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TPP is not about free trade, it's about helping bigger players getting a deeper dip in the trough. Pretty much the opposite of freedom to trade. (As usual, "fr

TPP is not about free trade, it's about helping bigger players getting a deeper dip in the trough. Pretty much the opposite of freedom to trade. (As usual, "free trade" or "free markets" is a euphemism for "trade policy that will help the guy using the term 'free trade'". Truly free markets would entail lots of bad things like freedom of children to work and the freedom to create Bohpal disasters. This is no exception)

swatow 12y ago
Free trade is not a euphemism when it means eliminating tariffs. It allows a lot of good things like Chinese workers being able to earn $2 an hour instead of $0.20 an hour. EDIT: $2 an hour is from about 5 years ago when Chinese manufacturing was more controversial. Now it's more like $3.50 (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-manufacturing-wages-rise-7-202130472.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-manufacturing-wages-rise...)
- slantedview 12y ago
  I know what you mean, but in America free trade means NAFTA and TPP so it basically is a euphemism.
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programmarchy 12y ago
> bad things like freedom of children to work and the freedom to create Bohpal disasters Children working is better than a family starving to death no? Child labor laws are a first world problem, and could have disastrous consequences for the third world. Union Carbide was a corporation, a legal fiction in which ownership is divorced from responsibility, that cannot exist without privileges given to it by a state. State capitalism has little to do with actual free markets i.e. voluntary trade in a free society. Agree with you about the TPP, though, and the way that the term "free market" is often used in the vulgar sense.
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Why are they starving in the first place? Pay the parent(s) a survivable wage already.
  - swatow 12y ago
    Who is going to pay the parent a survivable wage? And how is that person going to get the money to pay them? People are starving (well usually the problem is that they are very poor, not literally starving) because they don't have money, because they don't produce things of value that they can trade for money. Free trade gives people the opportunity to produce more value (e.g. by working in factories or producing cash crops) so that they can earn more money.
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    - digi_owl 12y ago
      Why does this feel like another one of those 1 2 3 ? PROFIT jokes?
      - swatow 12y ago
        I don't know. Why does economic orthodoxy result in smug self assured replies and downvotes, even though when people choose to educate themselves (by taking college courses, not reading blogs or non-mainstream sources) they almost all are convinced by the orthodox outlook? I honestly feel like a pro-vaccination advocate when I post about economics. EDIT: And to address your (very weak) point, how does working in factories not make people in poor countries richer? Are you aware of what a Chinese farmer makes per year, compared with a Chinese factory worker?
- pjc50 12y ago
  You're a free marketer who's against the limited liability corporation? That's a combination I've never encountered before. Start a business, risk losing your house.

swatow 12y ago

Free trade is not a euphemism when it means eliminating tariffs. It allows a lot of good things like Chinese workers being able to earn $2 an hour instead of $0.20 an hour. EDIT: $2 an hour is from about 5 years ago when Chinese manufacturing was more controversial. Now it's more like $3.50 (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-manufacturing-wages-rise-7-202130472.html http://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-manufacturing-wages-rise...)

slantedview 12y ago
I know what you mean, but in America free trade means NAFTA and TPP so it basically is a euphemism.
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programmarchy 12y ago

> bad things like freedom of children to work and the freedom to create Bohpal disasters Children working is better than a family starving to death no? Child labor laws are a first world problem, and could have disastrous consequences for the third world. Union Carbide was a corporation, a legal fiction in which ownership is divorced from responsibility, that cannot exist without privileges given to it by a state. State capitalism has little to do with actual free markets i.e. voluntary trade in a free society. Agree with you about the TPP, though, and the way that the term "free market" is often used in the vulgar sense.

digi_owl 12y ago
Why are they starving in the first place? Pay the parent(s) a survivable wage already.
- swatow 12y ago
  Who is going to pay the parent a survivable wage? And how is that person going to get the money to pay them? People are starving (well usually the problem is that they are very poor, not literally starving) because they don't have money, because they don't produce things of value that they can trade for money. Free trade gives people the opportunity to produce more value (e.g. by working in factories or producing cash crops) so that they can earn more money.
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  - digi_owl 12y ago
    Why does this feel like another one of those 1 2 3 ? PROFIT jokes?
    - swatow 12y ago
      I don't know. Why does economic orthodoxy result in smug self assured replies and downvotes, even though when people choose to educate themselves (by taking college courses, not reading blogs or non-mainstream sources) they almost all are convinced by the orthodox outlook? I honestly feel like a pro-vaccination advocate when I post about economics. EDIT: And to address your (very weak) point, how does working in factories not make people in poor countries richer? Are you aware of what a Chinese farmer makes per year, compared with a Chinese factory worker?
pjc50 12y ago
You're a free marketer who's against the limited liability corporation? That's a combination I've never encountered before. Start a business, risk losing your house.