Prospect: Warren's stunning plan for trade

[blm]

https://prospect.org/article/warrens-stunning-plan-trade?fbclid=IwAR3jvru56K9In6tCF0ih3TYAed22UegPOru6syvbBfwXWEkJQlcfDgfzNBk#.XUXE7SQSxAY.facebook

Just when you think Elizabeth Warren can’t do it again, she does it again. Trade has been a bewildering issue for Democrats. Corporate Democrats have bought the view that anything that dismantles “barriers” is good economics, even if the result undermines the very brand of managed capitalism that has been the Democrats’ signature since FDR. Labor Democrats have been branded “protectionists,” even when they are resisting the overt protectionism of other nations such as China.
——
——
Now comes Warren with a comprehensive restatement of how trade works and the need for a wholly new trade policy. It is so good, fresh, and brilliant that I just want to quote the whole thing, which you should read for yourself. Here’s the link. I almost want to cry, because I’ve been banging my head against this wall since the early 1980s in scores of articles and books, and here is a political leader who finally gets it and who can surely teach me something. Warren begins:

For decades, big multinational corporations have bought and lobbied their way into dictating America’s trade policy. Those big corporations have gotten rich but everyone else has paid the price. We’ve lost millions of jobs to outsourcing, depressed wages for American workers, accelerated climate change, and squeezed America’s family farmers. We’ve let China get away with the suppression of pay and labor rights, poor environmental protections, and years of currency manipulation. All to add some zeroes to the bottom lines of big corporations with no loyalty or allegiance to America.

As President, I won’t hand America’s leverage to big corporations to use for their own narrow purposes—I’ll use it to create and defend good American jobs, raise wages and farm income, combat climate change, lower drug prices, and raise living standards worldwide. We will engage in international trade—but on our terms and only when it benefits American families.

Warren’s trade program will “use our leverage to force other countries to raise the bar on everything from labor and environmental standards to anti-corruption rules to access to medicine to tax enforcement. If we raise the world’s standards to our level and American workers have the chance to compete fairly, they will thrive—and millions of people around the world will be better off too.”
—————

[hedda_foil]

1. Brava Elizabeth! This is the policy I've been waiting for since Reagan darkened the dawn.

[dawg day]

2. She has such a great way of explaining complicated things-

I remember Bill Clinton had that gift, and Obama -- but with Obama, he was better at explaining complex emotions, not ideas.

When she explains, I can hear the entire person she is-- the poor kid from a working class family who became a public school teacher, and only after that the Harvard professor and economic expert... the one who never forgot where she came from.

She knows how to explain complexity because she knows what it's like to be the daughter of working man and a student who can't afford a prestigious school, and the professor who has to slice and dice difficult knowledge for students... and the senator who has to come up with policies that address real-world problems... while knowing there are no simple solutions.

You know, I think she might be kind of a meld of the Clintons-- Bill's emotional intelligence and Hillary's plain old intelligence.

[BlueMTexpat]

7. Perceptive

comment, IMO!

You know, I think she might be kind of a meld of the Clintons-- Bill's emotional intelligence and Hillary's plain old intelligence.

[PatrickforO]

3. To my mind, Warren is by far the strongest candidate policy-wise.

I'm an economist, and her plans are sound, fair and I believe they will work.

As she says, "She has a plan!"

Just an outstanding candidate. I will be very, very proud to support her through the primaries and into the general election, which she CAN win.

Handily.

[True Blue American]

4. Elizabeth is one

Brilliant economist. She is also Republicans worst fear.

They refused to let her run the agency she created so she ran for the Senate, dumping Playgirl Brown and has frustrated them ever since!

[blm]

5. On that same page

[BlueMTexpat]

6. As someone who is a long-time supporter of

internationalism, I was delighted to see this reference in the link.

"In contrast to Trump’s bombast that is mainly about hollow symbols and delivers nothing, Warren’s approach would make trade work for the vast majority of Americans, not just corporations and banks. If you think this is utopian, this is exactly how trade was to be used under the Bretton Woods Accords of 1944." (emphasis mine)

https://www.thebalance.com/bretton-woods-system-and-1944-agreement-3306133

The 1944 Bretton Woods agreement established a new global monetary system. It replaced the gold standard with the U.S. dollar as the global currency. By so doing, it established America as the dominant power in the world economy. After the agreement was signed, America was the only country with the ability to print dollars.

The agreement created the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. These U.S.-backed organizations would monitor the new system.
...
The Collapse of the Bretton Woods System
In 1971, the United States was suffering from massive stagflation. That's a deadly combination of inflation and recession. It was partly a result of the dollar's role as a global currency. In response, President Nixon started to deflate the dollar's value in gold. Nixon revalued the dollar to 1/38 of an ounce of gold, then 1/42 of an ounce.

But the plan backfired. It created a run on the U.S. gold reserves at Fort Knox as people redeemed their quickly devaluing dollars for gold. In 1973, Nixon unhooked the value of the dollar from gold altogether. Without price controls, gold quickly shot up to $120 per ounce in the free market. The Bretton Woods system was over.

We MUST defeat tRump and the GOP!! Pretty soon we'll have NO global standing and NO global credibility whatsoever.

Elizabeth is exactly the kind of fighter that we need: both at home and abroad. She "gets" it.