Ttip

Originally posted by no1marauder
So what? Since when were you sooooooooooooooo opposed to two parties coming to what they conclude are a mutually beneficial agreement?

This is not the two parties. It is two or more governments supposedly representing the millions of consumers and producers in those nations. Why not just leave it to the individuals? Unless you believe governments are better at seeking people's best interests than they are themselves.

Originally posted by normbenign
It surely would have restraints. One bad product could not only lose all the money of that company, but lose its future prospects altogether. The other alternative leaves it open to law suits, but usually protects the entity's future sometimes with government bailouts.

The women who's babies were born with horrible defects would surely have preferred that the drug never have been put on the market rather than the poor corporation lose all of its money (:'(.

Originally posted by finnegan

Such compensation shall amount to the fair market value of the investment

There is nothing but the most divine sense of course in sorting out terms on which the owners of a company should be compensated... Now imagine a scenario in which a free trade agreement enables a business to transfer skilled jobs away from a country like the US(say) and ...[text shortened]... fit of corporate profits and not for the benefit of the people in any of the countries involved.

As far as I see there is nothing in the agreement to stop a national government from "trapping" investment - for example, so that set up costs are moderate and exit costs are high - provided they are even handed about it, so that indigenous capital is prevented from doing this as much as foreign capital is.

The ease with which jobs can be moved around is dependent on the new host. The regulations specify which people the new host has to allow in. Skilled US jobs (as per your example) can be moved to Mexico, and Mexico can unilaterally implement the relevant terms of the agreement with the same effect. I didn't see anything in the agreement preventing the U.S. from insisting on compensation for its workers. This doesn't appear to me to weaken redundancy rules.

My main objection is the secrecy - why are the negotiations secret? Is the leaked draft representative of the current state of agreement? Did they just release something tame to allay our suspicions? The various annexes hadn't been written at the time of the leak and could completely change my assessment.

I'm also a suspicious of why they want an agreement over so many things that the E.U, nations and the U.S. do anyway. I don't understand the requirement for an international tribunal - if one doesn't trust the legislature of a nation one is investing in it's probably not the best idea to invest there!

My previous post also comes with the caveat that several of the articles do require a specialist legal expert to understand the implications.

Originally posted by normbenign
This is not the two parties. It is two or more governments supposedly representing the millions of consumers and producers in those nations. Why not just leave it to the individuals? Unless you believe governments are better at seeking people's best interests than they are themselves.

The People form governments to act in their best interests on things they cannot accomplish on their own. Surely that would apply to trade agreements.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Virtually all successful negotiations occur in secret.

There's a difference between not televising the actual process and not keeping us all informed about what they are talking about. That someone felt the need to leak a document implies to me that they are being more cagey than normal and I'd like to know why.

Originally posted by no1marauder
The women who's babies were born with horrible defects would surely have preferred that the drug never have been put on the market rather than the poor corporation lose all of its money (:'(.

The trouble with this argument is that this disaster happened including all the malformed babies were with a government agency regulating the manufacture and distribution of the drug. I don't care if corporations lose their money, and in fact when they screw up they ought to. That is the motive for doing the right thing.

Please this thread isn't about thalidomide but the notion of trade being regulated by government instead of individual traders.

Originally posted by normbenign
The trouble with this argument is that this disaster happened including all the malformed babies were with a government agency regulating the manufacture and distribution of the drug. I don't care if corporations lose their money, and in fact when they screw up they ought to. That is the motive for doing the right thing.

Please this thread isn't abou ...[text shortened]... thalidomide but the notion of trade being regulated by government instead of individual traders.

It's the same argument; "individual traders" do not take into account all the effects of their trade but only those ones that directly affect them. And often there are vast disparities in knowledge between the traders themselves. The first problem is "Externalities"; the second problem is "asymmetric information". Laissez faire ECO 101 Day One which relies on an unrealistic "perfect competition" model (as do you) has no solution for either. Government intervention is the only realistic possible solution even if results have been mixed in the past.

It is monstrous to suggest that these women should have suffered the price of horribly deformed babies just so some vague, unrealistic principle of laissez faire was satisfied. A pecuniary motive for "doing the right thing" is obviously inadequate IF the actor thinks it likely he can make more money by doing the wrong one. Banks do hire guards.

Originally posted by no1marauder
The People form governments to act in their best interests on things they cannot accomplish on their own. Surely that would apply to trade agreements.

Then don't call it a "free trade" negotiation. It is anything but, because it will favor the interests of whoever favors those government negotiators. What would make individuals incapable of doing their own negotiations, other than governments?

Originally posted by normbenign
Then don't call it a "free trade" negotiation. It is anything but, because it will favor the interests of whoever favors those government negotiators. What would make individuals incapable of doing their own negotiations, other than governments?

Individuals can negotiate with foreign governments over trade issues?

Originally posted by no1marauder
It's the same argument; "individual traders" do not take into account all the effects of their trade but only those ones that directly affect them. And often there are vast disparities in knowledge between the traders themselves. The first problem is "Externalities"; the second problem is "asymmetric information". Laissez faire ECO 101 Day One which reli ...[text shortened]... the actor thinks it likely he can make more money by doing the wrong one. Banks do hire guards.

They suffered despite your notions of perfect solutions devised by governments. People are more susceptible to being "externalities" when they place more trust than they ought to on government agencies. Information is ultimately the duty of the consumer. The government never apologizes for its mistakes and omissions. Apparently your control freak solution is no solution after all, but a disguise giving a false confidence.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Individuals can negotiate with foreign governments over trade issues?

Barriers to trade are erected by governments. The agreement being negotiated in secret will undoubtedly create as many or more than it eliminates.

A "free trade" agreement would be about eliminating barriers. A truly "free trade" agreement would eliminate tariffs and barriers, and probably could be 1 page long, instead of the guaranteed to be convoluted mess that will come out of this.

Originally posted by normbenign
Barriers to trade are erected by governments. The agreement being negotiated in secret will undoubtedly create as many or more than it eliminates.

A "free trade" agreement would be about eliminating barriers. A truly "free trade" agreement would eliminate tariffs and barriers, and probably could be 1 page long, instead of the guaranteed to be convoluted mess that will come out of this.

Trade between residents of different countries is pretty much impossible without some understanding between the countries on how disputes regarding such trade are resolved. Lack of such agreement would be a significant and perhaps insuperable "barrier to trade".

I'm not generally in favor of what is euphemistically called "free trade". The Framers were wise to leave the regulation of foreign trade and the setting of duties and tariffs to the Congress so that such trade would be regulated to benefit the People.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Trade between residents of different countries is pretty much impossible without some understanding between the countries on how disputes regarding such trade are resolved. Lack of such agreement would be a significant and perhaps insuperable "barrier to trade".

I'm not generally in favor of what is euphemistically called "free trade". The F ...[text shortened]... duties and tariffs to the Congress so that such trade would be regulated to benefit the People.

The framers of the Constitution did grant power to Congress to regulate foreign trade, and interstate trade. I don't believe this was open ended but to set basic limits and tariff rates, hopefully not favoring various regional constituencies such as those that helped precipitate the Civil War.

Originally posted by normbenign
The framers of the Constitution did grant power to Congress to regulate foreign trade, and interstate trade. I don't believe this was open ended but to set basic limits and tariff rates, hopefully not favoring various regional constituencies such as those that helped precipitate the Civil War.

Your incredibly cramped view of the Commerce Clause has already been commented on. Article I, Section 8 had already provided:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

So, again, you are reading the Commerce Clause as excess verbiage. And your constant claims that the Civil war was about anything but the South's intransigence on their insistence to expand slavery is tiresome and baseless.

The War on Want material which I linked you to in the original post appears to have been insufficient, although it includes a very good video of a lecture setting this proposed new agreement into context. http://www.waronwant.org/news/events/previous-events/18102-ttip-a-recipe-for-ruin

The European Commission is an unelected body empowered to negotiate trade agreements on behalf of all 28 member states. The EC objectives in these negotiations have been arrived at in 119 private meetings with lobby groups representing a wide range of business sectors and as such represent a wish list for large corporations.

Another extensive discussion is availabe in the following document: http://www.s2bnetwork.org/fileadmin/dateien/downloads/Brave_New_Atlantic_Partnership.pdf
This sets out more fully the specific risks.

The proposed agreement seeks to
- include services as well as goods. That will include enforcing public sector services to be opened to international commerical interests
- remove "non tariff barriers to trade" - That means that companies can take governments to a trade court and demand compensation for the costs of regulations.
- create an immense trading area which can impose its will on other regions, sidestepping the multilateral negotiations that have been so difficult precisely because of the failure to address the needs of less developed nations.

What is at stake is obviously far more than you are grasping and that of course is how it can expect to achieve its aims - by staying so far out of sight that people cannot appreciate what is being done to them until it is far too late. This is a bid to sidestep multilateral trade negotiations and stitch up a deal to suit the interests of the first world economies at the expense of the rest, and it is a bid to undermine and destroy the range of diverse regulations by which democratic governments have set constraints on the freedom of corporate interests to seek profit without accepting responsibility to people, to communities or to the environment.

Of course if you are a fan of big business and you favour the ideology of free markets without government influence, if you see democracy as a nasty plot by the masses to steal your personal wealth, then this is your big day. You will get much of what you want without even fighting an election to get there.