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."
I'm so excited by this. I love surprises.
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?
There's an election going on here. Whether or not Canada signs is depends greatly upon which party wins. Right now, it's pretty much a (nationwide) three-way tie. But that doesn't mean an even sharing of the seats in parliament, as the NDP are expected to "waste" a lot of votes in Quebec, so it's actually a much closer race between the Liberals and incumbent Conservatives.
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
any one for reclaiming their government from the corporations and plutocrats that have corrupted it to their purposes?
or are we all just going to sit around whining about government, full stop, no further thought on the topic
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and, might I add, vote the damn thing down without amendments. otherwise, all job types will meet an H1B type competition.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
vote trump he will kill this
Of course those morons passed fast track for this TREATY, which it is.
So no matter what nasty surprises are found in it, if anyone actually gets to see it, changing them will next to impossible.
Someone should sue and charge that this is, in fact, a Treaty and subject to the provisions of the Constitution regarding treaties.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Proponents will also have to answer
You can give China MFN status one day in the name of "human rights" theater and then lecture Americans about the importance of environmental protection the next, and no one anywhere blinks an eye. Exactly when are proponents going to have to answer to anyone, about anything? Elites have been trading US prosperity for various and sundry bad overseas agendas since forever and none of them have ever paid the least price.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
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!
Sorry, I don't oppose TTP because of Obama. I oppose it because it is a secret deal, pre approved by the powers that be, and enough (D) and (R) supported it to make it bi-partisan. If you support it, not knowing anything other than it was "Obama says it will be good" then you are the real fool. I bet you'd oppose it if GWB supported it (all other things considered).
The fact is, the whole (D) good (R) bad (Or visa versa) is really getting old. And do not pretend the (D) don't do the very same thing. Blindly following your party is for Sheeple.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-...
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Next decade?
They are building them now.
Time to offend someone
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.
Has anyone here ever met anyone who is in favor of the Trans Pacific Partnership?
I mean, I've met people who don't know what it is, but I have yet to meet someone who's all, "Yes! We need this Trans Pacific Partnership to make my life better."
You are welcome on my lawn.
slashdot is overwhelmingly conservative.
If anything Slashdot is Libertarian. Pro Liberal social policies, pro conservative fiscal policies, with a fair amount of independent thought.
But I could understand liberals thinking /. is conservative, and conservatives seeing it more liberal.
But case in point, there are both liberals and conservatives that both support or reject it. Bernie Sanders isn't really conservative, but opposes TPP vehemently. As does Trump. Strange bed fellows indeed.
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Since Canada, USA and Mexico are all involved in this deal, this will replace NAFTA. To get a better idea of how this will affect you, just look at what NAFTA did.
Then surely, as our nation would be a party to the treaty, we need 8 years to examine it and determine if we should sign it.
I haven't decided yet if I like the TPP or not - particularly as we haven't know the full details
That is people problem though. FASTTRACK essential means our elected representatives HAVE decided they like, and they largely haven't seen the full details either! More than that the smaller group of officials actually negotiating the thing did not let larger group look at it except under insane conditions where they could not even take notes.
It does not matter if its a good law or not, they way its being enacted amounts to a total subversion of how our system of representative democracy was supposed to work. That should be enough reason to oppose the thing on its own. We need to send the message we demand sunshine in the legislative process!
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
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.
Maybe that would get more attention on the problem.
I'm in favor of TPP, and of trade agreements generally. Consider the case of NAFTA, as an example that is less broad in scope and yet similarly reviled. We can now look at it in a bit of an historical perspective.
The populist arguments against NAFTA have generally been that it "enriches corporations, at the expense of American jobs". While it eased Canadian-US trade somewhat, the most visible effect of NAFTA was that US-Mexican trade was eased to the point that hundreds of maquiladoras (manufacturing facilities) sprung up close to the US border. Among other changes, Mexico has now become a top-10 exporter of automobiles.
The maquiladoras have enhanced the lives of many millions of Mexicans. Meanwhile, it had a mixed effect on the USA, in particular pressuring hundreds of thousands of US autoworkers. Benefits to the US were much more diffuse than the lost autoworker jobs, leading many people to conclude those benefits were negligible. That's a common policy-maker's problem, where a special-interest group (here, US autoworkers) holds policy or public opinion hostage to its interests because the incremental advantage of good policy is, while larger in aggregate, thinly spread among a large constituency. It's quite recognizable in, for example, the activities of the sugar lobby on influencing congressional lawmakers.
Such lobbies, by the way, are a big reason trade agreements must be negotiated privately, keeping details hidden from the public. Otherwise, special interest groups end up completely destroying the process while negotiations are underway. Remember, sugar tariffs are very good for the sugar lobby.
While I appreciate patriotism, I personally feel that we should be trying to make life better for humanity in general, rather than greedily holding onto wealth in the USA. Taking at face value the Wharton study quoted above, the USA was able to enrich Mexicans at zero cost to itself. From that point of view, similar trade agreements are nearly a moral imperative!
Coming back to TPP, it has some leaked aspects that I think are truly terrible, such as the intellectual freedom troubles. Those criticisms I consider reasonable, and I can appreciate why that would cause an informed and intelligent person to oppose the TPP. On the other hand, a kind of knee-jerk hatred to trade agreements in general appears to drive much of the opposition, and I think of those anti-trade arguments as having no moral standing, just like the ones put forth by the sugar lobby.
On balance, then, I think the benefits to human happiness worldwide from even an agreement with flawed and overly-broad terms will outweigh the serious problems, but I can see how intellectual freedom considerations might make you feel otherwise.
Did you swallow your kid's See 'N Say?
Canada has been completely screwed over by NAFTA. If we try to enact any kind of environmental protection, a US company sues Canada for millions. It creates a situation where if Canada wants to reduce the amount of water, lumber or other natural resources exported, or more tightly control the extraction of those resources, US companies can succesfully sue Canada for increased costs or lost profit.
NAFTA's Chapter 11 Makes Canada Most-Sued Country Under Free Trade Tribunals
It's great that poor countries can see increased growth from this, but the reality is large trade agreements often make a few people companies/people richer while reducing a country's sovreignty and the quality of life of the average joe.
Now we get to see the perfunctory "review period" in action - complete with prebuilt talking points.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Sanders opposes and has opposed Citzens United, Corporate Financing of Election, the TPP, and the Iraq war since the beginning. He has never accepted corporate money in his entire career and isn't now that he's running for president.
AFAIK he is the only candidate with a long political record who's speeches are in line with his actions. You could vote for him or, you know, talk about the cynacism of the two party system and how political change is impossible.
I do know one thing. Cynacism is obedience to the plutocracy. Sure, it talks differently, but it functions exactly the same way.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
"Creative output"? No change whatsoever.
Indie authors and musicians are not "sharply on the rise". There's just a new word, "indie", invented to make it seem like it was something that didn't happen until millennials invented "being creative while making hardly any money". And to think that stronger and longer IP protections is the reason behind the rise of indie artists is just dumb. Do you really believe some kid making music with ProTools in his bedroom cares about whether or not his grandchildren are going to share in the profits?
The people who say "stronger and longer IP protections is good for creativity" are almost universally people who have never done anything creative.
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