Slashdot Mirror
Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal Is Reached
An anonymous reader writes: The NY Times reports that negotiators have finally reached agreement over the Trans-Pacific Partnership from the U.S. and 11 other nations. The TPP has been in development for eight years, and has the potential to dramatically strengthen U.S. economic ties to east Asia. Though the negotiations have been done in secret, the full text of the agreement should be published within a month. Congress (and the legislative houses of the other participating countries) will have 90 days to review it and decide whether to ratify it. The TPP has been criticized in tech circles for how it regards intellectual property and facilitates website blocking, among other issues.
Proponents will also have to answer broader questions about whether it stifles competition, how it treats individuals versus large corporations, as if it creates environmental problems. To give you an idea of how complex it is: "The Office of the United States Trade Representative said the partnership eventually would end more than 18,000 tariffs that the participating countries have placed on United States exports, including 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."
Proponents will also have to answer broader questions about whether it stifles competition, how it treats individuals versus large corporations, as if it creates environmental problems. To give you an idea of how complex it is: "The Office of the United States Trade Representative said the partnership eventually would end more than 18,000 tariffs that the participating countries have placed on United States exports, including 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."
This is the first thing that came to mind. That, and we are really, really fucked .
You are now ever so much more than a mere consumer you are now officially a commodity.
I honestly don't know. No. Really. I don't know.
The same thing that has gone wrong with every single trade pact that the US government has ever negotiated: a few get enriched, the rest of us get fewer jobs. Do try to keep up.
Its full 30-chapter text will not be available for perhaps a month
Doubtlessly to be released to public 24 hours before the Congressional vote...
If the reason for keeping it secret is that the negotiators didn't want to be swayed by day-to-day changing public opinion, what reason not to release the text immediately? It's not as if they have to print it all out; I'm sure there's many a web-designer who could whip up a site with the content of the treaty in less than a day.
Hell, stick it in a TXT file and dump it on an FTP site somewhere. Nominally this agreement is for the betterment of all involved countries; there is no reason not to make the information available immediately.
Unless... say, you don't think the negotiators weren't working in the best interests of the citizens they are supposed to represent, do you?
Easy! By bringing wages in Japan, Australia and the USA down to Vietnam levels.
Well Plato said democracy only works with educated and informed voters. The problem is most voters are shit-brained morons who should have never been given the right to vote, because this is what happens. If you voted Democrat or Republican, you made this happen, SO FUCK YOU!
there is a mistaken notion that you have to devise a perfect solution to the problem before improving the problem
for example: we have laws against rape and murder. that doesn't stop all rape and murder, but no one is arguing that, just because we can't stop all rape and murder, we shouldn't have any laws against them. but we do have morons arguing that because we can't magically stop all corruption, we shouldn't try to minimize it
the point is to simply minimize the problem. the simple fact is that many nations do better than the usa in regards to controlling corruption and plutocrat interest. with very simple changes (simple in construct, i didn't say simple to achieve). for example: we pass laws that cut down on the election cycle funding by corporations and plutocrats. i'd argue the most destructive event against the usa, in it's entire history, worse than 9/11, worse than pearl harbor, even worse than the civil war, is the 2010 citizens' united decision. let's start by reversing that
a lot of whining at this point about how that's hard. because the right thing is hard to do is an argument against doing it? anything worth doing in this world is hard by definition. if it were easy, it would already be done. this is just lazy whiners
elect people that would promise to reverse citizen's united. i'm not saying it's going to happen in 2016. but every day people grow angrier and more aware of the problem. look at the interest in trump and sanders. these "protest votes" would usually fade by now in previous cycles. but people are really getting mad. at some point, a tipping point will be reached. this problem isn't going away, and is getting worse. not enough people are paying attention right now. but more and more are every day
really our biggest enemy is acceptance and cynicism. there's always people with bad intent in this world. they always need to be defeated. but instead of rolling up our sleeves and doing that, the perplexing and maddening thing is people who roll over and accept being robbed, and then rationalize their victimhood with cynicism. this is our real enemy: willing slaves
you will see this mentality in many comments in this thread and other threads on the topic of corruption and government. those people are the real reason we have our problems
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Are you a large multinational?
No? Bend over.
No, people in Slashdot think this treaty is evil because what is in it has been deliberately concealed by people with a history of being untrustworthy.
Until 1913, customs duties (tariffs) and excise taxes were the primary sources of federal revenue. This was by design of the Constitutional framers. In 1913 the income tax was introduced and coincidentally or not the federal reserve corporation was also established. Provided that globalists corporations shift their tax liability to the most corrupt or more politely business friendly tax haven the funding of the US government falls almost exclusively on the shoulders of the middle class who can afford to pay taxes.
Do not like any provision in this agreement? Tough luck, your elective representatives have no power to enact any change.
This agreement is yet another boon for multinational corporations who own politicians and another step towards global totalitarian government.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
and the first clue should have been "negotiated in secret". This is almost all the bad IP parts of the bills the Congress has been trying to pass but couldn't because of the public scrutiny (see SOPA, CISPA, etc.). Now they just get to vote "yes" on a "jobs" bill. The only remaining question is can they do it without drooling at the prospect of the campaign finance monies they'll get for doing the bidding of their handlers.
"Stronger IP protections" are not for the "creative types you know". They're for the ownership types you know. And for the government types you know. Whistleblower protections would disappear and so would anything like fair use. It's the DMCA on a global scale. You comfortable with global enforcement?
The countries signing the TPP are not ones that generally violate IP protections, anyway.
https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
You are welcome on my lawn.
You must be delusional. You're competing agains thrid world labor. The only way to compete with that is to live and work in third world conditions. Enjoy being a serf.
The TPP isn't a free trade agreement. What it does do is give corporations pre-eminence over nation states and the right to sue in secret courts, if the states are deemed to have adversely affect the earnings of the said corporations. Similarly to how Canada was sued under NAFTA by a private company for trying to build a second bridge over the Detroit River. Canada's chief crime being the attempt at protecting the environment and the health of Canadians. So we can all stop the pretence that our governments actually represent the interests of the citizens.
Why you should care about the TPP