Are Fair Trade Policies “Extreme?” Is Clinton Ready For Trump On Trade?

[eridani]

Our only hope in a Trump/Clinton contest is if he keeps acting like an asshole. If he tones down the asshole thing and runs to her left on TPP, that could be a problem.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/28/are-fair-trade-policies-extreme-clinton-ready-trump-trade

In our country’s current trade regime, however, “trade” is used as a justification and enabler for closing American factories and moving American jobs to places where people are paid less and the environment is not protected, and bringing the same goods that used to be made here back here and selling them in the same outlets. The people who used to employ those American workers can then pocket the wage and environmental-protection-cost differential; the country gets a massive trade deficit.

The Times article quotes corporate economists who, “like most economists,” explain that “we all” benefit because “lower prices” result when things are made somewhere else by people who are paid almost nothing. (Apparently moving our jobs out of the country is good for us.) It does not address the inequality and economywide worker wage stagnation that has resulted from these policies. It ignores that our country has had enormous, humongous trade deficits every single year since “free trade” ideology became dominant in elite thinking. Oh well.

This is the reason for the disconnect in American thinking about trade. Elites tell us “free trade” is good but voters can see and feel that what this country has actually been doing has been bad for them. Americans like the idea of actual trade, but they hate our country’s trade deals. They are rational; they see that the “trade” deals have really been about moving jobs to benefit corporate elites and they see and feel the terrible results of this all around them.

<snip>

This exposes what will likely be one of Clinton’s biggest problems in the coming election if she and Trump are the nominees. As the Times story notes, Trump has built his campaign partly on a popular and resonating message about how our trade deals have hurt the country. Clinton says she opposes TPP and other bad trade deals, but no one believes her.

[tularetom]

1. Any fool could see that the end result of "globalization" was going to be a lowering of US standard

of living.

America has less than 5% of the worlds population. There are a lot of potential consumers out there in the rest of the world. Much easier to lower us to their level than to bring them up to ours.

Trump is right about this. But it's too late to do anything about it.

[mia]

2. Warren Buffett:Bernie's right about one thing

Warren Buffett is supporting Hillary Clinton for the White House, but he agrees with Bernie Sanders on at least one thing: "the influence of money in politics."

“What I like about Bernie Sanders is he is exactly what he believes. I mean, he is not tailoring his message week by week. You’ll find with some of the candidates that they’ve shifted around or they don’t answer the questions. With Bernie, you know exactly what he thinks," the Berkshire Hathaway chairman of the board told CNBC's "Squawk Box" from Omaha, Nebraska, on Monday....

While clarifying that he would not condemn Sanders in so many harsh words, Buffett said Sanders "has a tendency to demonize institutions and he thinks the solution would be simpler and he would turn the system, I think, somewhat upside down."

"And there’s parts of it that I might agree with him on. I think in terms of campaign finance, it should be turned upside down. But I don’t think — I think we have a marvelous system in terms of delivering more and more of what people want. I mean, we have a golden goose that’s laid progressively more golden eggs ever since the country was started," he said. "I do not believe in throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/blogs/2016-dem-primary-live-updates-and-results/2016/02/bernie-sanders-warren-buffett-219956#ixzz47JhF79lZ

[BernieforPres2016]

3. Warren Buffett used to demonize overpaid corporate executives and corrupt practices in his letters

in the Berkshire Hathaway annual report. He ranted about outrageous executive compensation, accounting smoke and mirrors, and all kinds of corporate malfeasance. But somewhere along the way he decided accumulating more money (after he was already worth tens of billions) was more important and he pretty much stopped writing about those things. Of course, the fact that he had major stakes in companies like Moody's, Wells Fargo and American Express might have had something to do with that. Moody's is/was a corrupt enterprise that sold Aaa ratings on junky bonds in exchange for inflated fees. The financial bubble and subsequent meltdown could never have happened without the support of Moody's and their fellow government sanctioned oligopolist Standard & Poors. Wells Fargo was a peddler of subprime mortgages, particularly in minority communities, and a major TARP recipient. American Express was a major TARP recipient and the government backed its commercial paper in 2008-09.

Buffett used his connections and reputation to make large sweetheart deals with virtually guaranteed 15-20% annual returns in Goldman Sachs and General Electric when he had a pretty high degree of confidence that the government would bail them out. I'm sure he was in regular communication with senior government officials, giving them advice on what should be done.

After his experience with Salomon Brothers in the early 1990's (Buffett was an investor and had to temporarily become Chairman when the government almost shut them down after a Treasury bond rigging scandal), Buffett all but swore off investment banks and was often sharply critical of them. His large stake in Wells Fargo originated when they were a traditional bank and much smaller. Buffett avoided investment banks and was often sharply critical of Wall Street. One story he liked to tell was of talking to a business school graduate who asked him how to make a lot of money in a hurry. He says he would hold his nose with one hand and point toward Wall Street with the other.

The things Buffett used to rant about in his annual letters to shareholders are now at least 10 times worse, and now he says very little about them. He is a sellout corporate whore. He probably always was, but liked to pretend otherwise until the financial crisis forced his hand.