TPP / TTIP Thread (Nov 10 Edition)

TPP is about many things, but free trade? Not so much (PART 1/2)

>Let’s be clear about the just-released, negotiated-in-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. Despite how it’s being referred to by journalists, officials and academics, as Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and economist Adam Hersh have noted, it is definitely not a “free-trade” agreement. It’s much more than that.

>Labels matter. Ever since the 1988 “free-trade election,” the virtue of free trade has been unquestioned in Canadian policy circles. Free trade’s victory in the battle of ideas has been so overwhelming that if you can persuade someone that the TPP is a free-trade agreement, then you’ve already won half the battle.

>Free trade has a specific meaning for economists. The notion that free trade is good is grounded in the theory of comparative advantage. First developed in 1817 by David Ricardo, it states (simplifying quite a bit) that if countries specialize in what they are best at, they can make themselves better off through trade. Costs are lowered, production is maximized and people can buy imports at prices lower than would have prevailed had they produced everything themselves.

>Many conditions have to hold (and they often don’t) for comparative advantage to work in the real world. Regardless, pro-free-trade arguments implicitly rely on the idea of comparative advantage.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/tpp-is-about-many-things-but-free-trade-not-so-much/article27169740/

(cont'd)

>>55388612
(PART 2/2)
>The big problem is that TPP-like agreements are no longer exclusively or even primarily about reducing traditional trade barriers. As Harvard economist Dani Rodrik notes in his 2011 book The Globalization Paradox, with some exceptions (such as Canada’s dairy industry), tariffs have never been lower. Any gains from further reductions would be relatively modest.

>Instead, agreements such as the TPP are about implementing policies that have nothing to do with comparative advantage, policies that are often designed to lead to higher consumer costs and concentrated corporate power. Treated as marginal issues, these policies are “free-trade free-riders,” coasting along on an unearned legitimacy.

>Today, the free-trade free-riders are central to agreements such as the TPP. Take intellectual property. As Dr. Stiglitz, Dr. Hersh and groups such as Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders) have noted, greater drug-patent protection would “limit competition from generic drug manufacturers that reduce drug prices and improve access to treatment, and would accelerate already soaring medicine and vaccine prices.”

>The same goes for extended copyright terms. Longer terms are “a windfall for record companies, with little benefit to artists or the public,” as Canadian copyright expert Michael Geist has noted. Economists, including the late Milton Friedman, tend to agree. Prof. Geist also notes that the TPP would increase Canada’s copyright term from life of the author plus 50 years to life plus 70, potentially costing Canadians $100-million a year. Yet the cost of stronger intellectual property protection are played down when analysts sing the praises of agreements such as the TPP, treated like secondary issues.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/tpp-is-about-many-things-but-free-trade-not-so-much/article27169740/

>>55388651
TPP's clauses that let Australia be sued are weapons of legal destruction, says lawyer

>“There are significant improvements in this treaty, but they do not immunise Australia from any of these claims. If the trade minister is saying, ‘We’re not at risk for regulating environmental matters’, then the trade minister is wrong.”

>Here’s what 9.15 says: “Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to prevent a party from adopting, maintaining or enforcing any measure otherwise consistent with this chapter that it considers appropriate to ensure that investment activity in its territory is undertaken in a manner sensitive to environmental, health or other regulatory objectives.”

>This entire provision is negated, says Kahale, by five words in the middle: “unless otherwise consistent with this chapter”. “So at the end of the day, this provision, which really held out a lot of promise of being very protective, is actually much ado about nothing.”

>The problem with ISDS is not just that corporations can sue governments, says Kahale, but that its entire legal framework is fundamentally flawed. ISDS claims are not heard in a standing court staffed by independent judges. Instead, claims can proceed in ad hoc courtrooms – a hotel room, for example – by three arbitrators hand-picked by the parties. Unlike a traditional court of law, these arbitrators are not obliged to refer to precedent and, since their decisions are not open to appeal, they are free to rule according to their personal opinion. The arbitrators can also be severely conflicted, says Kahale, because they may act as a judge one day and as a lawyer for a party the next.

http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/10/tpps-clauses-that-let-australia-be-sued-are-weapons-of-legal-destruction-says-lawyer

>>55388772
Under the TPP, America’s insanely high drug prices will be an unappreciated export

>Generic drugs developed under [the current] system have helped consumers in the US and around the world. But there is a strong case that 25 years of protection for traditional drugs is too long—and ultimately, a way for investors to extract rents (like the infamous case of Martin Shkreli, who bought a drug and raised the price 5,000%) rather than an incentive for innovation.

>Nonetheless, certain kinds of drug patents ended up even better protected under the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act (ACA).

>To gain pharma’s support, the administration not only agreed not to use the government’s negotiating power to drive down drug prices, but also endorsed a 12-year period of data exclusivity for “biologics”—a class of drugs based not on inert chemical compounds but instead created from living cells, and seen as the next big thing in medical research. This concession was made despite arguments in a 2009 Federal Trade Commission report that biologics don’t need that kind of protection (pdf) because generic versions of them, known as biosimilars, are more difficult to develop than traditional generics.

>Now the TPP is exporting those protections

>As well as the five to eight years of data exclusivity for biologics, the TPP has two other key patent protections. One requires countries to allow the practice known as “evergreening”—letting drug companies request patent extensions for new uses of old drugs. (Opponents of evergreening say it allows companies to extend their lucrative monopoly on drug sales for flimsy reasons.) The other provision makes it easier for drug makers to request extensions on their patents if it takes more than five years for an application to be granted or rejected.

http://qz.com/543385/under-the-tpp-americas-insanely-high-drug-prices-will-be-an-unappreciated-export/

>>55388557
I would get a major laugh if weapons companies sue the shit out of the US for any passed gun control.

File: laughing keinbernd emoji frog.jpg (10KB, 325x325px) Image search: [Google] [Yandex] [Bing]

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>>55389154
That would be kekworthy.

Nice OP you quote a bunch of meme sites

>Bernie 2016!! :^)

>>55389315
>I argue based on ad hominem attacks

Your bait is weak, senpai.

Finally somebody mentiones TPP again. Pol as per usual silent about it, i am worried

>>55390802
Those who care are still trying to read it, and the shills shill on.