OMG! The world has ended. Trumpka? Supporting?

Well here ya go. 30 years of Clinton, Obama and you get this.

http://www.aflcio.org/Press-Room/Press-Releases/TPP-Withdrawal-Good-Firs...

Today's announcement that the US is withdrawing from TPP and seeking a reopening of NAFTA is an important first step toward a trade policy that works for working people.

And this

AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka praised GOP President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership once and for all on Monday with an executive order officially killing the Pacific Rim trade deal.

Trumka also praised the decision by President Trump to reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) deal from the 1990s, a deal that saw millions of U.S. jobs leave the country for Mexico and Canada—and the labor union leader praised President Trump’s harsh words for Big Pharma, the pharmaceutical industry, when Trump said of that industry that “they’re politically protected, but not anymore” in an interview with the Washington Post.

Heads are exploding at ToP.

Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

neoliberals running the Democratic Party are one with Big Finance who support ditching well paying jobs. In this area, Trump's policy & the member unions of the AFL-CIO coincide.

I am sure Trumpka also took note of the fact many of his members in key states gave up on the Democratic nominee who called them "deplorables" who were disposable in her march to the White House.

up
0 users have voted.

"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

solublefish's picture

@duckpin The AFL-CIO doesn't know its ass from its elbow, a fact well in evidence when they threw their support behind Clinton (a choice they put off until it was already too late to make a difference). The history of the AFL-CIO cannot be written without the words "betrayal" and "corruption", which you will find written in every single chapter of that organization's history, right alongside "aristocracy of labor". Nothing Trumpka or any other union leader says should be taken as a mark of good judgment or even good intent until carefully examined in the clear light of day.

But yes, that said, I think it is good that Trumpka should make bones of this now, thereby sending a clear message of his expectation - and that of the rank and file - that the policies of this Administration be ones that genuinely support jobs for Americans. Even so, that falls well short of what Trumpka ought to be supporting but has never supported, and that is the right to work - I mean that not in the faux Republican sense of 'right to work state', but in the real, meaningful sense of the right of all to have useful and remunerative employment. But that has always been too much to ask of the AFL.

up
0 users have voted.

@solublefish The CIO joined the AFL as a very junior partner. The industrial unions had suffered decades of federal persecution, been red-baited by Congress, and were treated as pariahs in their own country.

The AFL under Gompers, et al, was an amalgam of trade unions and was pro capitalist - it was business unionism from the onset. One need only compare the UE and IBEW to see the difference in outlook. Although Trumpka came from an old CIO union he knows trade unions are the heart of the organization and has acted accordingly. At least he kept neutral during the primaries. Trump has a totally anti-union career record so while the AFL-CIO could have withheld its endorsement, it chose what the council perceived as the one less hostile to the union movement.

Under Meany & Sweeney & Kirkpatrick the federation cooperated with international attacks on workers unions in other countries through various high sounding-named programs which all had the effect of attacking workers for the benefit of international capital.

up
0 users have voted.

"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

the hit list. I'm happy of stopping the TTP and a look at NAFTA, although I am not fooled by this with respect to the objectives as far as the Republicans are concerned. this can be seen from the noises of decreasing the Corporate tax rate by 10% [35 to 25%], no doubt there will be a tax holiday for all the corporate money just waiting to be repatriated, around $2.1 trillion.

I'm watching our war industry share prices going up pretty much 5% across the board.

up
0 users have voted.
solublefish's picture

@LaFeminista As Trump already signalled with the Carrier gift deal, Trump's idea of how to bring back American jobs is to give business everything they want at the expense of workers - and fund it with rents taxes extracted from those same American laborers.

I'll bet a Trappist ale that 'renegotiation' of NAFTA is all about removing labor and environmental protections and ramping up neoliberalism. (My guess is that they will quickly move to strengthen investor protections by expanding 'regulatory takings', e.g) He and the Republicans will do this while using race to divide Americans against each other and using the war vs terror (in place of communism) to whip up the hysteria and justify organizing official and para-official forces of 'law and order' in the US to suppress any remaining opposition.

Because that is how fascism has always worked in the US, whether in the 1890s or the 1920s or the 1950s...

up
0 users have voted.
Bob In Portland's picture

@solublefish and Trumpka agree, it's on jobs. That's about it.

up
0 users have voted.
Lily O Lady's picture

of the Republican Party? They thought they had a window on the future. Turns out it was a mirror!

up
0 users have voted.

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Steven D's picture

Fine by me. Though it always seems they regrow them in time for the next outrage over there

up
0 users have voted.

"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

@Steven D @Steven D
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzAy4MVsDko width:400]

up
0 users have voted.

@Steven D
Nothing on TOP at all.

up
0 users have voted.

If Trump knows anything, it is how to throw his weight around. If he goes populist, the Democrats are dead for 30 years. Voters will not come running back to Pelosi wagging their tails behind them.

up
0 users have voted.

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

@dkmich
What Trump will actually do is a wait and see exercise.

THE DP is praying he self destructs.

up
0 users have voted.

@dkmich In the full interview, Pelosi said that there is a regular power swap in election cycles. She thinks the next election democrats will win over gop bad behavior. But yup, if Trump goes populist with enough decisions, then the dems are sunk for a long time.

My guess is a big infrastructure spending bill before 2018 using whatever tax monies are generated from re-appropriating profits held off-shore.

What does all shows and which won't change: the democratic party abandoned working people long time ago and even the most feeble acts by the republicans will win them.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@MrWebster If he does, it will disprove once and for all my notion that he and the Clintons were collaborating and it was all basically pro wrestling.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@dkmich and he also knows how to work an audience. He has a keen sense of how much he has to do for the average american in order to keep them on his side. He also knows how much he has to do for the oligarchs to keep them on his side. He's a showman, which was his reputation back in the 80's.

The people who are having a meltdown and melodramatically fearing the end of the world are the impotents- the Dem leadership, the media, ad the types who gravitate towards TOP with their warped immature view of the world. Krugman, for example, has apparently lost his mind, while pointing the finger at trump for losing his mind. I guess he didn't learn the lesson from Warren- if you debase yourself in challenging trump, you only make yourself look as bad as he.

up
0 users have voted.

To mix metaphors even more, Nader once said the choice between democrats and republicans is how fast you want to hit the wall--but hit the wall you will.

Just a small aside. I was reading local online newspaper, and several people were pushing a common pro-TPP talking point--TPP was the peaceful way of controlling China. Is the new emergent theme from democrats "make war with Russia, but peace with China?"

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster if T doesn't follow through with the TPP then China is going to over take us on trade. Aren't we already importing most of the items from China already?
Dog food, expensive computers, phones, clothing, shoes etc.
And how many people are driving American made cars? Even those have parts made in foreign countries.
My last American made car was a Ford and it was a piece of junk.
My 16 year old Mazda is still running great with a few minor problems that any car this old would have.

up
0 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@snoopydawg I don't believe the TPP is going to save us from that. Anyway, DC doesn't talk about the trade deficit. It's dirty.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@snoopydawg I quote back anti-Russian rhetoric, but substitute Russia with China. If it is bad to trade with Russia, why is it good to trade and export jobs to Tibet-annexing communist controlled China? Apparently corporate America, and in particular, Walmart get a pass in dealing with non-democratic countries.

up
0 users have voted.

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg @snoopydawg My wife's new Honda is a piece of crap. It's made in Ohio but designed in outer space. The car decides if the doors are locked or unlocked, not the driver. You can be locked out of the car or locked in the car. No manual overrides, on ANY Honda. If the car sits for more than a week, the battery runs down and it won't start. There is no centrifugal switch on the starter circuit so if you push the switch too far, the starter grinds. The seats were made for people with rickets. To ride with your head erect, you have to put the seat at a steep angle. It DOES get 30 mpg due to the CV transmission, but it is totally unreliable and uncomfortable. I would never take it anyway away from a metropolitan area, whereas I do take my Chevrolet Impala cross-country in complete confidence. It gets 30mpg at a steady 70mph, but only 16 putting about town. The doors lock when you put it in gear and unlock when you put it in Park. Totally overridable by switch or manually moving the plungers on the doors. And you can leave it sit for a month, then start it immediately. The engine is made in an automated plant in Mexico and the transmission in Windsor Canada, where GM doesn't have to pay for health Insurance because the whole country is single-payer.

up
0 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

karl pearson's picture

To its credit, the AFL-CIO did not endorse Clinton until after the Democratic primary--probably because many of its local leaders and members were Bernie Sanders supporters. Now Trumka has to deal with the fall-out from the Clinton endorsement. I'll bet a decent number of AFL-CIO members voted for Trump in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania because of Clinton's support of NAFTA and the TPP.

up
0 users have voted.

@karl pearson Wikileaks revealed, well after the fact, but obvious to me, that Hillary didn't get 2-shits, or even know about the movement for $15/hr min wage. The person who Hillary slated to run HHS, Neera Tanden, recommended to the campaign that Hillary NOT support $15 min. wage. Wikileaks also revealed that Hillary praised Walmart to high heaven. Nader said this was even after a number of activists tried to approach her to intercede with Walmart to raise wages. Nader said the campaign never got back to the activists.

I guess in a symbolic "fuck you" to unions Hillary had her "thank you my millionaires" party in a hotel which was not unionized (at least according to people claiming to be local to the area).

up
0 users have voted.

@MrWebster Didn't she sit on the Walmart board? I bet she owns a ton of stock. or her phony charity does.

up
0 users have voted.

I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

travelerxxx's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

As I recall, Hillary sat on the Walmart board for six years. You probably remember her outspoken support of workers attempting to organize in order to promote better working conditions at Walmart.

Oh, you don't remember that? Heh. Me either, because she did noting but collect a paycheck while the workers suffered - they still do suffer.

up
0 users have voted.
earthling1's picture

that Trump will do an end run, to the left, around Clinton. While the dems were moving to the right,Trump was moving left. He's always been against the TPP as well as advocating renegotiating NAFTA.
The electioneering is over. He won. The fact that he continues this rhetoric after he has been installed in the White House says something.
I just don't know what.

up
0 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@earthling1

The electioneering is over. He won. The fact that he continues this rhetoric after he has been installed in the White House says something.
I just don't know what.

It's not just "rhetoric" at this point. It's action. Mr. Trump is undertaking populist actions.

And what it says is that he wants to be re-elected in 2020, with a friendly populist Congress behind him.

Nancy Pelosi, Dianne "I can have a gun but you can't" Feinstein, UpChuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, etc., are so toast if The Donald keeps this up.......

We're definitely down Ye Olde Rabbit Hole now -- and the Rabbit is Bugs Bunny!!

Help

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

up
0 users have voted.
thanatokephaloides's picture

Heads are exploding at ToP.

Here's an appropriate song to accompany that blessed event:

[video:https://youtu.be/YK3ZP6frAMc width:420 height:236]

Wink

up
0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

detroitmechworks's picture

Course, the fact that he didn't immediately start shooting people from the White House Porch means that he's already exceeded my expectations.

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

solublefish's picture

@detroitmechworks He did fairly promise to shoot people, if not from his own porch. Terrorists ("which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth") and criminals I think it was ("This American carnage stops right here and stops right now")?

Trump's language was the language of an authoritarian. His idiom was rife with the standard memes and themes of right-wing neoliberal discourse in this country. A brief analysis of the full paragraph from which the last quote was taken should be to the point:

But for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists: Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities; rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation; an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge; and the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

  • "Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities" = non-male black people, for whom we need to end welfare of all kinds in order to break the culture of poverty
  • "rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation" = American business enterprise, which we need to shore up by cutting regulations and 'red tape' like environmental and worker protections - already in the works
  • "an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge" = public education, which like all public services needs to be privatized in order to 'work' [for the rich] - again, already in the works
  • "the crime and gangs and drugs that have stolen too many lives" = black males who need to be surveilled and controlled, preferably while living in steel cages
  • "robbed our country of so much unrealized potential" = robbed white people of their hard-earned taxes

There is nothing new to American politics in any of this. Trump is just a new wrapper for the same old right-wing social Darwinist police state that prevailed in the Gilded Age or the 1920s, and which they have been dying to restore since FDR took it away from them.

And please, the notion that a man who just stuffed his Cabinet full of billionaire bankers is about to renegotiate NAFTA or any trade agreement on terms favorable to working people is ... the product of much better weed than I am smoking (so please leave me a contact number when you reply)...

up
0 users have voted.
detroitmechworks's picture

@solublefish
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHa1zTLrXO8]

I was referring to the pull out on TPP, but yeah, NAFTA won't be going anywhere with a guy who makes his shit in Mexico.

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@solublefish After Bush and Obama, I tend to assume that authoritarianism will be the order of the day.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@solublefish Trump doesn't frighten me any more than the rest of them. As for giving the corporations what they want, they sure seemed to want TPP. I don't know, maybe they came up with a new scam amongst them. Whatever. Watching with interest.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

solublefish's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I may be reading it wrong, but I don't think so. Time will tell. As I see it, Trump's tanking of the TPP means the same thing as he means by insisting on "renegotiating" NAFTA. And THAT means (re)writing the rules to provide even MORE protection to the interests of capital and MORE screwing of workers and environment in order to make business "more competitive". In other words, same old neoliberal shit. He's dressed it up in a vague language of "jobs" that appeals to all the suckers out there, but this is what he's aiming for.

The man basically said so himself: "America first". Well historically, that has always meant putting first the interests of American CAPITAL. I doubt Trump intends anything different: his Cabinet picks speak volumes on that score.

As I say, I am speculating at this point, so we shall see. But I would not advise anyone to get their hopes up.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks He's a bastard. But he's not the kind of bastard that commits violence with his own two hands, unless it's on some woman he's screwing. That's my considered opinion.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

shaharazade's picture

the freaking brainwashed neoliberal/neocon heads exploding at dkos? Who cares about the New Demorat's who have betrayed labor for decades.I'm not a big fan of Trumpka in the past he has been way too cozy with the outsourcing, Davos Goldman Sachs crowd.I'm getting really fed up with the aftermath of this farce of an election.It's not on labors head or the 'deplorables' in the rust belt or white bigots it's on the Demorat's heads. I personally would like to see all the current 'duly elected' Democrat's heads explode, including the gutless 'progressive caucus'.

It would be a start on getting rid of the other arm of the Republican that now pass themselves off as Democrat's or Indie's. I do get a laugh out of hearing the phony Dem. outrage about The Hairball from the Third Way'ers who's hypocrisy, neoliberal-endless bloody war policy, belligerence towards workers and shameless arrogance put this scary clown in office. 'A bag o rat's' and I'm now an anarchist. Whatever the duopoly from hell comes up with I'm sure the reality of their policies ad agenda are going to do ordinary people globally harm.

up
0 users have voted.
Bob In Portland's picture

for a capitalist to understand is that if no one can afford a product no one will buy it.

If this simple fact has evaded corporate Democrats over the last 25 years then it's unlikely that Trump will understand this.

up
0 users have voted.
solublefish's picture

@Bob In Portland

The hardest thing for a capitalist to understand is that if no one can afford a product no one will buy it.

So they make you RENT it instead - and then we will be true serfs, once again.

up
0 users have voted.
Unabashed Liberal's picture

SEIU, etc., were not among them.

(I listened to the first full press briefing on XM, and Spicer read off the list of unions and representatives. The bulk seemed to be from construction industry unions--pipefitters, sheetmetal workers, etc.)

What I'd like to know is if the union bosses who are in the Dems' hip pockets were invited. If they were, and refused, I'd say that they've definitely cooked their gooses. And, any attempt on their part to belatedly attach themselves (take credit for) the renegotiation of NAFTA, will likely fail.

Anyhoo, hope that the cancelling of the TPP, and the possible renegotiating of NAFTA will create many decent paying jobs. According to Spicer, DT mets with the leaders of Canada and Mexico within a week or so. If they'll agree to revisions, they may revamp the current bill. If not, he has the authority to pull the US out of NAFTA (all Presidents have that authority, BTW).

Mollie


"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."
____Author Unknown

up
0 users have voted.

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

solublefish's picture

@Unabashed Liberal Trump already met with Hoffa (Teamsters)a and Trumka (ALF-CIO) a month ago. I note that the United Steelworkers were pointedly NOT invited to this meeting - purportedly because of their noisy correction of Trumps false claims about how many jobs he "saved" with his Carrier tax break. Those two little facts right there offer a good indication of Trump's real attitude toward labor, i.e. it is little different than the attitude of the "progressive" neoliberals otherwise known as the [third way] Democrats.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@solublefish Well, nobody could imagine that anyone occupying the Oval Office has a good attitude toward labor. The politics of this country is organized to prevent exactly that.

What the establishment doesn't like about Trump is his unpredictability, as evidenced in this action of his today...Ya think Hillary would ever have backed us out of TPP?

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

riverlover's picture

than to Canada, our major trading partner who now has tar sands for export and also have a weaker dollar than the US.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

@riverlover (which explain why so much of your candy is now made in Canada and Mexico), Canada has almost nothing to lose in a renegotiation of NAFTA. whatever the American worker lost in the original NAFTA, the Canadian worker lost more.

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

riverlover's picture

@UntimelyRippd And also got to travel there some years back.

up
0 users have voted.

Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

@riverlover from sugar beets in Manitoba.

up
0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Unabashed Liberal's picture

and Hoffa's meetings with DT, posted so others can read it.

(Sorry! Can't post the piece, because my browser crashed, and I can't find it. Here's the Reuters piece about today's meeting.)

POLITICS | Mon Jan 23, 2017 | 5:01pm EST
Trump meets with leaders of building, sheet metal unions

BTW, I wasn't referring to the United Steel workers--all of the unions mentioned were small 'lesser known' ones. I didn't recognize any of the names of the union leaders that he met with today.

I do remember seeing some union dude on CNN, when the news broke about some Carrier jobs being spared (from outsourcing). I commented at the time over at EB, that the guy didn't do himself any favors--his rhetoric was beyond the pale. Of course, it's hard to expect too much from anyone who would 'own up to' supporting FSC.

Wink

Agree with your earlier comments that we should closely watch DT's 'actions' (regarding NAFTA, etc.), and not be fooled by his words. From all that I've read, though, he's long been an isolationist on trade. So, I'm a tad hopeful that he is serious about renegotiating NAFTA (to the betterment of workers). OTOH, I'm sure as heck not ready to bet the family farm on it. Guess time will tell.

Mollie


"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."
____Author Unknown

up
0 users have voted.

Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

solublefish's picture

@Unabashed Liberal

From all that I've read, though, he's long been an isolationist on trade.

Then you know more than me! I don't know a thing about his prior thinking about trade. Let's hope you are right.

up
0 users have voted.

Lets face it: most of the jobs that left the US over the last 20 + years aren't coming back. The TPP agreement allowed aggrieved multinational corporations to sue the US for "loss of potential profits" if the US asserted its right to regulate activities within its borders. Activities like mining, fracking, water conservation. And the case determining damages to said multinational corporation would be heard in a court made up of, who'd have thought it?, multinational corporations. Passing a trade agreement like the TTP, which thanks to that other Clinton, is a "treaty", not a "trade agreement", and which has the force of a constitutional amendment, would effectively deprive the US of sovereignty.

up
0 users have voted.

@GusBecause

Laws about working conditions, pollution, any kind of standards to protect people, resources, or environment would have let foreign corporations sue us. Buy American or buy local would do the same - I think we already lost a WTO case on that.

up
0 users have voted.
coloradoblue's picture

was asked about Fight for 15 her response was "How about $12.50."

She and the Dems don't have a fucking clue.

up
0 users have voted.

Dear Dems: You lost the WH, Senate, House, dozens of governors, state level SOS and AG and about 1,000 state legislative seats. Maybe...you're doing something wrong.

dervish's picture

@coloradoblue

up
0 users have voted.

"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

sojourns's picture

but not until the republican congress have finished with him doing their dirty work. Then they can impeach him and have a nice, safe Pence. Alleviating themselves of being at all guilty of destroying our social institutions. I have said this before earlier. At this rate, I give it less than a year. Just about the time Bill and Hillary are prosecuted for what is found after they've just now closed the Clinton Foundation.

up
0 users have voted.

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

CB's picture

whereas China’s One Belt, One Road initiative will effect 5,175 million people (over six times as many). Although the current percentage of world trade in China's initiative is less than the countries that make up the TPP, the growth potential of China's initiative is exponentially larger.

I cannot say this more strongly: for the last three decades, the USA has been filling coffins while China has been filling coffers. The chickens are coming home to roost. The US is being eviscerated.

Alibaba'a Jack Ma Drops a Redpill in Davos: The U.S. Wasted $14 Trillion on Wars Over the Past 30 Years
And there it is, the unvarnished, raw, truth about how everything went wrong for middle class America.

Since the Vietnam war, more than 45 years ago, the US has embarked on a neocon strategy of war in an effort to build a global empire. The result of that strategy has left American infrastructure second rate, its school system in shambles, and its healthcare system a complete and utter joke.

Just imagine what America could've done with $14t of investable dollars, instead of waging wars.

Aside from the wars, America spends more than 50% of its discretionary budget on the military, per annum, 16% of its overall budget.

All Trump has to do is reroute 10 or 20% of this discretionary spending into American infrastructure and we won't see the Dems back in power for a decade.

up
0 users have voted.
shaharazade's picture

@LaFeminista @CB the Russians are coming and anything our Chinese adversaries (note not yet our true enemy but always there as they too are a looming threat. Personally I don't much like any of these evil empirical clashes of power and death even the latest versions glorified in Star War's miovies for the next and youngest generation.

Them against us culturally, politically, regionally and any other diversionary tactic they can devise. Both sides, no good guys, all bad guys. I just cannot get too tweaked about The Hairball's administration after Bush1/Clinton/Bush2/and then finally a man of conscience was elected to stop the mad Bushies. So now 16 years later where still stuck in Cheney/Bush land. Same land, same propagandist's same faces same freaking pols D's or R's. They are all 'esteemed colleagues' after all we're a civilized nation.

I kind of agree with this Chinese pol. He has a point why do we spend this obscene and mad amount of money on killing everybody? Why is the pol dubious because he's Chinese? The Chinese the next or second worse enemy we must fear and hate. they are up to no good. Dr.Know Islands are being built by these nogoodnick's, They will get under our beds with the 'Terrist's', the Russains and at last the real enemy that is the worst one the freaking Chinese. The country that produces both Apple's goodies and all of Wal-Mart's and Home Despots. cheap shit.

up
0 users have voted.
sojourns's picture

I'm sure that was no typo. I've been calling that place that for years. Pipeline for cheap ass Chinese junk. We should have a rule that if it is made in China and the product fails then the Chinese should pay for shipping it back to China and bury it in their own landfills.

As you noted: Same for Walmart, Target, Best Buy, all of the big box clubs.

up
0 users have voted.

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

Tony Wikrent's picture

The only sane perspective on how Trump's economic policies are likely to affect the Democrats I have found at Naked Capitalism, and especially at Ian Welsh. First of all, Trump and his team are NOT stupid and incompetent. Bigoted and narcissistic, yes, but not stupid and incompetent. You don't amass a personal fortune measured in billions of dollars, defeat the core of the Republican establishment, and get elected President of USA by being stupid and incompetent.

What Trump is: sly, ruthless, and dangerous. Do not ever fall into the comfortable delusion of ever thinking otherwise.

All that being said, Welsh has been very lucid in explaining that what we are likely to get under Trump are things we want done, but done by the wrong person. We want to get rid of TPP. We want to get rid of NAFTA. We want massive investments in infrastructure. It would be much, much better if these things were done by Democrats, but the simple fact is, Democrats did NOT do them. Democrats could have done these things, and chose not to. I think this was part of the reason Democrats were smashed electorally. So now we are going to get some things done we want done, by someone who also wants to do many things we do not, such as stoking bigotry and fear of the other, dismantling Obamacare rather than pushing it toward single payer, gutting environmental regulations, defunding climate science, and the whole list of horrors Trump brings with him into power.

On TPP and economics generally, if Trump actually manages to force companies to return production to USA, the Democratic Party is dead meat. I’ve already seen the people at DailyKos regurgitate some “free trade” drivel from the Koch-funded, market fundamentalist American Enterprise Institute. If Democrats are going to oppose Trump by defending the tenets of neoliberalism, then they are going to be useless in opposition. The only way Democrats can successfully oppose Trump is from the left: by pushing single payer health care; a tax on Wall Street speculation; and a massive $100 trillion world-wide program to stop climate change by building new energy, transportation, and industrial systems that do not use fossil fuels. I do not see that happening. Certainly not with the old guard of Pelosi and Schumer still in control.

Looked at in this way, the election of Trump WAS the American people voting in their economic interests: rejecting free trade, globalization, financialization, and all the rest. The great irony is that American industrialization in the 19th and early 20th centuries (and Germany’s, and Japan’s and South Korea’s and Malyasia’s and other Asian tigers) took place behind a system of protectionist tariffs, but very, very few people know this history. I see no indication that Trump or Bannon know this history, either: they appear to be stumbling toward a poor, faulty re-invention of what used to be called the American System of political economy.

Will they eventually realize they cannot succeed in bring back production without imposing some forms of capital controls? And will they realize this requires a titanic struggle with the financial markets and the MOTU? The interesting point here is that Trump hates Wall Street. He is not a financier. He has had to deal with them, and he knows their tricks and their modus operandi. Almost all the problems he has had in his “deals” can be traced back to some imposition or other by the financiers and bankers he had to work with. So, he generally despises them. This is one major reason why Wall Street and the financial industry was so solidly for Clinton. Note that the people Trump has selected who have ties to large Wall Street firms, in most cases, those ties are from ten or twenty years ago. At least that’s the case with Bannon, Mnuchin, and Ross. They may still have been involved in finance until recently, but they have not been insiders at Goldman Sachs or Citigroup or wherever for a very long time. I am reminded of what FDR reportedly said about making Joe Kennedy the first head of the SEC: the best way to guard the henhouse was putting a fox in charge of watching the foxes.

The Democrats can wreak havoc on the Republicans by repeatedly introducing a tax on Wall Street, and either force Trump and Wall Street into each other’s arms, or driving Trump and Wall Street further apart. If the former, the Tea Party base of the Republicans will simmer in revolt; if the latter, he will be making some very powerful enemies.

The one vulnerability Trump has is that he has come to power by appealing to the very worst aspects of the American people. I believe he has done this with cold calculation and ruthlessness, but I do not believe he is able to foresee the monsters he has unleashed as a result. The bigots of America now feel they are free to openly express their hatreds, and act on them. This is going to result in thousands of individual incidents that will over time form a swelling national torrent of public unrest, violence, and increasing lawlessness. If Trump can pull off his economic “Make America Great Again,” it is this national torrent of racist attacks and counterattacks that will become the most dangerous obstacle to his success as a President. If he does as his supporters will want–clamp down by imposing a police state step by step–he will be increasingly unpopular and will probably fail.

up
0 users have voted.

- Tony Wikrent
Nation Builder Books(nbbooks)
Mebane, NC 27302
2nbbooks@gmail.com

travelerxxx's picture

@Tony Wikrent

Superb post, Tony. Glad you're here commenting. This really caught my eye:

If Democrats are going to oppose Trump by defending the tenets of neoliberalism, then they are going to be useless in opposition.

Sadly, that seems to be exactly where they are headed, and at breakneck speed. I suspect it will take (more) massive losses in 2018 - or even 2020 - to flush the neoliberals from the leadership of the Democratic Party. Not so sure even that will do it; it may be a lost cause.

up
0 users have voted.

I am very disappointed with the comments in this thread. I was (am) a big Bernie supporter and was a delegate in our caucus. Along with Bernie, I regarded the TPP as one of the gravest threats to our working class, our environment, and our sovereignty -- both national and local. Trump campaigned on his opposition to the TPP and other "trade agreements" like NAFTA. Just three days into his term, Trump publicly and emphatically pulled the plug on the TPP and perhaps started the process of renegotiating NAFTA. He was praised by both Bernie and Trumpka. Yet what I read here is mostly negativity, denial and changing the subject to other "bad things" about Trump. I thought this place was better than this.

up
0 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Bring Back Civics For me, it's more about being once burned, twice shy. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. (I'm trying to come up with another cliche to end this comment with, but not coming up with one...)

Fact is, it's been more than 20 years since any legislation got passed in this country that constituted a real, measurable economic policy gain for the 99%. Before I believe wholeheartedly that another extremely wealthy man has decided to act against his class' interests, I'm going to wait and watch a little, and see if there's some way this could be twisted or spun into something that hurts us.

Regardless of what shoes could be out there waiting to drop, what Trump has done in pulling the plug on the TPP is more than any President has done for working people in the past 35-50 years.

up
0 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal You acknowledged my main point:

"Regardless of what shoes could be out there waiting to drop, what Trump has done in pulling the plug on the TPP is more than any President has done for working people in the past 35-50 years."

I totally understand that there will be other policies from this administration that I will hate. Nevertheless, this TPP thing is Yuuuuuuge! It is a very positive development that should be appreciated and celebrated by those of us on this site -- despite the fact that it came from Trump.

up
0 users have voted.