Just a reminder: the TPP, like most trade deals, is negotiated in secret, but ratified in public. The final version of the deal will be published in 30 days, and then Congress gets 90 days to consider before an up-or-down vote.
The 90-day thing is a result of Trade Promotion Authority granted by Congress to the administration. This is the "fast track" Congress voted to allow the President. It means the bill can't be filibustered.
"The fast track negotiating authority for trade agreements is the authority of the President of the United States to negotiate international agreements that Congress can approve or disapprove but cannot amend or filibuster."
It "was in effect from 1975 to 1994" "and from 2002 to 2007" "Although it expired for new agreements" "it continued to apply to agreements already under negotiation until they were eventually passed into law in 2011." "In June 2015, TPA passed Congress and was signed by the President."
It would be wonderful if Congress was not allowed to amend any bills. It seems to me that a major problem with our political system is adding pork to bills to either kill them or sneak in some unrelated legislation.
Pork barrel spending is only 1% of national spending. This amount of "waste"[0] is hardly a large problem. It also serves a valuable purpose, it gets congressman to vote against their own interests to ensure a functional democracy. Pork barrel spending was used to pass both the Civil Rights Act, and to stop the recent government shutdowns.
[0] - Most of pork barrel spending is not on bridges to no where but on research for diseases, local roads, police officers, VA benefits, emergency response to hurricane Sandy etc...
Happy to see someone who understands that pork barrel spending was THE currency Congressman had in order to secure votes needed for important bills. That is truly how compromise was achieved.
That seems silly to me. Is every bill supposed to be perfect the first time? Amendments exist so that people concerns with a bill can be addressed. Getting rid of them would simply prolong the process of passing laws.
"The Act was passed on the last day before Congress adjourned for the 2006 elections. According to Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), no one on the Senate-House Conference Committee had seen the final language of the bill before it was passed.[4][5] The Economist has written that these provisions were "hastily tacked onto the end of unrelated legislation"."
Edit to add: I agree that the ability to amend bills shouldn't be removed entirely, but it certainly needs an overhaul.
> Getting rid of them would simply prolong the process of passing laws.
Sounds good to me! If I ever run for office (ha!), I'd run on a platform of reducing the number of outstanding laws -- e.g. every new law passed requires two antiquated laws to be rescinded. Plus, as a side benefit, we could massively reduce the amount of quid pro quo pork added via amendments. Consider it the legal version of "My net programming contribution this week was -2000 lines of code." [1]
I often hear people say things like, "If Republicans and Democrats (or the house and senate) could work together, they'd get a lot more done.", and I think to myself, "Is a 'productive' congress one that passes thousands of pages of legislation?".
Bills are like diffs. They are not law, they merely make changes to the laws that exist. Some bills will add new files to the working repository, others will delete files. The diff isn't the code.
That's a deeply insightful observation about my analogy... thanks! </s>
The point was: Continuously bolting on new {law, code} tends to monotonically increase a system's complexity. Many people consider unnecessary complexity "bad." I'm one of those people.
Perhaps in the house, but in the senate they're often used as a political tool rather than to address legitimate concerns with a bill. It's a shady way of making laws.
Whether the ability to add amendments prolongs or delays the passing of laws, that's a tough one.
The rising popularity of anti-debt politics is having a huge impact on the amount of pork amendments that are introduced in Congress.
Meanwhile, amendments now serve the purpose of attaching valence issues (i.e. hyped up issues that turn voters into idiots) onto any significant piece of legislation. See Congress now -- having trouble deciding whether Planned Parenthood funding is worth shutting down the entire federal government.
But the solutin isn't getting rid of amendatory processes, because those processes aren't the root of any contemporary problem. Amendmory processes have been around since long before the US was even a country.
That wouldn't solve any core problem of governance: those bills are an artifact of members of Congress having constitutional power -- the right to vote against a bill. Given that they have that right, they also have the right to withhold it until they're bought off.
If your proposal became law, Congress would still do these compromises, they would just pass the provisions on a different bill -- say, "vote for my bill and I'll later vote for your pork project in the next appropriation". All that would change is the difficulty of coordinating it. The fundamental problem is still there.
I don't have a problem with amendments per se; but I do see a problem with tacking unpopular stuff onto an unrelated or must-pass bill. I wish there was some requirement that bills be cohesive.
Of course Congress should be allowed to amend bills. Since Congress writes most bills of course they can amend them, if not directly then indirectly by scrapping one bill and introducing another, almost identical bill with the amendments.
No amount of process-tweaking is going to make any difference if Americans keep electing stupid assholes to public office. Likewise, even a rather broken set of processes can be mitigated if they're administered by intelligent and reasonable people.
(Now, for my pet idea :)
What I would like to see, in addition to an electorate that doesn't make such terrible decisions, is a requirement that every bill have a falsifiable statement of purpose, along with clear and convincing reasoning why the proposed legislation might achieve that purpose. The purpose would always include some time limit. If the purpose of the bill is not achieved by the time the limit is up, then the bill is automatically repealed. If the courts (or some new institution analogous to the courts) determines the the reasoning is not clear, or the time limit is not reasonable (e.g. a million years to do X) then the bill is also repealed.
But even that's going to break down, if administered by idiots.
Only if you want the US president to have dictatorial powers.
Consider the erosion of congressional oversight of military actions over that last 100 years. Do you think we'd have troops in combat all over the globe right now if Congress had to vote on the actions taking place? What congressman would vote to put Americans in danger to "train" the Nigerian army?
"After dogged, diverse grassroots pressure delivered major blows to Fast Track, proponents used procedural gimmicks to pass Fast Track through Congress by a one-vote margin ... Fast Track has only been used 16 times in the history of our nation, often to enact the most controversial of "trade" pacts, such as NAFTA and the establishment of the WTO. Meanwhile, hundreds of less controversial U.S. trade agreements have been implemented without resort to Fast Track, showing that the extraordinary procedure is not needed to approve trade agreements."
"Undemocratic", meaning that a tiny minority of legislators can't filibuster the bill preventing the majority from passing it?
All fast-track really does is put a timeline to an up-or-down vote for the final treaty. People calling it "undemocratic" are really saying "it's too democratic".
The treaty power of the Constitution is quite clear requiring a supermajority of the Senate to ratify any negotiated treaty.
[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur...
Fast track is inherently undemocratic as it is negotiated in secret ("no advise and consent") and most likely unconstitutional, but conventional wisdom says it is death for any politician in the US to stand in the way of legislation that "creates jobs" or "protects children".
I'm sorry, but I don't know how to respond to this series of non-sequiturs. Trade promotion authority is an act of Congress; it is a privilege the legislature extended to the administration. It was not required to do so.
Congress cannot delegate its powers or constitutional requirements to the executive branch :)
But reading TPA, it carefully skirts this line.
The most questionable part is the no amendments part.
The constitution says:
"All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
"
Note the "as on other bills" part, clearly implying they must be able to propose amendments on other bills, and not just bills for raising revenue.
Aren't there a bunch of old SCOTUS cases establishing that Congress can in fact delegate, and that the Senate process doesn't have to be followed when the administration is acting merely as a negotiating agent for Congress?
As you can probably tell, I did some quick Google research, and the constitutionality of TPA doesn't see to be a particularly contentious issue, despite being discussed frequently. Got a better source than any of mine? (I can only assume you do.)
It's definitely the case that congress can delegate implied powers to agencies, but generally not explicitly authorized powers that were granted to congress. Here, my one concern is the no amendments part, and nothing else. That is because the constitution prescribes something. and that can't be changed by bill, only by constitutional amendment.
The rest of the delegation, it depends on what exactly is delegated.
More easily, the House and Senate are able to promulgate their own rules. Since the rules of things like consideration limits and cloture are not enshrined in the Constitution, but rather in House and Senate rules, they are free to pass a law like TPA that sets special procedures.[1][2] I may have strayed from your point though.
" they are free to pass a law like TPA that sets special procedures."
Agreed.
However my point was: they can only do that to the degree that these procedures do not violate explicitly promulgated constitutional requirements.
Ie they cannot decide to give a senator two votes, or declare that votes are decided by something other than yeas and nays, etc.
This is because the constitution says that is what is supposed to happen, and you can't override those requirements.
The no amendments appears to possibly run afoul of that, if what i quoted from the constitution is read the way i read it :)
It looks like this actually came up during NAFTA. A lower federal court found the NAFTA ratification process constitutional, and the appeals court found the question was political and thus not justiciable.
> Congress cannot delegate its powers or constitutional requirements to the executive branch
The Constitution gives Congress explicit powers to set its own rules regarding procedure. Among these constitutionally allowed rules are "let's decide not to debate a particular bill the President gives to us". They still get to vote and all the other things the Constitution states; all that has changed is the procedure by which the bill is presented to a vote.
"Among these constitutionally allowed rules are "let's decide not to debate a particular bill the President gives to us"."
Please read exactly what i quoted, which literally includes a quote from the constitution, instead of building a completely different strawman and tearing it down.
I'm sorry you neither know how to respond nor understand the meaning of the term non-sequitur; a clear line exists between one comment and the terms found in the next.
You may find this article helpful or simply search for "Nondelegation doctrine" for more detailed analysis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondelegation_doctrine The TPP far exceeds the setting of tariff rates and negotiation of agricultural imports and in fact borders in several areas on setting legislative policy imperially.
For those readers interested in what "fast-track" authority means from Congress' perspective [pdf] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43491.pdf is an excellent resource.
I think the article implied it well. A democratic process is visible to the people allowing input on or changes to their specifics via public pressure, action by lawmakers, etc. We can also counter it through court interpretations. Defeating a filibuster would be as simple as agreeing to a limit on speeches lol. That you or they are justifying skirting the whole process over just that while ignoring their conflicts of interest is funny.
In this situation, a Congress being paid off by big companies voted to let a number of those companies, the executive branch, and foreign countries come up with all the terms of an agreement that can essentially replace domestic laws. And then they will vote yes or no on it all at once, a situation that previously made things too big to fail (reject). This is quite unlike how our laws are meant to be formed. Further evidence is how elites and powerful companies that often act at odds with the majority here get to read & contribute to terms but majority that will be affected by them don't. They just have to accept whatever terms are dictated by one branch of government, some foreign ones, and private parties with a history of abusing consumers for profit. Sounds more fascist than democratic...
The bigger point was made by a commenter way down the page. The question was, "Does a treaty like this lock us into all kinds of rules from environment to I.P. that prevent future legislation from improving these?" We're currently facing battles against rich firms over copyright, patents (esp software and medicine), environmental abuses, shady practices in agriculture, and so on. Americans and legislators have a chance of dealing with this through our legal process. Can that happen after an elite-controlled treaty makes rules for all this that benefit them and the countries agree to them? Huge risk there that's hard to quantify.
It prevents elected representatives from making changes to an international treaty that most have not seen before the final version is handed to them. So yes, it's undemocratic. It was not crafted by (or arguably for) the people or by their elected representatives.
Let's not get into the details of how they could actually see it (sort of), but couldn't get a copy to review with experts, or with their constituents.
You think it's a bad thing that the Republican Congressperson from the 4th district of Alabama, which itself contains no major US city, is unable to tack additional requirements onto a trade bill that binds the citizens of Vietnam, Malaysia, and New Zealand?
If Robert Aderholt doesn't like the TPP, he's perfectly free to vote against it.
How were the WTO and WIPO able to conduct multilateral public discussions with many countries and stakeholders? Those agreements influenced trade in many countries, without mandating TPP-style secrecy during negotiations.
Excluding public stakeholders from the development of legislation will not make their issues disappear, it will only force those concerns into alternate vehicles of expression, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_of_the_governed
The Doha round was widely seen as a gridlocked failure, and the other large regional FTAs (NAFTA, for instance) aren't WTO agreements either, are they?
We're commenting here about the link posted upthread, not the whole concept of trade negotiations. The link claims that fast-track authority is "undemocratic".
Treaties are in effects laws with extraordinary scope compared to a typical law. They are sort of a middle ground between a law and constitutional amendment. Because of this, they are supposed to be hard to implement.
Look at the devastating impact that NAFTA had had on the nation. That sort of change should require a high threshold to pass.
Which are themselves another means that Congressional procedure creates for tiny minorities and influence groups to exert their will against the majority.
I don't think straight up-or-down votes are necessarily the best vector for public policy in all cases! I'm not saying that it was unreasonable to oppose fast-track. I'm saying that calling fast-track "undemocratic" is a bogus argument.
It's not bogus. Congress is largely in the pocket of corporations, but it's still a democratically elected representative body. None of the appointed treaty negotiators are democratically elected.
And those democratically elected legislators voted and agreed to take TPP as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, which they will again vote on in 90 days. I'm missing the failure of democracy here.
As idiotic as it would have been to allow the Congressman from the Arkansas 3rd, home to no major cities unless you consider the headquarters of Walmart a city, to directly alter trade law, Congress could have done that. They retained the authority to filibuster or amend the TPP enabling bill.
Thankfully, several months ago, they voted and agreed not to let that happen.
And they can vote and agree to change that agreement.
Congress changes laws all the time. That's their job.
"As idiotic as it would have been to allow the Congressman from the Arkansas 3rd, home to no major cities unless you consider the headquarters of Walmart a city, to directly alter trade law"
Are you seriously arguing that Walmart doesn't have an impact on trade? Or that international trade only affects "major cities"?
I assure you that you are wrong about both of those things.
"Thankfully, several months ago, they voted and agreed not to let that happen."
And tomorrow they might change their minds.
Where does this idea that a law can't ever be changed once it is passed come from?
If they would receive an annotated version with the annotations explaining the reasoning that led to each final decision then it might be possible to come up with an objective judgement. But if you have to reverse engineer the reasoning of several countries over several years about numerous topics in 90 days and from hundreds or thousands of pages in a language that hardly resembles your mother tongue...good luck with that.
For the new U.S. laws that will be created to implement TPP:
"Sec. 106(a)(1)(D)) Thirty days after the president submits to Congress a copy of the final legal text of the TPP, he may submit to Congress an implementing bill for the agreement, an explanation of how the implementing bill would change U.S. laws to conform to the terms of the agreement, a final statement of administrative action proposed to implement the agreement, reports on projected environmental and employment impacts, a plan for implementing and enforcing the agreement and other supporting information. (Sec. 106(a)(1)(E), Sec. 105(d)(1 and 2), and Sec. 105(e))"
Well, isn't that the entire problem at the US side? Your Congress has 60 days to read and understand several thousand of badly written legalese, and make a decision on it.
At any rate: every member of Congress has a staff with a million dollar annual payroll.
Are they going to carefully review the TPP for problems? Of course not. But the negotiation process has nothing to do with that. They'll vote for or against free trade as a valence issue and nothing more. What few surprises we'll get will be a pure result of election year posturing against Obama.
As for whether this is a problem, again, I think that boils down to a valence issue. Either you believe that free trade and trade rule harmonization led by the US is a good thing, or you (reasonably) do not. If you don't, then the process we have now is terrible, because that process creates the potential that trade deals will happen. Because of course, if Congress was looped in on TPP negotiation from the outset, with advise-and-consent on each successive draft, there could be no trade deal. This Congress couldn't work out an agreement to fund a pothole repair if the repair was close to a contested district.
Remember here we're talking about Congress deciding about laws for other countries, much more so than for their own.
I wish we wouldn't speak about such things in singular form, without qualifying what we mean specifically.
A normal trade agreement is something along the lines of "we promise to not tax import of European cars, if you promise to tax Asian lawn mowers", or "if you promise to allow antibiotics for farm animals", or something else a commissioner wants to see implemented.
Is this for or against free trade? It is part of a free trade deal so one could argue it is for, by definition. But that stance makes it very hard to discuss these things, especially in media sound bites. And that's exactly where we are today.
I think if it's one thing we've seen during the past ten years, it is that such negotiations needs to become more transparent. They have turned into political issues where's there is an opinion (which is a good thing!) many years before the facts are public.
Or, in other words, they'll vote the bill by its title, and won't ever care to know what is in it. (And that is the naive explanation, the cynical one is way worse.)
Do you really not think this is a problem? And how will society push Congress to represent its interests if nobody had time to read it either?
(And, no, that's not about the US Congress deciding about laws for other countries. Each country on the treaty must accept the bill independently. Each one of those countries has a process for it, that's usually at least as broken as the US one - it's just that I was commenting on the US process.)
I think enough congresscritters have been making noise about being upset they can only read it behind closed doors during the negotiation process that they will probably read it now that it is being published in full. Michael Capuano, the rep for East Cambridge/Somerville, MA sent out an update that was basically saying "letting us read it in a closet without taking notes is basically useless. I'm a tax lawyer, not an international trade expert, so without outside input, I can't decide anything meaningful about it.
EDIT: tptacek is right: it is important to be clear that it is becoming open.
I use it frequently. It's my preferred gender-neutral term for referring to members of Congress. I don't know it's true origin, but I picked it up from Dave Barry.
I wasn't aware it was anything other than a slightly-silly gender-neutral term for members of the House of Representatives. I suppose 'critters' could be pejorative but I'd not seen it used that way.
Just to be clear: people were able to "read it in a closet" while it was being negotiated, because Congress was not supposed to be in the loop for the negotiation. That is no longer the case; the treaty will now be published and downloadable on the Internet, and Congress will have months to read it, discuss it, and to decide whether to ratify it.
I am ambivalent about the TPP. I am ambivalent about free trade agreements. I am ambivalent about globalization. I generally believe, from the perspective of the US market, that every job that can cost-effectively be exported to Asia already has been. I don't think job exports are a good thing but also don't think TPP has much to do with it.
So having said all that: I'm not arguing in favor of the TPP. I'm simply pointing out that the most common criticism of the TPP --- that it's a "secret" deal --- is both inaccurate and not particularly significant.
> the most common criticism of the TPP --- that it's a "secret" deal --- is both inaccurate and not particularly significant.
I disagree. The scope of this deal, particularly the ISDS (which seems to have been amended due to widespread criticism), is incredibly broad. Undermining the basis of justice and democracy in secret negotiations without any feedback from the public is a terrible idea. If it was just about tariffs, sure, go ahead. But if business can get awarded massive damages in private courts because a democratic system decides not to tolerate their harmful practices anymore, well, that's unbelievably harmful to any semblance of justice and democracy. Stuff like that should never be negotiated in secret, but be subject to democratic checks and balances. The status of ISDS is to me still the primary factor in whether this deal will be acceptable or not. And as long as it's an inseparable part of the treaty, the treaty as a whole should fall if this part of it is considered unacceptable.
Businesses can obtain damages from governments, if those governments are found to have enabled trade policy that contravenes the treaty. Businesses cannot go to ISDS for damages from citizens or companies in those countries.
I don't know what one thing you don't like in the TPP has to do with the level of transparency involved in its ratification. If the ISDS process is a grievous flaw, rather than a mechanism that is similar to those used in many/most other trade treaties, surely it won't be ratified.
Either way, you'll soon have the full text of the treaty, months before it comes to a vote.
"Surely"? Only when there's sufficient protest against it.
The reason why the secrecy makes ISDS even worse is that it undermines democratic means of the people to improve their country. They might vote for a good law, but doing so might lead to steep damages paid to the companies whose behaviour made the new law necessary in the first place. It seriously undermines the country's sovereignty, and that's not something that should be bartered away in secret.
>I'm simply pointing out that the most common criticism of the TPP --- that it's a "secret" deal --- is both inaccurate and not particularly significant.
This is an important point. And furthermore, I'd even argue that it was necessary. The lack of transparency in the negotiations was to allow country's negotiators to be able to put their cards on their table without being immediately skewered out of context. For example, if Japan's negotiator proposed eliminating tarries on rice imports into her country as a carrot, the uproar back home would be enormous. But if it resulted in say, a removal on tariffs for exported Japanese cars, then the country could see it as a net win when the final agreement was put forth.
The secrecy was only there to let them barter freely before arriving at a conclusion. Otherwise, the negotiations would have gotten nowhere, and free trade would be nowhere.
I understand why it's kept secret during negotiation, but the terms of the secrecy kept representatives from copying out portions of the text for analysis during the negotiations. This is significant because the 90 day time line is insufficient to read and analyse such a large reaching trade agreement.
Then under the short time frame, the argument becomes 'we worked for years on this deal' don't vote no on any one point you disagree with because it's tied up in a big Gordian knot with a hundred other points. If software were written the way we negotiate trade deals, we'd fire the programmers.
All due respect but I call bullshit on the idea that months of time is insufficient for hundreds of Congresspeople to work with their million dollar staffs and the armies of lobbyists for business, labor, the environment, and tech policy that will also analyze the bill gratis.
I know they won't review the enabling bill carefully. But it's not because the bill isn't transparent. It's because reviewing the bill is work, and none of them are excited about spending their precious cycles on work rather than political status games.
If this bill had been public 9 months ago and voted on 9 months from now, the amount of scrutiny legislators would give it would be roughly equivalent.
So if I suggested that say there is a 100k line update scattered amid a 20M line in-production codebase and you have 90 days before that code goes live and cannot be changed and cannot be revoked. Would you feel that 90 days is sufficient? I wouldn't.
It's not just staff to read the text, it would be identifying and lining up experts with context in each area to weigh in. So far corporate lawyers have been embedded into the process but few representatives of the people. So I think we should approach this with deep caution.
Yes, I think a team as large as the one assembled to deal with the TPP could easily handle a 100kloc patchset for a 20MM line project. Teams much smaller than that handle gigantic patchsets all the time.
When code is irrevocable, the team sizes and/or time to handle the code should go way up. I suspect most of us have internalized a gut feel for estimates along the lines of the Linux kernel process or other equivalent commercial low-reliability software process, when with long lived legislation, we should take more cues along the lines of the Space Shuttle code development process (or perhaps I should liken it more towards approving and implementing a new crypto algorithm...) as more reasonable approaches.
You make it sound like the TPP is the only bill these congresspeople will have to digest in the next 2 to 3 months, but I suspect they'll have plenty of other policies vying for their attention.
Even if it was the only policy they need to get their head round, what's the rush? Is the world going to fall apart if it takes a year to debate? Isn't our understanding of the intricacies of the bill likely to improve over a longer debate?
Who cares if the congress people have enough time to read it all?
If I wouldn't have time to read it all, if it were all I did other than eat or sleep in the allotted time, then there is not enough time for it to be sufficiently considered, and should not be passed.
> I generally believe, from the perspective of the US market, that every job that can cost-effectively be exported to Asia already has been.
Do you mean "every TYPE of job" or every instance of job? Plenty of jobs have been exported, and plenty more will be, until the world is basically flat. As one example, right now, US doctors are still commonly reading and interpreting X-rays and CAT scans. This is being automated and also outsourced. In other words, this TYPE of job is already being done by doctors in China. But large portions of work remain here in the US. The export and automation of jobs will continue.
Maybe you're right by qualifying your comment with "cost effectively". Surely that's the case in an efficient market. But "cost effective" will change as technology and culture develops. As hospital administrators become less tech-phobic, more xray-techs will work from Shanghai.
> I don't think job exports are a good thing
Why not? It's the most efficient way of providing economic well-being to less developed countries, which means better food security for their people, better education, better healthcare, and more stable politics. You might say exporting jobs is the #1 best way the USA can deliver aid to foreign countries.
Just as the Affordable Care Act was nitpicked and scanned by all sorts of interest groups, I'm sure the TPP will as well.
And that's where we come in as well. We'll get to see the agreement, review it ourselves (with the help of interest groups we support) and contact our congressmen if we deem those things to be worth scuttling the deal over.
And before I'm accused of being too idealist, don't forget that The aforementioned health care act was passed, and net neutrality was preserved. In sufficient numbers, your representatives /do/ listen.
As one of those who read through "Affordable Care Act", I dearly wish someone had done some proof reading before voting on it. On a second note, I would hope that the treaty actually has all of the provisions in it, unlike the ACA which had a lot of "release regulations in X days" (which were not met) type language.
This is why I believe that representative democracy is a joke. It may achieve something, but certainly not the will of the people most of the time. Also it wastes a lot of resources on campaigns, and voting. Just one voting day is like 400 million hours of productivity lost. Shouldn't there be an app for that, at the very least? :) If it's secure enough for your bank, why not for your ballot?
Wait - what? So voting is a waste of time; instead we should vote all the time?
OTOH any popular TV show is a worse waste of time, given that its on weekly and not once a year. I think we can give representative democracy at least as much effort as one episode of Bachelor.
Random samples means pollsters will be bothering only a "few" people at a time for their opinion. A statistically significant sample. Instead of everyone turning out to vote for a guy or gal who will MAYBE represent them, policy will be informed by what a random sample of America thinks.
The idea that your vote counts, when Public Choice Theory says it's irrational to vote, ... and then that the representative will actually do what they ran on, which most of the time every representative would do roughly the same thing ... and that lobbyists have just as much as voice as huge blocs of Americans, which a recent Princeton study showed when it claims America is now an Oligarchy... all this shows that maybe the idea of representative democracy is a dangerous fiction.
Much danger there, sure. But representative cannot be doing much the same thing, or there would be no distinction of Democrat vs Republican? I see them doing very different things, all the time.
Myself, I favor a proxy system, where you can delegate your vote to anyone - your minister, your boss, your sister-in-law. They in turn can delegate their proxies to another. Up the graph somewhere (with loops dealt with somehow) are those with 100,000 or more proxies, who make the bar for voting on national issues directly. Stories have been written about it.
Easy fix 1 - Vote on the god damn weekend. I can't vote because my boss won't give me time off is the sort of shit that should have been on the scrap heap alongside slavery.
Less easy fix 2 - make voting compulsory, with a small fine, like $20/$40 for not showing up to vote. Remember I said showing up, not actually voting, since you can simply cast a blank ballot and then leave having done nothing just as if you didn't vote.
Both are terrible. Which weekend? Jews who can't vote on Saturday are screwed. Why not simply let people vote via an app? Better yet eliminate voting!!
>As for whether this is a problem, again, I think that boils down to a valence issue. Either you believe that free trade and trade rule harmonization led by the US is a good thing, or you (reasonably) do not.
Not really.
The TPP is largely a mechanism for stripping sovereignty from signatory countries and handing it to corporations. It does this by creating a mechanism whereby they can sue governments in secret courts for lost profits.
Sure, there are probably a few provisions in there about agricultural tariffs, but trade liberalization isn't really what it's about.
That is as accurate an assertion as saying that Obamacare enables death panels to ration health care.
A better way to describe the relevant clauses is that corporations can sue governments under an international tribunal system if governments are failing to uphold their commitments to an international law. It's basically the same sort of process that was used when, say, the US and Great Britain had a dispute about the boundary of Maine.
> "corporations can sue governments under an international tribunal system if governments are failing to uphold their commitments to an international law"
From an outsider's perspective, the international tribunal system is too susceptible to corruption. Three lawyers debating in secret, no public or government oversight of the proceedings, with a small pool of lawyers that are eligible to work in these tribunals. If I remember correctly, there are 15 lawyers that end up working on 75% of all international tribunals worth over $4 billion USD.
This talk lays out a number of the problems with the ISDS system, including the figures I've either remembered correctly or got wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fDCbf4O-0s . If anyone watches it and finds the point in the video where ISDS is discussed, please advise others where to find the relevant information.
>A better way to describe the relevant clauses is that corporations can sue governments under an international tribunal system if governments are failing to uphold their commitments to an international law
It's got jack shit to do with international law.
The wording in the agreement uses the term "indirect expropriation".
It's defined as "where an action or series of actions by a party (government) has an effect equivalent to direct expropriation without formal transfer of title or outright seizure".
i.e. lost profits caused by legislation. kinda like when Australia decided to put warning labels on cigarette packs.
Oh, and the supra-national court will be adjudicated by some corporate lawyers who can probably relied upon to interpret the wording of the above agreement in the "right" way.
In much the same way, USC Title 42 is a mechanism for stripping sovereignty from state governments and handing it to individuals and interest groups. It does this by creating a mechanism where (certain) groups get to sue the government for damages based on certain types discrimination.
Various state laws give up sovereignty and allow individuals and corporations to sue the state for negligent actions taken by state employees. The Tucker Act strips sovereignty and allows various contracts to be enforced against the government.
Governments sometimes give up sovereign immunity. It's actually a very important component of the rule of law, allowing the government to be bound by law in addition to the people.
Federal law is still subjected to democratic oversight. You vote in elections, don't you?
Stripping states of sovereignty and giving it to the federal government is still moving it from one democratically accountable government to another.
This is not quite the same thing as stripping the federal government of sovereignty and giving it to a secret court of supposedly (but not really) independent lawyers.
If you think that it was a great thing that Philip Morris was able to sue Australia or Uruguay for lost profits for putting warning labels on cigarette packets then I suppose you'd be in favor of the ISDS provisions in the TPP.
If, on the other hand, you think governments should legislate for the benefit of their citizens' health, then perhaps not so much.
Does it exclude the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries as well? Those are two of the big areas people are concerned about with the TPP/TTIP/TISA/CETA.
We're talking here about the dispute resolution process, which the commenter upthread is presumably commenting about because it was the topic of a Last Week With John Oliver episode a few months ago. The dispute resolution process excludes tobacco, according to the NYT.
Yes I know that's what is being discussed. However, even if the tobacco industry is exempt from this particular trade deal, it's important to consider which industries are not exempt.
BAT suing Australia over plain cigarette packaging wasn't a one off case of ISDS being used to sue a country. Another example would be Lone Pine Resources suing Canada $250 million (USD I believe) over Quebec trying to ban fracking.
In other words, whilst I'll be glad if the tobacco industry aren't able to use ISDS to sue a country, there are plenty of other industries that could cause problems with this clause.
How else is anyone supposed to litigate trade disputes?
The whole concept of a trade agreement is that countries agree to a series of regulations.
There is no such thing as "international law". It is entirely ad hoc. There is no court that has proper jurisdiction over international trade dispute.
Shouldn't it be immediately obvious why a company that ostensibly had mining rights in Canada can't expect a fair result to a dispute with Canada by suing in Canadian court?
> "How else is anyone supposed to litigate trade disputes?"
In a court system with public oversight, just like the rest of us.
> "Shouldn't it be immediately obvious why a company that ostensibly had mining rights in Canada can't expect a fair result to a dispute with Canada by suing in Canadian court?"
This is the reason why ISDS clauses came into being, to discourage governments from changing rules that may affect their profits, even if the choice was made democratically.
Whilst I understand why companies would want it, I see democratic decisions as having precedent over company profits. If there's a situation where one side has to lose out, then I'd want that to be the company rather than the people of a country.
It's a risk investing in infrastructure or products that can cause problems with public or environmental health. Why should the people of a country have to carry the can if a company chooses to make a risky investment?
Here's another example of a ISDS trade dispute, El Salvador being sued $301 million USD by OceanaGold, with El Salvador resisting the gold mining that OceanaGold want to carry out because of the risk of poisoning their water supply...
Are you implying that a contract, legally entered into by a democratically elected government, should be able to be rescinded without need for compensation whenever the government or electorate feels like it?
This is the type of thinking that leads to nationalization of property without compensation, such as that being done in Venezuela and that which is expressly prohibited by the US Constitution - and it's prohibited for good reason.
> "Are you implying that a contract, legally entered into by a democratically elected government, should be able to be rescinded without need for compensation whenever the government or electorate feels like it?"
In answer to your question, not on the whim of a government, but in the case of the electorate, yes, whenever they feel like it.
We're not talking about a life or death situation here, we're talking about a company's profits vs. the will of the people. The population of a country should have the final say in what they want to do with their country, if a government makes a bad decision on their behalf that benefits companies over people that's their mistake. It's up to companies to decide if they want to risk profiting from these deals.
Please stop demonizing companies and recognize that companies are made up of employees. This very well could be a life or death situation for a company's employee.
The will of the people is fickle and ruthless - that is the most pressing reason why the USA was cast as a republic rather than a democracy.
Where does the ultimate power of the electorate end? Does the will of the people override your ability to travel to another state for better work or pay because you're needed desperately at your current locale? Does the will of the people stop you from working in tech because we need more people swinging a hammer? Where is the line in the sand?
I know this comes off as a slippery slope argument and it is easy for people who agree with you to simply write these questions off because, gosh darnit, tobacco is bad and we've seen this with tobacco on an HBO show - but really, where is the line?
>"Please stop demonizing companies and recognize that companies are made up of employees. This very well could be a life or death situation for a company's employee."
I'm not demonising all companies, it's possible to run a company with an ethical focus, so it is possible to put people or the environment over pure profits. However, companies that would put pure profits over people will not get my sympathy.
As for life or death for a company's employees, that's one of the benefits of social security, you can remove undesirable economic activity without jeopardising the lives of the people linked to that economic activity. So basically in a well run country, it isn't really a matter of life and death to stop a company from trading in your country.
On the other hand, it can be a matter of life and death if profit is put over people. The El Salvador gold mining story I linked to is one example of that, I have plenty of other examples if you're interested.
>"Where does the ultimate power of the electorate end? Does the will of the people override your ability to travel to another state for better work or pay because you're needed desperately at your current locale?"
The rights of the majority vs. the rights of the minority is one of the classic debates around what is important in a democracy. There's a need for a balancing act between the two.
However, when it comes to the rights of the majority vs. the rights of a corporation to make money, the answer is much more clear cut. What we're talking about in this case is the laws we set to give the people the society they want, as well as (in our current society) the bounds that set what a company can and can't do. If a company relies on a certain law being the way it is to make money, and then the law changes, then the company either has to adapt or fold or convince people to change the law.
>Are you implying that a contract, legally entered into by a democratically elected government, should be able to be rescinded without need for compensation
Yes. The idea that contracts should be sacrosanct is bullshit.
>This is the type of thinking that leads to nationalization of property without compensation
Remember when they freed the slaves? Slaveholders wanted compensation too. They almost got it too.
>How else is anyone supposed to litigate trade disputes?
In the country's courts, much like any other commercial dispute.
>Shouldn't it be immediately obvious why a company that ostensibly had mining rights in Canada can't expect a fair result to a dispute with Canada by suing in Canadian court?
No. If you assume a fair, transparent legal system, which Canada more or less has then you should expect a fair result. The legal status of the mining rights can be agreed upon as part of the treaty, much as it is in any other trade treaty.
It ought to be immediately obvious that a secret court that supersedes national law overseen by corporate lawyers is not going to deliver a fair result.
States (and the federal government) are stripped of sovereignty which is given to unelected judges. Now, if you really want to appeal to democracy, then it's pretty tough to criticize democratic sovereigns delegating their authority to other parties.
Do you also consider the regulatory state (in which various unelected bureaucracies such as the EPA or SEC write regulations with minimal democratic oversight) to be a problem?
In any case, I do favor the rule of law, which includes allowing unsympathetic parties to have their day in court and to have those cases decided on the legal merits. I also have no particular affection towards democracy or national sovereignty (I use protection of individual rights as my normative basis, and favor sovereignty and democracy only insofar as they protect individual rights).
> Now, if you really want to appeal to democracy, then it's pretty tough to criticize democratic sovereigns delegating their authority to other parties.
The problem is that TPP is a one-way transfer of power -- the costs of (democratically choosing to) flaunt these courts would be overly onerous to citizens of many signatory states.
Because TPP is de facto irreversable, your argument here is structurally similar to the argument that dictators make when their transition to power happens via reforms approved by democractic mechanisms.
I.e., just because a democracy at one point approves of a reform, doesn't make that reform tautologically democractic at all future points in time.
TPP is not irreversible - it's just that by reversing it, consumers will again suffer the hardships associated to non-free trade, just as they currently suffer them now.
Lots of laws are "irreversible" in that regard. For example, Obamacare is irreversible because if we reverse it, the people currently receiving wealth transfers will suffer in the exact same way they suffered prior to Obamacare. Does this mean Obamacare is a "one-way transfer of power" and somehow anti-democratic?
I hypothesize that for many signatory nations, it is de facto irreversible.
> just as they currently suffer them now.
Obviously I don't have the text, but it would be surprising if TPP contained no punitive clauses for openly flaunting the agreement.
> Does this mean Obamacare is a "one-way transfer of power" and somehow anti-democratic?
No. The "transfer of power" bit is the part that TPP and AFA don't have in common.
It is the combination of a law that would be overly costly to change together with a transfer of sovereign power that makes TPP anti-democratic. Either one without the other is fine.
Obviously I don't have the text, but it would be surprising if TPP contained no punitive clauses for openly flaunting the agreement.
Punitive clauses are unenforceable insofar as they extend beyond "if you tariff us we'll tariff you back".
Obamacare transfers sovereign power to various unelected agencies (e.g. HHS) as well. I guess you now agree that Obamacare is an anti-democratic measure?
There is a world of difference between an elected representative giving up democratic oversight and an elected representative transferring democratic oversight.
IIRC one of the judges in the "supersedes-supreme-court-rulings" ISDS dispute resolution mechanism is actually appointed by the investor.
The point was that the governments do not have a choice about whether to agree to the ISDS proceedings if they sign trade agreements that contain ISDS.
And my point is that state governments don't have a choice about whether to agree to court proceedings over racial discrimination if they sign agreements accepting federal money.
I mean yes - this is pretty clear. If a government chooses to allow oversight by courts, they can't choose who sues them. Why single out laws about free trade, as opposed to laws relating to environmental protection or racial discrimination?
Environmental protection and race discrimination laws are designed to protect the health of the world and the dignity of the people that live upon it.
The main reason ISDS would be used is if a company's future profits are put in jeopardy. This is either going to be because a democratic decision or a non-democratic decision restricts these profits. In my opinion, democracy wins over profits, and if the decision is non-democratic it's probably made by dictatorship, which is unlikely to take any ISDS decision seriously anyway.
The main point though is this, the desire for corporate profits must not overrule the will of the people, and there's a strong possibility that trade agreements with ISDS will not meet this criteria (can see how it has been used already). ISDS has the power to negatively impact the quality of life in a country, and this is the main reason why ISDS is undesirable for the general population whereas environmental protection and racial discrimination laws are not.
tl;dr; It's not really about democracy at all, that's just a post-hoc justification for your anti-corporate agenda.
Incidentally, badly implemented environmental or discrimination laws can also negatively impact quality of life, just as badly implemented trade laws can. Why aren't you concerned that bad workers may file bogus discrimination lawsuits, just as tobacco companies file bad lawsuits. (See Ellen Pao as an example.)
But I guess that stuff doesn't count, because it doesn't inspire the same negative feelings in you that corporations do.
Not anti-corporate, but anti-corporate power grab. ISDS gives companies too much power, so I'm against it. Corporations should act in the best interest of the people, not the other way around.
How do you know what it is really about if it is still being negotiated behind closed doors?
Not trying to be snarky, just wondering if you could direct me to parts of the actual document that you are using to draw this conclusion because I would really like to read up on some of the provisions of the TPP.
The last leaked draft the EFF have on their site is from May 2014 (specifically the chapter covering intellectual property). Other bits and pieces have surfaced over the last two years as well, not all of them obtained legally, which is presumably why the EFF don't have them on their site. I do believe Cryptome has them, but I'm at work, I can't risk visiting Cryptome to get the links right now.
There are some important points to examine to make when it comes to trade rule harmonisation...
1. Are the agreements designed to reduce import tariffs, or are they designed to link up product standards and business practises?
2. Are the changes being driven by governments or by businesses?
If a trade agreement is just to reduce import tariffs between certain countries, then there's less of a problem.
The problem arises when free trade agreements are driven by by businesses and designed to link up product standards. I can't say much about the TPP, but if it's similar to the TTIP then the latter is what we appear to be getting.
Businesses generally want less red tape, not more. You could argue they'd push for higher standards to cut out competition that couldn't follow suit, but if that was the case they could already compete without the trade agreements.
It appears to me that the aim is to lower standards to open up new markets, and use the ISDS clause to discourage any strengthening of standards, but perhaps you have a different view on this?
Public Citizen says, "The Fast Track statute requires public posting of a text 30 days after the 90-day notice of intent to sign", which means Congress will have 60 days to review the final TPP text and 30 days to review the proposed U.S. legislation that could implement the TPP.
Are you trying to add any information here? I'm not necessarily in favor of the deal -- I will wait to see it and for interest groups to analyze it -- but you're just repeating talking points.
The "secret" thing isn't even going to be relevant in 30 days, and until then, nobody knows what it says about computers. The currently known details are all about things like sheep, cars, and pharmaceuticals.
That seems like a completely unfounded accusation. The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement, which some consider to be the precedent for this agreement, was only 160 pages long and was quite readable. Here's the PDF of it:
Furthermore, every congressperson has a whole staff devoted to dissecting these things, and there are numerous activism groups who will be doing the same thing.
I wonder how many signatories will not even disclose it to their people. Given the track record of the US government to sign stuff before its read (we have to pass it...) and the gogogo of people who support that idea when they think they are getting something, I see no problem with Congress having so short a time dealing with it.
If anything, if benefits the US in that thousands of tariffs on US goods will be gone.
> Just a reminder: the TPP, like most trade deals, is negotiated in secret, but ratified in public. The final version of the deal will be published in 30 days, and then Congress gets 90 days to consider before an up-or-down vote.
It's a maximum of 90 days after the implementing bill is introduced in Congress. There's no deadline for that bill to be introduced, but the bill can't be introduced until at least 30 days after the final text is submitted.[1] from [2]
The comic is too detailed and too well written to summarize here. Go read it.
The TPP is basically why many companies gave up "policing" the Internet about 6-10 years ago. Many of the voracious file sharing lawsuits ($150,000 or $750 per download, which ever is greater) just stopped. They've been waiting for stronger legal teeth. Now they'll have the legal backing of governments to do private corporate takedowns. If we thought the MPAA/RIAA getting local police and federal officers to enforce their policies was bad, there's a lot worse ahead at a larger scale than most people can comprehend (required ISP logging/tracking/takedowns of every URL (retention time? forever), required in-line packet inspection (globally distributed GFW with local policies), etc).
Fighting this won't be silly little "sopa nope-a" web blackouts. It'll need full time DC congressional lobbying from our viewpoints. It can be done, but it would take a few million in funding to drive the point home and maybe a few more tens of millions in campaign donations to turn around the right wrong-thinking people.
You can look at it this way. When the WTO agreement was passed, opponents worried that it would lead to a massive transfer of manufacturing jobs to China, which could undercut the US with lower wages, laxer safety and environmental protection standard, etc.
Supporters claimed that it would benefit the average American, not just the wealthy, and that the spread of a market economy would bring democracy to China, which would then pass labor and environmental protection laws similar to our own.
What actually happened is that the WTO led to a massive transfer of manufacturing jobs to China, inequality in the US has increased, China has shown no interest in democracy, the working class there still enjoys low wages and poor working conditions, and they are now the largest polluter in the world.
On top of that, the US as a whole has been weakened, and the fact that we have thrown away any chance of conditioning access to markets on the implementation of air pollution regulations looks ever more regrettable given global warming.
I think it is reasonable to look at that and adjust your priors to trust TPP opponents more and TPP proponents less, even in the absence of any TPP-specific information.
Well, nobody knows the TPP yet. It's not public. The parts that have leaked are pretty bad. The comic mostly argues against a common hybrid republican/libertarian economic branding of "free trade." Free Trade branding ended up being a disguise for reducing labor costs by moving interchangeable capital to places where people work for (and live off of) $1/day instead of $800/day, but people never get the same freedom of movement rights as corporate capital. So, companies reduce costs, but people can't move to cheaper (or even better) places to improve their own costs.
As for arguing the comic is godawful, maybe de-escalate your rage meter for a while? It's just an informative comic posted to an online text forum run by a multi-billion dollar funding organization. It's all kinda meaningless overall.
It's the opposite of an informative comic. It is a comic designed to deceive readers based on an illusory claim of expertise (its author is not an economist, nor is he apparently familiar with the TPP) in order to push an agenda. It is upsetting to see it repeatedly posted to HN.
As far as I can tell, we aren't licensed and bonded economists either, so there's no ground to take down another not-an-economist (No True Economist?).
So Congress will publish the full "30 page document" on their website -- and citizens of each country have 90 days to harass their representatives if they disagree w/ the agreement? Sorry to be dense just trying to understand.
Canada will ratify it. The NDP has come out against it in the last few days but gave itself many escape clauses to support it (it was supporting it until it started tanking in the polls). Their only chance to come in power is through a coalition, and the other two parties support free trade.
There is an excellent LSE debate podcast on TTIP with the chair of the Uruguary round. I have posted it before, and I will dig out the link, (http://www.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2014/11/20141124t18... ) but listening to the folks who built the WTO and their views on the current rounds is salutary.
The gist of the podcast (from memory)
- Fair Trade is good for us all
- Global trade agreements benefit the poorest the best because if everyone is included, it's rare for the clauses to include "screw those guys over". Small poor countries usually get screwed over because all the effort goes into the big agreements between big trading partners (naturally). Global agreements usually get you the same good deal as Canada gets.
- we have mostly solved tariffs on traditional physical goods. The WTO has done a good job on this. It seems a bit self congratulatory.
- the TTP and TTIP (Pacific and Atlantic) are best we can do after WTO Doha talks basically collapsed. Global is better.
- In general negotiations proceed to move standards upwards - European Chicken farms are fine for me in the UK but apparently the US consumers think we grow our chickens in faeces. As such the standards negotiated usually end up being the higher of the two, not the lower.
- TTP and TTIP should never be negotiated in secret. Most of WTO was not and it is a political failure to do so. But the outcomes probably won't change much as frankly it's not that interesting to follow trade negotiations
The upshot is the old guard of WTO basically announcing that the politicians set the stall out badly and should reboot, but the general direction is positive, that there should be a general default to take the "highest quality" standard in any negotiation.
So please when seeing the phrase "negotiated in secret", see where it sits in the history of WTO negotiations, and pester congress not to kill it off for cheap political points but to pay more attention to their guidelines next time round - and damn well make sure the whole world is included, not half and half solutions.
At least the US has a chance to debate it in parliament. In New Zealand, our cabinet passes it and there is no debate. If there's one thing I don't like the sound of, it's the ISDS clauses..
That'a a big problem. It's a huge deal and Congress can either approve the whole thing or reject the whole thing. That puts a lot of pressure on the single representative.
It should be voted on in small pieces. The same should have happened with the ACA. There are lots of parts that could be enacted on their own.
The trickiness (and the whole reason fast track is a thing) is that Japan agreeing on A likely depends on the US agreeing on B (which depends on Vietnam agreeing on C)
It's hard to do compromise if the compromise itself isn't voted in. And when you're talking about 12 Nations...
OTOH breaking down legislation into smaller chunks to pass is definitely a good idea that isn't applied often enough (see immigration). Though that too can be tricky. For example you can't have the universal healthcare mandate without the preexisting condition refusal ban ( I have cancer and can't get health insurance , and now I'm being taxed??)
Will be interesting to see how much of the leaked chapters is still in there. The old one said to make ISP's more liable for data being transfered through it. Imports of copyrighted goods without the authors permission will be made illegal (and they said barriers to international trade was dead). Copyright Terms will be extended in several countries. DRM protection is extended so that those who "enabl[e] or facilitat[e]" circumvention can be charged even if they do not violate a copyright (fun time for researchers). Last it dictate that generic medicine is destroyed if such happen to be found in a country where a patent cover it (all those who complain about Russia burning smuggled food might find this interesting).
Funny how globalization was going to flatten the world for everyone. Turns out it doesn't actually include the plebs.
Capital gets to traverse the world - its factories spewing waste and arbitraging cost of living and currency differences in SE Asia, its profits reported in tax-resorts like Ireland and the Cayman Islands, and its protection guaranteed via the US Military courtesy of the US middle class.
But should a lowly citizen try to pull a stunt like importing a medicine from India or purchasing a text book from Hong Kong, well that's against the law.
Right. The American worker lost his job because he was undercut by people who'll do the job for a third-world salary in third-world conditions. The solution is to let the American migrate to the third world so he can join the fun. How could we have been so blind?
It's like how the Affordable Care Act had to contain mutually reinforcing requirements for insurance. You can't have insurance that covers pre-existing conditions unless you also require everybody be insured. Otherwise, people would only buy insurance when they get sick.
You have to toggle both knobs at the same time to make sure the system doesn't become unbalanced.
With trade+immigration, you can't allow the free movement of capital without also giving people the option of following their jobs to places long removed from their origins.
Is it practical? Not entirely, but the road has to flow both ways.
We should invite the world to live in America, then when the rest of the world is empty, take it over, make it all modern, then we can all have our non-polluting futuristic countries of equality and proper environmental regulations and building codes and renewable power transmission without trying to negotiate with hundreds of mutually unnegotiateable peoples.
There's multiple ways to reach equilibrium. As people migrate, rents and wages adjust. And freedom of movement would also include allowing workers into the US, where wages are higher presently.
As an aside, you don't even have to have large migration to produce a new equilibrium. As long as workers could feasibly migrate, they can negotiate for higher wages in their home country using that as a BATNA.
In the 80s I witnessed several neighbors move to the Phillipenes for a job. It happens, esp in civil engineering / construction services. And on the margins, we have the nomadlist, which is predicated on the assumption that you can write code from nearly anywhere.
But no, Americans are not emigrating in bulk any time soon. The thrust of my argument today is simply that greater inflows to the US is part of the 'free flow of labor' equation.
That's not the point. Corporations get to (mostly) benefit from the most favorable aspect of all the governments of the world, all at the same time.
Even with global free movement people would not be able to do the same. I cannot live in California, build my house using Chinese labor prices, and be taxed as if I lived in Nevada.
Simple fix: people should be citizens of corporations instead of citizens of countries. Then they can move freely and their (literal) parent company will take care of healthcare, benefits, social services, etc.
Visas are already heavily tied heavily to employment. It's not much of a leap to just become a citizen of a company since they already control your (employment-based) foreign immigration eligibility.
Creators have a right to determine what their product sells for. If you don't like the price then you have a right not to purchase it. However, I suspect you only care about yourself - as long as you can copy/download for $free.
Can anyone explain why my comment was massively downvoted? Am I factually wrong or is it because you simply disagree. If it's the latter, then you are building an echo chamber where new or different perspectives will be disincentivized.
Actually that's not it at all. In fact I just bought Regulate by Warren G and Nate Dogg and Gimme More by Britney Spears on iTunes after this post. What I don't like is ridiculously long copyright terms.
In other words a handful of multinationals, prepared to pay millions in endorsements in hand outs to corrupt politicians, have got exactly what they wanted.
So much for the democratic process and in fact stuff the democratic process.
This deal gives a handful few even more power in controlling the world economy. It lets them screw not only the local worker, but the ability to screw ever worker in the world, in the name of prosperity.
While I hate the fact that such an obvious power grab is happening, what I hate more is the youth of today seem to let this shit happen.
Use your voice and vote out that crap!!!
Sadly my prediction will be, nothing unlike the last ten years, where as the minimum wage remains flat (or maybe even declines), the corresponding CEO wage will see ten fold increases thanks to this amazing free trade deal :(
I agree, but let's not rush to blame "the youth". "The youth" has been writing and emailing and calling Congress to tell them we care about this issue but it's not like they really listen to their constituents when so much campaign money is on the line.
Careful on the zeros... .00001% of 318,900,000 people (current population of America) is 31.89 people, and even rounded I suppose they get a few more than that.
You're predicting CEO wages among the Fortune 500, will increase by 10 fold in a decade?
Are you sure you're not being just a little bit overly dramatic and emotional about this?
Numerous higher minimum wage laws across the US are already in place, from states to cities. Those laws are not set at the federal level. The US Government has practically no control over it. Los Angeles, Seattle, etc. are moving to ~$15 minimum wages. The TPP will not alter that in any regard what-so-ever.
Maybe a 10 fold is a little optimistic, but I’m pretty sure they won't be coming down.
And since CEO currently get such obscenely high wages, even a small annual increase amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As to whether the TTP having no effect on the USA wage system, that may well be true, since the US wage system is already so inequitable.
However, it will effect counties like Australia that sign up to the TPP.
Our wage system still has a level of fairness built into it, but the TPP will bring in those same US wage market forces and apply downward pressure to out minimum wage.
Here in Australia, we already have a government itching to cut into the minimum wage and cut away at the social welfare system.
With the TPP those changes are made easier as US market forces will be doing all that dirty work.Maybe not 10 fold is a little optomistic even, but I am pretty sure the will still rise from their currently obseen levels
If it boils down to Labor vs Capital, this is a win for Capital and I think that view is myopic. This is about United States re-defining economic activity in Pacific and create an economic firewall. If US misses this opportunity, China will re-define it and US will not have much say. This is strategically important to the USA.
I hesitantly applaud such trade deals. I know that they are rife with corporate subsidies and targeted protectionism of politically favored domestic industries but it is better than the alternative. Interdependence and trade have led to a much safer world and a rising global standard of living for all.
>I know that they are rife with corporate subsidies and targeted protectionism
Actually, the goal was to eliminate a lot of that.
In trade, countries usually have two general aims:
1. Negotiate reduction or elimination of tariffs in foreign markets so that domestic producers can expand abroad.
2. Protect their own domestic producers from foreign competition by retaining the import tariffs that keep them competitive.
So, Japan subsidizes its domestic rice farms and tarrifs rice imports, but wants to sell its cars unfettered. Brazil wants to export its oranges and other produce more, the US wishes to export more of it's beef and cattle market. (These are the ones I'm thinking of off hand.)
The thinking goes however, that nations will gain more if they can all agree to open their tariffs, and allow goods to "trade freely". This means that while there will be short term disruption and decline in some markets, that their economies will have net growth on the whole, because economics is not a zero-sum game. For the TPP, the math is somewhat easy: One or more domestic industries will face internal competition, while their export markets will now be open to a dozen new countries. If they all do this, it's a net gain. (So the thinking goes.)
The portions that people seem to take issue with mostly in our line of interest have to do with the intellectual property provisions. This is to shore up the mismatch in legal protections that exist in countries with weaker IP laws. You can more or less sum this up with pointing out that pirated software and media is sold openly in countries like China and Vietnam. The provisions pertaining to those are other countries saying "Look, we'll trade, but only if you respect our IP."
Whether or not you agree with those provisions is of course, the million dollar question, and on things like that, the fate of the TPP depends. But that's the rationale.
And yes, you're exactly right, a rising global standard of living is /exactly/ what everyone wants. It's not some evil conspiracy, it really is that. And so long as no one can game the system (too badly), that's exactly what will happen.
There is no need of a complete unilateral agreement. CountryA benefits from free trade with CountryB even if the later imposes tariffs to some products of industries they want to 'protect'. It's CountryB which will not have as an optimized economy as it could.
This point seems to be counter-intuitive but I believe it to be true. David Ricardo had deep insights into this very idea in the 1800s. I remember his arguments as being very persuasive.
Why would be good idea essentially imposing a tax to the citizens of your country(tariffs) for the benefit of a single subgroup? You should keep your workforce directed to the industries market proves you competitive.
Everyone as a person does the same, we use our major source of income(dayjob = profession we have the best skills relative to everyone else) to trade it with the labor of others, we dont try to make everything by ourselves even if we have the technical capacity. (Comparative advantage)
I see. To answer your question, it isn't about economy but politics and power. Having a more diversified economy makes you less dependent on the whims of others, albeit it can be at the cost of overall efficiency.
I guess everybody does the same as well, we insist in having some understanding of other skills so that we aren't at the mercy of others.
> And yes, you're exactly right, a rising global standard of living is /exactly/ what everyone wants. It's not some evil conspiracy, it really is that. And so long as no one can game the system (too badly), that's exactly what will happen.
We can argue about whether or not that will really be the end result but I'd imagine quite a few of the participants are more concerned with their own gain than a rising global standard of living.
The losses in globalization trend towards localized, which are easier to identify and document. The gains however, are much more widespread, and as someone pointed out earlier, the world is doing better, on the whole, in lifting people out of poverty by every measure.
It's hard to believe a statistic more than it is a news report of someone losing their job. But things are improving.
> The thinking goes however, that nations will gain more if they can all agree to open their tariffs, and allow goods to "trade freely".
Which is the exact opposite of how the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan all got rich in the first place, so it's hard to see the real world examples that back this up.
De facto free trade zones such as the United States themselves (and the internal economies of most nations) are a good example of what it looks like once the transformation is complete. Doesn't prove that moving from tariffs to no tariffs will be a net benefit, but it's a good model.
>I know that they are rife with corporate subsidies and targeted protectionism of politically favored domestic industries but it is better than the alternative.
The alternative of actual free trade, free from meddling governmental interference, without corporate subsidies and targeted protectionism?
That's not yet a political reality. Don't like perfect become the enemy of the good. With each incremental step and treaty, we help advance this ideal.
> they are rife with corporate subsidies and targeted protectionism
At least in spirit, this agreement largely exists to remove subsidies, tariffs and import restrictions.
I suppose you're referring to the (expected) "harmonisation" of intellectual property law in the agreement, though? In that case I'd tend to agree with a characterisation of it as a protectionist measure, though I doubt that's a popular way to put things in official channels.
And the world is much, much safer, more stable, and across the entire socioeconomic spectrum wealthier than it was at the beginning of the 20th century, so the snark here is missing its mark.
In fact, this long stability in Europe traces its roots to a free trade agreement the Schuman Declaration, leading to the European Coal and Steel Community, which later becomes the European Union.
Future peace may be. An interesting quote from Lee Kuan Yew (From Third World to First, p. 534):
"October, 1985. […] During my official visit, I was given the honour of addressing a joint session of the US Congress. […] I spoke on an issue then at the top of the American agenda - protectionism to safeguard jobs and check growing US trade deficits with newly emerging economies of East Asia. In 20 minutes, I described how the issue of free trade was really the question of war or peace for the world.
Nations wax and wane. I argued that if a nation on the rise, with an excess of energy, was not allowed to export its goods and services, its only alternative would be to expand and capture territory, incorporate the population and integrate it to make for a bigger economic unit.
That was why nations had empire which they controlled as one trading bloc. It was a time-honoured way for growth. The world had moved away from that after the end of World War II in 1945. GATT, the IMF, the World Bank and new rules made possible a prosperous and dynamic Germany in spite of large numbers of Germans returning from the East into a shrunken land area
So also with the Japanese, who had to leave Korea, China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia and be packed into a few Japanese islands. The Germans and the Japanese were able to stay within their boundaries and grow through trade and investments. They cooperated and competed with other nations and were able to prosper and flourish without wars.
But if trade in goods and services was blocked, then China would revert to its historical solution of small warring states conquering one another to gain control of more territory and people until they become one colossal continental empire. This tight, logical exposition may have convinced the legislators intellectually, but many found it emotionally difficult to accept."
World Wars were about ... Darwinism! Really. The German aristocrats thought that they should rule, because they were more fit. They all had a copy of Origin of the Species, read it and discussed its implications to nationalism at length. Their speeches were all about it.
Think of it - a lonely academic invents/discovers something, and 50 million people die over it. No, not talking about nuclear fission.
For the record, "survival of the fittest" has nothing to do with Darwinism. It was an expression coined by Herbert Spencer, contrast to the more neutral "descent with modification".
The Nazi approach was markedly different. They borrowed a lot from Lamarckism, Malthusianism and pan-Germanic mysticism, not necessarily just flawed, naturalistically fallacious interpretations of Darwinism. Eugenics, particularly, was largely started by Francis Galton.
Yet Darwin himself coined 'natural selection'. It was the leap from 'natural' to the human realm that German Aristocracy made, and fed nationalism to the point WWI was inevitable.
Which is funny because eugenics is fundamentally a form of artificial selection, much like the one practiced agriculturally for millennia. You're trying so hard to indict Darwin on this, when virtually all of Social Darwinism is unrelated to him.
You're not being descriptive. You're trying to equate a positive body of theory (Darwinian evolution) as necessarily implying a syncretic, normative body of theory (Social Darwinism, which varies from laissez-faire to collectivist interpretations, largely because most of it has scantly to do with actual Darwinism).
In other words, you're committing a naturalistic fallacy. It should also be noted that much of "Social Darwinism" is actually quite old, going back to Plato's endorsement of selective, rationed breeding in The Republic.
Even if this is the case, it's also led to a rising standard of living for the Asian lower and middle class, who vastly outnumber the American lower class. So if one assumes all peoples' living standards are equally valuable, then it's a net win.
>So if one assumes all peoples' living standards are equally valuable, then it's a net win.
But as a citizen of only one of those countries should you not be biased towards the well being of your fellow citizens over others? And don't misunderstand me. I'm not talking about patriotism or whatnot. It is just that you share duties and responsibilities with only one of those groups of people.
Standard of living for the American lower class has been in no shape, way, or form stagnant. Has income adjusted for inflation? Sure. Is a poor person today better off than a poor person from 1970? Absolutely.
I bet that the stagnation of the American lower class standard of living has come at the expense of the rising standard of living in 3rd world countries with which we deal.
In general, agreements like this seem to be a threat to classical liberalism. Perhaps this is a simplified view but integration is a 7-stage process that ends with supranational organizations and political unions. Or to be specific, an eventual global government rooted more in EU-style bureaucracy rather than (in theory) American-style classical liberalism.
MEP Daniel Hannan elucidated this nicely in a speech regarding the Treaty of Lisbon-
"TPP raises significant concerns about citizens’ freedom of expression, due process, innovation, the future of the Internet’s global infrastructure, and the right of sovereign nations to develop policies and laws that best meet their domestic priorities. In sum, the TPP puts at risk some of the most fundamental rights that enable access to knowledge for the world’s citizens."
I don't think Russia can be ignored in light of growing relations between Russia and China. Russia and China have different economic strengths and weaknesses that make a Russian/Chinese bloc stronger than the sum of its parts. A large part of US diplomatic work in the Middle East over the past year has been an effort to undercut Russian oil prices so that Russian oil isn't economically viable, with great success. But this is a band-aid. Even with the current US economy, the incentives that the US is providing to i.e. Saudi Arabia to keep oil prices low are tenuous; a dip in the US economy will make it impossible to maintain these incentives even if Saudi Arabia continues to be satisfied with them.
> For the first time in a trade agreement there are provisions to help small businesses without the resources of big corporations to deal with trade barriers and red tape. A committee would be created to assist smaller companies.
That's awesome. But, if you have that much of a problem, why form a committee to help smaller companies- why not just make it easier for everyone? And what good will a committee really do? Why not just say, "We promise to make trading with foreign entities just that- you won't have to deal with the U.S. government and foreign government at all."
That's not what I was saying. I was saying that government shouldn't impose so much red tape that small companies need a committee assigned to help them, when it is not known whether that committee will necessarily get them through the red tape as efficiently as a big company that has more resources available.
You can't just talk as if "red tape" is this thing that is just hanging around getting in people's way. Red tape usually exists for one of 2 reasons:
1. Corporations have done something bad that wasn't illegal, so regulation was created to prevent them from doing that.
2. Corporate interests have paid off politicians to make laws that favor them.
Ideally we could reduce red tape by cutting out only the laws in category 2, but in practice, corporate interests cut both ways: they screw things up when creating laws and they screw things up when removing laws. Moves to reduce regulation almost always cause more harm than good, letting big corporations go back to doing bad things they were doing before. History is rife with this kind of deregulation: the repeal of Glass-Steagall, for example. No move to deregulate that I know of has resulted in a better situation for small business. Deregulatory movements are almost always driven by monopolistic large corporations.
Wow: The New York Times is very clear on its political preference: "Donald Trump has repeatedly castigated the Pacific trade accord as “a bad deal,” injecting conservative populism into the debate and emboldening some congressional Republicans who fear for local interests like sugar and rice, and many conservatives who oppose Mr. Obama at every turn."
I understand what you're saying, but the point is that typically Republicans are in favor of free trade agreements, and the populist anti-Washington-elite movement rallying behind Trump and general anti-Obama sentiment are the explanation for this unusual situation (GOP opposition).
Saying "injecting conservative populism" without any example and counter argument just comes across very dumb. They want to form an opinion for me and I'm very well capable of doing that myself based on facts. This really downgrades the NYT for me.
Ok, I looked it up on the book of knowledge:
"Right-wing populism is a political ideology that rejects existing political consensus and often combines laissez-faire liberalism and anti-elitism. It is considered populism because of its appeal to the "common man" as opposed to the elites."
I thought populism was associated with just saying anything that is popular but not necessarily true and based on circular references or other obfuscating techniques to score easily with people of low education/IQ/logical reasoning skills.. I see I was wrong. In that case, perhaps my original remark is not valid.
Actually, I agree with Trump very much. The TTIP is horribly elitist.
Trump would immediately come to anyone's mind when you say 'conservative populism'. What counter argument would you like to see here? Trump injects conservative populism into the debate... or did he???
To any NYT employees who may be reading this: It's 2015, and you're still using graphics (like this trade map) in a way that shows up tiny on mobile devices but can't be zoomed in on -- and you've even managed to thwart the usual "tap and hold, then Open Image in New Tab" trick.
This is the sort of thing that makes people demand ever-ridiculously-huger smartphones.
It's also part of the reason I don't plan on ever buying their subscription. (The other reason being I disagree with the model and believe in a free open internet)
Don't use your belief in a "free open internet" to justify why you don't pay for content. I believe in a free and open Internet as well, and as such I believe NYT is free to monetize however they want. I don't subscribe because I don't feel that most of their content is that much better than other publications which I already pay for or consume for free. But a "free and open Internet" doesn't mean that all the content is available for free.
If nobody pays for news, then the best news we're going to be able to get will be Buzzfeed articles written by a college student for $0.05 a word. That's a sad future.
I want to ask you a question but I don't want you to take it as sarcasm. It is a genuine question.
How is locking content behind paywalls not exactly the same as closing the web? I don't think there will be a point when all content will be available for free, but if paywalls are the norm, then how is that web still considered free and open?
I don't have a solution for what would be a perfect model, but I don't think paywalling is the answer.
And yes, if news providers have to rely on ads, they will eventually converge into clickbaity buzzfeed. I don't think that is the solution either.
I think we still have to find a good balance that works for everyone. But just because ads don't work, doens't mean paywalling works. That's what I meant with my comment above.
Paywalls never will be the norm; I honestly don't think the Internet can support very many paywalled news sites.
I never liked this line of argument (what if X becomes the norm?) when applied to markets: if X becomes the norm, it will be because the market is demanding X more than anything else. If paywalls become the norm, then it will only be because consumers prefer content produced under a paywall model to content produced under a "free" model. But the friction of payment alone will prevent that from happening; so I don't think the free web is really in a lot of danger.
Now I do think a lot of paywalled sites try to have their cake and eat it too by posting their articles on news aggregators then presenting a paywall prompt. I think the news aggregators need to do a better job of blocking these types of attempts, but they won't because they're funded by advertising and I would assume paywalled sites are able to pay more to acquire traffic than ad-supported sites. This is the problem with any funding model where the money doesn't come from you: others' interests are represented above your own.
NYT is especially bad about using cookie and JavaScript tricks to allow spiders to grab their articles, but enforcing their paywall on users regardless. The Economist is a better example; when they post an article online, it's available to anyone for a period of time (3 months I think?), then it enters the archives behind the paywall. But there are many other paywalled articles that never get posted online, and they don't try to promote that content.
Also, I don't think there is a "perfect model". I think there are varied consumer preferences and that many models can be successful. There may be other models we haven't tried yet. But no one model is going to be universal, and if it is, it will be because the market actually wants it to be.
Does someone know if the treaty has to be ratified by all parties before becoming a law? If it's rejected by Canadian or NZ parliaments, would it still be implemented?
I think that many agreements have a minimum number of required signatories before coming into effect. But once that number is met, in theory, other countries approving or not approving has no effect. This can vary in practice, though, as the United States or UK not signing on is vastly different than Austria not passing an agreement. This isn't meant to disparage any other country but in international politics that's just kinda the way it goes.
It's certainly quite possible that Canada will defect. We've got an election in 2 weeks and it's a very tight three way race. The traditional "middle" party is running on a very left-leaning platform, so opposition to the TPP is going to be one of the major differentiators between the two left-leaning parties.
It will be really unfortunate if we cannot see the document before the election. I am not sure we can trust the government to give an honest assessment of it.
Yeah, in a situation where the conservatives don't win the coming election, I have no problem imagining the NDP or Libs rejecting it on the basis of it being "a treaty Stephen Harper negotiated in secret"
Although, reflecting on the limited number of campaign ads I've heard, this seems to be something that no one is really talking about.
No one is talking about it? Just yesterday I attended a whistle-stop tour stump speech by NDP leader Tom Mulcair; he had a LOT to say about the TPP and the NDP's clear intent to oppose it should Harper try to ratify it in secret.
I'll admit that I don't follow the leaders' discussions all that closely; most of my opinion on what's going on in this race has to do with the ads I've seen and heard, whether on CBC Radio, TV, or before watching Youtube videos.
My impression that there hasn't been much public discussion about it mostly comes from the fact that the only memorable place I've seen TPP mentioned has been on HN.
Add to that the likelihood of a minority government. So the TPP would probably have to see the support of two major parties (neither of which might be the ones forming the government).
I was also wondering this. The problem with TPP coming into force with all the countries is that it sounds like a very interconnected document. For example, New Zealand wanted dairy access to the US, in return the US wanted dairy access to Canada. So if Canada does not ratify it, then then US dairy industry would get the short end of the stick.
I wonder if the ratification process is in the final draft, and we'll just have to wait and see. I'm guessing that what you're implying --- that ratification must be unanimous among the member parties --- is right.
Most of this article is quoting what other people said about the TPP, applying labels to supposedly specific provisions eg. 'foo expert calling it "historic"' etc.
Smoke and mirrors until we can actually read the thing. Or change it ourselves.
Does that have anything to do with selling raw milk?
Political fallout would be huge if this thing doesn't go through, right? All players in the game are heavily invested in this passing because without it, years are wasted, so I'm expecting it to pass.
this, to me, is the scariest part of all these deals (TPP, TTIP, CETA, TiSA etc.) : they seem to be 'too big to fail', so chances are they'll pass simply because parties involved are 'deeply invested', not because they're actually good deals...
Yes, and because various interested parties know that will happen, no matter how much evil anticonsumer shit they pack into the deal, there's nothing holding them back during the negotiations. We've heard about the awful IP shit because EFF is on the ball, but there's no doubt we'll find out about even more once this takes effect. I'm not talking about e.g. Vietnam rice farmers vs. USA rice farmers vs. rice eaters everywhere, but rather all of those parties getting screwed by the ag corp interests who were actually represented at these negotiations.
And that's of course the reason they're turning it into such a massive beast. Because tons of it is likely to be things that would not pass if they were part of small little individual deals where the vested interests were not so huge.
Personally I believe the sheer scope is reason enough to reject it on principle as a massive abuse of process.
That is kinda how political negotiation works. One side says, "We want X." The other side says, "Ok, we'll support X if it also has Y." Repeat that, in this case for a few years, and you have a very large number of Y's.
The problem with saying this,
> Because tons of it is likely to be things that would not pass if they were part of small little individual deals where the vested interests were not so huge.
Is that the thing that potentially would pass would never make it out to see the daylight without negotiation, which is how you get the things that potentially wouldn't pass stand-alone. (And I say potentially, because for every person we're probably talking about different things.)
Yes, but generally, when the tit-for-tat is likely to be understood and acceptable to the electorate, such deals tends to be smaller and more focused. In such cases there's no reason to pile it on, because it can withstand scrutiny and debate. So you come agreement, and move on to negotiate another agreement.
The larger such an agreement becomes, the murkier it ets. Given the complexity, it will take at least a decade after TPP is ratified before all the implications become clear. We better hope we like the results. But I'll predict that long before that we'll have a string of lawsuits filed over the effects.
(Similarly, once TTIP comes up for ratification, I equivalently expect ratification attempts themselves to be met by a number of legal challenges across the EU, followed by a number of legal challenges over the effects of it; If ISDS is part of a final ratified agreement, I'd expect it take at least a decade to sort out the legal mess alone)
> Political fallout would be huge if this thing doesn't go through, right? All players in the game are heavily invested in this passing because without it, years are wasted, so I'm expecting it to pass.
This depends on perspective.
In terms of domestic elections, chances are the TPP won't make a real difference in countries like the US or Canada one way or another. Foreign policy generally only affects domestic elections at its extremes, e.g. winning/losing a war. Voters might be for or against TPP for any number of reasons, but chances are when they actually step into the voting booth, TPP will be low on their list of reasons for voting whichever way they do.
In terms of international relations, reneging on a huge deal that was painstakingly negotiated over seven years is obviously never a good thing. But it's hard to say how or when that could come back to bite whichever countries back out of the deal.
Is "winning" a possible outcome from wars? It hasn't happened during my parents' lifetimes. All of the losing we've been doing doesn't seem to have affected our commitment to outspending the rest of world combined to support the military-industrial complex. Do elections have something to do with that?
As much as I am disgusted by the secrecy of these negotiations, the way they seem to be pushed down our throats, and indeed some of the stuff that was leaked (like the ISDS), there does seem to be some good stuff in it:
"The worker standards commit all parties to the International Labor Organization’s principles for collective bargaining, a minimum wage and safe workplaces, and against child labor, forced labor and excessive hours."
and:
"The changes, which also are expected to set a precedent for future trade pacts, respond to widespread criticisms that the Investor-State Dispute Settlement panels favor businesses and interfere with nations’ efforts to pass rules safeguarding public health and safety."
Who knows? This might actually have turned into a decent treaty. But only because of all the massive criticism on the bits that leaked through all the secrecy.
Are there any primary sources about those claims? They sound great, along with the big pharma regulations. But still, I don't trust the NYT enough to fully buy it.
Can you explain your disgust about the negotiation secrecy? This is one complaint I really don't understand. Diplomacy is almost always done in secrecy until both sides are ready to propose something concrete. As the top comment says, trade deals are negotiated in secret but ratified in public. Everyone will get plenty of opportunity to review the full text of the deal to decide whether or not it's a good idea.
I want to see the concessions before I call them "nice". It's good that they listened to criticism, but did they listen enough? The basic idea behind ISDS is to me still a flagrant attack on justice and democracy. The article mentioned tobacco companies are excluded, which is certainly nice. But I'd also like to see everything related to public health excluded.
I understand that corporations want to be protected against arbitrary protectionist law changes that disadvantage them, and I'm fine with that. But they don't deserve any protection from laws that intend to protect public health, labour conditions, civil rights, etc.
hint: they aren't going to have anyone checking that the good stuff happens
if no one is regulating child-labor, unsafe-labor, forced-labor, it can be done without penalty regardless if law or not
but you can be damn sure cops will be breaking down your door in 1st world countries if you happen to do something that violated the TPP, they will make enforcement here profitable
Courtesy of the Chicken Tax, yes you read that correctly.
"The chicken tax is a 25% tariff on potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and light trucks imposed in 1963 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken."
I drive a Toyota Cavalier, which was built by Chevrolet to sell to the Japanese, who didn't buy them, so they all got exported to Australia and New Zealand.
It really is an odd car with questionable build quality and some baffling engineering decisions - the boot/trunk wouldn't open, which turned out to be due to the unlocking mechanism coming loose - but it was only connected to the lock by a single plastic clip, the kind you normally find securing upholstery.
Replacing it with a nut and bolt fixed that, but yeah.
Let's say a country wants to pass stronger environmental protections, shorter copyright terms, or some other legislation which would conflict with the TPP. How would they do that? Does the treaty need to be renewed every so often at which point those items can be re-negotiated? Or does this essentially lock in certain legislation such that it can't be changed in the future?
They pass, then get sued under investor state dispute provisions.
The whole point of the bill is to have countries surrender their right to make their own laws; the US President has clearly stated that the goal is for the United States to dictate "the rules" around the world
Just yesterday I saw here on HN a news about what the TPP actually means for intellectual property, which should be a quite known problem here in the community. Interestingly enough though that news has only got 10 points and right now it is quite low in the list.
The first news today in HN is about CPU caching. What do we need it for if we're losing our rights so quickly?
Everyone in this thread should be reading this link. Yes, it is a one-sided summary by the agency whose job is to pass TPP. But it is also among the very small amount of up-to-date information we have about the deal. (We all know about the leaks from 2011 and 2013. Those aren't news right now.)
This is at least closer to a primary source than the New York Times' glossed-over description of it.
From the candidate who said he wanted to "re-negotiate NAFTA". This is a betrayal to American workers, and it's a disaster for the Pacific signatories.
The TPP should be treated as a Treaty, requiring 2/3rd in congress. The majority of the agreement has nothing to do with trade.
I thought it was being treated as a treaty, but that's why they passed TPA (fast-track) so they could curtail congress' power to stop it. What is it being treated as then?
For the benefit of non-US readers: Ross Perot was a third party candidate for President in 1992 and 1996 who ran on a platform opposing adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
I've rewatched the 92 debates a few times in the last few months, and it's crazy how spot on he was... it's also worth noting that the 92 debates were what scared the two parties into corrupting the debate process, joining together to push out the League of Women Voters and to control the stage to prevent disruptive third-parties from being so publicly anti-establishment.
He was a pretty good speaker in person. I went to his speech in Fargo to see what he was about. His book the campaign put together was actually pretty well reasoned and a lot more concrete than the other campaigns' materials. My brother joined his party and we got 20% off a hotel room, so I guess hooking up the corporate discounts worked.
I cannot really argue with the results, but I didn't much care for EDS and some of their sayings. The whole "eagles fly alone" is factually wrong (watch a video of them eating) and just plain stupid in the context of software development.
EDS have had some massive failures here in the UK, they have a pretty terrible reputation (though they can't take all the blame, government is just crap at IT procurement generally).
Also, to be fair to Perot, EDS has been a long time without his leadership. It was 1984 when GM bought EDS, and that started quite a tussle. In 1996, EDS became independent and in 2008, it got bought by HP.
I knew when TPA passed it meant that TPP was nearing completion, they passed TPA (fast-track) because it curtails the power of the congress to stop what I consider to be the unconstitutional TPP. One of the best resources for both documents I have found is the podcast Congressional Dish by Jennifer Briney, who actually takes the time to read the docs and summarize issues.
Personally, I think this is a giant leap towards world government, away from constitutional representation, and away from free-trade and towards the oligarchy-controlled globalism.
I plan on digging into it more and writing a summary of my own, because this is a major issue that we need to push back on hard due to the limitations of the house and senate to oppose it.
I'm not sure how unconstitutional it is. The Constitution says: "[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur."
I wouldn't have written that into the Constitution, but nobody asked me.
"The Trans-Pacific Partnership still faces months of debate in Congress[...]"
So nothing is reached : my understanding of US politics (which is quite shallow I'll admit) is that the congress majority will vote contrary to anything Obama wants.
That's true in general but not true in the case of free trade agreements. Obama's opposition is the party of free trade, and also the party of China containment.
The fact that Republican opposition voted to fast-track the treaty augurs its support for the final version. This bill is mostly stuff the Republican party wants.
The sudden flip from "we're against anything Obama supports" to suddenly standing with Obama to support the TPP is highly unusual, and more than a little suspicious.
Often I find that it's not the issues the parties disagree on that I need to worry about, it's those that get passed quickly and quietly through Congress.
I think the "against anything Obama supports" bit is probably a bit inaccurate if we were to drill down into the voting records in Congress.
But do they have very clear and blatant interests? You bet.
But it'll be a bit more complex than that I think, and I suspect you'll see voting coming down to a mix of local interests and public (including corporate) feedback.
Party allegiance will be secondary to an extent, and you already see that in the article. Orrin Hatch is a republican, and he's already stating his opposition due to what are likely local interests in pharmaceuticals. Trump is blasting it, but almost undoubtedly because that's what his support base wants to hear.
You'll have a lot of representatives and senators all saying that they have "deep reservations" until they get to see the final bill, and then some judgement call will be made between supporting their local industries vs the country's as a whole.
And ya know, really, that's kinda how it should work.
Both Democrats and Republicans will support whatever benefits their sponsors - big business. It is wrong, but why is it still surprising to so many people?
That is, indeed, a pretty shallow understanding. On this issue Obama is essentially allied with a number of Congressional Republicans and in opposition to a number of Congressional Democrats.
Anyone viewing the Republican party as a unified whole is not really paying attention. Some will vote for it, and some will vote against. On trade treaties, some Democrats will defect and vote against regardless of the party of the President.
NONE of the comments defending the TPP reference ANY POSITIVE reasons to support it. They all reject negative claims or argue process ("It is too democratic!" "Amendments are often bad!" etc.)
Obviously the TPP has major costs, both directly and indirectly. IF as I doubt the TPP is worthwhile, then proponents should be able to give examples of its benefits.
Trade deals are treaties but have been recently implemented in a way that requires both houses of Congress to pass them, I believe because the legislation not only ratifies the treaty, but also changes domestic laws to comport with the terms of the treaty. Recent free trade agreements like Colombia and Korea were passed by both houses.
The fact that the negotiations were done in secret probably means that most of the TTP content is being given to journalists by those officially authorized to speak about it. This isn't unexpected, but it does affect how the TTP is framed (even if you don't buy the Greenwald puff-piece-for-access argument).
I'm not sure how this even makes sense. The whole treaty will be public for months before Congress votes on it. What's the "give to get" you're thinking of here?
Journalists will be interested in publishing articles about TPP today, rather than a month from now. That interest might lead one to lend a friendly ear to the only people who have actually read the current draft, who just so happen to strongly support the passage of the current draft.
That's an extreme interpretation. KAB started the thread with thoughts about "how the TTP is framed". I mentioned "lend[ing] a friendly ear". How did we move from that to "bought off"?
It's not as though NYT are infallible, however, and it is well known that journalists often become sympathetic to the opinions of those government officials, company executives, etc. to whom they require access in order to obtain information they need.
Just a reminder that this above everything else is Obama's legacy no matter how they try to re-write history.
So if you thought it was bad that the TSA can hold people without even a phone call to a lawyer, wait until they start putting people in prison over the TPP
One positive IMO is that Ford Motor Co doesn't like it.
Ford, the company who famously exported so many manufacturing jobs out of US in the past suddenly grew a heart for the well-being of "future competitiveness of American manufacturing" ? Probably not.
Of course it would be negotiated in secrecy. How else do you expect something to get done? Every political player will get facts out of context and make his rhetoric out of it, sprinkling emotions and indignation to rally up clueless people, in order to build up his image or get a political favor. Now imagine this happening in every country and mass media amplifying it.
Negotiators would have NO room to negotiate. Parliaments have to ratify and have appropriate time to get themselves familiar with the matter. Stop drinking the kool aid.
So basically, you are for sacrificing democracy on the altar of secrecy. "Clueless people" are always dangerous. And "every political player" can "rally them up". Yes! That's how it should be! People must be informed and have rights to organize and protest for or against something. All fan-boys of diverse trade agreements have only one thing to defend: Secrecy. (And, for the sanity of the discussion, throw out such words as "drinking the kool-aid")
If copyright extensions are in the agreement -- which I think is a good assumption -- then the Disney/Bono content lobby will be effectively writing the law in the signatory countries. I think you can call that anti-democratic.
Ian Fleming's work -- as an example -- is in the public domain in Canada, but not for long.
I am also curious if the DMCA -- and its flaws -- will be internationalized.
The problem with these deals is that citizens of a partner country cannot easily overturn them. When you agree on international standards and some partner wants to introduce higher standards in their own country, they are liable for the losses of companies who suddenly cannot sell their products in that one country anymore. Of course I do not know the specifics of this agreement yet, but clauses that enforce this have been introduced into all attempts at international trade treaties for more than a decade now, so I think it is a safe bet to say this one contains them as well.
tldr: eventually end more than 18,000 tariffs that the participating countries have placed on United States exports
- Goods include: autos, machinery, information technology and consumer goods, chemicals and agricultural products ranging from avocados in California to wheat, pork and beef from the Plains states.
- establish uniform rules on corporations’ intellectual property,
- open the Internet
- crack down on wildlife trafficking and environmental abuses
Good job summarising the article, but from the leaked documents none of that seems to stand up to scrutiny. Just letting you know you are regurgitating bad info.
I know of no other act that would so throughly demonstrate the subjugation of our democracy to corporations than to hold them to a 3-month review of a complete rewrite of the laws that bind corporations.
We are staring at a phase transition.
When this treaty passes, expect the remaining dominoes to fall hard and fast.
The 90-day thing is a result of Trade Promotion Authority granted by Congress to the administration. This is the "fast track" Congress voted to allow the President. It means the bill can't be filibustered.