Trans-Pacific Pact

[KeithE]

This pact is being formulated by multi-national corporations as much as executive branches of countries. Our Congress is kept in the dark. It has been described as NAFTA on steroids. It is far more than merely a “trade agreement”.

Whatever your political stripes you need to be informed on this and be disturbed about what the corporations are trying to pull off.

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

This has received little to no attention in Congress (or here at BL). What will all the congressional demagoguery, corporations are quietly driving this vitally important Pact which is far more than a “trade pact”.



. Now is the time to write your Congressional representatives and senators. Fast tracking such an expansive agreement is not a good idea.

[KeithE]

.

When these three speak it is time to listen. Although the drone story deserves a hearing, the TPP discussion starts at 13:30 minute into the video.

[Sandy]

It is interesting that Hatch is behind this, a Senator who has somehow managed to craft a "look out for the people kind of guy" image, but if you look closely at his record, he does everything that the corporate lobbies want him to do. He's one of the top "pork barrel" legislators in the Senate, and his reported contributions from corporate lobbies are among the highest in Congress.

My emails have gone out to my Senators and my congressman, to pull the plug on this.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[Haruo]

The free and open Internet is yet another benefit resulting from US Government initiative. It is no wonder the US Government and large private corporations, American and otherwise, and the governments of China et al., would dearly love to see it reined in.

One of our Founding Forebears (not sure if it was Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, maybe Abby Adams) said copyright should last 7 years, I don't think it was even supposed to be extensible. When we were kids it was 28 years with a 28-year follow-up. Now look at it: life plus 75! Sounds like a sentence for multiple homicides.

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

You can listen to a teleconference concerning the TPP on Saturday Jan 24 @ 9 AM PT / 10 MT / 11 CT / 12 PM ET. About one hour.

Read about and RSVP if you are interested.

And I’d specifically like the free market advocates here to read and comment on:
.

[KeithE]

[Sandy]

The more I read about the TPP, the more it sounds like a plan for corporate money interests to control the world economy, including that of the US, and do it in a way that eliminates government as the protector of the people, along with the constitutional protections of individual rights, which are obstacles to their control. With all of the mostly pointless shrieking, lip flapping and babbling that political conservatives do about the constitution and its protections, you'd think this would have them up in arms. But their normal mouthpieces who keep them stirred up like ants are silent on this. Limbaugh and those of his ilk, Beck, the usual foaming at the mouth wannabees, are too busy with minutia and misinformation to tackle this. I suspect that's because they are heavily invested in it, and are either being paid off to keep quiet, or will reap windfalls if it comes about. Haven't heard much from O'Reilly, Hannity or Fox News, probably for the same reason.

[ET]

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

[KeithE]

Will Congress listen?

Will Obama explain why TPP?

[Sandy]

[KeithE]

[ET]

[ET]

[ET]

One more bit. Keith is all concerned about "apathy" on this matter. There is a concept that I learned from reading the articles of either economist Dr. Walter Williams or Dr. Thomas Sowell. It is the concept of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs. It applies to all the hysteria you seek to stir up over this matter and when you don't get the rest of us riled up about it, you cry, "APATHY!!! APATHY!!!"

The corporations you condemn are involved in the trade pact because they stand to potentially receive the concentrated benefits of the agreement. Consumers, if they are affected negatively by factors benefiting the corporations your fear will prosper more, will most likely only encounter highly dispersed, probably almost negligible costs. While the corporations may stand to benefit to the tune of six, seven or maybe even eight figure sums a year, consumers will most likely only be affected to the tune of pennies or dollars a month.

This is played out in one of the links above, specifically the . The sugar industry gets the benefits from protectionism. Consumers suffer the dispersed costs, but who on this forum gives a rip that they may pay a few cents more for their candy bar or anything else with sugar in it? Is anybody going to start a political movement over a few cents?

But either Americans don't know about such stuff or don't care, which may be nothing more than there's just too much going on in their everyday lives to bother with policies that don't substantially affect their lives, regardless that it may tack on some healthy numbers to some company's profit margin. The dispersed cost imposed on them is not motivation enough to address the issue of worth their attention.

Which leads me to a related idea. I so wish I could find the article I ran across a few weeks ago. Here's the summary: What you call "apathy" is really nothing more than the modern citizen being unable to grasp all the crap you "government is good" groupies foist on us. Government is so large and so intrusive that it is impossible to know all it does while hiding behind the facade of the "common good".

Unless some egregious story of abuse or outlandish behavior percolates to the top of the news broadcasts, most voters are more concerned with bigger matters than a few cents tacked on to products here and there due to a trade agreement. They care about the price of gas, not about a few additional cents due to some product affected by trade policy or whether or not a company can sue a government in another country over some obscure regulation which has nothing to do with their life. (Or at least they have no measurable way to translate that policy into some significantly detrimental cost in their lives, so there is no real motivation to get worked up about it or break out the sharpie and make a selfie.)

So while you may cry "APATHY!", I think that's an oversimplification.

[KeithE]

[ET]