General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Pres. Obama tells Dems, on TTP: "Get informed, not by reading the Huffington Post" [View all]KoKo
(84,711 posts)(BTW "Public Citizen" is not a Faith Based Group...as you said in your reply above. Have no idea why you thought that)
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Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is a Pending Disaster
by Robert Reich
ROBERT B. REICH, Chancellors Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers Aftershock" and The Work of Nations." His latest, "Beyond Outrage," is now out in paperback. He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Republicans who now run Congress say they want to cooperate with President Obama, and point to the administrations Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, as the model. The only problem is the TPP would be a disaster.
If you havent heard much about the TPP, thats part of the problem right there. It would be the largest trade deal in history involving countries stretching from Chile to Japan, representing 792 million people and accounting for 40 percent of the world economy yet its been devised in secret.
Lobbyists from Americas biggest corporations and Wall Streets biggest banks have been involved but not the American public. Thats a recipe for fatter profits and bigger paychecks at the top, but not a good deal for most of us, or even for most of the rest of the world.
First some background. We used to think about trade policy as a choice between free trade and protectionism. Free trade meant opening our borders to products made elsewhere. Protectionism meant putting up tariffs and quotas to keep them out.
In the decades after World War II, America chose free trade. The idea was that each country would specialize in goods it produced best and at least cost. That way, living standards would rise here and abroad. New jobs would be created to take the place of jobs that were lost. And communism would be contained.
For three decades, free trade worked. It was a win-win-win.
But in more recent decades the choice has become far more complicated and the payoff from trade agreements more skewed to those at the top.
Tariffs are already low. Negotiations now involve such things as intellectual property, financial regulations, labor laws, and rules for health, safety, and the environment.
Its no longer free trade versus protectionism. Big corporations and Wall Street want some of both.
They want more international protection when it comes to their intellectual property and other assets. So theyve been seeking trade rules that secure and extend their patents, trademarks, and copyrights abroad, and protect their global franchise agreements, securities, and loans.
But they want less protection of consumers, workers, small investors, and the environment, because these interfere with their profits. So theyve been seeking trade rules that allow them to override these protections.
Not surprisingly for a deal thats been drafted mostly by corporate and Wall Street lobbyists, the TPP provides exactly this mix.
Whats been leaked about it so far reveals, for example, that the pharmaceutical industry gets stronger patent protections, delaying cheaper generic versions of drugs. That will be a good deal for Big Pharma but not necessarily for the inhabitants of developing nations who wont get certain life-saving drugs at a cost they can afford.
The TPP also gives global corporations an international tribunal of private attorneys, outside any nations legal system, who can order compensation for any unjust expropriation of foreign assets.
Even better for global companies, the tribunal can order compensation for any lost profits found to result from a nations regulations. Philip Morris is using a similar provision against Uruguay (the provision appears in a bilateral trade treaty between Uruguay and Switzerland), claiming that Uruguays strong anti-smoking regulations unfairly diminish the companys profits.
Read More at......
http://robertreich.org/post/107257859130