Killing the TPP and What’s Up With John McCain?

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I never know what to think of John McCain. He keeps standing up for what seems worthy and true — and then sits right down.

Killing the TPP “is not good for the United States of America.” Every economist I’ve read on this issue seems to agree, yet Trumpers and Trump himself suggest they aren’t even aware of who was to participate.

I’m sure Trump indicated that China was part of the agreement, which of course would be a very stupid thing to say. But it’s dead and I agree with McCain that it’s our loss. It won’t bring back the manufacturing jobs, the assembly line jobs we had in the 1950s and more than it will bring back the Studebaker and even if it did, most of those jobs are now performed by Robots.

It requires far fewer man hours and fewer men to make things today. Welding, painting, machining and even design are performed by machines. Remember the hand wired Zenith TVs? Sorry, we don’t make them that way any more. Those jobs aren’t coming back any more than manual sugarcane harvesting. The world has changed dramatically. Can we expect a man who has never had a job or even poured himself a beer to know that?

We should expect the millions who voted for Trump to know, but once again, mankind is not a rational animal. What abandoning the Trade Pact *will do is allow China to control the Asian markets and squeeze us out. We will lose any chance to have the leverage to control copyright and patent infringement and to keep participants a bit more honest. Will we recognize this? Will we be given some excuse when the good jobs don’t arrive and the prices go up? Of course not. We spend far more time and effort protecting our mistakes than in correcting them, and besides it will all be Obama’s fault.