General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFree Trade is Here to Stay So Mend it, Don't (Try to) End It
I keep seeing stuff about "neoliberalism" here, mainly relating to current Democratic politicians as well as the GOP ones.
Has NAFTA, etc. been perfect? No. But there's maybe something to the fact that when NAFTA's implementation was signed in 1993, that at the time, every living former Prez (which then was from Nixon onward) supported it, and several attended Clinton signing it? Or that bipartisan POTUS leadership kept free trade moving? As did FDR too.
I think free trade can be fixed; we can lack tariffs, and hopefully, the next POTUS and Congress can enact serious offshoring penalties. But high import taxes are bad for the economy; the end. TPP isn't perfect, which is why the Democratic nominee is seeking a clearer picture of what would happen, but it means something that the Democratic Party platform didn't dismiss it.
But tariffs, scrapping NAFTA, etc. is not the answer. Unless you want another Depression. Hoover's protectionism is widely credited with speeding up the coming of the Depression. We don't need it again. Just because Wall Street likes free trade, doesn't mean its automatically bad. Bankers breath oxygen; should we start breathing nitrogen?
SoLeftIAmRight
(4,883 posts)nope
840high
(17,196 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)marble falls
(56,359 posts)PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)Kill the TPP!
cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)This place has become a hellpit.
With resignation,
Name Removed.
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)International trade was only 2-3 percent of the US economy back then, and Smoot-Hawley wasn't passed until after the Great Depression was ravaging the country. It made no difference if products were made across the pond or made across the street, the people had no freaking money to buy them regardless of their origin. The sale of products not even covered by the legislation was falling just as fast as imports. The Smoot-Hawley effect on the economy is nothing but a myth or fairy tale (some call it an outright lie) cooked up by the corporate free traitor crowd. The first mention of this that I heard came from CATO and Heritage back in the early 1990s. Its sad that some Democrats have fallen for this propaganda cooked up by a couple of republican run corporate think tanks.
Rex
(65,616 posts)Good point.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)And is an influential ideology in how American politicians of both parties see the economy and think it should work. We focus on Democrats here because Democrats are the focus of Democratic Underground.
"Presidents attended the signing" is not a particularly compelling argument. So what, how does that translate into why I our anyone else ought to change their mind? It's an argument from authority, and as AfA's go it's a pretty weak one. That so many Democrats and Republicans were so hand-in-hand on the issue actually worries me. But then I don't fetishize "bipartisanship" the way some people do, I guess. Are you aware that in both House and the Senate, Democrats mostly voted against NAFTA? Maybe they share my disdain for goldilocks politics.
Is TPP perfect? No, certainly not. Does it need to be? Well, legislation rarely is. But that's not the qustion at hand. The question is, do we need TPP? Will it be good for most people? The information we currently have strongly leans towards "no" in both instances. As with most "free trade" deals, it is not actually about free trade, so much as it is about free movement of capital between a very few people.
While SmootHawley was a bad law, you don't seem to understand what made it a bad law. You say "something something tarrifs, thus depression" but that's simplistic and, frankly just wrong. First, the legislation wasn't a cause of the depression - it was just something that didn't help the situation. The depression was caused by a number of factors - the de-industrialization of central Europe, wacky bank investment schemes, ecological chaos in the central US, Eastern Europe, India, and China, and political instability in the rest of Europe. All these are lined up well before Smoot-Hawley. As for what made it a bad law, it's two things. One, the tarrifs were set at 60% (which is huge) and second, due to the unilateral enactment of them, our trade partners retaliated with legislation of their own, restricting trade with the US. When Roosevelt took office, he adjusted both problems, lowering tariffs, and negotiating their level with our trade partners.
As for your closing paragraph, it's another poor argument. In this case, it's a double header, you're trying to take down your own straw man with a reductio ad absurdum. it's not that wall street bankers support it that's the problem. Rather the problem arises from why they support it, the contents of the bill itself, and hte effects it will have. As I said, it is another capital liberation scheme.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)and is going to jack up prices for pharmaceuticals, decimate environmental laws because they can sue the state for lost income if laws change where they have invested, and that's just two examples of the stupidity that is the TPP.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)He outlined how lopsided trade agreements hurt the citizens of the US.
If you had a brain then, you could see what was coming with NAFTA. If you have a brain currently, then you can see what TPP does and the trainwreck forthcoming if it is passed.
Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)who believed the corporate NAFTA snake oil, promises, and lies the Robert Rubin Wall Street crowd was peddling back then.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)is nobody I want in political leadership positions. The TPP strips sovereignty in favor of giving corporations full control to sue if environmental laws are passed.
Secondly, it provides protection for pharmaceutical companies that hike prices out of reach for the people that need them.
And thrice, it squanders what little say we have with regards to legality and being a representative nation under the law. Why? Because under the TPP, consolidation of laws that strictly benefit corporations are absolutely baked in.
Under the TPP, corporations have more say than the voters that put politicians in office, and that's just wrong.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)Not just no the TPP, but HELL no. It's a disaster in the making.
forjusticethunders
(1,151 posts)But most of the "progressives" (really more like left-flavored nationalists given they only seem to care about the *American* working class) here are against all trade because they'd rather blame other factors for their own inability to win gains for domestic workers.
Strip out the ISDN and other similar provisions or defang it to ineffectiveness and make sure the deal mostly brings overseas working standards closer to our standards (rather than the reverse) but be pragmatic about it for once.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)Got it.
You could substitute all kinds of ills for "free trade," or neo-liberalism. Disease. Violence. Greed. Fear. Hate. Ignorance.
Why would we not want to end those ills, any ills? Why the message of lost hope? It doesn't exactly motivate anyone to participate, to be active, to do anything but fearfully obey the overseers.
But then, that's the point.