2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe US middle class is in the top 1% ....
of the world economically.
As liberals, shouldn't we be equally concerned about the other human beings on our planet?
Shouldn't we be willing to share the wealth and the jobs and the industries with other countries and peoples?
We have been very privileged...and like the silver spoon portion of our society, most of that good fortune has been an accident of birth rather than something we have earned.
Trade agreements in spite of their ugly local side effects are good for the worlds populations.
The problem is not disruption due to trade agreements, it's the failure of the social safety net including job training and housing/food assistance.
We shouldn't be trade isolationists any more than we should be political isolationist.
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Hoyt
(54,770 posts)corporatist, GOPer, scab, and whatever else the world's 1%ers can dream up to criticize poor workers in Mexico, Vietnam, India, etc. Nationalism seems to be a virtue nowadays, not just reserved for Archie Bunker style Republicans.
Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)But I thought a liberal viewpoint should be heard occasionally.
Zira
(1,054 posts)How uninfomed can you get! WTF!!
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/12/31/ten-reasons-why-tpp-must-be-defeated
The TPP is NOTHING Liberal and I'm getting the idea you've never listened to a liberal news cast in your life. All of the liberal outlets are a against the TPP for good reason.
Maybe you got lost on your way to Free Republic?
WTF! I highly recommend you visit ANY liberal news site. Start with DemocracyNow.org.
BTW. That's it. You're on ignore.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)See #97, a couple of posts below this...
Armstead
(47,803 posts)yes trade is a complex issue.
But I treject your breezy dismissal and mischaracterization of the goals, priorities and values of those who oppose the scam of a global economy where all governments are owned by the 1 percent and Corporations and Elite Investors
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)U.S. population is 4% of world population, so if the "middle class" is about half of that, it's a neat trick to fit this 2% into the global 1%. Pretty crowded up there - is there any room for actual rich people?
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)Resistance is futile. the Peon should accept the status quo
suicidal crap
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)We need to end our global military empire that supports the global corporate elites thumb on the scales, we need to stop killing people across the globe because they were unlucky enough to be sitting on "our" resources
you are supporting the race to the bottom and suggesting that American workers are somehow fucking obligated to compete for wages with people makes pennies on the dollar. Bullshit. Sounds quite republican to me. Sound like the New World Order. I don't owe then that. I owe them my bet attempts to end our illegal wars on them and to get our corporations under control and off their backs. I can offer them a hand up but I do not owe them my job.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)We are pretty much the 1%ers of the world -- certainly the 5%ers if you want to debate -- and have taken more than our fair share of the world's wealth, but screw them -- America First, Nationalism and a little bit of hatred.
I believe helping the rest of the world develop will be good for everyone.
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Blanks
(4,835 posts)When people from 3rd world countries move from the villages where it is common and accepted to have a whole bunch of kids, their outlook changes to an understanding that if they work hard they might hope to have a child.
People don't like it (especially American people), but if we don't have an industrial revolution throughout the world, the unwashed peasants will rise up, form an army of starving desperate people and destroy civilization as we know.
At least that's my concern. We need to take care of the world, and it is less likely to threaten the existence of the entire human race.
You are correct.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Care to try to back that up????
hill2016
(1,772 posts)who are getting jobs due to world trade agreements
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... a $30/hour job and you thinks this is a boon for working people????
Fact is, you can't back up your statement. It's bullshit.
hill2016
(1,772 posts)what field is that in? Doc review? Radiology?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)they got before. What about Vietnamese who all they ever got from us was firebombs and hatred. The TPP actually has provisions that will help move that along.
Yet, most of Sanders' supporters look at foreign labor as worthless scabs.
And, where are our unions? Most of them have "international" in their name. yet they aren't in poor countries because the people can't pay enough in dues to make it worth their time.
A economically progressing world is good for everyone. Jobs in the Middle East would go a long way to quelling dissension there too.
When you look at it from a Mexican's or Vietnamese's perspective, even our lower middle class are in the 3% and just as greedy and callous as what we deem wealthy people.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)No wonder foreigners call us "greedy Americans."
Recursion
(56,582 posts)The Indian and Chinese middle classes have exploded over the past 20 years. Neither country is in an FTA with the US (and for that matter our FTAs are mostly meant to exclude India and China), but these are golden years along the lines of the 1950s in the US for the world's two biggest countries.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Going from two working people making a combined $240.20 per day to one working person making $3.00 per day is a horrible net loss for working people.
If one can't understand that perhaps it's because they have their eye more on the profits of the owner class than the earnings fo the working class.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)It's a huge, huge gain for the non-white people you thoughtlessly accuse of "stealing American jobs" (whatever that actually means).
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)The world is richer than it was 20 years ago, at every income level.
I know it violates your illusions to understand that, but it's true: the net income for workers is much, much higher now.
Pampered white middle class Americans finally face something approaching what minorities do. That is hard for them, I grant; but it's not the end of the world.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Read your link. It's higher.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... then you need to sign up for a remedial math course.
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Seriously?
Here's a very, very basic arithmetic lesson:
If 2 people go from $200 to $120
And 100 people go from $0.80 to $3
Net income has gone up.
This isn't actually very difficult.
Do you actually not understand that?
You are completely ignoring the staggering size of the developing world's growing middle class.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)C'mon, you're not stupid. There are only two people in my example, not 100.
Net income went from $240.20 to $3.00 per day for the two workers in my example.
Are you completely ignoring that? Why?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)You're, again, ignoring the staggering *size* of the developing world's middle class.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Do you really have that poor an opinion of Indian workers? I suspect not.
That means that your example is a *complete lie* while mine is accurate. The size of the developing world's middle class is not a part of the equation.
If you cannot engage in debate honestly, don't look for any more replies from me.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)That's decent money in the Philippines. The outsourcing business from the US has created a huge middle class of stable younger workers who are becoming the backbone of the Philippine economy.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)And the programmers working there make about $1200 per month, which is almost comparable to US wages.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)![](/emoticons/thumbsup.gif)
These people are rightwing neocon apologists for the 1%. disgusting.
Proving that the Dem party, as we new it, is dead. It is not the Corporate Party
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)that have been imported to take over American positions.
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jillan
(39,451 posts)Shameful that you do not understand this.
Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)I was going to talk about how the agreements are inadequate because they do not cover enough areas to make them fair to everyone. Its not just jobs but also pollution and societal disruption and worker safety and on and on.
litlbilly
(2,227 posts)Zira
(1,054 posts)There is NO JUSTIFICATION FOR BEING THIS IGNORANT.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Trade agreements have become about much more than trade. They are not just about tariffs.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)mmonk
(52,589 posts)Romulox
(25,960 posts)Wilms
(26,795 posts)Collateral damage, if you will.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Unfortunately Corporate Free Trade is predatory in nature.
And since Corporate Free Trade is anything but fair I would have to ask...
1. Are you really this misinformed about the world, or
2. Are you working for a corporation by posting this drivel?
Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)there are many studies whether or not you choose to ignore them....international trade is good.
But it could be better, fairer, more protective of the planet earth, more protective of workers around the globe.
R. Daneel Olivaw
(12,606 posts)Our esteemed leaders call it free trade.
NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP?
Do you lnow what the "F" stands for in the first two??
I call it "failure", but it is known as "Free."
By all means please list some of these studies...especially about the first two.
The main beneficiaries of "Free trade" are the Corporations, the powerful and the lamprey type parasitic politicians that attach themselves to the former.
Do you care to answer honestly? Are you posting this crud on behalf of some corporation?
cheapdate
(3,811 posts)"Free trade" is when powerful corporations in wealthy countries make lop-sided deals with their cronies in poor countries to steal labor and resources. No one gets rich but the rich.
Zira
(1,054 posts)putting all the homegrown businesses out of business as people went to work for the new factories and changing the whole economic system of the countries, then fleeing the country and leaving it impoverished and the old economic infrastructure toppled(put out of businesses by the higher paying factory jobs that fled when laws were put in protecting workers) as they went to the next cheapest labor country and did the same. It has destroyed many countries all over the world.
The TPP is far worse than Nafta. It means we can't even use our country's laws to stop products like lead in Chinese products from getting in our food. It gives them the ability to SUE us if our laws stop dangerous products. But it is so much worse.
The forecast is 1 million jobs will leave America when the TPP is signed.
We lost 800,000 jobs when Nafta was signed - mostly factory. This time it will be the high end jobs like big cuts further in Tech jobs.
katsy
(4,246 posts)and shipping goods across the world in containers that aren't reused for the most part good for the planet?
Clue: it's not.
Corporations should produce the goods and sell them to the market where they are produced.
But the corporate whore politicians sold out their constituencies & the environment, and enabled corporations to make obscene amounts of profit on the backs of wage slaves.
No one has been lifted out of poverty. Wage slaves making a dollar or 2 or 10 a day isn't lifting people out of poverty when there's no clear hope or path to a better future. Labor has no seat at the free trade table. It's modern day feudalism.
And since the fuck when should I, as a taxpayer, be on the hook for perceived profit losses should our regulations stand in the path or a corporation selling their shit to us. Are you fucking kidding me.
Yea ask all the countries that are being sued for wanting to put warnings on packs of cigarettes. It won't happen here but it's happening around the world. Countries are being sued for trying to protect their citizens v
Our government has no fucking business enabling the profits of any corporation. Government used to be in the business of protecting the people.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)They typically last 10-15 years. If they stopped reusing then, shipping would become unaffordable.
katsy
(4,246 posts)to use them for the homeless in some communities IIRC.
https://blog.etsy.com/en/recycling-the-shipping-container/
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)First off, those containers are likely not brand new, or used once. Also, you just linked to an article that shows some of the other ways they are reused when they have outlived their useful life on a boat.
katsy
(4,246 posts)And I stated "IIRC". It was also on CNN a while back.
http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2879.htm
There's a lot of info out there.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)expense of the people.
She and her third way scare the hell out of me.
litlbilly
(2,227 posts)azmom
(5,208 posts)world for the benefit of a few elites around the world. It's all about profits, not helping people. People are working in unsafe conditions, working long hours for very little money. Why? Because corporations don't want to pay fair wages to Americans.
Cheese Sandwich
(9,086 posts)Fresh_Start
(11,330 posts)No matter which one I pick you will deny it.
Because you don't want to truth.
Karma13612
(4,544 posts)BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)<I saw that under BS plan my taxes will increase by more than $30K a year.
I can't afford it.
The increase under HRC is 1/10th of that.
And I will reap 5 digit windfalls under Trump.
The BS tax increases are substantial on much more modest incomes.
I've got to believe that numbers like those will cool voters enthusiasm for BS.
I don't watch any television...so I don't know if people realize what he's proposing and how it will impact their lives.
Is it known..and I'm just unaware or is this something the GOP is holding in reserve for the GE?>
Troll Alert!!!!!
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TM99
(8,352 posts)They don't give a shit about us here in the US. They have their wealth and privilege and status. They just want to take what is left from us and give it (hahaha!) to some body us in another country. The irony of course is that the only ones that will benefit will be the 1% but not us or those other country's populace.
krawhitham
(4,641 posts)RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)don't worry about what the executive team and the janitorial team makes."
Nudge me if I snore, wouldjya?
djean111
(14,255 posts)1% sitting on top.
The "trade" agreements state, and enforce, that a corporation can take a sovereign country to court if that country refuses to let them frack or strip mine or any other profit-generating action that would ruin that earth you claim to care so much about.
Either you do not know what you are talking about, or you think the rest of us cannot read, look stuff up, and use reason.
Fail.
TM99
(8,352 posts)and the fucking guilt trip you are trying to lay on me and us.
We rebuilt Europe through the Marshall Plan after WWII. We had fair trade under FDR through JFK even until Nixon. Free Trade is a product of neoliberalism and you are falling for the guilt hook line and sinker.
I do not support lowering the standards of living in any country in order to slightly raise it in another. I do not support the shifting of all manufacturing from one nation to another such that the only ones that benefit are the corporate stockholders. I do not appreciate someone attempting to shame me about being the supposed 1% in the world when I will be paying student loan debt until I die, I struggle with medical care and medical costs weekly, and freelance work that I do is often under cut by cheap foreign laborers who will take $5.00 an hour for a job that should be making $25.00 given the amount of work.
There is a ton of research that shows how fucked up Mexico is after NAFTA and corporate manufacturing moved there. It did nothing to raise those communities out of abject poverty and in fact in most cases made it far worse.
Sorry your bullshit is not going to work on us. The only reason you give a shit about other people over there is because you obviously don't have to worry about survival over here. I fucking hate your kind of liberalism.
A Little Weird
(1,754 posts)![](/emoticons/thumbsup.gif)
Argh!!! They will say and justify ANYTHING Clinton says or does.
I'll bet that these people hate that kind of "liberalism" too
azmom
(5,208 posts)The movement began in December, when 120 workers were fired from Lexmark after they halted assembly-line production in protest for a six-peso raise, less than $1. According to the Borderplex Alliance, there are 330 maquilas in Juárez. Most workers say their wages are not enough to meet their basic needs. Lexmark, a U.S. company based in Kentucky, primarily sells printers, toner and ink. According to their annual report, revenue for the company exceeded their $1 billion target in 2014. Lexmark workers earn 105 pesos a day, or about $6.
TM99
(8,352 posts)with tech support in SE Asia on an eBay issue with a fraudulent buyer.
The guy couldn't really help and given the current financial and health stress I am under, I said to him well it is $37.00. I guess I just have to accept it as a total loss. He sniped quite unprofessionally that that was 3 days work for him. I responded that being medically disabled, struggling to not be evicted this month, and worrying about my own financials stress, yes $37.00 is a big deal for me as well. But your corporate masters don't see it that way and will do nothing to help me recoup that from the fraudulent buyer y'all allowed to rip me off. I am glad y'all record this because that was damn unprofessional to say.
And this is what they want. They want conflict between us at the bottom struggling for every last dime. They are fine up on top. The CEO of eBay doesn't want for shit. He isn't trying to live where this kid was on $37.00 a day. He isn't trying to live here like me struggling for rent and medical costs not covered by my insurance in Phoenix.
But then fuckers like this OP have the balls to come in here and shame me for my circumstance. They try to tell me I am the 1% if I just allow them to fuck me over more then that kid in SE Asia will be middle class. And it is all bullshit. They don't care about me and will continue to fuck me over. They don't care about that kid because eBay is NOT going to pay them more.
So fuck them! I am ready for a bloody revolution at this point.
raging moderate
(4,292 posts)You are right, TM99. People in the US are NOT ALLOWED to live the inexpensive ways many SE Asia people do. Just try that, and you get your kids taken away and put in some institution or in under-supervised "foster" homes. A guy in San Francisco was just FORCED out of the inexpensive box he had cleverly rigged up. PLUS, there is the necessity in most of the northern half of the US to spend hundreds of dollars each year on warm clothing and hundreds of dollars each month on heating bills, because the outdoors temperatures fall to below freezing, at least at night for many months and even at noon during the winter. People DIE from that kind of cold! There are laws against the simple fire-building our ancestors used to survive these winters, and back then lots of people DIDN'T survive but died from the cold. As I once emailed the Congress when they wanted to yank unemployment benefits from a lot of people in December, WHAT PART OF 20 DEGREES BELOW ZERO FAHRENHEIT DO YOU FAIL TO UNDERSTAND?
jfern
(5,204 posts)global 1%
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Very attainable for many Americans.
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)![](/emoticons/rofl.gif)
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)The median income falls around 50k.
25k would put you in the top 5% globally.
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)easily obtainable? non existent in my neck of the woods.
haikugal
(6,476 posts)Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)jfern
(5,204 posts)80th percentile household income in the US $112k, and so over 20% of 4.4%=0.88% of people in the world are Americans earning at least 6 digits.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)$100K would be for a family of 3.
jfern
(5,204 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)I think part of the disconnect might be that domestically we talk about the 1% of earners, regardless of household size, but all the global data is based on per capita household income (so, a family of 5, where the one earner makes $10 a day, is considered to be right at the $2/day global poverty level).
jfern
(5,204 posts)And the cutoff for 1% is over $100k there.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)daleanime
(17,796 posts)look up disingenuous, then have a good night.
Joob
(1,065 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)![](/emoticons/eyes.gif)
Zira
(1,054 posts)They don't have google? The don't bother to check on anything before they support it?
How does anyone come up with TPP is good when there's so much out there and the entire liberal news media has exposed it for being BAD BAD BAD for us.
This appears to be the type that support HRC - they don't research or vet. How else can you explain how they never answer to anything when we show facts. They run.
We demand to get to the bottom of things and find out. That's what adults do. I don't know what the heck to call these people who refuse to be informed. No adults I deal with in real life would make it a point of not getting informed. Of course no adults around me would support HRC because they are informed.
vintx
(1,748 posts)99Forever
(14,524 posts)![](/emoticons/facepalm.gif)
You clowns need to get some fresh material, this shit was rotted the first time the Corporate Teabaggers tried to run it out several years ago.
Zira
(1,054 posts)Please watch DemocracyNow.org's daily show. You'd have a clue what that those trade deals actually do.
As it stands, you're getting on my ignore for this crap mis-informed post.
Google nafta, google the tpp. Get informed. I'm not here to educate you and I'm too apalled by the ignorance and the clear LACK OF INTERESTING IN FINDING out WTF the TPP is before you posted this crap.
As Countries Line Up to Sign Toxic Deal, Warren Leads Call to Reject TPP
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/02/03/countries-line-sign-toxic-deal-warren-leads-call-reject-tpp
Ten Reasons Why the TPP Must Be Defeated byBernie Sanders
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/12/31/ten-reasons-why-tpp-must-be-defeated
Worse Than We Thought': TPP A Total Corporate Power Grab Nightmare
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/11/05/worse-we-thought-tpp-total-corporate-power-grab-nightmare
senseandsensibility
(16,933 posts)but I am proud that as of now, this OP has not received any recs....
My Good Babushka
(2,710 posts)Global corporate colonialism uproots local, sustainable, self-determined business, often through violence and oppression in collusion with governments, stripping resources, freedoms and rights from people.
The second ugly prong of contemporary "trade agreements", is that they serve to hide hordes of wealth through shell companies, like the Panama Papers is making evident.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-winship/panama-papers-offer-more_b_9688186.html
TheFarS1de
(1,017 posts)You would stop supporting a candidate that bombs them into misery at every vote . Preach it to the wind , the excessive guilt factor you are trying for is beyond contemptable and is ludicrous in it's assertion .
pampango
(24,692 posts)![](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2015/01/01/opinion/010115krugman1/010115krugman1-tmagArticle.png)
Of course we should. And if we don't, nobody will because conservatives certainly are not going to be concerned with poor people anywhere.
Should people with more be willing to share with people who have less? That's a pretty good definition of 'liberal'.
Winning the 'birth lottery' (witness the Donald) says a lot about your prospects in life. If you or I had been born in Bangladesh or Nigeria, our life prospects would be significantly diminished.
I don't know that it is 'trade agreements' themselves. Few of the really poor countries in south Asia or Africa or the rest of the world have trade agreements with Western countries unless you count belonging to the WTO as a 'trade agreement'.
You could make the case that trade, in general, has contributed to the increasing incomes of the worlds poorest 70%. That would not have surprised FDR. Increased global prosperity was one of the reasons he wanted to promote international trade after WWII.
True. That is why progressive countries can trade 2 to 3 times as much as the US and have stronger unions and middle classes than the US has. They provide the safety nets, progressive taxes, business regulation, etc. that FDR provided to the US.
True indeed. Trump and Cruz are classic republican isolationists like Coolidge and Hoover of the pre-FDR era. They love walls and tariffs; they want to break our international agreements; withdraw from international organizations, etc. Basically they are the opposite of what FDR was trying to accomplish.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)We're pretty clearly fantastically rich by Global South standards, but where exactly we stand depends on whether you are counting by earner, by household, or by household per capita income. There are arguments for or against each.
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)compare/contrast us with the rest of the world. Trying to lay some guilt trip on us for what good fortune we have managed to maintain from the 1%INTERNATIONAL THIEVES.
They are the ones PLAYING THE GAME.
NOT THE MIDDLE CLASS.
I really do not understand the point of this OP in regards to GD-P.
notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)NO, FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS ARE NOT GOOD FOR ALL THE WORLDS POPULATION.
Free trade agreements allow for far too many people to be exploited. Just google free trade + human trafficking.
If we truly believed that we should be concerned about the economic well being of other human beings on our planet- we should be supporting Fair Trade, not Free Trade.
Until as a nation we do that, your argument is pointless.