There’s a Medium post and a short video summary:
For decades, our trade policies have been written by corporations to benefit their bottom line. It's time for a new approach. The president has a lot of authority to remake trade policy herself. When I’m elected, I intend to use it. pic.twitter.com/KqNxzzbWWL
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) July 29, 2019
I’m certainly no expert on trade policy, but Senator Warren’s proposals sound good to me. Her proposals treat labor and environmental interests as equal rather than secondary to business interests. Now do healthcare!
justawriter
Love it. But (and you knew there was a but coming) we will need a Democratic Senate to approve “fast track” power for the negotiating team and to approve the treaties once they are made. Even then, I’m not hopeful effective treaties could be made.
Betty Cracker
@justawriter: True, but presidents really do have a lot of discretion to set trade policy — a lot more so than in many other areas we argue about all the time, such as healthcare.
MisterForkbeard
You know, I’m really enjoying the new policy proposals coming from the candidates just before the debates. They’re all trying to get some attention and/or direct the questions their way for the debate, and as a result we’re getting a lot of good information very quickly.
Like Harris’ proposal, this will require a Senate majority. All of these proposals are most useful as aspirational models rather than a real blueprint, but they’re very useful nonetheless.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Right? Look at the shit Trump and Wilbur Ross stirred up without anything needed from congress.
“I’ll tariff the shit out of these tariffs and make them into Really Big Tariffs!”
kindness
I was with friends of mine this weekend that I don’t see much. We had a couple of lively discussions on who would make the best candidate. Several of these people are educated and BernieBro leaning > all in. I was surprised they didn’t like Warren. I wasn’t surprised they hated Kamela and called her a cop. I tried ending it amicably by saying we all have to vote for whom ever the Democrats nominate. Curiously not all the BernieBros could agree on that.
We are screwed by our own and not in the good way.
smintheus
I can see a lot of people reading Warren’s proposal as signaling that she won’t pursue any trade deals with third world dirt-cheap-labor countries, none of whom seem likely to meet several minimum standards she sets. That’s good policy, and it may be good politics to frame it that way…unionized labor leaders will be pleased. The corporations will have a hissy fit however.
Richard Grant
Is there now any website that provides links to every Democratic Presidential candidate proposal that has been released both by candidate and by topic? It is not easy to keep track, what with Governor Inslee recently issuing the fifth part of his climate proposal.
Brachiator
I look forward to checking this out later.
I’ll give a thumbs up if the video is short, clear and visually effective. Candidates should not drown people in text or long speeches. Especially when it comes to potentially dry stuff like taxes and economic policy.
jl
@kindness: The overlap between Sanders and Warren is smaller that most people would say off the top of their head, or that pundits (who supposedly have the data smarts to know) say. Sanders is not the second choice of a plurality of Warren supporters. From looking at the poll numbers, and using arithmetic to figure out how the percentages in the swings can add up, seems to me that the big swings we’ve seen are between the progressives a whole and the centrists as a whole. You see it most clearly in Biden and Sanders, because they’ve had the largest shares in the past.
Sab
@kindness: My RWNJ relative likes Warren. He thinks she’s an old fashioned liberal Republican who thinks about workable policies nstead of progressive slogans.
I was amazed.
MisterForkbeard
@kindness: Most of the Bros I know don’t like Warren for what I suspect are three reasons:
1) She isn’t Bernie.
2) She’s a ‘she’. These same guys are super angry at Kamala and hated Hillary with a fiery passion but couldn’t ever really define why.
3) She didn’t knife Hillary in the back or come down publicly for Bernie in 2016.
Take those things, and they’re basically unwilling to examine Warren’s record. They just call her a Republican or “pro-corporate”, which are both laughable and really show where Bernie’s base is atm. They’re also all (anecdote time) the kind of people that insist that the President can just DO something they want and that having actual real plans is just selling out, but that’s my own prejudice talking.
Brachiator
@kindness:
I’m always curious to know if there is an occupation that would disqualify a male candidate.
Sigh.
Fleeting Expletive
Um, a little help ? My fool cat walked where she shouldn’t and got a fly strip stuck the length of her tail and hind leg. So far google and wikipedia only tell me the adhesive is mostly petroleum based, WD-40 is a solvent with toxicity to skin for longer exposure. Can I get this off of my cat without going to the vet?
Yeah, it is funny as hell and I’m pissed at the cat anyway (we are like roommates who don’t always get along, and I pay her entire share and clean up her mess. On the other hand, I can say an-y-thing at all to her without her yelling back.)
jl
As for Warren’s proposal, it looks good. Enforceable labor and environmental standards will be very difficult to do well due to many devils in the weeds, but we have to start. I think changes in the negotiation process and what stakeholders are represented among the trade negotiation team are very important, ISDS has developed into big corporations getting what is essentially very heavily subsidized, or free, gold-plated Rolls-Royce and outrageously generous international investment insurance, and that needs to be torn down and rebuilt.
Only other quibble is that I don’t think it is true that US trade agreements are by and for corporations, they are for very large and rich corporations. For truth in advertising the word ‘free’ should be taken out of recent ‘free trade’ agreements The are large rich corporate welfare and crony capitalism trad agreements. Warren seems serious about changing that.
Edit: many small corporations and small businesses have felt very left out and discriminated against in recent trade negotiations, and that should change.
David Koch
her proposal is other countries need to meet US labor and environmental standards or they will will face barriers by denying them MFN to the US Market.
Hasn’t Dump proved tariffs and embargos against Mexico and China and their inevitable retaliatory tariffs are a bad idea.
Jay
@Fleeting Expletive:
Baby oil works.
Baud
I like a lot of this. Not keen on this.
I’d be surprised if she can keep this promise fully. It would require our negotiating partners to agree to negotiate in public.
Also, I didn’t see her specifically mention Trump’s tariff policy or investor dispute resolution, although I might have missed them on a quick skim.
jl
@David Koch: Announcing a general policy on MFN status, and tariff policy going into negotiations, going forward, either as bargaining chip, or leverage, or to keep permanently if that policy turns out to be a successful, is much different that whimsical, sudden, changes in tariffs that are ad hoc, backed by lies and ridiculous pretexts, and so senseless they are for all practical purposes, random.
Baud
@kindness:
I don’t understand how people don’t see that after 2016. And we accuse the right of having binders on.
Fleeting Expletive
Thanks for the baby oil tip–I don’t have any but I’ll try vaseline, maybe coconut oil first..
kindness
@Fleeting Expletive: If you have any acetone it should take the glue right off. It isn’t great for the skin but it will evaporate right away (do this outdoors, not indoors) and not cause much irritation. I use it when I’m using oil based paints or stains.
CarolPW
@Fleeting Expletive: Baby oil, mineral oil and vasiline should all work. Just be aware that they will probably give her the runs, but at least it will also get rid of any hairballs.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@kindness: good news, Quinnipiac released a poll today showing Wilmer in FORTH place and sinking fast. He’s lost half his support in 4 months and is down to 11 percent. At this rate, he’ll be in a low single digit by Xmas.
Baud
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
That’s nice to hear, but it seems every time I hear of a poll that has him in fourth, the next poll has him back up to second.
If life were fair, Castro would occupy the fourth spot.
smintheus
@Fleeting Expletive: I believe that rubbing alcohol will also loosen most adhesives. Hard to imagine that harming a cat.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Fleeting Expletive
Thanks to all. She’s asleep, so I’ll get her later. Sorry I missed the last thread on marijuana. I am the proud holder of an OK medical card, which I have used a grand total of twice. It’s been legal now for exactly one year so they’re compiling the outcomes so far: 153,000 patient licenses and I forget the rest of the numbers. I do have hopes that the medical research is really real and that the science is getting there. A whole lot of people including me and two members of my family who’ve had experience with opiates in chronic pain issues are counting on it.
TaMara (HFG)
@Fleeting Expletive: I’d recommend the vaseline, it goes right through them without ill-effect – except, you know – diarrhea – and it’s used in most hairball remedies – for when she licks the residual off, should be okay.
p.s. And I’m dying here. Your description is so perfect of cat roomies.
smintheus
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Didn’t strike me as an especially credible poll at least with regard to the Democratic primary vote; they interviewed fewer than 600 Dems/Dem leaners. For a national poll you’d want to interview at least twice as many people.
Dog Mom
@CarolPW: I think I would go with olive or coconut oil and then try a bath with dawn dish soup, if possible. Good Luck. I hope that Kitty doesn’t get vicious!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@smintheus:
This is a well established, transparent methodology.
smintheus
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: It may be transparent, but you did not address the issue I mentioned: there are too few Dem voters (579) for a national poll to have much credibility. A 5.1% MoE is large.
Martin
Yeah, that’s the right way to do it. China is the largest car market – both in sales, and in production, in the world, yet Chinese cars aren’t sold in the US. Why? They can’t meet our safety and environmental regs. That’s the solution to the wage issue – raise the expectations for the quality of the product such that you can’t easily meet it with $5/hr labor. No need to tariff.
J R in WV
@kindness:
I’m glad I don’t know any real bernie bros. I don’t think any of my close friends would decide not to vote for a woman, because she’s a woman. Mostly they’re married to women who won’t put up with shit. Or the women who won’t put up with shit.
J R in WV
@Fleeting Expletive:
WD-40 isn’t too toxic — I would use that to get the fly-strip off, and then wash the cat with Dawn to remove the WD-40. Or use scissors to remove fur attached to the fly-strip…
Or go to the vet, if you’re reluctant to bathe the cat, which can be a job. I use welding gloves to deal with cats and a bath. No fooling with sharp kitties!!
tobie
Trade is so complex that I don’t feel I have the expertise to evaluate the proposal. I gather from the experts I’ve read today that the proposal to replace the ISDS to resolve disputes is a good one. I still think manufacturing’s malaise has less to do with trade deals than with automation, and I’d like to see candidates offer ideas on how to revive manufacturing, or even how to craft a national industrial policy, though that too would exceed my expertise.
J R in WV
@Fleeting Expletive:
Lots of good advice. Vaseline may work on the fly strip glue, or another of the recommended solvents. Acetone may be a little harsh. Everyone seems to like Dawn dish soap (Not Dawn dish soup!!) to clean up after the removal work. That’s what workers use after an oil spill…
Good luck, report back on success, please…
I washed a really big cat who got leaky transmission fluid all over their back — heavy gloves and Dawn and warm water. He survived, although hostile for an hour or two. Couldn’t leave that on there for him to lick off, though.
Brachiator
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
How is he doing in fundraising?
Miss Bianca
@Sab:
As am I. Consider my gob smacked.
Miss Bianca
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Oh, there you go, getting my hopes up…