Has Bernie ever mentioned the fact that free trade has helped bring a billion

[DanTex]

people out of poverty? Should this not be part of the free trade debate?

Here's a chart that basically explains what's going on. The global middle class has seen tremendous increases in prosperity. So has the top 1%. The group that fared the worst is the 80-90th percentiles globally, which is where the US working class lands. And I agree with both Hillary and Bernie that we need to do something about income inequality her in the US, by raising taxes on the wealthy, raising the minimum wage, etc.

But neglecting to even mention that global poverty has been reduced dramatically over the last few decades, and that globalization has a lot to do with that, is irresponsible.

[Jefferson23]

1. Link, please. n/t

[DanTex]

3. Here's where the chart came from.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/01/recent-history-in-one-chart/

[RiverLover]

10. Here's another link, from actual progressives.

Free Trade Isn’t Helping World Poverty
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/free-trade-isnt-helping-w_b_837893.html

As opposed to republicans infiltrating the Democratic Party.

[Jefferson23]

16. ha ha..thanks I just posted one too before I saw yours....great minds and all that.

[RiverLover]

19. ...

[Jefferson23]

25. Well, he doesn't want to hear it, but the links you left and mine..people can make up

their own minds.

I'm off to do more Bernie phone banking.

[Hortensis]

65. Closed minds see things in black and white and

these days, "My leader" is right about everything and yours is wrong about everything and belongs in prison." This is not something to be proud of. This is not not some stupid team sport will you run the ball to your end of the field and claim a victory. What the ball is and what direction you're carrying it and why matter.

Liberal and proud of it. NOT a far left extremist and these days extremely proud of that.

[Jefferson23]

69. I don't have a leader, if one can read and comprehend reports that go back many years

on the ill effects of NAFTA and various trade agreements..most can figure it out.

Some never will, evidently.

[Hortensis]

70. It's not about NAFTA

It's about what we do with NAFTA from here on in. NAFTA is like voters. It can be a force for good or a force for stupid mistakes that empower our enemies.

You brought up NAFTA, so I have a challenge for you. Find out what NAFTA could be if it were retooled and done right.

[Jefferson23]

71. It is about lousy trade agreements and they are constructed to protect the top tier, for the

most part...TPP will be even worse. They were NOT mistakes.

I don't need a challenge, NAFTA nor any trade agreement will be constructed
well until corporate money ends as a heavy influence in politics. It's not as if they're
dumb and can't do it fairly, it is more about corruption..which is rampant in US
politics.

[Hortensis]

73. Yes. But that is one dimension.

We live in at least a 4 dimensional world. Go educate yourself. You dont know what you should be fighting for until you know what is possible and until you understand the various tools at our disposal to achieve what we need. Being against free trade agreements is like being against screwdrivers.

[Jefferson23]

74. You are free to pursue whatever you like and believe you have it all figured out with Clinton

leading the charge...good luck.

You telling anyone to educate themselves is funny, have a nice day.

[UglyGreed]

17. This guy likes to distort

and deflect............. Third Way infiltrator I suspect.

[TheBlackAdder]

62. Since when did HRC's troupe become GLOBAL SOCIALISTS, helping others at American worker expense?

.


This is just more bullshit to support TPP.


TPP is just the latest scheme to benefit those with retirement plans, before they cash in on them!


This is Libertarian bullshit, nothing more!


.

[unapatriciated]

77. Thanks was going to post a link also

What they fail to understand is we may have free trade but it isn't fair trade, it's along the same lines as "No Child Left Behind" or "The Right to Work State" there is nothing fair or good about those things in regards to the poor and working class.

[Bill USA]

80. number of people living in poverty started moving down - starting in 1993 while population grew

http://www.ourworldindata.org/roser/graphs/AbsoluteNumberOfPeopleInPoverty_Since1820/AbsoluteNumberOfPeopleInPoverty_Since1820.html


link: http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/world-poverty/


IN 1993 % people living in absolute poverty was ~34.65% of World's population.

In 2011 % people living in absolute poverty was ~12.73% of World's population.


see table: "Share of population living in extreme poverty by world region, 1981 to 2012"

[AgingAmerican]

2. "Free trade" or neoliberalism is just another form of imperialism

Economic colonialism.

[appalachiablue]

4. +1

[Hortensis]

5. Actually, free trade helped put an end to colonialism.

[Octafish]

8. Now it's called Feudalism.

Austerity for most everybody.

Really good for the aristocracy.

[PyaarRevolution]

20. Don't you GET it?!

All of this stuff John Perkins talked about in "Confessions Of An Economic Hitman" along with Free Trade it's just Colonialism without appearing as Colonialism.
You appear free but all the earmarks of the fact you don't see the real benefits of a natural resource because it hasn't been nationalized. Instead, a foreign corporation takes most of the profits and you see pennies b/c you agree to this deal given the draconian loan you took from the Bankster IMF. Meanwhile any food you grow gets pushed out because you get flooded by cheap American produce so any money still there gets funneled back to the U.S., Japan or somewhere else.
That foreign corp. ARE the controlling interests of the colony(YOUR country) in a different form.

[Newkularblue]

31. This ^

[Avalon Sparks]

46. It's too complicated for most people

I understand it, and I agree with you - but free trade is complicated and a dry subject, and there's a lot of info of the web both for and against it.

I graduated in 82, in the top 20% of a class of 400, and earned a bachelor of science degree in college. I also worked for 7 years as a Business Analyst, I have an analytical mind.

I had to look at tons of data, charts, and websites that lean right and left, then try to check the 'facts' each presented. I had to read so much stuff twice, and really work my math skills.... It took a month to to even start to get my head around it in order to pinpoint what data was mostly spin and what was not.

I can't just read an article or two of based on someone else's opinion and take it as fact. Seems a lot of people just get a tiny bit of info, and boom their mind is made up.......

We're all over worked, busy and over stretched, but if you really want to understand a topic like free trade, you have got to read everything you can gets your hands on, and follow the same sort of analysis. I would also suggest looking up Fair Trade articles ...

There definitely was a great deal of propaganda out there "Free Trade is a Race to the Top"...praising the benefits of it...but I found no benefits to American middle, and working class.

I just bought Hitman last week and will probably read it next week. Can't wait to learn about that...

[Hortensis]

50. The word you want is plunder. Corporate plunder.

Multinational plunder. Accusing international corporations of assuming the ownership, development responsibilities, and protectionism of a colonial nation is absurd.

Corporate plunderers move into a country like locusts, exploit and lay to waste until profits start dropping or laws are passed to control them, then they abandom them and move on to a new country to plunder, leaving behind ruined farmland, corrupt government, destabilized societies and economies, frequently poisoned environments, suicidal farmers, displaced populations, destitution and death.

They succeed so far because of various factors. They are enormously wealthy and have become tremendously sophisticated and well organized. The realm in which they operate is more like the wild west than the world you imagine. They infiltrate and corrupt governments and organizations like the IMF to some degree but operate mostly beyond their control.

By far the largest factor in our own country, however, is our own sloven negligence In letting them slip our leash. It will not always be this way. When problems become too large to be allowed to sustain, people finally do something. All around the planet nations are industrializing, cities are forming, and people are becoming more empowered. This international Wild West will go the way of our old one. To be replaced by new problems.

But don't blame absolutely everything on the United States, no matter how much you despise your country. It is and always was mostly the responsibility of people around the planet to control what corporations do in their own countries, as it is ours in our own.

And dump that silly and extremely inappropriate word colonialism when referring to them please. That's supportive of the argument their apologists make when speaking of all the so-called benefits they claim to bring with them. They emphatically do not.

[AgingAmerican]

43. "Free" trade is extractive colonislism

[CalvinballPro]

6. Bernie Sanders told Bernie Sanders that Bernie Sanders is right about trade. No one else matters.

Bernie Sanders doesn't listen to anyone but himself. He's too busy shouting down alternate opinions to hear anything.

[RiverLover]

7. While sending Americans into poverty. Your OP is straight from the Third Way think tank.

Where republican ideas are ushered into the Democratic Party. Its making the party itself DINO.


http://www.thirdway.org/report/are-modern-trade-deals-working

[DanTex]

12. I disagree, but even if you think trade is causing poverty in America, don't you think that the

people outside America being lifted out of poverty count as well?

[Wilms]

13. What you think are people being lifted out of poverty...

is actually a Chinese worker being catapulted by a suicide prevention net.

[DanTex]

15. There's data on this. Global poverty has been reduced significantly over the last several decades.

[Wilms]

26. I'm sure the Third Way has data, Dan.

[PeteSelman]

9. America first.

Why don't we all just take slave wages to be equal with the rest of the third world? This is a shitty, non-convincing argument for Americans who have lost their jobs due to outsourcing.

[DanTex]

21. I'm not advocating that we all take "slave wages." I'm pointing to a very clear benefit of

free trade, which is that the global middle class has seen large increases in income.

You can argue that we shouldn't care about them, and only Americans, but at least be aware of it.

[PeteSelman]

23. We're quite aware of it.

I doubt you'll find one steelworker or auto worker who has been reduced to being a Walmart greeter who's happy about some Chinese peasant making a dollar an hour doing his old job.

This is not a compelling argument to anyone except people making money off the misery.

[kristopher]

48. What part of the global middle class.

"Large increases in income"?
By what benchmark is "large" measured?

Who, specifically, is benefitting out of the "global middle class", the Chinese?

What proof do you offer that there is causation between so called free (hereafter referred to as extractive) trade and the rise in income? What role does the creation of a domestic merchant class play in the rise of income?

In short, your offering is not a proof of anything except what we might infer from the spike on the right hand side.

Would you speculate on the meaning of that?

[KPN]

52. You don't think we care about poverty in the third world???!!! You think we're not aware???

That's the way you sound Dan. How would you react if I said something in response like:
"You're thinking is egocentric. You obviously have a comfy life and think we shouldn't care about growing poverty in our country. You can argue that we shouldn't care about eating our own, but at least be aware."

That's basically how you sound.

Setting aside the fact that free trade hasn't in fact lifted masses out of poverty, there are all kinds of things we can do as a nation to help lift other nations from poverty that don't require throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

[unapatriciated]

79. free trade is not free

It has caused many to lose jobs, homes, families and even their lives. I'm not against trade just prefer fair trade, where everyone gets a fair shake.

[Broward]

11. Hillary should run on this. Lifting tens of millions of Chinese out of poverty

at the expense of middle class Americans.

[GoneFishin]

27. If she hasn't already, just wait until the wind changes direction. It's only a matter of time.

[Bread and Circus]

56. Exactly....thanks DanTex for another brilliant plank in the Democratic Platform!!

[Jefferson23]

14. You're aware Krugman changed his tune on free trade, right?

There are many more, including Joseph Stiglitz who will not support the premise in your OP.



No, Free Trade Didn’t Lift Millions Out of Poverty
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/no-free-trade-didnt-lift_b_8705312.html

[DanTex]

18. Actually, he didn't, but that's irrelevant to my point which is that it has

greatly increased the incomes of the global middle class.

BTW, that article isn't by Krugman.

[Jefferson23]

22. You're poorly informed, Krugman did in fact change. That article was not meant to be

by Krugman. You're pushing falsehoods about free trade to help your candidate, lifting that
graph from Krugman does not help you.


Krugman Then and Now on Trade
Posted on March 10, 2016 by Yves Smith

As Lambert put it, “A cheerleader that stops cheering when their own side loses… I’m sure there’s a word for that.” Needless to say, Krugman’s shift is a telling sign of the times.

From MS, via e-mail (emphasis his):

Krugman, today:

But it’s also true that much of the elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest: false claims of inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions!), vastly exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of protection, hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what standard models actually predict. I hope, by the way, that I haven’t done any of that; I think I’ve always been clear that the gains from globalization aren’t all that (here’s a back-of-the-envelope on the gains from hyperglobalization — only part of which can be attributed to policy — that is less than 5 percent of world GDP over a generation); and I think I’ve never assumed away the income distribution effects.

Krugman, in 1997:

But even if the global economy matters less than the sweeping assertions would have us believe, does this ”globaloney,” as the cognoscenti call it, do any real harm? Yes, in part because the public, misguided into believing that international trade is the source of all our problems, might turn protectionist — undermining the real good that globalization has done for most people here and abroad.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/krugman-then-and-now-on-trade.html

[DanTex]

24. LOL. No, he hasn't changed his views. What happened is that some nuts on the far left took

a few sentences out of context. He still holds that free trade is net beneficial, and he still believes that there are winners and losers, and as he pointed out in that first excerpt, he has believed that all along, since standard economic models predict that.

[Jefferson23]

28. You're embarrassing yourself, why I can't say.

No one took his words out of context, that he concludes with your claim is unsupportable.

[DanTex]

29. Umm, Krugman would know if he changed his views, and as he makes very clear, he didn't.

Sorry, I don't get embarrassed when I'm right.

[Jefferson23]

33. You put up an OP with a graph you lifted from Krugman which was not utilized even by him

to make the claims you have made. It's a poor hit piece to prop up free trade and assign
praise it has not earned. You offered nothing to refute the evidence presented to
you in two posts...clearly you're ill prepared to discuss this issue responsibly.

Krugman made clear enough that your OP is based not on reality but an empty hit
piece against Bernie.

[DanTex]

34. There is no "evidence" presented in the posts. Krugman did not change his mind,

as he makes very clear. Other people are accusing him of changing his mind, but those other people are wrong. He still believes that trade is a net good. He still recognizes the downsides.

[Jefferson23]

35. He doesn't make your case for you and you know it...that's the point.

You have a dishonest OP. You're avoiding addressing any evidence provided you
in two posts with links on the subject of the alleged benefits of free trade and
your bogus assertions.

I get what you're doing, just calling you out on it.

Have a nice day..and enjoy the last word.

[DanTex]

38. Are you saying the chart is inaccurate? Please. And, yes, there is a consensus

among mainstream economists that globalization is a significant factor in the increasing incomes of the global middle class and reducing poverty.

[timmymoff]

54. As often as a broken clock is nothing really.

[kristopher]

49. That's one interpretation

Another is that he is saying, "well, it looked good on paper but then the sons of bitches as the top turned it into an economic rape engine and are stealing all of the rent money. Oooops."

[WDIM]

30. So China's middle class is doing great.

ofcourse the slave workers probably wouldnt agree with you but whatever makes yourself feel better for supporting a corrupt and exploitive trade policy.

[polly7]

32. Joking, right? nt.

[SamKnause]

36. Bernie supports Fair Trade.

Free Trade increases millionaires and billionaires.

[msongs]

37. kissing the MIC has brought jets to Vermont. bernie knows who his real friends are.. nt

[Chezboo]

39. Sanders doesn't have a problem with trade - FAIR trade, not free trade. nt

[Matariki]

41. Hard to believe there are people here rooting for race-to-the-bottom policies

One tiny global overlord class and a world full of indentured servants.

Let the Hunger Games begin.

[Avalon Sparks]

47. No doubt....

I don't get the cheerleading, it's beyond frustrating. Are they mostly just doing fairly well themselves so they can see the issues with it, or do they really not understand the impact it has had on our standard of living?

[AZ Progressive]

40. Benefiting people half a world away at the expense of the American middle class...

What a great idea!

[polly7]

42. Thanks to NAFTA, Conditions for Mexican Factory Workers Like Rosa Moreno Are Getting Worse

Texas Observer / By Melissa del Bosque

The difficult and dangerous working conditions that Rosa and at least 1.3 million other Mexican workers endure were supposed to get better. They didn't.



Photo Credit: Alan Pogue

December 11, 2013 |

.... On this night, Feb. 19, 2011, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, a premonition that perhaps she shouldn’t go. But she needed the money. It was the final shift in her six-day workweek, and if she missed a day, the factory would dock her 300 pesos. She couldn’t afford to lose that kind of money. Her family already struggled to survive on the 1,300 pesos (about $100) a week she earned. Unable to shake the bad feeling, she’d already missed her bus, and now she’d have to pay for a taxi. But the thought of losing 300 pesos was worse. She had to go. Rosa kissed her six children goodnight and set out across town.

In the Mexican border city of Reynosa, the hundreds of maquiladoras that produce everything from car parts to flat-screen televisions run day and night—365 days a year—to feed global demand. Rosa worked from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. at a factory called HD Electronics in a sprawling maquiladora park near the international bridge that links Reynosa, an industrial city of 600,000, to Pharr, Texas. Like the 90,000 or more workers in Reynosa, the 38-year-old Rosa depended on these factories for her livelihood. In the 11 years since she moved to the city, she had welded circuitry for Asian and European cell phone companies, assembled tubing for medical IV units to be shipped over the border to the United States, and worked on a production line assembling air conditioners for General Motors.

This was her second month at HD Electronics, a South Korean firm that had moved to Reynosa in 2006 to produce the metal backing for flat-screen televisions made by another South Korean firm, LG Electronics—a $49 billion corporation. LG also has a plant in Reynosa and could scarcely keep up with the North American demand for its plasma and LCD televisions.

At HD Electronics, Rosa operated a 200-ton hydraulic stamping press. Every night, six days a week, she fed the massive machine thin aluminum sheets. The machine ran all day, every day. Each time the press closed it sounded like a giant hammer striking metal: thwack, thwack, thwack. The metal sheets emerged pierced and molded into shape for each model and size of television. At the factory, 20 women, including Rosa, worked the presses to make the pieces for the smaller televisions. Nearby were 10 larger presses, each of which took two men to operate, to make backings for the giant-screen models.


Full Article: http://www.alternet.org/labor/after-20-years-nafta-thanks-nafta-what-happened-mexican-factory-workers-rosa-moreno?akid=11305.44541.10ylde&rd=1&src=newsletter939436&t=21

Millions of Mexican farmers and their families forced by NAFTA to the cities to work in dangerous conditions for low wages. That's not fair or free trade - it's relocating and decimating the lives of whole populations to further enrich those factory owners and the 1% corporations that benefit from these ugly deals.



NAFTA Is Starving Mexico

Thu Oct 20th 2011, 09:40 AM

By Laura Carlsen, October 20, 2011

"Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became the law of the land, millions of Mexicans have joined the ranks of the hungry. Malnutrition is highest among the country’s farm families, who used to produce enough food to feed the nation.

As the blood-spattered violence of the drug war takes over the headlines, many Mexican men, women, and children confront the slow and silent violence of starvation. The latest reports show that the number of people living in “food poverty” (the inability to purchase the basic food basket) rose from 18 million in 2008 to 20 million by late 2010.

About one-fifth of Mexican children currently suffer from malnutrition. An innovative measurement applied by the National Institute for Nutrition registers a daily count of 728,909 malnourished children under five for October 18, 2011. Government statistics report that 25 percent of the population does not have access to basic food."

Full article: http://www.fpif.org/articles/nafta_is_starving_mexico

[JackRiddler]

44. No, because it's bullshit.

[Todays_Illusion]

45. Those numbers must be before the world wide economic crash. Now the number of people in poverty

is greater than before the global wage suppression and environmental destruction all in the name of billions more for the billionaires.

[orpupilofnature57]

51. Your devoted , I'll give you that .

[Marr]

53. I'm continually amazed at what Hillary fans are willing to defend.

Deregulated trade, wars of aggression, Blackwater, fracking... the list seems to be endless.

They seem like people with only one real principle: 'defend Hillary Clinton'.

[Bread and Circus]

57. Amazing, I do wonder how they benefit from all this.

[Bluenorthwest]

58. The really pitiful part is that posters like the OP are far more ardent on Free Trade than Hillary

actually is. In this election clearly Bernie is the strongest on fair trade but in the Democratic universe Hillary is middle of the road many Democrats are much stronger proponents, including Wyden, Murray and Cantwell, all of whom along with others voted for trade agreements Hillary voted against as well as the ones she supported. Hillary is not always for them. Several Democrats are always for them.
So her supporters like the OP are not really embracing her views when they go full tilt 'Free Trade Saves the World'. She plays the middle, she votes both ways and she has some standards. Not standards good enough for me but she has more than Murray and Wyden and such. The OP just knows Bernie is consistently against, the OP has no clue what Hillary's actual history and positions are, nor does he care.

In 2008, the OP was a full tilt Hillary basher with hot running rhetoric about her dishonesty and racism and whatnot. It's material, he does material. It's not political thought nor is it based on ideas he has it's just material. 'You guys should all fight' material.

[Marr]

67. That's true-- and it's why they aren't even worth engaging.

They literally don't seem to care what the message is. Corner them in some lie or misrepresentation, and they'll just laugh and say, 'so what'. They're just selling a product.

[Bread and Circus]

55. He is running for President of the United States of America in a representative democracy

Thus, the job of the President is to represent the interests of the American people.

Your argument is akin to plying voters in one state to vote for a governor for policies that hurt his or her state but benefit another state.

What kind of governor worth his or her salt would do that, or even campaign on it?

[Odin2005]

59. Right-wing Globalist BS.

[TheBlackAdder]

61. I can't believe the shit I'm reading! Offshoring US labor to 'help others' while Americans starve!

[Odin2005]

63. Calling people racist is a common Neo-Liberal globalist tactic.

It's good at silencing people because no left-winger wants to be seen as racist.

[TheBlackAdder]

60. "Free Trade" = "Globalization" = "Offshoring" One goal in mind, transfer wealth out of the U.S.

.


The wealthy are positioning their money in Eurasia, not in the United States anymore.


Your post shouts:

HILLARY CLINTON -- GLOBAL SOCIALIST AT THE EXPENSE OF AMERICA!


You better not mention one more thing about Sanders being a socialist, because he's trying to save American jobs, not transfer wealth to foreign rulers who will still keep their workforce in sweatshops, only benefiting the upper-class of their society!


Your post is about as naive as those people who send grain to Central Africa, when the War Lords just intercept it and none of it reaches their intended audiences. The whole plan is to drive down American labor to serf levels so their remaining assets can be bought out at pennies on the dollar, while they are paid less and less.


Why don't you also ask for the elimination of the Minimum Wage while you do the GOP's bidding?

.

[Skwmom]

64. That must be why workers from third world countries were begging for a LIVING wage, which would

have been peanuts but couldn't get it.

[SMC22307]

66. Tell it to Baltimore.

?uuid=tKjJcvjrEeSkfOVvTbiE7Q

And decaying cities around the country just like it.

[whatchamacallit]

68. The desperate they get, the more they expose their true ideology

You're obviously pretty desperate.

[Motown_Johnny]

72. Over 70 replies on this thread. 3 recs. Does that tell you anything?

You have no credibility here to begin with, but this kind of crap just accentuates that fact. You really should just delete the OP. Save yourself some embarrassment.

[snowy owl]

75. No such thing as free trade.

[Vattel]

76. "Correlations do not causation make" --Confucious

[My Good Babushka]

78. There have been some gains to the global middle class

but as some have pointed out, the little bit of wealth they accrued came at the expense of giving up their self-determination, their resources, their way of life and customs, and identities. Does every country need to be a corporate colonial factory to evade poverty? In many cases, global corporations have put down sustainable, self-determined economies and gave people little choice but to work in factories, that pollute heavily, producing low-quality garbage, mostly destined for landfills. If we value freedom and equality, we should value their freedom and their equality. It is not the case that it had to be this way or no way. Pretty soon, you will travel the world and the only thing that will change from place to place is the height at which the anti-suicide nets are strung.
The longer we treat this situation as a benevolent, happy-faced, good sort of colonialism, the worse our loss, we are ethnologically flattening the world with global corporatism.

[Roland99]

81. How's that "free trade" clean air working in China?