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from the not-surrendering-to-corporations-for-now dept.
Common Dreams reports
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said [August 25] that the U.S. Senate will not vote on the 12-nation, corporate-friendly Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) this year, buoying progressive hopes that the trade deal will never come to fruition.
[...] McConnell told a Kentucky State Farm Bureau breakfast in Louisville that the agreement, "which has some serious flaws, will not be acted upon this year".
Common Dreams also reports
Germany's Vice Chancellor and Economic Minister said that the controversial Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) has "de facto failed", admitting that negotiations between the U.S. and E.U. have completely stalled.
"Negotiations with the U.S. have de facto failed because, of course, as Europeans, we couldn't allow ourselves to submit to American demands", Sigmar Gabriel told the German news station ZDF [1][2] in an interview that will air at 7pm German time [August 28], according to Der Spiegel. [1]
"Everything has stalled", Gabriel said.
[1] In German [2] Content behind scripts
Reported by BBC, in English.
In 14 rounds of talks, the two sides had not agreed on a single common chapter out of 27 being discussed, Mr Gabriel said. "In my opinion the negotiations with the United States have de facto failed, even though nobody is really admitting it," said Mr Gabriel.
He suggested Washington was angry about a deal the EU struck with Canada, because it contained elements the US does not want to see in the TTIP.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 29 2016, @09:27PM
One of the odd things about economics is that it's one of the few fields where what Econ 102 is all about is how everything you learned in Econ 101 is wrong.
As for why it's wrong: The real problem the economy is facing is that there isn't enough work to do for everyone to work enough to earn enough to make ends meet. And the only possible solution available to those people doing the work is to work harder, which means there's even more surplus labor. Theoretically, we could solve the problem by adjusting everyone's pay upwards and hours downwards, but no employer gains a competitive advantage by doing that, so none of them do. And because the employers are the ones with deep pockets and political clout, they can put the kibosh on any attempts for the government to push pay upwards and hours downwards. So the end result is that as technology improves, conditions for large masses of humanity get worse, not better.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.