Was withdrawing from the TPP...

@Picklebobble2 Being anti-TPP was much more than about protectionism.
It had a large part to do with clauses allowing multi national corporations to be unaccountable to laws and being their own international court. There was a lot of bad, bad policies that striped power form citizens and nations and gave it to the hands of conglomerates.

There's reasons it was so derided across the political spectrum. Even Sanders was against it. It's more surprising Trump wasn't in favor of it as it kinda served the interests of people like him.

@MethDozer There is really no evidence of this ...

@WoodyAq Ummm, actually there was as it was stated in it.

Seriously what was the good that would have came about it other than giving Asia and the Multinationals that use it even more power to dump goods?

@MethDozer The tariffs in the Asian countries are higher than US tariffs.

There are also adjudication mechanisms to handle disputes, but they don't do what you claim.

@WoodyAq Umm go read the released TPP documentation.

What do you claim these mechanisms meant?

@MethDozer I did.

@WoodyAq Well it did set up independent tribunals by multinationals to handle disputes and removed many rights of nations to regulate or punish violations. People weren't making this shit up.

@MethDozer They weren't making it up. They were misunderstanding it, though.

@WoodyAq It said what it said.
I don't know how people all of a sudden are in love with it. Oh yeah they all changed their minds when they found out Trump was against it. When it was Bernie it was bad, but then when Trump had a say in it we flip-flop..


So what did we all misunderstand that you, the corporations, and neo-cons knew better about?

While we are on it can we name any "free trade" agreement that has been any good?

@MethDozer

Sure. The GATT.

@WoodyAq True the GATT/WTO wasn't as bad as most have been but at the same time it isn't really a free trade/market agreement either. It's a mixed bag, the non-discrimination clause is a travesty and the greenroom meetings kinda make it a super-government.
I'll give it to you though it wasn't a complete disaster. Touche.

@MethDozer There other agreements are arguably the GATT by other means.

The non-discrimination clause is crucial to free trade.

@WoodyAq It's bullshit. A nation should be able to and in as respect to its workers and citizens give some favour to domestic goods over foreign.



Can you please answer my question about why an agreement that allows corporations to sue a nation when they decide that a law or policy affects their profits or why multinationals should be able to set up their own courts outside the nation government to hold their own trials? I hear you say " well all those people across multiple industries, mutliple political factions, multiple and conflicting interests all read it wrong. The Neo-cons, big multinational conglomerates, and Koch Brothers read it correctly. " What did these few people read correctly that everyone else read wrong and what, tell me what, good or use could some vague ( assuming) and poorly constructed clause that could be so easily misunderstood by so, so, so many have?

@MethDozer The problem is that a world that allows a country to favour certain domestic special interests in this particular way hurts it's own citizens, and gives other countries free reign to hurt it's citizens.

Free trade agreements are a commitment to avoid this mutually harmful behaviour.

The dispute resolution mechanism allows, for example, the US to challenge laws in Vietnam that are designed to expropriate US investments, and vice versa. Their role in existing agreements has actually been fairly limited, and designed to make sure that countries are following their own laws.

Which is not a bad thing in and of itself.

@WoodyAq There was a lot more to it than that. That';s bad enough though. No nation should have the right to challenge the laws of another. That's a defiance of sovereignty! It's nice how you made shure to create the very unlikely scenario of the US challenging Vietnam when we didn'ty have much trade benefit in the agreement. More accurate portrayal would be Vietnam sues the US when the US decides that we shouldn't import shit fed farm shrimp fro Vietnam. Which brings up another terrible aspect of TPP. It disallowed consumers from demanding that their food and medicine contain a label stating country of origin. Why? So the consumer wouldn't be able to tell when he/she was buying things like shit fed shrimp from Vietnam. Yeah that's great for the consumer. Mofo wanting to know where his food and goods come from and thinking they should have that as a right.



You want to wrangle in China? Stop selling them our debt and stop allowing corporations to send all our manufacturing over to their. We screwed that pooch when we allowed multinationals to function as domestic businesses and sold off all our steel/iron smelting, manufacturing, and other business of national strength over the communist China. Some trade deal that gives a bunch of third world hellholes and multinationals all the chips wassn't going to fix that.

@WoodyAq I guess my problem is that I live in a nation that eshewed domestic interests over foreign and lowered tariffs so much it screwed it's citizens and hurt them.

@MethDozer You aren't allowed to ban shrimp from Vietnam if it follows the same practices as shrimp producers in the US.

You can ban shrimp from producers in Vietnam if they follow practices that meet your country's own legal requirements for banning those practices.

It's a question of whether a country consistently has to follow its own laws, or whether it can make up laws just to apply to foreign countries.

As for wrangling China by stop selling them the debt ... somebody in America has to start saving something first. It ain't going to be a Republican government though.

@WoodyAq
It's isn't going to be a Democrat government either. Is their really a point to get into that rabbit hole of the two parties though? Neither one is willing to return a backed currency inbstead of a debt based one.

@MethDozer That's a minor issue. The main issue is the government deficit, which is about government taxing and spending. The last president to president over a balanced budget is Bill Clinton.

@WoodyAq I'll agree about the taxing and spending being the main issue. It's way too much in both. Maybe playing world police and saviour isn't such a good idea.