Cacophony of Corporatism, Subsidies & Inheritance Tax (tags)
History is written by the winners. The Orwellian "memory hole" has long been a reality and could soon lead to subsequent generations no longer being able to develop any awareness at all of what it means to lead a free and dignified life.
Our World is Not For Sale! (tags)
People's Global Action (PGA) was organized in a decentralized way by movements from all parts of the world. But we had no staff and no fixed funding. Everything was through crowdfunding. People were inspired by what PGA stood for, which was, first, the rejection of capitalism.
Low Taxes is an Act of Desperation (tags)
A low business tax can be counter-productive if a deadbeat infrastructure arises through lower state revenues. Lowering business tax rates leads first to enormous budget holes. Employees will bear this burden at the end.
38 Arguments Against TTIP (tags)
TTIP (Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership) agreement continues an old thinking instead of everyone sharing int he profits of a few. The private arbitration courts enable corporations to sue states and could have a chilling effect on labor and environmental protection.
TTIP and CETA Must Be Prevented (tags)
Under TTIP, TPP and TiSA, corporations can sue states for lost profits. The German Judges Union calls additional protection of foreign investors "nonsense" that undermines democracy and the constitutional state.
Cochabamba: Water as a Human Right (tags)
The economy should be part of life, not a steamroller crushing self-determination and creativity. The TTIP, TPP and TISA trade agreements create a parallel private arbitration system that gives corporations special rights to sue states. Labor and environmental arein danger.
TTIP: Attack on Democracy and the Constitutional State (tags)
A mass demonstration is planned for Saturday October 10 in Berlin against the TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment partnership. A parallel private ad hoc arbitration system is created where corporations can sue states for lost profitsLabor and environmental rules undermined
Britain
Living and Working Differently and Self-Optimization (tags)
How did neoliberal policy gain a mass influence? To neoliberalism, we must soon oppose a great alternative narrative of freedom, democracy and solidarity before the social dislocations neutralize the positive resources amid a collapsing world climate.
The Shortwave Report 07/31/15 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. Spanish National Radio, NHK World Radio Japan, Sputnik Radio, Radio Havana Cuba, and Radio Deutsche-Welle.
TTIP: Trifling Economic Advantages at the Cost of Democracy and the Public Interest (tags)
TTIP represents a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state. Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO describes the TTIP as “secret tribunals” where only “foreign investors” can sue. Frank Bsirske of the German Verdi service union said the TTIP is a “black box” transferring sovereignty.
Presstitute Media Support Anti-Consumer Fast Track Legislation (tags)
trade
Leaked TPP Trade Bill Healthcare Annex (tags)
trade
The obscure legal system that lets corporations sue countries (tags)
Fast Track, TTIP, TPP and TISA should be scrapped! Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO described the TTIP as "secret tribunals" where only "foreign investors" can sue. This article from The Guardian UK focuses on El Salvador. and Pacific Rim.
At G7 Summit Trade and Debt Policies Take Center Stage; Bishops Call on G7 to Enact Global (tags)
G7, Jubilee USA Network, Debt
Risks and Opportunities for Consumer Welfare, 56 pp (tags)
The TTIP is a “black box” transferring sovereignty from states and communities to corporations. Labor and environmental regulations can be chilled or invalidated as “takings” or “indirect expropriations.” Public interest legislation can be annulled as violations of the “human right to profit.”
A Partial Privatization of Justice (tags)
On www.socialeurope.eu, Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO warns that the TTIP is a secret tribunal where only foreign investors can sue. The TTIP brings a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state by creating a parallel private arbitration system with irrevocable decisions.
Senate Advances Anti-Consumer Trade Bill Fast Track Authority: Debate Shifts to House (tags)
trade
Senate Defeats Anti-Consumer Trade Bill Fast Track Authority (tags)
trade
Video: Richard Trumka on TTIP (tags)
TTIP represents a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state. Corporations could sue states in parallel private arbitration courts. Labor and environmental regulations could be chilled or invalidated as indirect expropriation.
Fast Track, TPP and TTIP Should Be Scrapped! (tags)
How scandalous that communities and states should lose sovereignty to corporations! In the TTIP, corporations can sue states for lost profits. Public interest legislation can be called a trade barrier or indirect expropriation.
TTIP: Trifling Economic Advantages at the Cost of Democracyand the Public Interest (tags)
The controversial investment-protection agreement establishes a parallel justice giving security to all investors.. The states would be liable for compensation for any lower profits.. We all know our plane can only survive when we do everything for a sustainable economy.
TTIP: Redistribution of Power, not Free Trade (tags)
The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreement) involves the redistribution of power away from the parliaments and to the executive and its unelected lobbyists. The TTIP does not involve freedom of trade.
The European Commission suspended the secret TTIP negotiations for four months to get citizen consultation on the Investor-State-Dispute SettlementThis proposed parallel system with 3-person courts of arbitration allows corporations to sue for lost profits. Decisions are irrevocable.
A Brave New Transatlantic Partnership, 32pp (tags)
Talks between the European Union and the United States on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) took off in the summer of 2013 with many political and business leaders hailing the deal as a silver bullet against the difficult economic recovery affecting both sides of the Atlantic.
TISA: Everything Will Be Marketed (tags)
A new agreement (TISA, Trade in Services Agreement) could privatize drinking water and health care through the back door. The resistance by many non-governmental organizations to the free trade agreement TTIP seems to pick up speed
Political economies are calibrated to a form of economics oriented exclusively in competitiveness and high profits...The selling off of public services through the agreement on trade with services and the new edition of MAI were prevented because of social protest.
Anti-Democratic Straitjackets (tags)
The TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (also called TAFTA) is an undemocratic corporate investment agreement that allows corporations to sue sovereign states for lost profits. This agreement negotiated in secret since 2013 does not allow states to sue.
TTIP: Threat to Democracy and the Constitutional State (tags)
The TTIP, the largest free trade zone comprising 800 million of the EU and the US is being secretly negotiated. Democracy and the constitutional state are threatened by 3-person arbitration courts where corporations can sue states and decisions are irreversible.
Analysis of the TTIP chapter on food safety (tags)
The TTIP, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, being negotiated behind closed doors allows corporations to sue states for lost profits in 3-person arbitration courts. Only corporations can sue and judgments are not reviewable.
Both Germany and the US follow an economic policy without enlightenment. Slight economic stimulation will not solve problems of mass unemployment and corporate welfare. Tax evasion of corporations and tax cuts for the super-rich lead to suffering and a revenue crisis.
TTIP Undermines the Constitutional State (tags)
TTIP, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is a deregulation agreement, a great redistribution project benefiting mammoth corporations at the expense of women and the 99%. Loud protest caused the EU commission to suspend negotiation on the investor right to sue.
Free Trade Agreement: Special Rights for Corporations (tags)
The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) gives corporations the right to sue sovereign states for lost profits and endangers public sector jobs and social and environmental protections
Investment Protection at a Crossroads (tags)
TTIP gives foreign investors the right to sue sovereign governments before ad hoc arbitration courts when lost profits occur as a result of political decisions. These decisions cannot be appealed and undermine social, environmental and labor regulations.
A world run for shareholders (tags)
The future could be full of free Internet books, community centers (as in Vancouver B.C.), English editions of Le Monde diplomatique, exchanging roles, cloud workers and soft power.
Financial Market Inflammation (tags)
Bubble formation covered up a period of long-lasting stagnation... Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers even spoke of stagnation as a "new normality"... The crisis consequences are shifted to other subjects. Unemployment and indebtedness are exported.
TTIP: Emperor's New Clothes (tags)
Welfare state achievements, quality and environmental standards as well as consumer interests are up for negotiation..For Austria, an annual jobs gain of 0.06% is forecast...93% of the consultations were with lobbyists.
Rejecting TTIP, AFDL-CIO's Trumka Calls for "Global New Deal" (tags)
The demonization of anyone who talks about the dangers of concentrated wealth is based on a misreading of both the past and the present. Such talk isn’t un-American; it’s very much in the American tradition. So who will be this generation’s Teddy Roosevelt? (Paul Krugman)
TTIP Attacks on Wages, the Social and the Environment (tags)
The belief that growth and prosperity for all people are promoted by free trade is as old as capitalism. This is often wonderfully represented in the model worlds of economists. But reality looks different. Specific particular interests are sold as the general interest.
TTIP: A Tranatlantic Constitution of Corporations? (tags)
TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, endangers the economy, health and food policies of countries outside the EU and the US. The Investor-State Settlement mechanism gives corporations the same status as nation states. A flood of lawsuits can be expected.
Trade: Time for a New Vision, 20pp (tags)
50 civil society groups crafted the Alternative Trade Mandate in January 2014. States should be able to protect themselves from financial deregulation, risky financial products, genetically modified corn and salmon, chlorinated chicken and Investor-State Settlement mechanisms,
TTIP: International Mega-corporations prevent social and ecological globalization (tags)
In the reality of international monopolist competition, narrow economic profit interests dominate to the disadvantage of broad prosperity gains. Protection of foreign mega-investors before indirect expropriation leads to a dispossession of nation state democracy.
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), 41 pp (tags)
The Investor-State Dispute mechanism gives corporations the status of nation states. The Swedish energy corporation Vattenfall is suing Germany for 1 billion Euros for stopping nuclear power too quickly!
Reid Derails Fast Track (tags)
trade
Governments give themselves a ‘free trade’ offer they can’t refuse (tags)
The secret agreement Obama doesn’t want you to know about will have secret tribunals as well.
Book Review: "The Victory of Capital" (tags)
A society can only provide for the future by investing today in the production of tomorrow...What may be sensible economically for a private individual or individual business could be harmful for the national economy, particularly when the economy staggers.
Stop the TTIP - Elephants-Marriage! (tags)
TTIP Is old wine in new wineskins. Free trade- and investor-protection prescriptions from the 20th century according to the style of the WTO are not solutions for current challenges. A transatlantic partnership for social-ecological transformation would look very different.
From Obamacare to Trade (tags)
Superversion not subversion is the new and very real threat to the state.
A Brave New Transatlantic Partnership (tags)
The proposed EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP/TAFTA) and its socio-economic and environmental consequences
Temper Tantrum Politics (tags)
Russia bashing
Spying? Who cares? Profits are at stake! (tags)
Despite the displays of anger and assertions of sovereignty, European government showed themselves not only subordinate to the U.S. but to their own industrialists and financiers. The U.S. government is similarly a captive of its own big business interests.
‘Transatlantic Partnership’ intended to duplicate secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (tags)
The Trans-Pacific Partnership, an 11-country trade negotiation intended to go well beyond NAFTA, appears to the be model for proposed United States–European Union trade agreement.
What the 1% Heard During Obama’s State of the Union Speech (tags)
When President Obama speaks, most Americans hear what he wants them to hear: lofty rhetoric and a “progressive” vision. But just below the surface the president has a subtly-delivered message for the 1%, whose ears prick up when their buzzwords are mentioned. Obama’s state of the union address was such a speech — a pro-corporate agenda packaged with chocolate covered rhetoric for the masses, easy to swallow, but deadly poisonous.