Elizabeth Warren: Obama Trade Deal Could Undermine Wall Street Reform

[Ykcutnek]

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday warned that a major trade deal being negotiated by the Obama administration could hamstring Wall Street reform efforts.

Warren raised the issue in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, which was also signed by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The correspondence highlighted a broadening rift between President Barack Obama and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party over economic policy, less than a week after Warren and Obama squared off over a budget deal that provided government subsidies for risky derivatives trading.

"We are concerned that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) could make it harder for Congress and regulatory agencies to prevent future financial crises," the letter reads. "With millions of families still struggling to recover from the last financial crisis and the Great Recession that followed, we cannot afford a trade deal that undermines the government's ability to protect the American economy."

The Obama administration has been negotiating the TPP -- a pact with 11 other Pacific nations -- for several years. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has strongly favored the pact, while many traditionally liberal organizations have been critical of the deal, citing concerns that it will exacerbate income inequality and undermine a host of public-interest regulations. The government has been negotiating the deal in secret. The public has only learned of potential provisions through leaked drafts of the negotiation text.

Warren, Baldwin and Markey are particularly concerned with a process called "investor-state dispute settlement," which grants foreign corporations the political power to challenge the laws and regulations of a government before an international tribunal. This nongovernmental court has the power to levy trade sanctions against offending nations. The investor-state dispute settlement regimen differs from those used in World Trade Organization treaties, which allow only sovereign governments to bring trade challenges.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/18/elizabeth-warren-trade-deal_n_6350312.html

[upaloopa]

1. One day Wall Street will replace the Federal

treasury. They will withhold taxes from your earned income along with Social Security and Medicare tax and send it straight to the Wall Street Banks. Those banks will charge you management fees on your withholdings until April 15 where you will have to be paid up or additional charges will accrue until your whole check gets sent straight to them. The managers will also pay themselves management fees to hand off the money to each other and then pass it out to what ever government program it was supposed to go to. All social spending has to earn enough return for the banks or it doesn't get spent. Not so for defense spending.

[Faryn Balyncd]

6. TPP wants to replace the judicial system with "investor-state dispute settlement" tribunals

...which can not be appealed in the judicial system, and which would enable multinational corporations to sue and bankrupt those pesky state and local governments who have the audacity to do their constitutional duty to protect the environment, workers, and consumers.

Warren, Baldwin and Markey are particularly concerned with a process called "investor-state dispute settlement," which grants foreign corporations the political power to challenge the laws and regulations of a government before an international tribunal. This nongovernmental court has the power to levy trade sanctions against offending nations. The investor-state dispute settlement regimen differs from those used in World Trade Organization treaties, which allow only sovereign governments to bring trade challenges.

The TPP is NOT about trade. It is about giving corporations unprecedented monopoly powers through massive expansions of intellectual property law which would massivelt raise drug prices throughout the world, extend copyrights to 120 years, and destroy democratic governance through corporate controlled, sovereign tribunals.

It would be more aptly named the TCSC "Trans Corporate Sovereignty Cabal".




Let's beat it!

[colsohlibgal]

2. But Obama Is Awesome!

Or so the Bots tell me, it's all over DU now. Look at this fancy bauble here, not the TPP. My guess is most Bots are oblivious to this, the rest ignore it.

[Faryn Balyncd]

3. This is a fight we NEED to win, and CAN win. Thank you, Elizabeth Warren!

[Scuba]

4. But just today someone on DU told me I was fearmongering by criticizing the TPP.

But then that person is ALWAYS aligned with the Turd Way.

[PAProgressive28]

5. She's not running

[RiverLover]

7. "investor-state dispute settlement"--corporations trumping local laws

is wrong on SO many levels.

Negotiations in secret.

US Chamber of Commerce(worst corp lobby group in the US) is all for it. Can only mean bad for us.

I hope the populists can be strong against the corporate-purchased reps in congress & stop this travesty. But we HAVE to lend our voice to this.

We need to be the change we want to see, right O?

We let them lie to us about NAFTA, we can't let it happen again....

[Faryn Balyncd]

15. When it is wrong on so many levels, it is no wonder that it's kept under wraps.

[aspirant]

8. How is the investor-state settlement constitutional?

Last edited Thu Dec 18, 2014, 10:38 PM - Edit history (1)

Creating a kangaroo corp. court that bypasses our judicial system, one of the 3 branches of our govt, is allowed by our constitution

[Faryn Balyncd]

9. Apparently it starts with an unprecedentedly massive application of the commerce clause...

... in which in one fell swoop a huge number of issues tangentially related to commerce (including anything that corporations view as limiting their profits; including environmental regulations, worker safely regulations, food & other consumer safety regulations, food labeling, and anything else that might impact corporate bottom lines, is lumped together in one bill which (after years of secrecy) is positioned to be voted on (perhaps at a midnight hour before a deadline by compromised politicians who have read little, if any, of the bill, had zero input, and are prohibited from making any amendments in a strict up-or-down vote, which would be the most massive expansion of federal law limiting in multiple spheres the historic role of state and local jurisdictions through the power of the federal government to regulate interstate commerce (Historically, these jurisdictions, while not directly regulating interstate commerce, carried out their duties in many field (environmental, safety, etc) that toughed on commerce but were never in violation of federal interstate commerce regulations and laws. The "TPP" would change this by massively expanding federal limitations to state & local governments at the behest of the corporate interests which achieved their wishes in the secretive TPP negotiations.

That would explain the rational for justifying the massive intrusion in limiting local/state governments.

If the constitutional treaty making power is in fact broad enough to justify the absolute immunity of the corporate controlled "investor-state settlement" tribunals for the judicial system, (to an extent never before done, even considering that disputes to such tribunals have become common since the mid 90s [after NAFTA], but, as the article noted, the authority of the tribunals would be further enhance under the so-called "TPP".

It seems noteworthy that this outsourcing of judicial power to corporate designed/controlled tribunals is constitutional, it would seem that earlier American leaders were wise to not implement such an anti-democratic travesty in the name of a trade agreement.



It would also seem that any lawmaker who would consent to rubber stamping such a corrupt, expansive, and subversive (to democratic governance) corporate wet dream, should resign in disgrace before doing so, and let more thoughtful Americans reject this corrosive scheme, and get back to the hard work of rebuilding ou nation, and the world, on a solid and democratic foundation.

[aspirant]

10. "treaty making power"

I thought this is a trade deal not a treaty which has stiffer requirements to pass.

It's only local/state govts that can be sued, not federal agencies?

Could a union set-up a tribunal with 3 union members to sue local/state/federal/corps for loss of profits (dues) for outsourcing of jobs?

Since corps are people, could real unemployed people set-up a 3 member tribunal to sue local/state/federal/corps for loss of income because of inaction on a job bills and/or corp. outsourcing?

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. Yes, if thet can get it into a deal that get enacted without input from Congress,

with no amendments allowed, and without even being read by most in Congress.

[aspirant]

12. Any info on the 3 questions asked

I'm interested on the general application.

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. You are correct that the approval of treaties and trade agreements are different,

with treaties requiring Senate confirmation by 2/3 vote, and trade agreements requiring legislative changes which require approval by both House and Senate.

How this legislation can manage to outsource the judicial resolution of conflicts to "investor-state dispute settlement" tribunals that are not subject to appeal within our judicial system, and have this outsourcing be constitutional is beyond comprehension..... If such subversion of our separation of powers is indeed constitutionally possible, it seems that we would be wise to reject such an arrangement. The powers of such tribunals was expanded significantly in NAFTA (as evidenced by the fact that lawsuits in these tribunals were relatively rare until they exploded in the 1990's) and the effect of TPP will be devastating to democratic governance related to environmental, worker safety and rights, food safety, consumer protection,and any other area of governing that can be deemed to impact the bottom line of the multinational corporations whose lobbyists crafted this mockery of a "trade" deal, while our elected representatives remained in the dark.

[WillyT]

14. K & R !!!