David Malone (aka, Golem) The Death of Democracy

[Little John]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fDCbf4O-0s

[careful_eugene]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fDCbf4O-0s

Just watched the first 22 minutes of this during lunch, I urge everyone to watch this. It's the most important European issue facing us at the moment.

[johnhemming2]

Two questions

a) Should we have a trade agreement with the USA (I think Donald Trump is not in favour of freeing up trade).

b) Should it be negotiated by the UK government or the EU?

I don't know whether I support the TTIP proposals as I don't know as yet what they are. There were problems with the ISDS approach to resolving disputes. I prefer the ECJ approach on this.

[Little John]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fDCbf4O-0s

Just watched the first 22 minutes of this during lunch, I urge everyone to watch this. It's the most important European issue facing us at the moment.

Which is, of course, why none of the politicians and none of the MSM are talking about it

[careful_eugene]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fDCbf4O-0s

Just watched the first 22 minutes of this during lunch, I urge everyone to watch this. It's the most important European issue facing us at the moment.

Which is, of course, why none of the politicians and none of the MSM are talking about it

True, I only know about it through Twitter.

[AutomaticEarth]

Talking of TTIP:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 37141.html

[vtsnowedin]

So if we shut down coal burning power plants do we end up paying full price for the coal left in the ground? If another market opens up and they sell it elsewhere do we then get a refund? How about if we manage to have peace break out in the middle East and Africa? Do we still have to pay Lockheed-Martin for all the cruse missiles and smart bombs?

[careful_eugene]

How about if we manage to have peace break out in the middle East and Africa? Do we still have to pay Lockheed-Martin for all the cruse missiles and smart bombs?

In the very unlikely event of that happening, probably yes.

[kenneal - lagger]

The general idea of TTIP, and TPP and all the other trade agreements for that matter, is that we pay and the corporations rake it in. It designed to transfer all wealth into the pockets of corporations. What they will do with all that money, I don't know, because they will kill the system that makes their money worth something! They, the corporate bosses and the oligarchs, should all be sent to mental institutions in my opinion.

[vtsnowedin]

The general idea of TTIP, and TPP and all the other trade agreements for that matter, is that we pay and the corporations rake it in. It designed to transfer all wealth into the pockets of corporations. What they will do with all that money, I don't know, because they will kill the system that makes their money worth something! They, the corporate bosses and the oligarchs, should all be sent to mental institutions in my opinion.

Well wait a minute. They do have to manufacture, transport, and sell you the products that are being traded, and you do get to use and consume them.

[Little John]

The general idea of TTIP, and TPP and all the other trade agreements for that matter, is that we pay and the corporations rake it in. It designed to transfer all wealth into the pockets of corporations. What they will do with all that money, I don't know, because they will kill the system that makes their money worth something! They, the corporate bosses and the oligarchs, should all be sent to mental institutions in my opinion.

Well wait a minute. They do have to manufacture, transport, and sell you the products that are being traded, and you do get to use and consume them.

TTIP is a three part Russian doll. The outer shell is the bit everyone knows about (to the extent anyone knows anything, since all negotiations are being carried on behind closed doors). That part is about reducing any tariffs on imported good based upon standards of the importing country. Thus, in Europe, there is employed the precautionary principle to manufacturing and toxic waste. To take one example, in chicken production, EU regulations insist that salmonella must not be present in any part of chicken production from the field to the plate. In the USA, no such regulations are present. Instead, there is only a requirement that salmonella is not present in the packaged food. So, in order ensure this, American producers simply douse their chickens in chlorine just prior to packaging. But, that is only a tiny fraction of the differences in standards. The outer shell of TTIP means that either EU regulations will remain the same, in which case EU manufacturers will go out of business, causing mass unemployment because they now have to complete with USA manufacturers working under far laxer (and so far cheaper) manufacturing regulations/pay/working conditions. Or, EU regulations will be lowered to USA standards in order for them to compete. Take you pick. If you can think of an alternative outcome let me know. But, I'll save you the trouble. There isn't one.

The middle shell of TTIP is where, if a transnational corporation can demonstrate that its profits are being deleteriously affected by the decisions of a given state's parliament, they can sue that state for loss of earning. However, since these bilateral treaty have been in forced over the last decade, this principle has been expanded in the courts of arbitration to include predicted future loss of earning. to take one example, A US petrol manufacturer has added a certain chemical (I forget the name) to its petrol and has been doing so for several years in the USA. They expeort a lot of this petrol to Canada. The Canadian ministry for health did their own research and concluded that the levels of this chemical were twice what they considered safe and so told the US manufacture that they would need to halve the level of it in any petrol shipped to Canada. The US company took them to international arbitration under the terms of the treaty arguing that this reduced their expected profits from what they initially predicted based on when they first started shipping this product to Canada. The US company won the case. Canada had to apologise to them and had to pay several hundred million dollars in compensation for their inconvenience.

There are currently many such arbitrations being held in the world today.

Which leads us to the inner shell of TTIP. This is the arbitration process. The arbitrators are selected from a small number of legal companies in the world specialising in this field. Two of the biggest of which are in America. Both of whoch get most of their work defending major international corporations. Of all of the arbitrators themselves, 15 of them account for over 50% of all arbitrations globally and around 80% of all arbitrations involving sums exceeding 4 billion dollars. Arbitrations are held behind closed doors. There is no obligation for the public to be even told an arbitration is occurring. There is no judge and no jury. The results of the arbitration are not published nor the reasoning behind such arbitrations.

So, in summary around 15 people, who are in no way whatsoever democratically accountable to anyone on earth, who come from and serve the interest of the richest few percent of the population of the earth, get to make decisions that can completely overturn the democratic will of large swathes of the human global population.

Are you actually trying to defend this shit?

[kenneal - lagger]

The general idea of TTIP, and TPP and all the other trade agreements for that matter, is that we pay and the corporations rake it in. It designed to transfer all wealth into the pockets of corporations. What they will do with all that money, I don't know, because they will kill the system that makes their money worth something! They, the corporate bosses and the oligarchs, should all be sent to mental institutions in my opinion.

Well wait a minute. They do have to manufacture, transport, and sell you the products that are being traded, and you do get to use and consume them.

But they are reducing our wages in the western world to third world levels while our cost of living is not changing or is going up. We will not be able to afford the goods which we are making or are being made in the third world!

These trade agreements will reinforce this trend.

[AutomaticEarth]

The general idea of TTIP, and TPP and all the other trade agreements for that matter, is that we pay and the corporations rake it in. It designed to transfer all wealth into the pockets of corporations. What they will do with all that money, I don't know, because they will kill the system that makes their money worth something! They, the corporate bosses and the oligarchs, should all be sent to mental institutions in my opinion.

Well wait a minute. They do have to manufacture, transport, and sell you the products that are being traded, and you do get to use and consume them.

But they are reducing our wages in the western world to third world levels while our cost of living is not changing or is going up. We will not be able to afford the goods which we are making or are being made in the third world!

These trade agreements will reinforce this trend.

VT is of the age where consuming CCC (cheap Chinese crap) is more important that securing jobs for young folks going forward.

That's an understandable, though selfish, view of things. I had a very heated argument with some pensioners about this very topic (ie I was saying should we cut pensions in order to fund young people's education), but there you go....

[fuzzy]

The unspoken taboo is that you cannot live on subsistence levels in the UK as people in equatorial regions can, or you die of hypothermia. The only way the UK is sustainable at crofting levels of wealth is with a low population density and with total land ownership reform. Something that ~1000 years of violent parasites in charge of the UK would not allow. Any attempt at land reform would be subverted by the existing rich, just as happened in Afghanistan back in 78 when they attempted land redistribution, leading to 40 years of anarchy.

[UndercoverElephant]

Talking of TTIP:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 37141.html

One more reason to vote LEAVE in June.