A different view

A column in the NYT this morning points out the living standards of hundreds of millions of workers around the world have increased at the same time middle and working class Americans have seen wage stagnation and job insecurity.  Meanwhile, the 1% have continued to increase their share of the country's wealth by investing in China, Viet Nam, et al.  The vaunted tech jobs and information age occupations which were supposed to power middle class growth have largely been created or exported to India, China and other developing nations.  Meanwhile, Germany has continued as an export powerhouse, creating lots of high paying jobs for its workers.  We, on the other hand have continued to pile up huge trade deficits as we import many of the things we used to make from the same countries who have taken the information jobs.  We know the whole world cannot be export driven the way China and Germany are, but our economy cannot provide the market for the rest of the world if we cannot pay our own workers enough to purchase these imports.  There is no easy solution to these problems, but trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership will only exacerbate current trends and feed the growing unrest in this country.