Why does Obama want the TPP ratified?

When Obama first ran for president in 2007 he told us he was out to improve the plight of we the people, not the corporations and the elite rich.

I think he intended to fulfill his promise, and I’m sure he tried, but he has not accomplished much. There is scant evidence now he has done much that has appreciably helped we the people. On the other hand, in general he has been a much better president than Bush II, the worst president of my lifetime. He has not done anything as stupid as start a war like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but he has not done much to curtail our military activities benefiting the military-industrial establishment.

While the US economy appears to be in much better shape than it was when Obama took over, it is once again on the edge of a cliff with a Sword of Damocles swinging over its head. Obama is a failure with regard to fiscal policies. The Repubs in Congress completely destroyed his effectiveness regarding significantly raising the taxes of corporations and the elite rich, as he said he would, to generate funds for infrastructure projects to create good jobs for working people.

Unfortunately, for the last year or so Obama has been a strong advocate for the passage in Congress of the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership, a new trade agreement similar to NAFTA involving 12 countries in the Far East, an agreement sure to harm the interests of working people in the US and elsewhere and dramatically benefit large corporations and the elite rich.

Why has Obama pushed so hard for the TPP?

My hunch is he wants to benefit large corporations and the elite rich with the TPP so they will pay him back when he leaves office, like they did Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary when they left office, with quid pro quo repayments for signing NAFTA and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act got rid of provisions in the Glass-Steagall Act that enabled too big to fail Wall Street banks to get much richer wheeling and dealing like investment bankers and hedge funds and selling exotic loan packages and derivatives, almost destroying the US money and banking system by 2007, leading the US economy down the primrose path to where it is today, not quite yet to perdition, but with market bubbles and credit problems worse than it had in 2007 when the second great depression started.

If Obama can get the TPP ratified by Congress before he leaves office, maybe the corporate/elite rich establishment will pay him back for his trouble by paying him $225,000 or so per one-hour speech for many speeches like they did the Clintons after they left office.

Whether Obama will pile up $100 million or so in personal wealth, like the Clintons did, giving speeches and selling books after he leaves office remains to be seen.

What do I recommend? Vote for Jill Stein and hope for the best.

Stein is the lesser of three evils. Voting for her is also an evil because there is a chance if an insufficient percentage of Independents and Bernie supporters vote for her it might cause Trump to win. But she remains the lesser evil in my opinion taking everything into account. It’s a crapshoot any way you look at it.

If Jill Stein gets on enough state ballots by November 8, and if a sufficient percentage of Independents and Bernie supporters possibly voting vote for Stein, she will win; and it seems to me this is the best bet we idealists and moderates have, given the choices we are saddled with, thanks to the rigging of the US primary voting system and the befuddled extremist and party line voters that selected Hillary as the Demo nominee rather than Bernie Sanders, and Trump as the Repub nominee.

Come to think of it, Jill Stein is the lesser of four evils. There is that lunatic Libertarian candidate running around out there who will be on some state ballots in November who advocates almost abolishing the US government.

Richard John Stapleton is an emeritus professor of business policy, ethics and entrepreneurship who writes on business and politics at www.effectivelearning.net and on Facebook.