The Gaming Den

So the TPP is going to the next big thing that Obama is going to disappoint me on. Everywhere I look where it is mentioned says it's going to be all bad. Is all the doomsday speak of corporations having power over government, making it tougher to hold big businesses accountable for their actions, and essentially setting the stage for our interwebs to be fucked with all overblown fearmongering or should I be getting ready for megacorps?

The TPP, in known final form, provides for corporations to sue governments to abolish laws or be compensated with billions of dollars when the governments do things that impact profits, like say, having laws and regulations about preventing environmental damage or protecting public health.

The TPP, in known final form, does indeed have a clause saying that governments are specifically allowed however to have health and safety and environmental regulations... but that clause also includes words that are basically to the effect of "except where it would conflict with everything else in the TPP, so basically never actually".

In the end the honestly pretty implausibly evil corporations that apparently somehow exist in the real world rather than a comic book have managed to get such an incredibly broad and favourable ability to bend the governments of the world over their knee in unaccountable corporation appointed "things that are not in any way a real court of law" that they could do just about any crazy thing they want, and under similar already existing treaties are already doing so in some pretty crazy bat shit cases.

The thing is ultimately governments can always say "fuck you, we am the law, and we have armies so screw you corporation small fry". Now they won't in any currently conceivable political environment, but if corporations push this shit as hard as they can now push it, I can imagine a VERY anti-corporation political environment coming about pretty damn fast.

Corporations are alreayd deeply unpopular with the global masses outside of conservative chumps, and even then they struggle. As I see it it takes ONE major public face plant on this to see some serious reactionary anti-corporate agendas.

The question is what DOES a major corporate face plant on this count as? What would be pushing it too far. Apparently polution requirements on coal power plants being abolished because corporate sued?... not too much, empiracally life saving public health cigarette packaging laws being challenged?... not too much, currently the whole "Germany decided to shut down all the Nuclear Reactors... corporations in process of trying to say no you aren't allowed to shut down Nuclear Reactors"... also not too much.

Much of this stuff, in Australian terms anyway, I think hits the wall when it runs into our besieged public health system. For us a lot of this is a direct challenge to our public subsidized bulk purchasing prescription drugs scheme and our remaining public hospitals. It becomes a wedge in a door that corporations can and will use to turn out "Public system with encroaching Private bullshit" into a full on 100% privatized Mad Max style US "health system".

If their now inevitable attempts to abuse the TPP to destroy public health in Australia doesn't create a local political environment that could swing the pendulum back on the corporations and backfire it to boot, then NOTHING will and we are all doomed.

You think you have it bad?
That will severely weaken consumer / worker protection over here in europe because the american standards for consumer / worker protection are lower as far as i have understood the arguments of the people against it over here.

That's what I would have pointed out. It tries to make everything run on American standards - and so things like prescription drugs would be raised to the American price. And that's shit.

Stahlseele wrote:You think you have it bad?

Uh, yeah, actually. If it wasn't so bad you wouldn't be complaining that we're smearing our worst, most extravagantly stupid policies all over you in the first place.

Still waiting for overnight surgery to get cyber-limbs (affordable on one day's pay). I mean, we already have the megacorps, and 3D-printed railguns, surely we can have the rest?

Stahlseele wrote:over here in europe

No. The TPP has no effect whatsoever in Europe, because no European countries are part of it. It is an agreement with 12 countries who are all in the Pacific Ocean, on the other side of the world from Europe.

The only countries that have signed it are Singapore, Brunei, New Zealand, and Chile. The countries which might sign it soon are Australia, Peru, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Japan. That's a lot of countries, but literally none of them are in Europe. It's not a global trade pact, it's an agreement between some countries on the Pacific Rim about how to handle intellectual property across national borders.

Some of the provisions are even good things. The pact demands that every country treat internet as a utility, which was a hard fought battle for people who wanted open access.

Most of the disappointing bits are things that aren't there. So for example, there's no real limits on filtering, so if signatory countries want to go full Great Firewall of China, they still can still do that.

The much touted job killing effects and the much touted economy boosting effects are mostly the same thing (reduced tariffs allowing cheaper trade), but are also really tiny. The reality is that tariffs weren't very high to begin with and you aren't going to see a whole lot more Vietnamese goods flooding into American markets than you already do.

The real bad stuff is the protections for the intellectual property of corporations. Now pharmaceutical companies and movie studios will have more ability to harass people in Malaysia. But even then, I don't think it's as bad as it could have been, because a lot of business leaders are whining.

Overall, the TPP is probably a modestly bad thing. One step forward and two steps back. But everything good and bad in it is pretty subtle and in five years it will be pretty hard to notice the effects of it one way or the other.

-Username17

OK, i thought it had been pressed through in EU as well.

One of the important things to remember about the TPP, is that the worst thing in it, where corporations get to sue governments to force law changes or compensation when their profits are hurt by you know the fucking law and that they get it arbitrated in super dodgey corporate appointed non-courts without appeal...

...isn't a thing unique to the TPP. Germany, is not a signatory to the TPP, but apparently the coal and the ongoing nuclear thing happened with them anyway, Australia wasn't back when the cigarette companies tried to pull their thing (though I think that's still somewhat ongoing/likely to re-emerge with the TPP).

The thing is the "screw the law, profits first or else" clause is something that has been inserted in various ways and varying degrees in all sorts of international trade treaties and bullshit for a while now, and the TPP is just the latest incrementally more obscene version of it.

Also as for Australia signing it or not, I'm pretty sure it's basically a done deal here. It has bi-partisan political support, despite being hated by what may as well be 100% of the entire voting public. Funny that.

Stahlseele wrote:OK, i thought it had been pressed through in EU as well.

You may be thinking of the TTIP between the EU and USA. I think it's likely to be similar but it hasn't been finalised yet.

I may be getting those two mixed up, it's true . .

One of the important things to remember about the TPP, is that the worst thing in it, where corporations get to sue governments to force law changes or compensation when their profits are hurt by you know the fucking law and that they get it arbitrated in super dodgey corporate appointed non-courts without appeal......isn't a thing unique to the TPP.

Was also a provision of NAFTA. Has been used to sue Mexico for not allowing a toxic waste dump in one of their towns, to sue Canada for not allowing cross boarder logging and not allowing bottling of shared great lake water and selling it.

Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Ame ... Chapter_11

It's unlikely to actually hurt America much. Given the grand tribunal panel is American, and America holds all the economic cards. It will make it easier for America to piss all over the rest of the world, so situation normal there, but it will only end up hurting America if another country ends up being bigger and more powerful.

So basically, the continuing saga of American neoliberal colonialism fucking the slave-I mean cheap labour countries keeps on keeping on! Yeah USA No1 baby!

A pity, Obama is a great guy in all other respects. Devoted family man and great sense of humor.