Trans-Pacific Partnership to Boost US Exports and Increase Wages

[Frodo]

‘Landmark’ Pacific Rim trade deal could boost U.S. exports

By David Nakamura and Jim Tankersley
January 25 at 5:01 AM

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[Higgs]

But muh protectionism helps the worker and muh TPP is for evil rich people.

[Potus]

The trade deal replaces 50,000 lower wage, lower skill manufacturing jobs with 50,000 higher wage, higher skill. Thus, the "wage growth" pointed to in the study is just an increase in the average.

This agreement breaks with the "rising tide" pattern of free trade agreements. After past expansions of trade, the deficit in skills between low and high skill was smaller. "Longterm unemployment and wage cuts" are exactly what folks wave away as the concerns of dumb rednecks and those uncivilized types.

Additionally, we have a pretty significant skills shortage in the economy. It's something like 5 million people. Compelling case against the trade agreement.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

But muh protectionism helps the worker and muh TPP is for evil rich people.

If you are one of the workers being displacec as this article acknowledges in low skilled manufacturing and that new job isn't going to be going to you, then yea this is not just a bad idea. This is a financial apocalypse for those families.

Failure to understand, failure to do anything to alleviate it, in preference to just letting them eat cake is precisely why we have Trump and Sanders now, it is only going to get worse. If people could just for a minute, put theirselves in that person's shoes and understand what they are going through, and seek to do something, anthing to help the situation politically might not be so bad. 

[Frodo]

The trade deal replaces 50,000 lower wage, lower skill manufacturing jobs with 50,000 higher wage, higher skill. Thus, the "wage growth" pointed to in the study is just an increase in the average.

This agreement breaks with the "rising tide" pattern of free trade agreements. After past expansions of trade, the deficit in skills between low and high skill was smaller. "Longterm unemployment and wage cuts" are exactly what folks wave away as the concerns of dumb rednecks and those uncivilized types.

Additionally, we have a pretty significant skills shortage in the economy. It's something like 5 million people. Compelling case against the trade agreement.

If you are one of the workers being displacec as this article acknowledges in low skilled manufacturing and that new job isn't going to be going to you, then yea this is not just a bad idea. This is a financial apocalypse for those families.

Failure to understand, failure to do anything to alleviate it, in preference to just letting them eat cake is precisely why we have Trump and Sanders now, it is only going to get worse. If people could just for a minute, put theirselves in that person's shoes and understand what they are going through, and seek to do something, anthing to help the situation politically might not be so bad.  

Isn't that why Congress passed Trade Adjustment Assistance along with Trade Promotion Authority last year?  

And let's not forget the Trade Enforcement Act that was passed more recently.  

[Potus]

The trade deal replaces 50,000 lower wage, lower skill manufacturing jobs with 50,000 higher wage, higher skill. Thus, the "wage growth" pointed to in the study is just an increase in the average.

This agreement breaks with the "rising tide" pattern of free trade agreements. After past expansions of trade, the deficit in skills between low and high skill was smaller. "Longterm unemployment and wage cuts" are exactly what folks wave away as the concerns of dumb rednecks and those uncivilized types.

Additionally, we have a pretty significant skills shortage in the economy. It's something like 5 million people. Compelling case against the trade agreement.

If you are one of the workers being displacec as this article acknowledges in low skilled manufacturing and that new job isn't going to be going to you, then yea this is not just a bad idea. This is a financial apocalypse for those families.

Failure to understand, failure to do anything to alleviate it, in preference to just letting them eat cake is precisely why we have Trump and Sanders now, it is only going to get worse. If people could just for a minute, put theirselves in that person's shoes and understand what they are going through, and seek to do something, anthing to help the situation politically might not be so bad.  

Isn't that why Congress passed Trade Adjustment Assistance along with Trade Promotion Authority last year?  

And let's not forget the Trade Enforcement Act that was passed more recently.  

Barring systemic tax, regulatory, foreign commerce, and education reform, the only form of "trade assistance" is to depopulate manufacturing cities and pay for degrees. When the bureaucrats and well-meaning leftists design these bills, they think, "Wonderful! We will appropriate a massive sum of money for degree and everyone will go to work engineering solar panels and coding! Wonderful!"

The reality is, we pass TPP and 50,000 families are destroyed in their wake. After a few months, some suit from DC tries to convince you to move and enroll in some government program. Out of pride, community connections, and the life you've lived, you don't go. So we have just destroyed 50,000 without real, effective efforts to provide a future for them.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The trade deal replaces 50,000 lower wage, lower skill manufacturing jobs with 50,000 higher wage, higher skill. Thus, the "wage growth" pointed to in the study is just an increase in the average.

This agreement breaks with the "rising tide" pattern of free trade agreements. After past expansions of trade, the deficit in skills between low and high skill was smaller. "Longterm unemployment and wage cuts" are exactly what folks wave away as the concerns of dumb rednecks and those uncivilized types.

Additionally, we have a pretty significant skills shortage in the economy. It's something like 5 million people. Compelling case against the trade agreement.

If you are one of the workers being displacec as this article acknowledges in low skilled manufacturing and that new job isn't going to be going to you, then yea this is not just a bad idea. This is a financial apocalypse for those families.

Failure to understand, failure to do anything to alleviate it, in preference to just letting them eat cake is precisely why we have Trump and Sanders now, it is only going to get worse. If people could just for a minute, put theirselves in that person's shoes and understand what they are going through, and seek to do something, anthing to help the situation politically might not be so bad. 

Isn't that why Congress passed Trade Adjustment Assistance along with Trade Promotion Authority last year? 

And let's not forget the Trade Enforcement Act that was passed more recently. 

Token measures for those in power to convince themselves that they have "helped" and that the poor saps are just too stupid to self-improve. Of course the reality is, the assistance never translates and never delivers the goods. Communities are depopulated, revenues vanish and school systems fall into disrepair leading to a massive decline in the long term economic prospects for those areas. Crime moves into the bombed out factories and the housing prices plummet as well because people are moving out and no one is moving in.

[Frodo]

So the TAA is inadequate to the task -how would you improve upon it then?  What changes do you propose?  

Potus, can you elaborate upon what you said earlier about systemic reforms?

[Potus]

So the TAA is inadequate to the task -how would you improve upon it then?  What changes do you propose?  

Potus, can you elaborate upon what you said earlier about systemic reforms?

It's a bit of a conservative wish list. Our tax code is a disaster and needs shredded and redone. Our corporate rate is disastrous for jobs and growth. The lack of territorial taxation disadvantages US companies. Regulations with the force of law are enacted at will with no congressional oversight or attention paid to rules on the books or the necessity of the ruling. The economic impact of regulations are terrific and their quality of life improvements are small. We need to act like the strongest consumer market in the world. Our foreign commerce policies let China get away with large scale cheating and we don't ask for lower trade barriers proportional to the market access we provide to other nations. Our education system has been dry rotted by particularly powerful, particularly reform-allergic special interests and a bureaucracy, increasingly federal in nature, that is complicit in placing buzz words over learning and feelings over skills. Holding students to a competitive standard and opening the floodgates of innovation are the two big ingredients to our education reform recipe.

The list extends beyond this, too. Substance abuse has destroyed human and social capital in whole swathes of the country. Infrastructure decline has weakened the link between manufacturing and commerce. Our political rhetoric has shifted from a conversation about the distribution of the rising tide to the sharing and cutting of the existing pie. The system, the status quo, the Establishment, whatever you want to call it is an enemy of entrepreneurship and the American idea. Trade agreements are great things when we do them right, but TPP is going to have to wait until we can really dismantle the anti-growth, anti-prosperity status quo.

[Seneca]

The Washington Post might as well be the Ministry of Truth with a title like that.

[beaver2.0]

I doubt it.

[Rick Grimes]

i think it is obvious that obama was suckered into doing this deal by the mormon mafia. maybe he twisted some arms with some republicans 2 make it better.

[Frodo]

Can't believe I missed this:

U.S. trade panel says TPP would have small positive effect on growth

Reuters
May 18, 2016 7:12 PM
By David Lawder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

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[RaphaelDLG]

Those headlines from those outlets/the panel were never going to NOT say anything positive about the TPP.

I'm in favor of free trade theoretically and strongly against protectionism, the logic is sound that it increases wealth in aggregate, its just that the benefits have tended to disproportionately go to transnational corporations/the 1% and such a bargain must include robust democratic socialist proposals like education, infrastructure and research investments in affected geographic areas, etc and not small token proposals.  We're not going to get that when greedy multinationals run Congress and skillfully avoid taxation.

Also, the TPP is a fairly modest increase in trade for markets that are already pretty open, and the frightening secret parts of it designed at strengthening an already out of control patent system are unacceptable.

The necessity of "pivoting to asia" and therefore passing the TPP so the US doesn't miss out on a leadership role there has been played up by obama and certain writers; i'm a trade and foreign policy novice, so I'm not willing to dismiss this assertion and want to read a lot more about it but I also have a healthy skepticism for such rhetoric.