Friday, May 8, 2015

Great Moments in Presidential Logic (TPP Edition)

".....what I tell them is, ‘You know what? If you’re opposed to these smart, progressive trade deals, then that means you must be satisfied with the status quo.’”

Barack Obama, Portland, May 8, 2015, as quoted in the New York Times.

5 comments:

Sandwichman said...

...what I tell them is, 'You know what? If you don't have bread to eat, then why don't you just eat cake.'

ProGrowthLiberal said...

What amazed me was that the President choose Nike to be the place where he argued that TPP would create American jobs. Did any of his advisers tell him that Nike shoes are made in China?

Unknown said...

‘You know what? If you’re opposed to these smart, progressive [peace] deals, then that means you must be satisfied with the status quo.’”

Hmm as our Wingnut friends at National Review tell us this is what Chamberlain told the British in 1939. And oddly what Molotov was telling the Russian people in that same year when he negotiated M-R.

But we don't even have to resort to this kind of reference 70 years after VE Day. Embracing the idea that "Any deal is better than no deal" is how sleazy used car guys get rich. I mean if you didn't WANT to buy a car why did you step on the lot?

Les Baker said...

Sir, speak not to me of reform: things are bad enough as they are!

Jack said...

Wall Street Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/04/28/obama-auto-industry-should-embrace-asia-trade-deal/

“I think what I’ll be able to show is that it is a good deal for them,” he (Obama) said. “Whether I can convince some who are, you know, more comfortable with the status quo, you know, that’s an open question.”
"U.S. and Japanese negotiators have been working for more than a year on an agreement that would lower or eliminate barriers to trade, including duties protecting Japanese farms and Detroit auto makers, as well as the regulatory red tape blamed for keeping Detroit’s cars out of Japan."

Exactly when was it that the U.S. auto industry had made any real effort to sell it's U.S. built product in Japan, or any other part of the world? In Europe a healthy U.S. auto industry invested in European built cars to sell to Europeans. I don't think the auto industry made even that effort in Japan or any other part of Asia. Cars that were either too big, too fuel inefficient, or just too poorly built never got a toe hold outside of North America for good reason. Some of the best products made by U.S. car companies were made in Europe, as in Ford of Germany, but not in the U.S. We've made some fast and powerful cars and we've made some cars that would challenge a yacht, but we have a lot more fuel available than do the Asian and European markets.

Obama is continuing to demonstrate that he has some of the worst, least knowledgeable advisers of any past President. G.W.B. being the only exception. Or maybe Clinton I also. Both a disaster to the working class. So even a comparative analysis has Obama in poor company.