Wasn't Krugman a Davos Democrat?

     I'm just saying. I love Krugman but the question begs as he declares the President's failed vote on Friday 'The Fall of the Davos Democrats.'

     "OK, I didn’t see that coming: even though I have come out as a lukewarm opponent of TPP, I assumed that it would happen anyway — the way trade deals (or in this case, dispute settlement and intellectual property deals that pretend to be about trade) always do. But no, or not so far."

     http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/decline-and-fall-of-the-davos-democrats/?_r=0

       Actually this is not a surprise to me as no Democrat has had trade authority since Clinton in 1994-and he only had it as a leftover from Reagan; Congress never voted to give it to him as they did for Reagan-under a Democratic House. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/today-again-shows-that-democratic.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29

    At this point Obama may actually need more Republican votes  to get this. 

    "About three-quarters of the House GOP sided with Obama on so-called "fast track" trade promotion authority. You have to go back to a pair of votes under Bill Clinton -- NAFTA in 1993 and a failed fast-track push in 1998 -- to find the last time such a small share of Republicans supported a major trade bill."

     "Two-fifths of House Democrats backed Clinton on NAFTA. That's the high-water mark for the party's support for major trade deals in the House in the last two decades. When only 15 percent of House Dems backed Obama on Friday, they weren't on the low or high end of that historical spectrum. They were about in the middle."

      "There's a lot of attention, and rightly so, on how few Democrats Obama brought along for either vote. (Especially when you compare him to Clinton in 1993.) It's also fair to note, though, that House Democrats have shown little appetite for trade bills since NAFTA. About a third of them voted for the Panama and Korea agreements in 2011. But fewer than 1 in 10 of them backed the Central American Free Trade Agreement under President Bush in 2004, and a slightly smaller share of them voted to give trade promotion authority to Bush than they just did to Obama."

     "House Republicans, on the other hand, had hovered at or above 90 percent of support for major trade bills since 1998, including previous bills under Obama. But some conservative activists have opposed this trade push, on a variety of grounds, contributing to the GOP defections this time."

     "For Obama's trade agenda to progress, he needs the worker-reimbursement provision - something conservatives have tended to oppose, historically - to pass on a re-vote, likely next week. That vote is now the proxy vote for "should the trade agenda move ahead under Obama?"

      "The president would certainly like more Democrats to join his cause for it. But to win, he probably needs a lot more support from Republicans. NAFTA numbers would suffice."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/12/who-obama-needs-most-to-win-on-trade-now/

     This has led to some arguments among liberals and Democrats. There are Democrats like myself that don't think the party should have thrown Obama under the bus but there are many who just insist that 'All trade deals kill jobs' full stop. 

     http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/do-all-trade-deals-cost-jobs-we-all.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiaryOfARepublicanHater+%28Diary+of+a+Republican+Hater%29

     http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/6/2/a-pragmatic-progressives-response-to-hair-on-fire-opposition-to-the-trans-pacific-partnership

     As to Krugman, I wonder if the Krugman of Pop Internationalism would agree with the Krugman that wrote the above?

     http://www.amazon.com/Pop-Internationalism-Paul-Krugman/dp/0262611333

    I'm not saying he wouldn't. Krugman isn't saying what a lot of progressive groups and unions are claiming: that the TPP would cost jobs. As he says, the recent trade deals haven't really been so much about trade. The real trade deals were the post WWII deals that got rid of tariffs. 

   This is a burden of the pro trade advocates. If opponents exaggerate by claiming they cost jobs the proponents do the same in claiming it will create a tremendous amount of jobs. 

   What Krugman was saying even in Pop Internationalism is that the real threat to labor was automated technology from the data and Internet revolution. 

   The Neoclassical economist will say not to worry as if jobs are lost new ones will be created. Yes, but will the new jobs be of the same quality-and pay as much-as the previous jobs did?

   It seems to me that the real problem we are still living with is that the move from a manufacturing to a service economy has turned us into a nation of burger flippers-there have been replacement jobs but they don't pay nearly as well. 

  P.S. For those who really feel very strongly that this is a job killer no question, it''s a total no brainer, show me the data. Seriously. It's not a trick question as I'd like to see the data that shows what the effect of NAFTA and subsequent trade deals has been. 

  My sense is that while they don't kill jobs they 'degrade' jobs-basically lower wages at least for many workers. 

  Overall, my feeling is that neither side-the advocates or opponents-argues with anywhere near the precision that you would need to really make an informed choice on this issue.