Trans-Pacific Partnership Reached (We Dun Goof'd)

[tonymontana99]

Some of you probably haven't heard about it because JIDF keeps us busy with school shootings, but I'd like to let you know that the Trans-Pacific Partnership's draft was succesfully achieved a few days ago, October 5, 2015. And if it passes, a free trade agreement with Europe will also be in the works. Guise... This is some dystopian shit.

First of all, thread's theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLoytewvn0g

Trans-Pacific Partnership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

TPP Treaty Full Text: WikiLeaks Releases Trans-Pacific Partnership Intellectual Property Rights Chapter (October 9, 2015)
http://www.ibtimes.com/tpp-treaty-full-text-wikileaks-releases-trans-pacific-partnership-intellectual-2134814

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4juvjcRfChM

Trans-Pacific Partnership: What is it and what does it mean? BBC News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCy7QxjsSy4

TPP deal reached: 12 countries strike Pacific Rim trade accord
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPddMcL-HcM

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: the dirtiest trade deal, you've never heard of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9ZFDpuiFUs

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade agreement between twelve Pacific Rim countries which seeks to lower trade barriers such as tariffs, establish a common framework for intellectual property, enforce standards for labour law and environmental law, and establish an investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. As of 2011, the agreement's goal had been to "enhance trade and investment among the TPP partner countries, to promote innovation, economic growth and development, and to support the creation and retention of jobs." The United States government has considered the TPP as the companion agreement to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a broadly similar agreement between the United States and the European Union.

(Countries that have signed the TPP: United States, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico and Peru.)

If any of it rings a bell, it's because part of the document had been leaked on WikiLeaks a long time ago, which caused a major shitstorm throughout the Internet and sparked several protests. It will control about 40% of the world's economy and have an effect on over 400 million people. It is essentially a free trade agreement that shifts power from the governments to the corporations.

Yesterday, October 9, WikiLeaks managed to post the "intellectual property section of the final text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, whose paragraphs "cover Internet services, medicines, publishers, civil liberties and biological patents."

The secrecy surrounding the deal has enfuriated many people, who complain about the TPP's "negative" effects on intelectual property (corporations will apparently be able to sue you for ilegally downloading a piece of their software), cost of medicine ("A June 2015 article in the New England Journal of Medicine summarized concerns about TPP´s impact on healthcare in developed and less developed countries including potentially increased prices of medical drugs due to patent extensions, which it claimed, could threaten millions of lives."), income inequality ("Nobel Memorial prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz warned that based on leaked drafts of the TPP, it presented "grave risks" and "serves the interests of the wealthiest."") and the environment ( "the TPP "could directly threaten our climate and our environment [including] new rights that would be given to corporations, and new constraints on the fossil fuel industry all have a huge impact on our climate, water, and land.").

I've also read some things about corporations being allowed to sue governments in a "new international court" if they were a hazard to their profits, but I'll have to do some more research on this to confirm.

This anti-TPP activist website summarizes some of the perceived negatives of the TPP, but whether this is as bad as it sounds or not remains to be seen: http://www.exposethetpp.org/

Okay, so what do you think about this? Is it a good deal? A bad one? I'd like to know your opinions so we can have a nice debate.

[Vlerchan]

I'll need to read a good summary of the actual agreement before I come down on either side. It doesn't seem as bad as most people make it out though.

It's important to look at the geopolitical component of the TPP negotiations. What the agreement is more about is setting the rules for China though the designation of non-tariff barriers.

[jessie3]

I think the Trans-Pacific partnership deal is a good deal. I think in the future it will help us.

[dxcxdzv]

Vlerchan : Setting the rules for China?

[Vlerchan]

Vlerchan : Setting the rules for China?
Large tracts of the TPP is devoted to IP and competition arrangements, SEOs, etc., it's about setting the rules of international trade. China finds itself outside the agreement at the moment but as economics - and, on the facts of the Chinese model, geopolitical necessities - push it towards deeper integration, it will be forced into dealing with these rules as the statues-quo.

It makes more sense on considering the TPP inside the context of the US's so-called pivot to Asia.

[Microcosm]

It seems like it is taking the power from the government to enact certain regulations for things like safety and giving that control to corporations. I don't like that one bit.

[Vlerchan]

It seems like it is taking the power from the government to enact certain regulations for things like safety and giving that control to corporations.
But governments are setting the regulatory standards.

You must be thinking on the investor courts, where corporations can sue governments that don't uphold the regulations these governments agreed to uphold.

[phuckphace]

sounds good to me. I already buy tacos in bulk but wouldn't mind if they were even cheaper