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US-EU Trade Agreement Gains Exaggerated, Say 41 Consumer Groups, Economist
Glyn Moody (946055) writes "The main claims about likely economic gains from concluding the US-EU trade agreement TAFTA/TTIP, billed as a 'once-in-a-generation prize,' are increasingly under attack. BEUC, representing 41 consumer organizations from 31 European countries, has written a letter to the EU Trade Commissioner responsible for the negotiations, Karel De Gucht, complaining about his 'exaggeration of the effects of the TTIP,' and 'use of unsubstantiated figures regarding the job creation potential.' In a blog post entitled 'Why Is It So Acceptable to Lie to Promote Trade Deals?,' Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, has even harsher words: 'Implying that a deal that raises GDP by 0.4 or 0.5 percent 13 years out means "job-creating opportunities for workers on both continents" is just dishonest. The increment to annual growth is on the order of 0.03 percentage points. Good luck finding that in the data.' If the best-case outcome is just 0.03% extra growth per year, is TAFTA/TTIP worth the massive upheavals it will require to both US and EU regulatory systems to achieve that?"
'Why Is It So Acceptable to Lie to Promote Trade Deals?
For the same reasons that trade deals are negotiated in secret. The general population never benefits, only a few select special interests.
This is just classic use of government to support established corporations. It's been happening for a long time, and it's been lied about for a long time. It's not surprising that their sales pitch to the public isn't exactly accurate...
Pretty obvious, since (a) 0.03% growth is well within the margin of error for GDP measurements, and (b) the worst-case scenario is probably a GDP reduction of more than 0.03%.
The U.S.A. and the European Commission are tired of democracy interfering with corporations. This "Free Trade" treaties will mean that governments are no longer allowed to interfere with multinational corporations: the corporations may conduct business as they have paid their politicians at home to do, and when a local government says "we have human rights and environmental protections over here", then the corporation can sue the government in a corporation-run quasi-court committee and get all the "losses" paid as "penalties".
Of course it's worth it to those money-grabbing interest groups to extend their power and bypass all democratic control and law.
It effectively outlaws nationalised companies by allowing private corporations to sue for profits lost through productive state labour. Since all essential utilities - water, electricity, gas, train, healthcare, telecoms - have got worse since part or total privatisation in the UK, TTIP can get fucked.
(Telecoms is arguable - it's easy to compare the technology of the early '80s with that of 2014 and say, "Things have improved under private ownership," but in terms of contemporary technical innovation, BT up to 1985 was a leader, whereas today it is an also-ran in bed with its regulator.)
It is pretty obvious the current US lead trade agreements are nothing more than vain attempt to lock in the corporate power obtained through propaganda as news and the corruption of democracy, when they took over the fourth estate and turned it into tool of corruption after Ronny Raygun killed the fairness doctrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... basically legalising lies in the news. After growing exposure of the corruption on the internet, the corporate psychopaths are desperate to keep the power they have gained and that is now slipping away from them and they a looking to be facing justice for the countless crimes they have committed in every imaginable area of human economic interaction and politics.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
It's an excellent reason to lie, if the lies will help remove legal protections against the deal's sponsors. Dr Evil would strongly approve!
davecb@spamcop.net
Culturally, from what i can gather, its become acceptible in America to lie in order to sell damned near anything. Our breakfast cereals tout everything from brain vitamins to anti-cancer properties and our fruit juices insist theyre some kind of godlike elixer of everything from bone health to limitless endurance. Now technically we're supposed to have regulatory agencies to police this sort of action, but american regulatory agencies are double-booked with mandates to simultaneously promote and police their industry. Theyre as useful as wheels on a fish, and at best they affirm product recalls due to life-threatening contamination.
If youve never tried to buy a car in america, its largely the same. theres no concern for your budget or real money as it pertains to your specific earnings. The entire event is predicated with an understanding that you as a customer will finance your purchase, so there isnt much to stop a sale aside from gas prices. youll be sold on christlike reliability and power, and fuel economy where applicable. Big questions like maintenance costs and carbon footprint are avoided.
so when a trade deal comes down the pipe and it sounds too good to be true, take it from us (it is.) We were sold NAFTA and in turn we lost our manufacturing to south america. We were told goods and services would be cheaper to produce, and in a perverse sort of way they were. WalMart peddled sweatshop clothing and chinese plastic trinkets at rock-bottom prices to a middle class that now basically had no alternative but to concede to their purchase now that they had to take a job at a call center for a fraction of what they made at their old workplace. Countries like Viet Nam and Nicaragua which historically resisted our "free trade" came around to our idea of the marketplace once sponsored rebel groups like the Contra razed their hospitals and blew up their schools for daring to vote a candidate that didnt embrace capitalism.
what we call trade is pretty laughable. American cars are made in mexico and china, and we ardently prop the automotive industry with bailouts we quixotically insist will create or maintain jobs without realizing the goal of our trade policy is to extinguish the costliest element of our commerce, the american worker. when we say EU trade agreement we mean to target your poorest countries to assemble wiring harnesses for slave labor. We mean to flood your markets with corn and other commodities that will render your farmers bankrupt, just as we have in Mexico. We want you to use dangerous chemical processes because former east block countries with socialized medicine and laughable environmental standards amounts to very little concern for when we poison an entire city and leave So heed this warning:
we as a nation have left no stone unturned in our relentless quest to crush the world in poverty, desolation, and ruin under the sunny phrase 'free trade.' We wish to render you wholly dependent upon American goods, be they healthy or not, because it makes our next war that much easier to secure your consent to participate.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"If the best-case outcome is just 0.03% extra growth per year, is TAFTA/TTIP worth the massive upheavals it will require to both US and EU regulatory systems to achieve that?"
0.03% is essentially the cost to implement the massive upheaval in the regulatory systems I bet.
They didn't say what kind of jobs. It's government jobs, obviously.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
When large corporate lobbyists and their politicians talk about the economy, simply substitute the word "profit" for "jobs" to get a more honest version of what they're saying.
I think it was Noam Chomsky who pointed this out.
Anyway I'm all in favor of completely free trade between the EU and the US. Why the hell do we even need an agreement? That's like asking for horrible amounts of irrelevant big corporate crap to seep in and do damage to all sorts of areas of the economy. Just open the borders, remove the tolls and unnecessary government checks, and then we'll sort out the kinks after they happen, if they happen.
Is there any reason that reducing pointless barriers to trade has to occur in one giant all-or-nothing pact, instead of lots of little treaties over a period of years that don't depend on each other?
I'm all for the notion of free trade in theory, but the problem with treaties like these (and the EU in general, and the US Federal government, etc) is that their notion of "free trade" tends to simply mean "trade under the rules of whatever is biggest" rather than what the term mentally implies, i.e. people trading without lots of red tape getting in their way.
Given the absolute and total weakness of EU "leadership" when it comes to demands by the USA, I suspect any trade deal reached between the EU and USA would simply amount to adjusting EU law to match whatever Congress already came up with regardless of whether it makes sense or not. So this seems like a good incentive to not go for it, for Europeans. Unfortunately both America and EU increasingly tend to enforce their laws internationally, regardless of jurisdiction, so in the end I'm not sure it really matters much anyway: in a globalised world with lots of trade between rich countries you end up with a horrific hodge podge of conflicting laws and regulations, with companies trying to comply with all of them and ultimately putting their hope on lax enforcement to be able to remain in business. I don't see much of a way to solve this, short of a sea change in the level of government intervention in trade people tolerate.
Random groupings of people say bad things about major international deal without any supporting evidence.
Seriously, the best they can do is "The language used is vague"? How about doing their own analysis instead of just pointing out that the documents aren't perfect?
I think the point is that the language is intentionally vague to conceal the meaning from an uncritical public. If critics of the agreements say they contain language that "could allow" certain bad things to happen, proponents can smear-them as "conspiracy theorists" to discount their point of view, and a pliant, lapdog corporate media will lap it up, eagerly.
Who did what now?
I think they're also counting the jobs required to implement the new regulations.
The amount of jobs required to implement it will be huge, on both continents.
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FTA:
If the best-case outcome is just 0.03% extra growth per year, is TAFTA/TTIP worth the massive upheavals it will require to both US and EU regulatory systems to achieve that?"
Those "massive upheavals" are precisely what makes the effort worthwile in the minds of the legislators and negotiators responsible. Just think of how much opportunity there is here for consultants, contractors, family members, and other corporate and governmental parasites and hangers-on. No, it's not going to boost the overall economy - probably quite the opposite. And no, it's not going to result in jobs where they're needed - it's going to result in extra money and bigger power bases for people who already have too big a slice of the pie. Make no mistake, it's the globalization of nepotism - only in this case, the 'family' is 'the 0.1%' It probably isn't that way by design, (though maybe it is), but you can bet the people who are and will be involved see the opportunity and are happy about it.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is similar, but less likely to work, as a bunch of independent minded Asians are involved, Has similar proposals. Corporations will be able to sue governments if new regulations interfere with business. Not sure I voted for that. Pretty sure I won't get the chance to.
There is a hard and fast rule in political economy - (trade == democracy) -> peace. Trade and democracy are directly and inextricably related, which has caused serious consternation among those seeking to quantify the interactions as there is no known variable that operates on only one. Anything increasing trade increases democracy and vice-versa. The second half of the rule is based on the fact that modern democracies NEVER go to war against each-other.