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President Obama Gives Up On The Trans-Pacific Partnership (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes The Guardian:
White House officials conceded on Friday that the president's hard-fought-for Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal would not pass Congress, as lawmakers there prepared for the anti-global trade policies of President-elect Donald Trump. Earlier this week, congressional leaders in both parties said they would not bring the trade deal forward during a lame-duck session of Congress, before the formal transition of power on January 20.
One Canadian law professor had argued the case against the TPP included its unbalanced intellectual property rules and risks to privacy, while the EFF believed it locked in the worst parts of U.S. copyright law and also exported them to other countries.
One Canadian law professor had argued the case against the TPP included its unbalanced intellectual property rules and risks to privacy, while the EFF believed it locked in the worst parts of U.S. copyright law and also exported them to other countries.
From what I've read, the law was written by the MPAA/RIAA cartel, along with considerable input from Big Pharma. The law was designed more for the protection of those conglomerates, and less for any benefit of consumers. There's a reason why the creation of the law was so secretive.
Free trade is great, but the TPP was mostly not about trade. It was about copyright.
Seems like they are trying to make it sound like the TPP was a good thing, and Donald is ruining it for everyone. Except the TPP was definitely a bad thing for anyone who isn't the head of a huge corporation. Maybe this Trump thing could be a good thing.
The idea that tariffs were invented for "freedom" is absurd. They were invented to protect domestic industries against competition. And the lesson of erecting large tariff walls is that it is the consumer that ends up paying to protect these industries, and the industries themselves become ever less competitive, protected in a nice encirclement of economic privilege. But that cannot be sustained forever, and eventually when the door opens a little bit, the coddled and increasingly indolent domestic industry is crushed.
Besides, the whole fucking thing is going to be automated in a few decades. Even the wage slaves of Bangladesh and China will be out of a job. And then what? Erect tariffs against foreign robots, or even better, against domestic robots?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There was never a single country that *invaded* Russia that didn't regret it profoundly. Russia (and the Russian dominated Soviet Union) has been successfully confronted many times.
The "obsession" with confrontation is that it's run by an authoritarian who assasinates and jails his political opponents, is killing civilians wholesale in Syria, has subverted his country's electoral process, and has ambitions of creating an empire in Europe. Not opposing people like that is also something people have historically regretted. So the smart thing is to oppose him without invading his country.
Fortunately for us Putin's run his country's economy into the ground with crony capitalism. It's too bad for the Russians but soon the economic disaster is going to curtail his international ambitions.
I'm all for being friends with Russia. I said back in '92 George H.W. Bush was making a big mistake by not extending Russia the hand of friendship. But at present there's no way to separate Russia from Putin, and Putin should be contained.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.