Thank you.

See if its on their site yet.

Update: Here it its........http://www.citizen.org/trade/

so I wouldn't doubt anything from any of them at this point. His USTR has become a joke.

He won't get fast track authority, nor can anyone show he actually wants it. At some point, if he comes out "pushing" a genuinely "crappy" trade deal, I'll jump on the trash Obama bandwagon. At this point, I don't think he's sold us down the river as some insinuate.

War is Peace!

"Eat your peas!" -A well known Republican-Democrat

The corporate predators are counting on Ignorance being Strength.

I'm with you Hoyt. Too many here are ready to cut the President off at the knee at the drop of a hat

Last edited Sat Jun 28, 2014, 04:38 PM - Edit history (2)

the ability of Americans to protect ourselves from predatory corporate policies.

It will destroy jobs, slash wages across the board, force Americans to compete with labor in Third World countries, assault the environment, make medications harder to get, reduce freedom on the internet, and allow multinational corporations to overrule the will of the people on wages, environmental law, and worker protections.

It is a massive, dangerous, predatory corporate assault on our country, our people, and our democratic system. This is how it begins, the rape of countries by corporations, through agreements like this that reduce our ability to use our own democratic systems to protect ourselves against the corporate bottom line. We had better damned well pay attention to what happens to human beings in other countries when global corporations are given the power of government to implement their agenda. The most horrifying thing about this trade deal is that it is not about trade. It is about chipping away at our ability to defend ourselves.



Americans naively think we are special. We are not special, and they are coming for us, too. This is how it begins.

I wanted to share the information with friends outside of DU.

http://www.epi.org/blog/statistics-spin-foreign-goods-considered/

Statistics that Spin: Foreign Goods to Be Considered U.S. Goods?

seems more likely someone has misunderstood something or someone is spreading misinformation on purpose.

From the Economic Policy Institute blog......

<snip>

On May 22, the Office of Management and Budget issued a notice for comments on a proposal to dramatically alter the way government keeps statistics on domestic industries. The proposal suggests “that factoryless goods producers (FGPs) be classified” as manufacturers.

In addition to being an oxymoron, the proposal, if adopted, would create a statistical fiction that companies that are American in name only, which outsource 100 percent of their production, assembly and services to other countries like China, will be deemed to be manufacturers. In other words a company does not have to manufacture any of its products in the United States to be considered a U.S. manufacturer.

<snip>

The proposal posted by OMB would be laughable if it didn’t have such serious implications. If adopted, the proposal would damage the credibility of much needed government statistics. It would also raise issues of transparency by making it more difficult to accurately identify a product’s manufacturing country. Most important, it would move us in the exact opposite direction that the president spoke of when he so eloquently called for ending incentives for companies to send manufacturing work to other countries.

Owen Herrnstadt serves as the Chief of Staff to the International President and Director of Trade and Globalization for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Manipulative, dishonest, and predatory.

Just what we need, a way to destroy more jobs.

but the content remains predictably vapid.

No, on Earth this administration has a long history of proactive selling out of the 99 percent. Need to see the lists again?

And now we get some especially slick and greasy manipulations to help along this piece of predatory garbage that is the TPP. This particular move is on the level of Bush-style sleaziness, or Reagan-style. Claiming that sandwiches are "manufactured," or declaring ketchup a vegetable takes real chutzpah, and that is exactly the quality of this recalculation. This is world-class manipulation. This is called "making up shit" to justify this predatory garbage aimed at all of us.

This feels like the sellout of America by those who are laughing at us as they do it.

https://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/federal_register_notices/notices/fr22my14.pdf

Part 5 describes the rule change.

same definition.

Y'all are spreading misinformation.

Got it.

If you have your own interpretation either share it or have a nice day.

This is not a conspiracy to change how trade deficits are reported.

Now, the counsellor says China is looking at joining the controversial Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

His country was “actively studying the relevant clauses of the TPP and actively studying and I don’t want to exclude the possibility of China's entry into this kind of arrangement in the future“.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/tpp-china-wants-says-its-man-wellington-ck-120846

all for the benefit of the One Percent.

We were about due for more news of this type. Hasn't it been a day or two?

FACTORYLESS GOODS.

If there are historians - after we're done - we will be mocked mercilessly for our collective stupidity.

Claiming fast food workers "manufacture" sandwiches.

All part of the "if the staistics don't support your goal, change the metric" meme.

"Free Trade" is bad. "Globalism" is bad.

Up the isolationists. Hey "treestrar" and the like: I'm calling you out.

This is a deliberate finger in the eye before you lower the axe move. This is sleazy stuff, recalculations.

I do not know why he seems so determined to kill the middle class.

We need to join worldwide protests against this sort of predatory garbage from politicians who claim to have our best interests at heart. We sit here with our sad faces.

And you are spot on. This is a plan for deliberate murder of what remains of the middle class.

This is our Democratic Party on corporate cash, standing right with Republicans. Like pod people with a smile, coming to destroy us.

I enjoy your imagery. And you said this much better than I did, especially "[O]ur Democratic Party on corporate cash.".

Now we know how that's possible. Just stamp "made in America" on foreign made goods headed for europe!

BTW here's a good link to a breakdown of the new OMB rule in question.

http://www.epi.org/blog/statistics-spin-foreign-goods-considered/

http://www.goiam.org/index.php/news/284-issue-updates/12852-iam-dont-classify-foreign-goods-as-american-made

<snip>

The proposal, Herrnstadt writes, “creates an Alice-in-Wonderland distortion of manufacturing statistics” that would construct the illusion of surging U.S. exports and a shrinking trade deficit. It would show accelerated growth in sectors like manufacturing, when in fact the industry is stagnate and shrinking.

American companies that outsource most or all of their production would be able to qualify for tax incentives and government financing found in Buy American laws and U.S. Export-Import Bank policies. It could cost hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs, writes Herrnstadt.

“It is easy to imagine that some companies could claim that their products are made in the United States when they are made offshore,” writes Herrnstadt. “Consumers looking for the Made in the USA label would be dumbfounded to learn that goods made in China and elsewhere would be considered manufactured in America.”

Instead of creating deceiving statistics, Herrnstadt proposes a comprehensive policy that’s open to reforming current U.S. policy on outsourcing, reviews all government incentives that encourage outsourcing, establishes a manufacturing development bank and creates a uniform method for calculating domestic content throughout all government agencies.

http://www.bls.gov/bls/factoryless_goods_producers.htm

This is strictly a change that provides additional information to economists and policy makers. The additional information will even help unions and all others -- like you and me -- who are concerned about outsourcing of jobs for cheaper labor vs. sending certain aspects of production to localities that specialize in the product to improve the product.

You'll also will find that it will be easy to identify so-called "factoryless production" from manufactoring done completely in the USA. Thus, no reputable economist or policymaker is going to suddenly use this to tout a 30% increase in production as if outsourcing were no longer a problem and domestic manufacturing is increasing.

There's a lot of useful, anti-conspiratorial information at the link above. For example read #9 which explains that this "factoryless" change in raw statistics for research and policy making will not result in anything a conspirator could use to fool people that domestic manufacturing is improving --

Total U.S. employment and wages -- U.S. totals are not expected to change.
U.S. production employees -- U.S. totals are not expected to change. U.S. sector total changes are expected to
be minimal, since FGPs would have few, if any, production employees.

____________

There is some additional information in the Notice in the Federal Register. For example, North American countries -- Mexico, Canada and the USA -- have collaborated on this change to ensure data is comparable.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-05-22/pdf/2014-11914.pdf

______________

There is no question outsourcing of manufacturing is a problem for the US, our employment, and the future of our society.

But darn it, this "statistical" change for factoryless goods (as defined above) is not some grand scheme to screw us.

this goes well along with the addition of prostitution and drug trafficking to GDP, as has happened in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The "economy" is officially bonkers.