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My understanding of it is that standardizing trade law and eliminating a wide range of nationalistic trade policies allows for greater operational efficiency, l
by laser 10y ago
My understanding of it is that standardizing trade law and eliminating a wide range of nationalistic trade policies allows for greater operational efficiency, lower average cost of goods, etc. as systems closer to free markets tend to. The problems are
1. Massive disparities in wealth put the less-skilled in wealthy countries at greater risk of being made irrelevant/pushed towards global market rate (which is below minimum wage in the United States for many jobs)
2. Developed corporations gain open access to developing markets, while local incorporations of services that would likely pour more value back into their country receive no protections.
3. Government protections of the environment or workers could end up in an international trade court in which a country's laws are struck down and/or required to pay a fine due to a violation of trade policy. (This came up a lot, esp. from Elizabeth Warren. Obama's response was basically that there's no precedent for it, the handful of disputes the United States has been in, the US has always won. I'm not sure the history for other countries, but this seems to be more fear-mongering than reality as far as I can tell)
4. Read the EFF's rundown of issues concerning impact on digital rights: https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
Overall I'm still very torn, and it seems that reasonable people that are genuinely concerned about increasing global welfare and reducing suffering fall on either side of supporting or opposing this deal.
- dimino 10y agoThanks for the links (I won't likely read the EFF's take, as I am staunchly against the way the EFF writes its articles), but this feels like a rabbit hole. Cory Doctorow links to an article that links to an article that eventually gets to a World Bank report, claiming that 772k jobs will be lost "Because of the TPP" and that the GDP of developed nations will decrease by .52% for the US and .12% for Japan. The Tufts analysis, however, is merely a response to another report done by the World Bank claiming, "The model simulations suggest that, by 2030, the TPP will raise member country GDP by 0.4-10 percent, and by 1.1 percent, on a GDP-weighted average basis." So now you've got the World Bank arguing with economists, Cory Doctorow only linking some of the results of those reports, and this mysterious job loss (where the hell do those jobs go, exactly?) various economists disagreeing with one another... How the hell do people extract an overarching viewpoint from all this noise? The biggest concern for me is the IP stuff, but I can't tell if this, too, is fearmongering (I go to jail because I cosplayed Darth Vader?? There's simply no way that's how it works, I don't care what the agreement says). Also the loss of sovereignty seems scary. It'd be terrible of Phillip Morris could sue the US Government for the cigarette labeling, like they did in Uruguay.
- laser 10y agoYeh it's all so complicated... The loss of sovereignty stuff seems sort of like fear-mongering nonsense, though. In the case you cite, just last month Philip Morris lost against Uruguay and was ordered to pay $7 million dollars plus cover Uruguay's legal fees [1]. In a similar case in Australia last December concerning cigarrete packaging, Philip Morris lost. [2] [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pmi-uruguay-lawsuit-idUSKCN0ZO2LZ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pmi-uruguay-lawsuit-idUSKC... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/18/australia-wins-international-legal-battle-with-philip-morris-over-plain-packaging https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/18/austr...