For a harbinger of what's to come, look into what's happening in Romania with their Rosia Montana gold mine.<p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-11/paulson-backed-gabriel-threatens-4-billion-of-claims-in-romania" rel="nofollow">http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-09-11/paulson-ba...</a>
<a href="http://www.miningfacts.org/Blog/Mining-News/Canadian-Miner-Prepared-to-Lose-$1-5-Billion-Investment/" rel="nofollow">http://www.miningfacts.org/Blog/Mining-News/Canadian-Miner-P...</a><p>Basically a Canadian company will most likely sue the Romanian government for refusing to allow an open pit gold mine. They won't do this in a Romanian court.<p>Just like we saw with Greece, sovereign nations are no longer all that sovereign. Treaties like TPP, and TTIP will further remove decision making capabilities from sovereign states. It's kinda crazy.
To get the viewpoint of people championing this agreement, I recommend reading this article by the Economist[1] where they say "for all its flaws, the biggest trade deal in years is good news for the world"<p>[1] - <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21659716-all-its-flaws-biggest-trade-deal-years-good-news-world" rel="nofollow">http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21659716...</a><p>For the record, I think the TPP is pernicious for all the reasons pointed out by the EFF.
This article [1] linked from the OP contains the following fact: the pro-TPP lobby spent <i>$135 million</i> in the second quarter of 2015.<p>I mean, I know lobbying costs money, but where can that much money possibly go?<p>[1] <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/23/us-trade-tpp-lobbying-idUSKCN0PX2JO20150723" rel="nofollow">http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/23/us-trade-tpp-lobby...</a>
Every time I hear about an awesome "free trade agreement", I need to look no further than the disastrous NAFTA agreement:<p><i>"Such outcomes include a staggering $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada and the related loss of 1 million net U.S. jobs under NAFTA, growing income inequality, displacement of more than one million Mexican campesino farmers and a doubling of desperate immigration from Mexico, and more than $360 million paid to corporations after "investor-state" tribunal attacks on, and rollbacks of, domestic public interest policies."</i><p>and<p><i>"For instance, we track the specific promises made by U.S. corporations like GE, Chrysler and Caterpillar to create specific numbers of American jobs if NAFTA was approved, and reveal government data showing that instead, they fired U.S. workers and moved operations to Mexico."</i><p>and<p><i>"The data also show how post-NAFTA trade and investment trends have contributed to middle-class pay cuts, which in turn contributed to growing income inequality;"</i><p>source: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/nafta-at-20-one-million-u_b_4550207.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lori-wallach/nafta-at-20-one-m...</a><p>This too was being touted as a great free trade agreement for the US and its economy and the exact opposite happened. I can only assume the outcome for the TPP will be similar.
Well here goes my tiny store of karma points but as a contrarian I can't resist going against the comfortable consensus that the TPP and TIPP (which is of more relevance to me as a European) are evil and sinister.<p>Some observations:<p>These negotiations (at least the TTIP ones) are not being conducted by cigar chomping cartoon evil tycoons. A friend I know is involved and the guy is a very modestly paid civil servant. It's mostly boring and technical bureacratic work.<p>There are very good reasons to conduct discussions like this in private. Despite the impression the EFF article gives, the biggest losers will be commercial special interests not consumers. Consumers don't form groups to spend millions to lobby politicians to enact laws blocking the import of foreign goods and services - these laws and regulations were campaigned for and paid for by politically connected local commercial interests. The secrecy is required to prevent these special interests from using their power to derail the negotiations. Consider what would happen if public minutes were published while say discussing the US bio-ethenol subsidies? Massive political pressure would be exerted on the US negotiating team from the corn producing states effectively making negotiation impossible. Other countries party to the discussion would face the same impossible pressures.<p>Finally I don't believe that the ISDS is some evil anti-democratic instrument to allow corporations to subvert the local laws. In fact most countries have had similar instruments for decades as part of bilateral deals. The sole purpose is to prevent governments specifically targetting foreign companies with extra rules while not applying the same restrictions on politically connected local enterprises. I believe an individual should be able to defend themselves from capricious government behavior through the legal system. I don't see why businesses shouldn't have similar recourse.
Why this needs to be done as one giant agreement seems crazy...<p>A relevant example where this could be a good thing; I'd love for tech businesses in London to be as easy to invest in for Silicon Valley investors as local tech companies - this would be amazing for investors, London startup scene etc. - maybe it would require a special sort of company and also an easy way to move a company to CA if needed.<p>There are loads of things in TTIP to hate but the above example would be a better use of these bureaucrats time and something that would be easy to pass and help lots of businesses grow!
Planet money had a fascinating podcast on how trade deals are made with the example of NAFTA. <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/06/26/417851577/episode-635-trade-deal-confidential" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/06/26/417851577/episo...</a>
A perspective from New Zealand... <a href="https://dimpost.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/nuanced/" rel="nofollow">https://dimpost.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/nuanced/</a>
I don't think current system (with fast track) is conductive for any partial fixing. TPP should be scraped completely and USTR should taste their own medicine. They don't want open negotiations and democratic oversight? They shouldn't get any agreement altogether.
Someone is getting ripped of deeply by this new agreements if they get done as planned.<p>Hint: It's not large US coorporations.<p>It's us, the citiziens of the world.