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Also a good review of the implications at http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ The comic is too detailed and too well written

by seiji 11y ago

Also a good review of the implications at http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/ The comic is too detailed and too well written to summarize here. Go read it. The TPP is basically why many companies gave up "policing" the Internet about 6-10 years ago. Many of the voracious file sharing lawsuits ($150,000 or $750 per download, which ever is greater) just stopped. They've been waiting for stronger legal teeth. Now they'll have the legal backing of governments to do private corporate takedowns. If we thought the MPAA/RIAA getting local police and federal officers to enforce their policies was bad, there's a lot worse ahead at a larger scale than most people can comprehend (required ISP logging/tracking/takedowns of every URL (retention time? forever), required in-line packet inspection (globally distributed GFW with local policies), etc). Fighting this won't be silly little "sopa nope-a" web blackouts. It'll need full time DC congressional lobbying from our viewpoints. It can be done, but it would take a few million in funding to drive the point home and maybe a few more tens of millions in campaign donations to turn around the right wrong-thinking people.

tptacek 11y ago
This comic is godawful, and it's embarrassing that it keeps coming up on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9982411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9982411
- seiji 11y ago
  Well, nobody knows the TPP yet. It's not public. The parts that have leaked are pretty bad. The comic mostly argues against a common hybrid republican/libertarian economic branding of "free trade." Free Trade branding ended up being a disguise for reducing labor costs by moving interchangeable capital to places where people work for (and live off of) $1/day instead of $800/day, but people never get the same freedom of movement rights as corporate capital. So, companies reduce costs, but people can't move to cheaper (or even better) places to improve their own costs. As for arguing the comic is godawful, maybe de-escalate your rage meter for a while? It's just an informative comic posted to an online text forum run by a multi-billion dollar funding organization. It's all kinda meaningless overall.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    It's the opposite of an informative comic. It is a comic designed to deceive readers based on an illusory claim of expertise (its author is not an economist, nor is he apparently familiar with the TPP) in order to push an agenda. It is upsetting to see it repeatedly posted to HN.
    - seiji 11y ago
      As far as I can tell, we aren't licensed and bonded economists either, so there's no ground to take down another not-an-economist (No True Economist?).
- Camillo 11y ago
  You can look at it this way. When the WTO agreement was passed, opponents worried that it would lead to a massive transfer of manufacturing jobs to China, which could undercut the US with lower wages, laxer safety and environmental protection standard, etc. Supporters claimed that it would benefit the average American, not just the wealthy, and that the spread of a market economy would bring democracy to China, which would then pass labor and environmental protection laws similar to our own. What actually happened is that the WTO led to a massive transfer of manufacturing jobs to China, inequality in the US has increased, China has shown no interest in democracy, the working class there still enjoys low wages and poor working conditions, and they are now the largest polluter in the world. On top of that, the US as a whole has been weakened, and the fact that we have thrown away any chance of conditioning access to markets on the implementation of air pollution regulations looks ever more regrettable given global warming. I think it is reasonable to look at that and adjust your priors to trust TPP opponents more and TPP proponents less, even in the absence of any TPP-specific information.

by seiji 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

This comic is godawful, and it's embarrassing that it keeps coming up on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9982411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9982411

seiji 11y ago
Well, nobody knows the TPP yet. It's not public. The parts that have leaked are pretty bad. The comic mostly argues against a common hybrid republican/libertarian economic branding of "free trade." Free Trade branding ended up being a disguise for reducing labor costs by moving interchangeable capital to places where people work for (and live off of) $1/day instead of $800/day, but people never get the same freedom of movement rights as corporate capital. So, companies reduce costs, but people can't move to cheaper (or even better) places to improve their own costs. As for arguing the comic is godawful, maybe de-escalate your rage meter for a while? It's just an informative comic posted to an online text forum run by a multi-billion dollar funding organization. It's all kinda meaningless overall.
- tptacek 11y ago
  It's the opposite of an informative comic. It is a comic designed to deceive readers based on an illusory claim of expertise (its author is not an economist, nor is he apparently familiar with the TPP) in order to push an agenda. It is upsetting to see it repeatedly posted to HN.
  - seiji 11y ago
    As far as I can tell, we aren't licensed and bonded economists either, so there's no ground to take down another not-an-economist (No True Economist?).
Camillo 11y ago
You can look at it this way. When the WTO agreement was passed, opponents worried that it would lead to a massive transfer of manufacturing jobs to China, which could undercut the US with lower wages, laxer safety and environmental protection standard, etc. Supporters claimed that it would benefit the average American, not just the wealthy, and that the spread of a market economy would bring democracy to China, which would then pass labor and environmental protection laws similar to our own. What actually happened is that the WTO led to a massive transfer of manufacturing jobs to China, inequality in the US has increased, China has shown no interest in democracy, the working class there still enjoys low wages and poor working conditions, and they are now the largest polluter in the world. On top of that, the US as a whole has been weakened, and the fact that we have thrown away any chance of conditioning access to markets on the implementation of air pollution regulations looks ever more regrettable given global warming. I think it is reasonable to look at that and adjust your priors to trust TPP opponents more and TPP proponents less, even in the absence of any TPP-specific information.