A US-led trade deal is currently being negotiated that could increase the price of prescription drugs, weaken financial regulations and even allow partner countries to challenge American laws. But few know its substance.
The pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is deliberately shrouded in secrecy, a trade deal powerful people, including President Obama, don’t want you to know about. Over 130 Members of Congress have asked the White House for more transparency about the negotiations and were essentially told to go fly a kite. While most of us are in the dark about the contents of the deal, which Obama aims to seal by year end, corporate lobbyists are in the know about what it contains.
And some vigilant independent watchdogs are tracking the negotiations with sources they trust, including Dean Baker and Yves Smith, who join Moyers & Company this week. Both have written extensively about the TPP and tell Bill the pact actually has very little to do with free trade.
Instead, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “This really is a deal that’s being negotiated by corporations for corporations and any benefit it provides to the bulk of the population of this country will be purely incidental.” Yves Smith, an investment banking expert who runs the Naked Capitalism blog adds: “There would be no reason to keep it so secret if it was in the interest of the public.”
"Free" trade is NOT in the interest of the common man. As implemented, these policies are, unsurprisingly, in the interests of the sponsors of such. I guess they are like peace treaties, though: to which multinational corporation(s) are we surrendering today?
They might "benefit" workers in low wage countries, but that's about it.
Tell the guy who lost his $45 K/yr job for a $15 K/yr job that it's a good thing that trinkets are 25% cheaper at MalWart now, even though "volatile" items like housing, fuel and food continue to go up.
Hurray for me that I still have a 6 figure job. What about people who weren't in the top 1-2% of their class in math/science? What are they supposed to do?
Maybe it's time for a hybrid form of government, then. Replace the Senate with direct democracy to ratify or reject bills and such, and use the representatives in the House as specialists to write legislation.
Of course, there might be some issues with having weekly ballot referendums, but look at the mess we have now.
What does the public mean? The numerical majority? The loudest segment? Policy pushed by the former could have a negative impact on minority groups, and policy pushed by the latter can be acerbic in general.
What does the public mean? The numerical majority? The loudest segment? Policy pushed by the former could have a negative impact on minority groups, and policy pushed by the latter can be acerbic in general.
Except thaumasiotes argument is that we know what the public wants, but they shouldn't get it, because they don't know what's good for them.
How to determine what the people want, and how we should structure a government to represent and implement that, is a topic we can debate endlessly. But once we have determined the will of the people (however we define that), to then say that we should disregard it because the people can't be trusted to know what's good for them, is fundamentally at odds with the entire idea of representative government in general, and American government specifically.
When people can move as easily as capital, I'll believe we have something approaching free trade.
So far, all the deals have mostly helped big institutions get more power over governments. We are on the hook when we pass public health measures, because they reduce future profits of foreign corporations. That's insane, and it's no wonder people oppose it.
Heh. I don't endorse keeping the treaty secret like this. But I like to be accurate. So as a mostly-factual matter,
- Free trade is massively unpopular as a concept.
- Two parties (however defined) that implement a free trade agreement tend to see a rise in standard of living.
- Larger trade zones tend to be doing better along all kinds of metrics than smaller ones.
I think it's safe to say that free trade is in the public interest, and I think it's reasonable to consider public hatred for it as "a reason" to keep it secret. I can think all that without thinking that keeping it secret is a good idea.
"Two parties (however defined) that implement a free trade agreement tend to see a rise in standard of living."
You're missing the part where party A has a standard of living of 9 and party B has a standard of living of 4 and after the treaty they go to 8 and 6, respectively.
Yes, a rise in standard of living - but A lost and it would be completely rational for them to reject the FTA.
It's even more stark when you consider that the 9 that becomes an 8 is made up, internally, primarily of sevens-that-become-fives and a small portion of 100s that become 200s.
So yes, people railing against FTA/globalization often have no theoretical underpinning, have no clarity in their argument, and generally "don't know what they're talking about" - but they're getting fucked and they know it and that trumps the well-worded argument you're looking for.
But my standard of living index went to 200! I still don't see the problem! I just don't understand what you people are getting all worked up about. Look at the GDP!
I don't disagree, but don't completely agree either, that free trade is always a blessing.
- Mexico is a party to NAFTA and other trade agreements with South American and Asian countries, but 37 million mexicans survive on less than US $5.00 a day.
- Good macroeconomic metrics can obscure or mask what is actually happening on the ground. In this sense, trade agreements can bring massive grief to large sections of the population. Going back to Mexico, the lift of tariffs on articles like clothing and shoes have decimated the local industry, leaving thousands of bankrupt businesses and families.
Probably the hatred for free trade has been caused by the way it's been implemented, favoring large corporate interests, and trying to maximize macroeconomic metrics to the detriment of microeconomics. This is probably the reason this new agreement is being negotiated in secret too: it will have negative impact on the lives of many people.
Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Mexico, Peru, Chile.
http://americablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPP_map.pn...
Discussion on Bill Moyers
A US-led trade deal is currently being negotiated that could increase the price of prescription drugs, weaken financial regulations and even allow partner countries to challenge American laws. But few know its substance. The pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is deliberately shrouded in secrecy, a trade deal powerful people, including President Obama, don’t want you to know about. Over 130 Members of Congress have asked the White House for more transparency about the negotiations and were essentially told to go fly a kite. While most of us are in the dark about the contents of the deal, which Obama aims to seal by year end, corporate lobbyists are in the know about what it contains. And some vigilant independent watchdogs are tracking the negotiations with sources they trust, including Dean Baker and Yves Smith, who join Moyers & Company this week. Both have written extensively about the TPP and tell Bill the pact actually has very little to do with free trade. Instead, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “This really is a deal that’s being negotiated by corporations for corporations and any benefit it provides to the bulk of the population of this country will be purely incidental.” Yves Smith, an investment banking expert who runs the Naked Capitalism blog adds: “There would be no reason to keep it so secret if it was in the interest of the public.”
http://vimeo.com/78324869
Edit: Missed Brunei (fact it is slightly smaller than Delaware, notwithstanding)