Wikileaks Says Secretive Trade Agreement Paves Way to ‘Corporatization of Public Services’ Soon

[Baobab]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by tammywammy (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Last edited Sun May 29, 2016, 12:22 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: Vice

WikiLeaks has released a thousands of documents that critics of free trade said shows how officials negotiating the Trade in Services Agreement, or TiSA, could force privatization on public institutions around the world.

The most surprising revelations in the WikiLeaks documents released this week involve state-owned enterprises, or SOEs — government-owned corporations that often operate like private businesses but pursue public goals, experts said.

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"We want trading rules that set up a level playing field," Drake said, adding that the AFL-CIO hadn't yet taken an official position on the deal. "It's not level if one country is providing subsidies to allegedly 'private enterprises' that other countries are not providing because it is against the rules. That's one of the threats from China: that it is using public monies to subsidize state-controlled businesses so they can behave in a predatory manner and destroy US jobs."

Read more: https://news.vice.com/article/wikileaks-says-secretive-trade-agreement-paves-way-to-corporatization-of-public-services

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Deal will set up a level playing field for foreign corporations and their workforces.

Plan is expected to lower costs for business by globalizing services, including staffing.

Non-immigrant visas are all that are needed because workers are only in a country temporarily, for no more than a few years so it is treated like an intra-corporate transfer.


Services are 70% of all jobs.

"Everything you cannot drop on your foot"


Deal has been 10 years in the making, 22 if you include its predecessor, "GATS".


In keeping with the GATS goals, Education, Healthcare and all other public services except services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority must be privatized, monetized and globalized.

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"For the purposes of this Agreement…

(b) 'services' includes any service in any sector except services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority;

(c) 'a service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority' means any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers."

See also:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/India-drags-US-to-WTO-over-new-visa-cap-higher-fees/articleshow/51263331.cms

http://www.iatp.org/files/GATS_and_Public_Service_Systems.htm

http://ttip2015.eu/files/content/docs/Full%20documents/factsheet_tisa_and_financial_services.pdf

https://wikileaks.org/tisa/financial/04-2015/analysis/Analysis-TiSA-Financial-Services-Annex.pdf

EDIT: I think TiSA will result in ACA having to be rolled back to 1994 or 1998 levels (meaning all parts that aversely effect profits would have to be eliminated - completely eliminated. )

once the healthcare services become international trade they become WTO jurisdiction, , All regulations in the covered service sector after 1994 or 1998 would be rolled back, if the WTO is petitioned to do that by a financial services providing nation.

See the above video on Democracy Now for more on how that would work, also see this ISDS lawsuit between Dutch insurer and Clinton donor Achmea and the Slovak Republic.

[think]

1. Bookmarking. thank you /nt

[Hoyt]

2. Services might be privatized by GOPers, but not by this.

[Baobab]

19. Has nothing to do with national laws, TiSA is in a supranational system of private international law

All the countries agree to have this special system above their laws, above voting, above everything where corporations can regulate countries and their domestic regulations.

[undergroundpanther]

3. oh fuck no.

DoNot want! Fuck the coporatization of everything!!!!!!!!
No price tags hanging off our. Well Being NO nooo!
NO corporatization of the world. NO!

[passiveporcupine]

20. I left out the oh and the no, but otherwise

my response was exactly like yours... My mind is reeling and the only word that I seem to be able to form is FUCK!

Who the hell do we think we are?

I've only watched the first clip so far. Do I dare? Well, whether or not I want to, I have to watch the other two.

[Hydra]

4. What could possibly go wrong for workers? n/t

[Baobab]

5. Economic analyses of winners and losers

For a deeper understanding of how migration could equalize the price of labour in two trading
countries, consider figure one (from Senior Nello, 2005:145): There are two countries, Home
and Foreign. The total quantity of labour in the two countries is shown by the distance OhOf.
Before a fully free migration is allowed the distribution of labor is OhL in Home and OfL in
Foreign. The marginal product of labour is higher in Home than in foreign because the
capital/labor ratio is higher in Home. This is shown in the figure by the higher position of the
MPLh curve compared to the MPLf curve. Because of this the wage is higher in Home, at Wh
compared with the wage in Foreign at Wf. In short: Home symbolizes a developed country with
high automatization and high wages and Foreign a less developed country with abundant supply
of labour, low automatization and low wages. If migration is fully free between the two
countries and the workers are identical workers will migrate from Foreign to Home in pursuit of
higher wages. The migration will finally result in an equalized capital/labor ratio in the two
countries and thus equal marginal products of labor and equal wages, illustrated in the figure by
the wage level W' which could be seen as the world market price of labor as the world only
consists of the two countries Home and Foreign. The migration is illustrated in the figure by the
distance LL' which is the amount of workers that will move from Foreign to Home so that the
new distribution of labour becomes OhL' in Home and L'Of in Foreign.

Wages will thus decrease in Home and increase in Foreign resulting in a loss for the indigenous
workers in Home illustrated in the figure by the area a but a gain for the capital owners of the
areas a+b. In Foreign the workers get an increased income of areas c+d+e while the capital
owners lose areas d+e. The result in total is a net gain for the two countries by areas b+c which
is a gain resulting from higher efficiency in the use of the total resources of the two countries.
This simplified model of reality shows not only that there is a net gain but also that the
migration has clear redistributional effects, something that will be discussed below.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. I hope we have slowed down the neoliberal march to madness.

Jesus. Paving the way to corporatize our public services? Hello, is there anybody in there? What happened to the Democrats who believed this objective was opposite of what we hope to achieve?

[Baobab]

8. If you count GATS as part of TiSA, this has been planned for 22 years

its just been in negotiations much of that time, and they keep falling apart over several issues, one of them is so called Mode Four, movement of natural persons to provide services.


This is why Medicare for All is out of the question.


You cannot globalize a professional public service and turn its jobs into bargaining chips. the same goes for education. Privatizing education is big money. Water too.

For health care they have a scheme to offshore patients to sacrifice our nurses and doctors on the altar of profitability.

I have been telling people this was in the pipeline for years, few Americans outside of the activist community understood what I was getting at until recently.

[Baitball Blogger]

13. Thank you for spreading the word.

[silvershadow]

7. Bookmarking. Thank you. nt

[JDPriestly]

9. A coporate coup. We don't need any of these agreements to have fair trade.

If we don't like China's subsidies, we should ompose tariffs on imports from China.


They would soon play fair. They need our consumers to buy their products.

[Baobab]

18. Who is we? Are you a trade negotiator/lobbyist?

I am talking about services, they are not what you are talking about, services are 70% of all jobs- services are the things you cannot drop on your foot.

[Doctor_J]

10. The republicans and DINOS can't wait to give away everything possible

The hyper rich have been working on this for decades. Far right congress, corporatist "democrat" in the white house, complete ownership of the media, and millions of gullible sad sacks to shout out any opposition.

[Baobab]

12. Since the late Reagan Administration, thats true.

They have done really well in keeping it out of the media until recently.


When Less Developed countries discuss it it seems they use little tricks to make the discussions harder to find by searching.

[AllyCat]

11. Why does PBO want this? Do you think he doesn't know what is in it?

Blackmail? Threats? Why would ANY leader want this?

[Baobab]

15. I think he was put there to hammer it through

*sigh*

[Monk06]

14. Nafta, TPP, TiSA in fact all international trade agreements have evolved from the goal of free

movement of goods and services to the elimination of the protections for workers enshrined in the laws of nations

If any of these agreements passes the Global Corporate Oligarchy will be able to remove all social and environmental protections offered by national governments

Stalin is rolling in his grave and pounding at the lid of his coffin at the shear audacity of it all

Hate to give Alex Jones credit for an excellent coinage but we are living on a Prison Planet run by a small minority of unimaginably wealthy people who are no longer satisfied with wealth

They crave world suffering as their only source of entertainment and their reason for living

In the middle ages this force had a spiritual explanation and a name, THE WORK OF SATAN

No need for fairy tails and imaginary beings to explain this

The world is run by an minority of the rich who need to be eliminated from the physical world

[Baobab]

16. People dont have any way to have power, because their jobs are going away.

people overestimate their own importance. Working people just arent needed any more. its not personal.

people dont own jobs, businesses are in the business to make money and people cost money. Paradoxically, as their power declines, various powerful entities are basically like sharks or wolves looking for weak ones to pick off and eat.

[Baobab]

17. They would be very happy if people just moved away to someplace cheap and lived off their savings.

heads up.. its not going to be good to live here whejn all those jobs are being globalized. they likely are not going to go peacefully.

I really dont want to be here for that.

I guess we have lost.

Everywhere.

[burrowowl]

21. K&R!!!!!!

[tammywammy]

22. Locking - analysis

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