U.N. Climate Chief: Goal Is To End Capitalism

[kalm]

If we want to talk one world government and loss of freedom stuff we really need to discuss Trans Pacific Partnership.

Since you're probably related to Hawley and/or Smoot, I know any talk of free trade and free trade agreements get's your ear's perked up. But really, "one world government" and "loss of freedom"? Even for you, that hyperbole is, well, hyperbolic. That's almose expansdos-worthy right there.

"free trade"

The one world government bit was satire aimed at the black helicopter - UN is taking over crowd.

But back to the TPP. I suppose you have no problem with a corporation suing the U.S. and states over domestic regulations that hurt their business and the case be decided in an international court? You probably have no issues with the Obama administration keeping the TPP negotiations secret? Why do you hate transparency, democracy, and sovereign rights?

Chomsky argues that much of the negotiations concern issues outside of what many consider trade, and are focused instead on limiting the activities governments can regulate, imposing new intellectual property standards abroad and boosting corporate political power.

“It’s called free trade, but that’s just a joke," Chomsky said. "These are extreme, highly protectionist measures designed to undermine freedom of trade. In fact, much of what's leaked about the TPP indicates that it's not about trade at all, it’s about investor rights.”

The Obama administration is treating the precise terms of the deal as classified information, blocking many Congressional staffers from viewing the negotiation texts and limiting the information available to members of Congress themselves. The deal's only publicly available negotiation documents have come to light through document leaks. Recent documents have been published by WikiLeaks and HuffPost.

According to these leaked documents, the TPP would empower corporations to directly challenge laws and regulations set by foreign nations before an international tribunal. The tribunal would be given the authority to not only overrule that nation's legal standards but also impose economic penalties on it. Under World Trade Organization treaties, corporations must convince a sovereign nation to bring trade cases before an international court. Chomsky said the deal is an escalation of neoliberal political goals previously advanced by the WTO and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/1 ... 77495.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A marxist professor defending Alexander Hamilton's ideas.

[GannonFan]

Since you're probably related to Hawley and/or Smoot, I know any talk of free trade and free trade agreements get's your ear's perked up. But really, "one world government" and "loss of freedom"? Even for you, that hyperbole is, well, hyperbolic. That's almose expansdos-worthy right there.

"free trade"

The one world government bit was satire aimed at the black helicopter - UN is taking over crowd.

But back to the TPP. I suppose you have no problem with a corporation suing the U.S. and states over domestic regulations that hurt their business and the case be decided in an international court? You probably have no issues with the Obama administration keeping the TPP negotiations secret? Why do you hate transparency, democracy, and sovereign rights?

Chomsky argues that much of the negotiations concern issues outside of what many consider trade, and are focused instead on limiting the activities governments can regulate, imposing new intellectual property standards abroad and boosting corporate political power.

“It’s called free trade, but that’s just a joke," Chomsky said. "These are extreme, highly protectionist measures designed to undermine freedom of trade. In fact, much of what's leaked about the TPP indicates that it's not about trade at all, it’s about investor rights.”

The Obama administration is treating the precise terms of the deal as classified information, blocking many Congressional staffers from viewing the negotiation texts and limiting the information available to members of Congress themselves. The deal's only publicly available negotiation documents have come to light through document leaks. Recent documents have been published by WikiLeaks and HuffPost.

According to these leaked documents, the TPP would empower corporations to directly challenge laws and regulations set by foreign nations before an international tribunal. The tribunal would be given the authority to not only overrule that nation's legal standards but also impose economic penalties on it. Under World Trade Organization treaties, corporations must convince a sovereign nation to bring trade cases before an international court. Chomsky said the deal is an escalation of neoliberal political goals previously advanced by the WTO and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/1 ... 77495.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A marxist professor defending Alexander Hamilton's ideas.

I really don't have a problem with how it's being developed - nothing is decided yet and if they want to negotiate and bargain without letting the world see every nuance of the negotiation I'm fine with that. As long as we get to vote on the final product and there's sufficient time to dissect what's being voted on then sure, I'm fine with that. I know Noam wants to be able to throw fits of hysterics over every inch of the process, but that's not terribly constructive.

Frankly, I have no problem with this. It's like the WTO with some modifications. It's a deal where, if we would sign up for it, all that we have to do is honor the deal and there's no problem. Where those "international tribunals" (great choice of word, tribunals just sound awful) become headaches is when we try to renig on deals that are already passed like what we did with that trucking clause in NAFTA that we let unions bastardize for two decades.

So I have no problem with democracy and soveriegn rights - don't sign on to the agreement if you don't like it. As for transparency, eh, let's see the finished document and then talk about it. I do think there are times, like during the crafting of something, that transparency for transparency sake is not helpful. As long as get to shine a big light on it at the end then I can live with that.

[kalm]

"free trade"

The one world government bit was satire aimed at the black helicopter - UN is taking over crowd.

But back to the TPP. I suppose you have no problem with a corporation suing the U.S. and states over domestic regulations that hurt their business and the case be decided in an international court? You probably have no issues with the Obama administration keeping the TPP negotiations secret? Why do you hate transparency, democracy, and sovereign rights?




http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/1 ... 77495.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A marxist professor defending Alexander Hamilton's ideas.

I really don't have a problem with how it's being developed - nothing is decided yet and if they want to negotiate and bargain without letting the world see every nuance of the negotiation I'm fine with that. As long as we get to vote on the final product and there's sufficient time to dissect what's being voted on then sure, I'm fine with that. I know Noam wants to be able to throw fits of hysterics over every inch of the process, but that's not terribly constructive.

Frankly, I have no problem with this. It's like the WTO with some modifications. It's a deal where, if we would sign up for it, all that we have to do is honor the deal and there's no problem. Where those "international tribunals" (great choice of word, tribunals just sound awful) become headaches is when we try to renig on deals that are already passed like what we did with that trucking clause in NAFTA that we let unions bastardize for two decades.

So I have no problem with democracy and soveriegn rights - don't sign on to the agreement if you don't like it. As for transparency, eh, let's see the finished document and then talk about it. I do think there are times, like during the crafting of something, that transparency for transparency sake is not helpful. As long as get to shine a big light on it at the end then I can live with that.

We don't vote on it, corporate representatives do. And why would it take wikileaks dump to get ANY info on what's being discussed?

Some more opinion on the matter.

In fact, today’s “trade agreements” should really be called “global corporate agreements” because they’re mostly about protecting the assets and profits of these global corporations rather than increasing American jobs and wages. The deals don’t even guard against currency manipulation by other nations.

According to Economic Policy Institute, the North American Free Trade Act cost U.S. workers almost 700,000 jobs, thereby pushing down American wages.

Since the passage of the Korea–U.S. Free Trade Agreement, America’s trade deficit with Korea has grown more than 80 percent, equivalent to a loss of more than 70,000 additional U.S. jobs.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with China increased $23.9 billion last year, to $342.6 billion. Again, the ultimate result has been to keep U.S. wages down.

The old-style trade agreements of the 1960s and 1970s increased worldwide demand for products made by American workers, and thereby helped push up American wages.

The new-style global corporate agreements mainly enhance corporate and financial profits, and push down wages.

http://robertreich.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[GannonFan]

I really don't have a problem with how it's being developed - nothing is decided yet and if they want to negotiate and bargain without letting the world see every nuance of the negotiation I'm fine with that. As long as we get to vote on the final product and there's sufficient time to dissect what's being voted on then sure, I'm fine with that. I know Noam wants to be able to throw fits of hysterics over every inch of the process, but that's not terribly constructive.

Frankly, I have no problem with this. It's like the WTO with some modifications. It's a deal where, if we would sign up for it, all that we have to do is honor the deal and there's no problem. Where those "international tribunals" (great choice of word, tribunals just sound awful) become headaches is when we try to renig on deals that are already passed like what we did with that trucking clause in NAFTA that we let unions bastardize for two decades.

So I have no problem with democracy and soveriegn rights - don't sign on to the agreement if you don't like it. As for transparency, eh, let's see the finished document and then talk about it. I do think there are times, like during the crafting of something, that transparency for transparency sake is not helpful. As long as get to shine a big light on it at the end then I can live with that.

We don't vote on it, corporate representatives do. And why would it take wikileaks dump to get ANY info on what's being discussed?

Some more opinion on the matter.

In fact, today’s “trade agreements” should really be called “global corporate agreements” because they’re mostly about protecting the assets and profits of these global corporations rather than increasing American jobs and wages. The deals don’t even guard against currency manipulation by other nations.

According to Economic Policy Institute, the North American Free Trade Act cost U.S. workers almost 700,000 jobs, thereby pushing down American wages.

Since the passage of the Korea–U.S. Free Trade Agreement, America’s trade deficit with Korea has grown more than 80 percent, equivalent to a loss of more than 70,000 additional U.S. jobs.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with China increased $23.9 billion last year, to $342.6 billion. Again, the ultimate result has been to keep U.S. wages down.

The old-style trade agreements of the 1960s and 1970s increased worldwide demand for products made by American workers, and thereby helped push up American wages.

The new-style global corporate agreements mainly enhance corporate and financial profits, and push down wages.

http://robertreich.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you don't like your representative, vote them out of office. Falling back on the old line that our elected officials only serve at the behest of corporations is just lazy voting. Democracy demands an active electorate, if you're not active then the fault is your's and you get what you deserve. Like Michael Douglas said in "The American President", "...Democracy is advanced citizenship...". Can't argue with that.

As for free trade, you can bring up ideas of "old-style trade agreements of the 1960s and 1970s" all you want, but just like Hawley-Smoot, you're not going to be able to dictate terms like that anymore in a world that is vastly different than it was 40-50 years ago. You can't just pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist or that you can craft the trade agreements to greatly favor you - the world is much smaller than it was and competition is signficantly better. I don't hear any real ideas or plans on how to make us more competitive - all I hear from progressives like you are ideas on slamming the door on immigration and hiding behind walls of tarriffs and hope that works. Is that all you have?

[houndawg]

99% of the planet is going to have the same life regardless of the prevailing economic system. Agreements like these are about making sure that doesn't change.

[kalm]

We don't vote on it, corporate representatives do. And why would it take wikileaks dump to get ANY info on what's being discussed?

Some more opinion on the matter.



http://robertreich.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you don't like your representative, vote them out of office. Falling back on the old line that our elected officials only serve at the behest of corporations is just lazy voting. Democracy demands an active electorate, if you're not active then the fault is your's and you get what you deserve. Like Michael Douglas said in "The American President", "...Democracy is advanced citizenship...". Can't argue with that.

As for free trade, you can bring up ideas of "old-style trade agreements of the 1960s and 1970s" all you want, but just like Hawley-Smoot, you're not going to be able to dictate terms like that anymore in a world that is vastly different than it was 40-50 years ago. You can't just pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist or that you can craft the trade agreements to greatly favor you - the world is much smaller than it was and competition is signficantly better. I don't hear any real ideas or plans on how to make us more competitive - all I hear from progressives like you are ideas on slamming the door on immigration and hiding behind walls of tarriffs and hope that works. Is that all you have?

"Free trade" agreements are not necessarily free trade and the interests and sovereignty of each individual nation are not the same as the interests of each individual corporation. And yes, corporations in our political system wield extreme influence on policy. Sorry you missed that.

To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

The Wealth Of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI, Conclusion of the Chapter, p.267, para. 10.

Idea: Leverage our markets to our advantage. Or are you a commie who thinks everything should be fair?

[houndawg]

We don't vote on it, corporate representatives do. And why would it take wikileaks dump to get ANY info on what's being discussed?

Some more opinion on the matter.



http://robertreich.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you don't like your representative, vote them out of office. Falling back on the old line that our elected officials only serve at the behest of corporations is just lazy voting. Democracy demands an active electorate, if you're not active then the fault is your's and you get what you deserve. Like Michael Douglas said in "The American President", "...Democracy is advanced citizenship...". Can't argue with that.

As for free trade, you can bring up ideas of "old-style trade agreements of the 1960s and 1970s" all you want, but just like Hawley-Smoot, you're not going to be able to dictate terms like that anymore in a world that is vastly different than it was 40-50 years ago. You can't just pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist or that you can craft the trade agreements to greatly favor you - the world is much smaller than it was and competition is signficantly better. I don't hear any real ideas or plans on how to make us more competitive - all I hear from progressives like you are ideas on slamming the door on immigration and hiding behind walls of tarriffs and hope that works. Is that all you have?

Thats been a weak argument since the day SCOTUS put guvmint up for sale to the highest bidder.

Heres an idea to make us more competitive: let US workers wages reflect the fact that they are the most productive on the planet. Not that being competitive matters much to the vast majority of Americans with less and less skin in the game every time one of these agreements gets passed.

[Cap'n Cat]

[GannonFan]

If you don't like your representative, vote them out of office. Falling back on the old line that our elected officials only serve at the behest of corporations is just lazy voting. Democracy demands an active electorate, if you're not active then the fault is your's and you get what you deserve. Like Michael Douglas said in "The American President", "...Democracy is advanced citizenship...". Can't argue with that.

As for free trade, you can bring up ideas of "old-style trade agreements of the 1960s and 1970s" all you want, but just like Hawley-Smoot, you're not going to be able to dictate terms like that anymore in a world that is vastly different than it was 40-50 years ago. You can't just pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist or that you can craft the trade agreements to greatly favor you - the world is much smaller than it was and competition is signficantly better. I don't hear any real ideas or plans on how to make us more competitive - all I hear from progressives like you are ideas on slamming the door on immigration and hiding behind walls of tarriffs and hope that works. Is that all you have?

Thats been a weak argument since the day SCOTUS put guvmint up for sale to the highest bidder.

And that's been an even weaker argument since people like you have been whining about it. SCOTUS never put government up for sale to the highest bidder - there's been money invovled in elections since Washington decided not to run for a third term, and every election has more money than the one before it. To pretend that some SCOTUS decision in 2010 all of sudden brought wads of money into politics is to basically be ignorant of the 200+ years history of our country. Which, considering that most Americans are pretty ignorant of our history, is par for the course.

Heres an idea to make us more competitive: let US workers wages reflect the fact that they are the most productive on the planet. Not that being competitive matters much to the vast majority of Americans with less and less skin in the game every time one of these agreements gets passed.

What does that even mean? How would you go about making wages reflect that, and what makes you think they don't already reflect that? American workers wages are already substantially higher than most other countries on the planet, or have you not noticed? And even if they weren't, how would you legislate that they should be? Who's going to determine exactly what each job and task should make? And how do we not have skin in the game? Having a job or not having a job is a pretty important skin to have, and that is affected by agreements like these. Do you have any actual ideas or are you just "against the machine, man"?

[GannonFan]

If you don't like your representative, vote them out of office. Falling back on the old line that our elected officials only serve at the behest of corporations is just lazy voting. Democracy demands an active electorate, if you're not active then the fault is your's and you get what you deserve. Like Michael Douglas said in "The American President", "...Democracy is advanced citizenship...". Can't argue with that.

As for free trade, you can bring up ideas of "old-style trade agreements of the 1960s and 1970s" all you want, but just like Hawley-Smoot, you're not going to be able to dictate terms like that anymore in a world that is vastly different than it was 40-50 years ago. You can't just pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist or that you can craft the trade agreements to greatly favor you - the world is much smaller than it was and competition is signficantly better. I don't hear any real ideas or plans on how to make us more competitive - all I hear from progressives like you are ideas on slamming the door on immigration and hiding behind walls of tarriffs and hope that works. Is that all you have?

"Free trade" agreements are not necessarily free trade and the interests and sovereignty of each individual nation are not the same as the interests of each individual corporation. And yes, corporations in our political system wield extreme influence on policy. Sorry you missed that.

Duh, of course free trade agreements are not necessarily free trade, they never have been and never will be. It's a term, nothing more. Are you honestly against these agreeements because of the semantics? But the interest of our nation, at least, is to be as free as we can be and to let citizens and groups of citizens within our country exercise that freedom. Part of that is to allow business to happen and thrive, and as long as it doesn't harm people or the environment then great. Sure, some people are going to succeed more than others, but freedom doesn't mean freedom from envy.

To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers…The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

The Wealth Of Nations, Book I, Chapter XI, Conclusion of the Chapter, p.267, para. 10.

Idea: Leverage our markets to our advantage. Or are you a commie who thinks everything should be fair?

Great. What does that mean? And in an era of developing nations becoming more and more advanced, and markets expanding around the world, how successful, long term, do you think "leveraging our markets to our advantage" is going to be? Tell me how succcessful Europe has been in terms of leveraging their markets to their advantage, considering that they followed just that path for the past 20 years or so as they've practiced a fortress Europe, if you will, in terms of economic market pressure/regulation. When you try to hide from competition behind walls of isolationist policy in the hopes that your market strength will make others simply acquiesce, you're basically admitting that you don't have a long term policy. Japan tried that in the 1980's and they've suffered through 2+ decades of ruinous deflation as a result. At this point, even simple game theory would tell you that it's not a winning hand to expect to be able to thrive through leveraging. There's nothing commie about it, and no, things don't have to be fair, but you still need to be realistic to the long term effects of ceasing to compete and trying to bend other countries to your will. It's funny that the people who are most ardently against that philosophy from a foreign policy standpoint would be the ones most for that philosophy from an economic standpoint. Ironic almost.

[kalm]

"Free trade" agreements are not necessarily free trade and the interests and sovereignty of each individual nation are not the same as the interests of each individual corporation. And yes, corporations in our political system wield extreme influence on policy. Sorry you missed that.

Duh, of course free trade agreements are not necessarily free trade, they never have been and never will be. It's a term, nothing more. Are you honestly against these agreeements because of the semantics? But the interest of our nation, at least, is to be as free as we can be and to let citizens and groups of citizens within our country exercise that freedom. Part of that is to allow business to happen and thrive, and as long as it doesn't harm people or the environment then great. Sure, some people are going to succeed more than others, but freedom doesn't mean freedom from envy.

Idea: Leverage our markets to our advantage. Or are you a commie who thinks everything should be fair?

Great. What does that mean? And in an era of developing nations becoming more and more advanced, and markets expanding around the world, how successful, long term, do you think "leveraging our markets to our advantage" is going to be? Tell me how succcessful Europe has been in terms of leveraging their markets to their advantage, considering that they followed just that path for the past 20 years or so as they've practiced a fortress Europe, if you will, in terms of economic market pressure/regulation. When you try to hide from competition behind walls of isolationist policy in the hopes that your market strength will make others simply acquiesce, you're basically admitting that you don't have a long term policy. Japan tried that in the 1980's and they've suffered through 2+ decades of ruinous deflation as a result. At this point, even simple game theory would tell you that it's not a winning hand to expect to be able to thrive through leveraging. There's nothing commie about it, and no, things don't have to be fair, but you still need to be realistic to the long term effects of ceasing to compete and trying to bend other countries to your will. It's funny that the people who are most ardently against that philosophy from a foreign policy standpoint would be the ones most for that philosophy from an economic standpoint. Ironic almost.

The key word you're missing there is "our". Every country should leverage their markets to the best of their ability. "Our" and "their" being the entire country, not just a few multinationals.

[GannonFan]

Duh, of course free trade agreements are not necessarily free trade, they never have been and never will be. It's a term, nothing more. Are you honestly against these agreeements because of the semantics? But the interest of our nation, at least, is to be as free as we can be and to let citizens and groups of citizens within our country exercise that freedom. Part of that is to allow business to happen and thrive, and as long as it doesn't harm people or the environment then great. Sure, some people are going to succeed more than others, but freedom doesn't mean freedom from envy.



Great. What does that mean? And in an era of developing nations becoming more and more advanced, and markets expanding around the world, how successful, long term, do you think "leveraging our markets to our advantage" is going to be? Tell me how succcessful Europe has been in terms of leveraging their markets to their advantage, considering that they followed just that path for the past 20 years or so as they've practiced a fortress Europe, if you will, in terms of economic market pressure/regulation. When you try to hide from competition behind walls of isolationist policy in the hopes that your market strength will make others simply acquiesce, you're basically admitting that you don't have a long term policy. Japan tried that in the 1980's and they've suffered through 2+ decades of ruinous deflation as a result. At this point, even simple game theory would tell you that it's not a winning hand to expect to be able to thrive through leveraging. There's nothing commie about it, and no, things don't have to be fair, but you still need to be realistic to the long term effects of ceasing to compete and trying to bend other countries to your will. It's funny that the people who are most ardently against that philosophy from a foreign policy standpoint would be the ones most for that philosophy from an economic standpoint. Ironic almost.

The key word you're missing there is "our". Every country should leverage their markets to the best of their ability. "Our" and "their" being the entire country, not just a few multinationals.

I agree, but the big question is what is "best" for the entire country. I'd say a free and clear business environment (within reason of course, one that doesn't harm the environment or result in child labor or the sort) does benefit the entire country. Again, you're always going to have people or groups of people or corporations who succeed more than others, but that doesn't mean it didn't work or that it wasn't worthwhile. If we expect everyone to succeed equally and use that as the measure of how effective our leveraging was then we're not going to be successful long term.

And yes, when every country leverages their markets to the best of their abilities, you do start getting a levelling or an equaling of markets over time. That's the rub of saying that we should just leverage our markets to win - eventually, an outcome of free trade (nominally free, yes) means that countries won't be able to exert their undue leverage for too long. It's a great short term idea, but has no long term chance to succeed.