that NAFTA has problems and needed to be renegotiated.

The TPP will be far worse.

[silvershadow]

37. It's not the Democrats. It's the DINO's. nt

[B Calm]

51. The impetus for NAFTA actually began with Ronald Reagan

NAFTA was signed by President George H.W. Bush, Mexican President Salinas, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1992. It was ratified by the legislatures of the three countries in 1993. The U.S. House of Representatives approved it by 234 to 200 on November 17, 1993. The U.S. Senate approved it by 60 to 38 on November 20, three days later.

In the House a bipartisan coalition of 132 Republicans and 102 Democrats prevailed over the opposition of 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans and one independent.

In the Senate the vote was 61 YEAs and 38 NAYs and 1 not voting.

Alphabetical by Senator Name
Akaka (D-HI), Nay
Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Bond (R-MO), Yea
Boren (D-OK), Yea
Boxer (D-CA), Nay
Bradley (D-NJ), Yea
Breaux (D-LA), Yea
Brown (R-CO), Yea
Bryan (D-NV), Nay
Bumpers (D-AR), Yea
Burns (R-MT), Nay
Byrd (D-WV), Nay
Campbell (D-CO), Nay
Chafee (R-RI), Yea
Coats (R-IN), Yea
Cochran (R-MS), Yea
Cohen (R-ME), Nay
Conrad (D-ND), Nay
Coverdell (R-GA), Yea
Craig (R-ID), Nay
D'Amato (R-NY), Nay
Danforth (R-MO), Yea
Daschle (D-SD), Yea
DeConcini (D-AZ), Yea
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Dole (R-KS), Yea
Domenici (R-NM), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Not Voting
Durenberger (R-MN), Yea
Exon (D-NE), Nay
Faircloth (R-NC), Nay
Feingold (D-WI), Nay
Feinstein (D-CA), Nay
Ford (D-KY), Nay
Glenn (D-OH), Nay
Gorton (R-WA), Yea
Graham (D-FL), Yea
Gramm (R-TX), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Yea
Gregg (R-NH), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Hatch (R-UT), Yea
Hatfield (R-OR), Yea
Heflin (D-AL), Nay
Helms (R-NC), Nay
Hollings (D-SC), Nay
Hutchison (R-TX), Yea
Inouye (D-HI), Nay
Jeffords (R-VT), Yea
Johnston (D-LA), Yea
Kassebaum (R-KS), Yea
Kempthorne (R-ID), Nay
Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerrey (D-NE), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Nay
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Nay
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Levin (D-MI), Nay
Lieberman (D-CT), Yea
Lott (R-MS), Yea
Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Mack (R-FL), Yea
Mathews (D-TN), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Metzenbaum (D-OH), Nay
Mikulski (D-MD), Nay
Mitchell (D-ME), Yea
Moseley-Braun (D-IL), Yea
Moynihan (D-NY), Nay
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nickles (R-OK), Yea
Nunn (D-GA), Yea
Packwood (R-OR), Yea
Pell (D-RI), Yea
Pressler (R-SD), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Nay
Riegle (D-MI), Nay
Robb (D-VA), Yea
Rockefeller (D-WV), Nay
Roth (R-DE), Yea
Sarbanes (D-MD), Nay
Sasser (D-TN), Nay
Shelby (D-AL), Nay
Simon (D-IL), Yea
Simpson (R-WY), Yea
Smith (R-NH), Nay
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stevens (R-AK), Nay
Thurmond (R-SC), Nay
Wallop (R-WY), Yea
Warner (R-VA), Yea
Wellstone (D-MN), Nay
Wofford (D-PA), Nay

[leftstreet]

53. 'Obamacare' was also originally a Republican plan n/t

[liberal_at_heart]

2. K&R. You are right. We did a good job conveying our feelings about Syria. We need to let our

feelings be known about this trade deal also. Everybody who reads this thread should call their Congressmen and women.

[djean111]

4. According to some, we were just played about Syria.

All a grand scheme or whatever.

[djean111]

3. The TPP, at least, is not defensible.

Right? Right?
I have not seen much of anything - "it will help poor countries" (no it won't, it will just bring us all down to that level) - and I was wondering if those who defend everything believe the TPP and Fast Track are just eleventy-dimensional chess or something. Obama is just kidding around or whatever.....

[pa28]

8. I've seen the spin in some of the more wonky corners of the internet. It's chess again.

The TPP is actually a grand strategy to neutralize China's growing hegemon in the pacific rim. How this will happen as a result of the TPP was not fully explained but I'm sure it will be.



So brace yourself.

[beerandjesus]

14. Yeah, I'm waiting for it too... it's part of Obama's strategy to get card check or something

Suspiciously quiet here, though. Then again, they were just agitating for war before, and didn't decide that it was really diplomacy till the Russians and Syrians made a deal.

[alsame]

5. The US is the big problem with

the globalized serfdom desired by the masters of the universe. They have to bring US wages down.

[liberal_at_heart]

7. People ask why they send jobs overseas. They say because our unions are too expensive and they can

get more affordable labor elsewhere. How is that even a defense? Why are they allowed to make the entire global labor force into a sweat shop?

[alsame]

12. Many Americans accept into this

because it means lower prices on consumer goods. I've had more than one person tell me they hate having products made outside the US but they don't want to pay more for things made at home by - gasp - union workers.

They don't see the big picture.

[laundry_queen]

66. They also don't understand that it wouldn't mean a huge jump in prices

they have brainwashed everyone to think that if things were made in the US the prices would triple.

This just isn't true. Usually it only makes a buck or 2 difference in a $25 item. Prices are not as cheap as they SHOULD be with overseas labor because corporations took the price differential as profit and very little of the savings was passed on to consumers to begin with. If they kept their required rate of return (for profit) the same as 20 years ago, we'd pay paying half of what we pay now for goods. Instead, in the corporate world, profits must increase every quarter. If profit margins were 10% 20 years ago, they are 25% now. The whole system is so messed up that corporations push for shit like the TPP because they MUST have ever increasing profits or their company stock takes a huge hit. It's all fucked up and is completely unsustainable.

[alsame]

67. I completely agree. Plus, the quality

isn't as good with many, many items. Not to mention poison in dog food and baby formula.

[Demo_Chris]

6. Not the ones who matter to our betters in Washington. nt

[colsohlibgal]

9. This Travesty Has To Start Getting Traction As A Huge Game Changing Issue

Attention Obama apologists - Obama is all in on this atrocious agreement.

We're already hurling headlong into gun toting corporate fascism (guns for the blind, really?), this will put the move there on steroids.

All thanks to the few like Mike Papantonio, Jim Hightower, and Thom Hartmann who are on this, shame on "lib" talkers who either don't know about it or don't want to embarrass their hero.

[mick063]

10. The president has called TPP his "top prioity"

But then.....everything is his "top priority". I judge him by his deeds. Not his words.

TPP is a truly evil deed.

[Populist_Prole]

42. An evil deed, indeed.

I'm SO disappointed.

Why couldn't he just pull a Syria? You know, act like you really want it even though you really don't knowing your opponents will oppose you just for being you. He goes beyond this: He really does want this. WTF!!??

[Scuba]

11. Well, duh. Why do you think they're negotiating it in secret?

[HooptieWagon]

13. I'm sure cutting wages,

worker's rights, and enviromental protections will be spun on DU as eleven-dimensional chess by the usual gas-bags.

[Hutzpa]

15. Another stake being hammered through the hearts of the middle class.

[jtuck004]

17. We can BEAT China. They work college grads for $22 a day. We can do it for $20!!!

They are so screwed...

TPP! USA! TPP! USA!!!

[antigop]

18. and who played a leading part in drafting the TPP? Hillary Clinton.

According to Business Week:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=67554

Cue the "hater"/"basher" posts....countdown...3...2....1

[bvar22]

19. The President and the Party Leadership ALREADY know this.

That is why they are working so hard to keep Obama's Top Priority, the TPP, a "secret".

They want it to be a Fast Track Done Deal before Americans who Work-for-a-Living find out how BAD this stinks.

The 30 year plan that started with Reagan's Union Busting and NeoLiberal Trickle Down Free Market Economics is almost complete.
It will be a LONG hard Battle for the Working Class to regain a VOICE and REPRESENTATION in our Party, and OUR Government.



You will know them by their [font size=3]WORKS.[/font]

[polichick]

34. It's so sad - and, frankly, absurd to keep voting for these guys.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

20. Why is Obama stalling? Is he waiting for the Repubs to agree to cut SS with a chained CPI?

What else can he do to sweeten the pot?

[Romulox]

21. I've been trying to tell you guys for years that they won't stop with the auto industry.

I've also posted many times that no, people will not say "this is too far!" just because your job and community are the next on the chopping block.

Based on the amount of people agitating to reverse the damage done by NAFTA, I'd say that TPP is a shoe-in.

[raouldukelives]

22. Ye of little faith. Obama's got this.

I imagine one of the reasons it is being kept so secret is because our President said he feels addressing climate change is a moral obligation.
One can only imagine the sweeping carbon regulations and anti-fracking, pro-environment conditions he is adding to it.
If Wall St found out they'd freak, hence, the secrecy.

[pa28]

23. Third way philosophy in action.

You give your corporate sponsors and megadonors exactly what they want while at the same time realizing you are damaging working americans.

You then absolve this by adding toothless conditions for labor and environmental standards. It's BS and at some level they know it but I think it helps them sleep at night. Maybe.

[TheKentuckian]

26. Except for it being known that the only people this isn't secret from are those operating

the multi-national corporations, I'm sure that would be the spin. Some may give it a go just because dishonesty and false witness are second nature now but mostly they will dodge and try to play on guilt by stressing the standards of living in the various assholes of the Earth that they want us to live like to please the overlords, no few feeling confident of their own ascendancy as "upwardly mobile" and "professional" the system will reward them personally.

[TBF]

31. lololol -

You need to go back to your war room and work on this strategy some more. DU swings older in age, and many of us watched the manufacturing sector get decimated in the 80s. Those jobs are gone and income inequality is greater than it's been in the past 100 years. You're going to have to come up with something much more polished to convince us we all want to live in tents and support the wealthiest 1% in their multiple palaces around the world.

We're not fooled by a democratic president doing this and we will fight you.

[progressoid]

48. You forgot this...

[NickB79]

65. The TPP is a disaster for combating climate change

It makes the massive natural gas reserves we've recently discovered via fracking widely available for export to the rest of the world. It's a boom for the frackers, not an impediment to them.

And, far from being a green energy source, gas derived from fracking is WORSE for the climate than even burning coal, simply for the fact that so much methane escapes uncontrolled from the formations when they're cracked open.

[raouldukelives]

70. Not a chance. Our President has said he is serious about climate change.

I sure don't want to call him a liar. One cannot be serious about climate change and support fracking, Keystone or clean coal. I'm sure once the TPP comes out showing fracking outlawed, Keystone shut down and a call to reduce air traffic by half, ending oil corporation subsidies while increasing renewable energy subsidies people will calm down.

[libdude]

24. Rep. Alan Grayson

has read this TPP and has concluded that it is a bad deal in almost every aspect for the American worker. One point he made is this, if a foreign company feels that U.S. environmental regulations disadvantage their business endeavor, they can address this in court and if successful can receive compensation.
Why is President Obama an advocate for this trade treaty? Is this his NAFTA? Why the secrecy on this?
Contact Rep. Grayson for further information. My Senator Sherrod Brown has been a strong advocate for " fair trade " seeing " free trade " only damages the American worker.

[Starry Messenger]

25. k&r

[AzDar]

27. K & R

[DJ13]

28. Do these stupid bastard corporate types ever wonder why they cant sell into the third world?

Its because they dont make enough money.

By extension, if they impoverish every worker in the world who will buy their next iPhone, or HDTV, or any other discretionary purchase?

[Recursion]

47. Huh? India and China are much more active markets than the US for most corporations

Even the literal 1 percent in those countries is 25 million people; take it more realistically to the to 10 percent and you've got 250 million people significantly richer than Americans.

[DJ13]

59. Those countries have a rising middle class

They want to shrink (or eliminate) it here in the US.

The poor in China and India dont buy iPhones or other discretionary luxury purchases because they have no money.

[rhett o rick]

63. Yes, but unless something changes, we will be cheap labor for their developing middle classes. nm

[MotherPetrie]

29. Never forget whose administration is trying to screw American workers with this obscene agreement.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

30. K&R n/t

[TBF]

32. Should be mandatory reading. K&R nt

[TexasTowelie]

33. I'm fortunate to be in the ten percent that won't see a wage cut.

But since I have no wages I can't get them cut at all.

[Alamuti Lotus]

35. No wonder the bosses are so excited about it. *nt

[indepat]

36. Pay cuts for 90% of U.S. workers is good for 'Merika, for the bidness of 'Merika

is bidness. Therefore, it stands to reason government must continue to promote the welfare of bidness and the uber-wealthy at the expense of all others rather than promote the general welfare in a manner the entire society benefits.

[Pharaoh]

38. I've called, signed petions

email my reps............

It all seems pretty pointless, as things keep sliding down hill. We no longer have a Democracy. We have Fascism..........


“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” ---Prophet & Philosopher Frank Zappa

[senseandsensibility]

39. All predictions about the horrendous effects of trade deals

for workers have proven true. The giant sucking sound really is our middle class being destroyed. This one is no different and the fact that this administration supports it is heartbreaking.

[grahamhgreen]

40. Proud to be rec 99 for the 99%

[woo me with science]

41. K&R

[rhett o rick]

43. I notice that none of the "Obama Group" have posted here. They are probably too busy

trying to dig up dirt on Greenwald.

[pa28]

44. Don't worry.

When the TPP comes up for Congressional approval they'll be along to defend the indefensible.

[rhett o rick]

45. What's fun is to ask them if they support the TPP, or fracking, or indefinite detention. They will

go for the distraction, like: "look there is Snowden and he is terrible." IMO they are more dangerous than the right-wing.

[DJ13]

60. they are more dangerous than the right-wing

They ARE the right wing, just with a (D) after their voter registration.

[L0oniX]

73. You're talking about the BOGies aren't you?

[rhett o rick]

74. I am talking about those that never discuss issues unless they pertain to the President. nm

[Recursion]

46. It's not as if not passing trade agreements stops jobs from going overseas

It's an attempt to have some control over it; it's not the cause.

That and we like to sell soybeans.

[rhett o rick]

62. So you support the TPP? nm

[Recursion]

68. Reading comprehension fail

The TPP is a symptom, not cause, of these economic trends we don't like. I oppose it (sometimes treating symptoms is what you can do) but stopping it won't stop the things in it from happening, just with no government influence over them.

[rhett o rick]

69. If you said that you support the TPP anywhere in your thread, then I will admit I missed it.

But I disagree that it's only a symptom. It is a very strong tool to be used by the international corporations to hamstring our sovereignty. We need to draw a line. Stopping it will not fix our imbalance of trade but is a step in the correct direction. Dont you agree?

[grahamhgreen]

76. Amazing how the pr machine will never answer a direct question on policy!!!

[rhett o rick]

77. I find it sadly amusing. They speak in some kind of code and when you try to guess what

the hell they mean, they get rude. Like this exchange. I guess he is trying to say that we would lose jobs even without the trade agreements so therefore dont sweat the TPP.

[blackspade]

49. Fuck the TPP

and anyone that votes for it.

[blkmusclmachine]

52. Trans-Pac = DC "bipartisanship" at work!

[historylovr]

54. K & R

[Cryptoad]

55. Now there is a non-bias study,,,,,,, LMAO! nt

[Progressive dog]

56. Some of the TPP countries are already developed

Canada, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand are ready to give up their citizens' jobs to countries like Mexico and Peru too. The one country I'm really worried about is Brunei, they have a population of 400,000.
That said, there has never been a reason for fast track and contacting your Representatives can't hurt.

[IDemo]

57. When I read "Third World America" by Arianna Huffington

I thought it was a somewhat chilling but perhaps overblown hypothesis. I have no doubt now that we are headed in that direction.

[kenny blankenship]

58. Oh I'm sure if that happened Obama would fix it later

Probably at the same time he revisits and corrects all the damage from NAFTA like he promised.

[woo me with science]

61. kick

[WinkyDink]

64. The fix is in. We are not a democracy; we are a de facto oligarchy, ruled by the Investor Class.

[Generic Other]

71. China even pays postage for imports to the US

I discovered this on Ebay. I pay 20 bucks to ship an item to Europe. Chinese pay zero. Who has the competitive advantage?

[L0oniX]

72. This deal is not Democratic in any way shape or form. No real Democrat would suggest this "deal".

[woo me with science]

75. kick