Monday, May 2, 2016

The Road to Corporate Tyranny

That might as well be the name of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the “free” trade agreement currently being negotiated between the unelected EU and the United States, given the new details here, with the agreement set to allow corporations the right to sue governments for social, economic or environment regulation that causes them “loss of profits” in secret anti-democratic tribunals.

Just another reason why the people of Europe should abolish the rotten EU, and why the UK should vote to leave it on the 23 June.

25 comments:

  1. Btw in israel bagatz (israeli supereme court) prevented a deal between netanyahu and nobel energy (american energy company) because netanyahu tried to sign a contract where he will force the israeli government into a situation where israeli parliament will not have the right to tax or regulate further nobel energy.

    Our superme court prevented this deal because its undemocratic binding contract.

    So i hope europeans will finally understand that this agreement and the eu itself are undemocratic as well in the same way our supereme court understood it already.

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    1. please explain in detail why the eu itself is undemocratic? can you cite an example of a democratic international agreement?

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    2. lol.. he could give you hordes of examples, Mr Anonymous bloody idiot.

      The fact that the European Commission is unelected?

      The fact that the European Commission, despite being unelected, is the executive of the EU and has the sole right to propose legislation? And the fact that the European Commission proposes legislation largely in secret with committees filled with big businesses and corporate interests?

      That even though European Commission members are proposed by member EU governments, once the Commission members are appointed they are independent and not accountable or capable of being removed by democratic election?

      That the (basically) rubber stamp European Parliament cannot even propose legislation?

      That once something becomes a European law, only the unelected European Commission has the sole right to repeal or change that legislation?

      That even though technically the EU parliament has the power to dismiss the Commission by a two thirds majority vote, the parliament STILL have no bloody power at all to force a new Commission to change or adopt different policies?

      And then another outrage: that EU Fiscal Compact (= the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union) of 2012 effectively imposed a ban on stimulative Keynesian economic policy in many Eurozone countries?

      If you had any background knowledge you know all this yourself, but you sound like a troll.

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    3. He asked you for an example of a "democratic" international agreement, though. Any replies?

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    4. An example of an agreement between democratically elected governments?
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Irish_Agreement

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  2. I will wait for a less argumentative source before reaching a conclusion. For example this special court. That might be a less powerful arbiter than courts, designed merely to prevent fig leaf use of environmental or other laws as actually just de facto protectionism. I don't say it is, only that I won't take the Independent's word for it.

    I note the GMO thing. The EU's policy on GMO is both immoral and wooish.

    Are you a GMO scaremonger LK? I supposie from the Searle thing you are concerned about Purity of Essence and Precious Bodily Fluids at risk?

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    1. First of all its pretty dubious that an unelected organization negotiating trade agreements.

      Second as far as i know its not anout discrimanatory taxation regulation policy,but about taxation and enviromental policy in general.

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    2. (1) "That might be a less powerful arbiter than courts, designed merely to prevent fig leaf use of environmental or other laws as actually just de facto protectionism"

      Huh?

      Anyway, your prior assumption that protectionism is some horrible evil is just rubbish.

      As for the secret tribunals:

      http://www.cbsnews.com/news/right-and-left-decry-trade-pacts-secret-tribunals/

      http://www.citizen.org/tppinvestment

      https://blog.nader.org/2015/06/25/king-obama-his-royal-court-and-the-tpp/

      (2) as for GMO, I don't care much about this issue and am quite willing to accept they are not harmful, but national governments **still** have the right to ban GMO products, just like any other good, if their people want that.

      (3) "I supposie from the Searle thing you are concerned about Purity of Essence and Precious Bodily Fluids at risk?"

      oh dear, still angry that you got roundly trashed in that issue?

      I am still waiting to hear how crude behaviourist Turing tests are sufficient to identify even basic human conscious intelligence, when children and mentally impaired people could easily and repeatedly fail Turing tests.

      You've lost and you know it.

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    3. Perhaps you can unpack this one for me, or point me in the right direction. I've heard that Bernie Sander's anti-free trade rhetoric is "Mercantilist Lies that Adam Smith refuted centuries ago." I'm loosely quoting someone else's rant lol. What's your response, since you don't like those agreements any better than I do, it would appear?

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    4. https://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2014/06/protectionism-and-us-economic-history.html

      https://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2011/01/mises-on-ricardian-law-of-association.html

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  3. LK has forgotten to explain what exactly is rotten in EU. Why exactly is it EU fault if politics of italy and greece are fundamentally broken?

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    1. If its about greece or italy is simple they have no independent currency and cant devalue their currency to be more competitve again.

      And the treatment of this situation by the ecb is different from the treatment of germany for example

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    2. See above, Mr Anonymous bloody idiot.

      If the politics of Eurozone member states are broken, it is by being members of the EU and Eurozone.

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    3. Daniel, having your own currency allows you to devalue in case of emergency, such as a panic in the bonds market like 2012, but it doesn't allow you to permanently increase public spending. Plenty of wasteful public spending is a Greek and Italian problem, not EU problem.

      About LK, you don't even deserve a reply. I've better things to do.

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    4. Anonymous@May 3, 2016 at 3:01 AM

      In other words, you have no reply to the fact that the EU is anti-democratic, and we can prove this quite easily.

      Now you've been humiliated by simple facts, you have no reply, so by all means, old chap, sod off back to where you came from. I won't miss you.

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    5. Anonymous

      In case its a debt in your sovereign currency the central bank can purchase all government debt back and guess what nothing will happen in this case the world would not die,and if you dont believe me you can see japan as an good example for that.

      What really kills the economy of the countries is the high burden of private debt.

      But anyway anonymous this blog called post keyensian blog and before you are saying things here i will recommend you to read post keynesianism 101 and debunking austrian 101 it will answer your questions.

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  4. Now hold on a second.

    A major criticism of trade agreements is that businesses from certain legal jurisdictions can not compete with businesses that don't have to face the same environmental regulations.

    Would this not force everyone to apply the same environmental standards all over the world?

    Also, the one entity responsible for many of these health and environmental standards is the EU itself.

    Wouldn't leaving the EU possibly mean losing those standards and possibly even dismantling them to keep the businesses competitive?

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    1. Those standrats not wrriten by sovereign countries (like the european countries or some sort of united states of europe) but by dubious organization which serve the interests of the stronger countries in the union (germany) and hardcore neoliberal organizations like (imf)

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    2. No. Common European national standards, negotiated between national states, do not need nor require the anti-democratic EU.

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  5. I’m really not sure how I’ll be voting in June, but what do you make of these articles LK?

    http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/no-we-cant-protect-ourselves-from-ttip-by-leaving-europe-heres-why-a6853876.html

    http://www.businessforscotland.co.uk/brexit-wont-stop-ttip-but-can-a-better-deal-be-negotiated/

    http://dartfordgreenparty.org.uk/petitions-action-and-events/brexit-will-not-stop-ttip/

    http://giffenman-miscellania.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/ttip-is-very-bad-excuse-to-vote-for.html

    They’re stating that ttip would still go through and potentially be worse if we left. Cameron also seems to be perfectly happy with it:

    http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/item/21262-david-cameron-we-will-rue-the-day-we-defeat-the-ttip

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    1. Anonymous this is heterodox economic blog,and in my opinion (i hope its ok to speak from your name LK) LK and the readers who have hetereodox economic thinking dont really take this sources which are taken from mainstream sources as legitimate sources for this arguement.

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    2. Sorry If I'm missing something, but I don't see how this is relevant. The question is over whether or not TTIP would go through if we left the EU, not what kind of economics those sources advocate.

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    3. As far as i understand if uk leave european union and english government will not desire to participate in this agreement this agreement will not be posed on uk.

      But maybe i am mistaken something dont catch me on the word.

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    4. Well the Tories seem perfectly happy to speed ahead with it, as the above links show.

      I have been told that if an EU member country rejects the agreement then it has a knock on effect, preventing the deal as a whole, and that countries that leave the EU can still be bound into ttip for 20 years if it goes through. I haven't yet got a linkable source on this, so i'll need to double check and reply later. All i'm saying is, "dont rely on brexit to escape ttip". I say this as someone who is on the fence over whether to leave in June.

      It could happen whether we're in or out. The discussion on this particular issue should be: "will leaving make it more or less likely to happen, and more or less likely to be worse?".

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  6. LK

    Have you done a post on the pros and cons of brexit?

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