One of the major purported selling points for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a supposed increase in new jobs as a result of the controversial trade deal. The deal involves 12 nations, including the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia and more. However, two recent economic reports have contradicted the claims that jobs will increase. They have shown that, more than likely, the deal will lead to a loss of jobs.
First there was a World Bank report that predicted that TPP would produce negligible boosts to the economies of the U.S., Australia, and Canada. TechDirt writes:
So according to the World Bank’s figures, the U.S. will gain an extra 0.04% GDP per year on average, as a result of TPP; Australia an extra 0.07% annually, and Canada a boost of 0.12% per year.
This study was followed up by a review from Jerome Capaldo and Alex Izurieta at Tufts University. In a study titled “Trading Down: Unemployment, Inequality and Other Risks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement,” Capaldo and Izurieta claim their study uses a more realistic model than past analyses. Specifically, the researchers state that their model incorporates effects on employment that were previously excluded from TPP calculations.
Their study found that economic growth is likely to be limited — and negative — for some countries, including the United States. The researchers also found the TPP would probably lead to increased unemployment and inequality. Capaldo and Izurieta explained:
The standard model assumes full employment and invariant income distribution, ruling out the main risks of trade and financial liberalization. Subject to these assumptions, it finds positive effects on growth. An important question, therefore, is how this conclusion changes if those assumptions are dropped.
In the paper, the two researchers state that changes in GDP growth are “mostly projected to be negligible.” After using two sets of growth figures, ten-year measurements, and annual averages, they concluded the TPP “appears to only marginally change competitiveness among participating countries. Most gains are therefore obtained at the expense of non-TPP countries.”
The fact that any gains — however negligible — will come at the cost of non-TPP countries should be a warning to all nations of the world, especially those who do not stand to benefit from the agreement. Concerning predictions of actual job losses or gains, the researchers write, “TPP would lead to employment losses in all countries, with a total of 771,000 lost jobs. The United States would be the hardest hit, with a loss of 448,000 jobs.”
Finally, the researchers draw harrowing conclusions about the end result of the TPP.
Globally, the TPP favors competition on labor costs and remuneration of capital. Depending on the policy choices in non-TPP countries, this may accelerate the global race to the bottom, increasing downward pressure on labor incomes in a quest for ever more elusive trade gains.
This latest analysis of TPP job claims is even more dismal than a February 2015 analysis by the Washington Post, which revealed the U.S. government’s numbers on expected job increases from the TPP are not factually correct. The Post’s Fact Checker examined several quotes from government officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Both Kerry and Vilsack claimed the international trade agreement would create 650,000 new jobs. However, these numbers do not take into account income gains and changing wages. According to the government’s own sources, imports and exports would increase by the same amount — resulting in a net number of zero new jobs.
The TPP has faced criticism for several years, not least because it has been negotiated in secret with overwhelming influence from multinational corporations. In late June 2015, President Obama signed into law the so-called “fast-track” bill, which set the stage for approval of the TPP. “Fast-track” limits Congress’ ability to alter the provisions of the trade deal, and only allows a vote of yes or no. The final terms of the deal were agreed upon in October 2015, and the full text of the agreement was released in November. The earliest Obama can sign the deal is February 4, 2016.
Following the release of the text of the TPP, journalist James Corbett released an excellent report examining the effects of the proposal. Corbett concludes that the most egregious portions relate to the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) Mechanism, intellectual property, and food safety standards.
According to the report, ISDS will give corporations loopholes to escape accountability and empower international bodies, overriding the national sovereignty of signing nations. Under ISDS, foreign corporations would be allowed to appeal legal decisions to international tribunals, rather than face domestic courts. Critics fear this could lead to a loss of sovereignty and the enrichment of transnational corporations.
In late 2015, Anti-Media reported the TPP might not be voted on until after the 2016 presidential elections, or possibly into the next presidential term, according to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
In an interview with the Washington Post, McConnell said he does not support the idea of voting on the TPP before the election. “It certainly shouldn’t come before the election. I don’t think so, and I have some serious problems with what I think it is,” he said. “But I think the president would be making a big mistake to try to have that voted on during the election. There’s significant pushback all over the place.”
“We will continue working with Congressional leaders to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership as soon as possible next year,” Brandi Hoffine, a White House spokeswoman, told the Post on Thursday. On Friday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters, “Our view is that it is possible for Congress to carefully consider the details of this agreement and to review all the benefits associated with this agreement … without kicking the vote all the way to the lame-duck period.”
Recently, the Electronic Frontier Foundation also released a report on the dangers of the TPP. EFF writes:
Everything in the TPP that increases corporate rights and interests is binding, whereas every provision that is meant to protect the public interest is non-binding and is susceptible to get bulldozed by efforts to protect corporations.
The EFF’s report offers “a list of communities who were excluded from the TPP deliberation process,” and examples of “the main ways that the TPP’s copyright and digital policy provisions will negatively impact them.”
These communities include Innovators and Business Owners; Libraries, Archives, and Museums; Students; Impacts on Online Privacy and Digital Security; Website Owners; Gamers; Artists; Journalists and Whistleblowers; Tinkerers and Repairers; Free Software; and Cosplayers and Fans of Anime, Cartoons, or Movies.
Before the deal was signed, fifteen different organizations issued an open letter asking TPP negotiators to provide public safeguards for copyrighted works. These groups include Australian Digital Alliance, Consumer NZ (New Zealand), Copia Institute (United States), Creative Commons (International), Electronic Frontier Foundation (United States, Australia), Hiperderecho (Peru), Futuristech Info (International), Global Exchange (International), iFixit (International), New Media Rights (United States), ONG Derecho Digitales (Chile), Open Media (Canada), Public Citizen (United States), and Public Knowledge (United States).
The authors of the letter state copyright restricts important, everyday use of creative works. The groups call on the negotiators to be open to new changes that require participating nations to develop balanced and flexible rules on copyrights. Also highlighted in the letter are four key concerns from the organizations, including retroactive copyright term extension, a ban on circumvention of technology protection measures, “heavy-handed criminal penalties and civil damages,” and trade secret rules that could criminalize investigative journalism and whistleblowers reporting on corporate wrongdoing.
As the EFF writes,
Despite its earlier promises that the TPP would bring ‘greater balance’ to copyright more than any other recent trade agreement, the most recent leak of the Intellectual Property chapter belies their claims. The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has still failed to live up to its word that it would enshrine meaningful public rights to use copyrighted content in this agreement.
The TPP is not only facing resistance from electronic privacy groups, but from grassroots activists and concerned professionals around the world. Both the Anglican and Catholic churches of New Zealand have demanded governments be more transparent about the negotiations. Radio NZ reports that bishops from the churches are concerned with the lack of openness. They are worried corporate interests are influencing the agreement while the people are excluded. The churches also called on the New Zealand government to make the draft text of the agreement public.
Doctors Without Borders released a statement following the conclusion of negotiations:
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) expresses its dismay that TPP countries have agreed to United States government and multinational drug company demands that will raise the price of medicines for millions by unnecessarily extending monopolies and further delaying price-lowering generic competition. The big losers in the TPP are patients and treatment providers in developing countries. Although the text has improved over the initial demands, the TPP will still go down in history as the worst trade agreement for access to medicines in developing countries, which will be forced to change their laws to incorporate abusive intellectual property protections for pharmaceutical companies.
In early February 2015, doctors and health professionals representing seven countries released a letter warning the TPP will lead to higher medical costs for all nations. The letter, published in the Lancet Medical Journal, states, “Rising medicine costs would disproportionately affect already vulnerable populations.” Those doctors called on the governments involved in the trade deal to publicly release the full text of the agreement. They also demanded an independent analysis of the effects on health and human rights for each nation involved in the deal.
This article (TPP Trade Deal Will Cost US 448,000 Jobs, Say Researchers) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Derrick Broze and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email [email protected].
Psalms 40:8
I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law [is] within my heart.
John 6:38
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
Matthew 12: 48-50
48 Jesus replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
______________________________
“Obey the law — the word of the Supreme Will. ‘Do the will of the Father.’ These reiterated words of advice are forever
reverberating through the arches of space. The more we declare we will not obey, but will follow our own short-sighted inclinations in the direction of our desire and pleasure, the more we shall be sure to become tangled in savagery. Here we run against the immutable law, bringing upon ourselves, the condign punishment or pain, by which only our animality can be trained. It is we and not God who is benefitted by our conformity to law — that natural order of things. To be eminently successful, is the only result if we are truly on the basis of Universal Law, the only right method of action.”
“Obey the law” and believe the Bible, the book of lies.
Obay, obay, obay, obay…….
“Three Gods — a Triad. The first is the male principle. Second, the female principle. Third, the
offspring of the two. Creator, creating, and creation. Thus the three Deities are blended into one, expressing no beginning or end. “
Man-made “climate change” is largely a myth promoted by politicians
to scare the public into accepting a vast expansion of government to
supposedly stop “global warming.”
Global warming is a manufactured problem played up by the government to instigate a public reaction – fear – the government then exploits to offer a predetermined solution: the expansion of government at the public’s expense.
This strategy, now known as the Hegelian Dialectic, has been used
successfully by politicians for millennia to expand government, which
can only grow at the expense of individual liberties.
The Bush administration used the strategy successfully in 2003 when it gained enough public support for the invasion of Iraq by claiming the country had weapons of mass destruction, and the war ultimately expanded the military-industrial complex and America’s emerging police state.
Today“global warming” is used as the bogey man because it allows the United Nations to scare the world’s population into believing “man-made climate change” is too big of a threat for their country to handle alone and
thus it can only be “defeated” through the expansion of the U.N. at the
expense of their nation’s sovereignty.
And state-funded scientists are given thousands and even millions of dollars to help promote the myth of “global warming” by fitting their data into the fear mongering agenda.
“This was viewed as the most likely to succeed because it
could be related to observable conditions such as smog and water
pollution – in other words, it would be based partly on fact and,
therefore, be credible,” G. Edward Griffin wrote in his book The Creature from Jekyll Island. “Predictions could be made showing end-of-earth scenarios just as horrible as atomic warfare.”
“Accuracy in these predictions would not be important; their purpose would be to frighten, not inform.”
And the latest claim that 2014 was the hottest year on record certainly rejected accuracy in favor of fear.
“Any temperature claim of ‘hottest year’ based on surface data is based on
hundredths of a degree hotter than previous ‘hottest years,’” Marc
Morano of Climate Depot reported. “This immeasurable difference is not even within the margin of error of temperature gauges.”
“The claim of the ‘hottest year’ is simply a political statement not based
on temperature facts; ‘hottest year’ claims are based on minute
fractions of a degree while ignoring satellite data showing Earth is
continuing the 18-plus-year ‘pause’ or ‘standstill’ [in warming.]”
The standstill he refers to can be found in Remote Sensing Systems satellite data that shows there has been no significant rise in global temperature since Oct. 1996, which is more than half the 36-year satellite record.
And this pause in warming could last at least another decade.
“The Great Pause is a growing embarrassment to those who had told us with ‘substantial confidence’ that the science was settled and the [climate
change] debate over,” climate analyst Lord Christopher Monckton wrote.
“Nature had other ideas.” This is exactly why you are hearing less and less about “Global Warming” and more and more about “Climate Change”. Man-made global warming is a myth. Climate Change has been the status quo since time began – Natural Climate change.
Totally spot on, Tiger! Well done!
See: The club of Rome, a one world government think tank. Also the purveyors of a one world government. All major leaders of the world are a part of it, including Al, {I invented the internet} Gore.
“…it gained enough public support for the invasion of Iraq by claiming the country had weapons of mass destruction…” And do you remember when Dubya was asked repeatedly without deviating what Iraq had to do with 9-11, and what weapons of mass destruction were found,” he almost casually said, “Nothing; none.” Like the reporter was asking a stupid question, when not long before he’d claimed the opposite was true in order to get our military over there so we cold steal the sweetest, easiest to reach oil on the planet. Al Maliki refused to sign the 30 “lease” that would GIVE US that oil, though. I think it almost cost him his life. (I know my memory isn’t perfect about this, it’s very, very close. Close enough). They don’t CARE if they’re caught lying – long enough after the fact. And so far Americans haven’t made them pay the price for it either!
Do you remember right after 9-11 when Bush said we were going after those who carried out that attack and those who supported any terrorist organization or terrorist activities? Saddam and Iraq fit very well into that definition. There is also a difference between reacting to intelligence and then later not finding what that intelligence told you was probably there. And tell me, exactly what oil did we steal? I don’t remember the US getting any oil from Iraq after the war. Your memory of the facts is definitely lacking.
Croco, you fail the most important part of reading and understanding any book – context, context, context. You butcher then meaning of Bible passages for your own convenience. Accuracy is not your strong suit!
You are a little confused. The bible is full of truth, but those who are blind can’t see it. Perhaps you are one of those?
“All the positive portions of religion, and all the facts of faith, must be subordinated to the laws of nature and reconciled to the lights of philosophy, or be rejected as perhaps necessary to the apprehension, though intrinsically worthless.”
It doesn’t say obey the law of the land if it supersedes God’s law.
And if it’s a usurper insisting that we ALSO disobey the LEGAL Law of the Land in order to obey HIM? Me, I’m too old to change now. I KNOW the Constitution, and THAT is what I swore “…to protect and defend.”
Again you talk of ‘tolerance’! Im sorry friend but, I will never submit to a life of slavery! And, a loving God wouldn’t want me to either! He wants me to be a man and fight for what He has given me; FREEDOM! What you preach is totally the intention of these times; TOTAL SUBMISSION! Use your heart, friend, and rise above the BS that the catholic church has instilled in you. I have a feeling when you face Jesus, He is going to call you a coward. Sitting around singing songs while your people suffer? Glad your not my neighbor!
I don’t know you.
So, I will go my way
and you can go your way.
(No response needed)
The “New World Order” TPP deal will destroy the American economy.
Say NO to The New World Order and Globalization!
We won’t get the opportunity to say no; we won’t be asked. D.C. is NOT the legit American government; Obama is an imposter, a “Manchurian candidate”. Their aim is 9% to 98% deaths amongst the civilian population, and the TPP says we must drastically drop our standard of living until there’s balance between ALL on Earth. That means it gets averaged out util Africans aren’t living in grass shacks and wandering around half naked, many starving, and we’re MUCH closer to that than we are now. Western civilization countries drop and the poorest on Earth rise until we meet in S.o L. Thing is, it doesn’t HAVE to be that way, but all the REAL wealth is supposed to go to the “elites” – enough to put ALL countries at what WAS America’s S.o L.
Only 448,000 jobs? I can’t believe that number isn’t higher. Wait until those international courts get a hold of American businesses. They will fine them so heavily, they will have no choice but to lay off workers, or go under. Who needs the competition? They don’t want American businesses getting in the way.
Yeah I reckon that number is WAY conservative! This is all happening on a global scale, we have to remember that. When one domino falls…….
448,000 is laughable. A total lie. The real number will be at least 10 times higher and probably far higher than that. Have you ever noticed how ridiculously the establishment low balls numbers when it wants us to go along? The Iraq war was supposed to cost 80B, last time I looked it was at least 1.7T.