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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums“free trade” means one thing only: the ability to invest freely without governmental constraint
The goal of all of these "treaties" is to protect the only thing being negotiated the right of an investor or corporation to maximize profit from any country it wishes to operate in. I've always stated the concept this way:
(By the way, "treaty" is hardly the word for these agreements, since nations are never negotiating them on behalf of their citizens. Nations are negotiating them on behalf of the corporations and investors who pull their strings. That's why citizens can't see them until they're signed, while corporate lobbyists have seats at the negotiating table.)
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/fast-track-will-also-fast-track-tisa.html
In its simplest terms, free trade means one thing only the ability of people with capital to move that capital freely, anywhere in the world, seeking the highest profit. Its been said of Bush II, for example, that when Bush talks of freedom, he doesnt mean human freedom, he means freedom to move money.
At its heart, free trade doesnt mean the ability to trade freely per se; thats just a byproduct. It means the ability to invest freely without governmental constraint. Free trade is why factories in China have American investors and partners because you cant bring down manufacturing wages in Michigan and Alabama if you cant set up slave factories somewhere else and get your government to make that capital move cost-free, or even tax-incentivized, out of your supposed home country and into a place ripe for predation.
(By the way, "treaty" is hardly the word for these agreements, since nations are never negotiating them on behalf of their citizens. Nations are negotiating them on behalf of the corporations and investors who pull their strings. That's why citizens can't see them until they're signed, while corporate lobbyists have seats at the negotiating table.)
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/06/fast-track-will-also-fast-track-tisa.html
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“free trade” means one thing only: the ability to invest freely without governmental constraint (Original Post)
phantom power
Jun 2015
OP
eppur_se_muova
(36,289 posts)1. Money can cross borders freely, labor can not.
Putting labor at a permanent disadvantage is what Free Trade is all about.
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)2. This piece should be mandatory reading everywhere.
More...
Neo-liberal economist Jeffrey Sachs, quoted by ex-federal regulator Bill Black here, agrees, calling these same people and their moral environment "bluntly ... pathological":
I meet a lot of these people on Wall Street on a regular basis right now. Im going to put it very bluntly. I regard the moral environment as pathological. And Im talking about the human interactions that I have. Ive not seen anything like this, not felt it so palpably. These people are out to make billions of dollars and nothing should stop them from that. They have no responsibility to pay taxes. They have no responsibility to their clients. They have no responsibility to people, counterparties in transactions. They are tough, greedy, aggressive, and feel absolutely out of control, you know, in a quite literal sense. And they have gamed the system to a remarkable extent, and they have a docile president, a docile White House, and a docile regulatory system that absolutely cant find its voice. Its terrified of these companies.
<snip>...
International agreements like TISA are important tools in an expanded power grab by the hyper-wealthy people who buy and benefit from our elections, and government negotiators are their agents. The only disagreements at the negotiating table involve which country's predator (Nestlé, say) gets to eat which other country's prey (water rights in Oregon, for example). "Trade" agreements empower the predators under color of law.