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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHere Comes The Hard Sell On The Transpacific Partnership Agreement
From Time today:
Voters Wont Like It, but We Have to Bring Back Free Trade
There was a time, not that long ago, when policymakers and economists didnt dare question free trade. The open exchange of clothes, cars, oranges, TV sets and everything else was almost universally upheld as a rock-solid route to prosperity. But over the past decade, free trade suffered a near death experience. The whole concept became a whipping boy for all sorts of economic evils. Workers, especially in advanced economies, blamed free trade for job losses to emerging nations and downward pressure on wages.
While its true that not everybody gains equally from free trade, there is no shortage of evidence that eliminating barriers to the flow of goods and services is beneficial for economies overall boosting exports, enhancing efficiency and reducing prices for consumers. But tell that to angry voters. In one 2012 survey, more than half of respondents in the U.S. believed the country should either renegotiate or pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), even though it had gone into effect 18 years earlier.
Politicians took note. Republicans and Democrats may not agree on much these days, but some have reached across the aisle in recent years to call for the repeal of NAFTA. Many governments soured on approving new pacts. A free-trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea took four years to ratify. International efforts to bring down trade barriers also stalled. The Doha Round of trade talks, which started in 2001 through the World Trade Organization, broke down over bitter differences between developed and developing nations. Doubts emerged that the deal could ever get done.
Free trade, though, has unexpectedly sprung back to life, with U.S. President Barack Obama wielding the defibrillator. In a reversal of his previous hesitance he too once expressed anti-NAFTA sentiments Obama is pressing hard for a couple of wide-ranging trade deals that would be the most important in two decades. Long-awaited negotiations began in July for a trade agreement between the U.S. and E.U., which would knit together countries with nearly half the worlds GDP into a massive free-trade zone. On the other side of the world, the U.S. is also pushing for the completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact that would include nations as far-flung as New Zealand, Peru and Malaysia. These deals, if finalized, would change the entire trade landscape, says Bruce Stokes, director of the global-economic-attitudes program at the Pew Research Center in Washington.
http://business.time.com/2013/09/17/voters-wont-like-it-but-we-have-to-bring-back-free-trade/
Autumn
(45,120 posts)This fucking thing has to be killed.
newfie11
(8,159 posts)It better be killed.
Autumn
(45,120 posts)I downloaded information about it. It's worse than I ever imagined
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023677222#post19
newfie11
(8,159 posts)I knew about most of this but there was more I didn't. There are many reasons this is not out for public viewing.
Why on earth is Obama pushing this. What is he getting out of it?
Unbelievable he's for it considering what his position was during the campaign.
I guess I should have known not to believe a politician.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)Damn stake just won't take.
djean111
(14,255 posts)I won't forget either - and no one who champions it gets my vote or support.
Not sure why Obama needs support - he doesn't need voters any more. Obviously. But Hillary - I will not vote for her no matter what. The lesser evil gap is the only gap that is closing.
The Magistrate
(95,257 posts)It beggars the many and benefits only the few.
whathehell
(29,096 posts)G_j
(40,372 posts)for those who like child labor...
solarhydrocan
(551 posts)djean111
(14,255 posts)I suppose "better" is such an elusive word, now that I think about it - in this case, better for corporations and the 1%.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Trade agreements have deindustrialized my state. It has hurt working class Americans. Stop with the GD trade agreements!
You heard me. I don't like him.
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Then, if it is defeated, we can hear more spin about 11 dimension chess and shit.
cali
(114,904 posts)there have only been a few people trying to spin it, but they've just outright lied and denied.
President Obama is pushing the hell out of this.
KansDem
(28,498 posts)No "shortage of evidence?" What "evidence?"
Where has Michael Schuman been? Doe he really think free trade is "beneficial for economies overall?" All he has to do is walk around a bit and see how "beneficial" free trade has been...
fasttense
(17,301 posts)Detroit and other cities destroyed because stockholders and CEOs decided to move our jobs out of our country (but they still sell their crap here),
An economic crisis that doesn't seem to go away (except for the uber rich, lucky sperm club winners),
The worst economic crash since the last RepubliCON Great Depression,
Spiraling down wages and vast unemployment, and
An undeserved bailout for a bunch of crooks on Wall Street.
I could go on but sometimes I think I'm just screaming into the wind.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)It looks good "on paper" but of course it sucks in practice. As in, "My feet are in ice water and my head is in an oven: Overall it averages out that I feel fine"
His arguments are the exact same canards that were always used since the 80's to push trade deals.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts):barf:
We need FAIR trade reinstated. Fuck a bunch of fascists. When are
we going to declare the Koch Machine, et. al., enemies-of-the-state?
bvar22
(39,909 posts)...and this is ALL just a part of another brilliant Master Plan to have America soundly reject MORE (race-to-the-bottom)Union Busting Free Trade?
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)From your article I can only guess two possibilities, first you have paid very little attention to the economy, or you were ordered to write an article like this by your masters.
If you can not understand that the United States is unsustainable as a country if rampant capitalism is not reigned in; I have to question your intelligence or powers of observation. In spite of the spin put on specific carefully selected quotes from the founders of the country, political power is suppose to be in the hands of the citizens.Not in the hands of a few.
Many people, evidently far more intelligent that you, have warned us over and over not to let moneyed interests interfere with the government of the people (Jefferson, Washington, Hancock, Addams, Paine, Madison, Eisenhower, 2 Roosevelt', to name a few). We, as a people, have had to repeatedly beat back the attempted conquest of our country from within (at least 3 times, 1901, the 1930s and now).
At the present point, I think simply halting the abuse and continuing on is acceptable. The 1% has had a good run, they should be happy with that and back their foot off our necks. We haven't started the conversation about any sort forcible removal and impounding/redistribution of accumulated wealth, yet. I remind you this has happened time and time again though World history.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)ASS...HOLE!
Nothing new here. Uses the same canards all the other shills have used to push trade for the past three decades.
What was that one adage/ditty that Noam Chomsky related once, regarding elitist plutocrat groupthink? He really nailed it.
"The poor complain, they always will; but that's just idle chatter -- Our system works for all of us; or at least those of us that matter"