Then on the EU side, business groups and lobbyists for companies like IBM, Apple, Google et al. are deeply involved in negotiations to the detriment of all public groups.
So this is really lots of big US companies negotiating with themselves on how to screw over Europe.
This is a takeover attempt through the backdoor.
Let me change this for you to something more accurate:
So this is really lots of big multinational corporations negotiating with themselves on how to screw over working people throughout the world.
When you start tuning this into "US companies screwing over Europe", you play right into their hands. As if there aren't dozens of European corporations screwing us all over right now. Until recently, I owned a diesel VW that spewed poison into the air every time I drove it, thanks to a bunch of German executives who valued profit over air quality. This goes beyond borders.
Europeans have fought harder to win and keep better social conditions, work conditions, health conditions, consumer protections, monopoly protection (great internets), environmental protection laws.
If you and a western european work same job for same company then you get a seriously raw deal compared to euros wrt benefits and conditions. I see ttip as a means for these companies to screw euros into US style conditions.
On euro side there are plenty of corrupt people (business, politicians, everything) that would love to screw either side to make some extra cash. The european commission are strongly behind it because all they see are dollar signs. Individual member states are going the other way from the look of it for one reason or another. Germans really won't budge on GM foods and US imports standards.
I expect europeans to fight the good fight and reject TTiP. I don't expect americans to do anything.
In case it wasn't already immensely obvious, the third world war has been underway for some time. This one isn't a war fought with guns and bombs, it's a war fought with information, deals and economies.
See China's massive economy and ownership of the US, the massive drop in oil price and what that's done to the world economy etc.
The citizens of the world wouldn't tolerate full-scale war - they'd vote out their leaders, so this is what we get when countries still want to dominate each other.
The most peaceful, prosperous, and healthy period known in human history?
How is having a massive economy an act of aggression?
We've never really been given a choice in the matter.
Try this for size: "the citizens of the world [can't yet] tolerate" the reality of a One World government and thus require generational guidance. "News" at ten.
1. A treaty is negotiated between the two major markets in the world.
2. We know that when this kind of treaties are passed is almost impossible to go back.
3. We know that the most important input to those treaties come from corporations.
4. The conversations happen in secret.
5. The democratic representatives are not allowed to read the treaty except in a hurry and without legal help.
6. Free trade is already a reality but, somehow, a wider treaty that create new tribunals where corporations can sue states is necessary.
You are right. No need for tinfoil conspiracies.
And it is obvious that major internationals on both sides will be the ones that benefit most from the cuts in government regulations proposed by TTIP. So a substantial portion of the economic growth will go to them. Therefore I don't think you need to be in the tinfoil hat camp to support the believe that they are lobbying for TTIP.
The mistake that our EU leaders make, IMO, is that what's good for the EU's economy, is not necessarily always good for the majority of its citizens. Those government regulations were there for a reason, for instance to protect the environment, support area's who are economically behind etc.
You need to understand these deals as they are -- negotiated primarily by large corporate representatives, used as a back door to slam through legislation that would never pass domestic muster in its respective countries as a single up-or-down omnibus deal that legislators cannot reject. No conspiracy at all, rather, business as usual.
The spin in Europe (at least in Germany) is that the EU is portrayed as being pro-consumer, which is basically a joke (ask any VW owner in Germany how they are being compensated).
That it is not working in some areas and that there is a lot industry lobbying is another topic.
So it is very likely, that the US will get the standards for air pollution (from automobiles) from the EU and the EU will get the food standards from the US.
The US wants to screw over the EU, not help them. The quicker the EU realizes this the better.
What saddens me more is that the cucked EU will let them, forgetting all the achievements this continent has to offer.
What's interesting is that there is actually more Fortune 500 companies in the EU (though really just in western Europe) than in the US. However the difference, I believe is that till now political power is less concentrated in the EU than it is in the US so Shell has much less influence on most EU states than Chevron has on US states simply because it is harder for Shell to influence policy outside of the Netherlands and UK. But with the harmonisation of markets and EU policy and centralisation of political power this will all change.
We still can't agree that there should be an international jurisdiction over war crimes, but millions (billions?) are spent in this effort to create a universal right to profit over different nations.
What exactly do you mean by US companies? Corporations like Apple and Google are not sovereign to any nation, they are super-sovereign, hence their ability to do what you are saying.
They operate internationally. ymmv.
I'm not american so really not my business however narcissists do not make good social leaders. They make really terrible & dangerous social leaders.
"TPP is going to be worse... we can't let it happen... if I am president first day - boom - it's over... you know what it is 5,000 pages... that none of our people even read..."
Edit: Seems, I said something right here -- hence the many downvotes!
For those not knowing: Obama was much criticizing the spying when he still was Senator.
If TTIP were ratified, it would be out of the control of any subsequently elected democratic governments as it would be part of international law.
Regardless what you think of TTIP it seems like the very least to ask is that a contract of such importance is discussed in the open where the public can have a voice in their own future.
What if renegade states across both sides of the Atlantic decided to disregard the treaty and the fines that will follow immediately? What will the WTO do then? Sanction them?
Those treaties are a way of creating a legal framework that can't be altered by national governments. This is not happening against the governments but it's done by the governments to their populations.
This is not US against EU but corporations against people. The idea is to be sure that national governments can't vote against the interest of international business.
Please don't tell me about how a treaty should be voted on by the people, because I already agree about this part.
Call your Reps: http://TryVoices.com (it takes 2 minutes)
> First of all, and contrary to what many seem to believe, so-called "consolidated texts" in a trade negotiation are not the same thing as an outcome. They reflect each side's negotiating position, nothing else. [...] In that sense, many of today's alarmist headlines are a storm in a teacup. [...] No EU trade agreement will ever lower our level of protection of consumers, or food safety, or of the environment. Trade agreements will not change our laws on GMOs, or how to produce safe beef, or how to protect the environment.
http://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/malmstrom/blog/nego...
In most cases TTIP raised the level of consumer protection to the highest on whatever side of the pond was already best (for example Americans see European chicken as raised in shot basically do our chicken farmers will have to up the game (assuming battery hens is something we think is a high standard anyway)
As for beef, Germans think the US do beef like we do chickens. And so there will be a cost to the US cattle industry.
But consumers win
Are there parts of TTIP that are frankly dumb and will be damaging for years? Yes. Would that have been fixed by an open process. Meh.
So if we the people don't like this, then we the people need to write our MPs and congres people and say "start a new WTO round and don't stop till you get something good - keep it open and don't let people like trump comment on it at all"
although this is important, I can't see how you reach the conclusion that
> But consumers win
from that. you see, the EU negotiator also said :
> "In #TTIP, we will not agree on anything that will imply lowering of protection. Full stop."
also, we can conclude from the leaked documents (both these and older ones) that the US proposals in some fields differ wildly from the current EU regulations, and I can't see the US giving in to EU demands on all of these (like GMO's, chlorine chicken and less stringent environmental rules).
so, with these powers combined we can conclude that further negotiation is useless, and TTIP is dead. so why are we still negotiating ?
fear is that a compromise will be reached somehow, and the EU citizens draw the short straw (I say that as a concerned EU citizen)
At this point I'm most worried that this whole merry go round will just start up again in a couple of years under a new name.
The Multinationals can afford to be patient and keep plugging away at regulation until they've eliminated all of it.
> The documents that Greenpeace Netherlands has released about half of the draft text as of April 2016, prior to the start of the 13th round of TTIP negotiations between the EU and the US (New York, 25-29 April 2016). As far as we know the final document will consist of 25 to 30 chapters and many extensive annexes. The EU Commission published an overview stating that they have now 17 consolidated texts. This means the documents released by Greenpeace netherlands encompass 3/4 of the existing consolidated texts. Consolidated texts are those where the EU and US positions on issues are shown side by side. This step in the negotiation process allows us to see the areas where the EU and US are close to agreement, and where compromises and concessions would still need to be made. Of the documents released by Greenpeace Netherlands, in total 248 pages, 13 chapters offer for the first time the position of the US.
So politics will probably pull the "your complaints are all addressed in the still secret parts / were changed after the leak, we pinky-swear" card.
Maybe, but I deeply hope that the public reaction to that will be either:
"Yeeeaaah, sure ..."
Or, the more diplomatic variant:
"How do you plan to reestablish the trust needed to make your promise credible?"
the first thing spiegel.de did, while the ppl were marching, was releasing a polemic article basically saying "it's all nazis".
days later gabriel went public: "we don't care. we'll do it anyway."
now, nobody try telling me shit about public opinion's worthiness!
http://www.ttip-leaks.org/agamemnon/doc4.pdf
The actual preview function seems to be broken, it only opens in a tiny iframe.
Which means, if your cable company is in monopoly somewhere, you cannot have any regulations to force sharing the network to foster competition. This is basically just going against what is making Internet great in most Europe. Just right on the first page. Ouch!
Update to be clearer: "public telecommunications network means telecommunications infrastructure used to provide public telecommunications services;"
"[EU: 4. Each Party shall ensure that a major supplier in its territory grants access to its essential facilities, which may include, inter alia, network elements, associated facilities, and ancillary services, to suppliers of electronic communications services on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions (including in relation to rates, technical standards, specifications, quality and maintenance).]"
You have quite some anti-competitive safeguards so, this is not that bad. The general tone here is pretty libertarian. Note that it only concerns the telecommunication services, this section is not about IP etc..
>Nothing in this... shall... require a Party to compel
It says nothing about prohibiting regulations - that clause clearly just says no changes are required by the agreement. Way to start spreading the disinformation early.
From the FAQ:
4. Are the documents complete?
All of the documents in possession of Greenpeace Netherlands are complete.
The documents represent a substantial part of the negotiating texts, 13 of 17 chapters believed to have reached the consolidation phase of negotiations.
Chapters believed to be in the consolidation phase, but not in possession of Greenpeace Netherlands, are those concerning __e-commerce__, financial services, rules of origin and trade remedies.
Chapters which are not yet believed to have reached the consolidation phase, also not in possession of Greenpeace Netherlands, are those covering: energy and raw materials, investment protection, __intellectual property__ rights, legal and institutional issues, subsidies, sustainable development, textiles and apparel, and other sectors.
> None of the chapters we have seen reference the General Exceptions rule. This nearly 70-year-old rule enshrined in the GATT agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO), allows nations to regulate trade “to protect human, animal and plant life or health" or for "the conservation of exhaustible natural resources" [1].
as point 2 in agriculture states
> In this regard, nothing in this Agreement will restrain the Parties from taking measures necessary to achieve legitimate policy objectives such as the protection of public health, safety, environment or public morals, social or consumer protection, or the promotion and protection of cultural diversity that each side deems appropriate.
I can't even imagine the size of the TLA database containing <"evil" page visited>: <ip of visitor> records at this point.
As an aside, many web servers also log details of GET and POST requests - e.g. the visitor's IP address and the page they visited.
This statement is leading me to rethink my conception of how steganography might be applied In The Real World.
edit: I should clarify that it's a tariff elimination schedule, so it's thousands of pages describing exactly how quickly the tariffs drop to 0. Most lines of the table are "Year 1: 0%." As to why some products have a more gradual decline over a few years, I don't know, probably some special interest influence, true. A small change in tariffs can mean life or death to certain businesses.
To me that's a good thing....
