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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday May 13 2015, @07:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-SHAFTA dept.

Zero Hedge reports

[May 12], in an embarrassing setback for the president, Senate Democrats in a 52-45 vote--short of the required 60 supporters--blocked a bill that would give President Barack Obama fast-track authority to expedite trade agreements through Congress, a major defeat for Obama and his allies who "say the measure is necessary to complete a 12-nation Pacific trade deal that is a centerpiece of the administration's economic agenda."

The passage failed after a leading pro-trade Democrat said he would oppose the bill: Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said he would vote no and his loss was a major blow to hopes of attracting a sufficient number Democrats to get 60 "yes" votes in the chamber.

According to Reuters, the Senate vote was one of a series of obstacles to be overcome that hinged on the support of a handful of Democrats. The White House has launched a campaign blitz directed at them in support of granting the president authority to speed trade deals through Congress.

Fast-track legislation gives lawmakers the right to set negotiating objectives but restricts them to a yes-or-no vote on trade deals such as the TPP, a potential legacy-defining achievement for Obama.

[...]Why is Obama scrambling to ram the TPP bill through Congress as fast as possible?

[...]This enormous new treaty would tilt the playing field in the United States further in favor of big multinational corporations. Worse, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty.

[Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)] would allow foreign companies to challenge U.S. laws--and potentially to pick up huge payouts from taxpayers--without ever stepping foot in a U.S. court. Here's how it would work:

Imagine that the United States bans a toxic chemical that is often added to gasoline because of its health and environmental consequences. If a foreign company that makes the toxic chemical opposes the law, it would normally have to challenge it in a U.S. court. But with ISDS, the company could skip the U.S. courts and go before an international panel of arbitrators [read: corporate-friendly tribunal]. If the company won, the ruling couldn't be challenged in U.S. courts, and the arbitration panel could require American taxpayers to cough up millions--and even billions--of dollars in damages.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @01:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @01:59PM (#182898)

    Look around.
    Do you see job creation in the USA?
    I certainly don't.

    The US unemployment rate for March 2015 was 5.4 percent, its lowest point since May 2008. And the rate is still declining:

    http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000 [bls.gov]

    Now, detractors say

    1. The official unemployment rate doesn't account of under-employed people, or folks who dropped out of the workforce.

    Yes, but it didn't in 2008, either. No metric is completely satisfactory; the same issue arises in sports, for batting averages, for example. But that graph is an apples-to-apples comparison.

    2. Subgroup X has a much higher rate of unemployment than the average.

    Yes, 5.4 percent is an average across the entire workforce. Some regions or demographics will be higher than the average, some lower than average.

    The point is that the unemployment rate is a broad-based statistic, not nearly as susceptible to skew as GDP or per capita income.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @09:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 14 2015, @09:27PM (#183129)

    My post above [soylentnews.org] already cover this.
    Read the post and click the links.

    The USA.gov numbers are cooked to make them look better.
    They are off by a factor of 4.[1]
    Subsequently, USA.gov doesn't even get the trend correct.
    The numbers are complete crap and IT'S PURPOSEFUL.

    [1] 1 thing that is NOT covered by my links is that the 2,400,000 people in USA's prison system aren't counted as unemployed.
    In addition, 1 person who has 2 PART-TIME jobs is counted as 2 people with full-time employment.
    (That -is- covered in my links.)

    -- gewg_