More Wealth, More Jobs, but Not for Everyone: What Fuels the Backlash on Trade

The New York Times ^ | 29 September 2016 | Peter S. Goodman

[Theoria]

Trade is under attack in much of the world, because economists failed to anticipate the accompanying joblessness, and governments failed to help.

For as long as ships have ventured across water, laborers like Patrick Duijzers have tied their fortunes to trade.

He is a longshoreman here at Europe’s largest port, and his black Jack Daniel’s T-shirt, hoop earrings and copious rings give Mr. Duijzers the look of a bohemian pirate. His wages put him solidly in the Dutch middle class: He has earned enough to buy an apartment and enjoy vacations to Spain.

Lately, though, Mr. Duijzers has come to see global trade as a malevolent force. His employer — a unit of the Maersk Group, the Danish shipping conglomerate — is locked in a fiercely competitive battle around the world.

He sees trucking companies replacing Dutch drivers with immigrants from Eastern Europe. He bids farewell to older co-workers reluctantly taking early retirement as robots capture their jobs. Over the last three decades, the ranks of his union have dwindled to about 7,000 members, from 25,000.

“More global trade is a good thing if we get a piece of the cake,” Mr. Duijzers said. “But that’s the problem. We’re not getting our piece of the cake.”

Far beyond the docks of the North Sea, such laments now resonate as the soundtrack for an increasingly vigorous rejection of free trade.

For generations, libraries full of economics textbooks have rightly promised that global trade expands national wealth by lowering the price of goods, lifting wages and amplifying growth. The powers that emerged victorious from World War II championed globalization as the antidote to future conflicts. In Asia, Europe and North America, governments of every ideological persuasion have focused on trade as their guiding economic force.

[Soul of the South]

The TPP document is 6000 pages. Freedom does not require 6000 pages to explain.

[Vendome]

Was reading about our local weather girl and the article included that gif.

No real good reason for the post....