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pscot

(21,023 posts)
Sun May 10, 2015, 02:23 PM May 2015

Stop the TPP: here's why

This is a from a post by Mark the Shark at Thom Hartmann's site. It's from last November but more pertinent than ever. More at the link.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is an international trade pact created by multinational corporations, currently being negotiated in secret. Over 600 corporate representatives are in the loop, and able to exert influence over the provisions of this agreement, while our elected representatives, the press, and the public are kept in the dark.

Very little was known about TPP until 2011 when the Citizens Trade Campaign published several leaked documents; others were leaked in 2012. More recently, Congressman Alan Grayson (FL) became the first member of Congress to be permitted a limited view of the secret documents. Though forbidden to reveal the specifics of what he saw, Congressman Grayson has told the press, “I would characterize this as a gross abrogation of American sovereignty, and I would further characterize it as a punch in the face to the middle class of America-- I think that’s fair to say from what I’ve seen so far. But I’m not allowed to tell you why!” Representative Grayson has also said, “Each and every U.S. citizen should have the opportunity to read this agreement because, if it is signed, the TPP will have a dramatic impact on our rights and our freedom.”

This is not just a trade agreement. In fact, only 5 of its 29 chapters event address trade issues as we normally think of them. This is, in truth, a spectacular corporate power grab that not only circumvents normal judicial systems; it even trumps our national sovereignty.

Among the groups who are opposing TPP are the AFL-CIO, the CWA, Doctors Without Boarders, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and many more, all for good reason. TPP is bad for labor, bad for health, bad for the environment, bad for consumer product protection, bad for Internet freedom, and bad for America.

➜ We want our elected representatives in Congress to demand the release of the TPP text in full, and to vote NO on Fast Track authority for these negotiations.

Jobs

• one out of every four manufacturing jobs has been lost since NAFTA went into effect and the World Trade Organization was created. TPP extends the NAFTA model.

• TPP provisions help corporations offshore more US jobs to low-wage countries and provide incentives to firms that relocate abroad.

• The loss of manufacturing jobs has triggered a domino effect, first driving down wages (2 out of every 5 re-hired workers lost 20% of their wages), thereby lowering the tax base, and adding people to welfare roles, resulting in the near total collapse of some local governments in the hardest hit areas.

• A report released in September, 2013, by the nonpartisan Center for Economic and Policy Research, predicts that most US workers will see a decline in their wages if this deal goes into affect. http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/TPP-2013-09.pdf

• The Procurement Chapter requires that all parties to the agreement be given the same access as domestic firms are give to U.S. government procurement contracts over a certain dollar amount. This means our government would have to waive any and all “Buy American” or “Buy Local” policies for all such foreign companies. Note that our current procurement market is more than five times the combined market totals of the participating countries: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam.

Wall Street Accountability

• It is widely believed that the TPP agreement will explicitly limit the government’s ability to regulate banks, hedge funds, and insurance companies.

• TPP provisions are believed to prohibit limiting the size of financial institutions, and prohibit anything that puts up barriers between the different kinds of financial services offered, such as separating commercial and investment banking (which means we could not reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act)

• TPP would forbid any taxes on Wall Street speculation, derailing any possibility of our passing even the smallest Robin Hood tax on financial transactions.

“Corporate Nationhood”

• TPP grants individual corporations a legal status equal to those of the countries who sign on to the deal, allowing those corporations to enforce the terms of the deal on their own. They may skip over and around our laws and our courts, and directly challenge any public interest policies designed to protect health, workers’ rights, public safety, the environment and more, assigning the cases to extrajudicial tribunals with the power to award unlimited compensation using taxpayer dollars.

• We’re already living with a version of this system under the WTO. These tribunals are comprised of three corporate lawyers, completely unaccountable to any electorate, and their decisions are neither bound by precedent nor subject to any appeal.

• These tribunals have already awarded over $3.5 billion, with another $14.7 billion in pending claims. The TPP expands the scope of these powers. Foreign corporations are even granted the right to sue for the loss of expected profits due to changes in public policy.

• Australia instituted a cigarette labeling policy, and Phillip Morris brought suit;

• Canada instituted a drug patent policy, and Eli Lilly sued;

• Want to enact a public policy on GMO food labeling? On toxic waste disposal? On drug safety inspections? On consumer product safety? Be prepared for a lawsuit.

Environmental Concerns

• As already noted, the TPP will grant corporations the right to challenge nearly any environmental law that interferes with the profits they believe they would otherwise acquire;

• Corporations are already using similar privileges to attack clean air policies in Peru, anti-mining laws in El Salvador, and a ruling against Chevron for toxic contamination of the Amazon in Ecuador;

• TPP provisions encourage increased export of raw materials, which almost certainly will mean increased logging, drilling, mining, and fracking;

• TPP provisions support the export of raw materials to the cheapest labor markets to turn them into consumer products, where environmental protections are ignored, while increasing the environmental impact of moving products around the globe, as if putting carbon footprints on
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Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
1. More BS. Unions and others are just as much in the loop as the 600 corporations.
Sun May 10, 2015, 02:32 PM
May 2015

If you did a moment of research, you'd know that corporate lawyers are seldom the arbiters in the tribunals.

I'm on my phone, so I can't possibly address all that's wrong with this junk. The question is, is Mark the Shark lying intentionally, or just lazy and stupid?

 

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
3. Why don't you do a little research before trusting Mark the Shark, a high school dropout for all we
Sun May 10, 2015, 02:46 PM
May 2015

know.

 

Hoyt

(54,770 posts)
5. It's not hard to character assassinate someone who blogs as "Mark-the-Shark"
Sun May 10, 2015, 03:56 PM
May 2015

on something this complicated.

leveymg

(36,418 posts)
8. Your ad hominem attack only shows how utterly without substance your argument really is
Mon May 11, 2015, 09:52 AM
May 2015

and how much you have to learn about maintaining decorum.

And, by the way, it is multinational corporations, banks, and the big Wall Street law firms which are pushing TPP, not labor or non-astroturf environmental groups.

mother earth

(6,002 posts)
7. One of the biggest reasons to stop fast track is because it grants that same authority to any
Sun May 10, 2015, 05:27 PM
May 2015

president over the next 6 years for all trade agreements, whether we have a dem or gop president.

You can claim Obama wants it for all the right reasons...or you can see that he's in office until 2016 and you will be granting that authority for the next 6 years. Barring all of the above valid reasons to oppose it, the big one is giving this authority carte blanche for six years.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017264816 (Last 5 mins. says it all in regard to TPP, at least for me.)

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