• Parties at odds over national interests.
By Ronald L. Ray —
A funny thing happened on the way to global governance. Just when the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was supposed to move one step closer to world corporatocracy, it stumbled over nationalism and fell. It may soon rise up again—all too soon—but the world’s plutocrats took a pace backward in failing to reach agreement on the final text of the proposed “free trade” treaty at the end of July in Lahaina, Hawaii.
The TPP is meant to bind irrevocably the 11 largest non-United States economies around the Pacific rim, except China, to U.S. hegemony. But despite super secrecy and some 650 U.S. government shills for Big Business—plus 150 reporters and hundreds of lobbyists euphemistically called “stakeholders”—the internationalists were unable to leap key hurdles in their race to control mankind.
The beginning of August was seen as a “drop dead” date for concluding the deal among the U.S., Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam—nations representing 40% of the world’s gross domestic product. The TPP would create for the Americas and Asia the equivalent of the European Union, albeit for now without the political union. It is one more knot in the economic noose intended to strangle Russia and China on the road to one-world tyranny.
Nevertheless, TPP ratification by participant countries is highly dependent on national politics. Because of the timeline for approval established by Congress’s passage of unconstitutional “fast-track” trade promotion authority, concluding the final TPP text after August 1 pushes U.S. ratification into the 2016 election campaign cycle, leaving the treaty’s quick adoption by Congress uncertain. Canada’s elections were called for next year, as well, placing in doubt that government’s ability to impose the financial farce on Canadians any time soon.
After the last-minute failure of talks, ministers present for the conference issued a face-saving joint statement, declaring, “In this last stage of negotiations, we are more confident than ever that TPP is within reach. . . . The progress made . . . reflects our longstanding commitment to deliver an ambitious, comprehensive and high-standard TPP agreement that will support jobs and economic growth across the Asia Pacific region.”
Jobs and economic growth for the American Pacific region are not mentioned, suggesting that even more millions of jobs will be robbed from Americans, Canadians, Mexicans and South Americans and sent to slave-labor shops in the Far East.
And while ostensibly only a few issues must be resolved for completion of the TPP text, negotiators have dug in their heels, seeing them as matters of national interest. Still, unity seems more a unicorn than a reality. One unnamed official stated, according to Reuters, “[It’s] not always clear where things stand. I know about my issues, but I don’t always know what’s happening with other countries.”
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch told the news and commentary website “Common Dreams”: “Only the beleaguered negotiators and most of the 600 official U.S. trade advisers representing corporate interests wanted this deal, which recent polling shows is unpopular in most of the countries involved.”
The biggest roadblock in this reckless race to economic insanity is the chapter on intellectual property, pitting the U.S. against nearly every other country participating. U.S. Trade Representative Michael B. Froman, a former president of B’nai B’rith Youth Organization (now called BBYO), an arm of B’nai B’rith International, which is committed to the security of Jews and Israel and fighting “antisemitism” and bigotry, continues to prostitute for giant pharmaceutical companies and copyright extremists demanding much greater protections for their goods and services than exist in the rest of the region. If successful, it could mean more expensive medicines with less availability. Copyright and patent holders could receive the ability to seize potentially all of a “violator’s” business assets, even if not directly connected to the alleged copyright infringement.
New Zealand insists on open export markets for its dairy products, opposed by Canada in particular. Japan and the U.S. are fighting over automobile imports, but the latter caved in on import tariffs on Japanese beef. U.S. Big Tobacco wants the same right to sue governments for loss of profits as was given to other industries. Mexico demands protection for its sugar producers.
Seemingly comfortable with child slavery and prostitution, the Obama administration upgraded Malaysia’s human trafficking status, apparently to keep that country in the TPP.
Corporations could compel governments to “privatize” state-owned enterprises, handing over control of significant government-run functions like road construction, rail travel or water supplies operated for public benefit to the clutches of avaricious plutocrats. And national and local rulers would be forced to include foreign sources in government procurements. Forget “Made in U.S.A.” TPP is a real-life game of Monopoly, except it is not a game, and the average citizen will always lose.
TPP has nothing to do with “free trade,” developing jobs or prosperity for the multitudes. It is a massive power grab by multi-national corporations seeking a government-protected stranglehold on commerce—a tightly woven web of unassailable monopolies protected by an unelected secret trade tribunal. Even Reuters admitted TPP is “one-size-fits-all standards on issues ranging from workers rights to environmental protection and dispute settlement between governments and foreign investors.”
Share this information with friends and politicians alike. Tell Congress to deep-six the treasonous Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Ronald L. Ray is a freelance author and an assistant editor of THE BARNES REVIEW. He is a descendant of several patriots of the American War for Independence.
TPP Puts Sovereignty at Grave Risk
By Mark Anderson
It’s an American tradition to limit the power of government to protect the people from its excesses. Yet the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) takes that concept in the wrong direction, as it would, in a very dramatic and possibly permanent way, limit government by putting corporations in charge. As a result, the 12 governments that have signed onto the TPP would see their powers limited—but according to the designs of transnational banks and other corporations that have replaced the people as the real constituents.
Anything not nailed down, and many things that are nailed down, are being privatized. Toll roads are being leased for decades to foreign firms. Water plants, student busing, bridges, utilities and countless other things large and small also are “going private,” under the seductive neoliberal capitalist belief that the private sector and “the market” are hallowed realms and the investor class is somehow superior to the working class and the consumer—and above any law.
The U.S. state of Indiana surrendered their toll roads and grabbed the foreign investment money upfront under a trans-generational 75-year lease to allow corporate road investors to raise toll charges if necessary.
According to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks and other sources, a never-before-seen TPP portion reveals that any state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that are seen as being competitive with private companies will come under increased scrutiny via the TPP—if and when the TPP is fully ratified by its member nations on both sides of the Pacific.
What appears to be lurking under the floor boards of the TPP is the outright privatization of virtually everything in society. Is that possible?
According to Philip Dorling, writing on the Australian news website The Saturday Paper, “University of Auckland trade expert Jane Kelsey said the [TPP’s] draft SOE text appeared to be ‘totally U.S.-driven’ and [she] raised a wide range of concerns about putting corporate interests ahead of the delivery of public services.”
Professor Kelsey observed that certain entities are defined as SOEs “because they have functions other than those that are merely commercial, such as guaranteed access to important services, or because social, cultural, development and commercial functions are inextricably intertwined.”
Kelsey added: “[An] SOE engaged in public broadcasting, railways, or research may have hybrid roles, some being commercial and some not. Would the entire enterprise have to act on the basis of commercial considerations?”
She added that once SOEs and private firms are “competitively neutral,” then privatization advocates will say “there is no justification for retaining state ownership because the private sector can bring efficiency gains, choice and competition to the provision of the public service.”
So far, TPP negotiations have been secretive, but it’s believed that the future of publicly owned enterprises such as Australia’s state power utilities are on the negotiating table at the TPP talks just concluded in Hawaii. The discredited belief that privatization always means better services and cheaper prices has hypnotized many a nation. In reality, it often simply means services are put under the control of Wall Street firms and global speculators for their profit.
Under the TPP, foreign companies would be enabled to sue SOEs in domestic courts for perceived departures from the TPP rules, and countries could even be sued by other TPP countries, or by private companies from those countries. Developing nations (like Vietnam) in which large numbers of SOEs are part of the economic infrastructure would be affected most. SOEs continue to play a vital public role in even the most privatized countries.
This means that, if the transnational riff-raff in three-piece suits prevail, democratic institutions of any consequence simply won’t exist in any TPP nation.
Some of us may be tempted to join the libertarians in celebrating, if it weren’t for the fact that the resulting vacuum would be automatically filled by the moneyed mattoids who—long ago, with their Federal Reserve System and their global central-banking network—stole the sovereign duty of governments to create money interest-free for the common good.
AFP Roving Editor Mark Anderson is a veteran reporter who covers the annual Bilderberg meetings and is chairman of AFP’s new America First Action Committee, designed to involve AFP readers in focusing intensely on Congress to enact key changes, including monetary reform and a pullback of the warfare state. He and his wife Angie often work together on news projects.
See: “Almost Fully Operational: The Mega Cartel Death Star”
There are several reasons for the secrecy (“omerta”) of the dispute resolution tribunals. They are:
1) To Protect the parties to the treaty, and/or, agreement, i.e. corporate sponsors, from having to reveal to the non-shareholding tax payers the existing arrangements that it has with its own government. For instance, the Canadian W.A.D. Accord suggests that corporate Canada’s lobbyists pay considerations to the executives of the political parties for two main reasons:
A) to promote corporate Canada’s agenda (Corporate New Zealand, et al) with governing party(ies) by:
i) reducing its taxes and thus, the “net increase” in taxes for non-shareholders and;
ii) increase its funding for “economic development” which covers the cost of, among other things, the present and future advocacy, i.e. lobbying and the cost of the considerations that corporate Canada pays out, etc. It may be regrettable that given the source of the accessed “economic development” funds, i.e. those 95% – 99% of Canadians who are non-shareholding taxpayers there is a great deal of room for discretionary spending and its abuse and
B) to protect corporate Canada’s agenda by paying the other (non-governing) political parties considerations in order to limit the scope of the “opposition” to manageable issues that can be compromised in order that “opposing” parties can claim victories (at least a limited victory) for their constituents. Under this arrangement both, the politicians and the lobbyists’ clients are protected from scrutiny by the role of the parties’ executives.
2) To Protect the parties to the treaty, and/or, agreement, i.e. corporate sponsor from having to reveal to the each others’ corporate sponsors their existing arrangements that it has with its own government and thus, each counties’ corporate sponsors are not obliged to share the benefits and considerations (and future considerations) that they receive from their respective governments i.e. their non-shareholding taxpayers. Often the benefits are shared as an inducement to conduct business together in the more convenient jurisdictions.
3) To Protect the parties to one treaty, and/or, agreement (referred to as the “original” treaty/agreement) from having to reveal to third parties the nature, and/or, details of their “original” arrangements to other third parties who may want to enter into a treaty, and/or, agreement with either of the parties to the “original” agreement/treaty.That is to say, that acquiring and having privileged information of an outsiders treaties, and/or,
agreements will cause contention as the third party will undoubtedly insist upon more favorable terms and conditions to a new treaty/agreement than the original treaty/agreement. For example;
“You did this with them, so I insist upon more, or, I’ll deal with them, or, others.”
The European Union is particularly interested in preventing the Canada—European Union CETA from becoming divisive whereby individual EU member countries may be enticed, and/or, coerced into making preferential, but, “very secretive” side deals with corporate Canada, et al, by preventing the non-shareholding taxpayers from learning about the aforementioned reasons for the tribunals’ secrecy whereby the non-shareholding taxpayers pay for the increase in the value of the shareholders’ stocks and dividends is insider trading and stock manipulation.
FULL Article, see; ‘Inside Trading . . .’ at davidehsmith.wordpress.com
Should the Members of Congress and Members of Parliament Have to Sully Their ‘Beliefs’ and Sales Pitches with ‘Sordid’ Facts that Come from Actually Reading and Understanding Global Treaties/Arrangements?
At the risk of repeating the position, the crux of the flurry of Global Treaties is to shift the costs of corporations suing each other to suing the signatory governments; meaning, to suing the harmless Non Shareholders in order to inflate ‘profits and dividends’ of the corporations for their corporate leaders and Shareholders.
And, because the ‘disputes’ are to be resolved in secret (‘Death-Star’-Chamber) Tribunals there is no way to check and manage how much that the alleged ‘adversarial’ corporations are colluding to split any proceeds of the decisions; i.e. any penalties, and/or, ‘damages,’ particularly if the companies in the suits are owned jointly 49% – 51% (or, by any other split).
Other Tribunal abuses are;
1) Burden of proof; as the Tribunals are secret the litigants are not bound to government regulations and are not accountable to any governments, i.e. the harmless, individual taxpayers who will pay the costs of:
a) developing, operating and maintaining the Tribunals
and
b) all of the decisions regardless of which corporations wins, or, loses the disputes, i.e. The harmless, individual taxpayer is guilty in every decision at the outset of the resolution,
2) Appeals; there are no circumstances whereby the harmless taxpayers can take evidence that one, or, both of the corporations in a ‘dispute’ have acted ‘illegally.’ For instance; the Tribunals do not have to accept proof that either, or, both of the litigants have inflated costs of the damages because neither ‘litigant’ is paying any of the costs. Consequently, the challenge of malfeasance will not be raised by the litigants. The proof of inflated costs will not be heard, or, have merit with The Tribunals. Will it be up to the harmless individual taxpayer to raise the legal funds in order to try to sue the corporations in the lesser courts including The Supreme Court of Canada, et al? (see; Investment Litigation; Putin, Buffett, and/or, the ‘coveted’ Hong Kong investor)
3) Bribery/Lobbying; as the harmless taxpayers pays for all of the Global (non BRICS) Corporate Tribunals decisions, there will be no need for the corporate litigants to try and bribe the Tribunals as the ‘guilty’ party, the harmless taxpayers, have already been ascertained at the point that the Treaties/’Arrangements’ have been signed and ratified. It may not be a coincidence that as of May 20, 2015, two Republican Senators (U.S.) have admitted that they Have read the TPP. How many Senators who have Not read it are Supporting the TPP? And, how many Canadian Senators, et al, Have read it, and/or, the other Global Corporate Treaties/Agreements and as a consequence support the TPP, et al? (see; ‘IGNORAMUS et IGNORABIMUS’ (I do not know and I will Not Know),
4) Insider Trading, see; ‘SECRET TPPartnership, C-CITreaty, CETA TRIBUNALS are INSIDER TRADING,’ (davidehsmith.wordpress.com)
and
5) et al.
Therefore, one of the many areas of ‘collateral damage’ caused by the Global Corporate Treaties/Arrangements is tort law. As the corporations behind the treaties will no longer have to pay compensations because they are off-loading their liabilities to the signatory governments’ harmless taxpayers, the corporate ‘desire’ for tort ‘reform’ is moot. The Treaties are willfully causing the de facto ‘abolishment’ of significant areas of tort law.
By way of closing, what do you, the reader, think are some of the various other areas of ‘collateral damage’ that are probably the real target reasons for developing the treaties in the first place? Trade and employment are continuing to have nothing (or, very little) to do with why the corporations based in various countries have come together to protect and promote themselves at the costs of the harmless taxpayers via the flurry of Global Corporate Treaties/Arrangements.
For More Information, see, ‘TPP & Global Treaties and Anti AIIB.’ at davidehsmith.wordpress.com
Also see; ‘The Submission’ to The SUPREME COURT of CANADA: “The SHAREHOLDERS & Corporations of AMERICA, Australia, Canada, the EU, et al vs. the harmless Canadian NON shareholders, both; Native and non Native, et al” including ‘The MERKEL (Chancellor of Germany) Letter; To Sue, or, Be Sued?’
(see; davidehsmith.wordpress.com)
FULL Article, see; ‘Corporate Sovereignty and Global Corporate at davidehsmith.wordpress.com
Please consider sharing the enclosed information and questions with 10 friends who will share it with 10 others.
Grassroots America and overly polite global neighbors and need to know; Is it impolite, or, just prudent to Compare Corporate ‘America’s’ Desperation to ‘Share’ and Expand its $17 Trillion Debt via its flurry of Global Treaties/Arrangements to the ‘bitchy’ (post Nixon PMS bullying) Desperation of Zza Zza Gabor when she slapped a cop for giving her a traffic ticket (for stepping out of her ‘land of the shrinking mirror’)?
Corporate America, after its 2008 ‘Tactical Probe’ into Deregulation and Its Sub sequential Buying Short on its Global Recession, is Anxious for Its Legitimized and Globalized (TPP/TTIP/CETA) ‘Full Invasion’; HSBC’s money laundering, Enron’s insider trading, Chase Bank’s fraud, etc.
Corporate Canada and its Traditional Big 3 Political Parties are desperate to increase its play time under the ‘skirts’ of Corporate U.S. in the International Glitter Game.
TPP, TTIP, CETA; Roll-back NAFTA, et al, Tribunal Penalties (ISDS) paid by Canadian lil’ guy; $125 M and $25 M legal fees to Reneging Corporate America. U.S. Pays ‘0’. ‘You Should have Known’; President Bush. Prohibit Future TPP, et al, ISDSs.
Corporate ‘U.S.’ is Leaving Grassroots America, et al, Fatally Vulnerable; China can Kill TPP, et al, by Offering its Trade Partners Alternative to citizen Punishing Dispute Settlements (ISDS) and few other ‘Hearts and Minds’ choices? CHINA too ‘Humbling’ for Corporate America and Assocs.? Is a Kinder and Wiser CHINA too ‘Humbling’ for Corporate America and Assocs.?
ANTI-Globalists (GREENs) PROHIBITED from ‘Corporate Canada’s Election’ DEBATE . . .
Can the Canadian, et al, voters even debate the Pros and Cons of the TPP and other Global Treaties/Arrangements when the CBC and Corporate Canada’s media have Decided that the TPP is NOT a CHOICE, but, merely a matter of ‘Choosing the best negotiator..’ of their ’Arrangements’?
How long have Global Corporate Associates been ‘Passing’ Legislation in Anticipation of Suing Once Ratified? ‘Trickle’ Up and Out Economics.
Do Harmless, Individual Taxpayers Needs Direct, Cash Dividends from Corporate America and Global Assocs. for Secret Corp. Benefits Paid for by the Harmless Taxpayers?
TPP and Global Corporate Treaties/Arrangements Not about How Much Trade, but, How to ‘Vichy’ Profits, Who to Trade with to ‘Undermine’ AIIB and more about Tort ‘Abolishment’ than Tort ‘Reform’?
TPP nations, et al, need ‘good corporate citizens’ that respect our legislation and need to ‘out’ bad corporate voters via shareholder meetings?
Americans, Japanese, et al, look forward to working with Savvy Slave Trading Malaysians and Slick Cultural ‘Genociding’ Canadians. ‘But, we didn’t know.’ Traditional Canadian Parties Demanding Supplicance to Corporate Canada and its Global Corporate Assocs. is an unholy sin?
Will Pope Francis and other leaders Intercede with Prayer against PM Harper, Corporate Canada, The Canadian Establishment, et al, for Continuing to Blame and Punish those who are continuing to be Deprived of the Due Diligence Info and Continuing its Cultural Genocide? Protecting the Human Rights of Unborn Native Canadians, et al.
Making the leaders of TPP, Shareholders, et al, ‘Persona non Grata’; Shareholders’ Meetings I.D. Toxic Neighbors, In-laws, et al?
by David E.H. Smith, ‘Qui tam . . .’
• After New Zealand’s PM admitted that medicines will cost more, have the citizens of New Zealand and other TPP nations also noticed similar moves like Canadian Prime Minister Harper below? ‘To help pay for the harmless taxpayers ‘guilty transgressions’ against Global Corporations in Canada, Prime Minister Harper has recently cut the funding for health care by $36 billion dollars’. (please see article below)
But, will the lil’ guy get 10 years to read, consider, discuss and improve upon (with lawyers paid by Global Corporate Assocs.)?
FULL Article, see; davidehsmith.wordpress.com
Please consider sharing the enclosed information and questions with 10 friends who will share it with 10 others.