Full Text of Trans-Pacific Partnership Released (Officially, This Time) (mfat.govt.nz)

EmagGeek writes: The full text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, has been officially released, and is available for the public to see. According to CNN, The TPP is a 12-nation deal that touches on 40% of the global economy. The provisions of the deal would knock down tariffs and import quotas, making it cheaper to import and export, and open new Asia-Pacific markets. Negotiations have been going on for years, led by the United States and Japan — with China conspicuously absent from the list of signees.

Comments

This is fantastic.

[gavron]

I once went on a date where the girl said "I am going to set everything up. It will be a surprise. You'll like it! Don't try to guess what's going to happen!"

It was a great time!

The TTP is almost like that. We don't know what's coming until it does; we all get fucked; big pharma and big media have a great time.

E

Re:This is fantastic.

[Pseudonymous Powers]

we all get fucked; big pharma and big media have a great time.

So the TPP is all about movies, drugs, and sex that one partner enjoys way more than the other? Say, that really does sound like a date!

Re:This is fantastic.

[gstoddart]

So the TPP is all about movies, drugs, and sex that one partner enjoys way more than the other?

Sure, if you mean using date rape drugs and filming it ... because that's pretty much what this stupid deal is doing to us.

It's a grab bag of stuff from the wishlist of multinational corporations, pushed through by people who are more beholden to corporate profits than their own citizens, and largely written by the industries it benefits.

Mark my words, this really is just more "race to the bottom" crap, and won't benefit citizens.

Re:This is fantastic.

[Zak3056]

You're welcome? It's not like we (citizens) have any say in what our government does. That's the greatest illusion in history. Federal elections are decided by who has the most money from "Special interests".

The older I get, the more I reject that notion. Sure, the media is manipulating you and election season is a three ring circus, and yes, there is undoubtedly election fraud that nudges things a bit, but in the end, the people still vote, and the people elect the government they deserve. Everyone pretty much agrees with YOUR statement, "special interests blah blah blah" but upwards of 90% of you (at least the ones that vote) KEEP VOTING FOR THE SAME PEOPLE! What the fuck do you expect is going to happen?

Douglas Adams summed the situation up really well in So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish:

“On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”

“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

Re:First post, substantive

[cdrudge]

There is something fundamentally suspicious when there is no all-up posting made. You have to download a rather large number of chunks to get the whole thing.

Or you could just download the zip file of all the chapters that is at the bottom of the page.

It also does away with national sovereigty!

[pecosdave]

Do you want to outlaw something traded under this agreement in your own country?
Nope! Your government will be tried in an international court!

Want to legalize something not legal in this agreement or buy it from a supplier not under the agreement while one who is under it sells it at a higher price?
Nope! Your government will be tried in an international court!

Trade is only the excuse for this agreement. Just like the patriot act and affordable care act specifics are so vague it to allow any interpretation desired by those who head up the agreement. It's also structures in such a way that nations not complying with changes afterward will be punished. This is not an "agreement" as it's called, it's a treaty. Notice corporation wrote most of it.

This is the official handing over of the government to corporations. It's been happening in practice, but that pesky constitution and balance of powers occasionally gets in the way. This is the bypass for it.

If you DON'T bully your representatives, beg, plead and even threaten them to keep this from passing we're all going to be part of the "expanded EU".

Re:It also does away with national sovereigty!

[gstoddart]

Well, here's the problem with all of this: this was a treaty America wanted, actively pushed it as being important, and allowed industry to write most of it (like all US laws and treaties are written by industry).

America pushed this on the rest of the world, not the other way around.

If there's a treaty expanding copyright terms and otherwise giving corporations the upper hand, it's being championed by Americans, and pushed on other countries.

Sorry, but this is hardly the first treaty the US has championed which only serves corporate interests. And the rest of the world has no sympathy when Americans suddenly say how bad this treaty is -- because it's your government who pushed for it.

Your government has been so thoroughly coopted to serve the interests of huge multinationals, you should be yelling at your own politicians, instead of acting tough by saying you'll grow a pair and tell the world this is an unfair treaty. We already know this.

Why do Americans keep thinking this is being done to you by other countries? It's your own politicians who drive this crap.

So don't whine about your sovereignty, because this is what the rest of the world has been dealing with for years. And it usually is the US threatening trade sanctions if we don't give up OUR sovereignty for YOUR interests.

Cry us a river, you're not the only ones getting fucked over here. But you have been driving the bus.

Re:It also does away with national sovereigty!

[nehumanuscrede]

Well, here's the problem with all of this: this was a treaty America wanted, actively pushed it as being important, and allowed industry to write most of it (like all US laws and treaties are written by industry).

America pushed this on the rest of the world, not the other way around.

If there's a treaty expanding copyright terms and otherwise giving corporations the upper hand, it's being championed by Americans, and pushed on other countries.

Sorry, but this is hardly the first treaty the US has championed which only serves corporate interests. And the rest of the world has no sympathy when Americans suddenly say how bad this treaty is -- because it's your government who pushed for it.

Your government has been so thoroughly coopted to serve the interests of huge multinationals, you should be yelling at your own politicians, instead of acting tough by saying you'll grow a pair and tell the world this is an unfair treaty. We already know this.

Why do Americans keep thinking this is being done to you by other countries? It's your own politicians who drive this crap.

So don't whine about your sovereignty, because this is what the rest of the world has been dealing with for years. And it usually is the US threatening trade sanctions if we don't give up OUR sovereignty for YOUR interests.

Cry us a river, you're not the only ones getting fucked over here. But you have been driving the bus.

**************
  Let's get a few things out in the open:

1) This thing ( as are most things worth knowing ) was kept secret from everyone including those Americans you seem to rather enjoy putting all the blame on. *
2) For non-Americans, does your government listen to you ? Can you talk, call, or email your Representative and actually make a difference ?

Yeah, us either. There are only two ways to get noticed:

A) Extreme Violence will get everyone's attention. Make sure what you need to say is short, because your life is going to be a rather short one as well.
B) Extreme amounts of money to buy any legislation you want

If you wield neither method, you're just another peon in a sea of peons that will never have a voice.

So guess who our Representatives DO listen to ? Yep, the very same corporations who both wrote the draft and will benefit from it.

So, I'm curious. Short of an armed revolution, what would you propose we Americans** do to remedy this situation ? Seeing as how our government doesn't bother listening to anyone other than their Sugar Daddy corporations with unlimited funding, I am truly curious as to what steps you would recommend taking.
I know ! Maybe we should do another Occupy Movement ! Because that worked out so well the last time we tried it :|

Tip: Protests are a laughable waste of time as evidenced by the aforementioned Occupy Movement. Once they tire of your silliness, they'll declare you to be a hazard, terrorist, nun-killer, whatever and remove you and your fellow protesters by force. Resist, and watch them grin ear-to-ear as any restrictions they may have had are removed and their behavior turns lethal.

* The American Government does not represent the will of the people any longer. Hasn't for a long time. Anyone claiming otherwise is naive.

**The extremely small fraction of the populace that even still gives a shit are far outnumbered by those that do not. As their votes are just as powerful as mine, Quantity > Quality. We lose. Every. F*cking. Time.

So, to conclude, make sure you understand where the f*cking blame really sits and that the American Government represents only the American Government in all matters. They could give two shits about what anyone else thinks. ( Including their own citizens )

We have to pass it to see what's in it

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

That usually works out well, right?

Remember Trump and Sanders

[liquid_schwartz]

Remember that only 2 people are against this: Trump and Sanders. The Clinton's gave us NAFTA and fully supported this agreement as the gold standard. The Republicans always push for "free trade". For the sake of yourselves and your children vote either Trump or Sanders. If it weren't for "free trade" we'd all be making approximately double what we are now as shown here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/bus...

or here:

http://www.epi.org/blog/inequa...

Re:Remember Trump and Sanders

[bluefoxlucid]

Protectionism is a good way to make an economy poor. People have this ideal that they'll make twice as much salary and have a bigger piece of the pie, except they don't realize the pie just gets smaller.

Re:Remember Trump and Sanders

[DarkOx]

On the domestic scale sure on the international scale not always the case. What you have said has been in the economics text books so long most people accept it uncritically but it fails to consider the long term effects of trade imbalances.

Generally with a nation as large and divers as ours with an array of resources as vast as ours one would be tempted to think trade imbalances could not occur but they do. The problem the free traders consistently fail to deal with is that the economies of our trading partners are not in many cases as market oriented as our own and our own economy is not really a true open market anymore either. The rules over and above the enforcement of private property rights create opportunities to game the system and so the system gets gamed.

If we were to:
Drop the new Obamacare employer mandates
Drop the individual mandate
Drop all payroll and corporate taxes
Replace income taxes with a flat tax
Either rollback health/safety and environmental protections -or- restrict trade to nations with comparable regulation and enforcement

Then we could have free trade with the remaining partners. Otherwise the ability to game the system is always going to temp people to shop the market the imposes the least penalty for the negative externalizes of whatever it is they do and lowest cost labor while still selling the output of that production into the more lucrative American market and enjoying the gifts of our society themselves. Their will be a net outflow of wealth until the US reaches nearer equilibrium in terms of median personal wealth with the rest of the world. I know there are many on the left of the political graph who think there is Justice in that, and may influencers on the Right side who don't care because they are 1%ers doing the gaming and don't care what happens to the rest of us.

Personally I'd rather the USA stay the worlds richest nation! That is almost certain to be whats best for me, my family, and my friends. I have no desire to try and hold any other nation down or prevent the expansion of the middle class around the world. Good luck to them, but I see no reason we need to give away what's ours to enable that. Now some lefties are going to return to say we unfairly came by what we have. Yes okay maybe if you want to say we took the land from the Natives, but other than that no not really if you look at the whole of those situations and the alternatives.

Re:First post, substantive

[Crowd Computing]

Or you can focus on the file containing the topic likely to be of most interest to Slashdot readers: intellectual property. A quick search through the chapter turned up the following section on the public domain:

Article 18.15: Public Domain
1. The Parties recognise the importance of a rich and accessible public domain.
2. The Parties also acknowledge the importance of informational materials, such as publicly accessible databases of registered intellectual property rights that assist in the identification of subject matter that has fallen into the public domain.

The agreement merely asks countries to "recognise" [sic] and "acknowledge" the importance of the public domain. This contrasts with the provisions on copyright and patents, which demand compliance in many instances, including the following example on "Criminal Procedures and Penalties" (Art. 18.77):

Each Party shall provide for criminal procedures and penalties to be applied at least in cases of wilful trademark counterfeiting or copyright or related rights piracy on a commercial scale.

The definition of "commercial scale" is particularly troubling: "significant acts, not carried out for commercial advantage or financial gain, that have a substantial prejudicial impact on the interests of the copyright or related rights holder in relation to the marketplace."

Re:First post, substantive

[bigpat]

The agreement merely asks countries to "recognise" [sic] and "acknowledge" the importance of the public domain. This contrasts with the provisions on copyright and patents, which demand compliance in many instances, including the following example on "Criminal Procedures and Penalties" (Art. 18.77):

That hits the nail on the head... All the parts that screw people over are iron clad, specified to the extreme while all the consumer, labor, environmental protections are all fluffy piles of bull shit wrapped in language you could drive a truck full of slaves through to their coal fired baby seal killing factory.