Rec and bookmarked.

commenting on this thread.

But this page explains one of the major sections really well.

http://www.citizen.org/documents/tpp-investment-leak-2015-release.pdf

I can copy/paste a little, but it is like 2 words per line....really a mess. I did have a pdf editor once, but can't remember the name.

we have to review the details, the more sticking points we are going to find?

If there was nothing objectionable about the trade deal, they wouldn't be so insistent about keeping it out of the hands of the public.

I know my generation was taught to question government. It was once an integral part of the American experience to get involved beyond just pulling a lever at the voting booth. No one has the right to discourage us given the fact that no one is really looking after our interests, any more.

Over their environmental laws fracking bans, selling various banned dangerous poisons for agricultural use and etc.
At least those are.the.won and settled cases. These are under nafta. Nasty stuff.

and thank you!

who insist that these deals are the "real deal".

I always intended to, just never got around to it. Maybe I will.

do is to allot as much time to reviewing the TPP trade agreement as has been spent reviewing the Benghazi 'crisis'. I mean, isn't this what they are getting paid to do?

part of this agreement.

Thanks to the leaks, we were able to see a little of what is in this legislation.

We have laws, they were put in place in accordance with our Constitution.

To give Foreign Corporations this kind of control to affect those laws, definitely DOES threaten our sovereignty.

The Democrats are RIGHT to fight hard against this.

Let the people see it, period. This is not a democracy if the people are kept completely in the dark while Corporations write our Laws.

And as far as I can determine, some of those Corporations are Foreign Corps.

money to defend themselves. We need to say no to this for them also.

for having laws that prevent them from making as much profit as they could here in the US by polluting etc.

But it gets worse, these suits would not in regular courts of law. They would be in special Corporate Tribunals where the Prosecutors would be also be Corporate.

I can't determine if they would also be 'secret' or not yet. We just don't know.

And if/when they win those suits, WE THE PEOPLE would have to pay these Corporations, 6,000 would be eligible to do this, out of our tax dollars simply BECAUSE of Laws put in place by our Government to protect OUR interests.

It is INSANE. It is like handing over your country to an enemy without even having the chance to fight them on a battle field.

It is 'economic terrorism'. As one person wrote about these Global Tactics in Europe, 'it is like an invading army marched through countries and took over without the expense of a military battle'.

It's just sickening and to think there is ANYONE on this forum trying to defend it.

The same people opposed it when Bush tried it in 2007.

These two have proven themselves as not true democrats and are just like any other Republican liar out there. How dare he try to say this will help people.

The impact that Occupy has had is grossly underestimated. I'd love to see it re-emerge right now in the middle of all this corporate power grabbing.

And thanks for the link back to my post with the analysis of the tpa. N

That caught my eye.

FDR's International Trade Organization was much more than a trade agreement but would have been a good thing if republicans hadn't killed it after winning the Senate. Since FDR and Truman proposed and negotiated it, the details would have very liberal with regards to labor rights, business regulation, etc.

Of course, that is why a republican senate would not have been too thrilled with it so it never saw the light of day. We were left with GATT which dealt only with trade and had no provisions on labor rights, regulations ,etc. From a republican point-of-view not a bad outcome from defeating the ITO.

Yes, I know they're "only" drafts, but they're drafts created through many, many rounds of negotiations. They're revealing.

the Iranian and Cuban agreements which I have not read. If republicans had leaked those parts of those agreements (if republican congressmen had access negotiating documents I'm sure they would have leaked them), the negotiations might have looked quite bad.

I do reserve the right to judge any international agreement based on everything it contains not just on portions that have been leaked before negotiations are finished; and to consider the alternative of rejecting an agreement. In the case of Iran and Cuba those alternatives would not been pleasant.

Perhaps retaining the roles of the WTO and NAFTA and the other current trade agreements with TPP countries will be preferable to approving TPP. That is a distinct possibility when the agreement is finished. In that case I will join you in opposing it.

By the time you realize you can't rationalize it away (if ever such a thing is even possible , I strongly suspect misleading spin to appear falsely neutral) the decision will have been ceded to the TeaPubliKlans.

are now ruining our economy, much less enter into new trade agreements of the same type in which we are joining a trade group and losing the ability to use the leverage of our large market in one on one trade deals?

We should think about completely changing our approach in trade deals.

Our trade deficit has skyrocketed since we joined the trade agreements in which we are now members. And this TPP cannot change that. The wage differences are just too great.

Do you seriously think that Mexicans or Viet Namese who earn wages so much lower than ours and whose currencies are so much weaker in some ways than ours will EVER buy enough from us to bring our trade deficite down?

The trade agreements are not working out for ordinary Americans. Find a way to distribute the profits, the gains, that the very wealthy investors make on these trade agreements more fairly, as a starting point for encouraging Americans to want trade.

so FDR is irrelevant.

conflate countries and Plaintiff....

but let me repeat---the US government had never lost an Investor-State dispute.

although I'm less concerned about the U.S. than other nations.

I have been looking at this more from a "would an 'FDR liberal' support further integration of the US into the global economy/community; not so much from a "would an 'FDR liberal' in other countries want to further integrate the US into the global economy/community.

Given our low standards in labor rights, safety nets, taxation system, privately-funded campaigns, etc. those are valid concerns. I had been more focused on the likelihood of 'them' lowering "our" standards. I hadn't concentrated as much of the danger of "us" lowering "their" standards. Maybe Canada, Australia and Japan can force enough higher standards in the areas of labor, taxes and safety nets that we - shockingly for an 'exceptional' nations such as ours - actually benefit.

Thanks, cali.

that this gives corporations is the problem. It threatens those smaller countries but it may also be able to hurt some of our labor and environmental laws.

position. Most of them are already dominated by corporations.

This is a case of a rich American deliberately, severely, lead poisoning children. These cases will be global with the TPP... You act as though the U.S. has been the good guy in South and Central America. Quelle surprise.



This is a prominent case in Peru where investor-state treaties have provided an avenue for companies to delay or reverse agreements which had been enforceable in courts:

Consumer and environmental laws in other countries. It's bullshit.

And, whether we have or not, we have a devastatingly huge trade deficit. That is not good for the American economy.

Every dollar of the trade deficit is a dollar that was earned by someone in a foreign country and not by an American worker.

Every dollar of that trade deficit is a dollar on which the US government earned too little or maybe no tax revenue.

These trade agreements are impoverishing Americans. We have lost 675,000 jobs or more. And our trade deficit with Mexico, since we signed NAFTA (just as an example), has increased at a frightening rate.

We are losing, losing, losing from these trade agreements.

And, the TPP is supposed to have better labor provisions, but what, who is going to enforce those provisions? The corporations that can afford to go to court and hire expensive attorneys?

Dream on.

As for the idea that the US has not lost cases in the trade courts. I'm sure the TPP will fix that. Besides, the fact is, if you read the information on Public Citizen about the cases, the list on Public Citizen on the cases and outcomes, many, perhaps most of the lost cases, are denied a hearing based on procedural grounds. That will change.

In fact, there is a good chance that the TPP will contain provisions that make it easier for the court to hear cases. Obama's assurance that the TPP will be enforceable is for me in that respect frightening.

It sounds to me like the TPP court is to have more authority to hear and decide cases easily. It sounds to me like the procedural requirements are being "fixed" to allow corporations more success in suing wealthy countries like the US.

I am guessing, and what I am guessing is that it is because the agreement is horrible in a number of respects including reducing the procedural barriers to corporations' access to the international courts that the agreement has not been released. There are probably other reasons, but that is probably a big one.

I am very skeptical and pessimistic about the TPP. And so are the progressive members of Congress who have had the opportunity to see it. No to the TPP.

Let's invest in America and bring our infrastructure up to the standard of, say, Japan's (with its 400 plus a mile train, etc.) before we get into more trade agreements.

and the added costs that being protective of communities/societies/ and nations.

Think about the business philosophies of Uber and for-profit schools and their relationships to regulations that demand equal service to all including the disabled. The desire is to be free of the regulations to avoid serving costlier "clients" in order to maximize profits.

They also wish to be able to continue to provide tax-havens and the possibility of corporate 'inversion' that puts them into tax-savings.

They wish to protect their investments from unfavorable monetary realignments.

All these exploitive business models, and the drive to shape international agreements to those models, are expressions of selfish, often predatory, human nature. The very thing that brought people together in a social contract to create protective governments

against 'the will of the governed' that is represented in local, regional and national regulations and law.

And as it is put in place it guarantees that the corporations can sue for intangible values lost to new regulation.

Imagine me a few years back. I had farmland on a sandy glacial hillside with two roads running along side it.... Potentially that land could be leased for a billboard, or a power generating windmill, or a quarry for fracking sands.

But as it did, along came the local government one year and it said...no billboards because we want to preserve a 'pastoral landscape'. I lost out on my opportunity for billboard cash. That could be construed as a taking of intangible value inherent in my property...if I was an international corporation I could sue the town for that sort of lost profit.

Now, later on Scott Walker and the bros Fitzgerald came in to support traditional power generation. And they said you can't put up a wind turbine within 1000 feet of a road. Well, because of where roads are to my property I lost out on another potential opportunity. Scotty took away my opportunity to lease property for wind turbines (and this area -would- support wind turbines). If I was an international corporation I could sue the state for that sort of lost profit.

Now, on a scale of one farm it would make no sense to have such a suit, but imagine a corporation losing some 'potential future profit' that would be measured in millions rather than a few thousands of dollars. It could be brutal.

Imagine an international business in waste-removal. Imagine them buying my farm or my neighbors and wanting to put in a dump. 15 miles away there is such a dump...it's nearing the end of it's life, the mountain of trash is several hundred feet high and spreads over 20 acres. The company has earned scores of millions of dollars building that midden. If the town or county said no to their putting in a dump on the land I sold to them, the international corporation could potentially sue for lost scores of millions of dollars of future profits. No little WI township is going to stand in the face of such a threat. Local control will be lost.

The Republicans AND _________________.

__________________________

Most countries already are too small for them.



And then the planet will be like Rollerball, without the fun.

that scientific studies prove conclusively that lead- and mercury-laden lipstick is perfectly safe!

And thanks for the follow up.

on steroids

Let's look at what the TPP Deniers have put forth.

1. We haven't seen the final draft therefore we have no clue what it might contain. There could be a miracle and the corporations might, at the last minute, decide profits aren't everything. Who knows, maybe pigs will fly.

2. Pres Obama and H. Clinton favor it and they can never be wrong.

3. "Don't you want people in the 3rd world to be able to feed themselves?" This one almost got me. Sure I want people in the 3rd world to be able to eat. But what does that have to do with the price of pearls in Peru? Never mind, rhetorical.

4. Pres Obama and H. Clinton favor it.

5. Corporations are people and deserve more profits. (Ok I made that one up but I am running out)

6. Shoot, I almost forgot the Trickle-Down reason. If we help corporation succeed, they will trickle on us.

7. Mitch McConnell and the Repubs might be right for the first time in recorded history.

Help me out, there must be more.

Or use a pocket veto to amend it.

Of multi-nationals. They come from the right on trade, foreign policy and have no stake in the fate of Americas middle class.

https://m.

Good post.

you can almost smell it in the air. (And it smells really bad!).

It's Anti-democracy and anti-diversity.. Diversity among nations includes differing views on what constitutes environmental protections, health and safety. I for one love eating fresh dairy in France and appreciate the fact that various democracies are able to evolve In rsponse to social problems.

Child labor laws and environmental laws would have been much harder to institute if this type of threat was hung over the heads of any nation or community that tried to institute them.