Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal Endorsed by Major Tech Group (siliconbeat.com) 93
An anonymous reader shares a report on SiliconBeat: An industry group representing major tech firms including Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Amazon, Twitter, Uber and eBay has endorsed the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact plan "The TPP recognizes the Internet as an essential American export," Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman said in a statement. "Historically, pro-Internet policies have been absent from trade agreements, which is why the TPP is an important step forward for the Internet sector that accounts for 6 percent of the GDP and nearly 3 million American jobs. "It will be critical that the TPP is implemented in a way that supports the Internet economy." While President Barack Obama backs the trade deal, it has met with strong opposition from critics including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who attacked secrecy around the pact's drafting and has said the deal could weaken U.S. regulations that are good for Americans but might threaten foreign companies' profits.Brier Dudley, Seattle Times Columnist, tweeted, "TPP "taken a 180" since TPA, when there was confidence of passage, Rep @davereichert says. Issues incl. biologic protections, tobacco lobby."
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Soon to lose those firms as members... (Score:4, Informative)
TPP drops safe harbor protection from the DMCA. This alone should concern Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter.
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The economy is going down the shitter any ways, they are more concerned with protecting their real wealth (land, water resources, etc etc) from taxation. They own their wealth through a huge number of foreign intermediaries in every country they own stuff, foreign intermediaries which countries won't be able to tax in excess of their own citizens. TPP is about wealth lock in.
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US presidential campaign and TPP (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a socialist and a European. I was very surprised to hear that Trump was/is against the TPP. When I heard that, I started following him a bit. I also started paying attention to the campaign. In the end, while I have always been a lefty, I realized I can't stand Hillary, whereas I find some points in Trump which I agree with. Hillary looks like someone who'd sell her own mother for money and power, and would throw anyone under the bus.
Strictly from the POV of TPP, if either Trump or Bernie become presidents, the deal will be dead in the water.
Re: US presidential campaign and TPP (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't trust anything Trump says on the campaign trail. If elected, he will do whatever makes he and his class the most money. Not a single politician in the race give a rat's rear end about the commoners.
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Not a single politician in the race give a rat's rear end about the commoners.
Behold foolish mortal, and gaze in wonder at Bernie Sanders.
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What makes you say that? Obama was also a vocal opponent of trade deals during his campaign. In fact, both he and Clinton promised to renegotiate NAFTA [factcheck.org] during the 2008 Democratic primaries. And this was from the hope-and-change candidate that people were literally swooning over [wnd.com].
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Yep, that's one big reason I'm planning to vote for Trump if it comes down to him versus Hillary. She's the most obviously corrupt Presidential candidate I've ever seen in my lifetime. I'd rather vote for Bernie, but the DNC has been railroading him from the beginning. If we have to have a Hitler-esque buffoon as President to avoid the disaster that is the TPP, then so be it. And BTW, I live in a swing state, so my vote actually counts. The Democrats have brought this on themselves.
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If we have to have a Hitler-esque buffoon as President to avoid the disaster that is the TPP, then so be it.
Aren't you a bit worried about your own reasoning here?
"At least I'm not worse than Hitler." should be a line from a Mel Brooks film, not a line used to win an election.
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Aren't you a bit worried about your own reasoning here?
Not at all.
"At least I'm not worse than Hitler." should be a line from a Mel Brooks film, not a line used to win an election.
You would think. But you have to look at the choices: Trump or Hillary (as I stated before, with my assumption that the election would come down to those two). So you have someone who's obviously bad (Trump), but being horrible is not a disqualifier in a system where there's only one other choice, and she's even more horrible.
Tr
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Because Trump will continue the counterproductive tax cutting and deregulation - which, face it, is all the Republican elites care about. The economy will be shit, income inequality will get worse - and oh yeah, he'll bomb the hell out of Isis (whatever that means). The only reason the Republican elites hate Trump is that he lays bare the ugliness they've been using for decades to get people to vote against their economic interests. Hillary will be at worst, status quo - and perhaps much better than that
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Hear, hear!
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A vote for anyone besides HRC is NOT a vote for Drumpf
In the primary it's not. In the general, if Trump's the nominee it most definitely is. I'll grant you your analysis of HRC's pandering - though it sounds like just another, nastier way to say 'bends with the wind'. My point is that she bends in directions closer to Bernie than any Republican, so if you're planning on sitting out the general in the event that she wins the nomination, I'd like to ask... why?
I do take offense at the sheer misogyny of your language about her. You can fall back on saying 'wh
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Re:US presidential campaign and TPP (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump has consistently opposed not only TPP but threatened existing trade deals as well, to the point that China has published "warnings" to the US about Trump. Cruz held the typical Republican position on "trade" until recently, and has since even cast votes against the "fast track" rubber stamp authority Congress wanted to give Obama, but it still looks like an election year position. Kasich is your typical US Chamber of Commerce Republican; endless cheap labor and frictionless imports forever. Hillary is bought and paid for by the TPP lobby; she's a Walmart exec for Christ sake. Bernie has a clue; he's been fighting against all this trade crap since forever, opposing Most Favored Nation status for China, NAFTA (both circa Clinton I), etc. I don't see Bernie expound on this nearly enough however. If he'd shout it from the rooftops like Trump does he'd be doing far better in the primaries.
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She was a Walmart exec 30 years ago when she lived in Arkansas and Walmart was a huge force there. I doubt Hillary is in the pocket of Walmart today. You could say that, because she isn't reflexively anti-business, she's a total corporate shill - and you'd be making a silly argument that sounds like it's based on something significant. What she is, at worst, is a well-meaning politician who thought (probably correctly) that she needed to be centrist and business-friendly to stand any chance of contributi
Correct, this is a LOBBY GROUP (Score:2)
The group in question is a LOBBY group [wikipedia.org], not a "Tech group". This same group lobbies for increases in H1B, lower taxes for themselves, lower protection for workers, reduced regulations at the expense of those same workers, etc.. etc.. etc..
Call it what it is.
When a big part of their mantra is "protecting foreign profits" you know it's all about globalization.
Trump's belligerancy is quite mainstream. (Score:5, Interesting)
I encourage people to listen to what he says, and not just the indignant responses to his campaign rhetoric because it's interesting to hear an 'emperor wears no clothes' candidate as Trump occasionally is. Some of the things Trump says are plain lies, racist, and vulgar—reasons to reject supporting his campaign. But sometimes he tells the truth and gets booed for it (like when he pointed out the Iraq war was based on lies [theintercept.com]) or describes long-extant US mainstream foreign policy in clear language yet gets unfair flack for it from those who consider themselves a part of the US left (like the call-in to Fox News advocating a war crime). The real horror of his candidacy isn't Trump per se it's that so much of what he says is a plainly-worded description of what's going on and what has been going on for years before Trump's campaign began.
Consider Trump's call-in to which John Oliver provided a remarkably one-sided indignant reaction: On his 2016-02-28 show [youtube.com], John Oliver played a clip of Trump's call-in to Fox News saying "...the other thing with the terrorists, you have to take out their families. When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives, don't kid yourself. They say they don't care about their lives, you have to take out their families." and Oliver replied "That is the front runner for the Republican nomination advocating a war crime." which is a true but incomplete and certainly nowhere near as damning as Oliver wants it to be.
Oliver never told his viewers that is also extant US foreign policy wherein President Obama hand-picks whom to assassinate with drones every Tuesday (the so-called "Terror Tuesday" meetings [nytimes.com]) and that these attacks have extrajudicially killed innocent family members of alleged (never arrested, charged, or tried) so-called "terrorists". Some killed on-purpose (like 16-year-old U.S. citizen Abdulrahman, son of U.S. citizen Anwar al Awlaki who was killed in a separate attack 2 weeks prior), some killed without the U.S. knowing who they are killing [theintercept.com] as the CIA apparently does with some regularity. This is what Noam Chomsky recently rightly described as "massive global terrorism": drone attacks firing missiles that destroy whatever the missile hits as well as a large area around the target, resulting in indiscriminate extrajudicial murder of innocent passers-by. When Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary and senior adviser to Obama's reelection campaign commented on Abdulrahman's murder shortly after it happened Gibbs said [theatlantic.com] "I would suggest that you should have a far more responsible father if they are truly concerned about the well being of their children." a line on a par with Trump-level tact and recognition of responsibility.
Or when former NSA and CIA director, General Michael Hayden told Bill Maher "the American armed forces would refuse to act [on Trump's orders on torture and extrajudicial killings]" and Trump says "They won't refuse. They're not going to refuse me, believe me." Trump is right—they won't refuse. The proof has been staring the world in the face for years as Glenn Greenwald pointed out on Democracy Now! on 2016-03-29:
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Of course Trump says some things you agree with he basically spurs a bunch of inconsistent babble, sometimes you will agree with it.
I am sure that the current president (and previous ones) have authorized things that could be considered war crimes, but it wasn't part of their campaign, that they would commit them. The only reason they haven't been prosecuted is no one has the power to do it.
The key is Trump hasn't killed, YET. Give him the power to do so and he will. Just because a praying mantis has killed
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You are comparing a disregard of collateral damage to deliberately targeting innocents. There's a difference. The Greenwald quote also talks about the US armed forces and the CIA as if there were no difference, which is also wrong.
The US has a history of accepting very large amounts of collateral damage while striking legitimate targets, and is often rather loose in the definition of "legitimate target", and has a habit of using force when a more nuanced approach would be more productive, but there are
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Yeah Trump doesn't neatly fit into the traditional left/right spectrum for US politicians. I like some of his ideas and hate others. Having said that, chances are he wouldn't be able to actually deliver on any of them if he was elected.
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I don't trust Trump, of course, plus he'll probably start WWIII and then say 'He started it' (of course, that will solve the trade problems, and similarly to post Black De
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I am a socialist and a European. I was very surprised to hear that Trump was/is against the TPP. When I heard that, I started following him a bit. I also started paying attention to the campaign. In the end, while I have always been a lefty, I realized I can't stand Hillary, whereas I find some points in Trump which I agree with. Hillary looks like someone who'd sell her own mother for money and power, and would throw anyone under the bus.
Strictly from the POV of TPP, if either Trump or Bernie become presidents, the deal will be dead in the water.
The deal, particularly around the subject of copyrights, and entertainment leaves all countries but Disneyland, Bollywood, and Hollywood vulnerable. .
The TPP is a gift to content providers, who, from this deal, will grow stronger and will monopolize the internet, communications and entertainment. Canada has signed to the TPP, but with tremendous opposition from Canadian citizens, particularly around
Hopefully, instead of Free Trade, it becomes Fair Trade. Currently Canada's patent and copyright laws will be
this bill can make importing foreign labor easier (Score:5, Informative)
this bill can make importing foreign labor easier and let them use Investor-State Dispute Settlements to by pass labor laws.
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The whole thing was co-written by industry associations with the express purpose of doing an end-run around a Congress that would never have gotten away with passing equivalent legislation chipping away at so many worker, citizen and consumer protections.
Re:this bill can make importing foreign labor easi (Score:4, Informative)
What "Investor-State Dispute Settlements" really does is hoodwink the world into having corporations have veto over the ability of nations to set policy which corporations don't like.
The only beneficiaries of this are corporations, and the people who are pushing these bullshit things are people are owners of large corporations, or have been bought and paid for by large corporations.
It's completely in-democratic, and intended to make the worst practices of globalization entrenched in law ... and everybody except "shareholder value" will get fucked in the process.
That Americas foreign policy is now so blatantly corrupted and tied to the wishes of multinational corporations is alarming, and this treaty should be rejected on the basis that it is NOTHING but the US forcing a corporate agenda on the world and acting like it's going to benefit anybody else.
This is literally theft on a global scale, and a massive undermining of national sovereignty purely to advance corporate interests, to which America is so utterly beholden they've become little more than corporate lackeys. And many aspects of this stupid "treaty" are little more than ensuring nation-states are responsible for policing the interests of those corporations.
This treaty is utterly terrible, and will NOT in ANY WAY benefit the citizens of any country ... except of course those who own stocks in, or have been bribed by, the multinational corporations it benefits. The rest of us get royally screwed in the process.
This will undermine labor laws, environmental laws, and pretty much any form of regulation under the insane premise that we must protect corporate profits at all fucking costs.
There is no upside to this if you're not a multinational corporation. Which is precisely why it is getting the backing of multi-billion dollar multinational corporations.
Corporate Sovereignty (Score:5, Insightful)
It lets corporations sue governments to overturn laws made by democratically elected governments. DUH! Of course major corps will endorse this shift of power from people to corporations!
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... not beholden to the "people" and whose mandates must be measured in decades, not years. Like in Europe.
So you're a monarchist?
They all have one thing in common (Score:5, Insightful)
All of these organizations have one thing in common: they don't care about you. They don't care about how this agreement could affect your life. They don't care about individuals, they don't care about neighborhoods, they don't care about children, they don't care about liberty, they don't care about jobs, they don't care about culture, they don't care about America, and they don't care about any other country either.
I'm not even necessarily against the TPP. It seems like it's probably bad because of the secrecy and because it was negotiated by elites, presumably for the benefit of elites. But I haven't read it. I'm against these things being decided based on not caring how they affect people.
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Same deal here. I don't understand the TPP or the objections being raised, so can't comment.
I know globalization and free trade are economic positives. If we blockaded China and brought those manufacture jobs here to the US, somewhere between 15 million and 40 million Americans would simply need to die, because we wouldn't have jobs for them. The increase in cost to make those products manufactured in China would decrease the American consumer buying power, while the labor requirements would remove ou
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... As a result, our population has expanded; conversely, if we undid that change, our population would be millions beyond sustainable ... millions of Americans would need to simply die off to stabilize our system. ...
This nonsense is beyond ridiculous.
Trade is known to have a lot of positive effects: it increases standards of living in almost all cases. But lack of those positive effects is not a death sentence in a rich country. Stop making up nonsense counterfactual stories to scare people -- a.k.a. FUD.
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We make and have our food and shelter right here; we buy our clothing from China, and some of our food.
We *can* make those things here--at a higher cost. That means we have less buying power: instead of buying pants *and* bread, we buy pants *or* bread. Either the guy making the pants or the guy making the bread must now become unemployed.
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It's the same pants. You think they magically will last longer?
This is a stupid argument, I'm not going down that line. That's the wrong line of argument.
Or pants cost three times as much and we must use them three times as long.
We buy 1/3 as many pants, and 1/3 as many pants move. That means we need 1/3 as many retail monkeys involved in selling pants; 1/3 as many logistics people involved in directing the movement of pants; 1/3 as many truck drivers driving pants around; and Levis Strauss, Ralph Lauren, Polo, and Dock Marten all need to lay off 1/3 of their existing work f
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If us buying 2/3 less pants equals a 2/3 cut in employment down the board then that makes the pants cheaper in logistics on the American side and the only cost increase is the person who spent a couple hours making the pants in the first place.
No, you don't get to do that.
The people who lose their jobs are the people involved in moving the pants WE ARE NO LONGER SELLING. They're sitting around with their thumbs up their asses because we're selling fewer pants.
In other words: if we have 1/3 as many pants, we fire 2/3 of the people helping with the logistics. That means you start with 99 pants and 9 logistics people; you end selling 33 pants and dealing with 3 people handling logistics; and so you start with 1 logistics per 11 pants and end w
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You seem to be under the impression that the number of jobs is essentially fixed, and having as many jobs as possible is good. In fact, economic progress depends on destroying jobs. The US was almost completely agricultural in, say, 1820. Nowadays, a small percentage of the workforce is involved in agriculture, and there aren't jobs there for everybody. By eliminating agricultural jobs, we freed up workers for factories and industrialization. More recently, we've been eliminating industrial jobs.
All
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You seem to be under the impression that the number of jobs is essentially fixed, and having as many jobs as possible is good
Where would you ever get that idea?
All I've described is the demand source of jobs: jobs come from being able to buy what the employee is making. If I can't sell the stuff you're making, I can't employ you. If the United States Public can buy 75% as much physical stuff, then 25% of us (by income) must stop working.
Jobs "freed up" in that manner don't come back. When you make a product cheaper by new technology or by trade advantage, you eliminate jobs; and in doing so, you leave money in the consumer'
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The middle class in other countries is exactly what you want to have. They buy iphones like crazy, among other things.
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somewhere between 15 million and 40 million Americans would simply need to die... millions of Americans would need to simply die off to stabilize our system.
It's your chance to be a pioneer, just like Lewis and Clark.. Say 'Hi' to Elvis
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Everyone whose soul is not sold out stopped reading right there. You could have saved yourself a lot of hot air.
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Facts actually fit on my side. You can argue globalization is bad for Americans and that we would lower unemployment by bringing Manufacture back to America, but you'd be out there with the Vaccines-Cause-Autism and faith healing groups.
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Globalization allows the world economy to become more efficient and productive, and free trade is how it does so. Other things being equal, globalization and free trade make everyone better off.
There are real problems in how we usually implement globalization and free trade. Corporations push for only their half: their ability to hire people and buy things anywhere. They do their best to restrict the rights and abilities of consumers to buy things anywhere, mostly so they can maintain monopolies and
Pearls before /. swine? (Score:2)
True although you should oppose the TPP. But how many /. readers do you think will keep your words in mind when Disney releases the next Star Wars movie? I think the likely power-for-power's-sake coveting readership of most tech sites (virtually all corporate news repeaters) will very likely fund known adversaries on copyright and foreign worker law on the basis of "ooh, shiny!" rationalization. And that shows you how foolish they are: prioritizing entertainment over things they need to live (which you've r
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Disney isn't going to stop me from getting the stuff I need to live. Seriously. If I boycott everyone who wants copyright law and foreign worker law changes I don't like, I'm not going to care about copyright law anymore, since it won't touch me.
I did write my Senators and told them to oppose the TPP. I'm going to do so again after the election, when it's likely to be taken up.
Uber?? (Score:1)
Since when is Uber a "major tech firm"?
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I agree. Uber is a major lobby firm, not a tech firm. Their business is to lobby the different government levels worldwide into changing regulations in order to allow taxi service without license and insurance.
Moochers (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Taxation without representation" -- where have I heard that before?
Good for corporations (Score:2)
Good for corporations probably means bad for the peons... I mean people.
European POV (Score:1)
Do the hustle (Score:1)
The whole TPP process has been some of the slimy est, underhanded back-roomed corruption in recent political history. It brings to mind the old disco era tune "Do The Hustle" the president should hang his head in shame and resign for maleficence in office. So much for the claims of transparency, he promised us change, just didn't say it would be for the worse.
Re: Do the hustle (Score:1)
Just because you don't know how it happened doesn't mean it was a secret conspiracy.
The TPP began life as a deal between Singapore and New Zealand, quickly joined by Malaysia, Brunei and Chile. Next to join the negotiations were Mexico and Canada. Australia and the USA were last to join ( not sure of sequence). We are now more than 10yrs into the process which was set up under confidentiality rules to protect negotiating positions but which allowed conspiracy theories to flourish, especially as negotiations