WikiLeaks releases draft of highly-secretive multi-national trade deal

[Natural Citizen]

US promises to defend Japan from China as territory dispute lingers

The United States’ top diplomat said this week that the US will not walk away from Japan as tensions worsen in the Far East between America’s Asian ally and China regarding a heated territory dispute in the Pacific.

In the meantime, though, both the US and Japan are interested in other endeavors — like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. According to the AP, the multi-nation trade deal between the US, Japan and 10 other Pacific-region countries was also among the issues discussed by Kishida and Kerry during Friday’s meeting.
“[F]inalizing the TPP is one of the most important things that we can do for our countries’ economic futures,” Kerry said, according to the AP, and Kishida reportedly added that has tentatively agreed to cooperate towards a “prompt conclusion” of the negotiations.

http://rt.com/usa/kerry-kishida-china-japan-119/

Aside... Obama's TPP negotiators received huge bonuses from big banks

On Tuesday, Fang wrote that two major United States-based financial firms have significantly awarded former executives who have since attracted the attention of President Barack Obama and subsequently been offered positions that put them directly involved in TPP talks.

In Fang’s report, he noted that such hefty bonuses aren’t unusual on Wall Street.
“Many large corporations with a strong incentive to influence public policy award bonuses and other incentive pay to executives if they take jobs within the government,” he wrote.

But with the TPP expected to have serious implications on the corporate and financial realms, the appointments of Selig and Froman raise new questions about the potential influence of Wall Street on an already widely-disputed trade deal.

“The controversial TPP trade deal has rankled activists for containing provisions that would newly empower corporations to sue governments in ad hoc arbitration tribunals to demand compensation from governments for laws and regulations they claim undermine their business interests,” Fang acknowledged. “A fact-sheet provided by Public Citizen explains how multi-national corporations may use the TPP deal to skirt domestic courts and local laws. The arrangement would [allow] corporations to go after governments before foreign tribunals to demand compensations for tobacco, prescription drug and environment protections that they claim would undermine their expected future profits.”
“Not only do US treaties mandate that all forms of finance move across borders freely and without delay, but deals such as the TPP would allow private investors to directly file claims against governments that regulate them, as opposed to a WTO-like system where nation states (ie the regulators) decide whether claims are brought,” Boston University associate professor Kevin Gallagher told Fang.

When WikiLeaks released a draft version of a section of the TPP last year, the anti-secrecy group warned that “Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards”

“No wonder they kept it secret,” internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom told RT at the time. “What a malicious piece of US corporate lobbying. TPP is about world domination for US corporations. Nothing else.”

Last month, leaked memos obtained by the Huffington Post suggested that the US has lost almost all international support from the 11 other Pacific Rim nations engaged in TPP discussions.

http://rt.com/usa/tpp-fang-big-banks-577/

 

[Natural Citizen]

The Looting Of Ukraine Has Begun

The austerity plan will cut social services, funds for education, layoff government workers, devalue the currency, thus raising the prices of imports which include Russian gas, thus electricity, and open Ukrainian assets to takeover by Western corporations.

Ukraine’s agriculture lands will pass into the hands of American agribusiness.

Did Ukraine Just Airlift Its Entire Gold Hoard To The U.S. Fed?

Today an outspoken hedge fund manager out of Hong Kong stunned King World News when he said that the entire Ukrainian gold hoard may have just secretly been flown from Ukraine to the United States. William Kaye, who 25 years ago worked for Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions, also spoke about the incredible implications of this astonishing development. Below is what Kaye had to say in this powerful interview.

It's possible considering the need to rebuild a relationship with Germany after we came up short with repatriating their gold. Maybe the Federal Reserve needed to be restocked? Heh...

 

[Natural Citizen]

GERMAN BUSINESS LEADERS BEGIN TO BALK AT RUSSIAN SANCTIONS

“It isn’t just German exporters that are fretting, and lobbying with all their might. Russia, with an economy that is already stagnating, and dogged by vicious bouts of capital flight, has $732 billion in foreign debt. Relatively little of it is sovereign debt, but nearly $700 billion is owed by banks and corporations – most of them owned or controlled by the Kremlin. Oil major Rosneft and gas mastodon Gazprom owe $90 billion combined to foreign entities; the four state banks Sberbank, VTB, VEB, and Rosselkhozbank owe $60 billion. Some of this debt matures this year and next year.

“US banks are marginally involved. Between Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo, they have only $24 billion on the line. But European banks and insurance companies are up to their dirty ears in this suddenly iffy and potentially toxic Russian debt.

“When it comes due, it will have to be rolled over, and some of the companies will need to borrow more, simply to stay afloat. Alas, the current sanction regime of visa bans for the elite, asset freezes, and trade restrictions could make that difficult. Then there’s the threat, now more broadly but still unofficially bandied about, that Russian companies should simply default on this $700 billion in debt in retaliation for the sanctions.

“Some European banks, including some German banks, might crater. Even the possibility of a major loss would further rattle the confidence in these banks with their over-leveraged and inscrutable balance sheets and their assets that are still exuding whiffs of putrefaction. And this sort of fiasco, as the financial crisis has made clear, has an unpleasant way of snowballing – and taking down the already shaky global economy with it.

“During the financial crisis, German exports collapsed, banks toppled and got bailed out, and the economy experienced its two worst quarters in the history of the Federal Republic. No politician in Germany has any appetite to re-experience that. And the banking industry, with its powerful and long tentacles winding their way through the hallways and doors of the German government, has been assiduously at work, quietly and behind the scenes, to whittle any sanctions down to irrelevance.

“Washington’s defaulting on an agreement with Russia about Ukraine’s future, and the prospect of NATO troops in Ukraine, convinced Putin and much of the Russian elite that there’s no point in negotiating with the US.”

Beyond the actual looting of Ukraine economically and the quiet takeover of their agricultural system by "American" agribusiness that was at the heart of this, although not discussed, forcing sanctions will hinder the German/EU economy. That said, it's obvious why Washington would offer “trade agreements”. And it's obvious that the ruse would further the strongarm by Washington on Europe who, as we know, have been growing more independent of the U.S.

This right here along with the TPP in general as far as the money men go, is why we are seeing such malfeasance on the narrative by both politicians and corporate media. Corporate media, who, by the way, stand to gain a great deal in all of this as well. Oh yes...what a tangled web we weave.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Mass protests slam US-EU trade deal as 'corporate power grab'...

Tens of thousands of people are flooding the streets of cities all over Europe on Saturday in mass rallies against a controversial trade agreement between the US and the EU.

Talks on the pact, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), started last February and, having been mostly held behind closed doors, have raised widespread concerns in the European Union and beyond.

Social networks have been mobilized for a mass campaign that has been calling on Europeans and Americans to take action against “the biggest corporate power grab in a decade.”

One of the organizers of Berlin’s demonstration, Michael Efler, told RT’s Peter Oliver: “We are protesting here against the free trade deal completely negotiated in secret, because they give corporations more rights they’ve ever had in history.”

Protests were planned in 22 countries across Europe – marches, rallies and other public events – in over 1,000 locations in UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Netherlands, Poland, the Czech Republic and Scandinavian countries.

In London, British historian and investigative journalist Andy Worthington told RT’s Harry Fear that people have reasons not to trust politicians who have been reassuring them since 1980s, yet “handing over more and more power to corporations.”

The trade agreement between the EU and the US could be finalized by the end of this year.

Continued - Mass protests slam US-EU trade deal as 'corporate power grab'

 

[torchbearer]

free trade is not brokered trades among national mafia agencies.
free trade is individual trade unfettered.

 

[Lucille]

bump for Rand

 

[Natural Citizen]

Thanks for bumping discussion on this stuff, lucille. I think this was the first thread on this around here and it kind of got buried. Will add to it later because the intricates are really the issue as opposed to some other popular debate models. I'm kind of just checking in today of and on. Like I was telling you on the down-lo, today is a busy day for me.