General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI'm going to keep posting TPP stories until one catches on. Here's Robert Reich
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32773-focus-tpp-a-bad-deal-for-the-bottom-90-percent-of-americansTPP: A Bad Deal for the Bottom 90 Percent of Americans
The deal is slightly better than the first draft but it would still widen inequality. Global banks and corporations headquartered in the U.S. as well as their executives and biggest shareholders would be the big winners; most other Americans would lose. The deal would:
1. Expand protections for the foreign property of big global corporations.
2. Extend intellectual-property protections for big global pharmaceutical companies, although not as many extra years as Big Pharma had in the first draft.
3. Create special tribunals that can force countries to pay global corporations damages for lost profits due to health, safety, environmental regulations. A code of conduct would govern lawyers selected for these panels but theyll still be looking over their shoulders at the big corporations who they rely on for business. Thankfully, tobacco companies would be excluded.
4. By encouraging foreign direct investment in all these ways,the deal will make it even easier for big American companies to outsource work abroad. (The administration says the U.S. will gain export jobs but thats unlikely as long as American wages and the U.S. dollar remain so much higher than the wages and currencies of so many southeast Asian nations.)
5. True, the worker standards in the TPP commit all parties to the International Labor Organizations standards but almost all these nations are already committed to those standards. Problem is, they havent been enforced, and the TPP has no enforcement power beyond whats already available in the International Labor Organization.
Its a bad deal for the bottom 90 percent of Americans. Bernie Sanders is against it. Hopefully, Hillary Clinton will be as well. (And just because Donald Trump is also against it doesnt make it right.)
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)It's depressing that I came here to see what was being said about the TPP and there isn't much.
Good article.
jalan48
(13,856 posts)I'm sorry. This is fucked up. It's really a form of blackmail with a big smile.
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)What is the model where you cut off 51 votes in the Senate and keep a TeaPubliKlan House from going along?
We do well to know who our enemies are and remember exactly what they did and how for sure but after that it is almost certainly a windmill tilt.
Not only this screw job but whatever crooked bullshit they have waiting in the wings for the next six years unless we can get Sanders the head negotiator spot and the veto pen.
Otherwise who are the soft votes and the convincible ones in quantity to stop it? Be happy to keep up the fight but where is our front?
840high
(17,196 posts)turbinetree
(24,695 posts)"deal" in the shorts are looking at the representatives, calling them, numbers say that it shouldn't pass it, and its like these corrupt jerks, just don't care
Honk-------------------for a political revolution Bernie 2016
nationalize the fed
(2,169 posts)and more vs. Most (R)'s and a President who proudly proclaims that his policies are "Republican From the '80s".
Who to believe?
It won't be long (end of December?) until those who dare oppose the TPP, TTIP and TISA are called racist Luddite anti-science anti-vaxxer leftist scum of the earth. While Congress mobilizes flush with Big Corporate Lobbying money- plenty to buy puff pieces about how these 1,000 page agreements are going to help poor people in Vietnam.
Ridiculed- just like some of us were that objected to being mandated to pay corporate insurance companies for the rest of our lives- even though Candidate Obama opposed mandatory insurance laws.
Get ready.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)As much as I like President Obama, I vehemently disagree with him on the TPP. I will pledge to call my representative and senators everyday between now and the vote. I will also donate to any candidate who primaries a D senator who votes for TPP that INCLUDES Senator Ron Wyden.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)pa28
(6,145 posts)Who are you going to believe? Robert Reich or a hard-working animated cherry. Case closed!