I think that Dean Baker is being unnecessarily harsh in characterizing supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement as either fools or liars:
The long and short is that the TPP offers almost none of the classic benefits associated with free trade, since it does very little in terms of reducing trade barriers. The deal is about increasing corporate profits at the expense of the public in all of the countries that are parties. And you are stupid protectionist Neanderthal if you don’t go along. Got it?
I think that Dr. Baker has the facts right. The case in support of the TPP is remarkably weak and, more amazingly, the administration has hardly bothered to make it.
The “classic benefits” of trade assume conditions that do not apply in the case of the TPP. It isn’t free trade; it’s managed trade. I’d like to see someone make the case that it’s managed trade that benefits most Americans (rather than just a few) but so far I’ve been disappointed.
I can read health care policy in great detail and (usually) not fall asleep. Cant make myself do the same with trade agreements. Anyway, I thought this from Tim Taylor about the nature of modern trade agreements was interesting.
http://conversableeconomist.blogspot.com/2016/03/a-fundamental-shift-in-nature-of-trade.html
Steve
The old formula of dropping tariffs to increase exports and create jobs has been changed by the free-traders. The new formula is to drop tariffs to increase imports and destroy jobs, and this is an improvement over the old formula because unemployed people can purchase cheaper goods with the money they do not have.
Remind me how a non-gold backed dollar is not socialism. Progressives, Keynesians, and such, you are excused. When you start whining about every f*cking gov’t program, I will ask you the same question, but I do have a question. Why do you all let them get away with it?
There is no way to be a conservative and accept a fiat monetary system. If they refuse to refute the concept, they must accept that your policies are conceptually valid and their’s are not. The only difference is in how fast the government should create debt and whether it is a public or private function.
In essence, the credit backed money supply is a public good. It only has any worth because the US government enforces that worth or allows it to be enforced through the legal system. That should be enough for somebody to get started.
There is plenty to be critical of in the TPP. Most notably the favors handed out and the sovereignty problems with the adjudication process. As Steve’s article points out, so much is not about costs and benefits to labor and consumers, but about social engineering and adaptation to modern commerce.
However I haven’t really seen the labor/consumer trade offs discussed in a serious way, much less dealt with quantitatively. I’ve seen plenty of pro-labor articles, with their resort to the usual profit and 1% bashing, unsafe products, environmental danger etc arguments. Not to mention the existential threat of the TPP to cute, small furry animals. It’s hard to take such pure advocacy arguments seriously at face value. But I have yet to see an attempt to weigh the pure economic benefit to consumers vs labor.
The TPP looks to be a pretty shoddy piece of work. But until I can see consumer benefits I have to stay agnostic on that aspect. That said, we may have reached a point where the speed of economic adjustment simply cannot keep up and bald faced protections will/should win out. Job losers are concentrated, visible and vocal. Benefitted consumers are diffuse. No politician can stand up to that mismatch……..unless they have another interested party with deeper and politically active pickets.
I don’t think the point of TPP or TISA is trade but more tightly binding governments’ to the whims of the technocrat class. Less democracy and more international control.
If the goal of free-trade is the cheapest goods for the consumer, importing the low wage workers into the US would save the transportation costs.
I wonder why none of the philanthropic minded investors have thought of this plan. I guess, they are too busy working the soup lines.