
TTIP explained: The secretive US-EU treaty that undermines democracy - walterbell
http://arstechnica.co.uk/tech-policy/2015/05/ttip-explained-the-secretive-us-eu-treaty-that-undermines-democracy/
======
mercurial
_In a blog post entitled "Why Is It So Acceptable to Lie to Promote Trade
Deals?," the economist Dean Baker wrote: "Implying that a deal that raises GDP
by 0.4 or 0.5 percent 13 years out [in 2027] means "job-creating opportunities
for workers on both continents" is just dishonest. The increment to annual
growth is on the order of 0.03 percentage points. Good luck finding that in
the data."_

And that's the best case scenario. With studies which appear to ignore any
downside of the trade agreement.

Another choice morsel:

 _According to CEO 's analysis of the leaked document: "as soon as a new
regulation is in the pipeline, businesses should be informed through an annual
report, and be involved". Specifically, governments wishing to bring in new
regulations have to offer companies that may be affected by legislation or
regulation an opportunity to provide input, with the rider that this input
“shall be taken into account” when finalising the proposal."_

Consumers, on the other hand, can just get stuffed, no privileged access for
NGOs.

Not to mention the ISDS mechanism, which is pure madness. What democratic
government would want to be subject to secret tribunals, especially
considering the litigation-happy nature of US business culture? A system
which, apparently, is already used to strong-arm Canada into watering down
legislation which would endanger US corporate profits...

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Consumers, on the other hand //

How about just people, the _demos_ , the supposed central element of a
democracy.

~~~
vosper
Thank you! I'm not anti-capitalist, but I find utterly insidious the way that
"consumer" has become the standard term used to refer to people.

~~~
jiayo
In Canada, certain demagogues have started to use the word "taxpayers" instead
of "citizens".

~~~
jpollock
There is a difference between a taxpayer and a citizen. Taxpayers includes
people who are non-citizens, and even non-resident.

~~~
JupiterMoon
And some citizens are not taxpayers...

Neither term is sufficient with respect to the other.

~~~
6t6t6
Actually, in most of the countries of the World, less than 50% of the
population are taxpayers.

~~~
JupiterMoon
Isn't that what I was saying? Just because someone does not (currently) they
should not lose their rights as citizens.

------
cies
> undermines democracy

Sorry which democracy? If these talks and their outcomes are already a secret
(without discussing matters of national security), then this is one more
reason for me not to consider the EU nor the US a democracy. The people have
just a tiny fraction of power compared to the corps.

Let's just be fair and teach the next generations that our countries have been
hijacked by corps+lobbyists, and that democracy is just a word used to make
people accept their totalitarian power.

~~~
MarcusVorenus
Sound like sour grapes and No True Scotsman to me. The president, who is
leading negotiations, was elected democratically, and Congress, who decides
whether this treaty becomes law or not, was also elected democratically. If
the people dislike how the government is doing things they have only
themselves to blame for electing these representatives.

To be honest I don't believe anybody really cares about the ideals of
democracy. If the same secrecy was being used to push legislation you
supported you wouldn't be whining at all, you would probably be defending it
instead because you would rationalize that passing the law is more important
than the method used to pass it.

~~~
calibraxis
That's not democracy. That's doublespeak. The US's "Founding Fathers" hated
democracy and stressed it was a republic. Those slaveowners wanted to protect
minorities against majority rule — the wealthy minority. (Obviously they
didn't mean African Americans and women.)

Later politicians coopted the term "democracy", as marketing. One source to
learn more is Graeber's "The Democracy Project".
([http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/democracy-what-is-it-
good-...](http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/democracy-what-is-it-good-for-
david-graeber-and-gar-alperovitz))

Pushing a button every few years for your new corporate-sponsored king isn't
meaningful democratic participation.

~~~
MarcusVorenus
Obama is a union-sponsored king actually, so it's all good I guess.

~~~
lumberjack
Neither Obama nor Clinton are sponsored by unions. Their major sponsors are
Wall St, universities, SV and Hollywood, i.e. typical wealthy democrats.

[http://www.opensecrets.org/PRES08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638](http://www.opensecrets.org/PRES08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638)

Maybe you were thinking about Bernie Sanders?

~~~
MarcusVorenus
Unions don't donate directly, they make independent campaign expenditures
through Super PACs. Look in the Independent Expenditures tab in the page you
gave me.

------
deif
The conclusion to this is very strange. There's vast amounts of people on both
sides of this deal that come into the fray in black and white. What I mean is
they're either totally for or totally against. I've watched one of these
presentations to the EU Parliament and the MEPs completely shredded the
negotiators on ISDS. And yet there are still people concerned that the
European Parliament is somehow going to lower standards and screw the public
over.

The final few paragraphs state that if one EU member votes against TTIP then
they will be blamed for not facilitating growth. Yeah, by lobbying companies,
but not by the people. The EP have generally been the 'good' guys in history,
and I highly doubt that they're going to U-turn and go against everything they
created in the past few decades by allowing multinational companies to lobby
them into lowering standards.

It's all very sensational and the media takes a very jazz hands approach to
presenting the happenings to the public, when in actuality if one did a little
research, you would find that the documents that exist right now present the
opposite case of what the public believes.

If TTIP is horrible, I still have faith that our MEPs will reject it. But
we're not anywhere near a final document to vote on, so I don't think we
should be running around waving our hands in the air just yet.

~~~
wersfg
Would you mind sharing the sources mentioned in the first paragraph?

~~~
deif
The EU Parliament videos? I don't know how BBC iPlayer works for other
countries, but I think the one where they were heavy on ISDS was this on:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05wq51g](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05wq51g)

There's also another broadcast on 10th June that the BBC will produce:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ykxrt](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05ykxrt)

~~~
wersfg
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVmVnyZVkFw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVmVnyZVkFw)

Is this anything close to it?

~~~
deif
Yeah but the one specific on ISDS was held early May/late April.

------
PythonicAlpha
The trend was started long ago. The whole notion of "globalization" is a
development to disempower the single nations. Before the globalization was
known in Germany, it was a nation that could stand against the big
corporations and say "we have our own rules in this country" (e.g. worker
rights, environmental, ...).

And we had a state where wealth was rather evenly divided and with many people
that did well. Also we had rather low crime and view people had to worry that
they could be poor when they are old.

Than came globalization and the notion that the "free market" will be always
right and will make things (automatically) perfect. (That was promoted by Mrs.
Thatcher and Mr. Reagan, to name two early adopters). Than the governments in
Germany and all over the world started to bend. "It is the free market, we can
not do anything against it" was said by them. "We have to bend our laws to
comply with the free market".

So it was going all over the world.

What do we have today: All over the world, people get richer ... 1% of the
people. The others get gradually poorer and the lowest part of the people are
really poor, because in Germany it is already clear, that a big part of the
people working today, will not be able to live from the pensions they will
get.

So the "free market" took over and the "free nations" are enslaved by one
economic theory, that nobody has ever proved.

We are all at the mercy of "unlimited growth". Our economic systems are only
stable, when growth is guaranteed. In biology, unlimited growth is called
cancer.

~~~
adventured
Would you kindly point out the countries that are currently being enslaved by
a free market? There must be a lot of them.

For example, those that even slightly resemble the low tax, low regulation,
low government involvement system of the US between 1820-1920.

~~~
PythonicAlpha
It is not about "free market" \-- but about the ideology behind the current
system. It has the name "free market" \-- but it is only free for those, that
have the money to control politics. That are the persons that control, what is
negotiated at TTIP and other treaties.

To answer your question: Go to Bangladesh, go to Mexico (already have a treaty
like TTIP in place, and what happened: The rich get richer, the poor get
poorer), go to Germany, go to the US. Must I go on?

I don't think, your question was a real question.

You view the world from your position (of a rather rich guy) -- but there are
approx. 5 billion people poorer than you and me around.

Edit: One final thought about it: Even when you are on the profitable side of
today's system (what might even change), you even might be effected by its
back-sides, when for example environmental regulations are lowered. Many
regulations today are lowered or not strengthened, because they could
potentially harm big corporations. Also in the rich countries, even rich
people are dying of environmental induced deceases. That politics is turning
more and more a blind eye to those problems, is showing, that we are indeed
enslaved!

------
walterbell
Lobbyists drafting laws: [http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-
ustr-emails-...](http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/06/05/confidential-ustr-emails-
show-close-industry-involvement-in-tpp-negotiations/)

 _" Through a US Freedom of Information Act request, Intellectual Property
Watch has obtained some 400 pages of email traffic between USTR officials and
industry advisors ... the emails reveal a close-knit relationship between
negotiators and the industry advisors that is likely unmatched by any other
stakeholders. _"

Worse terms for RCEP in Asia: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/just-
when-you-thought-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/06/just-when-you-
thought-no-trade-agreement-could-be-worse-tpp-meet-rcep)

 _" RCEP can be compared with the .. TPP, except that rather than being driven
by the United States, it is being driven by the ten-member Association of
South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) .. [plus] India and China .. This draft is ..
far worse than ACTA, and is even worse than the most recent leaked draft of
the TPP._"

~~~
vosper
So, where are unions on countering the corporate influence over the USTR?
There are still some big unions in the U.S., with plenty of money and
influence. Aren't they the natural counterparty in these things?

~~~
walterbell
Good question. One union (Communications Workers) is in a group calling for
the release of lobbyist emails. Unclear why they have been unable to influence
more legislators.

[http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2015-05-with-
controver...](http://www.foe.org/news/news-releases/2015-05-with-controversy-
over-secret-trade-deal-rising-10-groups-call-for-emails-release)

 _" 10 organizations representing more than 10 million Americans called on
U.S. Trade Representative -- USTR -- Michael Froman to publicly release all
records of communication between himself and representatives of the ten
largest U.S. financial institutions -- including his former employer Citigroup
-- while he has served in the USTR position."_

------
officemonkey
Let me guess which "non-trade barrier" isn't coming down: reciprocal work
visas for EU and US citizens.

~~~
rjsw
The US could copy the EU and allow free movement of workers within NAFTA.

~~~
rhino369
Politically untenable. Mexico is a third world nation.

~~~
rjsw
There are several EU member nations with comparable GDP (PPP) to Mexico, their
citizens can move to anywhere else within the EU.

------
meesterdude
My question is, why is this representative of innate inertia? It seems like
even if this is managed to be stopped, there will be 3 more similar deals
ready to replace it. The people who push for these things do not stop pushing.

Evil only has to win once.

~~~
hurin
That's a narrow way of looking at it. More likely rule by government will
simply be replaced with rule by cooperations (e.g. Gibson's trilogy) - it's
not an unexpected movement since the role of governments has weakened
significantly since the time when a large standing army in Europe gave
dominance to a nation.

Will it be worse for the average person/family? Probably, yet I tend towards
seeing it as a natural historical movement rather than some kind of craftily-
perpetrated evil. For example Spengler
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Spengler))
writes about the dominance of money and commercial interest as being the
primary value at the aged point of a civilizations development (cf. the last
couple centuries of ancient Rome).

------
DyslexicAtheist
>> The nominal one million signatures from EU citizens was achieved in just
two months; at the time of writing, over 1.7 million Europeans have signed the
unofficial ECI—a stunning rebuke to the European Commission for refusing to
allow this to proceed officially. Resistance isn’t limited to the digital
world, either. Recently, a global day of action against TTIP and CETA saw 750
events organised around the world, with many tens of thousands of people
taking to the streets to show their engagement and concerns.

\--> they are now at a 1.9 Mio votes against TTIP. If you're in the EU vote
against it here: [https://stop-ttip.org/](https://stop-ttip.org/)

~~~
Matumio
The problem with ECI is, you can force the government to _talk_ about your
topic. Essentially, people have right to make a _plea_ to the rulers, who are
then free to ignore it. Apparently, this is called a "democratic instrument".
Oh well, I'm from Switzerland, so maybe I just got a distorted idea about who
should have the last word in a democracy. (I'm not saying you shouldn't sign
this if you are in the EU, but it's humiliating if that's the best option you
have.)

------
smutticus
Any argument at this point will require a level of speculation that makes me
uncomfortable. I'm against the TTIP on principle, simply because I cannot read
it. That's the only information I need to be against it, nothing else is
germane to my stance.

Given that, I feel little need to read up on it, or learn about how it might
be terrible. Until I can read it, I don't want to hear speculation about what
might be in it.

------
chronikewok
If you're coming to this fresh and want a slightly more approachable, video
version:
[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh0InepmCwQ](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh0InepmCwQ)

------
vinay427
All I wanted was for things such as unified vehicle safety standards between
the EU and US. If the US adopted the far newer and more relevant EU standards
(which has effectively already happened to a large extend due to the
globalized car market) Americans would benefit from safer vehicles while
Europeans would benefit from more options.

Instead we seemingly ended up with a whole bowl of agreements regarding
controversial protectionism, financial regulation, etc.

------
mmariani
If anyone is looking for the Stop TTIP petition mentioned in the article here
it is.

[https://stop-ttip.org](https://stop-ttip.org)

------
louithethrid
Imagine it would be stoped. The next cooperation constitution suggestion one
year later would then be: UTIP?

~~~
venomsnake
Freedom require eternal vigilance ...

~~~
louithethrid
Freedom needs institutions that strip evil from inertia, by making it loose
power in combat against itself, by bleeding it dry and redirecting the
ressources into new smaller evils.

That is what democracy basically consist off. Accepting that humanitys nature
is a dangerous snake pit and building a machinery that converts snake venom
and strangling motion into movement .

------
tragomaskhalos
Great that this has floated to the top of HN, _far_ more people need to know
about this

------
omniquad
Democracy is a bad ideal that is much inferior for economic prosperity than
one party states/kingdoms like Singapore, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Qatar who
have a high degree of economic freedom. This deal would increase prosperity
and trade and prevent unelected bureaucrats on both sides of the atlantic from
restricting commerce with oppressive laws.

If only US and EU weren't a democracy, but allowed full blown economic
freedom, we would all have plenty more money in our pockets.

~~~
malka
If only slavery were allowed...

~~~
arethuza
It pretty much is in Qatar:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Qatar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Qatar)

