TPP, Graft and Corporatocracy

The end game is approaching in negotiations for a sweeping "free trade" pact known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP for short, and alarm bells are ringing out everywhere.  Public Citizen published a fact-check on the myths promulgated by the TPP supporters.  Elizabeth Warren has warned that:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised concerns Tuesday that negotiations over new trade agreements could be used as a backdoor way to water down financial regulations.
Speaking at a Senate confirmation hearing for Export-Import Bank President Fred Hochberg, Warren (D-Mass.) said there are “troubling indications” that negotiations over trade deals with Asia and Europe could be seen as an opportunity for banks to quietly weaken oversight of the financial services industry.  The agreements are “a chance for these banks to get something done quietly out of sight that they could not accomplish in a public place with the cameras rolling and the lights on,” Warren said.

The major banks have indeed given millions of dollars in "bonuses" and "incentives" to former executives that take government jobs at agencies that regulate banking according to a report published at Bill Moyers blog.

Many large corporations with a strong incentive to influence public policy award bonuses and other incentive pay to executives if they take jobs within the government. CitiGroup, for instance, provides an executive contract that awards additional retirement pay upon leaving to take a “full time high level position with the US government or regulatory body.” Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, the Blackstone Group, Fannie Mae, Northern Trust and Northrop Grumman are among the other firms that offer financial rewards upon retirement for government service. 
Stefan Selig, a Bank of America investment banker nominated to become the undersecretary for international trade at the Department of Commerce, received more than $9 million in bonus pay as he was nominated to join the administration in November. The bonus pay came in addition to the $5.1 million in incentive pay awarded to Selig last year.
Michael Froman, the current US Trade Representative, received over $4 million as part of multiple exit payments when he left CitiGroup to join the Obama administration. Froman told Senate Finance Committee members last summer that he donated approximately 75 percent of the $2.25 million bonus he received for his work in 2008 to charity. CitiGroup also gave Froman a $2 million payment in connection to his holdings in two investment funds, which was awarded “in recognition of [Froman's] service to Citi in various capacities since 1999.”

 Just another day for the Corporatocracy machine.

Free Trade Swamps All Boats

 This article from The Huffington Post says it all on the subject of "free trade", courtesy Alan Grayson.

A picture is worth 1000 words. So let me show you two of them. On the left, our trade balance between 1962 and 1992, before so-called "free trade agreements." And on the right, our trade balance since then:

What sane person could look at these two charts, and conclude that what America needs is more "free trade"?

We have run a trade deficit of at least $350,000,000,000.00 every single year since 2000, with no end in sight. The result is that we have gutted the U.S. manufacturing base, and run up enormous debt to foreigners -- almost $6 trillion ($6,000,000,000,000.00) in U.S. Treasury debt alone.

We buy their goods, putting their workers to work. They buy our assets, driving us deeper and deeper into debt.

Corporatocracy Gone Wild

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal that's supposed to be good for all US citizens, but as I've blogged before, it is totally controlled and written by mega corporations to secure their grip on international trade and laws, and if it is enacted it will further the degradation of our people while the mega rich will gain control over everybody and everything.  It is blessed by President Obama, but no members of Congress will be allowed to see it or debate it, it's being written in total secrecy by the corporate elite.  Public Citizen obtained a leaked chapter of the draft language from WikiLeaks and had this to say.

“The Obama administration’s proposals are the worst – the most damaging for health – we have seen in a U.S. trade agreement to date. The Obama administration has backtracked from even the modest health considerations adopted under the Bush administration,” said Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s global access to medicines program. “The Obama administration’s shameful bullying on behalf of the giant drug companies would lead to preventable suffering and death in Asia-Pacific countries. And soon the administration is expected to propose additional TPP terms that would lock Americans into high prices for cancer drugs for years to come.”   Last week, the AARP and major consumer groups wrote to the Obama administration to express their “deep concern” that U.S. proposals for the TPP would “limit the ability of states and the federal government to moderate escalating prescription drug, biologic drug and medical device costs in public programs,” and contradict cost-cutting plans for biotech medicines in the White House budget.

Other U.S.-demanded measures for the TPP would empower the tobacco giants to sue governments before foreign tribunals to demand taxpayer compensation for their health regulations and have been widely criticized. “This supposed trade negotiation has devolved into a secretive rulemaking against public health, on behalf of Big Pharma and Big Tobacco,” said Maybarduk.

TPP, What you don't know can be bad for your health

The Trans-Pacific Partnership - TPP for short, is a new proposed trade agreement that is moving forward rapidly.  Why be concerned?  The TPP negotiations are secret, so secret that not a single member of congress has access to any of the proposed draft agreements, yet over 600 multi-national corporations have full access, and they are encouraged to suggest "improvements".  In theory this supports "free trade" but in reality it produces the opposite.  There have been leaked documents that should raise the hairs on your neck.  They are analyzed here. 

The news black-out on it in the US is massively effective, for instance this speech by Oregon Rep Peter DeFazio on Sept 9 in the US House of Representatives was not covered by any US news outlet.  TPP is off-limits for US news organizations that are critical of it.  Just try a Google News search and see what you find in the US press asking critical questions.

The same goes for this letter to President Obama on Aug 2, 2012 from Defazio and 23 bipartisan members of congress.  I found the letter on DeFazio's web site, but no where else. 

TPP will allow the corporations to bypass "impediments" to trade (i.e. profitability) like generic drugs, food safety, workers rights laws, consumer rights laws, environmental laws, you name it.  And not one member of Congress is allowed to see it.  Some documents have leaked to the outside world, but are any made public in the US media?  Nope.  The opposition to it is small in size compared to the might of the multi-nationals, Public Citizen seems to be the major US entity asking questions..