Post by Origanalist on Jun 22, 2014 9:29:58 GMT -8
June 22, 2014
SOURCE:http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2014/6/21/the-global-corporatocracy-is-nearing-completion.html
By Don Quijones, freelance writer and translator in Barcelona, Spain. Raging Bull-Shit is his modest attempt to challenge the wishful thinking and scrub away the lathers of soft soap peddled by our political and business leaders and their loyal mainstream media.
Quietly, subtly, almost imperceptibly, the rules governing global trade and financial markets are changing. It is not happening by accident, but by wilful design. Despite the enormous impact it will have on all our lives, the public is not being consulted on any aspects of the process. Most people are not even aware it is happening.
The main driver of this change are the bilateral and multilateral trade and investment treaties being negotiated in complete secrecy and behind closed doors between corporate lobbyists, free trade activists and our own elected “representatives” (a term I use in the loosest possible sense, especially given the context). The ultimate goal of these treaties is to reconfigure the legal apparatus and superstructures that govern national, regional and global trade and business – for the primary, if not exclusive, benefit of the world’s largest multinational corporations.
Corporations have long been powerful economic and political entities, but in recent decades some have grown to dwarf even middling-sized national economies. According to a ranking published by Global Trends, 58 percent of the world’s biggest 150 economic entities in 2012 were corporations. They include oil, natural gas, and mining majors, banks and insurance firms, telecommunications giants, supermarket behemoths, car manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies.
Changing the Law
Right now, the representatives of many of these firms are engaged in late-stage negotiations with the U.S. and European political leaders that would make it financially calamitous for a nation-state to take any actions against the interest of corporations. If passed — and at this rate, it almost certainly will be — it will be the biggest bilateral trade deal in the history of mankind.
What’s up for grabs in the innocuously named “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership” (TTIP) is nothing short of the control and ownership of virtually every economic sector and public service in both Europe and the U.S. – with the exception, at the insistence of the U.S. government, of the financial services industry. Unbeknownst to almost all Europeans, the European Commission has shown a keen interest in opening up all public services to foreign corporate ownership, from health care to education, pensions to water provision.
Wikileaks also revealed that a group of 50 nations, fronting themselves as “Really Good Friends of Services” (who said lobbyists don’t have a sense of humour?), is secretly negotiating the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). The countries taking part in negotiations include the U.S., the member nations of the EU (who are naturally leading the proceedings), and U.S.-aligned nations of Australia, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, South Korea, and Switzerland. Conspicuously absent from the list are the five BRICS nations Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and Latin American members of Mercosur.
Based on the draft copy recently released by Wikileaks, the treaty seeks to (among many other things):
“Lock in” the privatisations of services – even in cases where private service delivery has failed – meaning governments can never return water, energy, health, education or other services to public hands.
Restrict a government’s right to regulate stronger standards in the public’s interest. For example, it will affect environmental regulations, licensing of health facilities and laboratories, waste disposal centres, power plants, school and university accreditation and broadcast licenses.
Specifically limit the ability of governments to regulate the financial services industry at exactly the time when the global economy is still recovering from a crisis caused by financial deregulation.
The trade treaties are not just about rewriting laws; they are also about enforcing them. As the author of Debt Generation, David Malone, explained in a recent talk on bilateral and multilateral trade agreements (essential viewing for anyone interested in the subject), what gives trade treaties such as TTIP and TISA their “claws and teeth” is the inclusion of an innocuous-sounding provision called the “investor-state dispute settlement.” This effectively allows private companies to sue entire nations if they feel that a law lost them money on their investment.
No Trial, No Judge, No Jury
continued at...http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_Global_Corporatocracy_Is_Nearing_Completion/36101/0/38/38/Y/M.html