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Neither candidate is arguing for a New Deal style government jobs program. Both are relying on private industry to create jobs. But, big business profits by spending less on labor. While in the spotlight of the convention, Obama is critical of jobs being sent overseas but at the same time his U.S. trade representative, Ron Kirk, who works out of the executive office of the president, is negotiating a secret treaty behind closed doors – the Trans-Pacific Partnership – known as 'NAFTA on steroids'. This is a corporate trade agreement that will result in massive outsourcing of jobs.
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The TPP is building on a corporate court system that has been developing in other trade agreements but the TPP goes further by giving corporations the right to sue governments. The impact of these trade tribunals has already been significant, as Global Trade Watch reports: "Over $350 million in compensation has already been paid out to foreign investors in a series of investor-state cases under NAFTA-style deals. This includes attacks on natural resource policies, environmental protection and health and safety measures, and more. In fact, of the over $12.5 billion in the 17 pending claims under NAFTA-style deals, all relate to environmental, public health and transportation policy – not traditional trade issues." Thus foreign firms will have an advantage over domestic corporations that have to pay to obey environmental and other laws. This will make competition impossible and result in making laws designed to protect the environment, workers and consumers more difficult to enact.
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One recent notorious case involved a judgment of an international tribunal convened under the U.S.-Ecuador Bilateral Investment Treaty. The trade tribunal ordered Ecuador to stop enforcement of an $18-billion judgment against Chevron to pay for three decades of pollution in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This is one example of how unaccountable corporate panels, from which no outside appeal is available, empower corporations to skirt real courts. The TPP entrenches laws that have already undermined consumer health and safety policies, environmental and land-use laws, government procurement decisions, regulatory permits, intellectual property, financial regulation, and more.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11563-obama-says-one-thing-in-spotlight-another-behind-closed-doors
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