Posted on 06/11/2015 7:53:32 AM PDT by xzins
Congress should not grant President Barack Obama authority to conclude another free trade agreement in Asia, because it would lower American wages and exacerbate income inequality.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would eliminate tariffs and lower other regulatory barriers to trade and investment among the United States, South Korea, Japan and nine other Pacific Rim nations.
In March 2012, President Obama inaugurated a free trade pact with South Korea and in many ways, it provides a template for what we may expect from a broader TPP.
Imports from South Korea are up 3.6 billion, U.S. exports are down marginally and the U.S. trade deficit with the Asian nation has swelled to 5 billion. That free trade deal alone has killed about 25,000 American jobs — mostly in high paying manufacturing activities — and added to downward pressures on wages and worsened income inequality.
Campaigning in 2008, candidate Obama promised to fix problems like those but he has been weak about confronting Chinese mercantilism, and the $350 billion bilateral trade deficit costs American workers at least 3 million jobs and greatly suppresses wages.
Over the years, China, South Korea and Japan have violated WTO and International Monetary Fund rules by purposefully undervaluing their currencies to subsidize exports and raise prices for otherwise competitive U.S. products in their markets.
Such currency manipulation would wipe out the benefits American businesses may expect from the TPP — just as it has done for bilateral deals struck with China, Japan and South Korea — by eliminating tariffs and reducing other barriers to trade.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
So you’re against private property and free trade? Keep in mind that those are the two economic items that kept America from being poor and 3rd world.
You recognize that spending money at your grocer, who buys nothing from you nor forces you to buy, doesn’t cause you to lose your job?
You, like most who fall for these so-called free trade agreements, are refusing to connect the dots, whether out of ignorance, or some personal gain from such agreements. Or, it's just an ideology some latched onto and they can't admit how harmful it has been in reality.
So-called free trade has been good for transnational corporations, some agricultural concerns, some investors, and the politicians bought and paid for by the transnationals.
But it has been bad for the USA in general, and especially for those who worked in manufacturing and the towns where plants were once located, and the peripheral businesses that once existed in those towns.
Why do you think we had such a bill as the Trade Adjustment Assistance Bill? That's because they know these agreements will send more plants and jobs to cheap labor nations. These sorts of bills and so-called retraining bills have been around for years, but they bring few results.
The increasing earnings disparity in the US is real, and these agreements are a main reason for it. They reward the top 10% or so at the expense of the middle and lower wage earners. Earnings at the lower and middle levels have been flat or declining for a couple of decades. And few new, good paying jobs are being created at the middle and lower end of the earning scale. The jobs being lost to these agreements are either not replaced at all, or by lower paying, service industry jobs. - We do have the lowest labor force participation rate in many years.
And this loss of jobs and loss of earning potential has absolutely put more and more people in long term unemployment and on one or more government poverty programs which now cost a trillion dollars per year. EITC is also one of those programs. One in five heads of household in the US is now on one or more poverty programs. And that increases government spending and budget deficits.
If you think the above paragraph is not true, then you truly are ignorant, out-of-touch, or in denial for some reason, or maybe just too in love with your free trade ideology.
Serves them right. American workers don’t give him the size of campaign contributions which Chinese tycoons do. < / sarcasm >
Blocking trade hurts people and diminishes wealth.
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Stealing peoples jobs, and lowering their pay, exporting our industry and creating bigger and bigger trade deficits is what NAFTA did. This new deal will be THE MOTHER OF ALL NAFTAs.
the grocer... gives you..... one gallon of milk and 12 eggs
you give..... the grocer... 6 dollars.
Whats happening with this MOTHER OF ALL NAFTAs is
the grocer gives you half a gallon of milk and 6 eggs
you give the grocer 6 dollars IN FOOD STAMPS and YOUR JOB.
Let’s define some terms before we go on. In your own words what is:
1. Stealing a job?
2. A trade deficit?
3. NAFTA?
Let’s define some terms before we go on. In your own words what is:
1. Stealing a job?
2. A trade deficit?
3. NAFTA?
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I thought you knew. Sorry.
Who would want an American to do the job?
They are lazy and will not fix problems quickly. They work very slow and demand a lot of money for little or no work. The quality of work is so so.
If I were a business I would export the work outside the country or import people who will do the job.
There are 325 million people in America. And you say they are all lazy, not able to solve problems, slow, and demanding of high wages.
Do you really believe that?
My experience leads me to believe that.
Trying to get anything done involves all kinds of delays, costs, etc.
It seems like they always find ways not to do work. It is really sad.
325 million?
There are NO good workers here? You’re not serious are you?
I don’t think people work hard.
The only ones that seem to work hard are those who just came here.
This is just an observation and my experience.
You need to get out more
I know people I’d put up against anyone of any era ever.
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