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A Better Way To Look At Trade Deals
Investors Business Daily ^ | 6/24/2016 | PHILIP I. LEVY and CHRISTINE A. MCDANIEL

Posted on 06/26/2016 6:28:59 PM PDT by expat_panama

Critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, such as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, were convinced months ago that it would harm the United States...

...International Trade Commission (ITC) was mandated to deliver its verdict...

...the findings landed with a thud. That was only partly because the document was 792 pages long; it also foretold of modest results. It predicted that, by 2032, U.S. real income would be 0.23% higher with the agreement than without and employment would be .07% higher (128,000 full time jobs). Hardly earth-shattering...

...There are limitations to these workhorse trade models...

...Few -- if any -- of these provisions lend themselves to standard estimation...

...reminiscent of the old story of the policeman who one night comes across a man crawling on hands and knees under a lamppost, looking for his keys. "Did you drop them here?" asks the policeman.

"No," replies the man, "but this is where the light is."

The basic trade analysis tools that the profession relies upon are well-suited to assess tariff cuts...

...problems of modern business have shifted and the trade policy of today has moved far beyond that of the 1990s. Now multinationals operate global supply chains. Large and small firms alike must operate seamlessly with each other...

...digital trade chapter seeks to establish a free, open market for digital goods and services and limit countries' abilities to restrict information flows... ...digital commerce is growing faster than standard goods transactions, so the potential is great.

Rather than despairing when we fail to find our figurative keys under the streetlight, analysts need to poke around a bit more in the shadows. That can mean de-emphasizing large trade models and turning instead to industry case studies, regulatory analyses, and living with the imprecision that these approaches may entail...

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; US: New York
KEYWORDS: 2016election; economy; election2016; investing; newyork; nonpolitical; politics; revolt; selfsufficiency; trade; trump
fwiw, here's the TPP Full Text.  My bet is that the deal will be on ice until it's passed in late December, and the deciding votes in favor will magically be anyone already leaving office.
1 posted on 06/26/2016 6:28:59 PM PDT by expat_panama
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To: expat_panama

Global fascism.


2 posted on 06/26/2016 6:37:11 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: expat_panama
The maniac-stream-media demagogs Trump as anti-trade, when he has said from the beginning he wants deals better for the U.S.

I can't begin to express the hatred and disgust I have for the media liars.


3 posted on 06/26/2016 6:37:27 PM PDT by 867V309 (It's over. It's over now.)
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To: expat_panama
the trade policy of today has moved far beyond that of the 1990s. Now multinationals operate global supply chains. Large and small firms alike must operate seamlessly with each other... ...digital trade chapter seeks to establish a free, open market for digital goods and services and limit countries' abilities to restrict information flows...

What does that have to do with manufacturing businesses? That's what we want to bring back within our borders.

4 posted on 06/26/2016 6:37:27 PM PDT by Albion Wilde ("We can't fix a rigged system by relying on the people who rigged it." --Donald Trump, 6/7/16)
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To: expat_panama
It ain't worth much. IBD used to favor trade policies that worked in America's favor. Yes, that was a long time ago before Wall Street explained to the newspaper what their trade policies should be...or else.

TPP will pretty much end America's remaining sovereignty as a independent nation state. If this abomination is enacted our laws and regulations concerning business will be decided by faceless international bureaucrats accountable to no one.

And you know a deal stinks when party leaderships have politically dead politicians do the dirty work. This is so today.

5 posted on 06/26/2016 6:43:34 PM PDT by WRhine (Truth is Treason in an Empire of Lies)
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To: expat_panama

“Critics of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, such as Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, were convinced months ago that it would harm the United States... “

Hillarity a critic of TPP? Since when? Now they are trying to slowly make Hillarity a Populist. And months ago for Trump? The guy has been talking about the bad TPP deal since early last year. AARRGG this media is so dishonest!


6 posted on 06/26/2016 6:48:50 PM PDT by pangaea6
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To: Albion Wilde
It has a lot to do with manufacturing businesses. A company that needs a new manufacturing facility will locate it where it makes the most sense -- not only where the labor is cheapest, but where it fits best in its own supply chain. And that supply chain includes raw materials, assembled components, finished products, and -- finally -- customers.

"Information" plays a big role in this because the manufacturer has to be able to communicate efficiently with suppliers and customers all over the globe. If you are manufacturing something in Asia and you are using raw materials from South America, the people who work at the facility in Asia have to be able to place orders without speaking any Spanish.

7 posted on 06/26/2016 6:51:43 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Sometimes I feel like I've been tied to the whipping post.")
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To: pangaea6
Hillarity a critic of TPP? Since when?

Like everything else with this sick power hungry Witch it's a pure lie. In fact, Hillary is one of the architects of TPP and was aggressively pushing this trade deal as SOS until Bernie started making noise on it.

TPP is virtually guaranteed to pass if the Witch is elected.

8 posted on 06/26/2016 6:57:53 PM PDT by WRhine (Truth is Treason in an Empire of Lies)
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To: expat_panama

I’m all in favor of free trade. It makes everyone richer.

But it doesn’t take thousands of pages and hundreds of secret agreements to make a free trade deal.

These “free trade” agreements aren’t about free trade, their about rent seeking.


9 posted on 06/26/2016 7:27:39 PM PDT by jdege
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To: expat_panama

Outsourcing, specifically to China, has become a vicious cycle. Nobody can compete with a communist regime that will steal everything that isn’t nailed down, and has a relatively unlimited slave labor force. In order to get ahead, or to be able to make anything at all, you now have to turn to china to make anything at all.

The US has basically moved their entire manufacturing base to China, and handed it to a totalitarian communist government.

So what are you going to do when the communist Chinese decide that ALL of that belongs to them now?

You have jack shit as a response.


10 posted on 06/26/2016 7:37:44 PM PDT by factoryrat (We are the producers, the creators. Grow it, mine it, build it.)
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To: expat_panama

11 posted on 06/26/2016 7:39:40 PM PDT by Lorianne
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To: Alberta's Child
"Information" plays a big role in this because the manufacturer has to be able to communicate ..

Nothing new here. Manufacturing has always involved trade, communication and global suppliers. What has changed is trade policies that have created great disincentives to manufacture here and reward corporations for moving jobs to nations that have few regulations, weak rule of law and slave level wages.

This has resulted in America losing hundreds of critical manufacturing industries, technological skills, high paying jobs, and lost future industries that require a strong manufacturing infrastructure for support.

Then we have the massive trade deficits that are a direct result of not having enough physical goods to export which comes right out of our GDP growth.

To listen to free traders, trade did not exist until the WTO. Such massive propaganda.

12 posted on 06/26/2016 7:43:06 PM PDT by WRhine (Truth is Treason in an Empire of Lies)
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To: WRhine

Yes, big corporations love regulations at home and family-breaking polices. Such regulations keep the poor, technically inclined trash from building its own houses and starting new, small manufacturing shops. NIMBYs and local regulators like regulations and high fees even more.


13 posted on 06/26/2016 8:32:09 PM PDT by familyop ("Welcome to Costco. I love you." --Costco greeter in the movie, "Idiocracy")
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To: WRhine
What's "new" here is that advances in computer technology, communications and transportation have made it much easier to conduct business across borders than ever before.

I would make the case that the development of containerized shipping has played a much bigger role in the decline of U.S. manufacturing than any trade agreement has.

14 posted on 06/27/2016 4:47:22 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("Sometimes I feel like I've been tied to the whipping post.")
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To: Alberta's Child

That of course if silly. You have to ask yourself how nations like Germany and most of Northern Europe are able to run large trade surpluses with even higher wages and greater regulations than the U.S. Answer: they are not idiots on trade like America is.

This country allows corporations to jettison their manufacturing infrastructure anywhere they want with no consequences. American has lost hundreds of manufacturing industries as a result. It has Zero to do with containerization et al and everything to do with bad trade policy.


15 posted on 06/27/2016 2:38:31 PM PDT by WRhine (Truth is Treason in an Empire of Lies)
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