Robert Reich: Trans Pacific Trickle-Down Economics

[eridani]

Reich actually tried to enforce labor protections, and was not able to. I think he'd know.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/05/04/trans-pacific-trickle-down-economics

In fact, the long stagnation of American wages began with Reaganomics. Wages rose a bit under Bill Clinton, and then started plummeting again under George W. Bush. Trickle-down economics proved a cruel hoax. The new jobs created under Reagan and George W. Bush paid lousy wages, the old jobs paid even less, and we ended up with whopping federal budget deficits.

Then came the bailout of Wall Street in 2008. It was sold as the means of preserving the economy. It ended up preserving the jobs and exorbitant pay of bankers, but millions of Americans lost their shirts. Small savers were wiped out, and homeowners never got the refinancing they were promised.

No conditions were put on the Wall Street banks for what they were supposed to do for the rest of us in return for our bailing them out. None of their top executives even went to jail for causing the crash in the first place.

Here again, nothing trickled down.Now comes the Trans Pacific Partnership. It’s being sold as a way to boost the U.S. economy, expand exports, and contain China’s widening economic influence. In fact, it’s just more trickle-down economics.

<snip>


Supporters of the deal say it contains worker protections. I heard the same thing when, as secretary of labor, I was supposed to implement the worker protections in the North American Free Trade Act.

I discovered such provisions are unenforceable because of how difficult it is to discover if other nations are abiding by them. On the rare occasion when we found evidence of a breach we had no way to force the other nation to remedy it anyway.

The Trans Pacific Partnership is far larger than NAFTA – covering 40 percent of America’s global trade. If it’s enacted, American workers and consumers will be made even worse off because of another provision that allows global corporations to sue countries whose health, safety, labor, or environmental regulations crimp their corporate profits.

It establishes a tribunal outside any nation’s legal system that can force a nation to reimburse global corporations for any such “losses.” Big tobacco is already using an identical provision to sue developing nations that are trying to get their populations off nicotine. The tobacco companies are demanding these nations compensate them for lost cigarette sales.

[djean111]

1. How can anyone be for this thing? Unless compensated, of course. One way or another. nt

[Hoyt]

2. Robert, why didn't you push for sanctions in NAFTA? Fortunately Obama is correcting your failure

in the TPP.

[eridani]

3. The TPP is several orders of magnitude worse than NAFTA

Sanctions would be enforced like labor rights have been enforced, which is to say not at all. You have to wonder about cheerleaders for TPP when even Hillary has come out against it.

[Hoyt]

4. Nope, there are trade sanctions . I guess you guys would rather we send in the troops or something.

[eridani]

5. I would rather we just shitcanned all of these generic agreements

Nothing wrong with old-fashioned bilateral treaties.