The Trans-Pacific Partnership

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Are you in favor of the TPP?
	Yes
	No
	N/A without more data

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

VH4Ever posted:

I guess I'm instantly suspicious of any legislation that is so shrouded in secrecy a congressperson has to go to a secure location to read it and cannot take notes or document anything that's in the bill. And then you have both Obama and Boehner, who seemingly agree on nothing, both chiding the House today for voting no. It smells to high heaven, and it's the same big business establishment crony douchebags who all seem to want to pass it.

Thunder Moose posted:

This has been my thought as well. I am not automatically opposed to more open trade - it can be an excellent tool to enrich all involved. However, secrecy on something this important to protect trade interests at the expense of informing the people who live in a supposed republic: I don't know, I am sure there is some cliche idiom that summarizes this point but essentially garnering a small benefit at a massive cost to the democratic process.

Sailor Viy posted:

Anytime any government wants to keep something secret, you know it is going to be some heinous poo poo. There is literally no other reason for it besides the perversion of democracy.

None of you understand negotiation or representative democracy.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 02:06

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 03:45

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

MaxxBot posted:

I understand the need to keep it under wraps until the negotiation is over but why does TPA have to remove the senate's ability to filibuster the deal?

quote:

In the past Congress has given presidents such fast track authority in order to conclude trade negotiations. It allows the White House to negotiate a deal and then present it to Congress, which can ratify or block, but not amend. This gives other signatories to trade treaties confidence that any deal arrived at with the White House will not later be altered to suit vested interests.

http://m.smh.com.au/world/transpacific-partnership-battle-barack-obama-handed-defeat-by-democrats-20150612-ghn3wa.html

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 05:56

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

rudatron posted:

Everything that's leaked about TTP has shown it to be a massive overreach of corporate power - nations basically cede some of their own sovereignty to corporate interests. In particular, the ISDS would allow corporations to bypass courts and get massive payouts with any legislation they don't like, in special tribunals stacked with people they want. The fact that the administration is so desperate to keep it secret probably means that true, so in a just world everyone supporting it would be charged with treason.

No, the secret part is because it's an on-going international negotiation just like past international negotiations.

Also, international treaties can always be seen as ceding some sovereignty

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Jun 13, 2015

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 14:54

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Broken Machine posted:

I am against it, largely for reasons already mentioned.

I saw this comic the other day, and I think it has a good overview of the topic, as well as the underlying economics of trade.

I'd repost it here but it's fairly long

http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/

Clearly pushing its side but actually that's very good overall. Particularly on basic explanations of trade, currency and comparative advantage. I recommend reading it.

Though among other nitpicks, It does the "treaties cede sovereignty thing" - no poo poo. Treaties are basically just laws and can step on other laws just like you'd expect. Courts have to sort out conflicting laws all the time. In the Australia cigarette example that court happens to be international. But forcing signatories to cede some power is very much part of the point. It creates additional consistency and certainty for trade partners.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2015 15:38

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

cheese posted:

Its not even subject to scrutiny by our elected governmental officials. It has hundreds of pages and can only be looked at, with no note taking, by our SENATORS and HOUSE MEMBERS for periods of time. But yes, I am being unreasonable by asking that our elected members get a chance to actually debate on the specific merits of a sweeping economic deal.

This is fox news grade ignorance of the process.

Constitutionally the executive branch gets to do lots of things without continuous congressional oversight. But unlike many of those other things, this actually has to pass through them after becoming completely public.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 01:27

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Helsing posted:

Yes, clearly it's all well and good that most legislators have very limited access to this bill whereas industry lobbyists are allowed to write large portions of it. Anyone who questions this process is simply ignorant.

The article highlights numerous examples of what appear to be very chummy relationships between the USTR and the "cleared advisors" from places like the RIAA, the MPAA and the ESA. They regularly share text and have very informal discussions, scheduling phone calls and get togethers to further discuss. This really isn't that surprising, given that the USTR is somewhat infamous for its revolving door with lobbyists who work on these issues. In fact, one of the main USTR officials in the emails that IP Watch got is Stan McCoy, who was the long term lead negotiator on "intellectual property" issues. But he's no longer at the USTR -- he now works for the MPAA.

You can read through the emails, embedded below, which show a very, very chummy relationship, which is quite different from how the USTR seems to act with people who are actually more concerned about what's in the TPP (and I can use personal experience on that...). Of course, you'll notice that the USTR still went heavy on the black ink budget, so most of the useful stuff is redacted. Often entire emails other than the salutation and signature line are redacted.

Perhaps the most incredible, is the email from Jim DeLisi, from Fanwood Chemical, to Barbara Weisel, a USTR official, where DeLisi raves that he's just looked over the latest text, and is gleeful to see that the the rules that have been agreed up on are "our rules" (i.e., the lobbyists'), even to the point that he (somewhat confusingly) insists "someone owes USTR a royalty payment." While it appears he's got the whole royalty system backwards (you'd think an "IP advisor" would know better...) the point is pretty clear: the lobbyists wrote the rules, and the USTR just put them into the agreement. Weisel's response? "Well there's a bit of good news..."

It's no surprise that this is happening. Of course when you have industry and government groups set up to be regular "advisors" on certain text (and there's a big revolving door between the two sides), you'd expect the relationship to be chummy and sociable. And it shouldn't be surprising to then see the USTR take the lobbyists "template" and stick it right into the agreement. That's how all of this works, after all. But considering that the agreement is a secret agreement that the public and experts outside of those lobbyist "advisors" are not allowed to see, you have to wonder how it's even remotely possible for the USTR to have a full and fair picture of what those rules are likely to do or the impact on the public.

[/quote]

Correct. People that imply this is new or unusual are ignorant of how international treaties are typically negotiated (not publicly). So can we put that one to bed yet?

I'd like to see better critism than this. This same thing could said of domestic regulations. The industries are getting access to snippets here, not the whole thing (which, again, is eventually going to be public).

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 03:34

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

RaySmuckles posted:

Bingo, no one cares if its secret as long as there are people there looking out for you and protecting you. Its almost like people are using the word "secrecy" as a stand in for the complicated idea "preferred access."

As per the constitution the president I voted for is overseeing the negotiation of the treaty which will then become public and be ratified (or not) by the representatives I also voted for.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 04:03

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Ponsonby Britt posted:

I think people are conflating two propositions here. The first is "treaties should be negotiated in secrecy." The second is "Congress should be limited to an up-or-down vote." The second doesn't necessarily follow from the first. Most every treaty the US has ever negotiated has been negotiated in secrecy, and then given to the Senate for approval. There was no "fast-track authority" in those cases - the Senate had the opportunity to debate and discuss the implications, and decide whether or not to approve the agreement. They could freely choose to weigh the costs and benefits of approving the agreement, versus the costs and benefits of demanding new terms and risking a collapse of negotiations. That wouldn't be present under fast-track. The point of fast-track is to constrain the Senate's authority (and ultimately the authority of the people they represent).

The other thing here is that the current secrecy is unusual in how much it shuts out members of Congress. They can't have drafts of the agreement to take home and think over; they can't have their staff read it and explain all the highly technical details about IP law or whatever. So there's an unusual limit on how much influence our representatives can exert during those initial negotiations. In the past, members of Congress have been actively involved in negotiating treaties (for the UN Charter, half the US delegation were Congressmen or Senators; 26 Senators were in Geneva for the SALT II talks), or they've been consulted by the President earlier in the process (Washington and Jackson both asked the Senate for suggestions about the possible terms of Indian treaties; Polk asked the Senate's opinion of his negotiating position on the Canada-US border dispute).

Members of Congress should be involved in treaty negotiations. They can represent the interests of the people. They can craft a deal that won't need fast-track authority to pass, because the Senate will have already worked its desired changes into the final draft. And they can do both these things in secrecy, and not scotch the deal by making it public before it's ready. But still the bill is effectively secret even for them. I ask why that is. Why does this need to be secret even from the vast majority of Congress, and then left for them to take or leave without any input? And based on what we've seen so far, I'm pretty sure that the answer is, because it's a terrible deal that hurts the interests of normal people in order to advance the interests of MNCs.

One reason: the 100k Wikileaks bounty on the draft.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 04:15

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

RaySmuckles posted:

Cool, that still makes it seem like an attempt to reign in delegated congressional authority.

It is in a way except congress is the one doing it by choosing to pass the fast track itself.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2015 04:19

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Effectronica posted:

You're the guy who said that a truly representative government would be incapable of making trade deals. I know it's because you don't have the brainpower to understand what passes your lips, but that is saying that only oligarchies can function, you moron.

Or representative democracy where the representatives vote to give the president special power to negotiate the treaty and to limit their own powers to amend it beforing voting up and down on it after it becomes public.

Caros posted:

Nope.

Sorry, maybe it is just me but I find the argument that the public isn't capable of handling discourse as deeply troubling. Despite your glibness the US republic is still a democratic system of government (Its why they have a party called the Democratic party for example!) and the idea that legislation needs to be secret because if it is open to the public the public will hate it seems so counter-intuitive to any sort of government by the people that it seems laughable on it's face.

Whoops! It's not secret and you don't understand international negotiations.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Oct 6, 2015

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 04:06

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Neurolimal posted:

Explaining why trade deals work like this doesn't justify it. The people deserve to know what their temporarily elected representatives are shoving into a bill that wont be up for renewal debate for 25 years. Especially when everyone in this thread (and this forum) will agree that politicians tend to be biased towards the elite due to the lobbyist system.

Appealing to law is absurd when the law is insufficient or dysfunctional in the face of current problems. This has been a central belief in multiple progressive movements and protests. I'd argue that half of the people in this thread have used this point in defense of victims of police brutality, but are unwilling to apply it to a scenario as grand and abstract as free trade, especially when the person pushing it has a (D) next to their name.

Transparency is good. Secrecy is bad.

Your final sentence is actually childishly naive and anyone who has learned to thank grandma even when you didn't like her Christmas present or has gotten through middle school lunch table politics should understand that the truth isn't always better.

Why would I bring up middle school? Because that's basically the level that international politics operates at. Skilled negotiation requires saying and offering different things to different people at different times. If everyone knew everything you offered or conceded to everyone else it would literally be like tipping your whole hand at the card table.

If you want longer than 30 days, then say you want longer than 30 days. Stop making yourself look like an idiot who has no grasp of how life actually works.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 20:00

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Neurolimal posted:

Here's another good post that elaborates well on aspects of the deal I've brought up, and another global organization of medical professionals denouncing the deal:

It's a garbage deal. The onus should be on those pushing the deal to convince otherwise. They have failed to do this.

The "corporations can sue governments" thing, as presented is also mostly BS. It's an enforcement mechanism which is designed to ensure that the agreed upon treaty is evenly followed. Allowing companies to sue nations works exactly like it does in any normal liberal state which allows people and corporations to sue the state. It's a check that ensures agreed upon laws and regulations are followed.

The alternative is that the treaty won't be followed, which is obviously pointless, or some other check must be implemented that results in the same thing.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 20:54

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Neurolimal posted:

The legalese can be summarized and interpreted by members of the community who then explain the legalese to others. If the interpretation is incorrect or beneficial it would be the representative's job to correct or defend it to their represented.

I dont give a poo poo about how difficult it makes negotiating. I give a poo poo about just and transparent negotiations approved by tbe people of a nation. I put as much weight into streamlining negotiating as I do Rand Paul promising to streamline my tax forms down to one page.

When the people have thirty days to ignore a year of pro-deal hype, interpret the legalese, and convince others of the damage the deal will cause (likely without the assistance of any news organization), then yes. I do believe that the will of the people is being subverted. It may or may not be an i tentional subversion and it may have historical precedent, but I still consider it terrible.

The point is that the people should know what rights and securities they are compromising on before they are baked into what may be an otherwise positive bill. Reducing this down to legislative "warmer...colder..." in the hopes that the public will be able to generate outrage each time the revised bill comes into vote is absurd.

I've yet to see anyone, even people invested in arguing against your pedantry, take you at face value on this. I could just as easily say the same last sentence to you (not that it would do you any good, since you've firmly drilled your head into the sand)

Well if you actually care about the constituents then it makes sense to give every advantage to the people negotiating on their behalf: that demands secrecy and fast track.

If you just think representative democracy doesn't work then say so.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 21:06

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

V. Illych L. posted:

the ideologically reasonable stance would be "trade agreements between bourgeois governments will tend to serve the international bourgeoisie rather than the working class of any country" as a sort of a priori assumption. then you add in the rather ominous leaks, which we should of course ignore because we cannot know what's in the text right now and its relation to said leaks.

the clintonian free-trade agreements were hardly a resounding success for the workers in any given country. unless one has a compelling case for why the "national interests" of the parties involved in this process are markedly different it seems as though the cases should be roughly analogous. like, i get that fishmech enjoys fishmeching, but i do not understand his ideological rationale here, in that he seems to prefer erring on the side of free-trade agreements rather than the opposite, which would be the more intuitive socialist position

Yes, most socialists have stupid priori assumptions.

A general case for trade is well established and the reasonable stance would be to wait until you know enough about a deal to decide whether it's good or bad.

As effectronica pointed (seriously or not I'm not sure), you sort of do need to see the entire thing because complex agreements have good and bad things for everyone involved. Without a doubt you could cherry pick either all bad or all good parts.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2015 14:59

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

V. Illych L. posted:

you're implicitly lauding NAFTA and the eurozone as successes here, you realise

Yes. Again, trade is considered good by normal informed people. Particularly for the poor countries involved. NAFTA has probably been more clearly beneficial to Mexico than either Canada or the US.

Baron Porkface posted:

What do posters ITT think socialist support or detraction for the Eurozone is based on? Because it switches evertime I see a Socialist post. High tide and low tide? The relative position of Mars and Orion's Belt?

Slightly amusing to me is recalling all the times I've gotten pushback when generalizing that socialism doesn't encourage trade and therefore would reduce it. And here we have an explicit "socialists shouldn't support trade".

# ¿ Oct 7, 2015 15:21

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

V. Illych L. posted:

ok three months is better than one. i don't think the point is defeated, though - building a movement to counter something like this takes time, and if you're going to wait until the finished draft is out you're severely minimising your chances of accomplishing anything. the reason i'm saying this is because, as i mentioned, it does not seem unreasonable to have an ideological skepticism to free-trade agreements based on historical precedent and some kind of power-analysis about who's doing the negotiations. what i'm driving at is that the game is rigged, and so taking shortcuts through ideology to try and even the odds a little strikes me as, well, perfectly reasonable.

and, just to note, this is in America, which is likely to be the biggest player in the game. one assumes that other countries will have different rules and different clout on this.

The good news for you is that lots of other people also share your priori assumptions so the groundwprk has already been laid and the text of the deal doesn't matter too much anyway.

As an aside it's interesting how your assumptions require you to assume a power imbalance between rich and poor countries but to automatically trust that the interests of rich workers lines up with everyone else [its a curse of marxism to classify people thi way].

It's just as likely that rich workers will try to mobilize to screw poor workers as it is for capital to do the same. That's exactly what first world anti-trade movements typically represent.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2015 15:45

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

V. Illych L. posted:

i honestly don't understand why you feel obliged to butt into a discussion to which you are neither welcome nor competent to participate, but i will not turn this into yet another "people in varying degrees of frustration try and fail to explain basic concepts to asdf32" thread

i feel like you're being too caught up in what people are articulating as opposed to what they're trying to say (be this conscious or not) - which is that "free trade agreements in the recent past have a shady history" + "we need to get going ASAP" + "the proponents have a head start [due to secrecy]". taking rhetoric on face value is an analytical weakness imo, and i think that this is what you're doing right now

So you're wondering why after sharing your priori assumptions about trade in a trade thread somone is challenging you on those assumptions and some of the other things you said about trade. Ok!

Also, like I already said, although we like to pretend these debates hinge on facts, they don't. They hinge on ideology and deeper underlying assumptions. Hence the discussion of exactly that. Which you helped start.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2015 16:18

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

phasmid posted:

I'm sure the reason this treaty has been so carefully crafted and cleverly hidden has nothing to do with anybody's secret agenda. It's also reassuring that as a treaty, it can't really be dismantled or cast aside. Let's give it a fair hearing. I'm sure it was only kept secret from us for so long because it's too important to trust to your average citizen.

Are the infowars comment boards redirecting here?

Fojar38 posted:

So what sorts of things can the government do in secret since apparently they aren't allowed to negotiate with foreign powers in secret now?

Let's hope the answer is something given that most things the government does are secret before becoming completely public (if they ever become public like this treaty will) and representative democracy and government as we know it would come to an end if this wasn't true.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Oct 8, 2015

# ¿ Oct 8, 2015 12:42

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

blowfish posted:

Yeah you should be able to sue governments in boring old regular court. Corporations should by definition be the government's bitch when countries decide to outlaw things.

Except it's not about the corporation it's about the law. In the case of a corporation suing over a treaty that's a matter of whether the government is following its own agreement or not.

If the U.S. agrees in the TPP to remove tariffs on Japanese cars and then writes a law reinstating them it's in breach of its own prior agreement and Toyota would have grounds to sue (getting reparations for losses if it wins). It's a pretty basic enforcement mechanism actually and one that's been used for decades in other instances.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2015 16:35

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Taitale posted:

How on earth are those two equivalent.

Are people going to be at a greater risk of being shot if the public can read trade negotiations?

Because transparency doesn't benefit people in either case.

You can't plan war publicly and you can't negotiate treaties publicly either withought seriously weakening your position at the least.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2015 17:03

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Neurolimal posted:

This isn't a war, lives are not in jeopardy, revealing what our representatives are pushing for provides far more benefits to the represented than any potential damage that could be done.

Trade is not something that you have to leave to the "big boys" (when they arent gambling on bubbles and endorsing austerity against the advice of economists). It concerns workers as a whole and we deserve to be aware of what is happening to our rights.

Anything that may jeopardize human lives and otherwise does not concern or affect the representes people; the government is well within its rights to reserve information regarding spies, espionage, double-agents, etc., so long as it is not committed on the represented (in which case the people seserve to know why and how, if not the specifics) and the information is provided once it is no longer crucial and will not harm lives.

If the corporate courts only concerned the enforcement of trade law then it would be understandable. The wording used was along the lines of "harm/inhibit growth". This is too vague a purpose to establish a court with jurisdiction over countries for. The lawsuit in Egypt over the grotesque crime of raising the minimum wage is a good example of this.

As well, as Elizabeth Warren elaborated on, the pool of judges and lawyers that will be used in this court are by their nature tainted and biased towards the corporations involved in the system.

Trade is not War. Trade concerns the public. Trade affects the public. Trade deals can compromise the publics' rights. The people deserve to know what will be impacting them.

The only way this line of thought is either A) You genuinely believe the public is unworthy of protecting themselves, and should expect lobbyist-guided officials to handle their wellbeing without public oversight or B) this is indeed a war, on the public, and subject to the laws and methods of war. In which case your defense of the elite's actions clearly displays which side you belong to.

So what? You think the U.S. negotiated a clause that lets foreign companies sue the federal government if they're having a bad quarter?

Of course it's about the law. Profits come into play when considering reparation.

The Egypt case is about a clause saying that the company is owed compensation if costs go up and is claiming the wage change invokes that clause. It's asking for those repairations. It can't and isn't trying to invalidate the wage increase itself.

Negotiations are competitive and while not zero sum individual clauses have winners and losers. There is gamesmanship to getting the most out of a negotiation which requires not tipping your entire hand to everyone. So that's not even about keeping things from your public, it's about keeping things from the other negotiating parties.

Edit:

Washington Post posted:

Take the oft-made accusation, repeated by Ms. Warren and others, that a French firm used the provision to sue Egypt �because Egypt raised its minimum wage.� Actually, Veolia of France, a waste management company, invoked ISDS to enforce a contract with the government of Alexandria, Egypt, that it says required compensation if costs increased; the company maintains that the wage increases triggered this provision. Incidentally, Veolia was working with Alexandria on a World Bank-supported project to reduce greenhouse gases, not some corporate plot to exploit the people.
The case � which would result, at most, in a monetary award to Veolia, not the overthrow of the minimum wage � remains in litigation.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 17:52 on Oct 9, 2015

# ¿ Oct 9, 2015 16:57

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Amarkov posted:

I'm honestly not sure this chapter contains any provisions that American IP law doesn't already comply with.

Yes, broadly speaking that sums up the whole treaty.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2015 18:05

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

readingatwork posted:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/09/wikileaks-releases-tpp-intellectual-property-rights-chapter

Guardian article I just read on this topic. The line "Obama has pledged to make the TPP public but only after the legislation has passed." stuck out to me.

Yeah... gently caress that noise. I know we haven't seen the full deal yet, but cagey bullshit like this doesn't exactly put me in a trusting mood.

It stuck out because it's a mistake.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2015 02:13

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

readingatwork posted:

The way I'm reading it they're going to let Congress look it over for a month but not the general public. It could just be an error though I suppose. Either way, with all the awful crap being leaked I'm pretty comfortable being on team "no" until I see reason to do otherwise.

Well what you're reading is wrong and so are most of the headlines regarding the leaks.

Spend 1.3 minutes googling what you think is "awful crap" and come back here if you still have questions.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2015 02:21

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Solkanar512 posted:

People seem to forget that trustworthy folks like Senator Warren had access to the various drafts and also raised concerns, so maybe taking a giant poo poo on people who showed concern before the final public release was also a bit ridiculous.

Senator Warren (who I voted for) said a bunch of stupid poo poo about it.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2015 01:43

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Jitzu_the_Monk posted:

New Chris Hedges piece about the TPP

In case you don't want to read it it says "I don't like trade, corporations or capitalism and could have written this piece before the TPP came into existence".

# ¿ Nov 7, 2015 16:23

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Solkanar512 posted:

I don't think you're qualified to judge others of stupidity.

So "Senator Warren didn't like it" was your whole argument then.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2015 15:52

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Jonah Galtberg posted:

It's also pretty scary for the poor

Which poor people? It's benefited most of them.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2015 06:07

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

icantfindaname posted:

growth in the protectionist, illiberal state with heavy state interference in the economy isn't really any sort of advertisement for the merits of economic neoliberalism

Neoliberalism and globalization are completely separate things.

If the question is "have [hundreds of millions of] poor Chinese benefited from globalization" the answer is an easy yes.

# ¿ Nov 24, 2015 14:54

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Jonah Galtberg posted:

Hundreds of millions? Not 15?

Yes, hundreds of millions of very poor Chinese people benefitted from globalization.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 00:26

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

icantfindaname posted:

Okay, in the real world the globalization that has occurred has been of a predominantly neoliberal character. The TPP, which is the topic of this thread, is a globalizing neoliberal trade deal. In order to make China a success story of globalization you're going to have to change the definition of globalization to 'has foreign trade', which is basically meaningless

no, because of economic growth. the effect of neoliberal globalization on growth is still probably positive, but they're not the same thing

You're getting it backwards. China is a success story of globalization without question. The harder part is divvying up the credit between the liberal and not so liberal components of that success.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 02:19

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

icantfindaname posted:

Please define 'globalization' in a more specific way than 'foreign trade'. Because otherwise it's almost meaningless. Nobody is opposed to foreign trade unless you're the USSR doing it for ideological reasons

International trade is a defining characteristic of globalization and any nation whose economy is based on trade is part of it.

The word globalization carries large amount of baggage but it's a description. Worldwide socialist revolution resulting in similar exchange of goods, culture and ideas would be called globalization.

quote:

Not any serious ones , no. Just a general observation that the domestic economic strength of Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, etc, are not very good despite being more or less best case scenario examples for export/foreign trade-oriented growth

The domestic economic strength of Japan, S Korea and Taiwan is fantastic by worldwide standards.

The worst on the list, S Korea, is 30 out of 200 nations on GDP PPP above New Zealand...

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Nov 25, 2015

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 02:53

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Effectronica posted:

In which case "globalization" is meaningless and people should stop using it, because "international trade as a major part of the economy" describes the Sumerian temples and city-states.

International trade and exchange in general has increased by orders of magnitude in terms of quantity and distance in the last century and notably in the last 40 years or since containerization and decent long distance telephone became widespread.

It's absolutely a useful definition and one of the defining trends of our generation. Saying it's meaningless is like saying the same of "industrialization" or "capitalism".

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 04:30

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Effectronica posted:

Okay, it's been a while and I'd forgotten you were a loving idiot who instinctually dodges being held down to mere mortal contrivances like "definitions" and "consistency". I doubt I can do this for more than one post, but I'm going to do it with spirit:

THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU SAID IN YOUR PREVIOUS POST. YOU HAVE CONSISTENTLY WRITTEN AS THOUGH "GLOBALIZATION" REFERRED TO TRADING GENERALLY RATHER THAN ANYTHING SPECIFIC. THEN WHEN SOMEONE POINTS OUT HOW STUPID THAT IS YOU IMMEDIATELY ADOPT A SPECIFIC DEFINITION THAT WILL ONLY LAST UNTIL THE PERSON WHO'S ARGUING GIVES UP IN DESPAIR. THEN YOU GO BACK TO THE GENERAL DEFINITION. YOU ARE A CONTEMPTIBLE LITTLE EARTHWORM. gently caress YOU!

The post leading off with "international trade" was me being generous to you for comparing trade in an era pre-dating even decent ocean-going sailing vessels with modern globalization.

As an aside the reference to the telephone wasn't invoking exchange of ideas but primarily referencing its necessity for efficiently managing global supply networks.

asdf32 fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Nov 25, 2015

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 04:52

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Effectronica posted:

What I would like you to do, at this point, is look over your posts on the previous page, quote them all in the same post, and provide a definition of "globalization" that is consistent across all of them. Since this will not happen, I suppose I'm just going to have to pretend that you were struck dead by God after making this post, because discussion is clearly impossible.

Alternatively you could google "globalization" and either marvel at how my posting is consistent with it or clarify how it's not.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 05:04

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 03:45

asdf32: May 15, 2010; I lust for childrens' deaths. Ask me about how I don't care if my kids die.

Effectronica posted:

Let's all shed some tears for asdf32, struck down by the Lord for saying 100% and 1000% were "practically equal".

Or lack of verbal acuity. Though I'm suddenly reminded how that doesn't translate into aptitude for other topics (such as understanding the relative costs of hypothetical wage increases to the economy) as much as one might assume.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2015 05:28

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