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from the not-surrendering-to-corporations-for-now dept.
Common Dreams reports
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said [August 25] that the U.S. Senate will not vote on the 12-nation, corporate-friendly Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) this year, buoying progressive hopes that the trade deal will never come to fruition.
[...] McConnell told a Kentucky State Farm Bureau breakfast in Louisville that the agreement, "which has some serious flaws, will not be acted upon this year".
Common Dreams also reports
Germany's Vice Chancellor and Economic Minister said that the controversial Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has "de facto failed", admitting that negotiations between the U.S. and E.U. have completely stalled.
"Negotiations with the U.S. have de facto failed because, of course, as Europeans, we couldn't allow ourselves to submit to American demands", Sigmar Gabriel told the German news station ZDF [1][2] in an interview that will air at 7pm German time [August 28], according to Der Spiegel. [1]
"Everything has stalled", Gabriel said.
[1] In German [2] Content behind scripts
Reported by BBC, in English.
In 14 rounds of talks, the two sides had not agreed on a single common chapter out of 27 being discussed, Mr Gabriel said. "In my opinion the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it," said Mr Gabriel.
He suggested Washington was angry about a deal the EU struck with Canada, because it contained elements the US does not want to see in the TTIP.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:35PM
I've always been struck that the crowd here and on the green site are rabid free software fans but are mostly, bitterly opposed to free trade agreements.
That's not a logical contradiction, but it seems to be a contradiction in spirit. Free software and free trade are both about breaking down barriers, promoting global collaboration and the free flow of ideas. They are about embracing the future with open arms instead of cowering behind the oak desk.
In both cases, economically there will be winners and losers. Barriers protect jobs, and sometimes we will benefit but other times we will be the ones sent packing. Free software didn't do a lot for those who spent much of their careers building expertise in proprietary product lines. If those workers had organized a national protest against free and open source software, I'm sure people here would laugh at them for being stuck in their ways. In fact there were countless posts on the other site mocking Steve Ballmer for calling Linux a "cancer" and so forth. A site, Groklaw, was launched to protect free software against legal threats from The SCO Group.
Don't we have confidence in our abilities to pick ourselves up and move forward? Are we so dependent on cushy, tenured careers at the likes of IBM, Microsoft, and Disney?
Free trade boosts the economy for all countries involved. It creates jobs in all countries involved. And China is not a part of TPP - they're hoping it will fail so they can dominate southeast Asia economically.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:56PM
George Soros sends his thanks. The check is in the mail.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:00PM
Free trade deals aren't really free trade. It'll be barrier-free access to labor and pollution dumping grounds but not to goods and ideas. We'll get to pay US pharmaceuticals prices with Chinese wages.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Monday August 29 2016, @03:14PM
Just because the word Free is in both, does not mean they are related, in spirit or otherwise.
And it does not necessarily mean it has to do anything with free, or with boosting the economy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday August 29 2016, @04:09PM
From what I've seen, it has little to do with "free trade" and everything to do with handing control of the signatory countries to the corporations that have created the deal.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Monday August 29 2016, @07:37PM
"Free trade boosts the economy for all countries involved. It creates jobs in all countries involved."
I seem to remember the economy doing better in the 1960's before we had so much of this free trade. I was around then. In 1967 Walter Cronkite reported to the American people in a story about robotics and automation that economists are predicting the work week will be 30 hours or less by the year 2000. Free trade both creates jobs and simultaneously destroys others. The jobs it creates are non-union with no benefits or pensions. That's hardly a win for the working class. The benefits of free trade accrue mostly to the wealthy. They don't cover that part of it in the discussion of "comparative advantage" in Econ 101.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @08:05PM
After WW II America ruled the global economy for twenty years while the rest of the world caught up - Europe and Japan were rebuilding, and the developing world was, well, still developing.
Then OPEC rose in the '70s and suddenly oil became a scarce commodity. And consumers discovered that it was possible to buy a car that got more than 20 mpg and didn't fall apart within five years. And the Viet Nam war ended, which was a good thing, but it also slowed down massive expenditures on defense. And the space program wound down.
Bottom line is that 1945-1970 was a special, one off deal for the American economy, once in a lifetime.
We got a taste of that in the 1995-1999 dotcom era but that was much shorter; so was the 2003-2006 home mortgage bubble. Those types of boom-and-bust within a decade will be more typical moving forward.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Monday August 29 2016, @09:15PM
"Bottom line is that 1945-1970 was a special, one off deal for the American economy, once in a lifetime."
If we accept that, then that is what it will be. On the other hand, if we try to figure out what went right, we may be able to repeat it, and hopefully not only for America but for the world. One of the things that went right, in my opinion, is that workers in the American economy got enough clout through collective bargaining to demand a share of the wealth that they were creating. We need to demand that we get that back, but by "we" I mean not just American workers, but workers everywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:33PM
Agree that back then the auto and steel workers had excellent wages, benefits and pensions. But there was no incentive for them to cut costs or make better products. Their definition of "better" was sexier, i.e. more sporty, flashier looking, more cabin space. The cars still fell apart after a few years and fit-and-finish was left to the dealers in many cases. You may remember the knowing "joke" that you want a car that was made on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday because that's when most of the crew would be present in the factory, and not sloshed.
And Detroit's small cars were a joke - remember the Vega, Nova, and Pinto? That's because they couldn't figure out how to make money on small cars, so they didn't put any effort into designing or making them.
That's not a slam on autoworkers, that's what happens when you have a oligopoly where a few big companies control the market for an extended period of time. Today, same thing with telcos and CATV. The service is terrible and overpriced. That's why we need competition from multiple quarters.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 29 2016, @09:27PM
One of the odd things about economics is that it's one of the few fields where what Econ 102 is all about is how everything you learned in Econ 101 is wrong.
As for why it's wrong: The real problem the economy is facing is that there isn't enough work to do for everyone to work enough to earn enough to make ends meet. And the only possible solution available to those people doing the work is to work harder, which means there's even more surplus labor. Theoretically, we could solve the problem by adjusting everyone's pay upwards and hours downwards, but no employer gains a competitive advantage by doing that, so none of them do. And because the employers are the ones with deep pockets and political clout, they can put the kibosh on any attempts for the government to push pay upwards and hours downwards. So the end result is that as technology improves, conditions for large masses of humanity get worse, not better.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @09:04PM
+1
Worthy of mention is that it's also true for open borders, the free circulation of workers across national boundaries.
It is on the other hand also true that many trade deals contain the opposite of free trade, such as the disastrous copyright and patent extensions in TPP. That trade deal it not a free trade agreement, even if some industries get barriers lowered; It's a huge corporate pork barrel, detrimental to most workers and consumers from all timezones.
But it's worth stressing out the fact that free circulation of goods and people are net positives for the economy, both in theory and in empirical findings. Fear (and bad corporate-sponsored trade deals) should not hold us back.
And we should consider strengthening the labor market policies and social safety nets to accompany those on the losing end of the bargain: overall does not mean for everyone.
- Some actual economist
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:06AM
Free trade is one of those things that sounds good in theory but in reality has a whole bunch of unintended consequences that nobody forsees, like NAFTA destroying Mexico's economy [commondreams.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 31 2016, @01:30AM
Free software is almost the exact opposite of free trade if you take the TPP.
It's whole purpose is to force American IP and similar laws on other countries so that they have to accept infinity -1 copyrights etc.
All the countries involved already have free trade agreements with each other. This is just to make it easier to move money about and override the laws countries you don't agree with. Free software would be all the countries competing with different laws/ideas and doing what is best for their country. TPP is America telling everyone whats best for them and forcing them to do it. Take this binary blob and use it or you will have no access to our markets.
(Score: 2) by gidds on Wednesday August 31 2016, @02:10PM
They may be called 'free-trade agreements'...
In the words of Sir Humphrey Appleby, "Always dispose of the difficult bit in the title. It does less harm there than on the statue books."
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