This is why I want killfiles on BB-BBS.
Based on the writing style, I think this is one of the Toronto pro-Ford trolls who’s wandered over based on Cory’s coverage.
Dave From Scarborough^WGeorgetown^WEtobicoke, is that you?
That’s quite the informative and well-thought reply you’ve got there. What’s that word? Ad-vertise. Ad-ditive. Ad-hominen, yes, that’s it, Ad-hominem?
Also, how often do you beat your wife?
No, that is not the point of trade treaties. In fact, if you look at the economic wreckage that followed NAFTA and the other trade treaties of the past two decades you would know that the point of these treaties is to enrich large multinational corporations at the expense of the economies of the respective nations.
The fact that the Times comes from the perspective that trade treaties are designed to help economies rather than enrich already rich corporations shows the lie to its “impartial” and “objective” reportage and editorializing. This is the subtle technique of neoliberal “rebranding”, which takes policies that destroy national economies and purposely confuses the advantages to the plutocracy with advantages to the nation. This is also how GDP works (counting destructive economic activity as productive), as well as the incessant focus on the stock and bond markets as indicators of “recovery”. That’s where the notion of a “jobless recovery” comes from, as if such a phenomenon should hold any interest or import for the actual people who can’t find jobs or are watching their incomes dwindle during the supposed “recovery”.
That you don’t see the distinction is just more proof of the effectiveness of what is truthfully just blatant propagandizing on behalf of an oligarchic corporate/state nexus.
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Its curious that, given the history of the previous trade treaties of the past two decades and the current state of the US economy, the Times feels confident the TPP will do anything but continue to destroy the US economy. Of course, if you think the economy consists of stock prices, bond prices and GDP growth, then you might like these trade treaties. But if you think the economy consists of the economic welfare of the American people as a whole then the past decades of trade treaties have been massively destructive, offshoring/outsourcing of good jobs to poor nations and forcing desperate people into “mcjobs” that pay starvation wages all while enriching the predatory multinationals that actually write these treaties.
The Times is a firmly neoliberal establishment paper, and by ignoring the wreckage that is the US economy caused by four decades of trade “liberalization” and globalization, and by conflating and purposely confusing that which is good for American multinational corporations with what is good for the American people, they establish a massive lie in place of the obvious fact that another treaty like NAFTA will just add to the wreckage that is the US economy.
How does it feel to be so effectively propagandized you don’t even know you are being brainwashed? I imagine it feels pretty good. Until you wake up and you can’t find a job that will support your family anymore. But til then just keep drinking that kool-aid.
Right. Anyone who disagrees with you must be some sort of brainwashed Kool-Aid drinker. A compelling style of argument, to be sure.
I suppose I could ask you how it feels to believe that, by virtue of being born in the USA, you deserve to have middle class jobs and one of the highest standards of living in recorded history while denying those in developing countries from the opportunity to drag themselves out of poverty via these jobs that have been outsourced from the US. I imagine it feels pretty unfair when other nations also try to participate in the ultra-capitalist American Dream, and end up out-competing you.
It’s also interesting how BoingBoing orthodoxy believes this treaty is bad primarily because of the sovereignty-breaching concessions it forces from non-US signatories, while your post (which will also gain a lot of support, I’m sure) essentially argues the opposite, saying that these treaties primarily benefit poorer nations at the expense of the mainstream US.
Finally, I’m not sure that free-trade agreements like NAFTA or the EU have actually damaged the economies or standards of living in the richer of the member nations (which is not to say there hasn’t been a strong decline in middle and lower class incomes since 1980). China’s domination isn’t the result of free trade agreements.
brutal, secret, Internet-destroying corporatist TPP trade-deal;
How many of these words used to describe TPP are hyperbole and how many are verifiable fact? We know the details of TPP are secret but the rest? Pure whargarble of the first water.
Right there with you. Deals like this are sometimes the only way to clean up some of the vested interest groups here in Japan.
You are wrong on all counts unfortunately. I never claimed that these treaties help poor countries at the expense of the US. And I don’t believe that we in the US have some superior right to middle class lives. We ALL have a right to healthy food, shelter, education and healthcare. These are human rights. Free trade agreements are hugely negative for all of the powerless people in all countries that sign them.
These treaties do less than nothing to help the poor in the countries that sign them, and your notion that past treaties or free trade have done much good for the poor in China or India, or wherever, is simply untrue. Sure, a tiny slice of those nations has gained some semblance of a middle class existence, but for the overwhelming majority they’ve traded a rural agrarian sustenance living for slave labor, starvation wages in dirty factories and shanty-towns. Just look at the “prosperity” NAFTA has brought to Mexico. In fact the only nations that have avoided the pollution, disease and poverty of neoliberal trade arrangements are those that have broken free from those chains.
Just look at the nations that have actual rising living standards for the masses of the poor: they are all “enemies” of the US, or are in disfavor here: Iran (whose greatest crime was shirking the neoliberal economic model, not funding “terrorism”), Argentina, Venezuela, Ecuador, Botswana…
These “trade” arrangements do nothing to help the people, and everything to create a tiny caste of extremely rich plutocrats in the nations involved, while destroying what little power the governments of these nations have to protect their environments and people. Nowhere did I argue that the sovereignty destroying provisions are unimportant, though you seem pretty comfortable with them. And nowhere did I say that these treaties benefit poorer nations.
And the fact that you are not sure that NAFTA, etc., have “actually damaged the economies or standards of living in the richer…” displays the effectiveness of your brainwashing. NAFTA, etc. have helped cause the loss of literally millions of good American manufacturing jobs. China’s domination of manufacturing is DIRECTLY the result of “free” trade agreements, combined with the simultaneous crushing of union labor and offshoring of American jobs. This state of affairs was engineered by the US financial sector that rewards firms that offshore jobs even if such moves are not economically sound. You probably think China has dominated manufacturing because it can pay its workers less. If that’s true, how does Germany maintain its economic position as manufacturing exporter to the world? Germany pays its manufacturing workers incredibly high wages compared to China. What magic do they have that the US doesn’t? The magic is the simple fact that labor costs are roughly 10% of manufacturing costs. Meaning that offshoring in the US was done not to save money or “remain competitive”, but to simultaneously destroy the bargaining position of US labor while essentially creating a gulag of disposable workers in nations these corporations don’t have to answer to. The US used to have the preeminent manufacturing sector in the world. Our products were the best-made and most reliable. Our workers were paid well for this effort because they had labor unions to protect. The Germans still have labor unions and high wages. Our system was gutted on purpose: it shifts more money from labor to management/administration, rather than creating cheaper products. Wake up. Pretty much everything you think you know is either wrong or simplified to the point that its nonsense. Your conflation of “what’s good” for the poor in poorer nations with “what’s good” for the oligarchs of those nations is just one example of your confusion.
You have utterly distorted what I wrote, and added your own special sauce to create a totally upside-down view of what I wrote and what these treaties represent. Great job.
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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.
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