

TPP negotiations threaten to forcibly commercialise state-owned bodies - walterbell
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2015/07/30/tpp-negotiations-threaten-forcibly-commercialise-state-owned-bodies

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walterbell
From [http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07/30/tpp-canada-
cbc_n_790...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/07/30/tpp-canada-
cbc_n_7905046.html)

 _".. foreign entities could sue the government of Canada for subsidizing a
Crown corporation if that foreign entity can prove it’s at a competitive
disadvantage because of those subsidies ... State-owned corporations “are
almost always state-owned because they have functions other than those that
are merely commercial, such as guaranteed access to important services” or
social and cultural functions ... “The very mission of the CBC – telling the
bilingual and multicultural story of Canada – will be reduced to simple profit
making."_

TPP negotiations are scheduled to conclude today. There will be a live-
streamed press conference in ~15 hours, [https://ustr.gov/tpp/maui-
livestream](https://ustr.gov/tpp/maui-livestream)

~~~
dexen
Curiously enough a friend in Germany got _" Live straming is not available in
your country due to licensing issues"_ error on this video. As he said,
`pretty [much] sums it up'.

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klunger
I have followed news about the TPP for a while, since this great cartoon [1]
grabbed my attention a few years ago. Without exception, coverage since then
has been negative, describing a collection of rules that will benefit large
corporations at the expense of just about everyone, the OP's article just
being the most recent. I have tried finding articles in favor of it, just to
get a more balanced perspective, but no luck.

How one earth is this thing still going forward? Is there any hope of stopping
it?

[1] [http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/](http://economixcomix.com/home/tpp/)

~~~
michaelt

      How one earth is this thing still going forward?
    

I wrote to my MP about it. He said "UK has already signed 91 trade deals using
the same kind of [investor-state dispute resolution] [...] many people who are
against TTIP are actually against free trade. This is crazy."

Personally I didn't find that a very convincing argument, but there you go.

~~~
walterbell
The scope of the new (TPP/TTIP/TISA/RCEP) trade treaties are much broader and
include new disputes related to fast-evolving digital rights, which cross
borders more easily than slower moving, geographically tied industries like
farming.

Here is a list of pre-TPP ISDS disputes between corporations and countries, in
the areas of health, climate, energy, finance, environment and essential
public services:
[http://www.isdscorporateattacks.org/#!attacks/c1cm0](http://www.isdscorporateattacks.org/#!attacks/c1cm0)

Now imagine ISDS applied to copyright, software patents, data sovereignty,
banking and payment regulation, and much more.

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toyg
In a way, these developments are not historically surprising. If you look at
the gradual process of state consolidation in Europe since the Industrial
Revolution, you'll see a pattern of changes in law that were done in the
interest of expanding trade interests. Places like Italy or Germany _had to
integrate_ if they wanted to compete with states that could better exploit
industrial economies of scale. Economic interests were powering national
movements in most countries.

Now this process is happening at a higher scale. We are moving towards a
fully-integrated system where industrial interests can reach the farthest
corners of the world. It has to be expected that they would drive legislation
towards harmonization. In fact, in some ways this is a good thing: if European
companies can compete with US ones on a level playing field, it's better for
everyone.

The problem is that political representatives are not properly exploiting this
historical chance. These compromises are being done "towards the bottom" of
available choices, consistently choosing options that would reduce rights and
quality of life of average people on all sides. EU single-market integration
was a similar process, and has delivered improved standards in many areas of
life (note: I'm not talking about the Euro, but EU-wide regulation on safety,
worker rights and so on); TPP looks like a simple money grab, a rush towards
dismantling what is left of European-style welfare.

This is doubly disappointing because this sort of chance doesn't come along
every year or even every generation.

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wycx
...but it is still OK for the US to subsidise agriculture.

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jmnicolas
These treaties are just an hostile takeover of the corporate world on our fake
democracies.

But yeah we can still vote for the best presidential liar ... huh ...
candidate. So good to be free.

~~~
dylanjermiah
If you like your doctor...

