4 ms·

I'm sure the EU corporations are doing their share of lobbying, but I agree that all these trade agreements seem to be tailored for Big Business at the expense

I'm sure the EU corporations are doing their share of lobbying, but I agree that all these trade agreements seem to be tailored for Big Business at the expense of consumers.

pizza234 11y ago
This is a completely different level than lobbying, this is effectively corporative control. You enforce labeling of "inconvenient" ingredients on food? That hurts Mamacorp, you're going to be sued. You ban pesticides? Mamacorp is going to sue you. You prevent smoking? Mamacorp is going to sue you. You block eternal copyright? Well, you got the rap. The thing I find terrifying is that virtually any form of social progress can be interpreted as damage to some company's profit. TTIP is corporatocracy at its finest.
- Radle 11y ago
  To be honest, as an EU citizen. I am really afraid of it.
- mercurial 11y ago
  The end result would be corporate control, but the existence of the draft agreement is a result of lobbying. That said, I agree with you that it is an extremely scary prospect.
Brakenshire 11y ago
Yes, there's no need to make the US the bad guy. The key point is the way in which a treaty like this puts a whole class of what would once have been domestic legislation beyond the reach of democratic decision-making. Both in the treaties themselves, and their transnational private courts.
- _yosefk 11y ago
  Can't a democratic decision be made to get out of the treaty? Also - international obligations in general, by their nature, restrict democratic or any other kind of sovereign decision-making. Decisions such as waging war, defaulting on debt, etc. which are often made by sovereigns illustrate that restrictions on sovereigns aren't necessarily bad. (Not saying that TTIP is a good thing, just that I'm a bit baffled by the framing of the problems with it as a conflict between democracy and corporations or such. I'm even more baffled by the framing of defaulting on sovereign debt as a "democratic right" - again, regardless of the fact that a country's citizens might have gotten a raw deal because a corrupt government issued debt it shouldn't have, say, because it was bribed and needed liquidity to buy something useless/overpriced from whoever bribed it, etc.)
  - Brakenshire 11y ago
    That is an extremely limited form of democracy, to only be able to decide on a huge swathe of legislation with just a yes or a no. And on top of that, when something like this is tied in with the trade deals, it would be impossible to reverse it because of the potential for an economic shock and destabilization of the financial system. If a government came in that wanted to shift the balance - for instance on this issue, of human health, quality of life, and the environment on the one hand, and agricultural productivity on the other - previously they would be able to change the law. Under TTIP, they have to renege on the trade deals covering, what, a third of the economy. That is to all practical purposes impossible. You might as well have written the law into the constitution. That doesn't mean I'm against all international treaties, but usually those cover issues which are inherently international. TTIP represents the movement of large swathes of what would once have been domestic legislation into international treaties, and the mechanisms which would have been appropriate for, say, an international convention on cross-border child abduction, are not appropriate for deciding whether or not a country is allowed to ban activities which are dangerous to the health of its citizens, within its own borders.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    The lack of a sensible bankruptcy procedure for countries is a serious problem. Individuals can discharge debts in bankruptcy in order to get back on their feet. Companies have at least two different kinds of bankruptcy depending on whether they can be run as a going concern or not. But a FX-denominated debt is potentially an anchor on your country forever. Look at the Argentine "pari passu" fiasco for example. Imposing an unpayable debt on a country that forces poverty on its citizens has a real and serious cost in human life. Wars have been fought over this; it's often argued that the reparations debt imposed on Germany after WW1 was a contributing factor to WW2.
    - _yosefk 11y ago
      I'm not saying I know what to do about unpayable sovereign debt, just that defaulting on such debt is not a sensible example of a democratic right. "We had a referendum and decided that you can all wipe your asses with our bonds" is probably not the "sensible bankruptcy procedure" that you mention. I did not claim anything beyond that. Why do I think my point was worth making? Because there's a huge amount of issues boiling down to poor coordination between different states today, the nature of today's economy ensures this will become increasingly common, and I think it's worth pointing out that simply insisting on "democratic rights" interpreted as "doing whatever the citizens want, the rest of the world be damned" doesn't really cut it. And this "interference with democracy" theme is really really common these days, I bump into this sort of phrasing every other week.
- Bustard 11y ago
  Yes, there is a need seeing as it is a US initiative pushed through by corrupt lobbyist politicians.
- themartorana 11y ago
  I imagine that might be found unconstitutional? I haven't heard anyone speak (intelligently) about whether this sort of business > government in terms of the Constitution. Is it true that democratic power can be signed away in an international treaty?
  - arca_vorago 11y ago
    My understanding of the Constitution on this matter is that all international treaties and agreements must be considered very high law, but may not invalide or contradict any part of the constitution themselves lest the particular section or whole agreement be considered void and nonbinding. That was my ametuer reading of the section on that. Also, regarding TTIP and TTP, I think we have to admit NAFTA was in the same vein but we allowed it to pass. The problem here though is we are putting what thin thread of sinewy national sovereignty we have up for grabs. Nader in the 92 debates was right (which is also consequently why the two parties jointly bought out the debate organization to keep other Naders out of the pucture.)
  - arca_vorago 11y ago
    *Perot not Nader though Nader did help write his speeches.
- Elrac 11y ago
  But the US _is_ the bad guy! Largely through ignorance, incompetence and inaction, the US has allowed its elected government to be bought (at embarrassingly low prices, I might add) by corporate interests and persuaded/bribed to work for the interests of corporations and against the interests of its own citizens. At the point where this thoroughly corrupt government and its awesome military and economic clout are used to push the interests of corporations on other countries and their citizens, the US is clearly stepping into "bad guy" territory. Be clear about this: the US is using its economic clout (and threats of using it) to coerce other countries to bulldoze the legal provisions that help safeguard their citizens. How much higher than this would you set the bar for "bad guy" behavior??
- inDigiNeous 11y ago
  Why not? What other country goes around bombing civilians and pushing war on every front just in order to get resources in the name of 'democracy'. The whole US law and political process is very corrupt from the view of an european citizen. To tell the truth, I really hate the way US acts as if they're not the bad guys. US is the bad guys. I really hope somebody would do something about this, and ultimately this lies in the hands of US citizens to make a change. I am also very concerned about this TTIP -agreement. They are already doing things in Finland in order to sell our water to companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi (sugar-caffeine drug peddlers). This really makes me mad that with money politicians can be bought, and laws can be reformed to fit those of big huge companies who only think about making a profit in the name of destroying our nature, people, animals and other living forms. Actually, what I wanna say is: F*CK USA. The whole system is based around killing others and taking their resources. Native Americans know this very well, and US citizens don't seem to even realize that they live there only because the previous inhabitants were killed or driven away from their lands with agreements that were false to begin with.
contravariant 11y ago
Is there even a sharp divide between EU and US corporations anymore? I get the impression that the really large ones operate in both, and those tend to be the ones that will profit most from such an agreement.
rorykoehler 11y ago
We're not consumers we're people. Please stop calling people consumers as if the only value we bring is the consumption of mass produced goods.
- speeder 11y ago
  In the current monetary system that is unfortunately true. Note that I am not blaming "capitalism" but the current monetary system (that is based on debt). Consumption is necessary for most countries in the world right now to keep them going, as soon consumption stops, the countries fail. (also you can get into stagflations, that are terrible: ever-increasing prices, including food and rent, while income an jobs are declining, this is happening right now in Brazil... 5 days ago I went to buy cheese, and it is 3 times the price of 5 years ago! And I am unemployed, as is all people that went to college with me 5 years ago!)
- calibraxis 11y ago
  Plus, we're producers too. Corporations try to make us feel grateful to be allowed to be producers, lest we stay depressed at home as unemployed. Not to mention defining out of existence all the uncompensated labor people do... (And of course, they have their thumb on the macroeconomic scales which result in this curious phenomenon of "unemployment". Pretty sick, irrational societies.)

I'm sure the EU corporations are doing their share of lobbying, but I agree that all these trade agreements seem to be tailored for Big Business at the expense of consumers.

pizza234 11y ago

This is a completely different level than lobbying, this is effectively corporative control. You enforce labeling of "inconvenient" ingredients on food? That hurts Mamacorp, you're going to be sued. You ban pesticides? Mamacorp is going to sue you. You prevent smoking? Mamacorp is going to sue you. You block eternal copyright? Well, you got the rap. The thing I find terrifying is that virtually any form of social progress can be interpreted as damage to some company's profit. TTIP is corporatocracy at its finest.

Radle 11y ago
To be honest, as an EU citizen. I am really afraid of it.
mercurial 11y ago
The end result would be corporate control, but the existence of the draft agreement is a result of lobbying. That said, I agree with you that it is an extremely scary prospect.

Brakenshire 11y ago

Yes, there's no need to make the US the bad guy. The key point is the way in which a treaty like this puts a whole class of what would once have been domestic legislation beyond the reach of democratic decision-making. Both in the treaties themselves, and their transnational private courts.

_yosefk 11y ago
Can't a democratic decision be made to get out of the treaty? Also - international obligations in general, by their nature, restrict democratic or any other kind of sovereign decision-making. Decisions such as waging war, defaulting on debt, etc. which are often made by sovereigns illustrate that restrictions on sovereigns aren't necessarily bad. (Not saying that TTIP is a good thing, just that I'm a bit baffled by the framing of the problems with it as a conflict between democracy and corporations or such. I'm even more baffled by the framing of defaulting on sovereign debt as a "democratic right" - again, regardless of the fact that a country's citizens might have gotten a raw deal because a corrupt government issued debt it shouldn't have, say, because it was bribed and needed liquidity to buy something useless/overpriced from whoever bribed it, etc.)
- Brakenshire 11y ago
  That is an extremely limited form of democracy, to only be able to decide on a huge swathe of legislation with just a yes or a no. And on top of that, when something like this is tied in with the trade deals, it would be impossible to reverse it because of the potential for an economic shock and destabilization of the financial system. If a government came in that wanted to shift the balance - for instance on this issue, of human health, quality of life, and the environment on the one hand, and agricultural productivity on the other - previously they would be able to change the law. Under TTIP, they have to renege on the trade deals covering, what, a third of the economy. That is to all practical purposes impossible. You might as well have written the law into the constitution. That doesn't mean I'm against all international treaties, but usually those cover issues which are inherently international. TTIP represents the movement of large swathes of what would once have been domestic legislation into international treaties, and the mechanisms which would have been appropriate for, say, an international convention on cross-border child abduction, are not appropriate for deciding whether or not a country is allowed to ban activities which are dangerous to the health of its citizens, within its own borders.
- pjc50 11y ago
  The lack of a sensible bankruptcy procedure for countries is a serious problem. Individuals can discharge debts in bankruptcy in order to get back on their feet. Companies have at least two different kinds of bankruptcy depending on whether they can be run as a going concern or not. But a FX-denominated debt is potentially an anchor on your country forever. Look at the Argentine "pari passu" fiasco for example. Imposing an unpayable debt on a country that forces poverty on its citizens has a real and serious cost in human life. Wars have been fought over this; it's often argued that the reparations debt imposed on Germany after WW1 was a contributing factor to WW2.
  - _yosefk 11y ago
    I'm not saying I know what to do about unpayable sovereign debt, just that defaulting on such debt is not a sensible example of a democratic right. "We had a referendum and decided that you can all wipe your asses with our bonds" is probably not the "sensible bankruptcy procedure" that you mention. I did not claim anything beyond that. Why do I think my point was worth making? Because there's a huge amount of issues boiling down to poor coordination between different states today, the nature of today's economy ensures this will become increasingly common, and I think it's worth pointing out that simply insisting on "democratic rights" interpreted as "doing whatever the citizens want, the rest of the world be damned" doesn't really cut it. And this "interference with democracy" theme is really really common these days, I bump into this sort of phrasing every other week.
Bustard 11y ago
Yes, there is a need seeing as it is a US initiative pushed through by corrupt lobbyist politicians.
themartorana 11y ago
I imagine that might be found unconstitutional? I haven't heard anyone speak (intelligently) about whether this sort of business > government in terms of the Constitution. Is it true that democratic power can be signed away in an international treaty?
- arca_vorago 11y ago
  My understanding of the Constitution on this matter is that all international treaties and agreements must be considered very high law, but may not invalide or contradict any part of the constitution themselves lest the particular section or whole agreement be considered void and nonbinding. That was my ametuer reading of the section on that. Also, regarding TTIP and TTP, I think we have to admit NAFTA was in the same vein but we allowed it to pass. The problem here though is we are putting what thin thread of sinewy national sovereignty we have up for grabs. Nader in the 92 debates was right (which is also consequently why the two parties jointly bought out the debate organization to keep other Naders out of the pucture.)
- arca_vorago 11y ago
  *Perot not Nader though Nader did help write his speeches.
Elrac 11y ago
But the US _is_ the bad guy! Largely through ignorance, incompetence and inaction, the US has allowed its elected government to be bought (at embarrassingly low prices, I might add) by corporate interests and persuaded/bribed to work for the interests of corporations and against the interests of its own citizens. At the point where this thoroughly corrupt government and its awesome military and economic clout are used to push the interests of corporations on other countries and their citizens, the US is clearly stepping into "bad guy" territory. Be clear about this: the US is using its economic clout (and threats of using it) to coerce other countries to bulldoze the legal provisions that help safeguard their citizens. How much higher than this would you set the bar for "bad guy" behavior??
inDigiNeous 11y ago
Why not? What other country goes around bombing civilians and pushing war on every front just in order to get resources in the name of 'democracy'. The whole US law and political process is very corrupt from the view of an european citizen. To tell the truth, I really hate the way US acts as if they're not the bad guys. US is the bad guys. I really hope somebody would do something about this, and ultimately this lies in the hands of US citizens to make a change. I am also very concerned about this TTIP -agreement. They are already doing things in Finland in order to sell our water to companies like Coca Cola and Pepsi (sugar-caffeine drug peddlers). This really makes me mad that with money politicians can be bought, and laws can be reformed to fit those of big huge companies who only think about making a profit in the name of destroying our nature, people, animals and other living forms. Actually, what I wanna say is: F*CK USA. The whole system is based around killing others and taking their resources. Native Americans know this very well, and US citizens don't seem to even realize that they live there only because the previous inhabitants were killed or driven away from their lands with agreements that were false to begin with.

contravariant 11y ago

Is there even a sharp divide between EU and US corporations anymore? I get the impression that the really large ones operate in both, and those tend to be the ones that will profit most from such an agreement.

rorykoehler 11y ago

We're not consumers we're people. Please stop calling people consumers as if the only value we bring is the consumption of mass produced goods.

speeder 11y ago
In the current monetary system that is unfortunately true. Note that I am not blaming "capitalism" but the current monetary system (that is based on debt). Consumption is necessary for most countries in the world right now to keep them going, as soon consumption stops, the countries fail. (also you can get into stagflations, that are terrible: ever-increasing prices, including food and rent, while income an jobs are declining, this is happening right now in Brazil... 5 days ago I went to buy cheese, and it is 3 times the price of 5 years ago! And I am unemployed, as is all people that went to college with me 5 years ago!)
calibraxis 11y ago
Plus, we're producers too. Corporations try to make us feel grateful to be allowed to be producers, lest we stay depressed at home as unemployed. Not to mention defining out of existence all the uncompensated labor people do... (And of course, they have their thumb on the macroeconomic scales which result in this curious phenomenon of "unemployment". Pretty sick, irrational societies.)