The new trade deals Trans-Atlantic & Trans-Pacific “Partnerships” complete the corporate world takeover As I have emphasized since these “partnerships” were first announced, their purpose is to give corporations immunity from the laws in the countries in which they do business. The principle mechanism of this immunity is the granting of the right to corporations to sue governments and agencies of governments that have laws or regulations that impinge on corporate profits.
With all the time and money spent in writing, negotiating and promoting this huge trade deal (that mostly just benefits huge multinational corporations), can the American people really expect President Obama to throw it all away into a big bonfire? Especially after millions of dollars have been spent by special interest groups on his campaign and on the campaigns of all those in Congress who voted to give fast-track for TPP to Obama? I mean, really — where would the big pay-off be for all their corporate masters?
Sometimes it seems as though the mainstream media reports superdelegates as though they were permanent votes. Or if they don't, they only mention superdelegates as a side bar or an asterisk when reporting, like an afterthought, in a quick sound bite, when no one is really listening. They post the superdelegate numbers on the TV screen in big bold type, to be sure that if someone is busy and can't watch the entire segment, they will see the graphic and just assume that Bernie Sanders has no chance at all of winning the Democratic primary.
I, Michael Hudson, John Perkins, and a few others have reported the multi-pronged looting of peoples by Western economic institutions, principally the big New York Banks with the aid of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The re-enserfment of Western peoples is taking place on several levels. One about which I have been writing for more than a decade comes from the offshoring of jobs. Americans, for example, have a shrinking participation in the production of the goods and services that are marketed to them.
The Transatlantic and Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnerships have nothing to do with free trade. “Free trade” is used as a disguise to hide the power these agreements give to corporations to use law suits to overturn sovereign laws of nations that regulate pollution, food safety, GMOs, and minimum wages.
Enslaved through trade, That seems to be the agenda with trade agreements these days. Over and over again national law, the common good is overwritten through bad trade deals. Wikileaks has exposed yet another horror from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement being negotiated. It seems freedom loving, Democratic United States is leading the charge to ensure life saving drugs are not affordable for most people.
The economy has been debilitated by the offshoring of middle class jobs for the benefit of corporate profits and by the Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing in order to support a few oversized banks that the government protects from market discipline. Not only does QE distort bond and stock markets, it threatens the value of the dollar and has resulted in manipulation of the gold price.
We have heard a great deal this year about manufacturing coming back to the United States. We hear about the diminishing wage gap in some Asian countries and the possibility of lower U.S. energy prices.
Don't like the trade deficit, low GDP and the public outrage over the offshore outsourcing? Change the accounting method to make it go away! Such is the agenda of government statisticians it appears. How they are going to incorporate statistical lies into national accounts is shocking. Production location no longer matters, the thing that will count is ownership of the final product.
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