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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.
It's nice to see that there is one good thing to come out of this last election. And I guess I'd better cherish it, because there aren't many.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Remember when the TPP was 'the gold standard' of trade agreements and HRC was 'so proud of all her hard work on it' until Bernie Sanders came out against it, then she suddenly had no idea what TPP was? This administration has a really bad habit of satisfying itself with 'any agreement' instead of holding out for 'good agreements'...
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.
He also had more whistleblower prosecutions than all previous presidents COMBINED, all during "the most transparent administration in history".
Back when the first full text got leaked, I read through the entire damned thing, and while there were plenty of sections that were not fucking wretched, there was not a single one that began to make up for the many sections that were fucking wretched.
At times like this, I'd like to remember Google for having sold us out on the TPP:
https://blog.google/topics/pub...
Thanks for nothing, sellouts.
>Can't afford democratic plans anymore.
You don't have one. Obamacare was a republican plan, originally written by the heartland institute and first implemented in law by governor Mitt Romney. Why do you think the left was never happy with it. We only tolerated it as "better than nothing" we never thought it was "good" - it was Obama's 'reach across the aisle' move to do healthcare reform EXACTLY as republicans have always wanted to do it - and then suddenly they hated it.
America needs truly Universal Healthcare - along with price controls on pharmaceuticals. You want an actual democratic plan ? It means putting all the insurance companies out of business for ever.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The only way to bring healthcare under control so folks can afford it at all will be to regulate it.
When you allow Big Pharma and Hospitals the ability to charge whatever they want, does it surprise anyone when they put their profits first ?
Regulate it and you'll go a long way in removing the need to have health insurance at all.
The current state of healthcare in this country is barely treading water as it is. We're already seeing folks opt out of the plans due to high costs. Once enough go, the money to sustain the rest is gone and the whole thing implodes.
The ONLY way this works is the plans have to be cheap enough for folks to afford. Two ways to achieve that:
1) Get more folks to sign up* and / or
2) Regulate the healthcare industry
*Unlikely given the premiums and out of pocket costs are quickly rising.
Don't regulate it and this will forever be a problem.
Healthcare is a critical infrastructure. It should not be a system driven by profits.