Lately the Five Star Free Market label is just a fake seal of approval for something Unfree
Just as carbon trading has nothing to do with a free market, so it is with monster free trade deals like the TPP. The free market meme won the intellectual debate of the 20th Century, but now its good name gets used and abused to sell the idea it defeated — bigger-government.
A real free market deal has only one page and a bunch of signatures. But it takes a lot of pages to list all the unfree parts and to spell it out in sub-sub-clauses that hurt or help thousands of businesses around the world. Who gets the sweetest deal out of the complexity — the card carrying networkers — those who schmooze up to the right minister or bureaucrat. The people who compete on price or quality alone would win in a real free market, and so would we as customers. Instead the document rewards the gatekeepers, the rulemakers, the industry with the best lobbyists and the monied set who can donate enough to the right causes to get a better deal.
Tipping the scales at 5,544 pages — and an astonishing 2,056,560 words — the trade agreement is one of the longest documents The Daily Caller has ever encountered. … The Bible: Authorized King James Version is 1,746 pages.
If it were printed Breitbart estimates it would weigh 100 pounds.
Monster Documents have to stop. The TPP is a hundred pound weapon. There is no single citizen in the West alive today that even knows what the law is that they are supposed to obey — they don’t know if they are breaking the law without paying a lawyer, and often the lawyers are just giving it their best damn guess anyway.
No Senator nor Member could read the document they vote on. Just say “No” to unreadable deals.
Every extra page is a win for the regulating class, the polaracites, the political freeloaders.
Trump vows to axe the TPP, and not a day too soon. Remember the Paris Agreement was toothless, but other legally binding documents can refer back to the Paris deal and make it bite.
The full TPP treaty text can be read here. (How much fun can you have?)
According to Thomas Walkom Canada is better off without the TPP . Notice how there are winners and losers among Canadian industries. Canadian cars down $3.6 billion, Canadian drugs more expensive, whole GDP up barely 0.1%. “
It would have increased the cost of leading-edge drugs and, according to tech entrepreneur Jim Balsillie, crippled Canadian innovation. Balsillie, whose iconic BlackBerry once dominated the world smartphone industry, called the TPP “the worst thing in policy Canada’s ever done.””
So billions are won and lost by different groups, not due to better or worse performance or market demand, but due to decisions by politicians and bureaucrats. And they call it a “free market deal”.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is a trade agreement among twelve of the Pacific Rim countries—notably not including China. The finalized proposal was signed on 4 February 2016 in Auckland, New Zealand, concluding seven years of negotiations.
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‘…notably not including China.’
The US is a self contained economy and the TPP is not in Australia’s best interest, Beijing is leading the charge.
‘The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) entered into force on 20 December 2015. Australia’s Minister for Trade and Investment Andrew Robb, signatory to ChAFTA, said “this historic agreement with our biggest trading partner will support future economic growth, job creation and higher living standards through increased goods and services trade, and investment. China, with its population of 1.4 billion people and rapidly rising middle class, presents enormous opportunities for Australian businesses well into the future.”
Austrade
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The US is a “self-contained economy?” I am nut sure what that means, but an economy that virtually produces nothing that it uses is hardly what I would consider “self contained.”
As far as a 5000 page document is concerned, I agree pretty much with the statement in the article – a free trade agreement should be very few pages, if not just 1. I personally believe any “law” should be no more than 5 to 10 pages in length as there are too many places to hide “bad stuff” in documents longer than that. No one should ever vote for a law, treaty, or even a local issue that can’t be stated in 10 pages or less. And if the law requires 1500 or more pages – the “Affordable Care Act,” the “Patriot Act,” and other such bills passed in the US come to mind – no one is going to read it and no one should ever, ever vote yes for it. Anything that long has too many hidden stingers in it to start with, and is going to be misinterpreted in all sorts directions because of the verbosity.
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That is a “law” written by lawyers for the benefit of lawyers.
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And government paper pushers.
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Cause no harm, nor allow to be caused harm to another living soul’s life, liberty or property.
Anything else comes from corporate government.
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May I respectfully suggest that when you next have a legal matter to deal with that you don’t attempt to do your own contract or agreement, lawyers are trained professionals and their services are recommended to people and businesses that do not want to end up in, to put it politely, a legal tangle in a court of law.
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By self-contained I mean its the largest economy in the world with a population big enough so that domestic spending doesn’t involve large imports.
‘China’s exporting prowess has fueled massive trade surpluses and tensions with the U.S. While Donald Trump calls it “the greatest theft in the history of the world,” China’s policymakers are already trying to rebalance away from reliance on external demand as they stoke domestic spending.’
Bloomberg
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Obamacare being an excellent example.
“We have to pass it to find out what’s in it!”…….N. Pelosi
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Too bad that was so quickly forgotten. A time bomb wrapped as a present for an explosives non-expert.
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As is apparent if you can bear to wade through them, “Free Trade” agreements do not happen because someone in a halo wakes up one morning and decides to make the world a better place. It is someone like a “Big Pharma” executive who thinks ” We can make an extra B$ if we buggerise Australi’a Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme ” So he lobbies ( Pays ) his congressman and so it goes.
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@#1.1 Quoting Andrew Robb and Austrade.
In the early 1980s the National Farmers’ Federation employed two young blokes, Andrew Robb and Andy Stoeckel, telling us that these bright lads would be the architects of our salvation. Since that time agriculture in Australia has rarely deviated from the road to Hell.
The NFF adopted a brave new policy they later named “Unilateral Trade Reform”, telling us that if we took the moral high ground in economics by abolishing the little government assistance we were getting, the rest of the world would follow our example, giving us a “level playing field”, on which we, being the most efficient producers, would be on top of the pile.
It took no more than two years to show that this policy was beyond brave, it was suicidal lunacy. The rest of the world had no interest in this “moral high ground”, but was ever ready to take advantage of our stupidity. Yet Unilateral Trade Reform has remained as NFF policy to the present day. It has halved the number of small business capitalists engaged in farming in Australia, which anybody with open eyes should see brings the Marxists half way home to their abolition of private management of industry, and gathering pace.
In the one industry that did do well at first, wool, which happened to be Australia’s biggest industry, application of the Current Conventional Wisdom in Economics, of which Andrew Robb is a leading scholar, came close to wiping the industry out.
So you might see why I tremble to hear of Andrew Robb negotiating “free trade agreements” on our behalf. I fear they could be awfully Unilateral.
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Australia’s biggest industry is now the servicing debt, for every man, woman, corporation, and child. It is the same in every country today.
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Those who do not understand debt have no hope of understanding economics or even the TPP
: Google results for
“coal bankruptcies 2016″ is “About 8,720,000 results (0.33 seconds) ”
“Oil banruptcies 2016″ is “About 4,380,000 results (0.41 seconds) ”
“gas bankruptcies2016″ is “About 6,570,000 results (0.42 seconds) “
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And the point of your statement is….?
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Whether an impenetrable wodge of paper or concealed behind a veil of secrecy, the TPP was doomed to stink to high heaven, even at the eco-globalist end of the political spectrum: The Guardian, May 2016:
and at eco-leftist Grist, Heather Smith (Nov 2015) writes:
The TPP was a globalist poster child, congruent with the expression of article (68) (below) of the August 2015 UN declaration TRANSFORMING OUR WORLD:THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.
Instead, it represented a top down cobbled “agreement” dependent on acres of “rules” and a total absence of “open, transparent, predictable, inclusive, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization (WTO), as well as meaningful trade liberalization.”
There was NEVER any intention to provide any voice for the ‘deplorables’. The behaviour of the New Zealand government, the quintessential eco-global canary, illustrated this perfectly.
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As soon as I see our hear that word”Sustainable”I know to run for the hills.Anyone who uses that word,is a”Shyster”and or”Snake Oil”salesman.
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Ian Verrender at the ABC has a sobering piece on the TPP:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/after-justin-trudeau-praises-fidel-castro-twitter-surges-with-trudeaueulogies-20161127-gsyqd5.html
I’d recommend Dennis give it a read. Note how the Productivity Commission was not allowed to investigate its impacts? Very telling indeed.
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Darn copy & paste fails:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-28/scrapping-tpp-won't-make-a-lick-of-difference/8061906
Though the other link is entertaining 😀
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http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/tpp/pages/trans-pacific-partnership-agreement-tpp.aspx
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http://dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/tpp/outcomes-documents/Pages/outcomes-at-a-glance.aspx
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I think you might need to exorcise that Nephilm that has taken possession of you.
Ignoring Dennis’s silliness. Anyone have an opinion on what Donald Trump’s policy would have been if the TPP was a one page “real” trade deal?
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The text of the TPP was made available to the public on 5 November 2015.
In accordance with Australia’s treaty-making process, the TPP text and accompanying National Interest Analysis was tabled in Parliament on 9 February 2016. Following tabling, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties will conduct an inquiry into the TPP and will report back to Parliament. Parliament will also consider any legislation that may be necessary to implement the Agreement.
When a country has completed its domestic treaty-making processes, it will notify other TPP countries that it has done all that is required for the Agreement to enter into force. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement will enter into force 60 days after all original signatories have notified completion of their domestic legal procedures.
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Easy . .
Dear (country – xxxx),
We are pleased to enter into a mutually beneficial trade relationship with (country – xxxx) while understandably and automatically preserving an “America first” perspective.
Signed
Donald J Trump,
President of the USA
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The Japanese Prime Minister said (I probably paraphrase) that if the USA doesn’t enter into this agreement it is meaningless. That tells me all I need to know about how baaaaaaaad the “agreement” is for the USA. Trump wants unilateral agreements which benefit both parties. Enough said!!!!
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GEE EYE
“Nephilm” should be “Nephilim” when used with exorcise!
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true… my eyes cannot make out the difference to detect the error and autocorrect didn’t know the word.
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Typo check: “Polaracites”?
From the line <i<Every extra page is a win for the regulating class, the polaracites, the political freeloaders.
Google can’t help me with the word.
Slightly related, if it really is a word in the Scrabble Dictionary:
Forgive my uncouthness, but on first reading, I took that to be a contraction of ‘political arsehole parasites’. “It’d be fun to see that word in wider use”, I thought. “A great Australian contribution to the Anglo-sphere’s terms of political discussion.
Still, on second thought, regardless of whether I have correctly intuited it’s meaning, (probably not 🙁 ), I think we should avoid the word, if it is a word.
I know I wince when politicians on the right use the term ‘price signal’ instead of ‘cost’. I’ve read the books, I know the terms are not identical, I know what they’re talking about- and I also know they are sending a signal to the electorate that the speaker is a member of the Polaracites.
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Ge Aye a solicitor would advise you to read the TPP contents before displaying your prejudice.
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Dennis
The problem for most is the TTP ,as it stands, is not just a trade deal. It incorporates to many other things.
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‘When I say ,’free-trade’ says Humpty Dumpty,
‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither
more nor less.’
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You are right, the Partnership is an agreement between participating nations relating to regulations and laws applying within each sovereign nation and attempting to make the rules of trading equal. The free trade agreement is about trade.
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eh no…. it absolutely isn’t. You’re quite wrong Dennis. Read the critiques in the leftoid media #1.3. The TPP embodied way more than “trade”. It incorporated UN sustainability, social and environmental considerations and it was allegedly congruent with the UN post 2015 sustainable development agenda (see above post #1.3.), but actually wasn’t, actually not in the slightest bit.
The obvious fact is that the TPP brought out the globalist greenie lefties in their droves in addition to a surprisingly replete range across the political spectrum against it. This was precisely because it was not consistent with the UN post 2015 Agenda article 68, namely, ‘transparent, open, predictable…etc…). It was, in case you hadn’t noticed, conducted in secret. This fact alone made it untenable, particularly given its future implications and limitations. No one (deplorables and plebs) would have agreed to have constrained their livelihoods and future potential in this ridiculous top down UN-centric edict.
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The trouble with TPP seem to be that a country can lose it’s right to govern itself.
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Any person who would write that a very detailed and complicated trade negotiation like the TPP could be on one page obviously has no legal or business experience, let alone having been a party to a major agreement.
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Garbage. You can import into my country free of tariffs and restrictions. I can do the same to your country. Less than one page. All the rest are exemptions, subsidies, restrictions and non-trade stuff like environmental and labour protections. And I have over 20years of legal and business experience negotiating cross-border deals.
Free trade is free trade.
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@ Tim Hammond
I’m largely on your side here. Nevertheless, I’m concerned about the degree of oversimplification.
What about products currently legal in my country but not in yours?
Whose courts decide disputes?
Am required to accept your apples if I fear they might have a blight?
Where my laws provide different remedies for defective products than your laws, which law prevails?
I’m trying to develop a domestic industry for national security, am I required to let it be out-competed?
Must I accept product dumping from your country?
I’d prefer to do business with Smith in Country X whom I’ve known and trusted for years, rather than Jones in country Y with whom my country has a free trade agreement, even if Jones’s deal is slightly better. Can Jones sue me?
I’m libertarian on trade, though sympathetic with those whose fear of its downsides contributed to support for Brexit and Trump.
Did we put into account in provisions about currency changes or consumer rights?
Its definitely not a 5,000 page document. I’m not sure its a 1 page document either.
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That’s the whole point of this post.
If a court that can span borders is used to enforce some regulation and is authorised to act independent and external of either country, then sovereignty of both countries just got thrown under the bus.
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Sorry Dennis but if transparency is the only issue one page is all it needs .
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Possibly not.
But I suspect the comment was intended to be metaphorical rather than literal. A literal interpretation appears disingenuous at best or wanton pedantry at worst.
But, in case you haven’t noticed [/sarc] it remains incontestably proved that no one can write a trade agreement that spans 5,544 pages.
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The TPP agreement is nothing less than a legalized method to complete the hollowing out of Western democracies industrially. Cheaply selling real wealth, property, technology, and the methods to generate wealth, to the ‘developing’ nations. While the West’s leaders sit contentedly inflating national debt, and watch as 300+ years of hard fought for success burns away on a pyre of global socialism and the greed of their elite.
TPP shows that when West fights to become third from last industrially they are second to none!
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You didn’t bother to read the links too.
I am truly amazed how the anti-free trade brigade tends to consist of people who have no trade experience or in business related to importing and exporting.
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Dennis,
No, no, and thrice no!
I have read the links, it is the same anti-market junk dress as free trade reforms. It is not reform, it is a jail!
Given that Free trade is the FREE EXCHANGE of goods and services by two or more parties for everyone’s mutual benefit.
TPP is NOT about free trade. That is the point.
TPP IS NOT ABOUT FREE TRADE! It is only about control!
In real free trade such control is NEVER needed.
TPP is about very rich elites controlling.
Controlling who, how, and what is traded — markets be dammed.
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See https://mises.org/library/we-need-actual-free-trade-not-tpp
for more on TPP and real free trade.
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As soon as you see the UN is involved,you run for your life.
10
Have you read and understood the TPP Dennis ?
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That’s garbage too. Free trade increases wealth because of comparative advantage. If you don’t believe in free trade across borders, why do you believe in free trade within borders? What’s the difference?
You think you should make and grow everything you need and want personally?
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The difference is my place and somebody else’s place.
Free trade means equal living standards. Rest assured that I am opposed to equalising my living standards with Syria, or Libya, or Somalia, or any other countries which are currently riven by strife. Do what we can to help them by all means, and there is much that can be done by trading on or outside the so called free market. But don’t destitute ourselves, as the ALP and Greens are doing.
The problem with the debate is that there is no free market, never has been and never can be. The Market is not free if it is not free for all. The “Free” that is being referred to is a relative term, not an absolute term.
Which brings us back to the only purpose for which it is necessary to have a government. To maintain national security.
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Good one.
20
Re Tomo at #7
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Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
………
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow
………
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
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Something not envisioned in 1963 was the Internet, but you can bet your bippy that control of the Internet is buried in the TOPP.
Witness the recent doublespeak issuing forth from the ample pie holes of Ol Bummer and his partner in crime Ms. Merlkel.
“The problem with free speech is that we can’t control what the peons are told, and what they believe.” or words to that effect.
They went on to say that the Truth should never be allowed to interfere with the “fake news” and propaganda that the controlled media call “the news”.
They might just have well have said “We can’t afford to give people access to our shenanigans or the jig is up”. Or, as Billary whined “IF that f**king bastard wins, there will be a noose around all our necks”.
The TPP is not about trade, any more that CAGW is about the environment. Since the Senate could not be connived into approving COP21, the TPP was to be the vehicle to make Paris binding. Buried deep inside it also controls the flow of communications of any kind, domestically as well as internationally.
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Big news from the liberals on my FB friends list is how the fake news media pushed Trump as the hero, and won the election for him. No word on the fake news that push CAGW, fake horror stories of children being ravaged by pets gone wild, fake discoveries of miracle pills the government is keeping for the elite only, etc. No mention of all the fake news against Trump. Nope, it’s the “We were paid to write trash about Hillary and make Trump look good” only.
It is a real bummer when the machinations you erected to hold power are suddenly in someone else’s hands – then all the nicey-nice talk about freedoms, liberties, constitutional rights and so on suddenly becomes “We can’t have all this Misinformation (that we didn’t supply) floating about because no one is believing the (our) real (properly vetted and approved) news. Lets the true colors come out, it does. And the oh-so-smart libs, the ones who KNOW they are right, fall for it. They fell for all the freedoms we lost post 9 eleven, and now they’ll push for even more freedoms to be taken away because, Trump.
I have no nice words for such stupidity.
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A good example of #20 is the extent to which the print medium (NYT) and broadcasting (Clinton News Network) has been infiltrated in order to disseminate “fake news” (propaganda).
An example of #17 is the extent to which the infiltrated academe pushes free trade agreements.
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All ticked off!
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I’d like to inaugurate a new rallying cry, something we can yell out in places like South Australia and in all the fiefdoms and strongholds of Big Green.
We hear constantly about Free Trade, more so now that the Posh Left have discovered “the market” and have realised that they’re better off rigging it to blazes rather than fighting it. (eg The lobbyist-owned, alcoholically managed EU’s rigging of the carbon “price” so Germany can keep paying for the drinks while selling into a captive “market”. Don’t like the way the the Eurocrats do things? Too bad. They’re about to get their own army, and they just happen to have lots of unemployed military age males on hand.)
But back to my subject.
Now, if Free Trade is good, what comes before it and enables it is probably good too, right? And what comes before trade is production, right?)
So how come we never hear the phrase Free Production? I like the sound of it very much, and it seems odd to bang on about Free Trade all over the shop without ever saying the words Free Production. So, I’d like to say right now…
Free Production!
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What does ‘Free Trade’ mean
Free trade is the economic policy of not discriminating against imports from and exports to foreign jurisdictions. Buyers and sellers from separate economies may voluntarily trade without the domestic government applying tariffs, quotas, subsidies or prohibitions on their goods and services. Free trade is the opposite of trade protectionism or economic isolationism.
BREAKING DOWN ‘Free Trade’
Politically, a free trade policy may just be the absence of any other trade policies; the government need not positively do anything to promote free trade. This is one reason it is sometimes referred to as “laissez-faire trade” or “trade liberalization.” Governments with free trade agreements (FTAs) do not necessarily abandon all control of taxation of imports and exports. In modern international trade, very few so-called FTAs actually fit the textbook definition of free trade.
Economics of Free Trade
In a free trade regime, both economies can experience faster growth rates. This is no different than voluntary trade between neighbors, towns or states. Free trade enables domestic workers to concentrate those goods and services where they have a distinct comparative advantage, a benefit widely popularized by economist David Ricardo in his 1817 book “On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.” By expanding the economy’s diversity of products, knowledge and skills, free trade also encourages specialization and the division of labor.
Very few issues separate economists from the general public like free trade. Research suggests faculty economists at American universities are seven times more likely to support free trade policies than everyone else. As American economist Milton Friedman once explained, “the economics profession has been almost unanimous on the subject of the desirability of free trade.” Despite this, experts have largely been unsuccessful in efforts to promote free trade policies.
Read more: Free Trade Definition | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/free-trade.asp#ixzz4Qo9XY6ua
Follow us: Investopedia on Facebook
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Free Production!
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Dennis,
As understood by Thomas Paine — The principle of free trade is simply that of the freedom to choose for yourself who you will associate with in productive ways, and how you will arrange those associations, without artificial government restrictions to limit those choices. That principle is an essential, inalienable part of having ownership of oneself.
Thomas Paine recognized this, and the same devotion to liberty which helped inspire America’s revolution against tyranny in its many forms made him a defender of free trade. And as he pointed out, “the principle of all commerce is the same.” That is just as true, and just as important, now.
Real Free trade is the FREE EXCHANGE of goods and services by two or more parties for everyone’s mutual benefit.
https://mises.org/library/thomas-paine-commerce
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Dennis says
So we remove the barriers mentioned and introduce a bigger barrier in the form of a 5544 page rulebook? The legal costs of compliance may not be worth it for small business.
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You don’t understand do you, trade barriers are more than tariffs, quotas are another, different regulations and laws between countries can be a problem for importers too. Read all about it in the links.
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So they adapt. They would have done so in a far quicker time than it took to negotiate this nonsense, and in the ways consumers actually care about rather than the ways bureaucrats think they should care. You lose years of the advantages of free trade and then do not maximise the advantages. This is pure bureaucracy, not trade, and it has a huge cost.
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Dennis,
Your definition is wrong from the start.
“What does ‘Free Trade’ mean
Free trade is the economic policy of not discriminating against imports from and exports to foreign jurisdictions. “
No it is not!
Government trade control is anti-Free Trade. It restricts, it stops real market expansion, it skims it’s x% from both trading parties to the benefit of neither. Free Trade is not a policy or about government control. Your sophistry is exposed.
What real ‘Free Trade’ is the FREE EXCHANGE of goods and services by two or more parties for everyone’s mutual benefit. It require zero government intervention.
And that, and only that is what all democratic peoples should be fighting for. The removal of governments’ interference in trading freely. Keep the governments and their inept bureaucrats out of the market as much as possible.
TPP is BS all about controlling all aspects of trade — it is an anti-Freedom measure. Thankfully Trump is bright enough to understand the basics and can see what a massive pile of bovine excreta is TPP.
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Australia has a “free trade” agreement with China. I clearly rember the joy of signing the agreement that was expressed by all & sundry….especially the prospect of beef exports.
Shortly after the agreement was celebrated came the statements about “problems ” the industry was experiencing and the way those problems were pushing up prices of beef to the consumer. Funny how that happens right after the signing of the agreement with China.
I hope I’m wrong but I have the feeling that prices were increased here in order to subsidise the export prices paid by China. Is there anybody out there who could establish what consumers in China are paying for Australian beef?. I have a suspicion that prices in China are lower than here in Australia.
I clearly recall when you could buy Australian steel in PNG and ship it back to Australia at a lower cost of buying the steel locally. Domestic prices were subsidising the export prices.
That did not help the steel industry at all, in fact the steel works at Port Kembla closed a few years later.
Are we subsidising beef prices in China?
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Such is Life, and certainly the case with natural gas.
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I don’t know the answer to that one but it wouldn’t surprise me.
But under a TPP we would lose our preferential treatment with Japan and that’s by far our largest beef export market . . . ~ 40 times bigger than China, interestingly enough.
There’s lots of market info at the Meat & Livestock Australia site
00
Basically, quantitative easing (money printing) makes the idea that anything is privately or publicly funded a thing of the past.
The advent of money printing in its quantitative form means banks end up owning everything on their balance sheets. Japan, China, Greece, Italy, Australia……these are all owned by banks….Our children are in debt, and so even they are owned by banks.
The beef market is owned by who can obtain the biggest loan and thus the creditor bank owns the beef market as well.
00
Odd that you appear to think that a bunch of tax-eating jobsworths flitting around ‘negotiating’ trade agreements has anything whatsoever to do with Ricardian free trade. The end-point is not unfettered trade between the countries involved: it is the imposition of trade terms that are unambiguously favourable to a very select group of US industries (media and pharma, most of all, but also ag) who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars ensuring that their stream of tax-subsidised rents continues uninterrupted.
It might also be worth studying some trade theory or international economics (something more advanced than Wikipedia, in any case). If you did that, you would understand that the optimal policy from the perspective of the private economy is – a fortiori – to remove all barriers to trade, regardless of what ‘the other guy’ does.
If the objective of policy is to maximise domestic aggregate utility (and that should always be the objective of policy[1]), the trade-policy aspect can only be achieved by removal of all tariffs, quotas, excise, and other barriers to trade: if other nations want to beggar their citizens, that should be their problem. (This is kinda obvious if you understand mathematics: imposing any constraint on a system will always prevent it from finding the local maximum, except if the constraint is non-binding – in which case it can be done away with).
The actual objective of government trade policy is quasi-mercantilist, and is designed to protect some industries from competition at the expense of the economy at large. They always use the same set of dishonest tropes: sectoral employment, employment in related industries, and so forth. As usual, they deliberately attempt to prevent any discussion of Bastiat’s TWINS (That Which Is Not Seen) – namely, the reduction in output that is caused by the requirement to fund the burwaucratic machinery that is required to ‘manage’ trade policy, and the loss of consumer and producer surplus that arises in markets that are subject to tariffs, subsidies, and quotas.
The people involved in this charade know exactly what’s what (much like those in the climate charade): they also know that being part of a .gov gray train is the highest-alternative use of their time.
[1] the actual objective of all policy is the enrichment of a clique of politically-connected professional parasites: publicly promulgated objectives claim otherwise, for obvious reasons.
FWIW: I did study International Economics (at third year and Honours – on my way to a First) and also helped train guys from places like ABARE in how to model traded ag in a sectoral CGE model. The think tank I was at in the 90s played a big role in prior philosophical battles over tariff reduction (on TCF, motor vehicles and so forth), and one of the 15 ‘stochastic scenarios’ in my PhD thesis was the effects of varying the pace of tariff reform. (I never submitted the stupid thing: I got hired out of academia and into financial markets before my 2nd PhD scholarship extension ran out, and a PhD in Economics is pointless unless you want to be an academic or a high-end welfare recipient [i.e., public servant]).
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Dennis,
You said This is one reason it is sometimes referred to as “laissez-faire trade” or “trade liberalization.” Governments with free trade agreements (FTAs) do not necessarily abandon all control of taxation of imports and exports. In modern international trade, very few so-called FTAs actually fit the textbook definition of free trade.
And all people in all nations should be aiming for “laissez-faire trade” or “trade liberalization.” governments!
We should be voting in elections for those who espouse such ideas, and want real free the market conditions. Conditions that allow new trade, generating new wealth and new employment, and allow the inefficient traders and methods to die with dignity.
The only people against such ideas are caught in the trap of old money elites controlling their lives. Allow yourself to think outside others versions of the commercial world, think about how so much could be improved with real free trade.
100
Academic economists have a track record of advocating policies which are disastrous for the people on the ground.
30
EU gets its own army?
Sounds like a Praetorian Guard….mind you, I suspect once the plebs work out they have been shafted, they might need it…
30
Instituting a Global EU one agreement at a time.
110
Not so, the Economic Union is a grouping of member countries that for all intents and purposes have common laws and regulations, and an external parliament for all member countries that has influence within the jurisdiction of member countries.
Free Trade Agreements are between sovereign nations, an example is Closer Economic Relations or CER between Australia and New Zealand that was signed during, as I recall it, the 1980s. And the two countries remain very much sovereign nations.
38
These will save you reading about 5,540 pages.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/12/13/paris-cop21-obama-declares-victory-the-tpp-likely-gives-it-to-him/
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/obama_will_use_tpp_to_enforce_his_climate_agreement.html
160
This looks like the relevant bit!
Hooray for Trump.
240
From the chiefio,post, Dec 2015.
‘It became obvious when the text of TPP
was revealed at the beginning of November.
Article 20.4 specifies that TPP will implement relevant multilateral environment agreements:
1. The Parties recognise that multilateral environmental agreements to which they are
party play an important role, globally and domestically, in protecting the environment
and that their respective implementation of
these agreements is critical to achieving the environmental objectives of these agreements. Accordingly, each Party affirms its commitment
to implement the multilateral environmental agreements to which it is a party.
[…]
So you sign ANY kind of “multilateral
environmental agreement” it comes under the enforcement powers of this treaty and bypasses Congress and the U.S. legal system.’
200
So there are some bitter green pills in that box of Smarties?
90
‘L’appetit vient en mangeant.’
50
Free Trade is too often an excuse to make larger market zones and control trade in those zones. It might be a good idea, since a big market often beats a small one, but a regulated trading zone has nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with enlargement and control. Actual Free Trade is a tough thing to achieve, which is why intellectuals opt for the zoning thing and call it Free Trade. Zoning and exclusion in the name of Free Trade doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it often is – as we can see from the fundamentally corrupt nature of the debt-fueled and now warlike EU.
But I guess we all know who Smith, Ricardo and Friedman were, and where to find definitions of old terms in some “pedia” or other. Me, I like trade to be as free as possible, so I agree with those guys, and agree less with those who use their names to boost over-regulation and exclusion practiced in the name of inclusion.
But lets talk about an under-used term in this age of Big Gov and Big Green. Let’s talk about what Australia needs now more than a hot dinner. Let’s talk…
Free Production!
80
Free production? Having been in manufacturing industry most of my working life, and in import and export, I am well aware that producing things costs money. And the larger the market for those things the greater the economies of scale or volume of production benefits the manufacturer.
I am also aware that businesses in Australia in manufacturing were not only impacted by the Whitlam Lima Protocol UN decision to assist third world developing countries into lower tech manufacturing, unionism and related adverse impacts of industrial relations disasters added to costs, low productivity from workers often paid way above award wages and conditions in unionised factories for example. Add compliance costs with government regulations at all three levels of government. Taxes are another. In more recent times soaring cost of electricity due to carbon tax and so called renewable energy subsidies and transfer to wind turbine and solar systems from reliable power stations.
Another factor is that even third world countries have access to the best technology in manufacturing machinery. Coupled to low cost labour and operating costs Australia has no chance of being competitive.
The Australian Financial Review reported last year that, rounded off figures, the total cost not only wages, to employee skilled labour in Australia is A$600 a day, in the US it is A$400 a day. In developing countries that cost is around A$200 a day. But note that wages and benefits are not the main problem, as I pointed out above.
Free trade between sovereign nations, not EU member nations arrangements, offers Australia enormous potential, read the link.
Sorry, free production is not possible, there cannot be a level playing field for all countries, never has been, never will be. And Australia has another cost factor being shipping costs for exporting.
65
Also, our cost of living is improved when we have access to imports that are cheaper than any Australian enterprise could offer for the same product, and when the quality is of a high standard, Australian Standards applying.
And our exporters benefit, the Australian economy benefits, when they have access to larger markets without a trade barrier penalty that pushes the landed price of their goods up artificially at the destination market. Same goes for import quotas being dropped.
Last point, this is the Information Technology Age since the late 1990s when the Industrial Age ended. When the earlier Agricultural Age ended many jobs were lost but over time new jobs were created, and the same is taking place right now. In the future even manufacturing in developing countries will experience a decline in jobs as robots take over from humans. This is well underway.
Australia has many opportunities including a new agricultural zone across Northern Australia extending from the Ord River Scheme WA into the NT and QLD. Add educational opportunities for foreign students, higher tech manufacturing, medical advancements, etc.
I am opposed to a one world government, to abandoning sovereign borders (and nations), and other UN leftist agenda. But I am well aware that free trade between sovereign nations is the way to maintain and increase our national prosperity.
65
Excellent points Dennis and your point of view is probably much in line with the other great comments but moderated by your knowledge of the system.
No doubt many businesses live in fear of having to renegotiate contracts with buyers and suppliers when open trade is implemented, but the main aim of reducing or eliminating third-party interference and turnover taxes is to substantially reduce compliance costs.
It will be painful there is no doubt, but to continue as we currently are also is contrary to real “free trade”.
The present system needs something equivalent to a “sheep dip” to remove freeloaders and assorted parasites.
🙂
KK
30
Dennis,
From your own words
“Add compliance costs with government regulations at all three levels of government. Taxes are another. In more recent times soaring cost of electricity due to carbon tax and so called renewable energy subsidies and transfer to wind turbine and solar systems from reliable power stations.”
In other word government intervention into a working market has wreaked havoc on that market destroying its real inherent worth.
That is the usual outcome of government interference in the market. Everyone should be against all government interference as far as possible. The cold dead hand of governments only ruin the proper running of the market place as it seeks to ‘stabilize’ trade by imposing stasis.
161
Well Tom, following your logic we could do away with governments and laws and have a free for all.
112
Dennis,
“following your logic we could do away with governments and laws and have a free for all.”
No. You are wrong, typical left thinking that without the dead hand of control there is mayhem. Wrong. Without government interference commerce expands and wealth tends to spread.
I advocate government have a minimal amount of interference in commerce. Make all governments as “laissez-faire trade” or “trade liberalization.” governments. Form political alliances with other like-minded nations but not to regulate trade.
So what is you problem with governments getting out of trying to control commerce?
140
Dennis,
Following your logic we’ll have complex governments control on trade equal to the inefficiency, complexity, and incapability of Southern Australia’s electricity supply.
140
Governments don’t seem to realize that they are elected to govern…..not dictate,not flog their own agendas and feather their own nests.
Collectively ‘so called governments’ are the creators of all of our wars and global and national dysfunction…..the so called ruling class….of which most suffer from some form of severe mental illness.
Is it any wonder, that everything they touch turns to s**t?
Is it also any wonder that a sharp self made billionaire businessman, has outwitted and out maneuvered all the dumb and useless so called political class, to take out the most powerful and coveted political office on the planet…that of course being ‘the Donald’.
He should do far better than all the imbeciles before him have done of which that dud, El Presidente O’Bummer, has been by far the worst.
The so called ‘baffoon'(and many other names),has shown up the so called ‘experts’,yet again.
151
You don’t need to have a”Brain”to be a politician.
“Politicians are like nappies. They should be changed often and for the same reason”
10
Hi Dennis
I do believe that there is a place for government in ensuring the all products entering our country are safe to use and comply with accompanying specifications.
That’s their main job.
They are not doing that too well at the moment.
Obviously we do need regulation and control but it has become a selectively feeding monster that must be checked.
30
There is that. Bringing a quick and final end to murderers, slavers, pirates and those who commit other capital crimes is their main job, however, as well as bringing the same to those who attempt to invade us.
30
??
00
Dennis, I think alesson from our american friends about liberty also includes citizzenship.
A quote I think is also relevent to keeping the leftists from the door is the quote” A man with a firearm is a citizen, without one he is a Subject”
America was set up to be a free land – not one dominated by control freak leftists. When people ask what leftism is all about, I tell them it was distilled into the event of the murder of the Romanovs, and thus has shown its true face in one barbaric act….
It is what it is.
40
“Sorry, free production is not possible…”
That’s right, no more than free trade. But you get it as free as possible, right?
Dennis, if you are not sure what I’m talking about, read your own words: “In more recent times soaring cost of electricity due to carbon tax and so called renewable energy subsidies and transfer to wind turbine and solar systems from reliable power stations.” That’s something we should accept?
Just as you have to fight to free up the cart called trade, you have to fight to free up the horse called production. It is not about being totally competitive, it’s about being more competitive. Read your own words.
I’m not so much disagreeing with you as pointing out that a horse and cart arrangement requires care of both horse and cart. It’s no use neglecting the horse because it’s all too hard and someone will have a better horse. Just compare Switzerland’s apprentice system with our own junk education which treats secondary and tertiary institutions as vast holding paddocks for youth.
Free Production is a lot harder than creating trade zones. Unionists carry iron bars, greenies chuck rocks and governments prefer monorails and marching bands. I can understand that you’d want to put the idea in the too-hard basket. Trouble is, without Free Production the rest is pointless in the long term. You have to lose, and the EU-style lobbyists and trough-swillers have to win.
110
I saw a copy of the Obamacare regs. on a desk on TV the other night –at a guess it would have twice the size of the printed TTP.
80
Free trade has to be fair trade ,TPP is simply a mechanism that allows multi national, often crony capitalists , to disappear sovereign nation borders to allow them to ship jobs to where the cheapest labour is , in Australia’s case that means losing your jobs to slave labour in countries like Vietnam
110
DD, you’re 100% bang on.
If politicians says its a good idea, then be very weary!
141
5000 odd pages?
Why is something that is supposed to be ‘free’, so complicated?
A typical load of more government BS.
Go ‘the Donald’! Come on Jan 20 for the beginning of a ‘Global Swamp Draining’!
We need ‘a Donald’ in Aus also,…. not that waffling CAGW flogger ‘the TurdFull’ we now have.
Definitely no more weak appeasers and/or CAGW BSers as leaders,senior or even junior ministers!
And to Andrew Bolt: A big NO to Greg Hunt,flogger of CAGW,as PM alternate. As you carelessly suggested on 2gb radio last night.
71
The”Bolter”is fast disappearing down the”Crapper”
00
“Every extra page is a win for the regulating class, the polaracites, the political freeloaders.”
Unless you are on the receiving end of asylum or climate change billion$, the “losers of globalization” are, well, almost everyone.
110
And to think that with my experience in writing long winded abstruse posts here on Jo’s blog, I might have got the job of writing a large part of that TPP!
[ self irony for those who don’t get it. ]
120
ROM,
Please have a large coffee, think about the TPP and it’s consequences, and return with one of your enjoyable if “long winded abstruse posts”, up to your usual standard of elegance in prose.
70
We expect at least 5,545 long winded pages thank you.
70
Nah to the cup of coffee at this hour of the night. I have enough trouble sleeping in any case . But a glass or two of good port and the mind floats freely off into the distance.
Now what were we talking about!
Ah yes, as a full blown maschoist when it comes to reading government bureaucratese I have just counted the pages in the TPP final Pages of Content
Australian Tariff elimination schedule which is easy to find if you know your alphabet as it is second from the top in the contents page as above.
Australia is one of 15 listed countries in this TPP “free trade” zone so it has managed to fill 445 pages [ four hundred and forty five ] with the Australian tariff elimination schedule
And THAT 445 pages is merely listing all of the one line items that just Australia alone will or will not apply tariffs against and percentage how much under the TPP agreement.
I’m pleased to see that we won’t be applying Tariffs against Camels or Umbrellas and Sun Umbrellas with telescopic shafts or Complete Wigs of Human Hair or Tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles [ Damn! The customs department was our final fall back position when some big pushy outfit from up north or was that NZ, tries to bring a few hundred tanks and armoured fighting vehicles into Australia without permission! ]
Of course any formal treaty such as the TPP would not be valid or worth the paper it was printed on here in Australia if it didn’t have its elitist bureaucratic created dose of officially certified anti-white person racism incorporated in its bowels.
So in the Annex IV; State owned Enterprise we finally get our officially sanctioned dose of blatantly anti white person racism.
———————————–
ANNEX IV SCHEDULE OF AUSTRALIA
Obligations Concerned:
Article 17.4.1(a) (Non-discriminatory Treatment and Commercial Considerations), in relation to the purchase of a good or service
Article 17.4.1(b) (Non-discriminatory Treatment and Commercial Considerations)
Entity:
All existing and future state-owned enterprises at the central level of government.
Scope of Non-Conforming Activities:
The Entity may accord more favourable treatment to Indigenous persons and organisations in the purchase of goods and services.
For the purposes of this reservation, an Indigenous person means a person of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
———————
So right here in an International treaty there is listed a specific clause giving [snip effectively: “people with certain ancestors an advantage”]
And those [snip. ” with other ancestors”] don’t even rate any mention by the elitist bureaucrats and politicals who drew this agreement up, as potential recipients of any extra ” Annex ” specific advantages to be gained from the TPP.
The whole TPP thing is just one great big boondoggle of bureaucratic mess and example of gross incompetence from a whole range of politicals and bureaucrats, all of whom would be completely lost if they had to ever negotiate the price of even an icy pole.
[This might have 18C problems so I’m leaving it here for Jo to see. I understand your complaint but Australian law does not provide for free speech.] AZ
[It certainly does have 18C implications, so apologies to everyone here, but this topic is almost impossible to discuss at this site, please don’t blame me. Blame 18C. — Jo
20
PS; As my last post has just gone to moderation we will wait and see what is or is not acceptable but the moderation is my fault as I am feeling very anti PC indeed this evening.
In fact I am getting very p****d off indeed for not being allowed to point out the so obvious facts and truths about so much hypocrisy that has become endemic here in Australia and across the western world by the elitist hypocrites and PC enforcers of the progressive and increasingly ignorant of life’s realities, the now bubble dwelling out of touch, arrogant ignorant watermelon left.
[ROM, It’s unusual for a moderator to make this kind of comment but I was both surprised and pleased to see that Jo approved your comment, even with a change. It is the most egregious thing I’ve ever encountered that Australian law allows someone to claim to be offended at a simple free speech statement of a personal opinion and there is no defense you can present that will save you. I’ve seen this kind of thing building up for years and it offends everything I have believed in and stood for all of my life. So I understand your frustration and anger perfectly. But we still must live within the constraints of 18C or risk Jo’s blog’s disappearing for the foreseeable future.] AZ
130
Vote Trump!
90
Theoretically he is already home and hosed.
‘Trump was a charismatic candidate for the presidency, and he will be a charismatic president. For those who dislike his affectations or personal style, that sentence will produce a certain degree of cognitive dissonance, but affect and style have relatively little to do with the phenomenon of charisma.
‘Charisma is exhibited in a liberal democracy in the way that it causes people to vote because of faith in a particular candidate rather than out of self-interest.’
Geopolitical Futures (GPF)
20
Unfortunately due to the stupid immaturity of the elitist PC hard left who can’t handle anything that might amount to critics of their nefarious ideology as well as the utterly gutless political “protectors” of our freedoms [ BIG Sarc/ ] the bordering on of a democracy destroying law, the anti free speech and blatantly and deliberately mis-used section 18C, I made my post currently at #18.1.1 a very difficult proposition for the moderators and Jo to try and sort out as to whether it was “PC safe” for Jo and her moderators to post for which I apologise.
So I will repost as below with, I hope what is the offending clause removed and a few other parts modified.
**************************************
November 23, 2016 at 9:47 pm ·
.
Nah to the cup of coffee at this hour of the night. I have enough trouble sleeping in any case . But a glass or two of good port and the mind floats freely off into the distance.
Now what were we talking about!
Ah yes, as a full blown maschoist when it comes to reading government bureaucratese I have just counted the pages in the TPP final Pages of Content
The Australian Tariff elimination schedule which is easy to find if you know your alphabet as it is second from the top in the contents page as above.
Australia is one of the dozen listed countries in this TPP “free trade” zone so it has managed to fill 445 pages [ four hundred and forty five pages ] with the Australian Tariff Elimination Schedule
And THAT 445 pages is merely listing all of the one line items that just Australia alone will or will not apply tariffs against and percentage how much under the TPP agreement.
I’m pleased to see that we won’t be applying Tariffs against Camels or Umbrellas and Sun Umbrellas with telescopic shafts or Complete Wigs of Human Hair or Tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles [ Damn! The customs department was our final fall back position when some big pushy outfit from up north or was that NZ, tries to bring a few tens of hundreds of tanks and armoured fighting vehicles into Australia without permission! ]
Of course any formal treaty such as the TPP would not be valid or worth the paper it was printed on here in Australia if it didn’t have its elitist bureaucratic created dose of officially certified anti-white racism incorporated in its bowels.
So in the Annex IV; State owned Enterprise we finally get our officially sanctioned dose of blatantly anti white racism.
———————————–
ANNEX IV SCHEDULE OF AUSTRALIA
Obligations Concerned:
Article 17.4.1(a) (Non-discriminatory Treatment and Commercial Considerations), in relation to the purchase of a good or service
Article 17.4.1(b) (Non-discriminatory Treatment and Commercial Considerations)
.
Entity:
All existing and future state-owned enterprises at the central level of government.
.
Scope of Non-Conforming Activities:
The Entity may accord more favourable treatment to Indigenous persons and organisations in the purchase of goods and services.
For the purposes of this reservation, an Indigenous person means a person of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
———————
Those [snip] complexion don’t even rate any mention by the elitist bureaucrats and politicals who drew this agreement up, as potential recipients of any extra ” Annex ” specific advantages to be gained from the TPP.
So ask yourselves why in a what is a supposedly a nation where the bureaucratic, political and media elites claim that all racial groups should be equal and should not suffer any discrimination, just one distinct racial group out of all the racial groups that define Australian society, is deliberately picked out in a major international trade agreement as having rights to any extra advantages that might be gained from the treaty.
The whole TPP thing is just one great big boondoggle of a bureaucratic mess and example of gross incompetence from a whole range of politicals and bureaucrats, all of whom would be completely lost if they ever had to negotiate the price of even an icy pole.
50
Cheers ROM well said on all counts!
10
Cultural Marxism in action.
20
Shouldn’t we have a tariff for valuable goods, say 10%? That would require 5,545 x 0.10 = 554.5 additional pages of long winded contribution!
40
Trade deals in my opinion are part of an attempt to create a world wide totalitarian feudal system most probably based on the Roman Empire , Constantine created edicts that disappeared borders and abolished land ownership in the many different cultures within the Empire , centralising power and trade to Rome , he also began the process of creating a centralised officially approved religion that pacified the disenfranchised population , then controlled the message via the Roman road and the church pulpit , nowadays we have a new religion of global warming which is more suitable if you want a worldwide modal of Rome when there are so many more cultures and faiths to deal with and pacify
160
Well Lord Monckton warned us something like this would happen after Abbott was rolled. We are now seeing happening before our very eyes.
101
In comparison the Magna Carta has 3,600 words, the US Declaration of Independence has !,337 words, the US Constitution 4,543 words and 7,591 words including the 27 amendments (Google search).
140
Bloomberg loves China:
22 Nov: BusinessInsider: Jeremy Berke: BLOOMBERG: Trump’s administration won’t have the ‘last word’ on the fate of the Paris climate agreement
“I am confident that no matter what happens in Washington, no matter what regulations the next administration adopts or rescinds, no matter what laws the next Congress may pass, we will meet the pledges that the U.S. made in Paris,” Bloomberg said in remarks delivered to the China General Chamber of Commerce.
Cities — along with businesses, and private citizens — will lead on climate change, because they have “concluded that doing so is in their own self-interest,” Bloomberg said.
The US climate change fight “has never been primarily dependent on Washington,” Bloomberg said…
If Trump does withdraw from the Paris agreement, Bloomberg called for the 128 US mayors that are part of the Global Covenant of Mayors — an initiative chaired by Bloomberg — to join the agreement in place of the federal government…
“Washington will not have the last word on the fate of the Paris agreement in the US,” Bloomberg said. “Mayors will, together with business leaders and citizens.”
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/bloomberg-says-cities-uphold-paris-climate-agreement-despite-trump-2016-11
22 Nov: Bloomberg: Washington Won’t Have Last Word on Climate Change
By Michael R. Bloomberg
The following is adapted from remarks delivered to the China General Chamber of Commerce.
China is America’s largest trading partner, and the U.S. is the largest partner for China. And while it’s true that our two countries have differences, we know that when we work together, we can accomplish extraordinary things. Cooperation between the U.S. and China, after all, is what made the Paris climate agreement possible…
Over time, as more and more Americans come to recognize what climate change means to their families and their futures — by seeing the increasingly severe impact of storms, droughts and other weather events — they will demand action from the federal government, too.
But in the meantime, mayors and other local officials will lead the way…
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-22/washington-won-t-have-last-word-on-climate-change
62
Well Mr Bloomberg , as soon as the cities take over the obligations and COSTS of the Paris Agreement I’m sure the voters for those Mayors will dump them very quickly when they find out how much their property taxes increase. So your “solution” will be very short lived.
20
That’s an easy one – The federal government will not pay for the costs to cities of climate boondoggles and will therefore deduct from the cities federal assistance grants an amount equal to the assessed damage to national economy of their climate actions. Costs of Membership of ICLEI will also be deducted from city assistance grants – get the money somewhere else.
20
There’s a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they’d eventually come up with the complete works of the TPP.
Thanks to the Internet, we now know this is most likely true.
[ With apologies to the author of the original monkey typewriter quote who ever that was. ]
181
It’s got Andrew Robb’s grubby fingerprints on it. It’s sure to be a grubby, incompetent sellout. (But he was depressed when he did it, so we can’t blame him, can we?)
61
Surely we have two basic problems with an agreement like tis.
The first is the nature of the negotiations whereby those who THINK they are good at negotiating (without any proof to confirm this ) get together with numerous other people with the same opinion of themselves and knock out an agreement often at unsocial hours when they should be asleep which is translated into a variety of languages where nuances might be lost. The net result is that the kitchen sink is loaded in, clarity is lost and no one really knows what the final agreement actually means.
Enter our polticians -often a lettuce short of a salad with their intellectual skills-who do not have the time nor inclination nor ability to read and comprehend the mess they are signing.
We have seen this in the UK with numerous pieces of EU legislation ‘nodded’ through the voting chambers. Ken Clarke for instance admitted he had never actually read the all important Maastricht treaty.
The US Constitution, Magna Charta, The Bill of Rights by William following the ‘glorious revolution’ are examples of short and concise epoch making documents that can be readily understood.
Whilst condensing a monster such as the trade deal into one page might be exaggerating the case, surely 5 pages would be sufficient IF it was merely a free trade agreement.
tonyb
200
Doubting Dave
Ah, but remember what happened to Rome in 410AD!
tonyb
90
Nero fiddled…!
60
Yes, exactly like Turnbull. Please oh please will the party grow a backbone and get rid of him.
100
Yes, Nero Fiddled while Rome burned, and now ‘the TurdFull’ waffles as Australia sinks further into Marxist/Totalitarian control.
Umm,err,eee,arrr,darrrr….and this is ‘the great communicator’?
Can someone please give this closet Leftoid,CAGW flogger,UN and ABC appeaser,masquerading as a conservative PM,the Bum’s Rush Out!
What’s he doing off on a lame duck APEC summit getting selfies with lame duck Leftoid El Presidente O’Bummer? Another useless gesture, while the coalition under his mismanagement sinks further behind in the polls to CAGW ratbag ‘Carbon Pollution Bill,very Shorten on the Truth’!
He should go back to where he belongs to Goldman and Sachs of Carbon Credits, the Criminal Bankers.
50
Emperor Honorius, ruling from Ravenna, had a pet chicken called Rome. When they told him that Rome had perished he got really upset. When they explained to him that it was the city of Rome which had perished (in the Visigothic sack of 410AD) he was greatly relieved. The chook was okay. Whew.
Emperor Honorius would have made a great Premier for Victoria or South Australia.
130
A bit too intelligent for either post if you asked me.
50
Chinese premier Xi has just completed a tour of the western countries of South America after APEC. China has sown up the trade with most of them..bye bye USA! Afterall those countries hate the USA (read CIA) for overthrowing most of their democratically elected govts. Remember Chile 1973.
62
‘China has sown up the trade with most of them..bye bye USA!’
The writing is on the wall for US external political interests, but they are self-sufficient with a large population and an abundance of energy. Isolationism is not such a bad thing.
China has a better grasp of free trade, they have been working on it for thousands of years, so let us wait and see if they can pull the world out of deflation. I’m confident the Third Way is based on sound economic principles.
Donald is going to set the pace for Keynesian domestic infrastructure spending and Turnbull should automatically follow suite, its in the script. Part of this new great leap forward will be in space exploration technology and the US is the undeniable leader in this endeavor.
50
Problem is the USA cant launch any rockets to fill the ISS either, relies on Russia! China has just had successful deployment (and return) of 2 astronauts to its own spacestation.
50
China is keen to tap into American expertise and innovation, which may come at a price.
https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/nasa_robot.jpg
In the spirit of laissez-faire economics, Trump could put hubots on Mars within a decade.
30
“Isolationism is not such a bad thing”. I think a better way to put it is “Independence is not such a bad thing”
20
This sort of stuff is music to our ears and harks back to a time when JFK said we’ll put a man on the moon in a decade.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/20/donald-trump-expected-to-slash-nasas-climate-change-budget-in-fa/
60
Any contract or deal that long can’t be of any real use to anyone except for lawyers who would argue over it for decades. I’m now convinced Trump is right – throw it into the rubbish bin. Yet again Turnbull is on the wrong path. What a fool he is.
121
Turnbull is anti Trump, pro Obama, as if that wasn’t obvious from his desperate selfie with the soon to be ex-president. How on earth did the Liberals elect a far left socialist to leader of the Liberal party? Surely with the bed wetters all out of work Abbott can move on Turnbull and his turncoats, or is it all about Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison and their ambitions, two people who are happy to see Malcolm fail?
70
She of the”Long Knives”is probably shopping around for a new place to put them,along with Scott Morrison and what’s left of the 54 bed-wetters.
00
So a Free Trade Agreement with 5,544 pages of exceptions, presumably protecting vested interests? Really? That is an utter contradiction.
No wonder Donald Trump walked away! You have to think Trump will bring a breath of fresh air to international relationships. Whoever crafted that
Free trade agreement needs to get a dictionary.
Free Trade Treaty.. commerce in goods and services can be conducted across their common borders, without tariffs or hindrances but (in contrast to a common market) capital or labor may not move freely.”
70
heard Ciobo on the radio this morning, & wondered whose interest he was serving:
22 Nov: AFR: Primrose Riordan: TPP could be renegotiated to allow US exit, Steve Ciobo says
Trade Minister Steve Ciobo has thrown up the possibility of renegotiating a less ambitious version of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal without the US – potentially involving China or Indonesia – after US President-elect Donald Trump said pulling out of the agreement was his top priority…
In Canberra, the federal Labor Party has called for the government to stop pursuing the deal and cautioned about the conditions involved in future deals.
“The Turnbull government should now give up trying to ratify the TPP. If the government wants to pursue an alternative regional trade agreement without the United States, it must provide evidence of the benefits to the Australian economy,” the opposition spokesman for trade, Jason Clare, said…
Echoing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Lima this week, Mr Ciobo said the government would press ahead and continue to attempt to ratify the TPP in parliament, despite opposition from the Greens and Labor, and remained hopeful the US congress could ratify it in time…
But Mr Ciobo said the other 11 countries could come back to the negotiation table to make minor changes to allow the United States to drop out and China or Indonesia to join.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared the TPP would be “meaningless” without the US and trade experts have suggested it might not be practical or worthwhile…
Business groups and banks responded by urging the government to lobby the Trump administration or for a fresh focus on Asian trade partners…
HSBC Australia CEO Tony Cripps said Australia needed to look at two regional trade deals involving China…
Economist Warwick McKibbin said some of the greatest risks to the Australian economy from the new American administration came from a potential trade war…
http://www.afr.com/news/tpp-could-be-renegotiated-to-allow-us-exit-steve-ciobo-says-20161122-gsuu8b
1 Nov: Guardian: Paul Karp: Andrew Robb’s work for Chinese company backed by Steven Ciobo
Trade minister defends predecessor’s appointment as consultant and says he can help ‘promote Australia’s national interest’
Steven Ciobo has defended his predecessor as trade minister, Andrew Robb, for leading a delegation to Beijing last week to spruik China’s “One Belt One Road” policy.
Ciobo said the meeting was a “private delegation”, although note takers from Austrade, the Australian government’s trade promotion agency, did attend.
Two months ago Robb was appointed a high-level economic consultant at the Landbridge Group, the Chinese company that won a 99-year lease over the port of Darwin last year…
Robb’s appointment raises questions about whether his Landbridge role will contravene the statement of ministerial standards, which states ministers should not lobby the government for 18 months after their retirement. Robb retired at the July election…
Ciobo said the private delegation discussed One Belt One Road at the meeting because it involves a “multibillion spend” on infrastructure in Asia, and Australian businesses are “very good at infrastructure”…
On Monday the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, revealed that the former trade minister had not discussed his new role at Landbridge with him before being appointed on 2 September…
Julie Bishop has rejected the idea Robb might use confidential information or lobby inappropriately in his new post.
“There’s a ministerial code of conduct, Andrew Robb has said he’s aware of [it] and will abide by it,” the foreign minister told ABC Radio on Monday…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/01/andrew-robbs-work-for-chinese-company-backed-by-steven-ciobo
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Ciobo has no idea which way the wind is blowing.
On current course the LIberals are heading for an electoral massacre at the next election.
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I hear the Independents and One Nation aren’t too thrilled with the TPP either.
00
UNSURPRISINGLY, IT’S ALMOST ENTIRELY CAGW, but read all.
am not concerned about his Geneva/Climategate bit, & wouldn’t know about the hottest day date:
23 Nov: NYT: Donald Trump’s New York Times Interview: Full Transcript
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, opinion columnist: Mr. President-elect, can I ask a question? One of the issues that you actually were very careful not to speak about during the campaign, and haven’t spoken about yet, is one very near and dear to my heart, the whole issue of climate change, the Paris agreement, how you’ll approach it. You own some of the most beautiful links golf courses in the world …
[laughter, cross talk]
TRUMP: [laughing] I read your article. Some will be even better because actually like Doral is a little bit off … so it’ll be perfect. [inaudible] He doesn’t say that. He just says that the ones that are near the water will be gone, but Doral will be in great shape.
[laughter]
FRIEDMAN: But it’s really important to me, and I think to a lot of our readers, to know where you’re going to go with this. I don’t think anyone objects to, you know, doing all forms of energy. But are you going to take America out of the world’s lead of confronting climate change?
TRUMP: I’m looking at it very closely, Tom. I’ll tell you what. I have an open mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully. It’s one issue that’s interesting because there are few things where there’s more division than climatechange. You don’t tend to hear this, but there are people on the other side of that issue who are, think, don’t even…
SULZBERGER: We do hear it.
[laughter]
TRUMP: Joe is one of them. But a lot of smart people disagree with you. I have a very open mind. And I’m going to study a lot of the things that happened on it and we’re going to look at it very carefully. But I have an open mind.
SULZBERGER: Well, since we’re living on an island, sir, I want to thank you for having an open mind. We saw what these storms are now doing, right? We’ve seen it personally. Straight up.
FRIEDMAN: But you have an open mind on this?
TRUMP: I do have an open mind. And we’ve had storms always, Arthur.
SULZBERGER: Not like this.
TRUMP: You know the hottest day ever was in 1890-something, 98. You know, you can make lots of cases for different views. I have a totally open mind.
My uncle was for 35 years a professor at M.I.T. He was a great engineer, scientist. He was a great guy. And he was … a long time ago, he had feelings — this was a long time ago — he had feelings on this subject. It’s a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know. I know we have, they say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the scientists. Where was that, in Geneva or wherever five years ago? Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell you this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal clean water is vitally important. Safety is vitally important…
JAMES BENNET, editorial page editor: When you say an open mind, you mean you’re just not sure whether human activity causes climate change? Do you think human activity is or isn’t connected?
TRUMP: I think right now … well, I think there is some connectivity. There is some, something. It depends on how much. It also depends on how much it’s going to cost our companies. You have to understand, our companies are noncompetitive right now.
They’re really largely noncompetitive. About four weeks ago, I started adding a certain little sentence into a lot of my speeches, that we’ve lost 70,000 factories since W. Bush. 70,000. When I first looked at the number, I said: ‘That must be a typo. It can’t be 70, you can’t have 70,000, you wouldn’t think you have 70,000 factories here.’ And it wasn’t a typo, it’s right. We’ve lost 70,000 factories.
We’re not a competitive nation with other nations anymore. We have to make ourselves competitive. We’re not competitive for a lot of reasons.
And it’s much less expensive for their companies to produce products. So I’m going to be studying that very hard, and I think I have a very big voice in it.
***And I think my voice is listened to, especially by people that don’t believe in it. And we’ll let you know.
FRIEDMAN: I’d hate to see Royal Aberdeen underwater.
TRUMP: The North Sea, that could be, that’s a good one, right?…
MICHAEL D. SHEAR, White House correspondent: Just one quick clarification on the climate change, do you intend to, as you said, pull out of the Paris Climate …
TRUMP: I’m going to take a look at it.
SHEAR [interrupts]: And if the reaction from foreign leaders is to slap tariffs on American goods to offset the carbon that the United States had pledged to reduce, is that O.K. with you? …
TRUMP: O.K. First of all, on countries. I think that countries will not do that to us. I don’t think if they’re run by a person that understands leadership and negotiation they’re in no position to do that to us, no matter what I do. They’re in no position to do that to us, and that won’t happen, but I’m going to take a look at it. A very serious look. I want to also see how much this is costing, you know, what’s the cost to it, and I’ll be talking to you folks in the not-too-distant future about it, having to do with what just took place…
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html?_r=1
Trump’s uncle John G. Trump
John George Trump (August 21, 1907 – February 21, 1985) was an American electrical engineer, inventor, and physicist. He was a recipient of U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s National Medal of Science, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. John Trump was noted for developing rotational radiation therapy. Together with Robert J. Van de Graaff, he developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators. He was also the uncle of Donald Trump…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Trump
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Thanks Pat.
Trump was very non committal, as you would expect at this time before inauguration, but the reporting on the interview was typical MSM twisting of the facts when they strongly indicated the Trump was softening his stance. From that conversation, that is clearly not the case.
20
5544 pages! In Tom Clancy’s book ‘Executive Orders’ his accidental president has appointed a businessman as Secretary of the Treasury. When briefing the Senate, the Secretary gets his aides to bring in ALL the files of Tax law, and pile them in the MIDDLE of the table. Which then breaks. “See! And these are the tax laws that all American citizens must obey”.
Yep! Fact/fiction – very little diff!
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I admit that free trade should be free trade. The problem is that it will happen between very different economic systems with different forms of taxation and subsidies on wage and goods.
I dont know how to deal with that, but 5,500 pages is far too much.
An old saying is, that the more rules you make the more holes there will be between them.
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A quick look at the whole agreement and it looks like every restriction on trade, shares, shipping, customs, representation, share ownership and every restrictive practice and regulation and market protection already in place is to be maintained under this agreement. Each country has their own plus all the non conforming sections attached as PDFs. So it is useless, a summary of what is, not what will be. It would be simpler to outline what actually has changed under the TPPP, if anything at all.
50
That second document, the things which are changed, could be zero length.
40
5000+ pages of rules, regulations, standards, and practices cannot possibly be understood coherently let alone be made to work. At least not by any rational definition of “be understood” and “to work”. This suggests it was intended to fail. Likely so still one more “conference” could be held and still one more “agreement” could be written having the same failed result.
The superficial purpose of the charade is to continue the gravy train. I am cynical enough to believe the ultimate purpose is to suck the life out of any successful nation so the UN and the many dictators can have a bit more time to live. Another year, another month, another week, another day, another hour…. The billions who will parish and the collapse of modern civilization of no consequence to the perpetrators. They got a little more time to do the only thing they can do: write agreements that are intended to fail.
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OT.. just in
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/23/trump-crackdown-on-politicized-science-nasa-climate-division-to-be-stripped-of-funding/
BIG GRIN !!!
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This is revolutionary, who could ever have imagined our good fortune.
The green blob may complain, but space exploration trumps low earth orbit considerations associated with AGW and weather.
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What does “free” mean in the context of TPPA?
I take it to mean not subject to arbitrary tariffs and taxes at the point of entry. Or, the opposite of a ‘protected trade agreement’.
Why does “I won’t apply tax to your goods at my point of entry if you don’t apply tax to my goods at your point of entry” take more than one page?
The implication of “free” (of protective tariffs and taxes) is that the price of a good is determined by the lowest-cost international producer. Some people see pros and cons with that.
The issues on the other 5,543 pages apply whether goods are free of taxes at the point of entry or not, and are the reason we exchange embassies.
30
As far as I can tell, the worst thing about the TPP is that it takes control away from states and governments, and put us all under the control of giant corporations against whise depredations we would have no defence except violent revolution. And I’m a bit old for that.
100
And then you have to come to the conclusion that it is the same as the EU.
00
Another OT but NASA climatliar chief has just debunked Malcolm Roberts claim that they have manipulated data , its on the ABC news just in site and it’s what you would expect from Gavin Schmidt , pure contradiction and spin .
51
Here’s the link:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-24/nasa-director-schools-malcolm-roberts-in-climate-change-letter/8052132
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Ahhh poor GAv the pommie parasite, is going to lose funding under President Trump:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/11/23/trump-crackdown-on-politicized-science-nasa-climate-division-to-be-stripped-of-funding/
News keeps getting better every day!
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Same standard BS Gavin always come out with.
NOAA does the massive adjustments, then Gavin uses the junk he is fed, that he KNOWS is a massive FR**D*L**T fabrication.
61
bloody ABC just reported snow in Tokyo – first time in 50 years. Bloody bias.
41
First time the ABC reported something CAGW-contrary in 50 years? That I can believe :p
31
Put away the TPP. It’s over:
Humans ‘don’t have 10 years’ left thanks to [Doomsday Global Warming] – scientist
http://www.newshub.co.nz/world/humans-dont-have-10-years-left-thanks-to-climate-change—scientist-2016112408
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THE FAKE NEWS NEVER ENDS AT NYT (BUT MONOLITHIC MSM GOT THEIR TRUMP FLIP FLOPS ON CAGW HEADLINES WORLDWIDE YESTERDAY):
23 Nov: Climate Depot: Marc Morano: Media falsely spins Trump’s NYT climate comments – Trump cited Climategate, restated skepticism of ‘global warming’ – Read full transcript
Trump to NYT warmist ***Tom Friedman: ‘A lot of smart people disagree with you’ on climate change.
The media spin on President Elect Donald J. Trump’s sit down with the New York Times on November 22, can only be described as dishonest…
The ‘fake news’ that Trump had somehow moderated or changed his “global warming” views was not supported by the full transcript of the meeting.
Heartland Institute President Joe Bast had this to say about the full transcript of Trump’s meeting: “This is reassuring. The Left wants to drive wedges between Trump and his base by spinning anything he says as “retreating from campaign promises.” But expressing nuance and avoiding confrontation with determined foes who buy ink by the barrel is not retreating.” …
And in what has been described as “fake news”, the publisher of NYT tried to sell CO2-induced storms to Trump; but Trump refused to accept the claim…
http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/11/23/fake-news-update-media-falsely-spins-trumps-climate-comments-read-full-nyt-transcript/
quotes from 2008 below are all soooooo cringe-worthy (and FAKE), but note NYT’s ***Tom Friedman’s contributions in particular (and keep in mind how leaked Wikileaks 2008 email from Citibank’s then executive Michael Froman, exposed how Citibank essentially chose Obama’s Cabinet prior to his actual election!):
23 Nov: Newsbusters: Rich Noyes: Flashback: Trump-Trashing Journalists Oozed Over Obama’s ’08 Transition
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2016/11/23/
50
Not completely off topic.
Why Canadian taxpayers have to pay Wall Street bankers $28 million for an Ontario wind farm that never got built
“Because Ottawa, not Ontario, signed NAFTA, federal taxpayers must compensate the investors. And if Windstream’s project never sees the light of day, they will likely have to pay the New Yorkers a lot more than the $28 million the NAFTA panel said they already owe — possibly closer to the $568.5 million that Windstream initially sought in its NAFTA case.”
30
Osborne’s attribution is almost as long as the piece itself and i cannot find any other Australian MSM coverage!!!
22 Nov: news.com.au: Australia cuts Clinton Foundation funds
by Paul Osborne, AAP Senior Political Writer, Australian Associated Press
The federal government has not renewed any of its partnerships with the Clinton Foundation.
Labor and coalition governments over the past decade have paid more than $75 million to the anti-poverty foundation set up by the former first family of the United States, but questions have been raised about its accountability.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the coalition joint party room on Tuesday agreements entered into by the Rudd-Gillard government had not been renewed
http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/australia-cuts-clinton-foundation-funds/news-story/5c5179b4aaf85be1f329a9243172a839
Sputnik has more context:
24 Nov: SputnikNews: No More Pay to Play? Australia Halts All Clinton Foundation Funds
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced to the joint party room that agreements with the Foundation previously set up by the Rudd-Gillard government had not been renewed…
https://sputniknews.com/us/201611241047774465-australia-cuts-ties-clinton-foundation/
50
IIRC Jo did a post a while ago re the connection between the Paris Agreement, the TTP and another agreement which was being (secretly?) negotiated at the time. Does anyone else remember and have a link? Or am I just having another senior’s moment? My wife tells people my memory is so bad that when I get dementia nobody will notice.
40
Hat Rack –
hope this helps:
22 Nov: UK Telegraph: Julia Bradshaw: What’s the difference between TTIP and TPP and why does Donald Trump want them scrapped?
But what does the US’ withdrawal from TPP mean for the world economy, and what are the implications for the other trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership?…
What is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)?
This is a deal being negotiated between the European Union and the United States.
Deliberations over the deal have been going on for years, but the first official round of talks took place in 2013…
But the UK’s decision to vote for Brexit, and the election of Trump, make TTIP’s future decidedly uncertain, with many commentators now assuming that the agreement is dead in the water…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/11/22/difference-ttip-tpp-does-donald-drump-want-scrapped/
France doesn’t like TTIP:
France demands an end to TTIP talks
The Guardian-30 Aug. 2016
France has been sceptical about TTIP from the start and has threatened to block the deal…
Trump also wants to renegotiate NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement). the two countries involved in that one – Canada & Mexico – have made public announcements since Trump won the election that they are prepared to renegotiate.
40
Thanks pat. However, I’m not really sure if the TTIP is the other agreement. The way I remember the article is that signing the TTP and the other agreement effectively locked the Paris agreement into law in all participating countries without needing the approval of their respective parliaments, congresses, etc.
10
I love this….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-24/nasa-director-schools-malcolm-roberts-in-climate-change-letter/8052132
“Schooling” people in a huge lie?
Breathtaking…..you wonder…seriously, you do….wow….
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Totally O/T.
Tony of Oz – we all hope the fires miss you today.
20
I was on my throne contemplating….life, when I realized that the average roll of cheap TP has 550 sheets. Ten rolls is a package of TP (or TPPackage) and 5500 sheets. Coincidence?
You decide.
51
Much of what government does appears to fit in that TP category, don’t you think? And probably not a coincidence at all.
20
And in the UK context, somehow we have idiots who think we could negotiate a trade deal with the EU when we leave within a 2 year timeframe. And the size of this TTP agreement just shows that it is non-tariff barriers that cause the problem. No doubt the tariff section is quite short. These sort of deals have had their day. Far better to have industries work together on common standards.
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