Posted on 09/13/2015 8:09:08 AM PDT by Drew68
So you think Donald Trump’s demagoguery on immigration has created problems for the other GOP candidates? Well, another very ripe opportunity for Trump to make his GOP rivals even more miserable may be lurking right around the corner, and it could expose the same sort of schism between GOP elites and GOP voters that Trump’s forays into immigration policy have.
I’m talking about the massive global trade deal called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Some time in the next six months — in late 2015 or in early 2016 — the participating nations may finally reach a deal on the TPP. That may well come just when the GOP primaries are heating up.
Virtually all of the major GOP presidential candidates, including Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio, all support the TPP, as do Republican Congressional leaders.
But, in a little noticed move a few days ago, Trump signaled that he might be headed in a very different direction on the TPP soon enough. After his terrific and wonderful rally outside the Capitol the other day, Trump met with Senator Jeff Sessions, and both men enthusiastically recounted that they had had a good conversation about immigration and …. trade. Said Trump: “The meeting was great!”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Trump is the crony capitalist killer!!!!! :)
I take no pleasure either, hell I voted for him when he ran for US Senate! That being said, he deserve every bit of criticism thrown at him for his actions. He talks a GREAT game but based on his actions it appears to be mostly theater (just like the GOPe). Just another politician IMO which is why I absolutely do not trust him.
Go Trump. Give ‘em h*ll. Nobody else out there has the guts to tell dumbed down America the truth.
I don’t trust any of them. That includes Trump BTW.
I am hoping for the best, but I can’t say as any of them will do what I want. Cruz wouldn’t. If he wouldn’t, who would?
It’s very frustrating these days. That has driven me into the Trump camp.
At least the guy addresses issues from the Right perspective.
If he doesn’t follow through, how is that different than Cruz not following through on Corker or the support legislation for TPP?
And the political consultants who tell GOP puppets what to say to get elected...
Let’s tell the truth. Cruz is in a can’t win position because of money. TPP is where the money is in this election cycle.
Trump does not need money and that is a big advantage for him because he can assume the populists position instead of the corporate view.
I like Cruz even though I don’t think he will win the nomination, but has no money. It takes money to win and he is convinced that he can win. Cruz, like many of us, also bought into the corporate conservative view of free trade is good for all. There was a point when I believed it was true and it could lift everyone up, but over the years I have learned that the people in charge of free trade are those making millions off of it - not the workers. I don’t think many people have been lifted up by the surge in the markets since the bubble burst either. Free trade lifts the stock market and exports jobs. Anyone who has observed this for the last few decades must admit this truth.
There are two major interests that control international trade - the banksters and the global socialists. Neither group represents the American worker or average Joe. Many conservatives bought into the idea of “what is good for Wall Street is good for everyone.” Is that really true?
Consider for a second the growth in our national debt has largely been fueled by the Fed Reserve creating more dollars (a tax on us all - especially our children and grandchildren) to pump up the stock market and save the big corporations that own the politicians. What we have witnessed under both parties is the largest theft in history - it’s a grand ponzi scheme. The left wants to lift up the poor in developing nations. The right wants to create massive wealth in the hands of a few.
I am still not sure I trust Trump, but the fact that he does not buy into the conventional wisdom (I used to buy into it also) makes him very dangerous to very powerful people. Forget his stump speeches and listen to some of his more deliberate interviews and he has the potential to open some eyes to what I just said. The forces that will be against him are far greater than what we see now because he is a threat to the people who have perpetrated the theft from our children and they are firmly in control.
We all laughed at Occupy Wall Street because of “the crowd” and the way they went about it, but I will go on record and predict that the Tea Party may morph into the same message from the opposite side because the “theft” is at the center of everything right now. If Trump can capture that and open peoples eyes to “the theft” he will be attacked viciously from both sides of the aisle. The GOPe is owned by the corporations. The DNC is owned by global progressives. Both of them want free trade because it serves their interest.
I don’t think either party wants what is best for me or you anymore. They serve their masters.
“The consumer did not benefit as the marginal cost reduction from exploiting coolie labor was not passed on to the retailer and hence it went to the bottom line.”
True. The enhanced margins went into the hands of the speculators. Corporations divested manufacturing in favor of offshoring. The billions of dollars of capital once invested in productive equipment, as well as the improved margins, were handed over to the Wall Street banks to fund stock buybacks. Billions, if not trillions of dollars of capital were consumed in the stock market casino instead of being invested in modern equipment to make US manufacturing competitive.
Up to about 1970, American CEO’s followed a career path through sales and marketing where they learned to understand customers and producing products to meet customer needs or they came up through manufacturing and product development where they learned how to make products efficiently and deploy capital and labor effectively. Whether from sales/marketing or manufacturing, executives had to earn their stripes by actually producing something of value and being measured and rewarded for real results.
In the 1970’s the corporate staff financial executives and lawyers, with their MBA’s and law degrees, wrested power from the producer executives. These Ivy League educated administrative managers created “value” through financial manipulation and legal artifices, not by producing and selling products. Hence, instead of deploying corporate capital in the 1980’s and 1990’s to modernize the factories built in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the financial CEO’s teamed with Wall Street banks to put American industry through multiple waves of restructuring, downsizing, acquisition, divestiture, and offshoring. Production was sent overseas, balance sheets were leveraged, divisions were sold or shut down, employees were shed. Once great and mighty companies (US Steel, Burlington Industries, Westinghouse, and hundreds of others) stopped growing and innovating ceding entire markets and industries to foreign competitors.
Instead of innovating and investing in improving the productivity of their businesses, the financial CEO’s allied with big government to lower tariffs and quotas so the shedding of manufacturing assets could be financially justified. Once great American factories built in the 1950’s and 1960’s were shuttered and the capital to rebuild them was sent to build modern, efficient factories in foreign countries. The financiers also changed executive compensation from being primarily salary based to salary + megabonuses + lucrative stock options. Executive pay was manipulated to enrich the highest paid executives in the firm. In the previous era the CEO made 10 to 12X the annual pay of the factory worker. Under modern, highly manipulated executive compensation structures it is not uncommon for the CEO to make hundreds of times the wages of the lowest paid workers. Even the poorest performing CEO’s, many of whom destroyed their companies, walked away with millions of dollars in guaranteed bonuses, stock grants, and golden parachute severance payments. Meanwhile, US factory workers with decades of experience were forced to train their foreign replacements and then were cast aside with a few weeks of severance pay.
The modern concept of “free trade” has been an absolute failure for the US economy and the American worker. Like every failed government program its defenders and vested interests continue to claim success even in the face of facts that scream failure.
Slap a 30% or higher tariff on all imported goods. Put in place a corporate tax rate of 0% on profits made from US sourced raw materials and components in US factories while retaining a 30% profit rate on profits generated from overseas sourced products. Watch capital flow into US manufacturing and the creation of millions of middle class jobs. Better the IRA and 401K savings of American workers be invested in new factories, producing goods for American citizens, than continuing to put it in the hands of Wall Street mutual funds where it is churned in the stock market in order to siphon off billions in transaction fees which flow into the pockets of the speculators.
He’s also the only one that isn’t being funded (yet) by corporations and special interest groups. Every single elected official currently in office is beholden to their masters. They give to both parties, which is why we have a uniparty.
Excellent post just above this one - I posted a bit of thought prior to yours. While I agree in principle with what you said, it appears to me that we have all been sold the biggest lie in order to serve the interests of those who control both parties.
Increasingly, I think the people in charge are the ones who benefit from the theft. Consider our deficit - it went into someones pocket. Our infrastructure is not any better today nor is our quality of life. Where is our cut of 10 trillion dollars?
At the same time, more people are dependent on government for income and government grows. More of our wealth is transferred to the developing world. Serves the interests of the other side also.
They throw us all a bone every now and then, but Americans need to focus on the debt and wealth transfer that has occurred - this is at the center of everything. I am not saying the “issues” we get caught up in are not important - they are, but it seems like everyone ignores the biggest issue we face - debt. A debt that has been used by both sides to further the agenda of the moneyed interests that own them.
Our children and grandchildren have been screwed by both parties and it’s an absolute lie that we have been sold. We have mortgaged the future believing it would lift everyone in America up - it has not and will not. The uber rich left and uber rich right have become far more wealthy in the last few years. Jobs have been displaced from our nation to the 3rd world to make corporations and banksters more money without improving our standard of living. More people are on the public dole as a result.
What a lie we have been sold! On paper (like communism) it should have worked based on what we were told. It has not. I think many in the Tea Party understand this even if they have not admitted it the way I just framed it. Something is wrong. Perhaps Trump (who played the game quite well) is the person to open the eyes of America to the theft that has taken place. God help me, I sound like Elizabeth Warren for different reasons. My solution would be far different than hers, but maybe we are starting to see the same things from opposite banks on the river.
Amen to 89. See my thoughts above.
Excellent.
This is why the anti-Trump FR crowd fails to convert anyone when they scream about Trump’s past positions while arguing that the answer is simply to elect another career politician. It is an insane argument when you consider how both parties (actually the uniparty) have destroyed this country.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your take on this.
While I do think Wall Street and corporate America deserves to take it on the chin, both are potential champions for healthy Capitalism as well.
Thus I’m not a frothing at the mouth anti-Wall Street or Corporate critic. Some folks don’t realize these entities must exist.
It’s like the loan industry. It needs to be kept healthy by inside and outside players.
Well it doesn’t help. That’s for sure.
I am not anti-capitalism. However what we have now is crony-capitalism of the worst kind. Are we controlled by a moral leadership class that has our best interest at heart or by puppets with banksters pulling the strings.
The facts are undeniable when we look at it from a new perspective and it all revolves around the debt and government spending. Both parties have “pumped” money into the market “to save the market” through quantitative easing, stimulus, and increased government spending.
Where did that money go? Did we invest in our future or mortgage our future to preserve a failed system? My best guess is about 10 trillion of our debt has been devoted to saving the system. Where is the new infrastructure? Where are the new jobs? Where are the results that benefit everyone? They are not there - all we (and our children) are left with is a crushing debt to save what? Our standard of living has DROPPED despite 10 trillion dollars in spending!
The principles of conservatism are grounded in moral governance within the rule of a moral law. What is moral about the scam that has been perpetrated on the American people?
Is’nt it time we asked ourselves why we have a uniparty? What changed with the GOP taking over congress? Very little. We must ask why! What changed for me and you with our nation taking on 10 trillion (again - my best guess - probably even more) in debt? We are not talking about spending a few years of our income for something like a house. We are talking about many years of our entire GDP! It’s insane. It’s immoral and unethical. We are enslaving our children to the benefit of corporations, globalists, banksters, and hedge funds.
Again, like communism on paper, our model should work on paper. A wealthier economy should lift us all up, but it’s undeniable that it has not worked for even a majority of Americans despite spending like we have never seen before! Just like the concept of communism, maybe our free-market capitalist ideas discounted the greedy and power-hungry individuals among us who are immoral. We have elected them even as they are owned by the banksters. We have been sold a lie FRiend - it’s not the concept or idea that is wrong. If executed properly by moral men, our wealth should lift everyone up, but it has not.
Many folks who supported the tea party seemed to understand this idea even if they can’t put it into words. Many who supported “occupy Wall Street” seemed to understand it even if they can’t put it into words and the idea was represented by idiots defecating in the street.
We have been sold a lie. To me and you, it was framed as free-market capitalism. To the left it was framed as helping the poor. It has helped neither and greatly harmed our nation and it’s future to the benefit of a few.
We are not supporting the idea we both believe in - capitalism. We are supporting a lie. We are supporting an illusion that is framed in language we like, but in reality is something far more sinister.
Very well said.
I agree with your concerns and observations.
We have slipped away from a healthy situation. There’s no denying it.
We need to get it back under control.
The effort to destroy Trump is only beginning. The big money is relying on the GOPe and the media to bring him down right now and frankly, Trump may help them because he can be a loose cannon and many (including me) fear that he may self-destruct.
If he survives the initial attacks (and he has so far) the gloves will really come off because the people in control (the real power behind both parties) are protecting the theft I wrote about above. Trump is a threat to the system.
I thought his explanation of the vote on TPP was wuite clear. What the vote was about was to set the ground rules for when the treaty comes to the senate after negotiations have been completed, and the entire agreement is submitted. What Cruz was supporting was the same setup other recent presidenta have had with multilateral trade agreements. Basically, that once presented to congress, that the bill would be submitted for a straight up or down vote without amendments. This is because if you add any amendments to the bill you would essentially be throwing it out because those changes would then have to be renegotiated with all parties to it.
I actually agree with this position pretty much completely, because it makes sense with this type of treaty.
What I absolutely disagreed with was the entire concept of calling this treaty an “agreement” rather than what it is, in order to subvert the constitutional requirement of 2/3 approval for treaties.
The first part is necessary, whereas the second part is not.
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