TOKYO (Sputnik) Some 30,000 people took part in a yearly May Day rally in Tokyos central Yoyogi park, protesting against the controversial TPP trade deal among other issues, national work unions federation Zenroren said in a statement on Sunday. The main slogans of the demonstrators concerned higher wage demands and improvement of workers living standards. The protesters also criticized the government's economic policy, in particular Tokyos decision to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal. Critics of the TPP deal claim that it undermines domestic companies, laws, regulations and institutions through an extra-judicial process that stacks the deck in favor of multinational corporations. Read more: http://sputniknews.com/asia/20160501/1038906453/tokyo-rally-may-day.html#ixzz47VIfhUeX U.S. citizens also protested the trade deal. And on the other side of the globe, Europeans protested the TTP trade deal. According to some sources, the US is strong-arming the Europeans to accept the importation of GM foods by threatening to block the import of cars. What is happening is multinational corporations are ramming trade deals down the throats of citizens all around the world. People do not want these trade deals that benefit only multinationals, trade deals that threaten the sovereignty of nations, and put the world in a race to the bottom as far as health and safety, the environment, and worker's rights are concerned. I can't stand Trump, but his bloviating about bringing back jobs to America by threatening trade sanctions has been criticized by both the right and left, and has been criticized as being a threat to free trade. Yet, the US, in representing certain multinationals, is forcing nations to accept the TTIP and the TTP trade deals by threatening trade sanctions. I don't hear the wailing of establishment politicians over these trade sanctions. I think it time that CEO's of multinationals come out from behind the curtain and tell us the truth--that democracy is a fallacy meant to pacify the masses. There is no democracy in the world; only a world-wide oligarchy--with large shareholders of multinationals pulling all the strings. I am not all that religious but: '. . . and all the great merchants of the world will weep and mourn for her because there is no one left to buy her goods. It is interesting that international trade is talked about in the Book of Revelations.
It appears the left was violent again in Seattle yesterday. Some rioting, Molotov cocktails, broken windows, police injured.
Historically the American economy has grown far more rapidly during low-trade seasons. The current level of trade is 30% of GDP, our economic growth is stagnant as it generally is during such high trade periods. Trade that brings in things we can't develop ourselves, is good. Shipping jobs and know-how to authoritarian geopolitical adversaries -- with a labor pricing race to the bottom is -- not so good.
