An international trade agreement in 19-pages, being drafted in secret was published by WikiLeaks as the transparency group's editor commemorated his 2-year anniversary confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Fifty countries around the globe have already signed on to the Trade in Service Agreement (TISA), including the United States, Australia and the European Union. Despite vast international ties the details about the deal have been negotiated behind closed-doors and largely ignored by the press.
In a statement published by the group alongside the leaked draft this week, WikiLeaks said "proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets," and have participated in "a significant anti-transparency maneuver" by working secretly on a deal that covers more than 68% of world trade in services, according to the Swiss National Center for Competence in Research.
(Score: 3) by c0lo on Monday June 23 2014, @05:54AM
It's not collusion [wikipedia.org]. Not even an oligopolist behavior. And such things like revolving doors [wikipedia.org] (or pure unadulterated corruption) do not exists.
La-la-la-la-... can't hear you.
(fortunately, credit unions still exists... still... use them or lose them, though)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Troll) by tathra on Monday June 23 2014, @06:09AM
...financial services are still regulated? oh, i guess the rest of the world still hasnt caught up to the awesomeness that is 'merca! we'll make them see the light, even if its by force! they'll see us as saviors and thank us once we help them deregulate all their markets, so they can have similar economic successes as we've had over the past 15 years; we absolutely must set them up with something similar to our honest and trustworthy wall street, and that can only be done by completely removing all financial laws and regulations. the free market must prevail!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 23 2014, @06:49AM
Must be that Glass - Steagall Legislation [wikipedia.org] that limits commercial bank securities activities and affiliations within commercial banks and securities firms. And it got repealed in 1999 which made the economy go really well in 2001 and 2008....
So this new contract is in essence to make countries defenseless from economic robbery that taxpayers will, well pay!
Or just simple have their school, social care, health, law enforcement (the useful part) be cut to pieces and privatized. By US companies..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Monday June 23 2014, @07:18AM
and the US is specifically pushing to be able to extract as much money as possible from everywhere in the world, while fucking everyone in it
this shit seriously makes me sick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @10:37AM
If we can't get those pesky Europeans to vote against the socialists, maybe we can get the silly socialists to outlaw their own policies
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Monday June 23 2014, @10:53AM
The "Socialist" parties in Europe are all in the pockets of big finance. They're only marginally better than the hard core right-wing parties (Populars and Liberals). That's why they were kicked out of office in most European countries, to be replaced with right-wingers.
At least the latter are honest about being big-money bitches. They don't hide that they want to deregulate and privatize everything, destroy the public services and the social safety network and turn the lives of the vast majority of the European peoples into miserable serfdom. Not mentioning diving head-first in every American meddling and/or military adventure, even when it's completely contrary to our interests.
The peoples have noticed that the two major political families are two faces of the same coin. And the propaganda telling them that there is no alternative but to kneel down and suck the cock of the financial markets is not working any more. They're turning to populist far-right parties. We all know how that worked out before.
Europe is doomed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by wantkitteh on Monday June 23 2014, @12:55PM
Don't lump all the Socialist parties together. It wasn't folks waving money at them that turned their heads at first, the softer mainstream parties have been screwed for the last couple of decades after realizing they had to adopt capitalist economic policy reforms (or even extend them beyond their right-wing opponent's moves in some cases) to stand any chance at gaining a majority at election. If one party says the market is magic and will make the country rich and the other says the market is dangerous and could cause all kinds of problems, people will vote with rose-tinted spectacles and disregard their fears. Once that policy move has been made, it signals open season for the industrial/commercial lobbyists to start knocking on their door.
AFAIK, pretty much all the other socialist parties got hammered by isolationists in the elections a few weeks ago in all countries EXCEPT The Netherlands.
(Score: 3, Funny) by davester666 on Monday June 23 2014, @07:26AM
It's not the free market unless the people with 95% of the money can bend it to their will.
(Score: 2) by hoochiecoochieman on Monday June 23 2014, @10:56AM
It's called democracy. One Euro, one vote.
Oh, wait...
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Monday June 23 2014, @07:00AM
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday June 23 2014, @08:08AM
Maybe they did like Microsoft in Denmark. Vote for software patents or we will downsize the Danish office with 800 persons. Or just plain compensate the person while the inhabitants get screwed.
"Microsoft boss Bill Gates threatened to kill 800 Danish jobs if Denmark opposed the European Computer Implemented Inventions Directive, reports today’s Danish financial daily Børsen, quoted by NoSoftwarePatents.com. /../ According to Børsen, last November Gates told Danish pm Anders Fogh and two ministers that he’d kill all 800 jobs in Navision, a Danish company acquired by Microsoft in 2002, unless the EU quickly decided to legalize software patents through the directive." (techrights.org [techrights.org])
One can always threaten to withdraw strategic products used in defense material too.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Monday June 23 2014, @10:12AM
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday June 23 2014, @03:32PM
We* don't negotiate with terrorists.
*I am not a Dane.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by lx on Monday June 23 2014, @07:27AM
"Americans and Europeans having a say in Australian trade isn't very nice but we really can't stand having to answer to Panama or Hong Kong." The xenophobic undertones don't help his case. Can a local explain to this European if this is mainstream thought in Australia or are Peter Martin and the Sydney Morning Herald remnants of the age of colonialism?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 24 2014, @01:40AM
Thankfully this attitude has been dying since the 80s. Our largest trading partner is now China, which has only just overtaken Japan. Australians in business have long accepted where we are in the world, and trade as part of Asia. Most of the rest of Australia is embracing our place in Asia as well, through holiday and working abroad destinations, choice of second language to study, etc.
When these fossils who try to argue that we're part of Europe are dead in 20 years, we won't have to listen to this drivel anymore.
(Score: 1) by NoMaster on Tuesday June 24 2014, @02:14AM
This Australian reads it as the local form of slightly ironic self-directed sarcastic insecurity, which is pretty common in what passes for media here. Basically, we like to pretend we're important enough to play with the Big Boys (US & EU), but deep down we secretly know (but barely admit to ourselves) that on the world stage we're really on a par with Panama, and we're frightened of China in both a Red Menace and Yellow Peril way (as represented by HK, which is both a familiar capitalist society & Communist - & worryingly good at both.)
It's not really rooted in xenophobia per se; it's simply an expression of hidden national insecurity. It does have its roots in colonialism - we used to compare ourselves to Mother England, later Europe, and more recently the US, and to pander to our national pride we repeatedly tell ourselves we match their standing - but not particularly in a racist way. It's more that, since deep down we know we're not really equals with the UK/EU/US, we also have to assuage that barely-admitted inferiority by making humorous comparisons - that simultanously have an unsettling level of irony about them...
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 5, Informative) by AnonTechie on Monday June 23 2014, @07:58AM
Some related articles which may be worth reading:
AN EAST ASIAN FINANCIAL CRISIS MADE IN THE US
Is the United States' obsession with market liberalization the cause for the on-going currency and financial crisis ? It would appear to be so, going by the statements of various US officials as reported in the New York Times in mid-February.
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/1864-cn.htm [twnside.org.sg]
How U.S. Wooed Asia To Let Cash Flow In
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/16/world/how-us-wooed-asia-to-let-cash-flow-in.html [nytimes.com]
Harvard Mafia, Andrei Shleifer and the Economic Rape of Russia.
Chronicles of Harvard University Russian Economic Team Scam and Deep Corruption of Academic Economics.
http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml [softpanorama.org]
The Power Principle (Documentary)
Probably the best documentary ever made about American foreign policy. The Power Principle. A gripping, deeply informative account of the plunder, hypocrisy, and mass violence of plutocracy and empire; insightful, historically grounded and highly relevant to the events of today. http://metanoia-films.org/the-power-principle/ [metanoia-films.org]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by aristarchus on Monday June 23 2014, @07:58AM
Secret law is not law at all. Much as St. Augustine said many years ago, "an unjust law is no law at all". Quoted, with much good reason, by Martin Luther King Jr. many years later. The first sign that a law is unjust is that it is secret. Immanuel Kant said that anything that is just should be able to withstand the light of publicity! So to repeat, for all those who may have missed it the first time, a secret law is no law at all. And this goes doubly for treaties.
(Score: 3) by bob_super on Monday June 23 2014, @09:17AM
Indeed, in a few countries with decent constitutions, secret laws are unconstitutional.
A law only takes effect when it's published by the executive branch.
I'm sure that's only a speed bump, and those constitutions will get changed quickly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @09:51AM
And if there's something blocking a law, they'll find a way around it. See also: Free speech zones.
(Score: 3) by tangomargarine on Monday June 23 2014, @03:27PM
Surprise buttsechs^Wsecret deliberations that just produced a public law with no warning!
Wasn't that pretty much what almost happened with SOPA?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Horse With Stripes on Monday June 23 2014, @10:36AM
Are pesky foreign laws preventing your country from obtaining as much personal data about individuals as you want? Are those same foreign devils stopping you from subpoenaing all the emails, bank records and other data stored on servers not under your influence? Well, TiSA has the answer! Your right to acquire any and all information that you feel can be used to your benefit - or to the detriment of your enemies, competitors or just anyone who gets in your way - should not be impeded by the laws of States that don't have your best interests at heart. TiSA, if you want something then you deserve to have it.
Are the costs of hiring qualified and talented individuals in your industry too high? Is your ability to enjoy an eight-figure annual bonus affected by the laws that prevent you from oppressing the wages of highly skilled professionals? Well, TiSA has the answer! Your right to import foreign workers at much lower rates, and control their freedom and their lives via their immigration status, shouldn't be impeded by the immigration or employment laws of countries that wouldn't know how to appreciate your paltry bonuses. If there's a profit to be had on the backs of others, and you can turn your own citizens against each other to drive down wages, why should laws be in your way? TiSA, if you want something then you deserve to have it.
(Score: 3) by tangomargarine on Monday June 23 2014, @03:30PM
No, the problem is that OUR country has laws preventing us from doing it, so we get other countries to pass us the information.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Wednesday June 25 2014, @10:10AM
That would work fantastically well as a video. Don't change a word.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23 2014, @02:04PM
From the SHM article linked, emphasis mine:
The US Chamber of Commerce says TiSA must ''prohibit restrictions on legitimate cross-border information flows ... [and] ensure that cloud computing services are freely available, regardless of facility or end-user location.
So, is this treaty about trying to damage control the NSA spying snafu?