I think he's a DINO. Especially with quotes like these:

"Rep. Ron Kind, one of the 28 House Democrats who broke party ranks to side with the president and grant him broad trade negotiating powers."


I'll write in a name if I must.

Oh, and charm offensive, my ass.

...and it has been brilliantly strategized.

The hell with this bone-throwing nonsense.

Why didn't they proceed with this earlier on?

Because they wanted it to use as a damage control move.

Third-Wayers don't give a damn about the working class; it's just technocratic strategy bullshit to them.

Police, teachers, government, restaurant workers, construction, truck drivers, USPS, store workers, painters, mechanics, plumbers, Heating and air repair, landscape, road repair, utilities, water works, etc.

In fact, the category that makes up almost half today's union membership -- government -- is pretty much assured of remaining here.

But, why interrupt a good Obama bashing about sending jobs overseas.

Just so a traitorous company can make more profits from slave labor?

Imagine yourself at about 55 years old, losing a job and health insurance, and trying to find another good job. Nobody will hire you. And TAA has always been a fraud. I went through it.

Your schtick is really getting old.

watch. Some are already gone to H1B visas. More will follow.

as though people who lost their jobs wont be asking 'what jobs are safe', then retraining for those jobs, and young people starting out with a longer career timespan and fewer choices wont aim for those jobs

some people have absolutely no concept of labor economics

twice and got out ahead of the takeover ax once. All three times, no one believed they were in danger. "Nope, not my job. Not this company." Yep, your job, your company. It's some kind of inability of many people to see reality when it's coming for them.

Last edited Thu Jul 2, 2015, 04:53 PM - Edit history (1)

to using drones for policing. In fact, that has already been seriously suggested. You just won't have as much of a chance to survive as you do with a human...

I grew up in an area where all the fire stations were manned by volunteers.

Construction? There is a school in our district that teaches students how to do construction work. They compete throughout the state and win. Yet, when I had my roof rebuilt last year, and my house resided this year, there were no graduates from that high school on the crews. The crews were all from Mexico, Central, and South America. I'm not suggesting in any way, shape or form that they were here illegally, but I'm pretty sure they were not being paid like construction workers used to be paid, either. (Not that I got a break on the costs.)

Five years ago, I had another roof replaced by the same roofing company and the workers were all local people.

globalization. Good luck.

I get you don't like immigrants.

as they should be and that brings all wages down.

And, no, I don't blame the immigrants for that. They, like the rest of us, are only trying to make it the best they can. I blame the businesses (in this case contractors) that are charging the customers the same amount (or more) that they do when they pay good wages as when they pay lower wages.

I object to bringing in outside labor to do local jobs when there are plenty of local workers. Immigration status has nothing to do with this.

the middle class was started and grew through manufacturing jobs. We have fewer now, thanks to NAFTA and GATT.

If this nation doesn't get back to making stuff, inventing stuff, etc. No amount of bones to the working class will get us back to prosperity.

As just one of the many that lost a job due to these trade agreements: too little, too late.

TPP is a republican deal. Why is POB supporting it against his own party?

... if you don't mind sharing the details.

moved most manufacturing/Engineering to Indonesia and China.
Over 55 at the time and had just recovered from health issues.

A few people made lots of $$$, most didn't.

someone works in those factories....

After a decade of decline in the 2000s when 40 percent of all large factories closed their doors, American manufacturing is adding jobs at its fastest rate in decades, with 877,000 new manufacturing jobs created since February 2010. Ohio alone has added nearly 70,000 manufacturing jobs over that period. Manufacturing production is up by almost a third since the recession and the number of factories manufacturing across the United States is growing for the first time since the 1990s.

Being in a slightly shallower hole does not mean you are above ground.

"the number of factories manufacturing across the United States is growing for the first time since the 1990s."

You've still got a couple decades to get through.

Of course, since it followed on the heels of something like a 250k loss, we're still way in the hole from where we were before Bush.

Notice the careful construction of the sentences in that paragraph.

'American manufacturing is adding jobs at its fastest rate in decades' = we still haven't gotten back the total number of jobs we lost, so we'll talk about the 'rate', where any given number will always increase the rate when the overall number is way down.

'Manufacturing production is up by almost a third since the recession' = Manufacturing production is still down way down from where it was before the recession.

'The number of factories manufacturing across the Unites States is growing' but no mention of those factories creating more jobs than before the 90s.

'Growth' is where you actually get bigger. We still haven't even gotten back to where we were before Bush, much less actually 'grown'.

years ago.

BTW, you should probably link to your sources.

We invent plenty of stuff, and that is a major part of the TPP -- making sure we don't get ripped off by countries that don't recognize patents. But, folks are too myopic to see that.

The President is supporting it because he thinks it's the right thing to do. A lot of Dems are pretending to be against it, playing politics to people who can't see the writing on the wall and think the good ole days will return.

sustained without someone doing real work to make something seems like a hard way to make the point.

And note that in the past 6 years governed hiring has been nearly non-existent, because they want to chortle about how low the deficit is while making sure bank$ter/donors are much richer than working people. (Which, btw, is one of the few places black folks can get color-blind jobs - so it serves to screw them just a little bit more than everyone else).

There is almost not one of those that is a growth category, except when they are compared to no activity at all - unlike fast food workers and bedpan changers.
And it's easy to see the effects - food stamp recipients are up by nearly 20 million in just the past 6 years.

buy cheaper stuff. You gonna make them spend double or triple for a USA made product.

"economy" are pulled from decades earlier when we had blown up most of the world are were engaging in the profits from that, or when we engaged ourselves in giving that profit away to other countries, as we are now.

During that early years we invested in ourselves, so the whole idea of "competition" meant something more along the lines of keeping our lead among developing nations as opposed to today, when it is more like people competing against each other for scraps of food in the street.

Then along came the idea that we no longer needed to invest in ourselves and we started turning out people who are barely able to operate McDonalds self-operating fry machine. Not that they don't have the ability, but they are barely trained to live in a classroom, and hardly at all outside of it, the place where they will spend far more time.

We need a fundamental re-thinking of what is important, and the government, which is the only entity of sufficient size and strength to do so, to become the people's arm again, and start using it's power to re-educate and question what we need to change going forward.

I am not going to make people do anything, and I am damn sure not going to stand up like a slave trader and insist they have to do business with people offshore .

The fix, just like it always has been, is for people to get wise to the ways of owning assets, get them, operate them for themselves, in cooperation with each other. Because...

An injury to one is an injury to all.

There has never been a more fair structure that I can find. And if they have to take it by force from the people who have been stealing from them for years, that's ok by me. Virtually every other system I see is little but a way to take advantage of other's labor.

Being only able to afford cheap crap is nowhere near the same as 'prefer'.

How do you make our better quality products competitive? Raise salaries so people can afford American made products again.

Which tells me that if the cost of labour goes up, the cost of goods sold goes up by less, unless your cost of goods sold is 100% labour.

Iirc, correctly labour in, for instance, the restaurant field tends to run a third or less of costs, so even if a restaurant owner were to give his employees a 50% raise, labour costs would still only be 50% or less of costs, and he'd only have to raise his prices about 15% to make up the difference without ever cutting into profits. Now you might say he'd lose customers when he raised his prices 15%, but then again, a lot of folks getting a 50% raise is going to make them more willing to buy, even if prices go up 15%.

The increased purchasing power of a big increase in all wages/salaries drives/pulls prices up too. Before you know it, the wage/salary increase is eaten up by inflation. The folks who benefit from that are the rich. Some say debtors benefit, but I'm not convinced of that.

About as basic a concept as one can posit.

And of all the employment possibilities you listed, only ONE, "teachers" requires a college degree; and that isn't even true when it comes to home schooling and charter schools.

And ALL of those employment possibilities are service jobs. Manufacturing/agriculture/energy production - i.e., jobs which PRODUCE products are the basic infrastructure of our economy. And that infrastructure is in tatters.

Road, bridge, side-walk, trains, etc., are all related to jobs that really can't be outsourced. That's making stuff. Almost every foreign auto manufacturer has plants here, as do other industries.

Then States have to match the Federal minimum wage.

President Obama does what he can to raise our pitiful pay rate without Congresses help.

President O said he would do what he could without Congresses help years ago, and he has delivered.

Some business also raised their pay after President O called for them to.

Obamas new time and a half will make a difference for even more American workers.

IT jobs are very well paying and have been very heavily outsourced to other countries. How about phone shops, steel making, even reading radiology reports has been outsourced. GE outsourced their plants that make radiology equipment. Parts of HR/benefits have been moved out of this country for some companies.

Sorry to interrupt your Obamagasm, but reality isn't nearly as pretty a picture as you paint. There are lots and lots of vulnerable professions and he's set up the terms to make this far worse.

But, other physician specialties not so much. Most professions are relatively safe. You gonna go to Vietnam to get a divorce attorney?

Fact is, most jobs are relatively safe. And some jobs are reverse outsourcing. There are a lot of foreign company plants here, with good jobs.

In any event, trying to figurative erect a wall around us just won't work nowadays.

in these 291 instances and Obamacare etc. Brought us back from certain total disaster after that criminal Bush


http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/

I am also able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

There are only so many service jobs to go around. We don't need 100M plumbers.

As for your vaunted "government" employment, you realize government employment has cratered since 2007, right?

Including: restaurant workers, construction, truck drivers, painters, mechanics, plumbers, Heating and air repair, landscape, road repair, utilities, water works, etc.

This is reverse outsourcing--bringing the cheap labor to the US from third world countries.

It has the same negative effect on the domestic working class, especially on those worst off.

...and who bribe our politicians to continue the multipronged attack on the working class: H1b visas, outsourcing, and illegal immigration.

If that disgusts you, it is high time you were disgusted.

of the world's wealth and resources. Hell, even stole the good land from Mexico. It doesn't bother me that a relatively few Mexicans get a better deal. Nor does it bother me that some poor countries might get a chance to grow and help increase jobs here.

It doesn't justify the deliberate expansion of the US labor pool to drive down wages and working conditions for American workers.

If you want to help people in poor countries, send some money to Oxfam. That's what I do.

Here's a link to their site: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/

A teacher can teach from India through a computer screen. Forms of this are already being done. NAFTA allows Mexican truck drivers to replace U.S. drivers for long haul trips. Government jobs probably won't be outsourced but will be killed by technology.

So NOW we've got millions less folks being equitably paid? Yes - I see exactly how that benefits the bottom line. I can also see how business can wear at smile at having to suffer this directive. Yeah, smiling all the way to an offshore bank.

to leave.

The vast majority won't leave due to the TPP.

TPP isn't much of a trade agreement, more of an investment agreement.

If people want to outsource cheap manufacturing, they've either already done it or will just send it to Bangladesh or China.

will feel NO adverse impact from the TPP??? They'll be able to stay busy Right here - get time and a half on their shrinking wages - and have to suffer - er, ah, enjoy - the dictates of their multi-national corporate overlords. Goshes! I'm feeling better already. All this folderal boils down to no more than semantics.

I suggested this very point the other day when Obama announced his big OT deal. Man - did I get told just how flagrantly IGNORANT I am! I mean - HOW DARE I suggest that this is a piss poor attempt at trying to offset that massive poop that the TPP constitutes??? And this was from veteran DU stalwarts.

that isn't even a bone.

One and a half times nothing...carry the nothing is...

Jack Squat!

"It is IMPOSSIBLE to insulate the US economy and US workers from the broader forces of globalization" WH spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Is that a fact? The neoliberal mind, is no wonder.

More like a frigging CHASM...he's dead to me now...

"It is impossible to insulate the U.S. economy and U.S. workers from the broader forces of globalization." Because that is our only choice, turn over our country to be savaged by corporations or insulate our economy from the broader forces of globalization?

There's NO room for lets say a trade policy that actually prevents slave and convict labor made products from selling in the US. Or how about stopping the trade in children made products? Oh wait no, we can't do that because that would insulate us from the broader forces of globalization. What a bunch of hog wash.

And that BS at the end acting like he gives a sh*t about the middle class as he turns every opportunity for a decent middle class life over to the corporate kings. And then he wants cuts to social security and medicare to pay for useless job training. What the use of training for non-existent jobs?

So where is that ridiculously inadequate TAA? Why didn't that pass Obama? Remember you were all for stealing from grandma to pay for her grandson's training for a non-existent job.

We can't forget his extreme indignation that we would have the effrontery to question his judgment on this crap.

The only solution is divorce and restraining order. No worker visitation rights.

The only use "O" has made of his pair of like new, never worn, soft shoes is the two step hustle.

Piss off!

"It is impossible to insulate the U.S. economy and U.S. workers from the broader forces of globalization," While the president and Congressman Kind have a difference of opinion with many leaders of organized labor about this approach, the fact is when it comes to the value of looking out for middle-class families, the leaders of organized labor and the Obama administration agree just about every time"

What shamelessly glib condescension! What insulting and patronizing double-speak!!

Use that fast track authority to work out a deal that favors working Americans over the Koch brothers. It would be a little devious, but remember what Bush did? He got Congress to give him blanket authority, then used the authority to invade Iraq. Come on, Mr. President. Turn the tables on the Republicans. You tricked them into giving you fast track authority. Now use it to do something for working class and middle class families. Poetic justice and all that.

the new one lasts 6 years.

every single move they made.

It seems Obama only has a congress that obstructs, blocks and nitpicks things that are good for American workers. They seem only too happy to join him when he's doing good for the shareholders.

What sucks is that our incredibly lazy, corrupt, mendacious, self-aggrandizing congress has reneged on its constitutional DUTY to regulate commerce.

What truly sucks is that the entire reason the US was founded, the reason the colonies went to war with the King of England was due to the power the King had to regulate commerce. They specfically gave the power to regulate commerce to congress for a reason: so that no one person would ever have that degree of power again.

And what really and truly sucks is that due to the successive power grabs across several administrations, the president now has more power than the King of England ever had.

The bottom line is neither this nor any prior president has any business or constitutional right to be negotiating trade deals.


The U.S. Constitution assigns express authority over the regulation of foreign trade to Congress.
Article I, Section 8, gives Congress the power to “regulate commerce with foreign nations ... ”
and to “ ... lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.... ” In contrast, the Constitution
assigns no specific responsibility for trade to the President.3 Under Article II, however, the
President has exclusive authority to negotiate treaties and international agreements and exercises
broad authority over the conduct of the nation’s foreign affairs.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL33743.pdf

thing that could possibly help labor, going forward. Still smh at the TPP.

against Labor than repairing any rift.

This is an attempt to minimize primary vulnerabilities.

Who lost his job and can't find another because it was shipped to another country where the greedy corporate assholes can pay someone 5 bucks a day to do that same job.

I started to lose faith with Bushama in late 2009, and he has only gotten worse since then. Why should we as organized labor settle for crumbs when we were the reason he was elected in the first place? He stabbed us in the back and we owe him no loyalty whatsoever.

He didn't stab me in the back, so please speak for yourself.

Remember how we used to make fun of Teabaggers because they thought they were "in the club" and would vote against their best interest............yeah I guess you don't.

It's like the rapist helping the girl up afterwards. It doesn't redeem them or him. He's fucked the American workers and our environment over bad with his international conglomerates sweetheart trade deal, I don't and can't forgive this.

Next up, George Bush and Dick Cheney will seek to repair rift with Saddam Hussein.

politician who became an actor.

And not a very good one.

reworking that would make it work. He may as well put on his comfortable shoes and laugh at the unions.

he should invite labor leaders to go over the trade deal and sit with him in the WH to see what they feel needs to be done. They should have done this from the start. They should have equal rights with the corporations. The people had no one at the table to represent them.

It should really be an OP.

Globalization is a set of policy choices, not an immutable law of nature. It's amazing, but if you change the laws that allow for outsourcing, dumping, and the bipartisan war on labor, globalization suddenly becomes a non-entity. Now I'm sure somebody will want to yap about "protectionism" and the like. Feel free. It just shows blinding ignorance to the actuality of the law and its processes. If you want to trumpet your ignorance, it's your call.