Re: 'Massive' Media Hype for TPP (fwd)

[robert <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

Actually, I don't know how he (Dean Baker) can claim all this while this
trade agreement is still secret...

 > From: Noelle <noelle>
 > Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 16:17:12 -0700 (PDT)
 >
 >  > From: [** utf-8 charset **] FAIR<http://www.fair.org/~fair>
 >  > Date: Tue, 6 Oct 2015 22:01:21 +0000
 >  > 
 >  > It is amazing how the elite media can be dragged along by their noses into 
 >  > accepting that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) can have a big impact on 
 >  > trade and growth. If I had a dollar for every time the deal was described as 
 >  > &#8220;massive,&#8221; or that we were told what share of world trade will 
 >  > be covered by the TPP, I would be richer than Bill Gates. The reality is 
 >  > that the vast majority of the trade between the countries in the TPP is 
 >  > already covered by trade agreements, as can be seen:
 >  > TPP countries with and without current trade agreements with the US. Source: 
 >  > International Monetary Fund
 >  > We continue to hear superlatives even as the evidence suggests the trade 
 >  > impact will be trivial. For example, the New York Times reported that US 
 >  > tariffs on Japanese cars will be phased out over 30 years. Wow! The most 
 >  > optimistic growth estimates show a cumulative gain by 2027 of less than 0.4 
 >  > percent, roughly two months of normal GDP growth.
 >  > This doesn&#8217;t mean that the TPP can&#8217;t have an impact. It will 
 >  > lock in a regulatory structure, the exact parameters of which are yet to be 
 >  > seen. We do know that the folks at the table came from places like General 
 >  > Electric and Monsanto, not the AFL-CIO and the Sierra Club. We also know 
 >  > that it will mean paying more for drugs and other patent and 
 >  > copyright-protected material (forms of protection, whose negative impact is 
 >  > never included in growth projections), but we don&#8217;t yet know how much.
 >  > We also know that the Obama administration gave up an opportunity to include 
 >  > currency rules. This means that trade deficit is likely to persist long into 
 >  > the future. This deficit has been a persistent source of gap in demand, 
 >  > leading to millions of lost jobs. We filled this demand in the 1990s with 
 >  > the stock bubble and in the last decade in the housing bubble. It seems the 
 >  > latest plan from the Fed is that we simply won&#8217;t fill the gap in this 
 >  > decade.
 >  > 
 >  > Economist Dean Baker is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy 
 >  > Research in Washington, DC. A version of this post originally appeared on 
 >  > CEPRâ??s blog Beat the Press (10/6/15).