The TPP is thousands of pages long and was done in secrecy.
Wait a sec., if it's done in secrecy how do you know how many pages are in it?
Posted on 05/14/2016 4:25:36 AM PDT by expat_panama
If there is one thing that Democrats and Republicans always seem to agree on, it’s this: Manufacturing jobs are the key to economic success in this country. We’ve got to “revitalize” the manufacturing sector if the economy is to generate strong job growth and economic expansion.
That’s just such total hogwash, because it’s not true and it’s not reflective of reality.
To begin with, it’s always been difficult to understand why “manufacturing jobs” are so sacrosanct in many peoples’ minds. What is it about sitting in front of an assembly line for hours on end, repeating the same task of putting gizmo A into whatchamacallit B 240 times per day that defines “economic prosperity” to some people? We don’t hold retail jobs or service-sector jobs up as similar yardsticks...
...manufacturing is a great stereotypical image, a great cliché...
...if only we could get back to that America -- the factory job...
...they’ve found other jobs in new areas that didn’t exist before.
But according to some economic troglodytes, we’re only in the economic sweet spot if we’re manufacturing cheap Bic pens and Keds. Actually, the value of our manufacturing sector’s output is at record levels, even if the absolute number of workers employed in manufacturing is less than the peak. It’s directly analogous to our agricultural output being the highest ever, even though none of you farm.
There is lots of proof of this. Here’s just one example.
Next time you hear an ill-informed politician talk about how we need to “bring our manufacturing jobs back,” you’ll know better. We manufacture exactly what we should in this country. There’s always a plus/minus to how much we make here depending on the specific conditions of the moment, but you should hope you never see a U.S.-made Bic pen again.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
An Asian forest, South American forest or one in the USA? Makes a difference.
Strange to use a French company as an example and a product that is made by machines.
You hit it all right on the nose about conditions in most modern manufacturing facilities. I consult with manufacturers on helping them improve operations, reduce costs, find new markets, innovate products, etc. The discussion about service vs. manufacturing is the difference of absorbing created value (service) or creating new value that’s demanded by the market.
If you don’t have enough of a manufacturing base to produce items needed for national defense, then what? Have some panty-waisted desk jockies outsource it to where?
That's exactly what I was thinking. I was about to change it to 'econ-trog' but e-trog's good too.
What is the difference between manufacturing cars and manufacturing software code?
What is the difference between manufacturing cars and manufacturing McBurgers?
A key difference is economics is productive work for local consumption vs productive work for export. Cars and software have a worldwide market. McBurgers have a very limited local market.
In any kind of job creation (or other economic event) watch the local impact and the import/export impact.
GA is currently debating gambling expansion. If GA could import gamblers and money like Las Vegas or Atlantic City then it could be argued that gambling is good for GA. But look at the recent struggles with those tourist destinations and it is obvious that tourist market for gamblers is saturated.
So if GA gambling expansion attracts only local money, then it is just shifting money from food, clothing, the mortgage and other existing destinations to gambling. If the casino owners are from LasVegas and take the profit back to LV then it is a net loss to GA. Of course, when people in LasVegas buy Coke at HomeDepot they are supporting employees of the home offices in GA.
So whether one does manual labor or intellectual labor is not as important as whether the money enhances the local economy or not.
The beauty of the States is that there were no immigration or tarriffs between the states, and for most of our history, relatively open borders and no trade restrictions with others. That resulted in economic activity making rational decisions, rather than politicians pandering to one voter group or another to protect their jobs.
The understanding here is that we're not talking market price or dollar value, but rather this is what you feel.
Don't get me wrong, I know that feelings are important and I'd never want to hurt yours and have us fighting here. What I'm saying is that we don't go to the bank and say that we really feel that we got more money there than the balance shown in their records, or we don't just tell our boss that we feeel he needs to give us a raise. If a salesman were to tell us that he feels we got to buy a product we don't want then we get rid of him.
Besides, I feel that we need to get back to talking hard economics and set aside our weath-creationism for say, a religion thread.
That is why China is soon to be world’s largest economy. Because They are are not known to be big in other 3 areas.
Known by whom for what? America's got a % of it's workforce in agriculture while with China it's more like 50%. The U.S. produces a lot more food than the Chinese, in fact in a decade our farm exports to China have soared ten-fold to almost $20 B. Yeah, I understand you don't feel that way and that's your choice.
When you say “Applied research & intellectual products” are you considering this from a University spin-off of pure research point of view, or a result of in-house development within industry to maintain a competitive edge?
I’ve always considered this as falling under “Manufacturing”, the pursuit of advances in making some useful thing; whether, supported by in-house research, or farmed out as a partnership with advanced educational institution conducting pure research.
Harvested...as in agriculture? A raw material to become processed into an intermediate product.
1. Creativity - Applied research & intellectual products.
Everything comes from creativity, the cotton gin, automobile, fracking, light bulb, wheel, hoe, dams, rockets, canals, canal locks, aquifers, Roman arch, PC, iPone, etc.
Trump is right, we are exporting our jobs because of poor tax policy and excess regulation.
Trump may also be right about “free” trade agreements depending how they are negotiated. The TPP is thousands of pages long and was done in secrecy. Much of it was negotiated before the Obama Tyranny. Obama has not done much in the interest of the USA, and don't make me list his record. OK fine, three huge examples: ObamaCare, the Iran Trade Nuclear Deal and the Taliban Exchange.
Now a huge a aside, Expat. This caught my attention yesterday except experts say it is now $9 Trillion instead of $7 Trillion (link only, hopefully that is alright):
My comment, WTheck! This cannot be good!
Wait a sec., if it's done in secrecy how do you know how many pages are in it?
Yep.
Whether its a nation or your local community, there has to be an influx of money from the outside for prosperity and wealth accumulation. If you don’t happen to live where you can export natural resources like trees, coal, or corn, manufacturing something that exceeds the local demand is the best way to develop a thriving economy.
Here is the latest article. It's a Google search, so it is left leaning.
Here is link indicating the politics of the TPP.
http://thehill.com/special-reports/trans-pacific-partnership-november-4-2015/259069-burden-on-the-administration-to
If you want to go through all my posts, I did some research on the TPP and the TSA last year around June. I posted a lot of links. What I do feel strongly about, trade deals should be bilateral. Not this messy 10+ countries nonsense. The trade agreements would be much more transparent giving the populace confidence in its government ability to negotiate in its interest. This is total BS, just like ObamaCare was a piss poor law, the Iran Agreement, the latest Omnibus Bill, etc.
Agriculture and manufacturing are different animals and cannot be compered to each other.
States cannot tariff each other, it’s in the constitution.
Drawing upon comments posted at the Feinstein article, one of many aspects not considered is the one China faces at the moment. The wage structure within China doesn’t support domestic consumption of factory output developed to supply an export market.
The vast majority of China outside of the coastal regions is an agricultural based economy of little wealth potential. The youth were drawn from these areas to the coastal manufacturing hubs which offer better earnings.
Wages have risen approaching a cap based upon what the populations of other Asian countries would accept to perform the same work, potentially displacing China’s factories. The wages are still insufficient to allow the factory workers to become consumers and transition factory output from an export to a domestic consumption market.
To accommodate domestic consumption of industrial production, the production costs must come down (higher factory productivity) allowing a lower selling price to accommodate the weak earnings potential within their economy, or a way found to raise wages.
Within the U.S. the attrition of employment which payed sufficiently high wages, such as to afford a $1000 locally manufactured television versus a $600 imported model, was counterbalanced by the $400 differential spent in alternative venues within the economy.
The contingent of workers paid the higher wages diminished over time, as employers shifted more jobs out of the country. Approaching the endpoint of the employment transition from higher paying to lesser paying positions, fewer have the means to support consumption of production from the industrial base. We therefore approach the Chinese quandary from the opposite direction, we have reached a point of diminished earnings, such that we also cannot afford to buy.
Drawing upon lines of credit, taking on debt to sustain consumption is of limited long term facility due to eventual default. Artificially raising wages by decree has the unintended consequence of removing job positions by substitution of automation (Wendy’s), or the employer becoming non-viable (restaurants facing $15 min. wage for floor wait staff), or other employers’ benefits package cuts through employment hours (ACA).
Drawing down individual stores of wealth can not be sustained forever rather than fostering growth of wealth from fundamental processes. We in the vast majority have lost the economic web of structure which allowed earnings sufficient to buy local in support of an expanding industrial base.
The wealth transferred to import energy as petroleum, to import manufactured items, to import raw materials available domestically, the wealth potential lost by not developing new technology locally, by not fostering employment within the cutting edge of industrial development-—this surrender of prerogative for near term advantage is the challenge we rally against.
Leaks and rumors? Greenpeace actively spilling the beans for their own agenda?
It could be argued that the rough-sawn lumber is one step of the value-add process, and that subsequent steps add additional value. The rough timber is sold to a mill that cuts it into dimensional lumber. The barkings and loose trim are shipped to a pulping facility and turned into paper or cardboard. Even the sawdust is mixed with glue and converted into particle board. A tree becomes a lot of different products, each with value-added labor. And the tree that was worth little to nothing standing in a forest becomes the source of wealth for dozens of men and women.
The same applies to ore dug out of the ground or oil that is pumped, refined, and converted into hundreds of items that elevate our standard of living.
And hundreds of other industries arise to support the lumbering, oil & gas, and mining industries, many of which consume their own natural resources and value-add to them to create their own capital. Capitalism is an incredibly powerful economic engine.
The TPP is thousands of pages long and was done in secrecy.
Wait a sec., if it's done in secrecy how do you know how many pages are in it?
The number of pages was reported... ...What I do feel strongly about, trade deals should...
My situation is that when I want to look at the TPP Full Text I just click and get a 57K .htm file (about what a 6-page Word Doc converts to). You and I have different feelings, but please forgive as I've never been very good at expressing my feelings and like you can see in post 27 when I try I end up hurting those of other people --which is why I like to just stick to talking money, business, and economics.
I do thank you for your input though.
If you click on chapter one there are 11 pages. Chapter 2 is 66 pages long. There are approximately an additional 45 points under Chapter 2. Each point has at least 4 pages and some as many as 25 pages. There are 28 more chapters. You still have the Annexes and the additional information on the left side of the page.
I didn't go any further because guess what, I have friends coming over in 52 minutes.
But thank you for your input.
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