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The NY Times endorsed a secretive trade agreement that the public can’t read
- thirteenfingers 13y agoPrevious discussion regarding the original EFF article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6692833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6692833
- joliv 13y agoThis isn't an endorsement, if anything it's just positive coverage of this agreement. Take your EFF fear-mongering back to when this was posted yesterday.
- ash 13y ago> it's just positive coverage of this agreement As the article mentions, it's very likely that New York Times hasn't seen the agreement. Otherwise they could just leak it to the public. So what do they endorse?
- snowwrestler 13y agoThe concept of a trade agreement with these nations. However one might feel about IP enforcement, reducing tariffs and aligning similar but slightly different regulations can help economic growth in all the nations.
- Roboprog 13y agoWhatever their corporate masters tell them to, of course.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoWhen is positive coverage in the NY Times not a form of public approval?
- ryguytilidie 13y agoPositive coverage of the secret agreement they haven't actually read? Yeah, you're right. Top class journalism, no problem here. Glad you were able to make the quick transition from completely ridiculous view to mocking others though. It's a real gift that we have people like yourself on the internet.
- vidarh 13y agoThe naivete of trying to interpret that kind of positive coverage rather than lengthy digging into why there's this kind of extensive secrecy surrounding a trade agreement that supposedly might justify this kind of positive treatment as anything but an endorsement is rather sad.
- wozniacki 13y agoCountries involved: Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Mexico, Peru, Chile. http://americablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPP_map.png http://americablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/TPP_map.pn... Discussion on Bill Moyers A US-led trade deal is currently being negotiated that could increase the price of prescription drugs, weaken financial regulations and even allow partner countries to challenge American laws. But few know its substance. The pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), is deliberately shrouded in secrecy, a trade deal powerful people, including President Obama, don’t want you to know about. Over 130 Members of Congress have asked the White House for more transparency about the negotiations and were essentially told to go fly a kite. While most of us are in the dark about the contents of the deal, which Obama aims to seal by year end, corporate lobbyists are in the know about what it contains. And some vigilant independent watchdogs are tracking the negotiations with sources they trust, including Dean Baker and Yves Smith, who join Moyers & Company this week. Both have written extensively about the TPP and tell Bill the pact actually has very little to do with free trade. Instead, says Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “This really is a deal that’s being negotiated by corporations for corporations and any benefit it provides to the bulk of the population of this country will be purely incidental.” Yves Smith, an investment banking expert who runs the Naked Capitalism blog adds: “There would be no reason to keep it so secret if it was in the interest of the public.” http://vimeo.com/78324869 http://vimeo.com/78324869 Edit: Missed Brunei (fact it is slightly smaller than Delaware, notwithstanding)
- thaumasiotes 13y agoThis is fairly worrisome, but I have to disagree in a minor way with this particular bit: There would be no reason to keep it so secret if it was in the interest of the public. The public generally hates free trade, but free trade is in the public interest. It's one of those things.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoAre you Sir Humphrey Appleby by any chance?
- grandalf 13y agoThe nice thing about the NY Times is that its reporting offers a general indication of what powerful interests in the US want.
- danso 13y agoIs anyone else reminded of "Network", near the end (spoilers, for a 40 year old film), in which the Howard Beale character goes off on a rant about a secretive global merger, causing the public to flood the government with protest, which then earns Beale a meeting with the company CEO and a lecture on free trade and the insignificance of humanity? If you haven't seen "Network", it's the movie from which, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" comes from. However, the movie is not really about standing up for your rights, it's more about modern American media, and of all the satirical movies I've ever seen, it's the one that comes closest to predicting what has come to pass. It's a brilliant, brilliant movie...the only one, I believe, to have nominees in all four Oscar acting categories (it won 3 of them). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(film)
- wozniacki 13y agoYes it was prescient. A portion of the "Network" diatribe says the following: At the bottom of all our terrified souls we know that democracy is a dying giant; a sick, dying, decaying political concept writhing in its final pain. I don't mean the United States is finished as a world power. The U.S. is the richest, the most powerful, the most advanced nation on earth, light years ahead of any other country. And I don't mean the communists are going to take over the world because the communists are deader than we are. They wish they hadn't included the last part about communists (although they were very much referring to U.S.S.R. and not China, in that line) http://www.carrothers.com/network.htm http://www.carrothers.com/network.htm
- redwood 13y agoOther movies on the way toward coming to pass: - Brazil? - Wall-E?
- arrrg 13y agoIt’s fucking free trade. Done even only semi-competently it brings about wealth, freedom and peace. It’s quite harmless, actually.
- triangleman 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 13y agoOne of the most worrying trends of the last century has been the President abusing his treaty powers to end-run around the democratic process domestically. It's a surrendering of our sovereignty to internationalist interests.
- nnnnni 13y agoInternationalist CORPORATE interests.
- lettergram 13y agoThese corporate interests you talk about, you do realize that (usually) about 20%-40% of stock owned by regular people and/or employees.... Further, it's in the best interest of the company to support these corporations because they hire millions of workers who pay taxes and without them this country would be as poor as Uganda.
- beagle3 13y ago> Further, it's in the best interest of the company to support "company"? > because they hire millions of workers who pay taxes and without them this country would be as poor as Uganda. You are committing the fallacy of assuming if they don't get anything they want down to the last iota, they will pick up their stuff and go someplace else. That's not true; if they could have done that, they would have done that already for tax reasons.
- a3n 13y ago> "company"? Possibly a Freudian slip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudian_slip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudian_slip
- dmix 13y agoYes, what Uganda is missing is powerful mega-corporations colluding with an over-reaching state. That's what makes jobs and healthy economies. And mega-corporations love to pay taxes. /s
- cercle 13y agoThere are thirteen other multilateral free trade agreements like the TPP. And twenty-four others that have been proposed. The word "integration" seems rarely used in the US. These agreements represent the 2nd stage of a seven stage process known as economic integration. The seventh stage is 'Complete Economic Integration', some type of federalized supranational political union; the EU2050. North American integration is promoted in order for the US to be economically competitive with the EU, China etc. Whether or not these are the right policies, I don't know. More interesting is that globalization seems solely defined by them without any alternatives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_integration#Stages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_integration#Stages
- judk 13y agoThat sounds like an unironic implementation of the New World Order
- Roboprog 13y agoMy God, that's creepy. If and when economical space travel (i.e. - portable fusion) is ever developed, I can only imagine the brain drain that will commence to get the Hell out of this New World Odor. Otherwise, I guess I for one should welcome our (not so) new Multinational Corporate Overlords.
- iambateman 13y agoIs it common to have keep the contents of a trade agreement under wraps until it ships? I can't understand why anyone would want to hide the deal. If it's going to get that much backlash before it's signed, wouldn't there be similar amounts of angry response after it was inked?
- snowwrestler 13y agoYes, it is the way trade deals are negotiated almost all the time. The TPP would not "ship" until Congress passes it; the text would be public, and most likely amendable, at that point. The Korea FTA, for example, was negotiated in private at first, but then spent more than 3 years working its way through Congress.
- beagle3 13y agoExcept there's effort by the Obama administration to do this "fast track", which means Congress gets it as a "take-it-or-leave-it" deal, without the possibility to amend anything. And you can mostly rely on republicans to NOT obstruct the process, because it serves their donors well to pass this ASAP. (Not being partisan here - I think all congresscritters are equally bad here, it's just that right now it's the dems turn to hold the "make this into law" stamp)
- snowwrestler 13y agoThe Korea FTA was submitted under fast track rules and it still took that long. Fast track is being held up as some sort of boogeyman, but only Congress can impose fast track rules on Congress. If they intend to amend the TPP, they won't pass fast track first.
- Roboprog 13y agoAlas, it does increasingly seem that the biggest difference between the two parties is which corporations they favor. Neither gives a rip about the 99% of the non-billionaire population. One side occasionally gives a nod to the fact that even the rich need non-toxic air and water, but that's about as far as it goes.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jkldotio 13y agoExecutives using treaties to alter domestic law is going to be one of the defining issues of the 21st century. One take on the problem was starkly put in antifederalist #75 in 1788 by a person using the name Hampden (who had been a figure in the English civil wars, of which the American revolution in some ways was an extention). Well worth taking two minutes of your time to read.[1] The stakes are highest in the EU at the moment as it is made of treaties and there are significant forces who see that process as an illegitimate way to make a federation. The time frame there is 5-10 years where besides the 'muddle through' we often see in Europe, which is very possible, an implosion of the whole thing, a federation or both are all possibilities with massive consequences due to the inherent logic of monetary union. Unfortunately contemporary television and print journalism is not well calibrated to exploring these issues. [1]http://www.thevrwc.org/antifederalist/antiFederalist75.html http://www.thevrwc.org/antifederalist/antiFederalist75.html
- judk 13y agoTreaties are ratified by Congress, so they have a veto.
- juziozd 13y agoWasn't ACTA ratified by executive order without any Congress vote? If yes, what prevents this new agreement to also be ratified by executive order?
- Roboprog 13y agoBut only by the Senate, not the House, as pointed out by the link the other poster had. (not that I agree with the extreme right-wing views of the linked site)
- jkldotio 13y agoThat was not a deliberate choice it was just the first hit on Google for AF#75, there is an edited compilation in print but you can't link to it.
- jpollock 13y agoIt's secretive because politicians can't have discussions and make deals if everything they say is picked over by their constituents and enemies. While they may end up at a trade deal that people want, they won't necessarily like how it ends up there. For example, there may be a version 0.5 of the document where New Zealand must give up their single-buyer drug plan (Pharmac). This is, I believe, FATAL to the treaty in New Zealand. However, the US demands that it is there. They've got several drug companies who are able to see the agreement and they want it in. It will be gone by 1.0, but to do that some horse trading needs to happen. So, everyone throws their wish list into the pot and then they negotiate to see what is on a requires list. Now imagine what would happen if all that happened in front of the voters. Imagine if the first thing that you heard about the agreement was that Pharmac (the drug buyer) was going to be made illegal, and your drug costs were going to go up by a factor of 10. Yeah, it'd be dead right out of the gate. New Zealand definitely doesn't want that, they want to ship food (milk solids) to the US. The US doesn't want that either... China has a free trade agreement with NZ, and since signing has become NZ's second largest export market, bigger than the US by 50%.
- rayiner 13y agoThe basic premise of this sort of argument is that "the people don't like free trade, we couldn't have free trade if the people had input into the process." Well we shouldn't have free trade if the people don't want it. Democracy >> economic theories.
- snowwrestler 13y agoIt's not that people don't like free trade, it's that everyone wants something different out of trade, and so there needs to be some process for working out a compromise. Every multiparty negotiation starts this way. Corporate mergers are negotiated by management and then jointly presented to stockholders. Union contracts are negotiated by union and business leaders and then presented to union members for ratification. Domestic legislation is heavily negotiated by staff before it is introduced as a bill in Congress. Etc.
- leokun 13y ago
- jellicle 13y agoTwo random comments: First, the NYT is engaging in the standard Brooksian/Friedmanist technique of supporting something with apparent qualifications, but actually engaging in unconditional support. That is, using the Iraq War as an example: - I support the Iraq War, if it is done this way (describe reservations) - The Iraq War is not done that way in the slightest - Given the above, I support the Iraq War The NYT supports TPP with qualifications; the TPP will not have those attributes; given the above, the NYT will absolutely support the TPP. It's a way to deflect criticism - if anyone criticizes your support, you just point to your expressed reservations. Second, free trade has proven to be not good for the bulk of the public. Most HN commenters, having been immersed in right-wing economics, have the belief that it is somehow scientifically proven that free trade is beneficial for all, but that's not actually what the science says. The results of decades of "free trade" agreements have been to overrule local decision-making; they are profoundly anti-democratic. They've resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from the bulk of the population to a very few, very wealthy individuals. Free trade agreements are a substantial cause for the fact that most workers in the United States are making less money now than they were 30 years ago, even though their productivity has gone up massively in the meantime. If an action X takes away $1 from each of nine people, and gives $15 to the tenth person, the total benefit for society in dollars is theoretically positive (-$9, +$15) but nine out of ten people have been harmed by it, and it's not clear that the real benefit is positive at all, because of the declining marginal utility of money. That's pretty much what "free trade" represents. Add in the anti-democratic aspects and it's clear to me that modern "free trade" agreements, negotiated in secret between the Aspen corporate elite, are something that should be roundly opposed.
- iwwr 13y agoFree trade agreements aren't. Really. If they were free-trade, they wouldn't need thousands of pages of legalese. What it is is "managed trade", an agreement essentially made to benefit certain large corporations (as you pointed out), but also to restrict and to make many exceptions. It ends up being complex enough that only a large entity with a legal department can take advantage of it, rather than small and medium-sized entreprises.
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- unethical_ban 13y agoI wonder how the EFF and many readers here would feel about the secret convention that created the Constitution of the United States. There were arguably good reasons for having it done in such a manner.