General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhy the TPP Must be Opposed at All Costs
Its Worse Than You Thinkby K.J. Noh / November 8th, 2015
For six years, this corporate-drafted legislation was a pig in a poke. Nobody knew what was in itexcept the hundreds (550) of corporate lobbyists that had been drafting it for years in total secrecy. They wouldnt say what was in it. They would only say it was good for you. They just wanted you to support it. Critics were told to shut up on the grounds that they knew nothing about it. But the outline that people had been able to discern through leaks were monstrous.
The text has been just releasedby the orders of a New Zealand courtand it is, as anticipated, monstrous, explaining the Manhattan-Project-level secrecy. Its a total corporate giveaway, and despite some pathetic attempts to put lipstick on it, its every bit as bad as we had anticipated, and a little bit worse. Here are some of the key issues:
ISDS refers to Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism. Think of it really as an Intentional Subversion of Democracy and Sovereignty. This is the extrajudicial process written into the TPP (Chapter 28), whereby governments can be dragged before tribunals by corporate lawyers if they think national (health, environmental, consumer protection, public policy) laws violate their TPP rights or limit future expected profits. This is a panel of bespoke-suited corporate lawyers deciding whether environmental laws, safety regulations, public policy, or labor laws get in the way of profit or not. Imagine how they will decide. Profits or people? The outcome, written into the very raison dêtre of the TPP, is a foregone conclusion. These results will be unaccountable and binding. No appeal is possible.
Its not an exaggeration to say that corporations want profit the way that sexual predators want sex: at any cost. Instead of moderating, controlling or preventing this, this agreement enshrines into transnational law a supranational corporate entitlement to profit, regardless of risk or danger to the state, democratic sovereignty, the people, or the planet. For that reason alone, the TPP should be opposed at all costs. But theres more. ..........
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/11/why-the-tpp-must-be-opposed-at-all-costs/#more-60389
bbm.
no_hypocrisy
(46,234 posts)deleted, or changed.
stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)The West Coast Dems, hiding behind "trade", were especially disgusting. ( I wonder if any of them has ever visited the ports of Wilmington or Oakland and viewed the vast and growing overflow of shipping containers. (i.e. We already import way more than we export to these countries under existing trade agreements. The trade deficit is directly correlated to our jobs deficit.)
Ron Wyden was most responsible for enabling this Corporate Coup d'Etat through the Senate Committee (where the Dems could have shut it down) Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray caved to the corporate oligarchy as well. All three claim membership in The Progressive Caucus.
Trajan
(19,089 posts)Those 'Liberal' congresscritters voted in favor of TPA ...
We in Oregon are livid about these treacherous 'Liberals' ....
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)We can reject it at our own peril...the other states will just carry on trade without us.
polly7
(20,582 posts)99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)trade agreements since 1959. Every major country -- and most smaller ones -- have signed such agreements and will continue to do so.
If there is anyone who cares about "sovereignty" -- other than tbaggers, jingoists and nationalists -- it's the government of countries. And almost all of them sign these agreements to attract investment, jobs, and taxes, even Scandinavian countries. But, after almost 60 years and 2500+ similar agreements, it is now being called a "subversion of democracy and sovereignty." How absurd?
GeorgeGist
(25,324 posts)Thanks in advance.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)Really?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)it's ratified. Go read the thing.
That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)Show how the language is comparable. If I make a claim like that, I usually provide a link to back my statement.
Sending the person you're replying to to do your research is something that republicans and their fellow travelers do.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)some 49 other agreements the US has signed. It has been in EU agreements. It was in Korean agreement. It was first used in 1959, and the tribunals are under the auspices of the UN and World Bank. Countries have been signing agreements like this for almost 60 years.
That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)Exactly how like language used in the unnamed 1959 trade treaty for instance, is the ISDS in the TPP treaty? What treaty from 1959 are you talking about?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)ISDS first appeared in a bilateral trade agreement between Germany and Pakistan in 1959.
That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)That would explain the lack of links:
from Wikipedia's Bilateral investment treaty page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilateral_investment_treaty
and
by the way, the 1st ISDS was not in that treaty.
Try some wikiing or googling a treaty between the Netherlands and Kenya. Since no links are provided by you, you get nothing. Fetch doggy!
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)Exactly word for word, but the clever bastards covered their tracks by listing completely different sources for those quotes. Oh, wait a minute, maybe Economist plagiarized Wikipedia!
So putting that aside, what was the reason you couldn't link to your single source?
Why quote an article about bilateral investment treaties when the topic is ISDS.
No luck on that "1st" ISDS which wasn't in 1959? Come on you master researcher, dig deep in Economist, I'm sure it's there!
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)Where's your link, or what is your non-web source?
Why quote an article about bilateral investment treaties when arguing (incorrectly) that Investor-state dispute settlements have been in trade treaties since 1959?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Not sure what your problem is with accepting the fact.
That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)You know, people would take your posts more seriously if you posted your source with your first post instead of playing the pro from Dover here to teach us ignorant savages how to make fire.
Now then, where in that article are the sentences:
and
they're in this Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilateral_investment_treaty but not the economist article you linked to.
If you actually look at the bit between Germany and Pakistan, it at best is a proto-ISDS and that's being generous, no doubt to encourage the idea that there is a lengthy history of ISDS'. They seem to be protection/compensation from nationalization of assets owned or invested in by foreign nationals, and not protection from say, the results of internal environmental laws.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2014/534979/EXPO_STU%282014%29534979%28ANN01%29_EN.pdf
EUs international investment agreements rapid proliferation of BITs. The number of BITs in existence would rise from less than 400 in 1989 to approximately 2400 in 2004.
2.2
BITs and dispute settlement centres When the budgets of governmental aid programs stagnated in the second half of the 1950s, efforts were made to promote private investment in developing countries in order to foster development.
Political and non-economic risks appeared to discourage investors to invest in developing countries. Furthermore, investment disputes had been traditionally settled through interstate channels under diplomatic protection. This depended on the political will of a state to aid its nationals in case of problems with foreign investment and ultimately to espouse the claim of its nationals as its own.
Direct investor-state arbitration, making such espousal redundant, would only be included in BITs in the late 1960s. For this reason, during the late 1950s efforts were made to create a multilateral regime for the protection of private foreign investment, especially a mechanism of international investor-state arbitration.
In 1965, the OECD requested the World Bank to draft a Convention for an International Investment Insurance Agency. This did however not lead to the establishment of such Agency. As early BITs did not contain provisions on investor-state disputes the need for action continued to exist. Based onconsiderable experience the World Bank decided to continue to seek a solution for investor-state disputes, convinced that it would be easier to reach agreement on a procedure for dispute settlement than to reach agreement on international standards of treatment.
http://www.marietjeschaake.eu/2014/11/isds-whats-going-on/
Weird that seems to suggest that the investor state dispute settlement wasn't in the original BIT of 1959.
It's been fun, let me know when you have more than one source, and not a source that quotes the same economist article, after all we're not republicans here, right?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)for a long time in lots of agreements. That's my point. Does that soothe your pickiness?
pampango
(24,692 posts)The concept of neutral arbitration of trade disputes was actually an FDR/Truman creation as part of the International Trade Organization in the 1940's. Unfortunately, it died when it was rejected by a republican congress.
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/csgr/research/workingpapers/2000/wp6200.pdf
Prior to FDR and Truman, trading rules and disputes were dealt with by national governments directly, not by neutral, multilateral panels and organizations. FDR and Truman wanted to change this.
That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)Words are important right? You just lectured everyone to learn something about trade agreements, and your own knowledge seems... lacking.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)That Guy 888
(1,214 posts)but instead made snarky comments and told everyone to look it up themselves.
Basic internet courtesy says if you act like that, bring some proof with you. The last time I argued with anyone who refused to provide basic information like that was republicans during dubya's reign. Make comments about how ignorant everyone is compared to you, check. Tell anyone who disagrees to look up your argument while providing no links or other background information, check. Endless deflection, check. Can't stay on topic, check.
So exactly how much do you know about economic treaties, or economics in general? Is it just a subscription or access to The Economist? Just enough to start trolling?
Rex
(65,616 posts)He is a one trick pony that most of us are bored with by now.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Last edited Mon Nov 9, 2015, 08:21 AM - Edit history (1)
Canada is the MOST sued nation under NAFTA. I hate it, as do so many of us here.
NAFTA has destroyed the lives of millions of Mexican farmers, forcing them to flow to the cities and work under slave labour conditions. These new agreements will further undermine every right we have with regard to safety nets, healthcare, environment, industry, resources, pharmaceuticals - think of the consequences for all of these for nations and people already suffering horribly. If Canada hasn't been able to fight off these disgusting suits under NAFTA, HOW EXACTLY will poorer nations with weak or corrupt gov'ts do it? Their citizens will go the way of the Mexican farmers, the poorest of the poor will suffer first. YOU WILL ALSO, one day ......... but you'll be the last to. I'm sure of that.
I'm also sure that is why Obama and Harper fought so hard for them - to ensure we have ours for as long as possible and fuck the rest of the world. They're nothing but disgusting corporate coups using cheap/disposable labour to ensure the enrichment of those corporations already with all the power - and to keep it out of the hands of those who 'might' possibly elevate their own economic status in the world - as with China. They're like the 'war on terror', only this time it's enhanced economic terrorism by the 1% posing as what were made out to be fair trade agreements. You really think people are stupid.
NAFTA's Chapter 11 Makes Canada Most-Sued Country Under Free Trade Tribunals
Canada is the most-sued country under the North American Free Trade Agreement and a majority of the disputes involve investors challenging the countrys environmental laws, according to a new study.
The study from the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) found that more than 70 per cent of claims since 2005 have been brought against Canada, and the number of challenges under a controversial settlement clause is rising sharply.
snip~
Thanks to NAFTA chapter 11, Canada has now been sued more times through investor-state dispute settlement than any other developed country in the world, said Scott Sinclair, who authored the study.
snip~
There are currently eight cases against the Canadian government asking for a total of $6 billion in damages. All of them were brought by U.S. companies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.html
The study notes that although NAFTA proponents claimed that ISDS was needed to address concerns about corruption in the Mexican court system, most investor-state challenges involve public policy and regulatory matters. Sixty three per cent of claims against Canada involve challenges to environmental protection or resource management measures.
Currently, Canada faces nine active ISDS claims challenging a wide range of government measures that allegedly interfere with the expected profitability of foreign investments. Foreign investors are seeking over $6 billion in damages from the Canadian government.
These include challenges to a ban on fracking by the Quebec provincial government (Lone Pine); a decision by a Canadian federal court to invalidate a pharmaceutical patent on the basis that it was not sufficiently innovative or useful (Eli Lilly); provisions to promote the rapid adoption of renewable energies (Mesa); a moratorium on offshore wind projects in Lake Ontario (Windstream); and the decision to block a controversial mega-quarry in Nova Scotia (Clayton/Bilcon).
Canada has already lost or settled six claims, paid out damages totaling over $170 million and incurred tens of millions more in legal costs. Mexico has lost five cases and paid damages of US$204 million. The U.S. has never lost a NAFTA investor-state case.
More: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/nafta-investor-state-claims-against-canada-are-out-control-study
My taxes help pay for this.
Canada is the most sued country in the developed world, that should sound alarm bells in the EU
Maude Barlow
30 October 2015 Trade
TTIP also includes Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), a provision that will allow American corporations to sue European governments for laws and practices that threaten their bottom line. There are now over 3,200 bilateral ISDS agreements in the world, and foreign corporations have used them to sue governments over health, safety and environmental laws.
Cigarette maker Phillip Morris used ISDS to challenge Australian rules around cigarette packaging intended to promote public health. A Swedish company, Vattenfall, is suing Germany for a reported 4.7 billion relating to Germanys decision to phase out nuclear power. ISDS is profoundly anti-democratic and threatens the human rights of people everywhere.
But people in the UK and Europe should be paying attention to another deal that has had way less attention. CETA the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between the EU and Canada is equally disturbing and way further along in the process. Im coming on a speaking tour of the UK to share a powerful story of Canadas experience that is relevant for two reasons.
The first is that we Canadians have lived with ISDS for twenty years. It was first included in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the US and Mexico, and has been used extensively by the corporations of North America to get their way. As a result of NAFTA, Canada is now the most sued developed country in the world.
Full article: http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2015/oct/30/canada-most-sued-country-developed-world-and-should-sound-alarm-bells-eu
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016112245
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/101680974
Thanks to NAFTA, Conditions for Mexican Factory Workers Like Rosa Moreno Are Getting Worse
Texas Observer / By Melissa del Bosque
The difficult and dangerous working conditions that Rosa and at least 1.3 million other Mexican workers endure were supposed to get better. They didn't.
Photo Credit: Alan Pogue
December 11, 2013 |
.... On this night, Feb. 19, 2011, she couldnt shake the feeling that something was wrong, a premonition that perhaps she shouldnt go. But she needed the money. It was the final shift in her six-day workweek, and if she missed a day, the factory would dock her 300 pesos. She couldnt afford to lose that kind of money. Her family already struggled to survive on the 1,300 pesos (about $100) a week she earned. Unable to shake the bad feeling, shed already missed her bus, and now shed have to pay for a taxi. But the thought of losing 300 pesos was worse. She had to go. Rosa kissed her six children goodnight and set out across town.
In the Mexican border city of Reynosa, the hundreds of maquiladoras that produce everything from car parts to flat-screen televisions run day and night365 days a yearto feed global demand. Rosa worked from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. at a factory called HD Electronics in a sprawling maquiladora park near the international bridge that links Reynosa, an industrial city of 600,000, to Pharr, Texas. Like the 90,000 or more workers in Reynosa, the 38-year-old Rosa depended on these factories for her livelihood. In the 11 years since she moved to the city, she had welded circuitry for Asian and European cell phone companies, assembled tubing for medical IV units to be shipped over the border to the United States, and worked on a production line assembling air conditioners for General Motors.
This was her second month at HD Electronics, a South Korean firm that had moved to Reynosa in 2006 to produce the metal backing for flat-screen televisions made by another South Korean firm, LG Electronicsa $49 billion corporation. LG also has a plant in Reynosa and could scarcely keep up with the North American demand for its plasma and LCD televisions.
At HD Electronics, Rosa operated a 200-ton hydraulic stamping press. Every night, six days a week, she fed the massive machine thin aluminum sheets. The machine ran all day, every day. Each time the press closed it sounded like a giant hammer striking metal: thwack, thwack, thwack. The metal sheets emerged pierced and molded into shape for each model and size of television. At the factory, 20 women, including Rosa, worked the presses to make the pieces for the smaller televisions. Nearby were 10 larger presses, each of which took two men to operate, to make backings for the giant-screen models.
Full Article: http://www.alternet.org/labor/after-20-years-nafta-thanks-nafta-what-happened-mexican-factory-workers-rosa-moreno?akid=11305.44541.10ylde&rd=1&src=newsletter939436&t=21
NAFTA Is Starving Mexico
Posted by polly7 in General Discussion
Thu Oct 20th 2011, 10:40 AM
By Laura Carlsen, October 20, 2011
http://www.fpif.org/articles/nafta_is_star...
As the blood-spattered violence of the drug war takes over the headlines, many Mexican men, women, and children confront the slow and silent violence of starvation. The latest reports show that the number of people living in food poverty (the inability to purchase the basic food basket) rose from 18 million in 2008 to 20 million by late 2010.
About one-fifth of Mexican children currently suffer from malnutrition. An innovative measurement applied by the National Institute for Nutrition registers a daily count of 728,909 malnourished children under five for October 18, 2011. Government statistics report that 25 percent of the population does not have access to basic food."
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/polly7/9
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002637336
Zalatix (8,994 posts)
Defenders of NAFTA might not want to hear a Mexican farmer's point of view on the subject.
http://articles.cnn.com/2008-02-01/world/mexico.farmers_1_mexican-officials-mexican-government-nafta?_s=PM:WORLD
February 01, 2008|From Harris Whitbeck CNN
Hundreds of thousands of farmers clogged central Mexico City Thursday with their slow-moving tractors, protesting the entry of cheap imported corn from the United States and Canada.
On January 1 Mexico repealed all tariffs on corn imported from north of the border as part of a 14-year phaseout under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.
The farmers want the government to renegotiate the 1994 free trade agreement, which removed most trade barriers among Mexico, Canada, and the United States, saying livelihoods are at stake.
"NAFTA is very bad, very bad for Mexican consumers and for Mexican producers," said Victor Quintana, head of Democratic Farmers Front, which organized the protest.
The farmers complain that U.S. and Canadian grains are heavily subsidized and therefore undermine Mexican products.
NAFTA AND U.S. CORN SUBSIDIES: EXPLAINING THE DISPLACEMENT OF MEXICOS CORN FARMERS
The papers underlying hypothesis is that American corn subsidies, which led to the flooding of Mexican markets with American corn following the signing of NAFTA, is the primary factor responsible for the post-1994 internal displacement of rural farmers in Mexico. The trade agreement effectively eliminated all trade barriers and placed Mexicos domestically produced corn in direct competition with highly subsidized corn imported from the United States. Consequently, Mexican corn farmers, who comprise the majority of the countrys agricultural sector, experienced drastic declines in the domestic price of their product and thus faced increasing difficulties to attain a sustainable living. Hence, we observe high levels of migration into Mexicos cities in the latter half of the 1990s, and the beginning of the 21st century, as these displaced farmers abandoned their previous livelihood in search of employment.
So not only did foreign outsourcing destroy millions of American manufacturing jobs, it also devastated Mexico's farmers.
Tell us again how free trade helped?
How NAFTA Drove Mexicans into Poverty and Sparked the Zapatista Revolt
By EDELO, Creative Time Reports
The North American Free Trade Agreement, passed 20 years ago, has resulted in increased emigration, hunger and poverty (with Video)
December 30, 2013
In light of the 20th anniversary of NAFTAs implementation and the Zapatista uprising, we set out to explore both the positive and negative effects of the international treaty. The poverty caused by NAFTA, and the waves of violence, forced migration and environmental disasters it has precipitated, should not be understated. The republic of Mexico is under threat from multinational corporations like the Canadian mining company Blackfire Explorations, which is threatening to sue the state of Chiapas for $800 million under NAFTA Chapter 11 because its government closed a Blackfire barite mine after pressure from local environmental activists like Mariano Abarca Roblero, who was murdered in 2009.
Still, one result of the corporate extraction of Mexicos natural resources and displacement of its people that has followed the treaty has been the organization and strengthening of initiatives by indigenous communities to construct autonomy from the bottom up. Seeing that their own governments cannot respond to popular demands without retribution from corporations, the people of Mexico are asking about alternatives: What is it that we do want? The Zapatista revolution reminds us that not only another world, but many other worlds, are possible
Full Article: http://www.alternet.org/world/how-nafta-drove-mexicans-poverty-and-sparked-zapatista-revolt?akid=11347.44541.RWB6aQ&rd=1&src=newsletter941851&t=19
Drug War Mexico, NAFTA and Why People Leave
#!
Peter Watt teaches Latin American Studies at the University of Sheffield in the UK. He is co-author of the new book, Drug War Mexico, and is currently penning another with Observer journalist Ed Vulliamy about white collar crime and the Mexican 'drug war.'
http://www.zcommunications.org/drug-war-mexico-nafta-and-why-people-leave-by-peter-watt-1
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At its root, the TPP is about modern colonialism. It is the way that Western governments and their transnational corporations, including Wall Street banks, can dominate the economies of developing nations, said Margaret Flowers, co-director of Popular Resistance. She continued The reality is that without trade justice there cannot be climate justice, food justice; there cannot be health justice or wage justice. That is why people are mobilizing to stop the TPP.
Mackenzie McDonald Wilkins, organizer for Flush The TPP, said: The TPP impacts every issue we care about as a result, a unified movement of movements to stop the TPP has developed. People who care about corporate power versus democracy and our sovereignty or about jobs and workers, the environment and climate change, health care, food and water, energy regulation of banks are mobilizing to make stopping the TPP their top priority.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/11/mass-mobilization-to-stop-the-tpp-announced-as-text-is-released/
bbm.
The TPP gives incredible power to foreign banks to move money in and out of countries without restrictions. It minimizes regulation of big finance to allow risk-tasking that endangers the world economy. Countries that need money will be enslaved by loans from big finance like Citigroup, and once they are in debt, they will be unable to stand up to the demands of banksters who threaten them as we witnessed recently in Greece.
The reality is that without trade justice there cannot be climate justice, food justice; there cannot be health justice or wage justice. Injustice in trade undermines all the issues the social movement is working to correct.
As a result the largest trade justice movement has developed and is growing. Be part of this cultural shift that will challenge corporate power and build the power of people.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/10/spread-the-word-tpp-is-toxic-political-poison-that-politicians-should-avoid/#more-60210
Under ISDS, if a foreign corporation/investor thinks that a governments policy reduces its profits or expected future profits, ISDS allows the foreign investor to evade the usual judicial system. Instead, the investor can bring a nation before a hearing of a tribunal of trade lawyers. These lawyers may represent an investor in one case and be an arbitrator in another case. Public interests, such as protection of public health, the environment, buy local programs, etc. take a back seat to commercial considerations in these deliberations. Laws passed by a democratic process can be overridden and national sovereignty is out the window.
If the investor wins, the government must either change the policy or pay what can turn out to be a very substantial fee. If the state wins, there is no cost to the investor. In addition, the ISDS is even more one-sided as the state has no corresponding right to bring an original claim against the foreign investor.
According to an article by Robin Broad in the January/February Dollars & Sense issue, in 1964, 21 developing-country governments voted no on the establishment of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), a predecessor of ISDS, as a new part of the World Bank. All 19 of the Latin American countries attending the meeting voted no.
Felix Ruiz of Chile spoke on behalf of these 19 countries and said:
The new system that has been suggested would give the foreign investor, by virtue of the fact that he is a foreigner, the right to sue a sovereign state outside its national territory, dispensing with the courts of law. This provision is contrary to the accepted legal principles of our countries and, de facto, would confer a privilege on the foreign investor, placing the nationals of the country concerned in a position of inferiority.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/06/a-real-threat-isds/
Are we overlooking the most dangerous aspect of TTIP?
Alex Scrivener
19 October 2015
Our new briefing shows how regulatory cooperation presents a unique opportunity for corporate interests on both sides of the Atlantic to lobby for these standards to be brought down to the lowest common denominator. Many of the major corporate interests pushing for TTIP actually think this, not ISDS, is the aspect of the deal that is most important to them. Some supporters of TTIP have even gone as far as to advocate sacrificing ISDS to protect regulatory cooperation. Corporate lobbyists have expressed the hope that regulatory cooperation will make them so powerful that it will allow them to effectively co-write regulation with policy-makers.
http://www.globaljustice.org.uk/blog/2015/oct/19/are-we-overlooking-most-dangerous-aspect-ttip
These are just a few of the articles I happened to read over the years.
There are so many great threads here by DU'ers, I wish I'd kept track of them all.
Just one of the most recent ones with a lot of great comments:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027324270
packman (3,907 posts)
Just how bad the TPP is - guaranteed profits on EXPECTATIONS of profits
Banks and other financial institutions would be able to use provisions 43oOnEoin the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership to block new regulations that cut into their profits, according to the text of the trade pact released this week.
In what may be the biggest gift to banks in a deal full of giveaways to Hollywood, the drug industry and technology firms, financial institutions would be able to appeal any national rules they didnt like to independent, international tribunals staffed by friendly corporate lawyers.
That could nullify a proposal by Hillary Clinton to impose a risk fee on financial firms or the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders plan to reinstate the firewall between investment and commercial banks
language in the TPP could be directed to target American financial laws and regulations.
In prior deals, financial services providers were limited to making ISDS challenges based on discrimination where foreign companies were subject to more stringent rules than their domestic counterparts or an illegal taking of their investments. These types of challenges have been largely unsuccessful in ISDS tribunals.
But now, for the first time, financial institutions could make an ISDS claim based on not receiving a minimum standard of treatment. This is the most flexible type of claim. Over time, tribunals have interpreted this to mean that the company gets compensation if the change in policy disappoints their expectations of future profits, said Lori Wallach of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch.
In other words, a company can state it "expected" to get billions-but shit happens and they didn't - so an international tribunal can award them that phantom money. A movie bombs overseas or an overseas movie bombs here and they still make money. Count me in - I've got some crap to sell overseas worth millions.
http://extragoodshit.phlap.net/index.php/tpp-trade-pact-would-give-wall-street-a-trump-card-to-block-regulations/#more-324923
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)What a lie. 'We', as in the people of Canada, had not one bit of say in it. Neither did the people of Mexico, or the U.S.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)Our dear Harper would fight tooth and nail for any chance at screwing us over with the TPP to benefit our own and multinational corporations, you should have known that.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... for "lost profits" for Transcanada. I wonder if he will actually go to work for them if he's now out of office? Does Canada have laws rejecting such revolving doors that are missing here?
Perhaps another reason why Obama is now saying he will stop Keystone, because he knows that with supporting putting in TPP in place, that what he does there WON'T MATTER! Transcanada will get what it wants through ISDS courts and either get us to pay them tons of money to keep Keystone oil shut down in place, or change the laws to allow it to be put back on schedule for them which our government would argue would be to avoid "crippling debt" by the ISDS judgement against us. You can pretty well predict what will happen!
polly7
(20,582 posts)It makes me ill to think that any huge corporation could get what they want through these courts and affect the environment and lives of so many people they're completely oblivious to.
Every protection everywhere will be challenged.
appal_jack
(3,813 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)Those were just some of mine I'd kept in my journal and a few others. Cali and others had a lot of really great info here, I wish it had all been gathered in one place.
Joe Turner
(930 posts)After years of negotiating the treaty in secrecy and being shamed about the wall of silence around TPP, the backers finally release it during the holiday season with just a few months before a vote on an agreement that spans more than 2000 pages. What reasonable straight shooting chaps you are...NOT!
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Americans are suffering because of these trade agreements. Enough is enough.
I'd like to do away with all and any of them.
We can establish fair trade agreements with each country separately.
Our government has been letting us down for many, many years in the negotiation of these trade agreements.
NAFTA has seriously harmed our job market, our domestic job market.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)And the unemployment rate would be much higher.
Joe Turner
(930 posts)without any over arching, sovereignty destroying trade pacts. What are you talking about? TTP type trade deals have little to do with trade and everything to do with expanding corporate power over the state.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)old days are gone.
Joe Turner
(930 posts)and they may be, it is largely due to free trade agreements. Most nations put the interests of their country and people first. This country stopped doing that in the 1970s. We went from trade surpluses to trade deceits. Our trading partners run huge trade surpluses with the U.S. year after year. That sir, has nothing to do with "we are saturated now" kind of babbling rubbish from you. We have been sold out by the corporate interests to own our political system, and evidently flaks like you.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)IMO, the world has changed, we need to change with it, even if some folks are too myopic to see it. Trading among ourselves will not provide the revenue to do all the things most want from a societal perspective.
polly7
(20,582 posts)And who mentioned only trading among ourselves? We can trade with whomever we like using FAIR trade deals - those that truly benefit and safeguard both parties. But noooo ...... we have oligarchs and the 1% to protect first and above all, then it'll all just trickle down, right?
Joe Turner
(930 posts)To make it sound like we need NAFTA or TPP to trade with other nations is simply a lie, because we have always engaged in international trade since our country's founding and prospered mightily from it. I realize you have to make quick propaganda sound bites to misled but quoting Krugman, a noted globalist, only further discredits you.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Joe Turner
(930 posts)in this country, yes, we need to back to the previous era when trade used to work in our favor. You are stuck with a trade ideology that does not work in the real world. TPP is just the latest example of what happens when corporate and governmental powers merge... and nothing good comes from that.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Joe Turner
(930 posts)speculation drove our economy off the cliff? Well, we are already headed for a replay of that with our current economic polices of letting Wall Street be Wall Street. The next downturn, like the one in the 1930s will be all about what happens when too much money is all in one place - like the stock and bond market - and debt is excessive. Wall Street just can't stand the notion that they played a huge role in the great depression.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)country. I believe in strong regulation of corporations, and taxation. I also believe that almost anyone making a decent income nowadays works for corporations, not some mom-and-pop place that can't afford insurance, benefits, etc.
Joe Turner
(930 posts)You referenced the great depression. A depression that followed the excesses of the 1920s. It was a major downturn in the business cycle globally after years of growth. Better economic policies perhaps could have shortened the downturn but nothing could have stopped it from happening. Second, your claim that you believe in strong regulation of corporation is laughable on its face. The entire reason for TPP is to get around government regulation. You are a funny guy.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Joe Turner
(930 posts)It is why corporations have spent billions to get it passed. Speaking of obtuse, you make it quite clear you have some kind of stake in its passage.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Joe Turner
(930 posts)At a time when corporate power need to be reigned in TPP gives corporations incredible power over nations and governments. You managed to get it exactly backwards. BTW, "no direct stake" sounds sounds weasely.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)And it's not weasely. I have no direct stake, get nothing directly from our participating in a global world. But I do benefit when people have good jobs, see a brighter future, when we spread around some of the wealth we took from the world, etc. Too bad you can't experience that kind of indirect benefit. It must be tough feeling helpless and powerless because of the big bad corporations.
Joe Turner
(930 posts)spend on our politicians to get the government they want. Good Jobs? There are some of those still around but much, much less than there used to be prior to the era of corporate trade deals. And spreading our wealth around the world is exactly what such trade policies do, except little of it comes back our way as our trade deficits prove. Anyway I happen to work for one of those big bad corporations so don't worry about me.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Joe Turner
(930 posts)Have to wonder what keeps someone up at 3:00 in the morning writing the same corporate drivel every day. Nighty night.
pampango
(24,692 posts)republican policies from 1921 to 1933 included lower taxes on the rich, cutting regulations on corporations and raising tariffs creating a historic level of income inequality (worse even than today which is saying something) and harming the middle class on which the economy depends. republicans were not innocent victims of a boom-and-bust economic cycle. The Great Depression was not inevitable. It was created by conservative republican policies.
Bush II tried to push us into a second Great Depression with many of the same policies that Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover followed. Fortunately a Democratic president was inaugurated soon enough to turn things around. If FDR had been elected in 1930 instead of 1932, perhaps the Great Depression would have been the Great Recession instead.
Joe Turner
(930 posts)Ever hear of the business cycle. There are major cycles up and down. Nothing will stop an economy from contracting if debt, market saturation, and financial leverage have gone to the extreme. Yes, Harding's policies certainly accelerated the decline, but it was going to happen anyway. Booms and Busts happen every now then and IMO we are about due for another bust.
pampango
(24,692 posts)The Great Depression was not an inevitable part of the business cycle. It was caused by republican policies that hollowed out the middle class . If you wish to portray the republican presidents who preceded FDR as innocent victims of the business cycle, go right ahead. I am not buying it.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Control them, and tax the hell out of them. But without them, most of us would be in a world of hurt.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)Last edited Mon Nov 9, 2015, 08:33 AM - Edit history (1)
for pennies a day, right? How is that fair trade?
And I didn't mean 'you' specifically, I meant the U.S. And it was just an example ......... do you have no problem at all with hundreds of thousands/millions of jobs being off-sourced to slave/cheap labour nations closing down whole industries in your own country? Are there not people there begging for decent employment as there are here in Canada?
Rex
(65,616 posts)So he pretends to ignore that part as if you didn't write it. As a matter of fact, all he is yammering about now is the same parroted line he repeats over and over.
I love watching this guy turn people off to capitalism, he is way too clueless to realize it himself.
polly7
(20,582 posts)a video of the garment industry and the women and children in Bangladesh and Cambodia dying in factory collapses and fires, the environmental disaster, the horrific impact on health, among other things. He seems to think these multinationals who've spent years in secret drafting these disgusting safeguards - for themselves - are going to suddenly become compassionate, empathetic trading partners whose real goal is to enrich the downtrodden.
Actually, I doubt he thinks that at all, he just wants us to think it.
And since we know they will not become bastions of democracy, his words ring hollow.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)as you seem to prefer.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)BelgianMadCow
(5,379 posts)1) The Preamble is only, as it were, informative. It is not normative, and in itself does not establish the rights of states to regulate for the welfare of their citizens;
2) The ISDS Code of Conduct is no such thing, since it does not include ethical canons or guidelines for outside activity;
3) ISDS proceeedings are most definitely not required to be public; the parties can agree that they be secret, and the confidentiality clause is a loophole even a bad lawyer could drive a truck through;
4) The so-called tobacco carve-out still permits challenge, and hence does not change the power imbalance between rich and threatening corporations and states that are small or poor.
In other words, if NC were WaPo, it would be awarding the FT multiple Pinocchios for its coverage of the ISDS.[4] Could do better!
The TPP is a major international agreement. Is it too much to ask that the financial press take this story seriously?
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)agreements since 1959, including Scandinavian countries, to attract investment, jobs, and tax revenue.
polly7
(20,582 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)You'd think 2500+ agreements all saying the same thing would have just about covered it all by now, right?
You'd think.
polly7
(20,582 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)since its inception. Most of those criticizing this are folk who were told to hate Hillary because of NAFTA.
Jobs weren't lost because of NAFTA...jobs were lost because greedy, seedy business owners saw a way to make more money using cheap labor...which they were already doing and will continue to do.
polly7
(20,582 posts)showing exactly what unfair trade - including NAFTA - has already done to millions of human beings. These new agreements are 'NAFTA on steroids' - and we all have the right to criticize the actions of those greedy, seedy multi-billionaire business owners employing over 500 corporate lawyers to draft protections into these agreements that absolutely DO threaten even more the lives and environment of real human beings. Sucks, eh??
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Monk06
(7,675 posts)Technically Lockheed could sue Canada for backing out of the F35 purchase under TPP and opening it up to tender again.
We have already taken part in development for the F35 to the tune of several billion dollars and Europe is outside the block.
See how that works for the US megas?
Total trade dominance in the Pacific leaving China with ASEAN and the Stans.
Existing agreements on GATT, WTO, and NAFTA are unaffected but any new trade agreements Canada negotiates with Europe or anyone else have to be reconciled with TPP or else
It's economic war with a happy face.
Australia is aready having serious second thoughts about the threat of TPP to it's mining industry
polly7
(20,582 posts)Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)We must stop this abomination!
Omaha Steve
(99,780 posts)On Thursday, House Republicans once again held a vote on the so-called "Trade Promotion Authority" legislationabbreviated as TPA and better known as "fast-track"that would prevent Congress from adding amendments to any trade deals negotiated by President Obama. And once again, the same 28 Democrats voted in favor of it:
Terri Sewell (AL-07)
Susan Davis (CA-53)
Sam Farr (CA-20)
Jim Costa (CA-16)
Ami Bera (CA-07)
Scott Peters (CA-52)
Jared Polis (CO-02)
James Himes (CT-04)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23)
Mike Quigley (IL-05)
John Delaney (MD-06)
Brad Ashford (NE-02)
Gregory Meeks (NY-05)
Kathleen Rice (NY-04)
Earl Blumenauer (OR-03)
Kurt Schrader (OR-05)
Suzanne Bonamici (OR-01)
Jim Cooper (TN-05)
Rubén Hinojosa (TX-15)
Eddie Johnson (TX-30)
Henry Cuellar (TX-28)
Beto O'Rourke (TX-16)
Gerald Connolly (VA-11)
Donald Beyer (VA-08)
Rick Larsen (WA-02)
Suzan DelBene (WA-01)
Derek Kilmer (WA-06)
Ron Kind (WI-03)
Last week, when fast-track first came up for a vote, its fate was tied to another piece of legislation called Trade Adjustment Assistance, which helps displaced workers. Since TAA failed, so did TPA, even though the latter received a majority vote. This time, unencumbered by TAA, TPA passed by a 218 to 208 margin, thanks to the support of those 28 Democrats listed above.
Now TPA will head to the Senate for a possible vote next week whose outcome is uncertain. Republicans have promised Democrats that TAA will come up for a separate vote as part of a non-controversial trade bill regarding Africa, but will Democrats in the Senate take that risk and support TPA on its own?
We know that 28 House Democrats were willing to do so, and we aren't going to forget their names.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)President Obama has stated he will sign TPP.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)American people is Bernie Sanders.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)It is the Brave New World Order Thing writ by the Chamber of Commerce.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Anybody who cannot see that the present terrible trio of trade deals subvert democracy or national sovereignty probably can't see blue sky on a clear day.
The ISDS is still part of the TPP (Article 28 in PDF) and it's little different than we were led to believe it would by those opposing it, including Wikileaks. It still allows those acting through corporations to sue governments for regulating pollution or occupational safety.
This means you and I can elect a congressman who campaigns to support legislation regulating carbon emissions, he can follow through with his promise and get the measure passed and ExxonMobil can sue the US Government over it. ExxonMobil can demand a hearing before the ISDS panel, composed of three corporate lawyers, who have the power to award ExxonMobil a sum of money to be borne by US taxpayers (that's also you and I) for "a benefit it could reasonably have expected to accrue . . . (that) is being nullified or impaired as a result of the application of a measure of another Party that is not inconsistent with this Agreement" (Article 28.3(c)).
So, how is that not a subversion of democracy or national sovereignty? This ISDS panel is not elected by US voters, yet there exist entities than can appeal to the ISDS the acts of congressmen whom we elect to represent us and can make the US taxpayers compensate an artificial person who breaks our laws and harms public health.
Horsepucky, I say. Whose army is going to make the United States of American compensate an oil company for failing to abate environmental pollution? Whose army is going to make us even recognize the authority of a panel of corporate shysters to sit in judgment of the American people? The TPP has no sunset clause? Whose army is going to keep us tied to this instrument of corporate tyranny one minute longer after we, the American People, recognize it for what it is?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Hoyt
(54,770 posts)Last edited Sun Nov 8, 2015, 08:55 PM - Edit history (1)
But, I guess it could in some fantasy world.
So let's throw Toyota, Honda, Frigidaire, Mercedes, Anheuser-Busch, EADS, Siemens, etc., and some 6 million workers out. Tell them, they will have no protection because we might just nationalize their plants, or pass laws that discriminate against them, but not American companies.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)Certainly not from my post.
We seem to do a good job of not considering that kind of steer manure now. How is an otherwise bad trade deal going to make it better?
My objection to the TPP is the very existence of the ISDS and the fact that corporations are given a right to "expected" profits.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)certainly no economist or lawyer. But you're right, the big picture is very, very clear.
Kip Humphrey
(4,753 posts)Signatories commit to acknowledge the existence of goals surrounding the possibility of workers rights
without
Rex
(65,616 posts)This deal will seal it for the 1%. Stick a fork in the working class.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)That's a language that designed not to be well understood.
We peons aren't supposed to know what's in it.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Reading that makes me reach for the Pepto-Bismol.
Marr
(20,317 posts)defending it.
Who could have imagined such a coincidence??
polly7
(20,582 posts)raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)As long as they get a taste, hey, its democracy for them and for them, that is all that matters.
CanSocDem
(3,286 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)here's a graphic I love and just saw again, from Tace, and I agree with it:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016112245