n/t

If a law passed in a country applies equally to both foreign and domestic companies, then there is no problem.

Corporations have NO power over us other than what we hand them. In America we have too many Democrats trying to 'prove' their bonafides by weighing in more on the side of corporations. It's been that way ever since the Reagan Reign.

Eventually, however, with the GOP dissolving from within, I think Democrats will realize they no longer need to pay their dues to Conservative ideas.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]

of the hardest things in the world. Taking back power once ceded is anything but easy.

We can still reverse the trend. We need more -and newer- Democrats in office. That's the minimum.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Birds are territorial creatures.
The lyrics to the songbird's melodious trill go something like this:
"Stay out of my territory or I'll PECK YOUR GODDAMNED EYES OUT!"[/center][/font][hr]

They never stop either, while we get distracted at times. This is why Bernie's candidacy is so important, he is the right person for the times. We won't get another un-bought Presidential candidate for a long time so we must take advantage. Bernie is right, we will need a revolution of sorts to make the big changes necessary, and that requires an army of people committed to getting him elected and standing behind him after elected to put enough pressure on the others Pols. They want to stay in office and if we have the support to either put them in or take them out, they will do what we want.
Climate Change will not wait until we get our crap together. The nature of the problem is that by the time it gets so bad that even the greediest will concede, it will be too late!

"If a law passed in a country applies equally to both foreign and domestic companies, then there is no problem." Why?????????

Tell me what God given right exporters and importers have? Where is it written in our Constitution that allowing every conceivable scoundrel to sell in your markets is good? Tell me where in the bible it is written that we should allow free and unfettered access to our markets to corporations that refuse to pay any taxes or create any jobs for our people???What right do corporate entities have to a level and fair playing field when that leveling hurts a nation?

Corporations and their sense of entitlement is taken for granted by so many people here. Corporations have no right to anything, nothing. They are merely groups of people getting together to use their capital to make more money. That does not mean they have rights to level, free or any kind of trade, especially when that trade hurts the average citizen.

I'm not in favor of free trade, not the kind of free trade promoted by oligarchs, RepubliCONS and Obama. People have rights NOT CORPORATIONS or their money.

You can be as unfair to corporations as you want to because they are merely legal entities created by governments. They have no rights. They are not real people.

corporations. If they do bad things the state has the right to give them the corporate death sentence. This is what has been forgotten.

fact. A corporation exists only because a government issues papers that allow it to exist.

The founding fathers wanted to be free from the yoke of corporation/monarchy/feudalism.

Most unfortunate that most Americans have no idea of the history of this nation.

Here again, tools of the corporate/oligarchial/feudal "elite".

Shout it from the rooftops. Corporations can do only what we the people say they can do. In a rational world.

Too often the word 'corporation' denotes massive scale when the reverse is more often true: most corporations are small and run by people who equate 'success' with inroads into other markets.

That applies to small software companies trying to sell their products as well as to family-owned wineries.

Not sure what the Bible has to do with anything. I couldn't care less about that.

But you're right, corporations are not invincible. They are entities created of paper and paper is easily burned. All it takes is for us to press for more and better regulations and I see the scales tipping back in that direction now, it's just too damned slow, as always.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]

He was trying to point out that people are behind these corporations. And then he would point out the Mom and Pop corporation and how homey and wonderful they are.

I really don't care who owns the corporation. A group of uber rich capitalists or a group of middle class software developers who formed an LLC that just made a deal with China. A Corporation, the entity created by a piece of paper, has absolutely NO Rights to anything.

I mention the bible to address God given rights. And no corporations were mentioned.

A fair and level trading environment across national borders is not promised to anyone or any entity.

I certainly hope that LLC has the right to keep the money in it's bank account. And to sign legally binding contracts. And to sue if a client screws me. Working as an LLC makes it easier to hire other people and bring on a partner (both things I've done in the past and I'm currently talking to someone to bring on as a owning partner with in my current business).

I know lots of other people who have LLCs, s-corps, and c-corps. In some cases they compete with other corporations owned by people like the mayor's brother and chief of police's daughter. I certainly hope those companies have the right to not have their equipment (or bank account) seized without proper court order. We'd be in big trouble if politicians could do what they wanted to corporations because they have no rights.

BTW, I only know one "uber rich" owner and a few "mildly rich". Most of us make a typical amount money in our city but prefer to work for ourselves and rarely work outside our state, much less the country.

You on the other hand should have the right to keep the money in the LLC's account. And to sign contracts. You should have the right to sue clients. And if you get a partner, he should have rights too.

Nope no matter who owns the LLC, the S-corp, or the C-corp, the corporations should have absolutely NO RIGHTS. The people who form the corporation on the other hand do have rights.

You are really blind if you do not see the corporations all around you that are destroying the planet and the economy. I'll name just 10, Wal-Mart, BP, Monsanto, Tyson, Goldman Sacks, JP Morgan, GM, Ford. McDonalds and Byer. I came up with those in less than 2 minutes.

Yes, there are a few corporations that are merely disguises for small businesses. But those businesses should have absolutely NO RIGHTS. The people who own them on the other hand have the rights.

The world will not end tomorrow if all the rights the Dancing Supremes have given corporations were taken away. Business would run and free enterprise would still be functioning.

They will make it costly to better regulate and limit corporations and the destruction and lawlessness that they are capable of causing in our country. If we taxpayers can be subject to fines because a law we support and deem necessary, a restriction on how a company does its business or what it does for its business, let's say, then we will be less ready to impose the restriction or law. It is quite simple.

The TPP and other trade agreements add to the cost of our self-government, restrict our freedom to govern the very corporations that our laws create and are supposed to govern.

It really is a corporate coup. The rise of the corporation to a status that supersedes our human government. Let the corporations bring their claims to the courts of the countries in which they operate. And if they don't want to appeal in our courts, our citizen-controlled courts, then don't let them sell their products or do business in our countries.

They certainly never existed under Herbert Hoover or Calvin Coolidge or any earlier republican president. They were all about high tariffs and 'protecting' American companies from foreign competition. If Hoover had beaten FDR in the 1932 presidential election, you probably would not be worrying about 'trade arbitration courts' today.

In addition to signing off on higher tariffs in 1930, Hoover increased taxes on the rich from 25% to 63% in 1932. FDR, of course, reversed Hoover's tariff policy but went further than Hoover on taxes on the rich.

For more than two years, President Hoover had been restricting trade and increasing taxes on the wealthy with legislation such as the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 and the Revenue Act of 1932.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1932#Campaign

It was a nice-sounding idea that has failed miserably in its current form regardless of who was for or against it.

There may be a way to organize international trade that is fair and imposes the penalties for bad business decisions on the people who make those decisions and lifts the boats of all working people and not those who are willing to work for the lowest wages in terms of currency valuations.

(I do not believe that those who work for 89 cents an hour, say in Viet Nam, live at the standard that 89 cents an hour would buy in the US.

You could barely buy a few French Fries for 89 cents and hour in the US. A Metro fare in Los Angeles is $1.75 for a one-way ticket to one location. So, one of the problems with international trade is currency manipulation and the cost of living in the US which is very high (maybe even higher in some other countries).

As we have seen in the Euro Market, you can't have free trade when you don't have one single currency. It just does not work. The potential for the manipulation of currency evaluation is just too great a temptation.

Climate and lifestyle, economic expectation, work ethics (Germany's work ethic and skill level allows its workers to compete favorably against just about any other working population), customs, culture, all kinds of factors make free trade very unfair to a lot of vulnerable people. Most people around the world don't want to be inundated with too much culture from other people's countries. Too much is the key. We are all interested in and enjoy international culture but we feel at home in our own. American culture has displaced a lot of healthy community culture and life in some places. I say that as one who has lived in several countries. It is disconcerting at times to see the displacement of cultural values and the sense of estrangement that accompanies that not just in the US but in other countries too. It isn't nostalgia for the good old days that I am talking about, but rather the strength that comes from cultural diversity and how we are losing a bit of that.

Rather than a "regardless of who was for or against it" Democrat.

Scandanavia makes the principles of Wilson, FDR and Truman work even though you seem to think that it cannot be done.

TPP, NAFTA, WIPO all insulate corporations from meddlesome countries and their people.

if you can substantially regulate them you have already won, in that your strength is superior and you are no longer reliant on them. In such a case, why keep them around as a class of entities?

This is the problem with Piketty: The solution is quite simple but the problem is that in order to get to his solution you would need a secure a total victory against these entities to such an extent that their existence is no longer necessary.

It is the fact that they do exist and are arguably stronger than national governments and individuals as well as people being reliant on them that makes them effectively impossible to regulate. So no, not an easy task at all.

We have that. It's called China and India.

Why is that the model you prefer?

BettyEllen!!!

Sorry!

Wear your hard hat as the hammer they use really smarts.

Again, the bogeyman of China. Just because one can identify an issue that does not justify doing the wrong thing in response.

Btw, treaties (real treaties as in confirmation by the Senate and openly debated) would work well. We could actually do something that works for the 99%.

It's called the TPP

Ask yourself: who benefits if you believe the TPP is bad?

Does not mean you get to do whatever you want. TPP is not for the 99%. We are not at the table and are thus on the menu. The 99% advocates are nearly unanimously against it.

All this is is disaster capitalism. Some people are going to get filthy rich(er) and it is not us.

The results spoke for themselves, and they will in this case too.

It was pretty much a blow-out.

because many sources say NAFTA cost the US a ton of jobs and lowered wages

... and that later crashed right before the end of the century when Wall Street's laddering scams stopped after the wealthy took advantage of them and screwed the rest of us in the tech sector and we had the dotcom bubble bust then!

H-1B visa abuse and other forms of outsourcing enabled by NAFTA then was then ramped in to high gear too, and tech labor hadn't had a chance to organize at that point, and we've had our salaries and job opportunities go down hill since then!

could ever dream of.

There used to be typing pools, travel agents, and brick & mortar bookstores and record stores. The dot com bubble destroyed all of those jobs.

How can you credit a trend that destroyed tens of millions of jobs with that prosperity?

... and THEN they dropped years later when the bubble burst right before 2000. We did NAFTA a LOT earlier than 2000 when the dotcom bubble burst!

Yes, Wall Street destroyed tech jobs LATER then too with the dotcom bubble, just as NAFTA destroyed factories, etc. earlier.

We had a housing bubble bust too. That doesn't mean that the housing market was collapsing earlier before that bubble burst in 2008 too. Many were saying I "had to get in" and buy a house back in the mid 2000's to "get in on the rise". I'm f'ing glad I didn't get in on that bubble too then!

That was the entire thing. Why are you so positive about tens of millions of people losing their jobs? Don't travel agents deserve to work?

I worked in it, and we weren't replacing people then... It was building a whole new online market where people could web surf, etc. then. Travel agents that had web sites people could go to were ENABLED to have more jobs then through web software.

The problem was when web sites were overvalued intentionally by Wall Street so that insiders could trade on huge increases of the value of their stock when they went public. Then after all of their insiders cashed in on the initial rise of software, the options games helped them cash in when their analysts or other more parts of reality helped the stock values collapse later. That was what was called laddering! That was another crime that Wall Street committed that wasn't prosecuted nearly enough as it should have been. Look it up!

Once the various booms busted, many people didn't find "better jobs". They found jobs that paid them the same or less and demanded more. Those at the top got "better jobs" in terms of money redistributed from the rest of us towards the top, even though many of us as you noted helped with the actual guts of the automation that arguably in many instances helped reduce the need for workers. Well, did those actually designing and implementing that software get paid more? Arguably their bosses got that money, not them!



Because they could along with the rest of the rich at the top that ran the show!

Now, with TPP, they want to not only grab all of the productivity wages for themselves, that they've used to buy off politicians over the years, they want to OWN our governmennt and run it through ISDS courts of the TPP.

Now even if a president like Obama does one nice thing in vetoing the Keystone Oil pipeline, the ISDS court of TPP will allow them to sue us and put the government in to huge debt. And therefore a Republican congress along with Obama or perhaps a Republican president later on will either have to cut all the spending every where else on us (they won't raise taxes) to "pay off this debt", or they'll put Keystone Oil pipeline back in place. Don't you see what's at work now? And how the TPP along with Fast Track will be the ultimate screw job for Americans? If you don't, you're either blind or complicit!

Just look at what you posted. 1994-2014 were a better twenty years for working Americans than 1974-1994.

Salaries naturally grow up in history that parallel productivity gains... During this time, look at that graph...



The only part of the economy that keeps paces with and actually goes a lot higher than the pace of productivity are the workers of the top 1%, just as the previous graph showed them getting far more than the salary gains of the other segments of society thatjust kept pace with inflation and productivity gains. And this graph shows how this "split" of those at the top from those on the bottom was really a more recent phenomenon since Reagan's time, and the so-called "free trade" era, which had us move from a trade surplus to a huge trade deficit (built on consumer debt).




Look at this chart and you can see how the trade deficit built itself around the time of Reagan taking office, and how it spiked more in terms of more imports than exports around NAFTA time frame...

Because that's what people use to eat and pay rent.

I get that the gap was worse. But the actual absolute inflation-adjusted wage level was better after NAFTA than before it.

Oh wait, by things getting better you probably meant vastly more money for the top, a meager trickle all too ready to be lapped up by the middle that does all the of heavy lifting and dirty work for them and rising waters, austerity and assured misery for the rest of the planet, for whatever short time our corporate masters, behind closed doors, deem we and all creatures are allowed to live on earth.

Thank you for actually bringing an argument. NAFTA was a disaster for climate change.

-Airpalne

Travel agents. Typing pools. Receptionists. Adjusters. Record store clerks. The entire boom was about destroying their jobs.

You still had a lot of record store clerks then.

We didn't have a nation that only employed travel agengts, typing pools, and receptionists (that we STILL have a lot of now btw!).

Those that are working those areas that have more automation SHOULD be paid more because they are far more productive with the software they are using to help with that productivity increase. But no, their management and upper management are being paid more, BECAUSE THEY CAN!

This is all about the wealth at the top rewarding themselves when personnel shifts happened, especially when unions were destroyed since Reagan's time that served as a balance against this kind of manouevering.

How come we don't have VAT taxes the way the Europeans do which serve to protect their market places? Huh? It's because the people at the top that OWN our government don't care about that form of protectionism. They just want to "race to the bottom" wherever that is on the planet, so that they can only pay a little to manufacture products and pay for services so that they can fatten their wallets more. And they push our economy's demand more by the use of increased CONSUMER debt over that time, which partially collapsed when the housing market crashed in 2008, which served to get rid of a lot of home equity borrowing used as demand in our economy.

Ultimately, our economy needs to move jobs back here and start paying people more the way they used to keep pace with productivity the way salaries used to before Reagan's time. Ultimately, it will be an even worse collapse coming our way than we had before the great Republican depression (that's what they called it before it was later named the "Great Depression&quot . People will not be able to pay their debts, and those creditors holding their debts will also take a bath too. It's time for the greedy to stop killing our economy and also killing our planet (climate change, etc.) and let RESPONSIBLE people in government take over again.

Part of me wants at some point these criminals on Wall Street and other places who are doing their damndest to stop any efforts to combat climate change amongst other criminal acts to be prosecuted and sent to prison for the rest of their lives in solitary confinement, arguably for their protection from other prisoners wherever they go to prison.

Perhaps they should see how the Angola 3 have had to live their lives in prison. That perhaps would serve as a disincentive to others to keep them from the criminal acts that seem to be happening as a "normal" way of doing business today where no one even seems to know what the term bribery even means any more.

It is because factories were dismantled and moved to Mexico and because our country began to import more from well organized, resource rich, and in some respect socialistic Canada and closing down factories and eliminating jobs here, reducing the wages and lowering the living standard here, that thinking Americans do not want the TPP.

Mexico had decidedly lower wages and an incompetent government so corporations can get by with a lot there and Canada beats our economy when it comes to skills and education and health care. Simple. We are the losers in the NAFTA trade deal.

I've asked you this before perhaps. Do you live in the US? I don't ask that because I don't like foreigners. It is nearly impossible in America to have a family in which all members were born here, so it isn't anything against people born in foreign countries or living in foreign countries, but sometimes DUers who argue in favor of these trade agreements make statements that cause me to question whether they know what is going on in the US. Either you are not in our country or you are very young and don't realize how our country has lost jobs, creativity, skills, educational excellence, and so many other good qualities since NAFTA.

NAFTA has reduced the quality of life for most Americans.

We live paycheck to paycheck. Our wages have decreased. Our benefits have been eliminated. Our cost of real living has quadrupled, water, food, etc. Our cars are old. Our home is in need of expensive repairs. Our medication costs continue to increase at a record pace. We cannot afford to take any time off from work. We do not have money for our children to go to college. We do not have retirement savings outside of SS. This is how a near majority of Americans live now.

Who is better off now? Other than the .01%?

NAFTA, CAFTA, normalization with China lost the US 70,000 factories and millions of good paying jobs in the past 15 years.

Unions and environmentalists are uniformly opposed, and they represent the 99%

The answer is quite obvious.

Those who wrote it in secret, and those who keep its text a secret from those of us who want to read it or even some of it.

That's who benefits from the TPP.

Why do you think it is so secret?

Because those who will profit from its provisions don't want those of us who will lose under its provisions to know just how badly we will lose.

And no I do not mean delegates from our duly elected national government's State and Commerce Departments etc.that goes without saying. If corporate lobbyists are swarming all over the documents inserting small print special interest clauses into them, Organized Labor should be directly represented at those talks also. So should Consumer and Environmental groups, and there should be representatives from organizations representing elected governments at our State and municipal levels also since provisions of these trade talks will out trump actions that now can be legislated by local governments. Input into these negotiations is overwhelmingly dominated by corporate interests, with a few fig leafs of other view points trumpeted to make it look "inclusive".

At the very very least our elected Representatives to Congress should be able to hire expert consultants who have access to the documents being negotiated, who are able to read them and make copies and tale notes on them which they are able to take outside of that one guarded room. Why do corporate lobbyists have access but our overworked elected officials (over worked because over half of their time is taken up making phone calls for money to the one percent and corporate interests for their election campaigns already) can't take notes or bring in advisers? Furthermore, in our Democratic system top secret classification of the contents of the documents being negotiated should be highly selective and minimally invoked so that our elected officials aren't automatically banned from talking specifically about anything they read in the agreements being negotiated, assuming they find time to read thousands of pages to begin with.

Give me a fair, inclusive, and reasonably open negotiating process and I would consider supporting a trade agreement, even though I know that corporate interests have perfected the art of hiring the highest paid lawyers in the nation to slip into them loopholes that are like software code back doors designed to be exploited at a later date.

Deny me an open trade agreement inclusive process and I would reluctantly take my chances with India and China, and consumer boycotts and more standard uses of state to state diplomatic pressure to address concerns before I would support mechanisms that allow for international tribunals responding to corporate law suits to over rule and heavily fine our elected governments for responding to the will of our electorate on issues of major concern to Americans.

Well written

and the stuff that's been leaked has been disturbing.

Represents my attitude exactly.

Aren't those the countries that were supposed to create millions of jobs by buying all of those goodies manufactured in the US?

More to the point, the US does not have a Free Trade Agreement with them, so US companies do not face any US regulation once they move to one of them.

So you're saying we should pass more stringent regulations here at home?

We can't enforce any US labor or environmental standards on China or India, because we have no FTA.

Why is that what you want?

With the TPP "we" won't be enforcing anything... In fact corporations will be telling us that our environmental and labor standards are to high... Because with both know in the end it's about increased profits, not jobs, not protecting the environment and the rights of workers...

Corporations spend billions to fight environmental and labor standards here at home...Logic tells me they're not going to be enforcing those same standards in China or anywhere else? Corporations care about one thing, profit..
And what US labor standards are you talking about? With the TPP there will no longer be any US labor or environmental standards. That's why unions and environmental groups are firmly against it..

You write: "We can't enforce any US labor or environmental standards on China or India, because we have no FTA."

My understanding is that, regardless of what theoretically enforceable standards are written into the various FTAs, the actual enforcement of such standards by the US has been minimal to nonexistent.

That doesn't rule out the possibility that this administration or a future administration could use the FTAs to effect improvements, but it raises two big concerns. First, if the benefits depend on what the government (presumably the President) decides to do, we have to be realistic about governmental will. Some Presidents will be Republicans or corporatist Democrats. Second, if there's not a solid track record of success in such efforts, then we have to worry that a determined effort, even if one were made, would fail.

Can you point to a consistent record of success in enforcing labor and environmental standards under previous agreements?

Oh, wait, that's about how a corporation got to sue a government under NAFTA because of its environmental regulations.

"Don't want a toxic waste dump in your city? Too bad, suckas!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalclad

So NAFTA did not result in overriding local actions.

The tribunal judges -- one selected by Mexico, one by Metaclad, and one through mutual agreement of the two parties -- ruled that the action taken by the local governor was a ploy to block the plant (duly licensed by Mexico) without having to compensate Metaclad -- that is, it amounted to an expropriation of the company's investment.

In any event, Metaclad lost its plant, so the suit did not "override" sovereignty.

More telling, Mexico asked to be part of the TPP, so apparently the tribunals are perfectly acceptable to them because they understand it's a way to get badly needed foreign investment and jobs.

Your constant defense of the indefensible is shameful.

written by another lazy researcher.

--to defend against sociopathic corporate bullshit, right?

and tax revenue investment in their country brings. Without the safeguards against expropriation, they know that will be tough. Very simple to understand, actually.

--just the sociopathic one percenters? The latter are most definitely not "Mexico."

Does that tick you off that some poor peasant might get a better job?

agreements change everything the minute they are signed? Ask the Mexicans who will get $8 an hour working in the Audi plant how they feel about NAFTA and the Americans who prefer they remain in poverty so they might make a nickel more an hour.

Only 1% types and those whoring for them think that corporate dictatorship is a good idea. That goes for all countries involved.

countries?

--rich people in poor countries! Poor foreign countries have asshole one percenters too, you know.

I live in a Mexican neighborhood. I know the frustrations, and I love my neighbors. They put up with my lousy Spanish. Those who support free trade always reach for the xenophobia card. But what they don't realize is that most Americans have some family member they love who is from a foreign country. At least that is true in California. In my family there are quite a number of people who were born outside the US. You will find xenophobic Americans, but probably not many on DU. I favor immigration reform that gives a path to citizenship for those now without orderly papers. I object to the trade agreements.

You have to read more than the financial section of the newspaper. Graves with many bodies have been found in various parts of Mexico. Mexico is a mess. The drug cartels are still active there. Members of teachers unions and teachers in training are missing.

And here, we have police brutality, that is the brutality of organs of authority of our government, killing innocent African-Americans. That kind of brutality occurs in poor areas of the country. It is an expression of the malaise and injustice that is felt when you have economic equality and economic frustration.

Mexico is not a good example of a country that has thrived under free trade agreements. The influx of immigrants -- economic refugees -- to the US proves that.

been, since before we stole a big chunk of their land.

We are still a bit Mexican and a bit American here in Southern California. And proud of that.

Nothing wrong with Mexico except its gaBngs and its corrupt governments and class system. Viva Mexico in all other respects.

... that had allowed ag companies to "dump" our farm products under cost that helped put a lot of farmers down in Mexico and other South American countries out of business so that they would move up here to get jobs instead as undocumented workers. Maybe their government thinks that ISDS courts would let them recover some of those losses of jobs, etc. over the years by suing the U.S. government for all of the ag subsidy money that arguably Mexican farmers got screwed with. I wonder which way the corporate controlled ISDS courts would go if in place and being sued for a case like that would rule? Hmm....

In any case, either we the tax payers lose in terms of having to pay for all of the ag subsidies so that in effect they would also go to foreign farmers and ag companies to "balance the playing field", or we continue to have more "cheap labor" coming up here taking our jobs too if that equation continues, along with us taxpayers continue to fund ag subsidies to so-called "American" companies.

The oligarchs of course. Mexico has an extremely corrupt system.

The Mexican government is one of the reasons that NAFTA is such a horror. Haven't you heard of the gang killings and the corrupt police in Mexico?

for wanting to be part of TPP, TPIP, etc.

That seems to speak to my point, doesn't it?

The Mexican government ended up paying nearly $16 million to Metalclad.

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=W8S9I2T4PE0C&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=Metalclad+WTO&source=bl&ots=a7zUsQ48G_&sig=MjPnUKC5qTTczCD1bNBcOSek3XQ&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAWoVChMI6PnmlrWOxgIVwX28Ch3EUQCP#v=onepage&q=Metalclad%20WTO&f=false

You, sir, are a shameless shill.

after the town had told them they could build the dump there.

Metalclad's attempt to get a fine was rejected by the appeals. Mexico lost no money (they paid to buy it back what Metalclad had paid to buy it). The dump wasn't built. The system worked.

"Mexico issued a statement saying the government 'honors its international obligations, even when it does not agree with the findings of the international tribunal nor with the way the tribunal works'"

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=W8S9I2T4PE0C&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=Metalclad+WTO&source=bl&ots=a7zUsQ48G_&sig=MjPnUKC5qTTczCD1bNBcOSek3XQ&hl=ja&sa=X&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAWoVChMI6PnmlrWOxgIVwX28Ch3EUQCP#v=onepage&q=Metalclad%20WTO&f=false

So yeah, the "system works".

And WTO was not involved.

But it could be said that Mexico may have actually won in the end, because Metalclad pulled out of Mexico after that.

So there's that.

But they did renege on the deal Metalclad had bought the land under, and they had to give them back the money.

But it could be said that Mexico may have actually won in the end, because Metalclad pulled out of Mexico after that.

It not just "could be said", I'm actually saying that.

The town told Metalclad they could build a dump there. Metalclad bought the land from Mexico. Mexico than said Metalclad couldn't put the dump there. Metalclad sued and won damages. Mexico appealed and the damages were annulled, but Mexico was required to buy the land back.

Mexico refunded Metalclad and got its land back. No dump was built. This sounds like a pretty decent outcome.

Metalclad had only invested $3-4 million in the property itself. The rest of the award was based on Metalclad's claims of subsequent investments related to the property.

So your claim that WTO overturned the decision by the NAFTA tribunal is false.
As is your claim that the award covered only the cost of the property.

Provide proof, not just your opinion.

an overpriced property to use for a bad purpose and then expect to be reimbursed for their losses caused by their stupid mistake in thinking they could pollute as they wished in Mexico.

I think that Metalclad took an unwise risk and lost and should have lost big. The Mexican people through their government should not have had to relieve Metalclad of the loss caused by Metalclad's bad judgment and poor decision-making. Metalclad should have made sure that its facility was wanted before Metalclad bought the land.

The TPP is essentially a bail-out insurance plan for stupid business decisions, and the insurers are the people of the countries that are trying defend themselves against the stupid business decisions of the corporations.

The TPP courts in that sense are one big bail-out plan for the incompetent and greedy. That is yet another reason i oppose the agreements. Let the corporations buy insurance from some sort of pool of insurance investors. Leave governments out of the corporate bail-out business.

Again, I oppose the TPP.

Corporatist. We are seeing America moving to trade for 58 cents an hour there, so 58 cents an hour, here is the Free Agreement.

I want American made, and sold in America, as much as possible. Americans want our work and money to circulate mostly around in our own communities without a loop over to Vietnam for the loss of work we can do and loss of our money. I am tired of long lasting Marshall Plans or a Bush Plan like the one we are in now with Iraq.

In the upcoming Presidential election, one third of Congressional seats are up for a vote. Our foreign job policies and subsequent laws need to be discussed at Town Hall meetings all over America. Lawmakers, against the People, and for multi-national corporatist Free Agreements-your are OUT of office.

Especially with food. So the American public can make choices based on knowledge of local sources.

The WTO ruled that we cannot label meat according to country of origin because it is a restraint of trade. I suppose that will apply to meat of members of the WTO.

That's why the trade agreements are so bad. Yet another example of how the trade agreement courts limit our ability to govern ourselves. Country of origin labeling is a great idea. That's probably why the WTO nixed it.

The trade agreements are a bad idea, a bad idea whose time has passed. We need to exit trade agreements not agree to more of them.

But thank you for articulating the issue so clearly..

to protect goods from the vermin that inhabit the containers and ships in which the goods from India, China and elsewhere in the world are shipped to consumers.

Free trade is pretty much lose, lose for Americans. We get inundated with cheap junk and can't get the jobs or earn the money to pay for all that junk. The advertising industry is one sector that is still functioning in the US, so Americans are poked and punched into thinking they need a lot of stupid stuff. Our houses are full of the stuff, and we constantly need more space to store and dispose of it. And fools that we are, susceptible to all the advertising propaganda, we BORROW the money to buy things we do not need but think we must have, and then we end up being blamed for crashing the economy.

And there is truth in the fact that we and our over-borrowing are to blame. But the "free" trade system works only if we borrow to buy. It is a very stupid system, and it is hurting America. And I oppose it.

The good news is that buying second-hand stuff is, at least in Los Angeles, becoming more and more popular. It's kind of fun, and it cheats the corporations of the opportunity to foist all kinds of new junk on us. Honestly, sometimes it is as if every season brings a batch of even more poorly made products to our shores. I wonder how thin the fabrics will be next year. The weaves are about as thin as they could possibly be.

Tell me, are people in countries like India, Bangla Desh, the Philippines, China, Mexico, etc. really living any better than they were before they were able to send us all the trinkets and plastic and synthetic junk they assemble and put into ships and push on us?

Really? Is the air cleaner? Are the flowers more colorful? Does the food taste better? Do they have more time with family and friends? How has life improved for the factory workers in the third world? Is it really better? Couldn't be much better if they worked shorter hours in cleaner places and could enjoy their lives more? Why don't they form better unions and demand better, livable wages like American workers do? If unions were writing these trade agreements instead of Wall Street types and corporations, maybe then free trade would work. But the union leaders, the people are only called into the negotiations to make the negotiations look fair. And that is a big part of what is wrong.

Without a FTA the China/India/Bangladesh model is all there is.