Emails Show How Industry Lobbyists Basically Wrote The Trans-Pacific Partnership

An anonymous reader writes: This Techdirt story shows how industry lobbyists influenced the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, to the point that one even openly celebrates that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) version copied his own text word for word. The email exchange between Jim DeLisi, from Fanwood Chemical, to Barbara Weisel, a USTR official reads: "Hi Barbara – John sent through a link to the P4 agreement. I have taken a quick look at the rules of origin. Someone owes USTR a royalty payment – these are our rules. They will need some tweaking but will likely not need major surgery. This is a very pleasant surprise. I will study more closely over the weekend."

Comments

Re:At the cost of the tax payer

[Anonymous Coward]

The economists love to say that trade is great for everyone. But they assume that all parties have an equal amount of advantages and disadvantages. There is this illusion of comparative advantage. But at least with the US we are making trade deals for the sole purpose of businesses lowering their costs to boost profits and make their shareholders richer and their CEOs even richer; while we little people lose opportunities and jobs and stagnant wages. This country's structural unemployment and underemployment is indicative of this.

Protectionism? Absolutely not!

What we need is a business environment like Germany's where government, business and labor all work together for society's overall prosperity. In the US, labor needs much more power (unions) and business needs to be taken down a few notches. I think we need to move towards a German economic model - stop the corporatism in the US.

Re:Who is surprised by this?

[rmdingler]

Capitalism devolves into fascism as corporations petition governments to do their will by interfering in the markets in some way.

To be fair, I suspect much of this is the general dumbing down of our leaders combined with the increasingly technical World they are asked to govern.

The Congressman need not understand (or employ someone who understands) with all those helpful lobbyists at their beck and call.

Re:You want a Nanny State, Socialism, Big Governme

[gstoddart]

Sorry, but you seem to be confusing a corrupt oligarchy for a nanny state.

And that's pretty much bullshit.

This is governments becoming beholden to corporations, and selling the farm for some magic beans.

This isn't a nanny state, this is a wholesale co-opting of government for corporate interests.

This has NOTHING at all to do with socialism, and everything to do with corporate welfare and stacking the deck for them.