Have you read the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal yet? You can read it right here, as no less a personage than President Obama himself informed me via email the other day. I’ve only made it to Chapter 2 so far (there are 30 chapters). It kicks insomnia’s ass.
As CP Pierce points out, Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs says it’s a lousy deal that should be voted down. According to Sachs, TPP’s provisions “enshrine the power of corporate capital above all other parts of society, including labor and even governments,” and while it gives lip service to social fairness and sustainability goals, “the agreements are thin, unenforceable, and generally unimaginative.”
Climate change isn’t even mentioned, according to Sachs. Senator Warren also gives the proposal a frowny face.
Pierce concludes that this deal, along with education policy, “is going to be one of the only acts of [Obama’s] presidency with which the president justifies the criticisms levelled at him from the left.” Sounds about right.
If these analyses are accurate, I’m glad the Democratic candidates are fleeing the TPP like workers running toward daylight from a collapsing mine. But if the pessimists among us are to be believed, some version of a shitty deal is inevitable because Global Economy.
Maybe President Obama is among those pessimists and that’s why he supports this particular shitty deal. I’ve quoted my old co-blogger StrangeAppar8us on this topic before because he was so right about the declining influence of national sovereignty and rising power of multinational corporations:
In truth, nations have been obsolete as sovereign organizational units for some time. There are sovereign corporations and sovereign piles of capital, but nations are basically accounting entries associated with a particular profile of a) indigenous resources, b) comparative labor costs, c) relative social stability, d) relative currency strength and e) relative weakness of business taxation and regulatory controls. Local military power still matters, and some nations still command a certain reflexive residual deference to their post-WWII/Cold War primacy. However, in an age of cheap intercontinental shipping and wire transfers, nations are basically cultural theme parks competing for ticket sales.
One of my cousins once played “Goofy” at Disney World, wearing a hot, stuffy costume in the 90-degree heat for minimum wage while toddlers kicked him in the shins and older children whacked him in the nuts with replica light sabers. Welcome to the New Economy, fellow characters.
Archon
I suspect the benefits for America in regards to TPP are geopolitical in nature. China is basically locked out of any major economic sphere of influence in Asia and it maintains the United States of the economic, military, and political hegemon deep into this century.
ThresherK
“Plutocracy” keeping those “Goofys” down?
I see what you did there.
Betty Cracker
ATTN: TOMMY — A thousand thank-yous for putting a comments link at the bottom of the post.
srv
Just how do you people think Obama’s Foundation gets funded?
Mr. Disney could teach y’all a thing or two about escaping reality.
Anoniminous
Robert Reich had an article in the Guardian yesterday that is well worth reading.
If the TPP is defeated it will be by a coalition of the Freedom Caucus and the Progressive Caucus in Congress backed by public opinion.
Ridnik Chrome
OT: Just heard screams from the office next to mine. Went to see what was going on, and it turned out there was a mouse in there…
Mike J
Extending American style horrible copyright laws is certainly a good reason for other countries to refuse to sign, but not really for the US.
I’m also a bit leery of the claims about the ISDS process. People always bring up all sorts of wacky lawsuits that have been filed in the past, and very rarely talk about the actual outcome of those trials. People can and do file lawsuits with stupid legal justification all the time. This is not something new this treaty would allow.
srv
Brent Scowcroft has had enough of Disney and wants you to inspire you to make Sci-Fi War Art reality.
thalarctos (not the other one)
As “Arthur Jenson” said in the movie _Network_:
“There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.”
Forty years ago, that movie was over-the-top satire. Today, it’s more like a documentary.
lurker dean
@Betty Cracker: nice, didn’t notice that, and was wishing for one recently on one of the longer posts. and i like that all of the tags are now only at the bottom. hopefully functionality is improving for those who’ve had issues. seems to be running fine for me on a number of devices, but i’m not a frequent poster.
Corner Stone
Operation Daylight? What do you know? TELL ME!
Corner Stone
@Archon:
Not to be blunt about it, but – what color is the sky in your world?
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Definitely a good thing to keep from the old style format.
Ella in NM
What’s more intriguing to me than this treaty’s details are why exactly a super-smart, pro-worker and powerful advocate for social justice like Obama is seemingly oblivious to it’s horrendous provisions. Seriously, someone has to have a gun to his head on this one. It makes no sense at all for us to ratify it.
Great way to feed the “New World Order/Illuminati/Apocalypse” crowd over at Alex Jone’s place. Thanks Obama!
Corner Stone
Luke Russert filling in for Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC.
I’m seriously torn if that’s upgrade/downgrade/Bleh.
rikyrah
no shock in the least.
How the Kochs launched Joni Ernst
New details reveal the billionaire brothers’ network efforts to reshape the GOP are more ambitious than previously reported.
By Kenneth P. Vogel
11/12/15 05:19 AM EST
Updated 11/11/15 11:13 PM EST
Joni Ernst was surprised to receive an invitation in the summer of 2013 that she later credited with starting her meteoric rise to the U.S. Senate.
Ernst was then a little-known Iowa state senator and lieutenant colonel in the National Guard who was considering a long-shot campaign for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate. Polls showed more than 90 percent of her state’s voters had no opinion of her. At least a half-dozen other Republicans ― some with better funding and connections and stronger establishment support ― also were positioning themselves to run against the presumptive Democratic nominee, Rep. Bruce Braley.
But Ernst was being watched closely by allies of the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, who saw in her an advocate for their brand of free-market, libertarian-infused conservatism. Operatives affiliated with the Kochs’ political network invited Ernst to the network’s August 2013 gathering of wealthy conservative donors at a posh resort in Albuquerque’s Santa Ana Pueblo.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/the-kochs-vs-the-gop-215672#ixzz3rIVbPIi9
Peale
@Archon: I’m not sure it does that, though. Is anyone prevented by this agreement from making their own free trade deal with China? Did Mexico somehow get locked out of free trade deals after NAFTA?
burnspbesq
I’m not horrified by any part of this except the dispute-resolution mechanism. That’s enough for me to oppose it. Will be writing to Feinstein and Boxer.
Kurzleg
Long-time lurker stopping by to commend StrangeAppar8us for that concise, insightful observation, depressing though it is.
Corner Stone
@Peale: China will continue to sell parts manufactured in country to other trading partners. They will then combine these parts in a way to satisfy the TPP terms. Then trade them to the US.
benw
@Ella in NM: well, the pro-Obama argument is usually “this is the best deal he thought he could get”, and is also made when defending Obamacare from an attack from the left as well. What I don’t get is why any government other than the US would sign off on this, as it seems to let US corporations put guns to their own government’s head. I’d be interested in hearing some pro-TPP arguments, too, because as reported it sounds like a huge pile of suck.
Josie
@Betty Cracker: YES! I’ve been wishing for comment link at the bottom but didn’t want to bug Tommy about it.
ThresherK
I have found the magic temp at which my cat wants to curl up on my lap and create body heat. It helps that it’s dark and raining outside, and that I can balance my laptop on one arm of the rocking chair.
sharl
So good to see a Strange cite; miss that guy.
And regarding the matter of cost-effective international trade or whatever the hell its supporters call it, there are a lot of hidden costs, e.g., environmental impacts on manufacturing countries. (I was looking for a photo from a few years ago of a couple of infosec specialists at a conference in Hong Kong, wearing particulate filter masks in bed at their hotel, but couldn’t find it.)
Does Krugman support this thing? A lot of left-leaning economists have supported things like NAFTA in the past, for well intended reasons (higher wages for impoverished citizens in poor nations; mission accomplished, I guess), and they kind of waved off the environmental stuff by saying ‘oh, subsequent legislation can address that stuff.’ It would help the politics of stuff like this if an actual cost could be assigned to the pollution that results, even if that cost needs to be low-balled to arrive at a number that is more easily defended in lobbying and legislative efforts.
Cervantes
@Archon:
And with regard to individuals and groups within America, those benefits, and costs, are distributed … somewhat unevenly.
Cervantes
@thalarctos (not the other one):
It was not over-the-top satire even back then.
rikyrah
A whole new (and far worse) approach to U.S. infrastructure
11/12/15 10:54 AM
By Steve Benen
It didn’t generate a lot of attention, but the House did something entirely unexpected last week: it actually passed an important bill without a lot of drama. The nation’s Highway Trust Fund is set to run out of money on Nov. 20, pushing Congress to do something before the infrastructure deadline, and in his first tangible victory, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) advanced a six-year package, carrying a $340 billion price tag.
The final vote was surprisingly lopsided: 363 to 64. Most of the opponents were far-right lawmakers, but they didn’t come close to derailing the bill. The Ryan honeymoon is apparently real.
It’s not yet a done deal – the House bill will have to be reconciled with a related Senate bill – but given the usual crisis atmosphere on Capitol Hill when a deadline nears, it’s refreshing to see a process go relatively smoothly, at least for now.
But in an interesting twist, some Republican presidential candidates are watching these developments with a wary eye, arguing that Congress shouldn’t be investing in infrastructure much at all.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is backing a plan to cut the 18.4 cents per gallon gas tax, which pays for most federal transportation projects, by about 15 cents.
“We need to get the federal government out of this infrastructure business, other than vital economic highways,” the former Pennsylvania senator said [in Tuesday’s undercard debate]. “It has been said that if we cut the gas tax to three to five cents and send the rest back to the states, and just take care of the federal infrastructure that’s vital for our economy,” he continued, “we don’t need the federal government in the road business that it is today.”
A little context is probably in order. The Highway Trust Fund, which plays a central role in financing infrastructure projects, is financed through a federal gas tax that hasn’t changed in two decades. The result has been a disaster for much of the country – the resources simply don’t exist anymore to keep up with the nation’s infrastructure needs. U.S. investments have dropped to levels unseen in generations, at least in part because congressional Republicans won’t increase the gas tax.
Santorum’s idea is to decrease the gas tax to almost nothing, and dramatically curtail the federal role in infrastructure investments across the board.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/whole-new-and-far-worse-approach-us-infrastructure
p.a.
Broken record here: card check. Yes, yes; not realistic, numbers weren’t there yadda yadda. But for THIS, he’ll pull out all the stops. As a lame duck, with limited time and limited resources, THIS gets the full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes treatment.
gene108
@Archon:
That’s basically what I’ve read about it and why Obama is pushing so hard for it.
It’s to keep the U.S. relevant in Asia in the face of growing Chinese influence.
EDIT: Asian countries also want us there, because unlike China, we do not have ongoing border disputes with the countries in that region. If Asian countries had to settle up with China, as the regional super power, borders would be redrawn and those countries do not want to do that.
Peale
@gene108: and what happens if we aren’t relevant?
pamelabrown53
@Mike J:
Regarding the ISDS, there’s an interesting post by Spandan at The People’s View http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2015/11/6/tpps-dispute-settlement-is-limits-corporations-. What makes it interesting is that he provides actual TPP text so you know exactly what it is in which you agree or disagree.
P.S. Sorry link isn’t working and I don’t know how to fix. Plus, inexplicably, I’m in moderation purgatory.
BobS
@Archon: That’s the view of Alfred McCoy <A HREF="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176044/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy,_maintaining_american_supremacy_in_the_twenty-first_century/"<here and also here.
Peale
@gene108: So they get to see us manufactured goods AND get to have military protection free of cost.
Germy Shoemangler
@sharl:
Krugman: I’ve described myself as a lukewarm opponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership; although I don’t share the intense dislike of many progressives
Cervantes
@burnspbesq:
Who crafted the dispute-resolution mechanism? And to serve what purpose?
benw
@ThresherK: aka nirvana.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I really wish Donald Trump had stuck with his original rhetoric on taxes (the rich should be paying more), because his buffoonish and dangerously fascist candidacy would have almost been worth it if he could demonstrate that there is a substantial voting bloc within the Republican party that is willing to tax the rich and is protectionist, and will turn out to vote on those issues in primaries. He’s pandered to the oligarchs with his tax plan but is still sounding pretty protectionist on trade. If his candidacy convinces republicans that selling out American workers has electoral consequences for them, well, maybe we could get a better deal.
p.a.
@gene108:
The Big Stick will keep the US relevant as a nation. TPP may keep US corporate interests relevant, at what cost to the nation and its citizens. TPP is a DLC wet dream.
Anoniminous
O/T:
Bloomingdale’s is REALLY sorry for the date rape ad:
Which makes it all better. I’m sure. Especially since “… and we’ve fired the people responsible” is missing from the apology.
Keith G
@Peale: As long as the Chinese military…err… government keeps building man made islands in the worlds free waterways, we’re going to be very relevant to many nations in that part of the world.
jl
Kthug says his sources inside the government apparatus tell him that geopolitical influence BS is the main consideration for this deal, not economics. If that is the case, I can see how Obama would support it.
The pure ‘free trade’ portion of the deal seems like it will not make a big difference, since conventional tariff barriers are already very small among the major US trading partners negotiating in the TPP.
So, what is left is corporate investment insurance and IP. IP economics is hard and complicated and controversial, and a kind of specialized area. For example it is not easy to find any introductory material for my engineering and health sciences students, and the professionals are no help since they think telling IP war stories is the same thing as economic analysis. So, Obama probably took the word of tech and biotech and drug people that pushing (the historically very extreme) US IP law and econ is for the greater good.
So that leaves corporate insurance, which is being openly talked about as a good thing. Sanders and HRC should ask why workers who lose jobs don’t deserve similar insurance, IMHO. But, very astute lawyer Obama thinks that improvements in the dispute resolution process are sufficient protections against abuse. Economist me doesn’t agree since I think arbitration processes, no matter how well lawyered are very susceptable to corruption over time. And looks like the dispute resolution process has been weakened to laws and regs cannot be overturned, but only fines levied (so, it is extortion?).
That is my take on how Obama could support it. I’m eager to read analysis of the final text to see how good or bad the final product is.
srv
@Peale: What part of
did you miss.
Betty Cracker
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Amen. But he seems to have doubled down on the xenophobia instead.
gene108
@Peale:
Who knows?
I think the TPP is a 12-country trade deal. If we sit out and the other 11 countries go ahead, maybe we lock ourselves out of future Pacific Rim deals.
But honestly, I really do not know what would happen, if we became a bit less involved in everyone elses problems.
I’ve just read that Obama wants this deal so badly because of his “pivot to Asia” and to shore up geopolitical alliances there.
I really do not have much of an opinion on the deal, as I know very little about it.
ruemara
I’ve looked at Mike Gruenwald’s take, which is a mix of positive and negative. I’m on the fence until I can take a day and read it. Not entirely sure what not having it fixes or where a more progressive trade deal comes from. Don’t like the arbitration stuff I’ve heard which has cites; not interested in shared meme photos with quotes against it, since they can’t cite a damned line. I’m a proponent of reasoning things out for yourself, not groupthink. Can’t say I’ve liked any trade deal in my lifetime, but also aware that some trade deals are gonna happen, so I need to comprehend what the plusses and minuses are.
pamelabrown53
@jl:
I really admire how your comment is so measured and rational. No hyperbolic emotionalism or particular ax to grind. I, too am waiting for a more comprehensive analysis which calmly weigh pros and cons befor I start contacting my senators.
Kay
@Cervantes:
And the promoters of the deal continue to insist it has something to do with “middle class jobs” and “leveling the playing field”.
Also? Selling a 30 year old trade mitigation program as a huge benefit of this trade deal is blatantly dishonest. If that’s all the pro-trade- deal Democrats got in return for their vote the least they could do is keep quiet about it.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gene108: I think another component of Obama’s desire to pass this is his 2010 goal of doubling US exports in 5 years. We didn’t make it, but exports are up. He understands the importance of higher exports and if the TPP can help that happen then he’s going to push it. Though it doesn’t get talked about much, Dean Baker continues to make the point that our trade deficit is one important reason why employment is lower than it should be and why the middle class is struggling more than it should.
At the USTR web site, there are Chapter Summary PDFs of each chapter of the TPP giving what the US regards as the benefits and why it’s needed in plain English. Cervantes apparently doesn’t buy their explanations, but it’s worth looking at as non-experts trying to distill 6000 pages is a hopeless task. It would be nice if critics could put together similar explanations as to why those explanations are wrong. (To be clear, one can look at the actual text itself and follow footnotes, but unless one is willing to go through the whole document and see, e.g., what enforcement provisions are behind the agreement as a whole, then one won’t get a full picture.)
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
sharl
@Germy Shoemangler: Ah, thanks. I did in fact read that from Krugman, though I think quite some time ago (before the actual document became public).
And comments by others, especially jl‘s, get at my concerns about how some big issues are so routinely ignored in agreements like these. Those issues tend to be very difficult to quantify in an economic sense, but it would seem to be very much worth the effort to at least do some serious research on how to carry out such quantification.
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: You might want to set aside more than a day, plus several pots of coffee. It’s long as hell and sleep-inducing. I’m trying to slog my way through it, but I honestly wonder if it’s worthwhile since economics and law are just two of the many subjects I’m stupid about. As with climate science and other impenetrable (to me) topics, I’ll probably end up trusting the conclusions of the most trustworthy experts.
gvg
I disagree about countries being irrelevant. We have had stable government for so long that alot of people who aren’t even libertarian think stability and a law abiding population are somehow natural and arrive without a good government. In our country, people don’t get robbed very often and it’s new when they do. Counter fitters are a minor issue, taken seriously but handled. If we do not have a stable government and currency, business shuts down. People are not scared to leave their house and go shopping. Roads exist and go between residences, shops and production areas. Money is what it appears to be and not a disguised robbery attempt. The mail arrives safely almost always. If someone does not fulfill a contract, they get sued, and what enforcement is possible is done. These things take work, and workers and taxes and they have been done for so long that most of us don’t notice them and don’t know they don’t have to exist. That is one of the major reason’s foreign investors keep sending us money even though some other rising economy is always being predicted as going to pass us etc.
The Congress threatening default is more dangerous to us then any trade deal and it blows my fuses talking about it.
However I don’t think I like this trade deal, I am only disagreeing with that one point. Our government is hugely important compared to corperations and don’t overlook that.
gogol's wife
@Corner Stone:
Richard Brooks, the sad ADA, was my favorite.
Moriarty over Waterston, Noth over Bratt, Dzundza best of all. Lowell better than the other girls.
gogol's wife
Betty, if you ever take a trip to Russia, just don’t mention the name Jeffrey Sachs out loud. A word to the wise.
Linnaeus
Although this is probably a minor theoretical point, if it’s true that the TPP is more about shoring up US influence in the Asia-Pacific region and curtailing China’s influence, that would suggest to me the limits of the free trade arguments that underpin agreements like this one.
Mike J
@Ella in NM:
There is literally nothing you can do (or fail to do) that won’t feed the paranoia of crazy people. There is no reason for anyone to ever pay any attention to Alex Jones or his followers.
Linnaeus
@gogol’s wife:
You might be interested in Sachs’s review (and defense) of what he did in Eastern Europe and Russia in the early 1990s.
henrythefith
@Archon: China is negotiating its own free trade agreements or already has them with these nations.
Also, the rules of origin chapter in the agreement are extremely loose. For example, a car could contain 55 percent Chinese content and still be labeled “Made in Japan” or “Made in America” under the formulations put forth in the agreement. So they aren’t isolated, they benefit.
Also, China shares a border with and invests in companies in Vietnam, so again, they are not isolated.
Kay
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
These are the specific objections as far as the “level the playing field” claims:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/analysis-tpp-text-november-2015.pdf
chris9059
“Pierce concludes that this deal, along with education policy, “is going to be one of the only acts of [Obama’s] presidency with which the president justifies the criticisms levelled at him from the left.” Sounds about right.”
Really? Obama can’t justifiably be criticized on the left for his refusal to prosecute any of Wall Street criminals who caused the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression?
skerry
The Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) complete the unholy trinity of Obama trade agreements under negotiation. You have to look hard to find press on any of these, but I recommend it. Fast Track, voted in earlier this year, applies to these agreements along with TPP.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kay: Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@gvg: Good points — I think what you describe falls under the “relative social stability” heading in the quote, and you’re right; it’s important. But when agreements like this seem forged for the benefit of corporations rather than governments and people (if that is indeed the case with TPP), maybe we should realize that’s a feature, not a bug.
gogol's wife
@Linnaeus:
I don’t have to. I lived through it.
Linnaeus
@gogol’s wife:
I’m not saying he was right (I don’t think he was, actually), just that I thought it was worth a read.
Betty Cracker
@chris9059: I took Pierce’s comment to mean there’s broad agreement on the left that Obama was dead wrong about only a couple of issues, including education policy and TPP. Reasonable lefties can and do quibble about many decisions, including Wall Street as you noted, involvement in the Middle East, etc.
Kay
@skerry:
I’m afraid to delve into the trade in services agreement. I’m afraid it’s a total privatization of public services gambit. In Free Trader-ese a public service could be a trade barrier- not letting the private sector compete because the public service has an advantage with state support. It’s interesting it’s happening right now, because there’s a “remunicipalization” movement, where they’re taking privatized services public again.
http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/files/documents/research/dh-remunicipalisation_presentation-ppt.pdf
Archon
@henrythefith: I never suggested this deal would lock China out on trade. I think it does prevent them from dominating the Asian market and using their economic power to force other nations into disadvantageous trade deals with them, kind of like what we did in the Caribbean and South/Latin America.
agorabum
@gvg: as someone who witnessed the recent test launch of a trident nuclear missile from a national park, I agree government still matters. Also, tell Iraqis that a national government doesn’t matter…or Syrians.
We’re not in some capitalist utopia where international commerce and tariffs are the only issues…
lurker dean
now those are comment numbers, lol!
kped
So, here is my charitable reading of this crappy deal: As you said, these companies are basically not tied to a country anymore, they have complete capital freedom. By making this deal Obama hopes to keep at least some of the profit/tax base in America by strengthening the power of the companies more…or something?
I don’t know. I tried, but really, seems like it will be a few more decades before the whole globalization thing is settled and we see where the world is at.
Betty Cracker
@lurker dean: Right? I can picture him in the backroom now: “You want comment numbers? I’ll give you motherfucking comment numbers, bitchez!”
Corner Stone
@Kay: Thanks for that link. Interesting idea but it may be the worst PPT I have ever seen in all of creation.
I still contend we should regulate banks like utilities.
pamelabrown53
@lurker dean:
A little too dainty?
Cervantes
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
What explanations do I not buy?
lurker dean
@pamelabrown53: now they are, i prefer the comically gigantic size they were a few minutes ago, lol.
Tenar Darell
Basically, if the trademark parts allow a corporation to tell a country’s Health Department that they can’t control the warnings they require on cigarettes (or their meat labeling), it’s a very bad deal IMHO. And that’s before practically perpetual IP gets even further entrenched.
From the POV of archivist, not kidding about perpetual copyright/trademarks. Disney had new Mickey Mouse cartoons like Get a Horse a few years ago. That was, in part, a marker to extend the copyright/trademark protection on Mickey, even if, like the earlier Sherlock Holmes stories the Mouse cannot be fully protected. And Disney has much deeper pockets than a literary estate. If the TPP succeeds in adding the disputes resolution process on top of local (country specific) law, I believe there will be even fewer smaller (than Disney sized) operations willing to fight this, including within the U.S.
Corner Stone
@Cervantes:
Listen, bub. If you’re in the market for explanations I could get you a pretty sweet deal on some barely used ones at the right price. Like new, they are! No reason to look any further.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cervantes: You tell me. :-)
I’ve provided pointers and provided quotes in previous replies to you on this topic. You apparently weren’t satisfied with my responses and had more questions. As I said earlier, I’m no lawyer, so I can’t answer your questions about the details and so forth – I can only point you to places where I think the answers exist. The answers are Out There if you want to dig through the information available.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tenar Darell:
I can’t say I have a huge amount of insight, only what I’ve seen on the edges, but I actually think the base of the Giant Evil Corporation’s copyright insanity is music rights. Look up the Bourne Company to see who owns the music rights to most of the early hits. It ain’t the GEC, and the organization that owns them is very sue-happy.
Steve in the ATL
@Ridnik Chrome:
That’s nothing–there’s a lawyer in the office next to mine
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Also, frankly, what we need to have is a complete rethinking of what copyright and IP rights mean in a world where copyrights can be held by companies that are essentially immortal. Perpetual copyright is not the answer, but what should the answer be?
Bitter Scribe
I’m agnostic about the TPP, but it amuses me to see how all over the map the Republicans are about it. If they even know anything about it. (Remember Trump fulminating about China in response to a question about the TPP, until Rand Paul had to point out that China wasn’t included?)
gogol's wife
@Linnaeus:
Yes, it’s interesting, thanks.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I haven’t thought long and hard about this, but it seems to me that if corporations want ~ 100 year copyrights then they should be willing to tolerate a similar expansion of fair-use. E.g. non-commercial use of entire works is Ok. After, say, 50 years, commercial use is Ok without royalty payments for short works (songs, poems, short stories) and for excerpts of larger works.
Something like that. GEC could still have their Mickey Mouse copyrights, but they couldn’t sue Mary’s parents if she has a Mickey Mouse Club themed birthday party.
I’m sure there are corner cases, like the GEC not owning the copyrights in question, but it seems like making the calendar terms shorter is a non-starter, so the only way to make things fairer is to expand fair-use.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Bitter Scribe:
It isn’t that simple, though. China isn’t in it, but the rules of origin provisions make it possible for China to put a lot of Chinese material in a manufactured product and then stamp it “Made in Vietnam
and benefit from the deal.
They should stop making promises on these trade deals. They’re complex. The idea that they can predict X number of jobs created or X increase in exports just isn’t true. They consistently over-promise on trade deals. Always. The US can’t enforce those labor protections. It would be the equivalent of economic sanctions. They never, ever enforce the labor protections. They may as well say “we made some suggestions on labor protections”.
Kay
@Bitter Scribe:
If they can predict X jobs created in X sector and X increase in exports then they must know which sectors and category of exports will lose, right? Someone will lose- that’s why they funded the trade adjustment program.
Why don’t we ever hear about that? We only get confident predictions of victory. We get no predictions of the trade-offs or downside. According to the administration and Republicans in Congress this is 100% win for every sector and worker in the US. That’s not true.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, but his xenophobia is part China bashing, which is basically when he goes on an anti-free-trade rant. That appeals to the a large portion of the republican base but there aren’t any actual republican politicians catering to that segment of the base. Trump’s voting base is basically the Reagan Democrats three decades removed.
Steve in the ATL
@Anoniminous:
Almost certainly done by an outside agency
Tenar Darell
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Yeah. Music rights are spaghetti compared to film or written word. Because w/ music, there’s sheet music, there’s the individual performance, the artists, work for hire musicians, corporate etc. fuster cluck.
Examples: There have been too many to count African American musicians who no longer own the rights to their own songs. (Even big white stars like the Beach Boys had their rights sold. Though that was rarer).
Also, especially with music each new form of technology led to another layer of legal which, yes, was intended to protect the composers, musicians, music publishers etc. but often gets used more by corporations to discourage others from either fair use or even our present day remixing/riffing. If even archives are concerned about the limits of copying works to preserve them, what does that say about how extreme things have gotten?
I always wonder if there are orphan works which deserve re-examination or a “Dover style” musical edition, but a title search is too expensive or time consuming and there goes someone’s posterity. Someone’s song that didn’t speak to people in the past will never get reinterpreted in the present because it’s not worth the hassle.
Robert Sneddon
@gene108: That’s about it. The Trans Pacific Partnership (please to not refer to it as the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere thank you) is not being driven by the US government, it is going to happen because the governments of all the other countries involved, about 550 million people excluding China, want it. It’s the sort of beginning the EU had as the EEC. an open-borders trade organisation back in the day.
The US has been invited into the tent and it can be either inside the tent pissing out or outside the tent pissing in. When not if the TPP is agreed by the other nations the US, if it remains outside will face trade barriers and tarriffs when it tries to sell into that unitary market. When an Indonesian company wants to buy equipment they’ll be more reluctant to order it from the States and they’ll go to a Malaysian or Singaporean supplier instead because of the TPP. If the US is a signatory then those barriers don’t exist for American companies.
henqiguai
@Kay (#86):
You seem to have completely lost the concept of politicians and public-consumption statements. What part of the perils of –
1) “I *will* raise your taxes!”
2) “Read my lips!”
and their ultimate consequences have you forgotten? Politicians certainly recall those lessons.
ed_finnerty
@thalarctos (not the other one):
Also, too, Frederich Pohl in the ‘Space Merchants’
Tommy Young
@Betty Cracker: That was Alian but you are welcome.
J R in WV
@Betty Cracker:
But Tommy doesn’t use “Motherfucker” or “bitchez” very often.
I can picture him cursing under his breath as he makes the font bigger, though, after 2 weeks of folks giving him a hard time over an unfinished project. It would be nice if we gave the team (there are more than just Tommy, too) working on this project, which isn’t small, time to finish before we blow our stack(s) on them.
Things are already better in this release, and will improve for a while yet.
boatboy_srq
@Robert Sneddon: Agreed. A big part of the problem is getting the other signatories to agree to the things that US progressives want. Getting Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Vietnam and China to sign on to those things could be perceived at home as either violating their national sovereignty or contrary to political philosophy – in other words, non-starters for them. The US is a big market, but in the TPP it has just the one vote: complaining about it won’t change the framework and not signing it won’t kill the deal (it’ll just keep the US out). We may not like it – it’s a pretty sh!tty deal on a number of scores – but not signing it won’t kill the deal and won’t force the other signatories (who have in their minds sound reasons for negotiating the agreement as written) to rethink their positions.
I really can’t help but think that anti-TPP agitation on the Left is the progressive version of the Coalition Of The Willing: ignoring multilateral concurrence merely because it’s inconvenient and not conducive to the narrative.
MD Rackham
@boatboy_srq: So if all the other boys are going to jump off the bridge, we should jump too?
My mother warned me about this kind of logic.
J R in WV
@Steve in the ATL:
Yes, an outside ad agency, certainly. But someone inside the company saw the ad, approved it, and approved the payments to the ad agency who shot the ad, and to the media who ran the ad.
That person is responsible for this ad, and should reap the consequences. FIRED! you asshole! Fired, no severance, no pension, fired. 30 minutes to pack up your shit into a box while this nice security officer watches, and escorts you OUT of here!
For an old fat bald male, I have a large streak of feminist in me. Fired, I’m telling you!
mclaren
See how much we’ve advanced?
In the old days, this logic went: “But if the pessimists among us are to believed, some version of a shitty deal is inevitable because Bible.”
Or:
“But if the pessimists among us are to believed, some version of a shitty deal is inevitable because social Darwinism.”
Or:
“But if the pessimists among us are to believed, some version of a shitty deal is inevitable because the divine right of kings.”
Or:
“But if the pessimists among us are to believed, some version of a shitty deal is inevitable because the supreme authority of the Roman empire.”
Or:
“But if the pessimists among us are to believed, some version of a shitty deal is inevitable because Marduk, lord of all creation.”
I’m so thankful that we’ve finally entered an era of enlightenment, when we can do away with all those older irrational justifications for gross exploitation and the brutalizing of the weak by the strong.
burnspbesq
@chris9059:
Obama’s not the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and there were many despicable things done that were not technically a violation of any part of Title 18.