4 ms·

Thusfar I've been seeing only negative articles about TTIP. What are the positive sides? What will it give us in return?

pdkl95 11y ago
> I've been seeing only negative articles about TTIP Maybe there isn't a positive side? It's a fallacy to assume that there must be a positive side. That said, it probably depends on point of view. I'm sure some people consider greater corporate profits to be a "positive" thing. On the other hand, I view that increased profit that widens the wealth gap as increasing social unrest, a serious "negative". > What will it give us in return? More "public-private partnership" style corruption? The initial steps of corporate sovereignty at the expense of national sovereignty? Profit for various corporations (leading to a widening of the wealth gap) thanks to easier movement of capital and the overriding of regulations (via the treaty itself and via ISDS later on). In short, even more undermining of national power and the rise of corporatism (or, depending on your definition, fascism). -- aside: This is one of the reasons it is stupid to give corporations a pass on things like surveillance (ad tracking, analytics, the windows 10 mess, etc). Far too often people are (rightly) concerned about what the government is doing while ignoring corporations that do the same thing. This becomes a serious problem if the corporations become government (either de jure or de facto).
michaelt 11y ago
A charitable view would be that that politicians earnestly believe the treaty improves free trade, lowering the barriers to trade so everyone in every country better off. A cynic would say politicians want to pass laws that will be popular with their cronies but unpopular with voters, and they want to pass the blame to faceless foreign bureaucrats. e.g. "I'm sorry the tax bills for huge multinationals have been slashed - I don't like it any more than you do! It's these international treaties you see, I'm powerless to change anything"
- tzs 11y ago
  > A cynic would say politicians want to pass laws that will be popular with their cronies but unpopular with voters What makes you think TPP will be unpopular with voters? See [1]. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/23/americans-favor-tpp-but-less-than-other-countries-do/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/23/americans-fa...
ionised 11y ago
It will benefit big businesses and transnationals and probably fuck the rest of us something fierce. So it does benefit a certain section of the population. They just happen to be the sector that has money to buy politicians.
tzs 11y ago
The Economist has covered some of the benefits. For example://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21659716-all-its-flaws-biggest-trade-deal-years-good-news-world
nisa 11y ago
For you as a ordinary citizen I guess not much. More products in the supermarket and depending where you are slightly better or worse safety regulations (likely worse). A big selling for TTIP in Germany has been normalisation of industry standards e.g. you have to fulfill different norms and standards when producing for EU market vs. US market. The goals is to unify these to avoid duplicate effort. This means certain products that passed US norms can be sold easily in Europe. This is extended to chemicals and likely medicine as well as food. It's explained that these will lower costs when producing products - critics say however it's a race to the bottom and the lowest common denominator will win. Besides that all I've found is marketing hogwash that partially was proved wrong (e.g. economic growth is likely nil and new jobs due to it very unlikely, with job losses likely growing due to big corps taking over new fields..

pdkl95 11y ago

> I've been seeing only negative articles about TTIP Maybe there isn't a positive side? It's a fallacy to assume that there must be a positive side. That said, it probably depends on point of view. I'm sure some people consider greater corporate profits to be a "positive" thing. On the other hand, I view that increased profit that widens the wealth gap as increasing social unrest, a serious "negative". > What will it give us in return? More "public-private partnership" style corruption? The initial steps of corporate sovereignty at the expense of national sovereignty? Profit for various corporations (leading to a widening of the wealth gap) thanks to easier movement of capital and the overriding of regulations (via the treaty itself and via ISDS later on). In short, even more undermining of national power and the rise of corporatism (or, depending on your definition, fascism). -- aside: This is one of the reasons it is stupid to give corporations a pass on things like surveillance (ad tracking, analytics, the windows 10 mess, etc). Far too often people are (rightly) concerned about what the government is doing while ignoring corporations that do the same thing. This becomes a serious problem if the corporations become government (either de jure or de facto).

michaelt 11y ago

A charitable view would be that that politicians earnestly believe the treaty improves free trade, lowering the barriers to trade so everyone in every country better off. A cynic would say politicians want to pass laws that will be popular with their cronies but unpopular with voters, and they want to pass the blame to faceless foreign bureaucrats. e.g. "I'm sorry the tax bills for huge multinationals have been slashed - I don't like it any more than you do! It's these international treaties you see, I'm powerless to change anything"

tzs 11y ago
> A cynic would say politicians want to pass laws that will be popular with their cronies but unpopular with voters What makes you think TPP will be unpopular with voters? See [1]. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/23/americans-favor-tpp-but-less-than-other-countries-do/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/23/americans-fa...

ionised 11y ago

It will benefit big businesses and transnationals and probably fuck the rest of us something fierce. So it does benefit a certain section of the population. They just happen to be the sector that has money to buy politicians.

tzs 11y ago

The Economist has covered some of the benefits. For example://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21659716-all-its-flaws-biggest-trade-deal-years-good-news-world

nisa 11y ago

For you as a ordinary citizen I guess not much. More products in the supermarket and depending where you are slightly better or worse safety regulations (likely worse). A big selling for TTIP in Germany has been normalisation of industry standards e.g. you have to fulfill different norms and standards when producing for EU market vs. US market. The goals is to unify these to avoid duplicate effort. This means certain products that passed US norms can be sold easily in Europe. This is extended to chemicals and likely medicine as well as food. It's explained that these will lower costs when producing products - critics say however it's a race to the bottom and the lowest common denominator will win. Besides that all I've found is marketing hogwash that partially was proved wrong (e.g. economic growth is likely nil and new jobs due to it very unlikely, with job losses likely growing due to big corps taking over new fields..