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Trade Bill Fails In the House
schwit1 writes: President Obama suffered a major defeat to his Pacific Rim free trade initiative Friday as House Democrats helped derail a key presidential priority despite his last-minute, personal plea on Capitol Hill. "In a remarkable rejection of a president they have resolutely backed, House Democrats voted to kill assistance to workers displaced by global trade, a program their party created and has stood by for four decades. By doing so, they brought down legislation granting the president trade promotion authority — the power to negotiate trade deals that cannot be amended or filibustered by Congress — before it could even come to a final vote." This was after Silicon Valley heavyweights made a last minute push to pass the bill and the White House got personal with many Democratic lawmakers.
While the summary is trying to make this some kind of huge rebuff of the President by democrats in Congress, the only serious problem with this bill is it was for too long of a time period. Obama is only in office for another 18 months, and this fast track authority would have extended years after he is gone. This vote had almost nothing to do with democrats not trusting Obama; it was them not trusting the unknown President who will take his mantle a couple years from now.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
the nordic countries and canada have more government than us and far less corruption. the people are happier, more socially mobile, and pay far less for healthcare and education
the problem is we want effective laws against corruption. yes: more government -> more government corruption is true as long as the usa does not effective laws against corruption. 2010's citizens united for example simply boldly stated legalized corruption is the way. we must reverse that and install many other anti-corruption laws and only then do we have fairness
but less government and less regulation does not lead to less corruption, it simply means the plutocrats have less people they need to bribe to get what they want. that only helps them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It gives them less need to do any bribing. They just go out and do what they want with no resistance.
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
Without America, TPP is dead, but there will likely be a new free trade agreement to replace it, anchored on China, rather than America.
That's because China sees a trade agreement as being about trade and making money, not a means of furthering the global agendas of whichever megacorporations pay the people writing it the most money. I'm from a country that has a free trade agreement with China, negotiated openly and available for anyone to check (heck, there's even a web site set up to tell you all you need to know), that basically says "you sell us your stuff, we sell you ours, the rest is up to you". That's a free trade agreement, not the stuff US corporations are trying to force on the world.