Vigilant Walrus
Member
Elizabeth Warren talking about TPP, and why it's a disaster; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWXJJy_Tq-U < I think parts of it sums up adequetely how a lot of people feel about TTIP, given they have many similarities.
Making Food Safety operate in Europe more in a fashion like the FDA, is laughable. The FDA which is infamous for allowing untested supplements and substances to marked, and only removing them after people have gotten sick. It's a organization which is known for having poor regulatory oversight and power, leaving the manufactureres to police themselves. John Oliver had a interesting segment on this regarding Supplements being unregulated; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0wKeokWUU
They (corporations) always sell oversight, regulations and accountability as something that hurts job growth, and less revenue, and will be worse for consumers. But time and time again, have corporations shown themselves not to be allowed to police themselves.
In recent years there has been a slew of SDIS - Cases where a private corporation sues an entire country. Like how a hedgefund essentially brought Argentina or default, or how TransCanada is able to sue the 15 US government over lost revenue of the Keystone Pipeline. Think about it. A corporate entity. Suing an entire fucking country. It's a neoliberal nightmare.
Supposedly- From what I have heard about TTIP, corporations from all over would be able to sue and have legislative power on their side. So for example, if Belgium wanted to put a sugar tax on products with a certain amount of sugar- Nestle or some other Sugar Giant, might sue Belgium. That sounds crazy, but it isn't really that strange or uncommon.
Currently a US energy giant is suing Germany over having withdrawn from Nuclear post-Fukushima. The fear is that trade deals like this will remove the hinges and give corporations a lot more of predatory power to squeeze wherever there is someone hurting them from getting their maximized revenue.
When people say that trade deals like this is a good idea, they are only thinking about the net positives. Not the protection laws you usurp, for achiving that profit. Yes, America has a very high degree of corporate mobility and that certainly helps its entrepreneurship. But America also has weak worker protection and union laws. It doesn't take care of its weakest and there is little oversight or accountability.
Then there are the draconian copyright laws which essentially makes it illegal to cosplay as a copyrighted character, mod or remove DRM from a game, or how it incentives composers / producers over artists and creators. Hench their hard dicks for lobbying for it so hard. There is a financial angle for this deal, and that's their own. Not the protection or benefits for consumers.
So I wish people would stop thinking that people are mad because jobs are lost. These deals are designed to circumvent china, brazil and china, and to keep them out. I guess you cannot blame EU and US wanting to hold on to their bread while fucking over others, but this is not true open marked economies. The whole point of TTIP is that there is serious ramifications for not accepting TTIP over its overlap with TPP. There has been many who have been scared what would happen if they didn't accept it.
These sorts of trade deals will make it much more difficult for upstarts to emerge into the market and brew new healthy competition. You end up with a few mega corporations who end up creating near monopolies where there is little competition. And with those copyright and trademark clauses it will be much harder much harder to get anything new going.
I completely fail to see how anyone can see the benefit in this. These deals have little to do with trade.
Making Food Safety operate in Europe more in a fashion like the FDA, is laughable. The FDA which is infamous for allowing untested supplements and substances to marked, and only removing them after people have gotten sick. It's a organization which is known for having poor regulatory oversight and power, leaving the manufactureres to police themselves. John Oliver had a interesting segment on this regarding Supplements being unregulated; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0wKeokWUU
They (corporations) always sell oversight, regulations and accountability as something that hurts job growth, and less revenue, and will be worse for consumers. But time and time again, have corporations shown themselves not to be allowed to police themselves.
In recent years there has been a slew of SDIS - Cases where a private corporation sues an entire country. Like how a hedgefund essentially brought Argentina or default, or how TransCanada is able to sue the 15 US government over lost revenue of the Keystone Pipeline. Think about it. A corporate entity. Suing an entire fucking country. It's a neoliberal nightmare.
Supposedly- From what I have heard about TTIP, corporations from all over would be able to sue and have legislative power on their side. So for example, if Belgium wanted to put a sugar tax on products with a certain amount of sugar- Nestle or some other Sugar Giant, might sue Belgium. That sounds crazy, but it isn't really that strange or uncommon.
Currently a US energy giant is suing Germany over having withdrawn from Nuclear post-Fukushima. The fear is that trade deals like this will remove the hinges and give corporations a lot more of predatory power to squeeze wherever there is someone hurting them from getting their maximized revenue.
When people say that trade deals like this is a good idea, they are only thinking about the net positives. Not the protection laws you usurp, for achiving that profit. Yes, America has a very high degree of corporate mobility and that certainly helps its entrepreneurship. But America also has weak worker protection and union laws. It doesn't take care of its weakest and there is little oversight or accountability.
Then there are the draconian copyright laws which essentially makes it illegal to cosplay as a copyrighted character, mod or remove DRM from a game, or how it incentives composers / producers over artists and creators. Hench their hard dicks for lobbying for it so hard. There is a financial angle for this deal, and that's their own. Not the protection or benefits for consumers.
So I wish people would stop thinking that people are mad because jobs are lost. These deals are designed to circumvent china, brazil and china, and to keep them out. I guess you cannot blame EU and US wanting to hold on to their bread while fucking over others, but this is not true open marked economies. The whole point of TTIP is that there is serious ramifications for not accepting TTIP over its overlap with TPP. There has been many who have been scared what would happen if they didn't accept it.
These sorts of trade deals will make it much more difficult for upstarts to emerge into the market and brew new healthy competition. You end up with a few mega corporations who end up creating near monopolies where there is little competition. And with those copyright and trademark clauses it will be much harder much harder to get anything new going.
I completely fail to see how anyone can see the benefit in this. These deals have little to do with trade.
