TPP

[2nd_city_saint787]

Just wanted to hear thoughts on this from some non conspiracy theorists on my Facebook.

 

What is it? Why are people freaking out about it?

[Balta1701]

it is an extremely complicated trade deal currently being negotiated between the United States and 12 countries throughout the Pacific rim. Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. There have been several dozen formal negotiating rounds.

 

Negotiations on the treaty began sometime in 2005 so it has been going on for literally a decade. If signed and approved, the trade deal is expected to lower restrictions on the trade of some goods such as manufactured goods and raise them on other goods such as intellectual property that the U.S. tries to protect.

 

That's the basics. There are then many, many complexities. The negotiations are being conducted in secret to allow countries more negotiating freedom but it is felt that many corporate interests have been able to gain specific access to the negotiations to lobby for inclusion of clauses they like. Wikileaks has released some significant portions of the previously negotiated text.

 

The end result would probably be comparable to how NAFTA has impacted the North AMerican trade area. Manufacturing jobs would be easier to ship overseas due to lower trade amounts, leading to lower cost goods and also lower wages. The U.S. would have a stronger case to make in copyright infringement cases which is something the US constantly stands up for since we have big media companies. There would also be some weakening and some strengthening of environmental regulations, probably overall weakening based on the current text which would create new mechanisms by which environmental regulations could be challenged. There would be some additional weak controls on currency manipulation amongst the countries.

 

Because it is expected to generally benefit corporate interests while hurting workers, Unions and Democrats generally are opposed to it while Republicans are in favor of it. This setup was expressed strongly in the votes in Congress - the major difference is that the President, a Democrat, is pushing for it.

 

In order for final negotiations to be completed, Congress was asked to pass something called "Trade Promotion Authority" which says that if the President completes a trade agreement, Congress will only vote on it yes or no, they will not attach amendments. For negotiation this is important as "President reaches agreement but Congress amends agreement afterwards" would kill an agreement. That was one part of the votes happening last week, to allow the President that authority.

 

Along with these bills there is some additional federal assistance typically given to workers who lose their jobs directly because they're outsourced (that's right, your government uses your taxes to offset losses from when they make it cheaper to send jobs overseas.). That assistance is generally attached to the negotiating authority so that some Democrats will go along with it. That is one of the other bills that Congress has dealt with - if you kill that part then it's expected there won't be enough Democrats voting for it for it to pass, so there has been a complicated series of votes in Congress for various pieces of this authority trying to get it through.

[caulfield12]

The flip side is it forces US companies to increase their competitiveness and efficiency, and for some to completely fall by the wayside as other industries (and one of the arguments is that it's only service/retail being created, rather than intellectual/creative) rise to take their place.

 

In other words, the inevitable happens faster.

 

So is it better to prepare for the future proactively or wait until you have no choice but to change?

 

Of course, the problem in America is that many workers are now being forced to do the work of 2-3 workers for basically stagnant salaries, low benefits and no overtime, but that's the problem...the world we became accustomed to for most of the past half century.

 

It might be bad in America, but it's happening all over the world, especially southern Europe.

 

 

One thing struck me this past week....there were very violent clashes between the police, private car taxi drivers (the Chinese version of UBER, which the Chinese government is trying to block to protect their own domestic version) and the regular taxis. The regular taxis (who had just increased their "initial" or basic meter fee from 6 to 10 RMB to start a ride) were complaining that they were losing so many customers. Of course, the customers were saying that the private drivers were providing them better service, no arguments/driving extra distances or pretending to get lost, the private cars have leather seats/sunroof....the private drivers were able to earn more money in this system (controlling their own fate/destiny), as the regular taxi drivers still had to pay their own insurance, license, gasoline, but the majority of it was going to the actual taxi ownership conglomerates.

 

The beauty of the system was that the new mobile software applications were giving both riders and driver extra "bonuses" of 5-10, sometimes even 15 RMB, to use their system...so it's not only a better experience to hail a prvt car, it's also much cheaper.

 

The point is...like in all of the world, instead of worrying about providing better service/experience to riders, the regular taxi drivers simply wanted to protect their turf and not deal with any competition...they wanted the government to "save" them from themselves and arrest the private drivers for circumventing the system (because they weren't officially registered taxis). That's not the solution, either.

 

Of course, there's also no tipping in China, so the "customer service" or "customer is always right" ideal doesn't frequently come up here.

[EvilMonkey]

You gotta pass it to know what's in it.

[Jake]

It is so potentially far-reaching that it's hard to summarize which specific interests are hurt and helped. I know one of the first times I heard about it they had discovered that it would increase the time before artistic works go into the public domain (and it would impose the same the timeframe on other signatories, which would be its explicit purpose for being in the agreement). Shortly thereafter, there was a lot of talk about drastic increases in drug prices for most of the non-American countries involved as a measure to protect American pharmaceutical companies. But there is just a lot, a lot to it. As far as I can understand, it's a strange legal position for all parties since it in many places contradicts domestic laws.