Of course the carriers are happy. They’re part of the government crony system. The TPP isn’t really about trade. It’s more protectionism and regulatory capture than anything else. It’s nothing free market.
A real trade agreement would look something like this – All tariffs and all government subsidies on all goods and services will be eliminated effective November 1, 2015.
This “agreement” is about international COMMERCE, right??? So why are parts still SECRET? Why are other parts censored from public review or discussion? How effectively are consumer rights protected? Are sweatshop/slave/child labor abuses effectively banned?
The only reason to have a secret is to give “us” an advantage over “them”; but WHO is us and Who is them? I do not trust any of these parties enough to be willing to pass it to find out what’s in it! And disgrace upon anyone who does.
I’ve read that the entire text might not be made publicly available for YEARS. Congress has 90 days to give it an up or down vote. The whole thing has been negotiated in utter secrecy with the draft text made available only to key insiders in a tightly-controlled physical setting. Not even notes could be taken away, and no physical or electronic copies were permitted.
I have deep concerns with the way the treaty might address digital information sharing, intellectual property etc. The TPP has been called the biggest ever threat to a free and open internet.
On the investor state provisions, we’ve already seen companies like tobacco firms abuse the provisions to preempt local laws, for example in Australia where they used treaty provisions to attempt to overturn the country’s plain packaging law. Apparently the negotiators have specifically prohibited tobacco firms from doing this in the TPP, but the example remains– companies can and will use these provisions to limit the ability of individual nations from passing laws they see as best for their countries.
The TPP seems to deal very little with actual trade and instead serves as a quasi-global legal and regulatory framework with the goal of subverting the sovereignty of individual nations.
Will copyright extentions be globalized so that our culture is locked up for a hundred+ years under threat of massive statutory and criminal penalties? Will fair use provisions be included? Will people be able to tinker with software or devices they own and have the legal right to circumvent digital locks?
Guest worker visas are another issue. Will this agreement flood the US market with H1B foreign workers? I suspect the answer is ‘Absolutely’ but since we are all in the dark who knows.
Thanks to the fast tracking and inability to offer amendments, proponents of the deal will try to sell the bad with the good– “take it or leave it.” I say we leave it, and not just TPP but also TTIP which is a similarly broad agreement between the US and the EU currently under negotiation.
This is a matter of trust and sovereignty. The people do not trust our representatives to negotiate a secret deal, and we don’t trust that this is anything other than a framework to accelerate the US’s race to the bottom.
I encourage everyone to contact your representatives in opposing this deal which has been written by insider lobbyists in complete secrecy and will erode our sovereignty.
Good luck getting China & Japan to agree to open their markets on about anything. It is a one way street and has been for a long time.
Of course the carriers are happy. They’re part of the government crony system. The TPP isn’t really about trade. It’s more protectionism and regulatory capture than anything else. It’s nothing free market.
A real trade agreement would look something like this – All tariffs and all government subsidies on all goods and services will be eliminated effective November 1, 2015.
This “agreement” is about international COMMERCE, right??? So why are parts still SECRET? Why are other parts censored from public review or discussion? How effectively are consumer rights protected? Are sweatshop/slave/child labor abuses effectively banned?
The only reason to have a secret is to give “us” an advantage over “them”; but WHO is us and Who is them? I do not trust any of these parties enough to be willing to pass it to find out what’s in it! And disgrace upon anyone who does.
I’ve read that the entire text might not be made publicly available for YEARS. Congress has 90 days to give it an up or down vote. The whole thing has been negotiated in utter secrecy with the draft text made available only to key insiders in a tightly-controlled physical setting. Not even notes could be taken away, and no physical or electronic copies were permitted.
I have deep concerns with the way the treaty might address digital information sharing, intellectual property etc. The TPP has been called the biggest ever threat to a free and open internet.
On the investor state provisions, we’ve already seen companies like tobacco firms abuse the provisions to preempt local laws, for example in Australia where they used treaty provisions to attempt to overturn the country’s plain packaging law. Apparently the negotiators have specifically prohibited tobacco firms from doing this in the TPP, but the example remains– companies can and will use these provisions to limit the ability of individual nations from passing laws they see as best for their countries.
The TPP seems to deal very little with actual trade and instead serves as a quasi-global legal and regulatory framework with the goal of subverting the sovereignty of individual nations.
Will copyright extentions be globalized so that our culture is locked up for a hundred+ years under threat of massive statutory and criminal penalties? Will fair use provisions be included? Will people be able to tinker with software or devices they own and have the legal right to circumvent digital locks?
Guest worker visas are another issue. Will this agreement flood the US market with H1B foreign workers? I suspect the answer is ‘Absolutely’ but since we are all in the dark who knows.
Thanks to the fast tracking and inability to offer amendments, proponents of the deal will try to sell the bad with the good– “take it or leave it.” I say we leave it, and not just TPP but also TTIP which is a similarly broad agreement between the US and the EU currently under negotiation.
This is a matter of trust and sovereignty. The people do not trust our representatives to negotiate a secret deal, and we don’t trust that this is anything other than a framework to accelerate the US’s race to the bottom.
I encourage everyone to contact your representatives in opposing this deal which has been written by insider lobbyists in complete secrecy and will erode our sovereignty.
Very well said! Sadly, most people have become ‘comfortably numb’. But if we can be on the same page here; there is hope yet.