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Trans Pacific Partnership stalls in US House of Reps

By Jonathan J. Ariel - posted Wednesday, 17 June 2015


More and more Americans understand that while the TPP superficially offers a "good" deal, it offers it to Big Business and the 1%. After all, if it offered everyone a real fillip then why the secrecy? Why the inclusion of the anti-consumer, anti-national sovereignty "investor state disputes settlement" provision into the misnamed 'partnership'?

Last week's msnbc poll exposed just what the public thinks of the trade bill. In short, most Americans no longer support what is commonly sold to them as "free trade". Because they've cottoned on to the fact that there is nothing "free" about it. Unless we're talking about the amount of time millions holding insecure blue and white-collar jobs could soon have on their hands.

Americans are angry over the chronic growing inequality between the "haves" and the "never will haves", which they see as the product of the success of American corporations growing shareholder value at the expense of American jobs. A product enabled by insiders in Washington.

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The "jobless recovery" is one such economic term that explains economic growth and the fattening of corporate profits while holding steady or even slimming down employment.

Those on the left and the right opposing the trade bill have separately accused the Obama administration of undue secrecy and stretching the limits of his power.

Some on the right are positively glowing in their praise of those, who on most issues are their opponents. "The left is using the language I use," said Richard Manning, president of the conservative group called Americans for Limited Government.

And another, Jusdon Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation, one of the several tea party groups, puts it: "There are some areas where the guys on the left-unions and others-get it right, and this is one of those issues".

It takes a particular kind of legislation to compel members of the left and the right to travel to Washington see the whites of their lawmakers' eyes and say: "yes, we agree the TPP will grow the 'economy', that is revenues of American firms operating both at home and abroad. But at the cost of just how many American jobs"?

These folk want nothing less than a better deal for America's workers.

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America's 99% are not troublemakers. They are not calling for a violent revolution. They are the little people, millions of little people who for years have played by the rules, did what they were told, and now have diddly-squat to show for it.

They just want their democracy back.

Australia's 99% are surely no different in their history, their expectations and their demands.

But it's hard to tell with their media's laryngitis on this issue.

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About the Author

Jonathan J. Ariel is an economist and financial analyst. He holds a MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management. He can be contacted at jonathan@chinamail.com.

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