Polity: Too much to swallow on the TPP
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Fighting talk from Tim….http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11490776…
Comical Ali insists that Allied tanks aren't rolling into Baghdad, and Karl Donitz insists that Allied tanks aren't rolling into Berlin.
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Tim Groser's office in New Lynn has been modified.
Photo - NZ Herald -
Step Right Up! Step Right Up!
Everyone's a winner!
Bargains Galore...*aaah the Midway the smell of popcorn, milkshak-ups and hot dogs,
with its freakshows, diversions and games of chance,
the old carneys, hucksters touting a better future...*apologies to Tom Waits
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
I see what you did with the cows :)
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This column by the economics editor of the Melbourne Age is very, very good.
But even considering the idea makes plain how debauched the whole concept of trade agreements has become. In the past trade agreements were unambiguously good for the citizens of the nations involved. They cut prices. This one puts them up. The US is using to try to keep medicines expensive and the cost of taking on US corporations high. In Canada the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly is using an ISDS clause in the North American agreement to sue the government for failing to grant it two patents knocked back on the grounds that they weren't sufficiently innovative. Eli Lilly wants $500 million.
Somehow, trade agreements morphed from pacts designed to cut trade barriers to pacts designed to erect them. Negotiators who had previously worked to advance free trade started working to advance the interests of US corporations.
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http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2015/08/03/table-talk-5-tppa-or-not-tppa/
With Mapp saying
Of course there are the usual opponents; those activists, actors, academics, and writers who seem instinctively opposed to all free trade deals, as yet another element of the neo-liberal paradigm. They are the New Zealand’s equivalents of the Syriza Party of Greece. Voters only turn to such parties in extremis, and even then it usually proves to be a costly mistake.
here...http://pundit.co.nz/content/tpp-the-true-cost-of-negotiations
The above livestreamed event should be compulsive viewing.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Dr Mapp is a smart man, but he's missed the point: that the TPPA isn't even a free trade agreement.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Dr Mapp is a smart man
If he's so smart, how come he let the hapless Don Brash make him wear a clown suit?
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This could go in so many threads ..... today's Tremain in the ODT
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http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/281065/show-us-ya-text,-say-tpp-protesters
Clever Young People protest the TPPA...at MFaT!
Yes!
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Another Australian analysis that I found helpful - linked below. Ironically although the article focuses on the Australian scenarios it includes clips of NZ politicians.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: What’s in it for Australia?
Philip Morris is already trying to sue Australia over its cigarette packaging rules but its action is complicated because currently the rules don’t allow US companies to directly sue the Australian government.
In effect the TPPA would allow Philip Morris to sue more easily. And of course there would be other court cases if those provisions pass.
The other strange point is that given there is a global surplus in the dairy trade – not one wants it that opportunities to free that up are not likely any time soon.
Given that Canada is dumping milk already Dairy dilemma: Time to dump subsidies, not milk
It took many years for NZ to remove patents on s/w and I see that has been mentioned earlier.
I have never understood why the various agreements are secret. It is good that progress was delayed but this is too important to leave to a few secret handshakes.
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
I have never understood why the various agreements are secret. It is good that progress was delayed but this is too important to leave to a few secret handshakes.
And, if I understand it correctly, no one can really know what's going on for 5 years after it is signed - how can any one plan or take advantage of any changes wrought?
(or is that rort?) -
And to follow on the above Tremain cartoon
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Sacha, in reply to
It took many years for NZ to remove patents on s/w and I see that has been mentioned earlier.
latest: Institute of IT Professionals joins NZ Open Source Society in questioning TPP deal on software patents.
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I found this comment below the story dispiriting:
stanley 12 Aug
RNZ – if taking more photos could you try to include the multitude of nondescript men taking photographs of all the protesters? This is with digital SLRs as well as Go-Pros. They’re not part of the protest and are there because somebody (who?) wants a record of the identity of every protester there. Why is this, and who wants to know? This behaviour should be arousing suspicion from the rest of NZ why people at a peaceful protest are being monitored in this way.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/281171/tpp-protesters-descend-on-parliament
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Dumb US overreaction of the week.
The US is warning its citizens to stay away from the anti-TTPA march being held in Auckland tomorrow.
In an email, the US Consulate General in Auckland urged any US citizens to avoid the march as "even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational."
Green Party national intelligence and security spokesman Russel Norman said US consular staff needed to "relax".
"This is democracy in action and it's not Ferguson. The police won't be shooting people, it's not scary.
"They should just come along and they might learn something."
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Good turnout for the march in Chch yesterday (I'd pick closer to 2000 than the reported 1000). I feel as if the battle for public opinion is close to won. Polls indicate the TPPA gets an overwhelmingly negative response.
What's puzzling me is Labour. Opposing this seems a no-brainer. Yet it's like they hate to be popular. More comfortable with wishy-washy fence-sitting.
Does Little know something we all don't? Being sat on by the US? Or do they genuinely support the neoliberal corporatist agenda, either in the hope we'll be thrown some crumbs of dairy access or because at heart that's what they believe is best for NZ? -
andin, in reply to
Does Little know something we all don’t? Being sat on by the US? Or do they genuinely support the neoliberal corporatist agenda,
I guess remembering not to kick down was something they found difficult enough. Learning not to kiss up... well... is harder than forelock tugging.
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linger, in reply to
Slightly more charitably: the fact that Labour originally started these negotiations, with other nations that are still involved (before everything got subverted by American corporations), might explain why they're reluctant to turn entirely against it just yet.
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chris, in reply to
To be fair, when you've got more people turning up to march against the TPPA than the 'Leader of the Hoposition' has twitter followers it makes total sense that he'd just knuckle down and watch the sports.
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John Farrell, in reply to
Almost everyone at the protest will have a camera of some sort - photographing those taking the photographs would be a continuation of the protest - especially if the pictures are shared on social media later, looking for IDs.
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Yeah, Stanley’s comment itself on the radionz site is not much to go on. Hopefully anyone who attended the weekend’s protests might have observations to share.
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andin, in reply to
Slightly more charitably:
When everyone well 99.9%) is now dependent on money and that is being gobbled up by a few and people starve. And no thought is given to how everyone is supposed to live now and into the future and survive Im not feeling too charitable. That can change...
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Rosemary McDonald, in reply to
anyone who attended the weekend’s protests might have observations to share.
We joined the action in the winterless North. Kaitaia had intermittent rain, which (sorry for the cliche) failed to dampen spirits. Hugely diverse assemblage. I was singularly impressed by the Young People...very politically aware, with one young lady declaring she was there for her children's future.
Hone Harawira was good....goodness me, did I just type that? Seriously...he has nothing to lose...but he gave it his all.
Cameras? Any number of 'em. Seemed to be mostly individuals taking snapshots fro social media. One serious looking photographer...I think may have been the editor of the local paper. One individual tweaked my antennae, seemed out of place somehow....
Of interest was the surprising number of Americans. Immigrants, including a local doctor. Not impressed by the directive from the embassy.
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You can 'give a little' toward a legal challenge to the secrecy around the TPPA here :)
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