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TTIP -

11 replies

Spinflight · 03/03/2014 00:25

uk.news.yahoo.com/comment/talking-politics/eu-us-treaty-overrules-westminster-094235115.html#Mrd2rB8

"It's called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Inside it is an innocuous-sounding provision called the 'investor-state dispute settlement'. This allows private companies to sue nation states if they feel a law lost them money on their investment.


Let's say a future government decides, not unreasonably, that the involvement of US firms in the NHS is a bad idea. Each and every one of them will now be able to launch expensive legal battles, potentially for billions of pounds, in the name of foregone profits.


If passed it would enforce privatisation in international politics, making it financially ruinous for EU countries or the US to introduce any legislation which was not in the interests of corporations."

Sounds like a tory wet dream, though new labour and the fib dems support it wholeheartedly.

So tobacco firms could sue the government for not allowing filterless, high tar, cigarettes ( they are rather keen on them in America apparently). Or for taxing them too highly, thus reducing sales and their profits. Oil firms could sue the government for refusing permission to turn the Lake District into a big industrialised oil field. Waste collection firms could sue the government for collecting bins, thus reducing their profits. Drug firms could sue the NHS for not prescribing ludicrously expensive drugs...

If you think this sounds like something out of science fiction, one of those films where Robocop defeats the evil corporation, then you may wish to re-think your support for the EU.

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Spinflight · 03/03/2014 00:29

Could a mod add the following to the title please?

TTIP - "Rise of the corporations. All public services threatened."

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TheHammaconda · 03/03/2014 10:18

If you report your first post someone at MNHQ might change the title

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Isitmebut · 03/03/2014 11:49

Spin…..maybe I’m missing something here in this attempt to standardize regulation and boost trade, but it seems ‘Red’ Ukip really does have more in common with Labour on destroying private sector investment and jobs than Mr Farage lets on.

I’m assuming that this is the main problem that you have here, that PROTECTS a company providing ‘inward investment’ to another country and doesn’t want to get screwed if having invested in a country and provided jobs e.g. nuclear power stations we can’t afford, , should say a Labour/Ukip coalition then say WE will now dictate your profits (like it or lump it), they have recourse;

“ISDS means an investor can bring a case directly against the country hosting its investment, without the intervention of the government of the investor’s country of origin.”

Then surely the answer to those that have this problem in the UK is DON’T ALLOW UK INWARD INVESTMENT by foreign firms, lets wait 20-30 years until we clear our $1.3 trillion (and growing £100 bil a year) national debt to help create Private Sector investment and jobs in this country – and in the meantime have the Public Sector ‘create’ jobs and worry about the increased debt later?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_Trade_and_Investment_Partnership

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP; also known as the Transatlantic Free Trade Area, abbreviated as TAFTA) is a proposed free-trade agreement between the European Union and the United States. The deal is estimated to boost the EU's economy by €120 billion, the US economy by €90 billion and the rest of the world by €100 billion.[1] Talks began in July 2013 and reached the third round of negotiations by the end of that year.[1] This free trade agreement may be finalized by the end of 2014.

Proposed benefits.

If realized, the TTIP aims to liberalize one-third of global trade and generate millions of new jobs.[14] "With tariffs between the United States and the EU already low, the United Kingdom's Centre for Economic Policy Research estimates that 80 percent of the potential economic gains from the TTIP agreement depend on reducing the conflicts of duplication between EU and US rules on those and other regulatory issues, ranging from food safety to automobile parts."

  • A successful strategy, according to Thomas Bollyky at the Council on Foreign Relations and Anu Bradford of Columbia Law School, will focus on sectors where transatlantic goals of trade and regulation overlap: pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, and financial services. This will ensure that the United States and Europe remain "standard makers, rather than standard takers," in the global economy, subsequently ensuring that producers worldwide continue to gravitate toward joint US-EU standards."

    "An economic assessment prepared by the Centre for Economic Policy Research in March 2013, estimates that a comprehensive agreement will result in annual GDP growth in the EU of 68-119 billion euros by 2027 and annual GDP growth of 50-95 billion euros in the US The same report estimates that a limited agreement, focused only on tariffs, will result in annual GDP growth in the EU of 24 billion euros by 2027 and annual growth of 9 billion euros in the US. The maximum GDP growth estimates would translate into additional annual disposable income of 545 euros for a family of four in the EU and 655 euros for a family of four in the US."

    "The CEO of Siemens, which has 70% of its workforce in Europe and the US, has indicated that the TTIP would strengthen the global competitiveness of the US and EU by reducing trade barriers, improving intellectual property protections, and setting international "rules of the road".
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Spinflight · 04/03/2014 00:32

sigh

I doubt anyone, even those who have had their heads in the sand for 50 years, doubted that the tories would be all in favour.

Privatise the NHS by the back door, concrete over the north with oil fields, sell off the air we breathe to Goldman Sachs.

So long as the corporations base themselves in London within easy walking distance of Westminster and decide they need a couple of extra non-exec directors for 1 day a month any sort of deal can be done.

The thread was aimed more at normal people.

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Isitmebut · 04/03/2014 10:04

Spin….do you mean the thread was aimed at susceptible people to Ukip’s year after propaganda, trying to foster a dislike for the main parties, pretending that a no policy Ukip is a serious ‘alternative’?

Why not spend more time GETTING a manifesto detailing your own policies and EARN your frigging votes, rather than getting them via disingenuous means?

And yes ANY Conservative would understand you need a vibrant private sector to pay the bills, and thank god they do, if the red team can lose manufacturing jobs, before the financial crash, during a global consumption boom for heavens sake – AND STILL in opposition tell companies who invest ££billions here that when they get back they’ll tell them what profits they make – lucky one party understands what provides sustainable jobs.
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.html

As to privatising the NHS ‘via the back door’ and Goldman Sachs rollocks, once again I suggest that you check your facts. Look up who invited the private sector in to reduce waiting lists for political ends, without reform for the NHS, and through the Private Finance Initiative put in place expensive projects that will cost the taxpayer a fortune for several decades to come.

And as for Goldman Sachs advising Prime Ministers, do you want me to give you the names of those that did? BTW the above over the past 20-years was NOT via the Conservatives.

As for “concreting over the north with oil fields”, I have no idea what you are talking about – and as usual – neither I suspect, do you.

Clearly you are still aiming for 'red' Ukip votes, but I'd suggest they already realise that moving a bloated Public Sector's jobs up north was like 'moving the Tittanics deckchairs' - and was hardly sustainable medium to long term, so this country NEEDS private sector investment.

Unless you have an argument, all we need to do to encourage that investment/jobs and NOT get sued, is understand the contracts that are signed and not attempt to go back on them for political motives e.g. populist votes.

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zelda200 · 02/11/2014 11:05

Hi Spinflight,
Coming to this a bit late, but we are organising against TTIP in south london, in case you can join.
www.facebook.com/groups/632084246910504/

Also, prob obvious but you can write to your MEPs here and express concern: www.writetothem.com/

I've also asked 38 Degrees to organise a rally in Brussels so we can protest actually in front of the decision makers. If you think it's a good idea, please get in touch with them too, to add you support. Thanks!

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Squidstirfry · 02/11/2014 17:16

The treaty also proposes that if a US firm has an office/department in the UK or EU, then US employment law applies to the workforce. So they benefit from the tax breaks/cheap labour in the EU but decades of employee law and rights down the drain. Maternity for one, discrimination another... The US is notoriously backwards on these basic rights.
I am horrified, will sign.

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Spinflight · 23/12/2014 07:26

Don't assume that MEPs are the decision makers. They have remarkably limited power to amend anything, and almost zero to propose or draft. MEPs are just meant to quietly rubber stamp legislation in order to give it a ring of democratic authenticity.

Even the unelected commission doesn't appear to be the driving force on this side of the pond, even in the states there has been no democratic oversight in the drafting, though there was a 'take it or leave it vote' with little time for discussion.

No the actual drivers and drafters can be gleaned from who the treaty actually gives power to; namely corporate lawyers.

We don't have a friendly neighbourhood corporate lawyer in my neck of the woods, and I suspect anywhere they meet might involve golf and not regard me as a likely candidate for membership.

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Toadinthehole · 03/01/2015 04:04

It is the essence of democracy that states get to design and implement the laws by which they govern themselves. Accordingly it is undemocratic to allow a sanction to be imposed on states for exercising this choice in a way that some multinational doesn't like.

What price democracy?

There is an equivalent agreement (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) being negotiated in secret. It is probably Uncle Sam calling all the shots as usual. So far, only Australia has had the balls to stand up and say just where to stick investor-state dispute settlement.

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Spinflight · 04/01/2015 23:29

Quite,

Given the amoral nature of very big business the idea that we should grant them risk free investment is absurd.

Unfortunately money talks and always has done. I was reading up recently on some history and found that John of Gaunt ( younger brother of the Black Prince in the 12th century ) was one of the richest men in history. That his offspring found the houses of York, Lancaster and Tudor.

It seems that the modern day idea is that companies and brands have taken the place of genetic lineage in the eyes of the power mongers.

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blacksunday · 23/02/2015 19:14

Here's a short video (3 minutes), explaining a bit about the TTIP:

action.sumofus.org/a/ttip-video/?akid=9195.3845194.AYIFw8&rd=1&sub=fwd&t=1

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