Donate Bitcoin

Donate Paypal


PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

Trans Pacific Partnership

For discussions of events and conditions not necessarily related to Peak Oil.

Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 02 Mar 2015, 13:19:17

Pops - Here's your side order of doom. From a Vermont Senator no less:

Adding to the chorus of protest over President Barack Obama’s push for a controversial new trade pact with Asia, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sounded off on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and accused mainstream media of not covering what could be one of the biggest trade agreements in history. “The major television networks are not covering the TPP. Incredible as it may sound, this trade agreement—the largest trade agreement in the history of the United States of America—has received virtually no coverage, no coverage, on the major networks,” Sanders said from the Senate floor on Thursday.

TPP is a trade deal being negotiated between the U.S., Canada and ten other Asia-Pacific nations, covering about 40 percent of the global economy. Supporters of the treaty argue that it would boost economic growth in participating countries by reducing tariffs, increasing investments and bringing the member nations closer together. Critics aren’t buying it, arguing TPP would take jobs out of the U.S., increase income inequality, allow multinational corporations to sidestep U.S. regulations and reward countries with poor human rights records.

“I think it’s obvious for anyone who has taken a look at this issue that the TPP is just a new, easy way for corporations to shut down in America to send jobs abroad,” Sanders said. Sanders likened TPP to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the poor-performing trade pact signed in 1994, which led to a loss of jobs and the deterioration of labor conditions in the U.S. and other partner nations. “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is sometimes called insanity.” “If we think that a new trade agreement based on the same principles of the old trade agreements are going to bring different results, I think we are very, very wrong.”

Adding to the skepticism of TPP is that talks about the deal have been done in secret, so the exact implications are largely unknown, save for what has been revealed in leaks. Democrats have been joined by labor and environmental groups in calling foul on the deal and Obama’s request for “fast-track” authority — the ability to make trade agreements with less interference from Congress. Most Republicans have signaled they would grant Obama fast-track authority. A petition from Sanders aiming to stop TPP said, “If TPP was such a good deal for America, the administration should have the courage to show the American people exactly what is in this deal, instead of keeping the content of the TPP a secret.”
User avatar
ROCKMAN
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 11397
Joined: Tue 27 May 2008, 03:00:00
Location: TEXAS

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Pops » Tue 03 Mar 2015, 10:46:32

Thanks ROCK. I thought I'd split this off ... [the site search looks to be broken and I couldn't find another thread]

On the one hand I am a protectionist and think high tariffs should be imposed to balance our higher environmental and worker protections and wages along with improving our infrastructure. On the other hand, those benefits have been constantly under attack by the owners since at least Reagan and so don't accrue to workers anymore anyway. What protections there are benefit the owners. That is the model of a mercantilist economy where government protects monopolies for the benefit of the owners.

Except, the whole idea of a state protected monopoly is so last century. This is the era of the multinational corporation, they don't need no stinkin' protection from an entity as insignificant as a "state." All they need is to continue tearing down the "barriers" to profit such as the mentioned labor and worker protections that stand in the way of the labor arbitrage race to the bottom.

The ownership has pretty well won the battle to expand the labor market worldwide, Bill Clinton made a big step and now Barry Clinton is gonna finish it out with his "Eastern Pivot" or whatever. Fighting against that tide is nobel though pointless but good on Bernnie and Liz for trying. Barry has the whole GOP on his side on this one, which is why it is not in the news I think. Regardless of the talking points memo about the Rs being all about "working folks" they are the party of Corporate Persons above all else and the media on the right don't want to let on that they agree with the Muslim about anything - and the media on the left don't want to soil Obama's 'reputation' by putting him in the same camp as the Rs either.

I guess I'd say that since the race to the bottom is pretty well a lock anyway, tying pacific nations' financial interests together via trade is probably as good a way as any to avoid conflict down the road. At least as long as the containers continue to float.
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
User avatar
Pops
Elite
Elite
 
Posts: 19746
Joined: Sat 03 Apr 2004, 04:00:00
Location: QuikSac for a 6-Pac

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Timo » Tue 03 Mar 2015, 11:32:28

The TPP is a very bad deal. It is designed to accelerate the absolute worst that every nation involved has to offer. Environmental concerns, human rights, worker rights, all of that goes out the window in the name of corporate profits. No restrictions or protections for anything, except special allowances for the abusers to get away with any abuse they choose to commit. I have not heard one positive aspect of the TPP that i can possibly view as good. Obama's secrecy on this entire deal makes me seriously question his intent. The fact that he insists that the negotiations remain secret only lessen the trust i ever had for the man. If it is a good deal, give us the details. If it's not a good deal, scrap it.
Timo
 

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby vox_mundi » Tue 03 Mar 2015, 13:32:55

To get a handle on TPP and 'free-trade agreements' in an easy to understand and humorous way watch the embedded video here ...

Your Weekly Oliver: Tobacco Deaths, "Trade" Courts (and a Stray Obama Thought)

... consider this piece by the best political comedian on the air, John Oliver, from a recent edition of Last Week Tonight. It's reasonably short and despite the content, fun to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UsHHOC ... e=youtu.be

As you do watch though, ask yourself — What is your honest moral evaluation of the CEO class that controls tobacco companies like Philip Morris? In other words, if the corporation were a person, what words would you use to describe their behavior?

... The good part is helping you clearly see the role of "free trade agreements" as agents of corporate predation. Every example Oliver cites in the clip has a "free trade court" as the corporate weapon of choice. Go back and check. Starting at 5:55 in the clip: (but watch the whole thing - it's worth it)

World trade — because nothing says "corporate control" like a nation-trumping "trade" court.

Elizabeth Warren Comes Out Against TPP's NAFTA-Style "Trade Court"

... The Trans-Pacific Partnership clause everyone should oppose

by (Sen.) Elizabeth Warren

The United States is in the final stages of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive free-trade agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries. Who will benefit from the TPP? American workers? Consumers? Small businesses? Taxpayers? Or the biggest multinational corporations in the world?

One strong hint is buried in the fine print of the closely guarded draft. The provision, an increasingly common feature of trade agreements, is called “Investor-State Dispute Settlement,” or ISDS. The name may sound mild, but don’t be fooled. Agreeing to ISDS in this enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.

ISDS would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. ... ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn’t employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next. Maybe that makes sense in an arbitration between two corporations, but not in cases between corporations and governments. If you’re a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when it’s your turn in the judge’s seat?

These tribunals ("courts") are only open to corporations; not, for example, citizens, countries or labor unions.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
User avatar
vox_mundi
Intermediate Crude
Intermediate Crude
 
Posts: 3939
Joined: Wed 27 Sep 2006, 03:00:00

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Tue 03 Mar 2015, 15:33:01

Mucho thanks Pop. Difficult to find just the right thread. We'll see if the story has legs.
User avatar
ROCKMAN
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 11397
Joined: Tue 27 May 2008, 03:00:00
Location: TEXAS

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby TemplarMyst » Wed 04 Mar 2015, 21:53:13

Rock, Pops, and the Usual Suspects,

Just to echo at least some of the sentiments, and to throw in my own tendency towards the austro-libertarian, what baffles me is the ongoing wordplay that has these sorts of agreements being referred to as free trade agreements.

Utterly ridiculous. As Walter Block has pointed out, you don't need a multi-thousand page document to declare free trade. You just have to say you can trade with whom you wish, when you wish.

That's it.

The TPP is just the latest in the long line of agreements which protect the interests of the oligarchy at the expense of everyone else. So Pops calls 'em the owners. Same cast of characters.

To Pops assertions about the race to the bottom, that'd be fodder for another thread, somewhere under one of the Economics forum topics. Wherein I will look when I have a moment, to see current denizen thoughts towards such matters.

This ain't free market capitalism. This is political marketplace manipulation at the highest levels. And the thing that gets me is we keep getting bamboozled into bailing these idiots out...
TemplarMyst
Wood
Wood
 
Posts: 47
Joined: Fri 16 Aug 2013, 21:45:22
Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby vox_mundi » Sat 28 Mar 2015, 13:18:06

WikiLeaks releases secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) investment chapter
‘Finally everyone can see for themselves that the TPP would give multinational corporations extraordinary new powers that undermine our sovereignty’

WASHINGTON, D.C., 25 March 2015 (Public Citizen) – The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) Investment Chapter, leaked today, reveals how the pact would make it easier for U.S. firms to offshore American jobs to low-wage countries while newly empowering thousands of foreign firms to seek cash compensation from U.S. taxpayers by challenging U.S. government actions, laws, and court rulings before unaccountable foreign tribunals. After five years of secretive TPP negotiations, the text – leaked by WikiLeaks – proves that growing concerns about the controversial “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) system that the TPP would extend are well justified, Public Citizen said.

Enactment of the leaked chapter would increase U.S. ISDS liability to an unprecedented degree by newly empowering about 9,000 foreign-owned firms from Japan and other TPP nations operating in the United States to launch cases against the government over policies that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms. To date, the United States has faced few ISDS attacks because past ISDS-enforced pacts have almost exclusively been with developing nations whose firms have few investments here.

The leak reveals that the TPP would replicate the ISDS language found in past U.S. agreements under which tribunals have ordered more than $3.6 billion in compensation to foreign investors attacking land use rules; water, energy and timber policies; health, safety and environmental protections; financial stability policies and more. And while the Obama administration has sought to quell growing concerns about the ISDS threat with claims that past pacts’ problems would be remedied in the TPP, the leaked text does not include new safeguards relative to past U.S. ISDS-enforced pacts. Indeed, this version of the text, which shows very few remaining areas of disagreement, eliminates various safeguard proposals that were included in a 2012 leaked TPP Investment Chapter text.

“With the veil of secrecy ripped back, finally everyone can see for themselves that the TPP would give multinational corporations extraordinary new powers that undermine our sovereignty, expose U.S. taxpayers to billions in new liability and privilege foreign firms operating here with special rights not available to U.S. firms under U.S. law,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “This leak is a disaster for the corporate lobbyists and administration officials trying to persuade Congress to delegate Fast Track authority to railroad the TPP through Congress.”
Image

Public Citizen’s analysis of the leaked text is available here. It shows:

- The TPP would grant foreign investors and firms operating here expansive new substantive and procedural rights and privileges not available to U.S. firms under U.S. law, allowing foreign firms to demand compensation for the costs of complying with U.S. policies, court orders and government actions that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms. This includes:
Foreign investors would be empowered to challenge new policies that apply equally to domestic and foreign firms on the basis that they undermine foreign investors’ “expectations” of how they should be treated. This includes a right to claim damages for government actions (such as new environmental, health or financial policies) that reduce the value of a foreign firm’s investment (what the leaked text calls “indirect expropriation”) or that change the level of regulation a foreign investor experienced under a previous government (a violation of what the text calls a “minimum standard of treatment” for foreign investors).

The leaked TPP text largely replicates the “minimum standard of treatment” language found in previous U.S. pacts that tribunals have used to issue some of the most alarming ISDS rulings. Tribunals often have broadly interpreted this vague “right” to fabricate new obligations for governments that do not actually exist in the texts of ISDS-enforced pacts, such as “not to alter the legal and business environment in which the investment has been made.” Due to such expansive interpretations, the “minimum standard of treatment” obligation has been the basis for three of every four ISDS cases “won” by the foreign investor under U.S. pacts.

- The text allows foreign investors to demand compensation for claims of “indirect expropriation” that apply to much wider categories of property than those to which similar rights apply in U.S. law.To the limited extent that “indirect expropriation” compensation is permitted in U.S. law, it is generally available only for government actions affecting real property (i.e. land). But the leaked text would allow foreign investors to claim “indirect expropriation” if government regulations implicate their personal property, intellectual property rights, financial instruments, government permits, money, minority shareholdings or other forms of non-real-estate property.

- Foreign corporations could demand compensation for capital controls and other macro-prudential financial regulations that promote financial stability.This obligation restricts the use of capital controls or financial transaction taxes, even as the International Monetary Fund has shifted from opposing capital controls to officially endorsing them as legitimate policy tools for preventing or mitigating financial crises. Proposed provisions touted as “temporary safeguards” for capital controls would fail to protect many standard forms of capital controls, including those successfully used by TPP governments in the past to ward off financial crises.

- The leaked text could newly allow pharmaceutical firms to use TPP ISDS tribunals to demand cash compensation for claimed violations of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) rules regarding the creation, limitation or revocation of intellectual property rights. Currently, WTO rules are not privately enforceable by investors. But the leaked TPP investment text could empower individual foreign investors to directly challenge governments over policies to ensure access to affordable medicines, claiming that they constitute TPP-prohibited “expropriations” of intellectual property rights if ISDS tribunals deem them to violate WTO rules.

- There are no new safeguards that limit ISDS tribunals’ discretion to create ever-expanding interpretations of governments’ obligations to foreign investors and order compensation on that basis. The leaked text reveals the same “safeguard” terms that have been included in U.S. pacts since the 2005 Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA tribunals have simply ignored the “safeguard” provisions that the leaked text replicates for the TPP, and have continued to rule against governments based on concocted obligations to which governments never agreed. The leaked text also abandons a safeguard proposed in the 2012 leaked TPP investment text, which excluded public interest regulations from indirect expropriation claims, stating, “non-discriminatory regulatory actions … that are designed and applied to achieve legitimate public welfare objectives, such as the protection of public health, safety and the environment do not constitute indirect expropriation.” Today’s leaked text eviscerates that clause by adding a fatal loophole that has been found in past U.S. pacts.

- The amount that an ISDS tribunal would order a government to pay to a foreign investor as compensation would be based on the “expected future profits” the tribunal surmises that the investor would have earned in the absence of the public policy it is attacking as violating the substantive investor rights granted by the TPP.

- The text would submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of World Bank and United Nations tribunals. All TPP nations have agreed to be so bound with the potential exception of Australia, which has indicated that it might do the same, “subject to certain conditions.”

None of the structural biases or conflicts of interest inherent in the ISDS system would be remedied.TPP ISDS tribunals would be staffed by highly paid corporate lawyers unaccountable to any electorate or system of legal precedent. They still would be allowed to rotate between acting as “judges” and advocates for the investors launching cases against governments. Corporations launching cases would still directly select one of the “judges.” The text includes no requirements for tribunal members to be impartial, reveal conflicts of interest or recuse themselves in instances of direct conflict. There is no internal or external mechanism to appeal the tribunal members’ decisions on the merits, and claims of procedural errors would be decided by another tribunal of corporate lawyers. The leaked text provides tribunals with discretion to determine the amount of compensation governments must pay investors and the allocation of costs, such as the tribunal members’ fees. A proposal that appeared in the 2012 leak of the text to standardize hourly fees for tribunal members at the lower end of the range of fees currently paid (about $375 per hour, compared to the $700 per hour that some tribunal members receive) has been eliminated.

- An overreaching definition of “investment” would extend the coverage of the TPP’s expansive substantive investor rights far beyond “real property,” permitting ISDS attacks over government actions and policies related to financial instruments, intellectual property, regulatory permits and more. Proposals in the 2012 leak of the text that would have narrowed the definition of “investment,” and thus the scope of policies subject to challenge, have been eliminated. Also omitted is a proposal from the earlier leaked version that would not have allowed ISDS cases related to government procurement, subsidies or government grants.

- An overreaching definition of “investor” would allow firms from non-TPP countries and firms with no real investments to exploit the extraordinary privileges the TPP would establish for foreign investors. Thus, for instance, one of the many Chinese state-owned corporations in Vietnam could “sue” the U.S. government in a foreign tribunal to demand compensation under this text. ...

... all your base are belong to us

Image

... you have no chance to survive, make your time
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
User avatar
vox_mundi
Intermediate Crude
Intermediate Crude
 
Posts: 3939
Joined: Wed 27 Sep 2006, 03:00:00

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sat 28 Mar 2015, 14:28:02

Mucho thanks vox. Won't hold my breath waiting for our MSM to jump on this story.
User avatar
ROCKMAN
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 11397
Joined: Tue 27 May 2008, 03:00:00
Location: TEXAS

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Plantagenet » Sun 29 Mar 2015, 16:04:43

ROCKMAN wrote: A petition from Sanders aiming to stop TPP said, “If TPP was such a good deal for America, the administration should have the courage to show the American people exactly what is in this deal, instead of keeping the content of the TPP a secret.”


Nothing unusual about that.

its been standard operating procedure since 2009 for Senators to have to pass a bill to find out what is in it. :lol:
User avatar
Plantagenet
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 26616
Joined: Mon 09 Apr 2007, 03:00:00
Location: Alaska (its much bigger than Texas).

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Mon 30 Mar 2015, 00:49:04

If there is any plan to leave FFs in the ground to limit CO2, the TPP would seem to require governments to pay foreign owners of the resources.
Facebook knows you're a dog.
User avatar
Keith_McClary
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 7344
Joined: Wed 21 Jul 2004, 03:00:00
Location: Suburban tar sands

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 30 Mar 2015, 08:33:34

Keith - "...the TPP would seem to require governments to pay foreign owners of the resources." From some of the editorial comments I've seen that may be a big par of the incentive of some countries: a pay day.
User avatar
ROCKMAN
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 11397
Joined: Tue 27 May 2008, 03:00:00
Location: TEXAS

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Fri 10 Apr 2015, 13:47:14

Health and Environment Laws Swept Away
Trans-Pacific Partnership Says if a Corporation Claims it’s True, it Must be True

by PETE DOLACK
The real-world effect is that any corporate entity can move to overturn any government action, simply on the basis that its “right” to the maximum possible profit, regardless of cost to a community, has been “breached.”

Worse still, the expansive language of the TPP means that even more corporations will be eligible to sue governments, a Public Citizen analysis of the leaked investment chapter reports:

“Existing ISDS-enforced agreements of … developed TPP countries have been almost exclusively with developing countries whose firms have few investments in the developed nations. However, the enactment of the leaked chapter would dramatically expand each TPP government’s ISDS liability. The TPP would newly empower about 9,000 foreign-owned firms in the United States to launch ISDS cases against the U.S. government, while empowering more than 18,000 additional U.S.-owned firms to launch ISDS cases against other signatory governments.”

Corporations not based in a TPP country but which operate in a TPP country, even when they have no real investment in a TPP country, will be eligible to sue. (The “ISDS” in the above passage refers to “investor-state dispute settlement,” the technical term used to refer to rules that mandate the use of the secret arbitration bodies.) Additionally, previous language that purported to provide support for health, safety and environmental rules is missing from the latest text, according to Public Citizen.

That does not mean that the boilerplate language in past “free trade” deals concerning health, safety and the environment has any meaning. The most recent ruling on a complaint brought under the North American Free Trade Agreement, handed down on March 17, put Canada and the province of Nova Scotia on the hook for a minimum of C$300 million because a U.S. concrete company was denied a permit to turn an environmentally sensitive beach into a quarry.

Health and environment laws swept away

The list of decisions (which become precedents for future disputes) under NAFTA alone is infamous. Here is a sampling:

*Ethyl Corporation sued Canada for $250 million because of a ban on a gasoline additive known as MMT, a chemical long believed to be dangerous to health. Ethyl claimed the Canadian ban was an “expropriation” of its “investment” and a violation of the principal of “equal treatment” of foreign capital even though had a Canadian producer of MMT existed, it would have been subject to the same standard. Canada settled to avoid a total defeat, paying Ethyl a smaller amount and reversing its ban.

*A U.S. company, Metalclad, sued Mexico because a city government refused to grant it a permit for a waste dump (similarly denied to a Mexican company that previously wanted to use the site). Mexico lost, and had to grant the permit despite the environmental dangers and pay $15.6 million to Metalclad.

*Another U.S. company, S.D. Myers, sued Canada because of a ban on the transportation of PCBs that conformed with both a Canada-United States and a multi-lateral environmental treaty. A tribunal ordered Canada to pay $5.6 million and reverse the ban, negating the two environmental treaties and ignoring the fact that PCBs are known carcinogens banned since 1979 in the U.S. The tribunal ruled that, when formulating an environmental rule, a government “is obliged to adopt the alternative that is most consistent with open trade.” So much for democracy!

In another infamous case, the tobacco company Philip Morris moved some of its assets to Hong Kong so it could declare itself a Hong Kong company eligible to sue Australia under the Australia-Hong Kong bilateral investment treaty, which, unlike some Australian trade pacts, allows corporations to sue one or the other government. Philip Morris seeks to overturn Australia’s rules limiting tobacco advertising and packaging, enacted in the interests of public health, which were found to be legal by Australia’s supreme court, the High Court. (This case is still pending.)

That case is shocking enough in itself, but there is an extra twist — the lawyer for Philip Morris, David A.R. Williams, is one of the judges appointed by New Zealand to the arbitration body hearing the case, ICSID. That is far from an isolated case as many ICSID judges are lawyers who specialize in representing multi-national corporations in front of these arbitration bodies. In another example, a judge ruled in favor of Vivendi Universal against Argentina in a failed water-privatization scheme, and her ruling was allowed to stand even though the judge served on the board of a bank that was a major investor in Vivendi. The TPP is completely silent on conflicts of interest. The leaked TPP chapter reveals for the first time that ICSID would hear disputes brought under TPP.
Facebook knows you're a dog.
User avatar
Keith_McClary
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 7344
Joined: Wed 21 Jul 2004, 03:00:00
Location: Suburban tar sands

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby onlooker » Sun 12 Apr 2015, 17:06:21

All this is following a familiar pattern. World Trade Organization and Free Trade agreements are just fronts for multi-national corporations trying to bargain with each other for the best terms for each one. A kind of tit for tat. The losers being the environment and people. Corporations simply want the best deal for themselves and the highest profit. So they exchange favors in these free trade deals and of course any country or entity which disputes them are castigated by the WTO with the standard "you are blocking free trade" The only role for countries is supporting "their" corporations. All this just shows how all governments are hostage to profit making and corporations and banks.
"We are mortal beings doomed to die
User avatar
onlooker
Fission
Fission
 
Posts: 10957
Joined: Sun 10 Nov 2013, 13:49:04
Location: NY, USA

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby vox_mundi » Thu 16 Apr 2015, 17:38:06

Lawmakers Unveil Secretly Negotiated Deal To Fast-Track Free Trade

WASHINGTON -- Congress’ tax committees announced an agreement Thursday to speed through a bill to give President Barack Obama the fast-track authority that he will need to push mammoth new trade deals through Congress.

While a deal had been believed to be in the works, news that it was actually done came as a surprise to members of both the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, which had been called to a hearing on the deal less than 12 hours earlier.

The “trade promotion authority” bill, or TPA, would allow the White House to cut new trade deals with Asian and European nations, and then pass them through Congress using expedited procedures. Under these rules, the deals cannot be amended or obstructed, and they get a simple up-or-down vote.

“Today we’re meeting in a hearing that was noticed 12 hours before it began on a bill we haven’t seen with witnesses, I assume, who know more than we do, and frankly, will never tell us,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who noted that previous trade deals have gotten extensive airings in Congress before lawmakers had to vote on them.

“We can’t fast track fast-track, that’s a complete abdication of our responsibilities,” Brown said.

“This process is not good,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the heir-apparent to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.). “We are supposed to vote on TPA, tie our hands and not vote on amendments, before we’ve seen what the [Trans-Pacific Partnership] is. I’ve never seen anything like it.” (... actually the Patriot Act was just like this)

House members also were not briefed on the legislation and were equally peeved, an aide said. Indeed, Rep. Sander Levin, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, is not a co-sponsor.
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
User avatar
vox_mundi
Intermediate Crude
Intermediate Crude
 
Posts: 3939
Joined: Wed 27 Sep 2006, 03:00:00

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby onlooker » Fri 17 Apr 2015, 15:01:19

what a perfect deal for all the power brokers. Congress tells it's constituents well we did not know the details so sorry about voting for it. Of course the Executive branch might be blamed but hey they are just there on a transitional basis. The more extreme elements of government having their way so they can enrich their overlords (corporations) at the expense of general society. How nice.
"We are mortal beings doomed to die
User avatar
onlooker
Fission
Fission
 
Posts: 10957
Joined: Sun 10 Nov 2013, 13:49:04
Location: NY, USA

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 00:58:18

APRIL 24-26, 2015
Preempting Government Sovereignty
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic
by ELLEN BROWN
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”

— Article IV, Section 4, US Constitution

A republican form of government is one in which power resides in elected officials representing the citizens, and government leaders exercise power according to the rule of law. In The Federalist Papers, James Madison defined a republic as “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people . . . .”

On April 22, 2015, the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill to fast-track the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement that would override our republican form of government and hand judicial and legislative authority to a foreign three-person panel of corporate lawyers.

The secretive TPP is an agreement with Mexico, Canada, Japan, Singapore and seven other countries that affects 40% of global markets. Fast-track authority could now go to the full Senate for a vote as early as next week. Fast-track means Congress will be prohibited from amending the trade deal, which will be put to a simple up or down majority vote. Negotiating the TPP in secret and fast-tracking it through Congress is considered necessary to secure its passage, since if the public had time to review its onerous provisions, opposition would mount and defeat it.

Abdicating the Judicial Function to Corporate Lawyers

James Madison wrote in The Federalist Papers:
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, . . . may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. . . . “Were the power of judging joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control, for the judge would then be the legislator. . . .”

And that, from what we now know of the TPP’s secret provisions, will be its dire effect.

The most controversial provision of the TPP is the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) section, which strengthens existing ISDS procedures. ISDS first appeared in a bilateral trade agreement in 1959. According to The Economist, ISDS gives foreign firms a special right to apply to a secretive tribunal of highly paid corporate lawyers for compensation whenever the government passes a law to do things that hurt corporate profits — such things as discouraging smoking, protecting the environment or preventing a nuclear catastrophe.

Arbitrators are paid $600-700 an hour, giving them little incentive to dismiss cases; and the secretive nature of the arbitration process and the lack of any requirement to consider precedent gives wide scope for creative judgments.

To date, the highest ISDS award has been for $2.3 billion to Occidental Oil Company against the government of Ecuador over its termination of an oil-concession contract, this although the termination was apparently legal. Still in arbitration is a demand by Vattenfall, a Swedish utility that operates two nuclear plants in Germany, for compensation of €3.7 billion ($4.7 billion) under the ISDS clause of a treaty on energy investments, after the German government decided to shut down its nuclear power industry following the Fukushima disaster in Japan in 2011.

Under the TPP, however, even larger judgments can be anticipated, since the sort of “investment” it protects includes not just “the commitment of capital or other resources” but “the expectation of gain or profit.” That means the rights of corporations in other countries extend not just to their factories and other “capital” but to the profits they expect to receive there.

In an article posted by Yves Smith, Joe Firestone poses some interesting hypotheticals:
Under the TPP, could the US government be sued and be held liable if it decided to stop issuing Treasury debt and financed deficit spending in some other way (perhaps by quantitative easing or by issuing trillion dollar coins)? Why not, since some private companies would lose profits as a result?

Under the TPP or the TTIP (the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership under negotiation with the European Union), would the Federal Reserve be sued if it failed to bail out banks that were too big to fail?

Firestone notes that under the Netherlands-Czech trade agreement, the Czech Republic was sued in an investor-state dispute for failing to bail out an insolvent bank in which the complainant had an interest. The investor company was awarded $236 million in the dispute settlement. What might the damages be, asks Firestone, if the Fed decided to let the Bank of America fail, and a Saudi-based investment company decided to sue?

Abdicating the Legislative Function to Multinational Corporations

Just the threat of this sort of massive damage award could be enough to block prospective legislation. But the TPP goes further and takes on the legislative function directly, by forbidding specific forms of regulation.

Public Citizen observes that the TPP would provide big banks with a backdoor means of watering down efforts to re-regulate Wall Street, after deregulation triggered the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression:

The TPP would forbid countries from banning particularly risky financial products, such as the toxic derivatives that led to the $183 billion government bailout of AIG. It would prohibit policies to prevent banks from becoming “too big to fail,” and threaten the use of “firewalls” to prevent banks that keep our savings accounts from taking hedge-fund-style bets.

The TPP would also restrict capital controls, an essential policy tool to counter destabilizing flows of speculative money. . . . And the deal would prohibit taxes on Wall Street speculation, such as the proposed Robin Hood Tax that would generate billions of dollars’ worth of revenue for social, health, or environmental causes.

Clauses on dispute settlement in earlier free trade agreements have been invoked to challenge efforts to regulate big business. The fossil fuel industry is seeking to overturn Quebec’s ban on the ecologically destructive practice of fracking. Veolia, the French behemoth known for building a tram network to serve Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, is contesting increases in Egypt’s minimum wage. The tobacco maker Philip Morris is suing against anti-smoking initiatives in Uruguay and Australia.

The TPP would empower not just foreign manufacturers but foreign financial firms to attack financial policies in foreign tribunals, demanding taxpayer compensation for regulations that they claim frustrate their expectations and inhibit their profits.

Preempting Government Sovereignty

What is the justification for this encroachment on the sovereign rights of government? Allegedly, ISDS is necessary in order to increase foreign investment. But as noted in The Economist, investors can protect themselves by purchasing political-risk insurance. Moreover, Brazil continues to receive sizable foreign investment despite its long-standing refusal to sign any treaty with an ISDS mechanism. Other countries are beginning to follow Brazil’s lead.

In an April 22nd report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, gains from multilateral trade liberalization were shown to be very small, equal to only about 0.014% of consumption, or about $.43 per person per month. And that assumes that any benefits are distributed uniformly across the economic spectrum. In fact, transnational corporations get the bulk of the benefits, at the expense of most of the world’s population.

Something else besides attracting investment money and encouraging foreign trade seems to be going on. The TPP would destroy our republican form of government under the rule of law, by elevating the rights of investors – also called the rights of “capital” – above the rights of the citizens.

That means that TPP is blatantly unconstitutional. But as Joe Firestone observes, neo-liberalism and corporate contributions seem to have blinded the deal’s proponents so much that they cannot see they are selling out the sovereignty of the United States to foreign and multinational corporations.
Facebook knows you're a dog.
User avatar
Keith_McClary
Light Sweet Crude
Light Sweet Crude
 
Posts: 7344
Joined: Wed 21 Jul 2004, 03:00:00
Location: Suburban tar sands

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Sixstrings » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 02:03:06

vox_mundi wrote:“This process is not good,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the heir-apparent to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.). “We are supposed to vote on TPA, tie our hands and not vote on amendments, before we’ve seen what the [Trans-Pacific Partnership] is. I’ve never seen anything like it.” (... actually the Patriot Act was just like this)


And that's like how they want to secretly put the Iran deal through, too -- maybe just vote on it in the United Nations sec council.

Heck, why bother with US senators like Warren or Sanders or Rand Paul for that matter, or any of them.

Just ignore the Constitution, just ignore congress, just issue "executive orders," just pretend the UN security council is somehow the new world legislature.

And just like that, at the flick of a pen, is how republics end. Some Caesar, some tyrant, just crosses that Rubicon and does whatever the flip he wants to do, regardless of the law. He can just have his lawyers RE-INTERPRET the law to mean what he wants it to mean anyway, right? Convenient.

About the Pacific NAFTA --

Pops had a very good post with his thoughts, in this thread, and I concur.

The war was over a long time agao, with the first NAFTA, really. Pops is right; now only the owners benefit anyway, from any protectionism. So there's a case of coming around to a Republican position because you see the war is lost anyway.

May as well have the cheap imports, I guess, if you can't have anything else. But I'll tell ya what, if there were a groundswell against this thing then sure I'd support that and vote that way. (which there won't be, unions were destroyed a very long time ago, latino immigrants took all the farm jobs, and there are no manufacturing jobs anymore. Because of free trade deals, there are no workers left to even protest the new free trade deals.)

If we can have one bit of satisfaction out of it, perhaps that is just in being right.

I.E. -- I do assume there is not one single person on this forum that actually believes the free trade "trickle down" argument that all the Bush's, Hillary Clinton, and Obama keep pushing.

The evidence is very clear. NAFTA lost a lot of jobs, a lot of industry, and it had generational impacts on the country and not for the better. Simply put, folk make a lot less money now and are much poorer now. Thanks to Bill Clinton, thanks to Al Gore (he pushed this NAFTA hard back then, on CNN all the time, promising everyone how many jobs it was going to create).

So I just assume everyone on this forum does agree with that, that yeah it's a bunch of crap when Obama says a Pacific NAFTA is going to create more jobs than it loses.

If anyone actually believes the free trade deal argument, of Jeb Bush, of Obama, of Hillary Clinton -- then speak up and then we can have a discussion.

The Pacific NAFTA is just more wealth transfer, and job loss.

Wealth transfer from the lower middle and working class in USA, to the 1% here, and to be fair your suffering will be to the benefit of a Chinese or Vietnamese, or Indian family. Perhaps your old job will now feed twenty Vietnamese.

Obama and Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush keep saying the new world order is that everyone must work tech jobs. Or work on Wall Street. The sad reality though is that those industries do not require tens of millions of laborers.

Pacific NAFTA is wealth transfer -- to the American rich, and to lift Asia's poor. The only benefit any average Americans will get is some cheaper imports for a while. Then one day you'll lose your job too, to an Indian or Sri Lankan or Vietnamese. And then Republicans / Hillary Clinton will have already raised SS age to 75. So you'll be out lookin' for a job, but there will be no jobs, and no social safety net either. Both will have long since been confiscated, by the American rich, and given to them and also given to the world's poor -- but not given to you.

Our government serves the 1%, it serves globalism and poor around the planet, but it does not serve the people physically standing with two feet on American soil, and born here.
User avatar
Sixstrings
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 15160
Joined: Tue 08 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Sixstrings » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 02:43:05

Elizabeth Warren's letter to President Obama:

April 25, 2015
Mr. President:

This week, you said that the American people should look at the facts of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (“TPP”) before taking a position on it. We agree. We write to request that you promptly declassify the latest bracketed negotiating text of the TPP and release it publicly before asking Congress to vote on “fast track” authority to facilitate the TPP’s ratification.

In recent remarks, you suggested that critics of the TPP are “dishonest” when we claim that the TPP is a “secret deal.” Even though negotiations over the TPP are largely complete, your Administration has deemed the draft text of the agreement classified and kept it hidden from public view, thereby making it a secret deal.

As a result of your Administration’s decision, it is currently illegal for the press, experts, advocates, or the general public to review the text of this agreement. And while you noted that Members of Congress may “walk over ... and read the text of the agreement” -- as we have done -- you neglected to mention that we are prohibited by law from discussing the specifics of that text in public.

While experts, the public, and the press are not allowed to review the latest draft of the TPP, executives of the country’s biggest corporations and their lobbyists already have had significant opportunities not only to read it, but to shape its terms. The Administration’s 28 trade advisory committees on different aspects of the TPP have a combined 566 members, and 480 of those members, or 85%, are senior corporate executive or industry lobbyists. Many of the advisory committees—including those on chemicals and pharmaceuticals, textiles and clothing, and services and finance—are made up entirely of industry representatives.

Because the negotiations are largely complete, there is no reason the TPP must remain secret from the American people before Congress votes on fast track authority. In 2001, President George W. Bush made public a draft of the scrubbed bracketed text of the Free Trade Area of the Americans (“FTAA”) agreement several months before Congress granted partial fast track authority to facilitate ratification of that deal. At the time of the public release of the text, then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick noted that the release would “make international trade and its economic and social benefits more understandable to the public,” and would “increase public awareness and support for the FTAA.”

What was true then remains true now. The American people should be allowed to weigh in on the facts of the TPP before Members of Congress are asked to voluntarily reduce our ability to amend, shape, or block any trade deal. The press and the public should be allowed to examine the details that corporate executives and lobbyists have already been allowed to influence for years. Members of Congress should be able to discuss the agreement with our constituents and to participate in a robust public debate, instead of being muzzled by classification rules. Before the Congress votes to facilitate the adoption of the TPP, the American people should be allowed to see for themselves whether it’s a good deal for them.

We have an additional concern: the fast track legislation currently under consideration goes far beyond the TPP. Fast track, as currently written, would preclude Congress from amending or filibustering any trade agreement submitted to this Congress or any future Congress—potentially through 2021. If passed, this legislation would grease the skids for approval of any additional trade agreements that might be advanced through the next two presidencies. While we hope that future Presidents and future Congresses will share our values, no one knows who will be using this authority once you leave office.

We understand that people may disagree about the risks and benefits associated with a massive trade deal. We respectfully suggest that characterizing the assessments of labor unions, journalists, Members of Congress, and others who disagree with your approach to transparency on trade issues as “dishonest” is both untrue and unlikely to serve the best interests of the American people. We write in the hope that we can work together to open this process up to the American people to achieve your goal of letting them judge the facts for themselves.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/25/1380311/-Elizabeth-Warren-and-Sherrod-Brown-to-Obama-Let-the-American-People-See-the-TPP-Text


Yikes.

What's happened here is that Obama declared the Pacific NAFTA text to be SECRET CLASSIFIED. It's actually illegal to discuss the text of it, if anyone knew the text.

So here's where it gets really rich.

Obama has this thing classified -- and wants to KEEP it classified while also asking congress to pass "fast track authority," but they can't even read the darn trade deal because it's secret and classified.

Worse, according to Warren, Obama's "fast track" idea will apply NOT ONLY to this Pacific NAFTA, but all FORTHCOMING trade deals up until 2021.

I like this video with Warren, talking about trade deals and why the 1% love them so much, and why they are kept secret:

Elizabeth Warren's Remarks On Trade Deals (Trans Pacific Partnership)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTXDTyTMRY0


edit: an informative vid, if anyone's interested in learning more on the issue

Rachel Maddow: Elizabeth Warren says “Secret TPP Trade Deal” is RIGGED!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3749CQ1SCM


Man I really do like Warren.. here's an oldy but goody video:

Elizabeth Warren Destroys CNBC Anchors
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTWfa-iO9Nc


Ridiculous, anchors on CNBC sounding like idiots on Foxnews. Saying there are always "boom and busts" no matter what you do, from the Dutch Tulip crash on.

Then Warren takes him to school on some facts, that duh, yeah, the post Great Depression banking reforms actually worked. For a very long time. And a point that I always add is that never forget, it was BILL CLINTON that ended all that and repealed banking regulation.

(glass steaggal, the old law that said a bank had to just be a bank and make loans out and make its money that way, then you take that law away and suddenly a bank can be holding onto your money but also turning around and speculating on Zimbabwe futures or God knows what, or high frequency trading schemes on Wall Street, and OF COURSE the banks then get in trouble and need BALED OUT to the tune of trillions. Of your money.

Now, JUST THAT the economy is slightly recovering, guess what. The banks want to do it all over again! They want a repeat! They want the little tiny reform, Dodd Frank, repealed. Warren is the only politician I ever hear speaking out about this. Goldman Sachs and the others on Wall St are so angry at her, that they told all the other Democrats they'd better shut her up or the banksters will stop giving money to Democrats.

So yeah, I do like Warren, I just think she needs to run for President and not just be the person that's right all the time but won't ever step up to lead. But she is right on all these issues, 100%.)
Last edited by Sixstrings on Mon 27 Apr 2015, 03:31:58, edited 5 times in total.
User avatar
Sixstrings
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 15160
Joined: Tue 08 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby vox_mundi » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 02:57:55

"Arbeit Macht Frei"
“There are three classes of people: those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.” ― Leonardo da Vinci

Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.
User avatar
vox_mundi
Intermediate Crude
Intermediate Crude
 
Posts: 3939
Joined: Wed 27 Sep 2006, 03:00:00

Re: Trans Pacific Partnership

Unread postby Sixstrings » Mon 27 Apr 2015, 09:06:59

Not too often I'm with counterpunch on something:

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement and The Covenant of Secrecy

A closer look behind the TPPA does not merely show that the authority of Congress is actually being snipped. It shows a global assault on a host of institutions in other countries, whose political representatives have become the middlemen and women of surrendering sovereignty to the unelected boardroom.

Brown and Warren are incorrect on one point. The contents of the TPPA are not entirely “secret”. For those caring to read the draft stages, chapters on intellectual property and the environment have been available on the WikiLeaks site. They show, not merely reservations and concerns about the overreach of the corporate sector, but a diminishing of an assortment of rights in the name of corporate interests. Medicine and the environment come in for a battering.

The largest bone of contention remains the investor-state-dispute settlement provision. This overly generous provision gifts foreign companies the means of suing the US government over lost profits for policies against their market interests. This absurd measure has been seen at work in other countries whose governments have been sufficiently daft to insert such a provision into a trade deal – witness Australia and the issue of plain packaging for cigarettes. The short of it is that there is nothing free at all about such free trade deals. Hobbled democracy is here to stay.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/27/the-trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-and-the-covenant-of-secrecy/


The Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Death of the Republic

In fact, transnational corporations get the bulk of the benefits, at the expense of most of the world’s population.

Something else besides attracting investment money and encouraging foreign trade seems to be going on. The TPP would destroy our republican form of government under the rule of law, by elevating the rights of investors – also called the rights of “capital” – above the rights of the citizens.

That means that TPP is blatantly unconstitutional. But as Joe Firestone observes, neo-liberalism and corporate contributions seem to have blinded the deal’s proponents so much that they cannot see they are selling out the sovereignty of the United States to foreign and multinational corporations.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/the_trans-pacific_partnership_and_the_death_of_the_republic_20150426


If it ain't broke, why fix it.

I don't see why we need any Pacific-wide NAFTA with China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, billions of people all over Asia out looking for a job. I read somewhere that Obama first did a similar trade deal with South Korea. Supposedly we were gonna sell so many more American cars there, blah blah. Well it turns out all that happened is that 400,000 South Korean cars were imported, and 20,000 American cars exported, and 80,000 American workers lost their jobs.

This pan-Pacific trade zone deal is modeled on the South Korea deal.

Beware of a neoliberals -- like Bill Clinton or Al Gore or Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton -- that come out of the woodwork with a secret "trade deal" that they try to hoodwink over on you -- and your elected representatives -- without so much as declassifying the agreement so that people can read it.

Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Bush's and Republicans are all pushing hard, for this trade deal, and then they want a trade deal with Europe right after that.

If he gets what he wants then the fast track authority will be in place until 2021, potentially for two more presidents. It almost looks like he is setting it up for Jeb Bush to come in and very easily push the rest of the trade deals through, with this fast track O is going to get done first.
User avatar
Sixstrings
Fusion
Fusion
 
Posts: 15160
Joined: Tue 08 Jul 2008, 03:00:00

Next

Return to Geopolitics & Global Economics

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 18 guests