Quote: (06-27-2015 08:00 AM)Dr. Howard Wrote:
If there were borderless labor markets I might be in support of this. It certainly hasn't become easier to move from one country to another...well maybe if you have a few million for an investor visa, but I think that is also the point of these laws...free movement of the rich and business but restricted movement of labor.
If labor was not limited it would never make sense to move a business unless it was closer to markets or resources. Instead what you'll get is people locked in their own borders and businesses that rotate regions, china for example where they will stay until wages climb to a certain point, then head back to America where wages have fallen and governments are begging them back with crazy tax breaks.
You are kidding, right? The TPP will concern free goods and services. I think that a company after the TPP could literally have a factory in the US and hire the entire staff from overseas at slave labor wages complete with housing. I am sure somewhere someone thinks it's great if they can save 500$/month while living in a de-facto labor camp.
The great tradition of US factory towns is coming back - how wonderful the free markets are! Most Americans probably don't even know that those existed in rural areas up until the 1970s and consisted of effective slave labor wages and workers living in an adjacent shanty town for generations. (Saw once a documentary about one of the last of them when the workers desired to join a union and the local police was beating down the protesters back then. That was as close as the 1970s - most of the true West in the 19th century consisted of that.)