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UK Government Study Tries To Gloss Over TAFTA/TTIP's Problems With Impossibly Precise Figures
from the but-does-it-make-cents? dept
Thu, Sep 26th 2013 11:02pm — Glyn Moody
As Europe gets back down to business after its traditional summer break, the second round of the negotiations for the proposed TAFTA/TTIP treaty is beginning. And so is the pro-treaty propaganda. Here, for example, is a 70-page document entitled "TTIP and the Fifty States: Jobs and Growth from Coast to Coast" (pdf). It comes from the British government, and is aimed at convincing the US states that TAFTA/TTIP will be good for their economies and citizens.
The UK has gone to this trouble because it is likely to be the main European beneficiary of any such treaty. At least, that's what a recent study commissioned by the German Bertelsmann Foundation found. The Bertelsmann Foundation is also involved with the current publication, as is the Atlantic Council. Here's the main claim:
This study estimates that all states could gain jobs and increase their exports to the EU under a comprehensive and ambitious TTIP. In the state of Virginia alone, successful implementation of a comprehensive TTIP could boost exports to the EU by more than a quarter and increase net employment by almost 21,000 jobs. The whole of the US could see a net employment gain of almost 750,000 jobs. That is equivalent to the entire working population of New Hampshire.
The report offers no details of the calculations, but refers to work done elsewhere. Instead, it gives a state-by-state breakdown of the claimed benefits from TAFTA/TTIP. For example, in California it predicts the following job growth in key sectors there:
Business Services +15,752 jobs
Financial Services +1,543 jobs
Non-Electric Machinery Mfg. +1,395 jobs
Metals and Metal Products Mfg. +1,187 jobs
And gives as the "bottom line":
Since 2006, California's pharmaceutical exports to the EU have increased by 61 percent. By reducing barriers to trade and investment, TTIP would facilitate future growth, increasing anticipated US chemical exports by a further 34.2 percent
As you can see, those claims are surprisingly exact: precisely 1,187 jobs will be generated in the metals and metal products manufacturing sector -- are they really sure it won't be 1,186 or 1,188? And the growth in chemical exports is given as 34.2%, that is, to three significant figures. Good mathematical hygiene requires you to know the fourth significant figure if you are going to round it up to three, which means the British Government's report implicitly claims to be able to predict with an accuracy of one part in a thousand the future growth in US chemical exports as a result of TAFTA/TTIP.
This is plainly absurd. In fact, the problems with the analysis run far deeper than just this question of exaggerated precision. An illuminating Public Citizen post singles out five particularly serious issues here.
1. The "new" study is not really new. It is largely a recycled version of another recycled version of a study that appeared in 2009.
That suggests our understanding of the underlying economic mechanisms of these agreements hasn't really advanced much in four years -- hardly encouraging when it comes to making predictions about them.
2. The study confirms again that TAFTA is not about trade. Since tariffs (an actual trade issue) are "already quite low" between the EU and U.S., pro-TAFTA government officials have readily stated that TAFTA's primary goal is not tariff reduction, but the "elimination, reduction, or prevention of unnecessary 'behind the border' " policies, ranging from Wall Street reforms to milk safety standards to GMO food labels.
This is a key point. There are so few tariffs between the US and EU, that very little benefit can be gained by eliminating those that remain. The only way TAFTA/TTIP will have any major impact on the respective economies is if other "barriers" are removed. Although these are called "non-tariff" in the various studies, a better name for them would be health and safety standards. Removing them will indeed allow companies to make more money, but at the expense of the public's health and welfare.
3. The study assumes zero downside of eliminating consumer and environmental safeguards.Today's study assumes that TAFTA would eliminate one out of every four "non-tariff barriers" -- from the Volcker Rule at the center of Wall Street reform to safety standards for children's toys to the ban on beef linked to mad-cow disease -- at no cost to consumers. In addition to an obvious social and environmental toll, such a degradation of safeguards would also result in quantifiable monetary costs for U.S. consumers and the broader economy.
Omitting possible costs of TAFTA/TTIP inevitably biases the calculations in favor of it, just as leaving out the negative externalities of burning coal or oil in terms of environmental damage skews calculations about the "cheapest" form of energy.
4. The study uses contested models with assumptions that can turn economic losses into gains. While ignoring costs, today's study strives to capture all theoretically plausible benefits by relying on assumptions-laden methods, such as using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to assess removal of "non-tariff barriers" (NTBs). A U.N. study has questioned the reliability of this inchoate approach.
In other words, never mind the accuracy of the figures, the entire theoretical model may be flawed.
5. The study assumes a massive rollback of Buy American and Buy Local policies. Another assumption of today's study is that TAFTA would eliminate one half of all "procurement barriers," a euphemism for popular policies like Buy American and Buy Local to ensure that U.S. government projects, funded by U.S. taxpayers, are used to create U.S. jobs. It is rather fanciful to think that the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, or the U.S. public would accept such a clear-cutting of policies that enjoy 90% support. Indeed, today's study assumes an even greater undercutting of Buy American and Buy Local than the EU negotiators themselves are hoping for. In a leaked EU position paper on government procurement, the EU explicitly names 13 U.S. states and 23 U.S. cities it is targeting for rollback of Buy Local policies. Today's study assumes that the U.S. will offer to eliminate Buy Local in about twice as many states as the EU itself requested.
This, of course, is the principle reason why the British government has produced this document: to try to convince US states to allow the Buy Local policies to be sacrificed for the sake of other supposed gains. But before they do so, they might like to consider a further analysis put together by Public Citizen that examines the claims about substantial economic gains for everyone in closer detail (pdf). Here are the main points:
Even under the most starry-eyed scenario that the study's authors can envision for the economic impact of tariff reduction, TAFTA would result in a mere 0.5 percent increase in U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) when fully implemented. But that "impact" is unrealistically high, given that it assumes a contentious proposition of tariff reductions causing strong "dynamic" economic growth, a theory that academics have repeatedly assailed with empirical evidence showing no such trade-growth causation. After dropping this dubious assumption, the study notes that the theoretical TAFTA-prompted increase in U.S. GDP of $182 billion shrivels to just $20.5 billion, a statistically invisible 0.06 percent blip. By comparison, economists estimate that the introduction of the fifth version of Apple's iPhone delivered a GDP increase up to eight times higher than the projected TAFTA effect.
And here's what that would mean on average for US citizens:
TAFTA's trivial trade impact shrinks even further when examining the study's projection of what the deal would mean in terms of actual income. The pro-TAFTA study projects that total annual U.S. national income would be just $4.6 billion higher under the deal. Even this number is likely too high, given that it assumes that 100 percent of existing tariffs between the EU and the U.S. would be fully eliminated under the deal, an unlikely scenario given that the EU has already stated that sensitive products should be afforded exemptions from tariff reductions. But proceeding with this inflated figure still results in deflated "benefits." TAFTA, if ever concluded, would take years to negotiate, get past Congress and implement. After adjusting for inflation and population growth in the interim, the projected $4.6 billion boost would amount to an extra three cents per person per day.
Expect to see plenty more studies from both sides of the Atlantic trying to convince the public it's worth giving up a few old health and safety rules, and some silly Buy Local schemes, in order to enjoy those three cents extra each day.
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Filed Under: free trade, predictions, tafta, ttip, uk
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ECA (profile), 27 Sep 2013 @ 12:07am
you think that I COULD NOT...
Put together a team of 100 people and Daisy 1000 CD/DVD machines together...and BURN all the disks from 1 small company??
I might even setup 10 other companies... ALL doing the same thing...for the corps..
I REALLy dont think that its EASY to do in this country..
It would be easier/cheaper to do it, in the country they will be DISTRIBUTED IN..
so the JOBS wont be here..
the machines WONT be made here..ITS A COMPUTER, NO PARTS are made here..
So, tell me WHERE will these jobs be made..and HOW..
MORe work for the SAME people..thats all..
Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2013 @ 1:35am
The only thing I bought from the EU is a UK Raspberry Pi. Everything else that's sold in America is made in Taiwan or China.
I don't understand what the UK Gov thinks they're going to sell to Americans.
Glyn's probably right. This new "free trade" agreement is probably about abolishing regulations and selling patented drugs in Europe.
I'm sure there's some GMO deregulation in there too. That way America can sell unsafe food and then offer Euro people overpriced drugs.
Not an Electronic Rodent (profile), 27 Sep 2013 @ 2:02am
Typo?
and is aimed at convincing the US states that
One assumes that should be "EU countries"?
Re: Typo?
OK just re-read that... that's what I get for posting 1/2 awake...
At least it's a change
Well, the report may be total bullshit, but it's kind of refreshing to see the bullshit flowing the other way for a change.
Zakida Paul (profile), 27 Sep 2013 @ 3:08am
Re: At least it's a change
Bullshit is bullshit no matter which way it flows.
Anonymous Coward, 27 Sep 2013 @ 12:08pm
It's not really flowing the other way. It's still flowing from the corporations that want the laws changed to the public. It's just using a slightly different path to get there.
seems like the UK just keeps taking lessons from the USG. this is quite a familiar action, given that all 'trade negotiations' the US are involved in spout nothing but bullshit, will benefit it only, while screwing over any 'partners' and totally fucking the public!
Postulator (profile), 27 Sep 2013 @ 3:30am
Welcome back to Dickensian England, where the poor don't matter.
The poor haven't mattered for 30 years thanks to Tory governments and a Labour shift to the right.
I'm_Having_None_Of_It, 27 Sep 2013 @ 5:41am
That, and their blind adherence to the cult of "Free Market" economics and the Austrian School.
Look it up, you'll be laughing and crying in equal measures.
Ninja (profile), 27 Sep 2013 @ 4:41am
Eerie statistics..
A study from the Ethereal Society for Magical Economy says that 43.7620945736% of the studies released are biased and have fabricated numbers.
out_of_the_blue, 27 Sep 2013 @ 6:55am
"an extra three cents per person per day."
The old "economic efficiency" ploy so dear to the icy hearts of economists, practically a religious mantra by corporatists that means: Accept total fascism so that corporations can be more "efficient" at gathering money.
But "efficiency" isn't good for "natural" persons. It removes the artisanal aspects from productive activities, and turns humans into just part of the machinery. We're not just economic units to be manipulated for corporate gain, to be "used up" like machinery and tossed out when running costs get too high. Corporatism starts with inhuman premises and soon becomes industrialized evil.
All corporatism is just incipient or disguised fascism, a war machine that literally uses people as its raw materials.
New Mexico Mark, 27 Sep 2013 @ 7:50am
I can predict
with 99.9347 percent certainty that I'll be throwing the "complete BS" flag on that report.
Actually, this could work, if piracy becomes the norm also, because what holds individuals from producing the things they need mostly are extreme safety rules.
It could have some benefits.
How can people use this for their advantage?
Politically we are weak and disorganized, it will pass, so what can we do with the supposed lemons?
ECA (profile), 27 Sep 2013 @ 12:28pm
AC,
there is 1 small problem with promises...
LOGIC SUCKS..
Why produce something in the USA and SHIP it, when it can be made Closer to the target audience..
Shipping costs more then the product.
Why do you think TOYOTA made a Plant in the USA..Shipping costs kill you.
And since this is about Piracy..its mostly about digital goods.. Music/movies/games..
the BIGGEST business int he USA is Distribution system.
go check out the prices of Imported Music and movies, like ANIME.. there are no reasons for the PRICES on anime to be so high.
Making Many small companies that Make the Disks, around the world would be more efficient, then trying to SHIP an unknown Quantity more then 1000 miles. I wont even mention internet distribution, and the ability to get to
Kevin (profile), 28 Sep 2013 @ 12:17am
It really looks like the study started with a number and then was worked backwards to make that everything else fitted nicely.
The whole study is so based on unsupported assumptions it is a joke.
If only I could use the same method to convince my bank I was worth 10 times more than I am. Of course my study would be rarely contain anything above three figures
Saying You Can't Compete With Free Is Saying You Can't Compete Period
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