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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTPP 'worst trade deal ever,' says Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
CBC News Posted: Mar 31, 2016 8:45 PM ET Last Updated: Apr 01, 2016 4:51 PM ET
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says the Trans-Pacific Partnership may well be the worst trade agreement ever negotiated, and he recommends Canada insist on reworking it.
"I think what Canada should do is use its influence to begin a renegotiation of TPP to make it an agreement that advances the interests of Canadian citizens and not just the large corporations," he said in an interview with CBC's The Exchange on Thursday.
~Snip~
Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York, was a keynote speaker at a conference at the University of Ottawa on Friday about the complex trade deal.
Read more:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/joseph-stiglitz-tpp-1.3515452
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MohRokTah
(15,429 posts)Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)the same sort of weak, false thinking that made two trillion dollars of wealth turn to steam when the Brexit happened.
HughBeaumont
(24,461 posts)Or "last word when you argue by assertion".
nikto
(3,284 posts)Can you help all of us skeptics by giving a counter-argument?
I trust this is not all about "feelings", for the supporters of TPP.
We who oppose it have many powerful arguments (such as the Stiglitz piece above, and many others),
to back-up our opinions.
Can you make a counter-argument?
It's what educated, informed people do when they dialogue with each other.
Again and again I find the "Pro-TPP" folks cannot make ANY actual arguments with
supporting info to back up their positive feelings about TPP.
IMO, for deciding om complex issues like TPP ...
Evidence/info/arguments>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Feelings.
Surely, the "Pro" side can do better?
Unless they are simply, wrong.
I ask:
Is making an intelligent case for something, with supporting information, really an unfair expectation?
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...it must not be so. IMO. eom
PatrickforO
(14,572 posts)The ISDS provisions of TPP are the death knell of local, state and national democracies since they allow corporations to 'sue' governments if they think regulations, such as environmental or safety ones are inhibiting them earning the maximum profits. And then, the 'case' is adjudicated not by a public court, but by corporate-paid 'arbitrators,' and their decision is binding.
Sorry, the TPP is a piece of trash that will finish killing off the American middle class that made this nation great in the first place. It will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, good ones that have benefits and that you can raise a family on.
If TPP is so great, then why was it negotiated in secret? Why were members of Congress allowed to only read it in a designated room and not allowed to even take notes? Why was a 'fast track' vote rammed down our throats to prevent filibuster and allow a straight up/down vote in Senate? (on edit) Why has there been no platform for public debate?
Sorry, but I'm NOT in consensus around 'free trade' and will never be. It is a disastrous, bad policy. An example? We don't have single payer healthcare even though the Dems had majorities in both Houses of Congress and the Presidency in 2009. We were told that there weren't enough votes, but that could have been changed by the President using the bully pulpit and calling for the millions who campaigned for him, including myself, to march on DC to pressure and shame the Congress into making it happen. Into making the right thing happen! You know why we don't have single payer?
It is against the strictures set forth in another 'free trade' treaty: the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of 1995. That's right. Single payer would have created what GATS calls a 'service monopoly.' Of course, we COULD have negotiated a waiver with the other signatories on the grounds that health care is a basic right ENJOYED BY THE REST OF THE WORLD EXCEPT FOR US. Or we could have simply overturned GATS in favor of DOING THE RIGHT THING FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Free trade? Bad idea. Bad policy. We already HAD free movement of goods and services over borders. Free trade treaties are about moving capital. Again, bad idea. Bad policy.
Thus I agree with both Stiglitz and Reich. Check out Reich's short video polemic about TPP on You Tube:
The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)We will become slaves to worldwide corporatism if nation states cede sovereignty to unelected and unaccountable corporations that have their disputes decided by paid for and bribed arbitrators.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)an issue for everyone but the countries that beg to be part of these agreements to attract investment, jobs, tax revenue for social good. It takes more than "think(ing) regulations, such as environmental or safety ones are inhibiting them earning the maximum profits" to even gain standing to arbitrate a dispute under United Nations' arbitration guidelines.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)Which "countries" are 'begging' to be part of the TPP? When I think of a country, by default I think of the people who live there, so I'll need to see evidence of support by a majority of the people, not just the elite class, who stand to gain finacially.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts) nikto
(3,284 posts)It leads one to suspect they support it only because they really really like a couple of people
who support it (even though 1 of them recently now says she "doesn't"
?
I say, lets' stay polite about this, but we must
press the "Pro" side to make actual arguments with real information from intelligent sources,
and not let up for a second.
I mean, we all criticize the nutty right-wingers for holding BS opinions they can't make
actual arguments for. We've heard 'em all: "more guns" are the answer to gun violence instead
of sensible regulations; Climate change isn't happening; We have to "fight the terrorists
over there so we don't fight them here"; Voter IDs are to protect against illegal voting,
and not actually a plan to help the GOP hang on to power, blah blah blah.
But to hear this type of sophomoric NON-argument from fellow Democrats regarding TPP is truly disturbing, IMO.
All I'm saying is, if there ARE some good arguments for TPP, I have yet
to hear even ONE here on DU, so far.
Just sayin'.
AntiBank
(1,339 posts)There is nothing wrong with trade, as long as it is fair and does not fuck over workers, hurt the environment, and the appropriate the nations' sovereignty.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)in their country brings jobs and tax revenue for social good.
cali
(114,904 posts)the public weal first and foremost and are never influenced by anything but.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)retirement, welfare, etc.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Joseph Stiglitz called Larry Summers out.
Larry Summers: Goldman Sacked
By Greg Palast
Reader Supported News, September 16, 2013
Joseph Stiglitz couldn't believe his ears. Here they were in the White House, with President Bill Clinton asking the chiefs of the US Treasury for guidance on the life and death of America's economy, when the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers turns to his boss, Secretary Robert Rubin, and says, "What would Goldman think of that?"
Huh?
Then, at another meeting, Summers said it again: What would Goldman think?
A shocked Stiglitz, then Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, told me he'd turned to Summers, and asked if Summers thought it appropriate to decide US economic policy based on "what Goldman thought." As opposed to say, the facts, or say, the needs of the American public, you know, all that stuff that we heard in Cabinet meetings on The West Wing.
Summers looked at Stiglitz like Stiglitz was some kind of naive fool who'd read too many civics books.
CONTINUED...
http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-goldman-sacked/
Then, the truth doesn't matter as much as the money.
earthshine
(1,642 posts)In these brief video segments, PBO offers nothing other than we should believe him because he believes it.
At one point, he laughingly calls the TPP "progressive."
When you write posts adoring of Obama, it gives him political capital. I believe he will spend all his remaining capital on trying to pass the TPP. It would be the ultimate centrist legacy.
