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© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015.U.S. trade rep sees TPP pact before Congress by year-end
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gokai_wo_maneku
That's what they said last year. I hope this never gets ratified by anywhere in the world. TTP means teh world is taken over by Wallstreet. Nothing else. So get ready to lose all your money.
CrazyJoe
This year, next year, or any other year. There will be no TPP.
Guy_Jean_Dailleult
What, no comments yet from all the politically sophisticated people excited about how the TPP will mean the evil Japanese farmers won't be able to rip them off anymore and the price of rice in their supermarket will go down (or so they think)?
Tony Alderman
Can't wait for TPP!
Shumatsu_Samurai
That's not exactly fair. I'm not sure anyone here has said the farmers are evil.
However, it is true that making it easier for food to be imported will give consumers choice. Those who struggle to make ends meet will probably get access to cheaper food. However, those people that like higher-quality Japanese food will still be able to buy it. Indeed, I'm sure that Japanese farms/food companies will go out of their way to package their goods as authentic, domestic produce.
sillygirl
@guy the farmers are thieves, charging unbelievable prices for rice. Also subsidies for not growing, and probably many other things we don't know about. I don't eat rice but I would like to see affordable food.
FizzBit
JA sets the prices, not the farmers
wtfjapan
Japanese farmers won't be able to rip them off anymore and the price of rice in their supermarket will go down (or so they think)? no itll mean the J farmers will have to become more competitive just like the rest of the Japanese economy had to do to, and stop expecting that 97% majority to keep supporting them through tax payer funded welfare industry it is. I get no support from the J gov to keep my business afloat. If you want to keep supporting the J farmers then only buy Japanese grown but dont expect to hold the rest on the Japanese consumer to ransom by not giving them a choice of what products and from which country they wish to buy from. TPP is coming whether you like it or not!
Guy_Jean_Dailleult
OK, let's cover a few points
Thinking that the agricultural sector on a pile of volcanic rocks in the ocean can, or should even try to be, "competitive" with that of the USA (or Canada, or Australia etc.) defies all laws of science and logic. That means either you protect agriculture or you don't have an agricultural sector.
You may get no support, but American corporate agriculture gets plenty of support. The difference is that the USA uses a subsidy based system, and Japan uses a tariff based system. This means that instead of paying on your tax bill like Americans, you pay at the cash register. If the Japanese government actually cared about the consumer, which they don't as proven by the consumption tax hikes, they would simply switch over to an American style system. They don't because A) they don't care and B) they think they don't have the money. The mysterious question of how the Americans have the money but they don't never enters their little heads.
Unfortunately experience from other trade agreements, especially for Mexico with NAFTA, doesn't show that that is what happens. Prices may go down at first, but go back up after the domestic industry is driven out of business. And even if true and prices do go down and stay down, agriculture is an incredibly trivial part of the overall TPP, despite it being the only thing the Japan media ever talks about. Whatever savings you might get on food will be far less than the increased costs and reduction in your standard of living it will bring. I'll even bet that increased welfare costs to support unemployed farm workers and overall job losses in rural areas will be used as justification for more tax increases. In one pocket, out the other.
Black Sabbath
I vote no on the TPP. Oh, wait a minute.
I don't get a vote. Hmmmmm. Funny that....
wtfjapan
the 5 trillion yen per year supporting JA can be much better spent on welfare/pensions and healthcare, most farmers will be retired within the next 5 years. theres no need to keep taxpayer funding new farmers, as its bascially like there on welfare anyways. the TPP is more about just America , there plenty of safe healthy Australian, NZ products I wish to purchase without all the high tarriffs that makes them unaffordable, just so JA wont have to offer better affordable products. The sooner the TPP is here the better!