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phantom power

(25,966 posts) Mon Jun 8, 2015, 12:01 PM Jun 2015

“free trade” means one thing only: the ability to invest freely without governmental constraint

The goal of all of these "treaties" is to protect the only thing being negotiated — the right of an investor or corporation to maximize profit from any country it wishes to operate in. I've always stated the concept this way:

In its simplest terms, “free trade” means one thing only — the ability of people with capital to move that capital freely, anywhere in the world, seeking the highest profit. It’s been said of Bush II, for example, that “when Bush talks of ‘freedom’, he doesn’t mean human freedom, he means freedom to move money.”

At its heart, free trade doesn’t mean the ability to trade freely per se; that’s just a byproduct. It means the ability to invest freely without governmental constraint. Free trade is why factories in China have American investors and partners — because you can’t bring down manufacturing wages in Michigan and Alabama if you can’t set up slave factories somewhere else and get your government to make that capital move cost-free, or even tax-incentivized, out of your supposed home country and into a place ripe for predation.

(By the way, "treaty" is hardly the word for these agreements, since nations are never negotiating them on behalf of their citizens. Nations are negotiating them on behalf of the corporations and investors who pull their strings. That's why citizens can't see them until they're signed, while corporate lobbyists have seats at the negotiating table.)

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/fast-track-will-also-fast-track-tisa.html

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“free trade” means one thing only: the ability to invest freely without governmental constraint (Original Post) phantom power Jun 2015 OP

Money can cross borders freely, labor can not. eppur_se_muova Jun 2015 #1

This piece should be mandatory reading everywhere. hedda_foil Jun 2015 #2

eppur_se_muova

(36,263 posts)

1. Money can cross borders freely, labor can not.

Reply to phantom power (Original post)

Mon Jun 8, 2015, 12:06 PM

Jun 2015

Putting labor at a permanent disadvantage is what Free Trade is all about.

hedda_foil

(16,374 posts)

2. This piece should be mandatory reading everywhere.

Reply to phantom power (Original post)

Mon Jun 8, 2015, 03:54 PM

Jun 2015

More...

Neo-liberal economist Jeffrey Sachs, quoted by ex-federal regulator Bill Black here, agrees, calling these same people and their moral environment "bluntly ... pathological":
I meet a lot of these people on Wall Street on a regular basis right now. I’m going to put it very bluntly. I regard the moral environment as pathological. And I’m talking about the human interactions that I have. I’ve not seen anything like this, not felt it so palpably. These people are out to make billions of dollars and nothing should stop them from that. They have no responsibility to pay taxes. They have no responsibility to their clients. They have no responsibility to people, counterparties in transactions. They are tough, greedy, aggressive, and feel absolutely out of control, you know, in a quite literal sense. And they have gamed the system to a remarkable extent, and they have a docile president, a docile White House, and a docile regulatory system that absolutely can’t find its voice. It’s terrified of these companies.

<snip>...

International agreements like TISA are important tools in an expanded power grab by the hyper-wealthy people who buy and benefit from our elections, and government negotiators are their agents. The only disagreements at the negotiating table involve which country's predator (Nestlé, say) gets to eat which other country's prey (water rights in Oregon, for example). "Trade" agreements empower the predators under color of law.

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