Hey, I never said that you claimed these treaties help poor countries at the expense of the US: you totally ignored the effects these treaties would have on poor countries, and seemed only concerned with the effect on the US middle class.
As for your assertion that free trade agreements are hugely negative for all countries that sign them, I’m afraid that the evidence doesn’t seem to support this assertion. Part of the problem with your statement is that, despite the very real phenomenon of globalization, most of the countries you mention have not signed comprehensive (if any) free trade agreements with Western powers.
Your example of China is particularly bad. By virtually every measure, post-1976 China has recorded an astounding reduction in poverty and corresponding increase in life expectancy. You seem to think that subsistence farming is something that people find attractive, but the reality is that hundreds of millions of Chinese have voted with their feet and voluntarily moved to the city in search of higher wages, better opportunities, and increased prosperity. Yes, there is a lot of inequality in China, and it’s getting worse. But it’s also true that the vast majority of (poor) Chinese are better off than their parents were.
Iran is also a rather poor example if you want to cite rising standards of living for the poor (I haven’t visited the other countries so I’m not very familiar with them). Policies born from the Iran-Iraq war resulted in the theocracy encouraging families to have a lot of children, and employment prospects for youth are not good. There is widespread unemployment and a palpable sense of despair. The theocracy is widely reviled even amongst the religious, and in general the people are very Western-oriented and a very high number of youth express a strong desire to emigrate. The government attempts to placate the people by selling fuel at below-market prices, even though selling to foreign/Chinese purchasers at market prices would give them with cash that could be spent on more meaningful domestic projects. Foreign sanctions have also severely affected the economy, but things have been far from sunshine and roses in the Islamic Republic.
And why would the financial sector reward outsourcing even if it is not economically sound?
Here are a few ways that Germany continues to dominate manufacturing: they have strong unions and substantial state ownership of many industries; they have superior educational and vocational training institutions that provide the skilled and semi-skilled labour that business requires; joining the EMU has functionally deflated Germany’s currency and made its exports cheaper (if the US dollar was subject to true market fluctuations and not artificially inflated by virtue of it being the world’s reserve currency then US exports would also be substantially cheaper); and Germany manufactures extremely high quality, luxury goods.
Again with your compelling style of argument. Have you ever considered that you are the one who fired the opening salvos of misrepresentation and straw men? I mean, I wrote a rather neutral comment saying that the Editorial didn’t seem that pro-TPP and all of a sudden I’m being asked how it feels to be so brainwashed. If you want to argue in such condescending and belittling tones, you shouldn’t be surprised when people aren’t exactly receptive to your arguments.
I have no love for neoliberal trade policies (and in this respect your ammunition would be better directed at organizations like the World Bank and the IMF—who have typically demanded market reforms as a condition of assistance—than the relative handful of free trade agreements that have been executed), but this brainwashed, uninformed, totally simplistic, asleep-at-the-wheel, wrong, confused, special-sauce-adding, upside down commenter nevertheless finds a lot to disagree with in your posts.
