The Trans-Pacific Partnership

[goDel]

I'm not sure what that fast track authority is about, but if it is what is argued ('first sign and then you'll know what you've signed') sounds horrid. Unconstitutional even? I'm not an expert, obviously.

 

That negotiations take place behind closed doors is not strange, imo. Negotiations always take place behind closed doors. There are hardly any bills where negotiations are not behind closed doors. If only because of what negotiating really is. And as long as the political decision making process is transparent, the agreement is transparent, and the interpretation is transparent (see nsa mess), i don't have big problems with it.

 

The examples on big pharma proposals look like open doors, btw. They always want to be in control on how they "access markets" in terms of price and volume, and extended patents. It's sad really. And even more sad when governments actually listen to their idiot pleads. The always need more money for 'innovation'. What kind of innovation? Well, how to make more money of course. New medicines mostly come from academics which is paid for by taxes, not pharma companies. And more money goes to marketing than to R&D in the big pharma world. But innovation comes in many colors. Designing cash flows in the context of those tax free off shore accounts is also a sort of innovation. Or suing any party which challenge your patents/market access is also some form of innovation.

 

Despite all this crap, i still believe these negotiations are fine behind closed doors. As long as the eventual political decision making will be transparent, that is. And that stuff comes after the negotiating part. This is where my worries are. Because from a devils advocate point of view, i can almost understand why you'd want some fast track authority. The negotiations take place between many companies and many governments. It's almost impossible to come to some sort of mutual agreement between all parties involved, if you ask me. So, if it succeeds, that in itself is quite an achievement, regardless of the actual content of the agreement. So from this point of view, it's perfectly understandable that if there finally is some sort of agreement between all parties involved, another round of negotiations, but this time within each individual national political arena would kill the agreement faster than vsnares produces beats. If you'd want to allow this, you'd might as well say you don't want international treaties. Again, i'm playing devils advocate.

[goDel]

Too late edit (should be inserted after big pharma paragraph): This is where i agree with Chomsky, btw. Those corporate interests involved always bring a set of passive aggressive proposals to the table, which should protect their business models. And protecting business models soon lead to killing open economies and actual innovation.

[Guest A/D]

Welp, there you have it: privacy is a commodity most of us can't afford.

 

The details to be released FOUR YEARS after the agreement passes? That doesn't make any sense. How could anyone know or operate under these laws?

[luke viia]

Yeah. Four years later we all get to know what was signed. That is insane. And four days after I posted this, most of the typically politically active posters on this board sadly have next to nothing to say, and I see many of us are still exchanging advice on which bottled water brands are the best for our bodies (never mind the environment), even getting upset about US corporations fucking up water rights, yet here, at the root of the issue, very few people seem to be upset enough to speak up, or maybe people still just don't have an idea of what's going on - it's interesting that the first responses I got in this thread were of the "yeah right, alarmist" variety, followed by "I don't have time for this" from a few folks, and petering out with a weak tsk-tsk on the government from goDel, which I do appreciate.. I'm trying over here but it's depressing seeing how many people in general actually seem to enjoy being consumers and avoiding the issues behind the consumption. I'm especially worried that people are just sick of hearing about corporatocracies and what have you and are just resigning themselves to thinking that making vaporwave is punk enough, and that whatever happens will happen, man. Accelerationism. I don't know too many people in my own generation that are actually upset about these things. I've even heard that wealth distribution reform or campaign finance reform are "distractions."

 

Sorry for the rant. Got a minute at work and kinda went nuts.

 

At any rate, at least two of my representatives wrote me back. I don't agree with everything they said, but it was nice to get even a stock letter for my troubles, lol. Jim McDermott in particular seems pretty damn upset about the TPP and about the fast-track request specifically; it's nice to read letters with a bit of fire in the language from these guys tbh. A

[Guest HokusPoker]

It's completely irrelevant if this will actually be signed by the end of the year or only in 2418. To me it's pretty much irrelevant what's written in those documents, too.

What drives me insane and has for quite a few years now is the tendency of governments of taking matters out of the processes that were designed to handle them and just do whatever the fuck they deem the right thing to do.

 

IN DEMOCRACIES WE HAVE LAWS.

IN DEMOCRACIES PARLIAMENTS MAKE LAWS.

 

Let's use corporate America and create a huge financial blockade around Wikileaks.

Politicians call for the assassination of political enemies like we're back in the wild West and nobody seems to care.

Go ahead, NSA and siblings, do whatever you want as long as YOU DON'T TELL ME, member of parliament, so I cannot be held responsible.

Let's sign treaties without anybody being allowed to look at them.

Let's declare the entire world our battlefield and shoot up whomever we want. No court orders (no need, it's a foreign country), no judges.

Ah, what the hell, let's allow the same stuff for our own country!

Let's not allow our domestic intelligence service to spy on our own citizens, but just ask our neighbours to do so and have them tell us.

 

FUCK THAT.

 

There seems to be a need for a gigantic dictatorship every 10 years or so or people aren't able to remember what laws, what checks and balances, what transparency is for.

[delet...]

You're upset luke, but i think the real reason that lies behind your anger at us here for not posting is that you had thought that an hot button political thread like this one would have ballooned out to at least 20 + pages by now, and instead it's languishing at two. hahah.

 

Also, i don't like the idea that corporations can sue a government if they pass laws which stop said corporation from selling a product or service in that country. Like if an australian state decided that we didn't want a monsanto owned farm producing GM wheat because it might contaminate local wheat via cross pollination and so harm a valuable competitive advantage the local industry might have selling GM free bread flour. Monsanto could sue that state government for lost earnings. How this could work is beyond me, how do you measure what their potential revenues would have been, surely it would be some arbitrary fantasy figure pulled out of some executive's arse (probably to plug some hole on that years balance sheet).

 

The whole thing is a mess, an undemocratic power grab and i'm sure many here dislike it, but yaknow, not all threads thrive, tis the law of the jungle. Bitcoin's where it's at this week. ;-p

[chenGOD]

Yeah the idea of suing for "potential revenue" is fucking whack. I understand suing for breach of contract as companies can do under NAFTA, but suing for potential revenue? Fuck that.

[goDel]

Yeah. Four years later we all get to know what was signed. That is insane. And four days after I posted this, most of the typically politically active posters on this board sadly have next to nothing to say, and I see many of us are still exchanging advice on which bottled water brands are the best for our bodies (never mind the environment), even getting upset about US corporations fucking up water rights, yet here, at the root of the issue, very few people seem to be upset enough to speak up, or maybe people still just don't have an idea of what's going on - it's interesting that the first responses I got in this thread were of the "yeah right, alarmist" variety, followed by "I don't have time for this" from a few folks, and petering out with a weak tsk-tsk on the government from goDel, which I do appreciate.. I'm trying over here but it's depressing seeing how many people in general actually seem to enjoy being consumers and avoiding the issues behind the consumption. I'm especially worried that people are just sick of hearing about corporatocracies and what have you and are just resigning themselves to thinking that making vaporwave is punk enough, and that whatever happens will happen, man. Accelerationism. I don't know too many people in my own generation that are actually upset about these things. I've even heard that wealth distribution reform or campaign finance reform are "distractions."

Sorry for the rant. Got a minute at work and kinda went nuts.

At any rate, at least two of my representatives wrote me back. I don't agree with everything they said, but it was nice to get even a stock letter for my troubles, lol. Jim McDermott in particular seems pretty damn upset about the TPP and about the fast-track request specifically; it's nice to read letters with a bit of fire in the language from these guys tbh. A

Fuck off

[Guest A/D]

Now we're getting somewhere

[luke viia]

Some more news about this -- last week there was a 6-day long (secret) negotiation in Salt Lake City, and apparently the US is not conceded its vast number of protectionist goals, and the US managed to carry on the entire 6 days acting as if everything was close to agreement (lol), despite the other (now 12) countries also not conceding or giving in to the US's wants:

 

 

 

 

 

The monumental agreement is being hashed out by several hundred representatives of corporations based in 12 nations on both sides of the Pacific Ocean without any direct government involvement, and advocacy groups say that the latest round of discussions, which are only open to "Chief Negotiators and Key Experts," are even more secretive than previous rounds.

“Every time I think it’s impossible for the TPP negotiations to become any less transparent, USTR proves me wrong,” Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of Citizens Trade Campaign, said in a statement. “The only thing about the TPP that’s not a secret is who it stands to benefit: big corporations.”

 

from the Salt Lake City Times...

 

and from City Weekly, another local SLC outlet...

 

 

 

The TPP is an ambitious trade agreement between a dozen member nations, affecting two-fifths of the world’s economy and one-third of all trade. Activists say the agreement could diminish U.S. environmental and labor standards and could even allow foreign countries to sue the United States in an international tribunal if they feel American laws might hurt anticipated “future profits” of multinational corporations.

And most of the provisions and the text of the trade agreement are being hammered out behind closed doors—a move that doesn’t exactly instill confidence, especially not in the likes of protesters who braved the cold just to make some angry noise and call for Utah’s congressmen to “Flush the TPP.”

“Regular people like us just feel like dogshit,” says activist Kim Kasey in regard to the meeting’s super-secret negotiations.

 

I found a great Huffington Post article posted today regarding the TPP's effects on national health-care -- it's a great intro article on the whole thing, but it takes special care to discuss health issues in the member nations, primarily the US, who is the one pushing for all the new rules.

 

From United Against the Secret Trade Agreement (TPP) That Blocks Affordable Health Care -- And Much More:

 

 

 

The TPP would undermine current measures in place to control health care and prescription drug costs as well as new proposals to control costs. Moving toward a public option would be out of the question, and important Medicare cost savings measures under consideration by Congress would be null. The excellent proposal by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Medicare Drug Savings Act, would reduce our federal deficit by $141 billion over the next 10 years by allowing dual-eligibles -- individuals who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid -- to benefit from the Medicaid-negotiated prices for prescription drugs.

Further, the drug provisions promoted by the USTR would bind the U.S. to a 12-year market-exclusivity period, i.e. monopoly period, for drugs and even medical procedures. This contradicts budget proposals to save consumers and the United States government significant caches of money by reducing the market-exclusivity period of brand-name drugs. There is a reason for patent exclusivity periods, it is to encourage and reward research and innovation. However, half of new drugs approved in the U.S. from 1998 to 2007 resulted from research at universities and biotech firms, not big drug companies. And despite their claims, drug companies spend 19 times more on marketing than on research and development.

According to Heath Care for America Now, between 2002 and 2012, the eleven largest global drug companies made $711 billion in profits. Companies like Merck made $16 billion, much of it from federal contracts; paid half the official tax rate; and had $53.4 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Similarly, Pfizer received big federal contracts, received $2.2 billion in federal tax refunds from 2010-2012 and paid no U.S. income taxes on $73 billion of profits kept offshore last year alone.

Corporate America, including the drug industry, has never had it so good. Now they are trying to ensure record profiteering for the infinite future with this bogus trade deal. At our expense.

 

And finally, a small bit about my favorite fucked-up provision in the TPP, the investor-state dispute settlement, from another SLC paper, where last week's negotiations kicked up people's awareness of the (huge) issues a bit:

 

 

 

Through a little-known provision called "investor-state dispute settlement," the TPP will elevate foreign corporations to the nation status. This gives corporations the unbridled power to challenge virtually any policy, including environmental protections, which they think will harm their profits. The TPP then allows these businesses to sue governments in private trade tribunals for unlimited compensation.

That greedy corporations will take full advantage of these powers is a no-brainer. ExxonMobil and Chevron have already used similar rules in other trade deals to initiate more than 500 lawsuits against 95 governments. One such case currently under way involves a U.S. oil company suing Canada, under the North American Free Trade Agreement, for $250 million because the province’s reasonable moratorium on fracking might hurt their ability to rake in more profits.

 

from the Salt Lake City Tribune.

 

 

Truly sorry for all the quotes, but I've basically made these points in my own words already, and I want to make it clear that I'm not some lone crazy man over here.

 

@goDel: lol, hell no I'm not fucking off. This is way too important. I just happened to be on vacation for the weekend there, unable to watmm the days away.

[goDel]

tsk tsk

 

are you doing a compson?

[luke viia]

Please say something that confirms you're reading what I'm quoting. Please. For the love of god.

[LimpyLoo]

TPP is a legit concern

 

and a perfect demonstration of how America is not a democrasy (i.e. people determining policy)

[luke viia]

Hell yeah, someone new in the thread.

 

Plz to be contacting your Oregon reps, LL! I know they're already concerned about this, but ffs, Maria Cantwell (WA) just sent me a stock letter supporting the TPP when I contacted her, and she's a supposed environmentalist Democrat (not that the big D word means much...). Drives me fucking nuts that she wants to grant Obama the ability to pass this, and I never woulda guessed she was on the wrong side like that. I posted a link for how to contact reps in any US state earlier in this thread fwiw.

[LimpyLoo]

Hell yeah, someone new in the thread.

 

Plz to be contacting your Oregon reps, LL! I know they're already concerned about this, but ffs, Maria Cantwell (WA) just sent me a stock letter supporting the TPP when I contacted her, and she's a supposed environmentalist Democrat (not that the big D word means much...). Drives me fucking nuts that she wants to grant Obama the ability to pass this, and I never woulda guessed she was on the wrong side like that. I posted a link for how to contact reps in any US state earlier in this thread fwiw.

 

man I live in Portland MAINE

 

get with the program cousin

[luke viia]

OK, so contact those guys. I just came from Portland OR by train a few days ago, had the west coast on the mind. You better do it though, else I'm tellin everybody you don't believe in representative democracy!

 

(jk but I will be upset)

[chenGOD]

Some more news about this -- last week there was a 6-day long (secret) negotiation in Salt Lake City, and apparently the US is not conceded its vast number of protectionist goals, and the US managed to carry on the entire 6 days acting as if everything was close to agreement (lol), despite the other (now 12) countries also not conceding or giving in to the US's wants:

 

 

 

 

 

The monumental agreement is being hashed out by several hundred representatives of corporations based in 12 nations on both sides of the Pacific Ocean without any direct government involvement, and advocacy groups say that the latest round of discussions, which are only open to "Chief Negotiators and Key Experts," are even more secretive than previous rounds.

 

“Every time I think it’s impossible for the TPP negotiations to become any less transparent, USTR proves me wrong,” Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of Citizens Trade Campaign, said in a statement. “The only thing about the TPP that’s not a secret is who it stands to benefit: big corporations.”

 

from the Salt Lake City Times...

 

and from City Weekly, another local SLC outlet...

 

 

 

The TPP is an ambitious trade agreement between a dozen member nations, affecting two-fifths of the world’s economy and one-third of all trade. Activists say the agreement could diminish U.S. environmental and labor standards and could even allow foreign countries to sue the United States in an international tribunal if they feel American laws might hurt anticipated “future profits” of multinational corporations.

 

And most of the provisions and the text of the trade agreement are being hammered out behind closed doors—a move that doesn’t exactly instill confidence, especially not in the likes of protesters who braved the cold just to make some angry noise and call for Utah’s congressmen to “Flush the TPP.”

 

“Regular people like us just feel like dogshit,” says activist Kim Kasey in regard to the meeting’s super-secret negotiations.

 

I found a great Huffington Post article posted today regarding the TPP's effects on national health-care -- it's a great intro article on the whole thing, but it takes special care to discuss health issues in the member nations, primarily the US, who is the one pushing for all the new rules.

 

From United Against the Secret Trade Agreement (TPP) That Blocks Affordable Health Care -- And Much More:

 

 

 

The TPP would undermine current measures in place to control health care and prescription drug costs as well as new proposals to control costs. Moving toward a public option would be out of the question, and important Medicare cost savings measures under consideration by Congress would be null. The excellent proposal by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Medicare Drug Savings Act, would reduce our federal deficit by $141 billion over the next 10 years by allowing dual-eligibles -- individuals who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid -- to benefit from the Medicaid-negotiated prices for prescription drugs.

 

Further, the drug provisions promoted by the USTR would bind the U.S. to a 12-year market-exclusivity period, i.e. monopoly period, for drugs and even medical procedures. This contradicts budget proposals to save consumers and the United States government significant caches of money by reducing the market-exclusivity period of brand-name drugs. There is a reason for patent exclusivity periods, it is to encourage and reward research and innovation. However, half of new drugs approved in the U.S. from 1998 to 2007 resulted from research at universities and biotech firms, not big drug companies. And despite their claims, drug companies spend 19 times more on marketing than on research and development.

 

According to Heath Care for America Now, between 2002 and 2012, the eleven largest global drug companies made $711 billion in profits. Companies like Merck made $16 billion, much of it from federal contracts; paid half the official tax rate; and had $53.4 billion in profits offshore in 2012 on which it paid no U.S. taxes. Similarly, Pfizer received big federal contracts, received $2.2 billion in federal tax refunds from 2010-2012 and paid no U.S. income taxes on $73 billion of profits kept offshore last year alone.

 

Corporate America, including the drug industry, has never had it so good. Now they are trying to ensure record profiteering for the infinite future with this bogus trade deal. At our expense.

 

And finally, a small bit about my favorite fucked-up provision in the TPP, the investor-state dispute settlement, from another SLC paper, where last week's negotiations kicked up people's awareness of the (huge) issues a bit:

 

 

 

Through a little-known provision called "investor-state dispute settlement," the TPP will elevate foreign corporations to the nation status. This gives corporations the unbridled power to challenge virtually any policy, including environmental protections, which they think will harm their profits. The TPP then allows these businesses to sue governments in private trade tribunals for unlimited compensation.

 

That greedy corporations will take full advantage of these powers is a no-brainer. ExxonMobil and Chevron have already used similar rules in other trade deals to initiate more than 500 lawsuits against 95 governments. One such case currently under way involves a U.S. oil company suing Canada, under the North American Free Trade Agreement, for $250 million because the province’s reasonable moratorium on fracking might hurt their ability to rake in more profits.

 

from the Salt Lake City Tribune.

 

 

Truly sorry for all the quotes, but I've basically made these points in my own words already, and I want to make it clear that I'm not some lone crazy man over here.

 

@goDel: lol, hell no I'm not fucking off. This is way too important. I just happened to be on vacation for the weekend there, unable to watmm the days away.

 

 

So to sum up - the TPP in its current form stands little chance of being ratified as other nations will not sign it.

The US can attempt to bring this to the WTO I guess, but seeing as China swings a large hammer in that particular forum now, chances of it being resolved there seem unlikely.

 

Secondly the practice of investor-state dispute settlement(ISDS) is hardly little-known. It has considerable precedent, as your own article mentions. And if it's the case I'm thinking of regarding Canada and ExxonMobil it's nothing to do with fracking and more to do with the province in question imposing requirements that fell outside of the agreed upon regulations for NAFTA.

ISDS claims can only be pursued if both parties are signatory members of the trade agreement, and can only be for damages and have little effect on actual sovereignty.

 

But again - all of this is moot because while the US might desire all of these provisions, if the other members don't agree the TPP is dead in the water.

[delet...]

And so they'll put it in individual treaties. Perhaps. Certainly with our current administration in australia, they would sign anything the US came up with (whilst pretending to love the queen and the days of empire, betraying the commonwealth for that snake state across the pacific).

[Guest cult fiction]

Just because the us government is trying as hard as possible to make your favorite classic literary dystopian visions a reality(environmental collapse, 1984 spy state, take your pick), you have the nerve to call us a SNAKE STATE???

[delet...]

There are no snakes there? I thought that was only ireland. And even they have snakes now, troika snakes.

[goDel]

Just because the us government is trying as hard as possible to make your favorite classic literary dystopian visions a reality(environmental collapse, 1984 spy state, take your pick), you have the nerve to call us a SNAKE STATE???

I'm going with Paul Verhoeven's Robocop.

[LimpyLoo]

somebody make Hobocop.

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

somebody make Hobocop.

 

They shot him in the wife, the children, the car, the job, the house and the bank. Now he has nothing, destined to spend the rest of his existence attempting to solve the crimes that occur within walking distance of the downtown soup kitchen. Armed with little more than a pair of fingerless gloves, a pet rat and a severe case of halitosis.

 

Plagued by the happy memories of his former life and the occasional battery acid flashback.

 

He is...

 

HOBOCOP

[LimpyLoo]

(oh shit can one of you Photoshop wizards do up a poster for that?)

 

sorry luke i will do my research and come back with something smart to say

[goDel]

So there's news of other world wide trade agreements being made. What is in it for the illuminati and global corporations you might wonder? I'm not sure yet, but there must be something. They have been secretly negotiating since 2001 (read: outside the interests of those focussed on lindsey lohan, the kardashians, us horror politics and terrorism).

 

For me it's way too early to make the call. Obviously there's going to be critics. But before their interests are known, I'm going to be half deaf.

 

In true Chomsky-fashion, I'll only follow stories from the business pages. Stories written for those who rule the world and need to know what's what. ;D (LOL)

 

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21590478-opposition-global-trade-deal-risks-hurting-very-countries-india-claims-it-trying?zid=301&ah=e8eb01e57f7c9b43a3c864613973b57f

 

http://www.economist.com/news/21589067-liberalisation-within-reach-three-fronts-trades-triple-chance?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227

 

 

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/15be3dd0-5e26-11e3-8fca-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mmbA56A1

 

 

Ministers agreed that the Doha Round should eventually result in the end of controversial export subsidies to farmers. They also pledged to work to do more to provide duty-free and quota-free access for goods from the world’s poorest countries and expressed regret that more had not been done to open up cotton markets in the US and elsewhere in the rich world to growers in poor countries in Africa and beyond, a longstanding bone of contention.

The talks almost collapsed as the result of a battle between India and the US and EU over how WTO rules should be applied to government programmes to buy staples from subsistence farmers and provide food to the poor.