THE TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP - TPP

Anti-trade has become a major political issue in both major political parties in the 2016 election and has forced the candidates for president  to disavow foreign trade.  Without doubt, automobile assemblers in Michigan and some other states have been hurt by NAFTA, even though, over all, there was a net gain in jobs in America.*  The fact that those workers left out of the benefits of free trade did not get any Adjustment Assistance (for what this is, see below) is a failure of government and not of the trade deal.   I suspect that few of those against foreign trade know of this program.  This is the target they should be aiming at and not foreign trade. Below are excerpts from the Guardian and the Washington Post on the Trans Pacific Partnership.  Bolding and underlining have been added for emphasis.

From the Guardian:
But the reality is that, if two sides willingly trade, it can be assumed that both are better off; otherwise, one of them would refuse to trade. So, while trade liberalisation may entail some (smaller) losses for certain groups, these can – and should – be addressed through domestic relocation and assistance schemes, such as America’s Trade Adjustment Assistance programme, [See note on the Trade Assistance Program below]and transition rules for affected industries, firms, and workers.
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At a time when growth is failing to meet expectations almost everywhere, the TPP thus seems like a good move. To be sure, because tariffs in the TPP member countries are already low (with some exceptions, such as Canada’s tariffs on dairy products and Japan’s on beef), the net benefit of eliminating them would be modest (except for a few items that are very sensitive to small price changes). But the TPP is also expected to reduce non-tariff barriers (such as red tape and protection of state enterprises); harmonise policies and procedures; and include dispute-settlement mechanisms.
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That would be a major loss. Allowing existing protectionist trade barriers to remain in place – or worsen – would not only deprive citizens in TPP countries of higher incomes; it would also deal a damaging blow to international cooperation.***

And from the Washington Post:

The security effects of trade agreements can be significant — indeed, one could argue that this was the most important thing about the North American Free Trade Agreement, the deal that has caused DeLong such existential angst. It’s worth remembering that prior to NAFTA, Mexico had a … let’s say “fraught” relationship with the United States. NAFTA made it clear to U.S. policymakers that Mexico was now a key partner and merited treatment as such. Which is why the United States helped Mexico in the mid-1990s and during the 2008 financial crisis. And the lock-in effects of NAFTA also helped Mexico transition from a one-party-dominated state to a true multiparty democracy.****

The Trade Assistance Program The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program is a federal program that provides a path for employment growth and opportunity through aid to US workers who have lost their jobs as a result of foreign trade. The TAA program seeks to provide these trade-affected workers with opportunities to obtain the skills, resources, and support they need to become reemployed. The program benefits and services that are available to individual workers are administered by the states through agreements between the Secretary of Labor and each state Governor. Program eligibility, technical assistance, and oversight are provided by the US Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration's Office of Trade Adjustment Assistance.(https://www.doleta.gov/tradeact/factsheet.cfm)


* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-american-economy-great-recovery.html
*** https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/30/tpp-trans-pacific-partnership-the-case-for-trade
**** https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/07/the-trans-pacific-partnership-is-about-more-than-trade/

ITEMS WITH THE MOST HITS & MY FAVORITES

Reunite Gondwanland was started in November of 2009 and grew to 114 items by the end of 2011. It is a eclectic blog with sections on Biography, Commentary (General, Economics and Investing), Fiction, Health Care, Oil and Gas, Politics, Photography, and Poetry (General and Space Poems). A table of contents can be found at: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/reunite-gondwanaland-2009-june-2011.html. Though this Table has a June date it is kept up to date. As of the end of 2011 there was a total of 5,965 hits.

The items with the most hits are: You Are So Lucky (Biographical) with 222 hits [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-are-so-lucky.html] and Muammar Qadaffi And Me (Biographical) with 212 hits [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/12/muammar-qaddafi-and-me-biographical.html]. There are six others with 100 to 199 hits , none of which are biographical. The former was no doubt popular because of the Great Japanese Earthquake of 2011 and deals with my first three days in Japan in 1965. The latter was popular because of the overthrow of the Libyan dictator Qadaffi.

Each piece I have written is like a child and I love them all, but it is common that some children are loved more than others. My personal favorites are Effectiveness Of Taxes [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.html] with less than 100 hits and Basics of Bureaucracy [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/basics-of-bureaucracy.html] with 114 hits. In the former, I point out why decreasing taxes on individuals is an inefficient way to stimulate the economy. I liked this so much that I refer to it in three other pieces. Alas the reading public did not agree as to its great value. In the latter that was written many years ago, I give some real rules of dealing with bureaucrats in a humorous fashion.

Let me give two Honorable Mentions. I wouldn't say this is a favorite of mine, but it can be important to some, i.e. Preferred Stock Investing with 131 hits [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/11/preferred-stock-investing.html]. I have invested for about 60 years, but never got involved in preferred stocks until the last decade. I would also like to mention one poem Upon the Second Anniversary Of Apollo 11, the first landing on the Moon [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/01/upon-second-anniversary-of-apollo-11.html]. Normally a couplet or more just pops into my mind and I construct a poem around it. The second anniversary of Apollo Eleven, however, was little noticed which I thought was terrible so this was the first time I sat down to compose a poem from scratch.

IT'S THE FLOODS, STUPID!

While I don't want to minimize the physical effects of large earthquakes and hurricanes, we have witnessed that the biggest damage in two recent events in 2011 was caused by floods rather than the shaking or high winds: the tsunami in Japan and the floods accompanying all the rain in the hurricane Irene.

I have been in many earthquakes up to magnitude 6 as I spent four years in Pasadena, CA, and three months in Japan. I also lived in a suburb of Denver, CO, for 15 years that included the time of earthquakes increasing in magnitude that got in to the 5-6 range of magnitude on the Richter Scale (remember that a magnitude 6 earthquake has a factor of 10 more energy than a magnitude 5 earthquake). These Denver earthquakes turned out to be due to disposing of pesticides down a 12,000 ft hole and greasing a horizontal fault. A former classmate of mine and then a colleague recommended pumping out the column of highly toxic pesticides to reduce the head (How would you like to be in the crew that did that?). It was controversial as some said this pumping might increase the earthquakes; however, he prevailed and was proven to be correct. For one experience I had with an earthquake in Japan, see: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-are-so-lucky.html

While I have never been in a hurricane, I was involved in a false alarm that was scary enough because I was on unsecured scaffolding: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/12/hurricane-warning-biographical.html

For an account of the Theology Of Natural Hazards, see: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/theology-of-natural-hazards.html

YOU ARE SO LUCKY (Biographical)

In 1965, we arrived in Tokyo, Japan, in the afternoon on Japan Airlines from Hawaii. We were a couple of geochemists (plus my wife) involved in the U.S.-Japan Scientific Cooperation Program. We were to be accompanied by some Japanese scientists to sample the volcanic rocks of all the active Japanese volcanoes but two under the tutelage of the legendary Professor Hitashi Kuno of the University of Tokyo. In Tokyo, we stayed at the Hilltop Hotel, a steel frame and brick structure which was indeed on the top of a hill.

That evening, we were taken to the Ginza to a restaurant for a sukiyaki dinner with Professor Myaki, whom I had briefly met when I was a student at the California Institute of Technology. But he also was the Professor of my partner, Dr. Mitsunobu Tatsumoto, when he was a graduate student at the Tokyo University of Education. Professor Myaki was famous for leading a small group that analyzed the radioactive fallout from a U.S. atom bomb on the Japanese fishing vessel, the Lucky Dragon. In doing so, they found that the bomb had been of what was then a new type, a fusion and not a fission bomb - a hydrogen bomb. This so surprised the U.S. government, that they were sure that some spy had leaked the information. But they hadn’t accounted for the cleverness of the Japanese.

After the wonderful dinner, we left the restaurant and found there was a large parade on the Ginza, a very wide boulevard. Prof. Myaki said, "Ah, you are so lucky. We don’t have many demonstrations anymore." Then I noticed that as the groups of young people marched in orderly groups, many across, they would yell something about "‘Melicans" in unison. So I said to Prof. Myaki, "It sounds like they are saying, Yankee go home." He said, "Oh, no, but you are so lucky to see a demonstration." After appealing to some other Japanese in our party for a translation, I was finally told that the demonstration was an objection to the South Korean’s claim that the Japanese owed them reparations because of World War II. The Japanese felt that they had built a lot of factories in Korea so no more reparations were owed. The Koreans had countered that these factories were mainly in north Korea and didn’t count. Ah so, but I then asked why I kept hearing something about "‘Melicans this and ‘Melicans that?" "Oh," was the reply, "That is because you are siding with the Koreans." "Oh." I replied, "so it is Yankee go home." \

I began to look around and saw a huge crowd of people lining the Ginza with us being the only Caucasian faces I could see. This observation left me more than a little nervous, even though I did note about a dozen riot police nearby. Then there was a break in the demonstration and someone said, "Let’s go to the other side." I looked over to the other side and saw maybe twice as many riot police there so I was in total agreement. Once we were on the other side, someone said to me, "The demonstrators are the Zenga Kurin, a group of radical students, and, if you think the police are sympathetic with them, you are mistaken as these police have already put in a full day’s work. Soon the student’s will begin to snake around. Then the riot police will pull down their plastic shields over their faces and go out and beat the students with their night clubs. You are so lucky to see this." I replied that this was our first night in Tokyo, and we were so tired from our trip. We really would like to return to our hotel. So we were taken back. But it turned out that the students didn’t snake that night.

The first morning we were in Tokyo, there was an earthquake. The motion was lateral and not up and down so we were not over the epicenter; however, we were on the top, 5th floor, of the steel frame hotel so it was like being on the end of a seismograph needle and our room swayed back and forth alarmingly. My wife said, "Should we run down the stairs?" I yelled, "I couldn’t even make it to the door." as I held onto the bed. I figured that the hotel had survived many such earthquakes and that we would be all right. Though my emotional self wasn’t convinced of this rational reasoning during the event, my supposition proved to be correct. The earthquake seemed to last forever, but lasted for maybe 15 or 20 seconds at most. Soon after it was over, the telephone rang. One of my Japanese acquaintances was on the phone and asked, "How did you like your welcome to Tokyo earthquake? You are so lucky."

The following morning, there was a newscast of a typhoon coming. Shortly after that, the phone rang and another Japanese acquaintance said, "Ah, you are so lucky. You will experience a typhoon." Well, we were "unlucky" in this instance and the typhoon didn’t hit Tokyo or, at least, not where we were.

So I wrote to my mother, telling her of these events and saying, "The Japanese have such a wonderful attitude. You are so lucky to experience all of life’s disasters."