Debate Forum - Week 10 - Trade Agreements
Debate partially sponsored by @FullTimeGeek
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Week 10 debate topic - Trade Agreements
When Trump came into office last year, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement was in jeopardy. But it seems that a number of countries have revived the agreement and are continuing their work to put it into place. Over the years there have been a number of trade agreements signed, the most notable is NAFTA. Even it is going through an overhaul. But these agreements are negotiated in secret and the people are rarely informed about what they are all about. Many have speculated that they are the foundation for a take over of the corporate empires in their effort to take away state sovereignty.
This weeks Debate Forum question: What do you think is the real intent behind the large trade agreements and will they serve the people, the state or the multi-national corporations?
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Past debates
Week 9 - Legitimacy of Government - won by @dubem-eu
Week 8 - Guaranteed Income - won by @salmanbukhari54
Week 7 - Sectarianism & Dogma - won by @shai-hulud
Week 6 - Spirit vs Letter of the law - won by @shai-hulud
Week 5 - Indigenous Reconciliation - won by @dubem-eu
Week 4 - Net Neutrality - won by @skycae
Week 3 - Geoengineering - won by @cheneats
Week 2 - Government sponsored vaccination programs - won by @cheneats
Week 1 - Fixing government vs self-governance - won by @yulem
I think the real intent behind the large trade agreements is really to create an organized framework to regulate exchange of goods and services among member countries. However, the next question now becomes who really benefit from these trade agreements. The government surely benefits from these trade agreements but not the state as a whole. With these trade agreements, it is easier for the government to regulate trade between member countries and create industry-specific policies as well as protect the government's interest. These trade agreements can also be used by the government to assert to the people that they are doing their jobs in the government and even make unrealistic propaganda to instill to the people's minds that the government is doing everything in its power to establish a balanced economy that can be beneficial to all. Surely, multi-national corporations (MNCs) also benefit from these trade agreements because they can freely move among boundaries and exploit resources that would best serve their interests. Not to mention MNCs always have a voice in the government so their interests are always considered in this kind of agreements that governments may enter into.
Hence, my take is trade agreements are not made to actually serve the people. They are just imperfect institutions created by the government that may or may not serve the people. They may serve the people in some instances in a way that goods or services coming from member countries with a competitive prices may become accessible. However, these trade agreements can become harmful institutions that may pave the way for unfair exploits of resources that may lead to more disastrous results to the people. So long as the government create policies with arbitrary minds and with interests other than thinking of the effects that it may create to its people and with interests of member countries warring against each other lead by not so brilliant and insincere leaders, these trade agreements will never uphold and serve majority of the people's interest.
Thank you for this contest @wwf, I'm so loving it. :)
Beautiful & well versed answer. I do agree with you on this phase specifically as you mentioned these agreements are helpful for the governments than members of the countries @ailenepm
Nice response. I'm surprised that nobody picked up on this yet. If the point of free trade agreements is to remove barriers to trade, where did the barriers come from to begin with? Our governments. So why would we enter into even more and more complex agreements when the solution is as simple as getting the governments out of the way? What are your thoughts on that?
Definitely, the real intent of free trade is not to remove the barriers to trade because so long as the government is there there will always be barriers like the tariff, trade quota, import license and the likes. Indeed the question is why not just remove the governments out of the way rather than create complex agreements. I think government just cannot afford to do that because it is from these barriers that they gain a lot. Removing trade barriers can actually have more negative effects to richer countries than the poorer ones and I really believe that trade agreements also reflect power struggle among member countries where the richer ones always win. Trade agreements is more of like business deals among governments and no government would want to abandon a hold on those businesses just yet and I cannot think of any single entity that can oust government from interfering with trade except the people. However, the people of different countries have varied interests as well some want a free movement of goods while some want to protect the local goods so it is really impossible to oust the government from interfering with trade. But, I really believe that in a real free trade, most people can actually benefit from it. I do not believe that free trade can lead to concerns on dumping of goods to one country, supply and demand can actually correct such concerns.
Thank you for coming up with a mind-boggling follow up question. :)
I suspect that the corporations are actually holding the governments hostage as they have their own representatives in key positions of power now. As such, that allows the corporations to start dictating policy and they are forcing governments to put these agreements into place. Governments were looking after the best interests of the people (questionable) but now that has been usurped by greed, power and corruption. Treason would be a good term to use. I think that the governments could find themselves being phased out and powerless by the time this is over. In the end, the people are still confronted with the reality of this situation and again, it is only the people that can do anything about it.
You are welcome about the mind-boggling follow up question. :) lol. I love being a moderator for these debates. hehehe
Whatever the intent of these trade agreements are we should always bear in mind the law of unintended consequences. Whether the intended outcomes were (good or bad) there will always be unintended consequences that cant be foreseen that will hurt somone.
Guaranteed consequence of trade negotiations:
Increased bureaucracy with every tariff.
Decreased bureaucracy with free trade.
Current trade negotiations clearly favor those who are running large business, militaries and governments.
When I see or hear the word whatever I enjoy echoing it back so that the concept of indifference that feeds the word can be approached to resolve the context it was presented in. Surely the intent behind these agreements isn't something to be lightly brushed off, even if it's construed to mean that somehow this might backfire on the actors, because their actions have the extent of touching the most isolated of places from the top of towers and depths of bunkers which are sitting 99.99% unoccupied 100% of the time with the effortless single stroke of a pen or wave of a hand by the same players that have the potential of either spreading death, destruction, indifference and utmost selfishness through deceit/illusion and outright obvious secrecy and collusion burrowing into the heart of people all over this world cynicism instead of skepticism and criticism or these globally pivotal actors could obviously be building and creating something that is revolutionary instead of the same old scheme that is woven into the theme of any sociopolitical discussion: Exploitation of the Poor, Slavery, IOU Notes, Experimentation on the public, Suppression of technology, Censorship, all the way to outright sanctions and war, which they have a clear history of and in so many ways all this crapping on the planet with the cheer and applaud of the upper and middle class who wear blinders to the intent of retarding technology or the function of money, schemes that are literally centuries old and they are hypnotized by the dreams sold by these same players who lift a giant whatever to the poor, because what all these gatherings have repeatedly exemplified is how the context of environmental harmony and sustainability which such agreements clearly need to be presented and approached from, is brushed aside for the focus of "material" benefit of a small minority, and the complete control of the extremely few actors and their beneficiaries all under this willful ignorance of the upper and middle class, and with the of obvious disinterest in propagating harmony with nature the foreseeable consequences compound only to make the insult of the intent of this scheme as thorough as it could be and the consequences would be measured in bodies.
There is no more powerful realm in the world than the realm of Perception/Presentation and in today's world it's under the context of Economy, and if you see it then this is simply a war that has been waged for before time so to speak, more than everything today the resistance is build up, and the power has in fact been grasped by the same hands for millennia even though the perception has changed with prejudices. Class warfare today is a form of racism that is also lightly brushed aside and few stomach to even consider it while even fewer digest it, yet throughout time this has been evidenced from the priests immunity, then the politicians and rule makers, to the bankers immunity and into the rich people's immunity and it's as if a very subtle perceptive infection creeps into the minds of those that see the destitute and poor as to blame for their own situation in a denial of the reality of this obvious war, ultimately the war being so subtle to them that it simply cannot be considered as an intentional assault but an unintended consequence, yet the way things are set up is not by accident, they are all by agreement and consent regardless of how unforeseen consequences might be, and they are allowed even if they appear unaccepted to the public at large, what is even more appalling is that after that matures and becomes an apologetic perspective for the utter shit that the world is in, it seeps out of through the very ones that could manifest exponential change because as Leonard Cohen says, Everybody Knows.
It is glaringly obvious in this situation, the fact that this is done behind closed doors under the label of Agreement is either a contemplation of how to fleece someone else, or they are throwing us a surprise party or planing to give us an intervention for being so lazy and not getting a job, but it's not by accident or chance that we've been pushing rubber and burning oil for over 100 years while our mythological ancestors around the world are of flying spaceships and lazers, and the more ancient the more incredible, with dna knowledge by the Sumerians and some quite remarkable geometric shapes which we are still in awe of and unexplained in many different aspects by the Nile, and there's clearly unintended consequences for the 50 Miles of shelves that are locked in a vault under the vatican by the mighty king of commerce who's responsible for over 1 billion subscribers and holds title of benefactor of the spaceship, and they are there to keep us safe from all that corrupted ancient myth.
I don't doubt that everything can backfire and not everything goes to plan, but if we ignore the obvious intent of this agreement we might as well say whatever to half of the debate, because there's a clear conflict of interest between the public and the secret and this manifests as an internal conflict, and saying whatever to the intent is basically saying whatever to an internal conflict.
This is so true that current situation is ultimately giving favor to large business corporations and military.However, it is also true that we human beings also getting benefits from the trading ideas may be in a very small ratio as compared to the large corporations my friend @tony10
Sorry for being late to the party, Ok TPP lots of questions, lots of areas to cover – but will keep this simple and on topic - the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement is discussed in secret but we know roughly what the 6,000 pages of TPP covers, so we can take an educated guess that it will be bad for the people. What we do know is that it will bind as many countries as possible to the United States as trade partners and give greater power to the government in their effort to take away our sovereignty.
i don’t know that much about the TPP to be honest, but here are a few areas that i think are affected by the TPP and what i believe will be detrimental to our way of life if it goes ahead.
1) At no point does the agreement address the problem with imbalance of currencies. For example, the cost of living in Vietnam is less than ½ of what it is in America/Australia. Why should a business pay you or me $30 an hour when they can pay someone in Vietnam $30 a week? Millions of jobs would be lost overseas.
2) It would increase the Copyright laws on the internet. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA, this is an American statute law that has infringed on fair use and free speech on the internet. You can see the affect of this with “YouTube”, with users being flagged for stupid copyright violations because their kids are dancing to a crappy pop song, and investigative journalists being censored based on the new “fake news” tag from the “fake news”. What does this mean? It means that the censorship that we see with copyright law in America will not only get worse, it will be forced upon other countries.
3) Fracking, we’ve all seen the “you-tube” videos where people can set fire to their tap water - The TPP would require the Department of Energy to automatically approve all exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to all TPP countries—especially Japan, which is the world’s largest LNG importer and user. This means lots more fracking, more air and water pollution, more negative climate emissions and further extending our dependence on fossil fuels—when we should be keeping those fuels in the ground where they belong and we should be pushing for clean energy.
4) They are trying to remove the ingredients from packaging. A country such as America will then be able to import say “chicken” Genetically modified, bleached and injected with water to increase weight, full of growth hormones and steroids etc and none of this will be displayed on the packaging. This will affect the poor that can only afford cheap food – and may affect people with allergies further promoting the drug industry.
5) And finally what i believe is the most important of all are the changes in law, it will give businesses from statute based counties the power to override the common law. – goodbye free speech and sovereignty - one step closer to a dictatorship.
Buckle up and hold on tight – it’s going to be a bumpy ride if this thing gets passed.
The first thing that pops up when one looks into Scams, Schemes and such is the word Speculate and this "agreement" being done in secret cannot possibly be with the intent of benefiting "The People". I mean lets put this in terms of cars. Your car breaks down and you need it fixed only now the mechanic won't tell you what's wrong or what needs fixing. Why would you trust secrecy in this respect and why should anyone trust the need for secrecy over these agreements. Another important factor is that the parties that are supposed to benefit would naturally be present and informed, and since "The People" aren't present or informed the agreement doesn't concern them in the aspect of actually being a party of interest to the agreement, so in other words The People have nothing to agree to as they aren't invited to the agreement and by their exclusion it would be obvious that either The People have no interest in these agreements or their presence would render the agreements moot. What I think is happening is that, the "state" which is clearly a Franchise of the Federal, which is a Corporation, mostly foreign to the "state" are gathering to decide more or less how to skin the people. Trust is a great part of this because without it an agreement doesn't mean much of anything and since The People have been excluded it would be quite reasonable to conclude that these agreements posit the people as untrustworthy to actually agree, or that The People won't agree, circling back to this being another Scheme. In closing, what difference is between the "state" (I love that you felt you had to Air Quote that (; ) and "multi-national" corporation when in fact they are both charted corporations ran and funded by the same people, in effect the "state" Trustees are nothing more than the same old gang that signs the loans and funds and deals that "multi-national" corporations are and in a spectacle of Appearances they create the illusion/appearance of different entities in effort to gain the Trust of The People who ultimately are rightfully excluded from such agreements exactly how a mark is excluded from the details of how a con is ran.
Actually Economy is the most fundamental institution of the society to run it in a functional way with honest intention. But in all these years our value system shattered and we become more greedy so this happened. Basically you're saying the secret agreements are straight away not at all beneficial for the masses, yes i do agree partially with your opinion my friend. Great Point indeed
I think you're mistaking Commerce for Economy. Yes in a way Economy is A fundamental institution of most societies if we were to forget that Religion trumps it in almost every society.
What has happened is that Commerce has always been what it is now, or MIGHT=RIGHT, with the great empire of the king POPE (who is king of commerce) "brokering" deals and agreements with natives everywhere which were merely the foot in the door to pillage and murder or enslave them. Commerce from the good ol' Romans who's word for taxes comes directly from their word for Tribes or Tribune/Tribute.
If it was for the benefit of the masses one would think that they were actually invited and welcomed in the discussions, like an agreement would work, and since you cannot agree to things that you're not aware of and we have no problem discerning exactly who the parties to the agreement are then the beneficiaries to the agreement are the ones present and I conclude that by this deceit/secrecy we are the sheep at the dinner table of wolves.
Exactly, we as a sheep on wolf's table is actually helping to prepare the food of wolfs, yes i loved your point. It means sheep has no way to go instead of wolfs's belly .. ;)
Ultimately, this all commerce and system of trade is beneficial for the wolfs
(Corporations/Governments)
First of all a BIG CONGRATULATIONS to @dubem-eu & @daystarseu for great contribution to last week debate, Weldon guys <3
To me there are two intentions behind large trade agreements among two different nations. Actually the countries have to follow the so called international laws to minimize the hatred to exchange different things with each other on macro level. This thing also build a good relationship among the trading countries, yes trading agreements benefits the governments as a whole.
Lets have another look upon this; trading ideas and benefits also help one country to achieve it's violent approach against any country.
For example if the superpower of the world wants to attack any third world country but can't approach directly to that country then, having a greedy trade agreement with neighboring country of the target country would help the superpower of the world to achieve it's aim. So, overall it is helpful to countries.
P.S: In many aspects governments are controlled by the large corporations all over the world, so indirectly trading ideas help these corporations.
Trade agreements should not be 1000 pages long like the TTP that nobody bothers to read. If nobody bothers to read then how could the public be informed about the terms of the agreement. Contracts should be made simple, concise, and easy to understand and follow by the users and include the specific terms agreed upon by the parties involved. Should be simple and concise to allow both government officials and the public to understand. Though it would be the lawyers reviewing the agreement, I think it is safe to say that lawyers might not review the whole 1000-page agreement several times, especially the expectation is that the agreement is a boiler template and would be revised accordingly depending on the relevant, specific terms of the negotiation. China is a different culture altogether, they fine-combed the TTP to ensure nobody takes and can take advantage of them. That is the mindset of Chinese government because they make deals to win.
In terms of NAFTA, has anybody bothered to read the agreement in its totality. I would hazard a guess of “no”. If so, how do the people negotiating the agreement truly understand the agreement completely in its intended context, as well as the advantages and disadvantages to each party. When these agreements are done behind closed doors, is it the intention of the government to keep the public in the dark? The agreements are also long and complicated so the public won’t have the time and won’t bother to read them in whole. That is a disservice to the public. Long and complicated agreements are intentional to deter public interest and inhibit transparency.
The intent is to increase the size of the bureaucracy and build dependence on the state. This serves the financiers and money changers. We need real free trade with no government interference, tarrifs etc. Let your economies free markets fend for themselves on a global scale, only then does the consumer win.
I completely agree with you on this. I do have one problem that I cant get my head around though, I was wondering if you have a theory...
Problem:Predatory business practise
Example:
One country goes completely free trade (Lets use UK as free trade country )
Second country uses excessive subsidisation(Let use france in this example)
Step1 :France starts massively subsidising the export of tyres to the free trading UK. This will cause the share prices of tyre manufacturing companies in the UK to fall/go banrkrupt
Step 2: France buys unprofitable tyre companies at bargain prices in Uk.
Step 3: Remove Subsidies.
I am all for free trade but there needs to be some way of resisting this kind of unfair trade
Inflation in France is the consequence. Higher costs of living when your livelyhood is extorted from your neighbor.
This is indeed a problem and I see the root cause being the idea that countries using tax payer money to do the subsidizing. The rich have been doing this for years as well. I've read of many bankers who manipulate an economy just by the decision on who get's loans or not. They can control the economy completely and dictate which industries flourish and which ones die. That is how they squeezed out alternative health care practices and made the pharmaceutical industry the power house it is today. They look for industries that create profits, dependencies, etc.
This will be a problem as long as centralized economies exist. Banks, governments and other centralized institutions can control the direction that industries take and engage in predatory business practices like what you mentioned above.
However, when we decentralize the work and trade that we engage in with one another, their power and influence is watered down considerably. Therefore I believe the risks would also diminish. Sure the richer people can still manipulate, but not to the degree they do now. They also risk ruining their reputation which could have detrimental impacts on their own wealth.
We are taking away that centralized method of control and manipulation. We see it here a little bit, but for the most part, we don't witness that type of manipulation. Why? Because the numbers are so large now, that no one individual can corner or manipulate the market.
Just my two cents worth. :)
the basic intent behind trade agreements should be to remove trade barriers b/w member countries and it also be to help and protect local markets and industries. i think the government benefits from these trade agreements and local industries too because they can access the international markets through TA. And it may helps to remove the monopoly in the both countries on pacific products and the MNCs will get easily access thats leads to maximize their sales and profits.
thanks for this amazing platform for free discussion . i really like it.
I think the basic intent is to remove trade barriers, but governments have put up those barriers to begin with. So why rely on governments doing the right thing in secret when they were the cause of this problem all along? Would the simple solution be to start removing the governments?
Thank you for participating. I'm glad you are enjoying this platform for discussion. Peace to you.
Basically trade agreements are made to secure participating countries' share of exports and imports within agreed ones. The larger intent of and trade agreement is to give masses of the particular countries an economical and rewarding trade abroad.
Some of the trade agreements are made to gain political influence in other regions as well. Trans Pacific Partnership (TTP) is created largely to consolidate American hegemony over the Pecific Ocean and surrounding ountries, and to contain China's increasing influence over ASEAN.
Sounds about right. What if the trade agreements are a prelude to a corporate take over of the world. If all the regional trade agreements were put into place, then suddenly corporations would control what governments can or cannot do. With that said, suddenly countries lose their sovereignty, the people lose their sovereignty and the corporate empires rule the world. When all is said and done, we could end up with 10 trade zones, with 10 kings running each zone and another prophesy being fulfilled. We are not there yet, but it is possible that over time, they could dissolve the governmental structures too. Any thoughts on what this would play out as if these agreements get signed?
Large trade agreements benefit only large corporations. It seems to me that behind any power, deputy, and in general the ruling elite are oligarchs who own large corporations. Oligarchs through corruption, through the authorities create favorable conditions for the work of their corporations.
As an example, I can bring an agreement between the EU and Ukraine (the country where I live). If you read this agreement and understand what is in this document between the lines, you can understand the following. If you want to receive a tranche from the IMF, then you have to cut down your forests and sell roundwood at low prices. At the same time, exports to the EU countries are declining, and imports are rising. To whom is it profitable? Naturally, corporations that sell some goods, or something produced with the help of our resources
Sounds about right to me. So what do you think the solution is then. It appears you feel that it is nothing more than a resource grab so that their corporate empires can gain access to cheep inputs in order to reduce costs and maximize profits and control. So how do we deal with this corporate take over then?
here I see two solutions to the problem. 1) gather like-minded people and block the export of resources from the country. but here you can face the fact that the authorities will suppress this uprising. 2) the second option is again to collect like-minder and on their own lands or to extract or grow resources for living. but at the same time you need to somehow separate from the state, so that it does not have an effect on our actions.