Jerry Kroth made short work of demolishing Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) lies

27 September 2016

When in economic doubt, look at pertinent numbers

Professor Jerry Kroth detests the Trans Pacific Partnership proposal as much as I do:

In order to find out whether the TPP is great for the US, take a step back to the last major "free-trade" deal. We signed one with South Korea in 2012 -- the US-Korea Trade Agreement.

[After the deal,] South Korea purchased a whopping 49,000 Chevys and Fords from the United States, but exported 1.3 million Kias and Hyundais on the playing field on which Obama is running. And that was three years after the agreement was signed.

For every car South Korea imported, they exported 23.

Obama promised the South Korean trade bill would "support 70,000 American jobs from increased goods exports alone."

The actual trade deficit with South Korea since the accords were signed more than doubled from $13 billion to $28 billion.

Consider, for example, the wily Theft Agreement's people-squashing dispute provisions

These are its Investor-State Dispute Settlement paragraphs.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has a keen eye for corporate-sponsored BS, said this about those:

ISDS [investor-state dispute settlement] would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws — and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers — without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court.

Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators.

If the company won, the ruling couldn’t be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions — and even billions — of dollars in damages.

If that seems shocking, buckle your seat belt. ISDS could lead to gigantic fines, but it wouldn’t employ independent judges. Instead, highly paid corporate lawyers would go back and forth between representing corporations one day and sitting in judgment the next.

Maybe that makes sense in an arbitration between two corporations, but not in cases between corporations and governments.

If you’re a lawyer looking to maintain or attract high-paying corporate clients, how likely are you to rule against those corporations when it’s your turn in the judge’s seat?

If the tilt toward giant corporations wasn’t clear enough, consider who would get to use this special court: only international investors, which are, by and large, big corporations.

If you want to read the TPP's legalese, go here

Comprehending what these tricksters are doing is requires you to wade through a very deep and smelly flow. Speaking as an attorney accustomed to complicated cross-jurisdictional litigation, I assure you that the agreement's impenetrability is intentional.

These guys do not want you to understand that they are looting your ability to hold onto your job and the money that you once earned there.

These are Attila the Hun's plundering kin, dressed in expensive suits.

The moral? — When a Plutocrat speaks to the "rabble", truth is far away

There is no excuse for ordinary Americans to think that this type of "free trade" agreement — most famously sold by President Bill Clinton, then Huckster in Chief — is good for us.

Even Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, has changed his mind about Robber Baron-sponsored free trade deals. "[T]he TPP would be a disaster," he says.

Jerry Kroth's numbers give just one indication why.

PeteFree.com

Jerry Kroth made short work of demolishing Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) lies