How is the system fixed, what are your nominations for how the system is fixed against normal people

[Baobab]

I'm trying to compile a list.

There are so many.

[cantbeserious]

1. Revolving Door Between Government And Private Sector

eom

[cantbeserious]

2. Citizen's United - Unlimited Campaign Contributions - Money Is Speech Logic

eom

[cantbeserious]

3. Corporations Are People - With Same Rights And Privileges - Under The Constitution

eom

[cantbeserious]

4. Regressive Tax Code - City, County, State And Federal - Favors The 1%

eom

[LibDemAlways]

5. The ACA is a gift to the insurance industry. No single payer.

No public option. No universal coverage. No cost controls. Millions left un/under insured.

[Baobab]

6. But we're trapped with it by Bill Clinton's URAA agreement

Starting in 1995, we've been frozen in that area by the deal signed into law with the URAA. The Uruguay Round Agreements Act, literally a world changing event.

We really can have that deal and its successors to thank for the situation with privatization of everything.

[Baobab]

7. This is how it goes

A few minutes with a search engine would be useful here:

(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."

[Baobab]

8. They made up "public option" because its guaranteed not to work

Can you see why?

Adverse selection leading to a "death spiral".

So they knew from the start that none of the proffered proposals would work going back to 1994.

That's the same year as the URAA.

[Baobab]

9. But Wikipedia leaves everything important out

Hmm..
So maybe Google is better. What is this Marrakesh Agreement?

http://www.google.com/search?q=URAA

[Baobab]

10. Very profitable if you can figure out a way to dump people when they get sick.

Which shouldn't be hard as they are experts in that.

[LiberalArkie]

11. Poor people don't vote because they move around a lot and the voter registration would

need to be constantly changed. That is how you end up with a city being 70% poor and an administration of all white and an all white police department.


In the south a poor family will get kicked out because they missed a rent payment. How to you change your voter registration to your truck?

And if you are poor in the south voting is one of the last things on your mind. Do you spend your last tank of gas to drive to the county seat to change your address or do you use it to find a job? Are you going to pay to get a new drivers license to prove who you are and to prove your address? If you are staying at a relatives house how do prove that is your address, the electric bill will be in someone elses name.

Nope the poor do not vote, not because they don't want to, but because they system does not want them to.

It would be so simple to be able to vote with a drivers license and the clerk at the voting place just ask you "what is your current address" and give you the ballot for that address.

But our system is still based on the free-white-land owning-m

[Baobab]

13. Good point, people without homes live nowhere and find its very hard to vote.

One has to wonder where will they go if we see energy prices jump up to global norms.

A lot of housing will have issues with very high costs of heating and cooling.

[Baobab]

14. Due to the labor shortage we're represented to have a lot of new

people may be competing with the poor for urban housing soon. That may make it even worse.

A lot of retired Americans are moving to places like Costa Rica to live because of the lower cost of living but generally that option is limited to those with a steady if modest income.

And the places they are moving to are often of questionable provenance. For example, who owns the land if a favela was razed to build the housing development for "rich" Americans, forcing the poor people who had lived their entire lives there off the land at gunpoint, their homes bulldozed with little notice.

Is that a safe place for people to move to?

[snot]

12. Many aspects are now rigged, so many fixes needed

(this is partly why it was impossible for Occupy protesters to articulate a blurb-able "goal&quot .

The following suggestions are broad-brush at best, but give an idea of my own main concerns.

1. The electoral process:
Get rid of electronic voting and electronic tabulation, or at least fix them so there's a clear paper trail and they're not controlled by corporations or other private parties but by officials more directly answerable to citizens.
Restore the Voting Rights Act
Reverse Citizens United. Clarify or amend applicable law to make clear that corporations are not people and money is not speech.
It also seems to me to be reasonable to require political parties to adhere to rules that do not result in unfairly disenfranchising voters. E.g., while it may be reasonable to require citizens to register as Dems in order to vote in a Dem primary, it is unreasonable to require that they do that 6 mos. ahead of time, and to fail to give voters reasonable notice of what the rules are and when and where primary voting will take place.

2. The media:
Right now, traditional media world-wide are something like 95% owned by just 6 or so mega-corporations whose primary businesses are not journalism. I'm not sure about internet control and ownership, but that too has been rapidly being privatized. These media are humanity's brain and central nervous system; they should either be owned by governments that are directly answerable to citizens, or ownership should at least be broken up into more and smaller entities, so there's some kind of meaningful competition with plenty of avenues for diverse voices to be heard.
Restore the Fairness Doctrine.
I'm also interested in possibilities such as requiring that enterprises engaging in news journalism should not be allowed to own or control or be owned or controlled by other parties whose principal business is not journalism and entertainment.

3. The economy:
We should not have a fiat money system entirely controlled by megabanks whose profits come from manipulating it; but we do.
The megabanks should be broken up. With respect to whatever "economies of scale" are claimed, I'd point out that (a) many of the "profits" generated are now derived from unproductive speculation, essentially extracting wealth from the productive economy, (b) the majority of those profits go to the 1%, and (c) the efficiencies claimed are not in any case worth the systemic risk of failure.
Prosecute fraudulent bankers.
Repeal the "bail-in" provisions of Dodd-Frank.
Restore Glass-Steagall.
Institute a more progressive income tax.

4. Education:
The starting point should be, what is the minimum funding level needed to provide a child with a good education? Then tax at whatever level is required to sustain funding at least equal to that minimum, and distribute the funds evenly, at the same amount per child – none of this business where kids at one school have small class sizes and deluxe facilities while kids at another school have broken windows and mold. (Obviously, adjustments might be made insofar as some places are more expensive to live than others, or some kids' needs greater than others – but that means that kids from historically underserved communities should if anything receive higher levels of funding, not less.)
Funding should NOT be based directly on local property taxes; that's just begging for exactly the kinds of underfunding and inequities that now exist.
I'm a big believer in public education – I had a great one, myself, and other countries manage to provide it.

5. Environment:
Right now, in this and other areas, we allow too much of the greatest costs to be externalized. E.g., neither oil & gas producers nor consumers pay the true cost of a gallon of gas, if you factored in what it will actually cost us in terms of damage to the environment – the lives and properties destroyed because of rising sea levels, bigger storms, let alone costs associated with oil spills, increases in respiratory and other diseases, etc. Ditto re- other kinds of products, e.g. plastics, chemicals – who's picking up the cost of cleaning up the poisons and sheer crud accumulating on land and sea and in our and our fellow-creatures' bodies? We need to either find ways to try to tax environmentally-destructive products appropriately to reflect their true costs (with the revenues dedicated to remedying such destruction) or simply prohibit the kinds of production that are so destructive that the true costs can't be adequately reserved for through taxation.

7. Strengthening/better enforcement of civil rights laws.

6. Strengthening/better enforcement of anti-trust, anti-monopoly laws.

8. Re- international trade
Right now, everything's basically a race to the bottom. Which country has the cheapest labor? The loosest financial regulation? The lowest taxes? The least environmental protections? Etc. The two obvious fixes are to either erect trade barriers or to raise standards to more equal levels in all countries. Since it will probably be difficult to accomplish the latter in a uniform way in the near term, a combination of the two approaches is probably needed.

9. Healthcare
We need single-payer.

I could go on (the military-industrial complex, now armed with surveillance capabilities the Stasi could only dream of, etc.)

Re- privatization in general:
I'm not against private ownership in general; but I'm deeply skeptical of privatization of essential public infrastructure and services, where it seems to function mainly as a way to extract profits from captive markets while reducing accountability to citizens. By "essential," I mean healthcare, education, basic public utilities, roads and mass transit, communications (phone & internet, at least), and the monetary system, among other things.

[Baobab]

15. I think your response is really good.

We need to modify our existing commitments to make most of your suggestions possible, which may be hard because they are supposed to be irreversible. But it would be worth trying, which is I think what Bernie Sanders is getting at. Even if a deal has been sitting there for 20 years saying we cannot do something, (i.e. "fright to regulate&quot if the country has never been told about it it's arguably illegitimate!

Countries should have a right to regulate businesses, and change the economic conditions of their servitude.

You should read this paper- here is its TOC

PUBLIC SERVICES AND THE SCOPE
OF THE GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TRADE IN SERVICES
(GATS)

A RESEARCH PAPER

WRITTEN FOR CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW (CIEL)

BY MARKUS KRAJEWSKI 1

1
Visiting Attorney, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Europe, Dr. jur. (University of Hamburg). I
would like to thank Elisabeth Türk and Matthew Stilwell (CIEL, Europe) for helpful discussions and valuable comments
on earlier drafts. The views expressed in this paper are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of CIEL.
Comments are greatly appreciated: [e-mail]


Table of Contents


I. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
II. Background........................................................................................................................4
1. What are „public services“?...........................................................................................4
2. Why does the scope of GATS matter?...........................................................................5
Box 1 – Examples of Possible Public Services Challenges...............................................................5
III. Provisions Determining the Substantive Scope of GATS........................................................6
IV. The use of Article I:3 (b)(c) GATS in WTO documents and discussions..........................6
1. Secretariat background notes and papers.......................................................................7
2. Discussions among WTO members...............................................................................8
V. Interpretation according to generally accepted methods of public international law.........9
1. Standards of treaty interpretation.................................................................................10
2. Supply on a „commercial basis“...................................................................................10
3. Supply in „competition with one or more service suppliers“.......................................12
4. Context of Article I:3(b),(c) GATS..............................................................................13
a) Annexes........................................................................................................................13
b) Schedules of Specific Commitments............................................................................14
5. Subsequent practice and preparatory work...................................................................15
a) Subsequent practice, agreements, and other rules of international law....................15
b) Preparatory work......................................................................................................16
6. Conclusion....................................................................................................................17
VI. Further interpretative principles: restrictive and effective interpretation.........................18
1. Restrictive Interpretation..............................................................................................18
2. Effective interpretation.................................................................................................19
VII. „Legislative“ possibilities to narrow the scope of GATS................................................20
1. Amendment to GATS or interpretative understanding................................................20
2. Authoritative interpretation..........................................................................................21
3. Non-binding statement.................................................................................................21

Geneva
May 2001

[TBF]

16. Just off the top of my head in terms of mechanical

(because "snot" above did the root causes answer).

Ok, we've had: coin tosses (lucky Hillary wins every time), Bill with megaphone (former president allowed to shut down polling booths while he pontificates), closing multiple polling places - lines stretch for miles (meanwhile who gets that much time off work to wait in line?), woopsie we're out of ballots today, oh look - a bag full of absentee votes and every single one is for Hillary (!), Brooklyn - let's just do a macro and change them all to unaffiliated, oopsie we changed the rules so you had to register earlier, and by the way when you did register we saw your name in a Bernie database and decided to flip you to Indy, polling hours now noon - 6 - come if you can, well all these people voted for bernie but I'm a superdelegate so I choose Hillary (who gave money to my own local campaign), Hillary and Bill pose for selfies and sign autographs at the polls, you're a student - you can't vote.

There's an easy fix to a few of the most major problems in this country. At birth you register & get your social security card. With that card you get access to Medicare for all, free public school/college, and you are automatically registered (but not required) to vote when you turn 18. Easy peasy. We have the technology and if we tax appropriately we can pay for it.

[Baobab]

17. Here are some roadblocks- Does anybody know if DU has any way of formatting tables?

Broadly speaking, there are three “tiers” of GATS rules affecting health care. The first tier of rules, General Obligations and Disciplines, apply equally to all service sectors of all WTO member countries, regardless of whether those sectors are committed in a country’s schedule or not. The second tier, Specific Commitments, apply only to those sectors that a country commits to its schedule. These rules are more far-reaching, and members were given the opportunity to write any exceptions or limitations to them into their schedules. Finally, under GATS Part III, Article XVII, WTO member countries are allowed to negotiate a third “tier” of rules to govern their commitments above and beyond the underlying Specific Commitments rules that normally apply.

Citing this provision, the United States has inscribed its Financial Commitments schedule with the “supplemental” rules of the Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services. These rules apply in addition to the underlying GATS Specific Commitments rules on Market Access and National Treatment (described below).

Table 1 Selected rules included in the General Agreement on Trade in Services Rule tier Binding upon Rule content General Obligations (Tier 1) All member states of the World Trade Organization 1. Most-favored nation treatment. 2. Prohibition on “new monopolies” 3. Disciplines on domestic regulation Specific Commitments (Tier 2) Only those service sectors that members choose to bind in their schedules of commitments 1. Open market access obligations 2. National treatment of all foreign service provider Supplementary Voluntary Commitments (Tier 3) Service sectors already scheduled that members choose to make additional liberalization commitments in (financial services in the U.S.) 1. Subjection of public entities to GATS rules 2. “Standstill” of existing exceptions to liberalization 3. Requirement to allow any new financial service 4. Requirement to “endeavor to remove or limit any significant adverse effects” of domestic regulation

----------
General Obligations and Disciplines. These rules apply to all service sectors of all WTO member countries, regardless of whether or not the sectors have been committed to a nation’s schedule. While these are generally the least controversial provisions, several may have serious implications for reform or regulation of the health sector (4).

Most-Favored-Nation Treatment: This provision requires a member to give service suppliers of any other WTO member no less favorable treatment than it gives service suppliers of “any other country” (4, Art. II).


Prohibition on New “Monopolies”: This provision requires that if a country grants new “monopoly rights” regarding the supply of a service covered in its schedule, the country granting the “monopoly” must enter into negotiations to provide compensation to any other member adversely affected by it. If an agreement is not reached, the affected member may refer the matter to arbitration, and the “monopoly” may not go into force until the compensation required by the arbitration has been made. The term “monopoly rights” is not defined anywhere in the agreement (4, Art. VIII).

“Disciplines” on Domestic Regulation: In sectors where no commitments have been undertaken, the GATS states that a special Council for Trade in Services shall develop “disciplines” that assure that qualification requirements and procedures, technical standards, and licensing requirements for the provision of services are “not more burdensome than necessary to ensure the quality of the service.” Regarding sectors in which commitments have been undertaken, however, it is unclear whether such a “necessity test” is already in force (4, Art. VI).

Specific Commitments. These rules apply only to service sectors that members have volunteered to submit to the rules by inscribing them in their schedules. Members were also given an opportunity to reserve specific exceptions to the rules during the negotiations of their schedules. Rules in this section fall into two broad categories, Market Access and National Treatment.

Market Access: The rules in this section are aimed at preventing governments from limiting the number, type, form, or size of foreign service suppliers in their markets or intervening to affect or regulate the way the firms provide the service. Examples of prohibited measures include (4, Art. XVI):


• Limitations on the number of service suppliers

• Limitations on the total quantity of service output

• Requiring a specific type of legal entity (e.g., nonprofit)

• Limitations on the “total value of service transactions or assets”


National Treatment: This set of rules requires that foreign service suppliers receive, “in respect of all measures affecting the supply of services,” the same treatment that a nation gives to its own service suppliers. It is easy to think of situations in which a country may want to shape policy to favor domestic industry over foreign operations, but the GATS rules go even farther than these requirements. Under the National Treatment rules, any measure that modifies the conditions of competition in favor of a domestic supplier is a GATS violation. In other words, even if a policy has no intent to discriminate against foreign service suppliers—indeed, it can be totally unrelated to service provision at all—if it has the effect of disadvantaging them, it is potentially a violation of the GATS (4, Art. XVII).

Special Rules for Health Insurance. The United States committed health insurance to its schedule under the Financial Services section. Two special sets of rules apply to commitments made under this section. The first is the Annex on Financial Services, a unique set of constraints that apply to all commitments in financial services, no matter what nation makes them. The second is an even more expansive Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services, a set of extreme liberalization rules that are an optional “attachment” to commitments in financial services that the United States has chosen to take. These rules go so far in constraining governments that only developed countries have signed on to them. The Annex on Financial Services: Most financial services are related to banking and investment, hence the Annex provisions pertain mostly to them. One provision in particular is significant in assessing the impact of the GATS on health care:

• Subjection of “Public Entities” to GATS Rules: Normal GATS rules make an exception for government services and procurement (with significant limitations). The Annex specifically states that if a nation allows domestic service suppliers to compete with “public entities,” those entities are subject to GATS rules. This will have significant implications for Medicare, as we will see (4, Annex on Financial Services, §1(b)(iii)). The Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services: The most farreaching document in the GATS, the Understanding binds signatory nations to an extreme level of financial services liberalization. The commitments undertaken by signatories to the Understanding include (interpretation of the Understanding [5] aided by Kevin C. Kennedy, Professor of Law, Michigan State University College of Law):

• The “Standstill” Provision: The signatories pledge that any exceptions to the commitments they have made are limited to existing measures. The implications of this vaguely worded provision are not entirely clear. Some commentators believe that the signatories bind themselves to never enact a limitation on their commitments in the future that was not in effect when the Understanding was inscribed in their schedule. In effect, the level of privatization at the time of the implementation of the Understanding is “locked in” (5).

• New Financial Service: Signatories pledge to allow foreign firms to offer any new financial product in their territory, as long as another WTO member offers it (5, Art. B(7)).

• Domestic Regulation: Signatories pledge to “endeavor to remove or limit any significant adverse effects” on foreign investors of any laws that “affect adversely” the ability of foreign firms “to operate, compete, or enter” the domestic market (5, Art. B(10)). INTERPRETING THE