…us msm, tpping the lie? fantastic!…
Posted: 2014-10-18 Filed under: Economics, Imperialism, Media Spin, Politics, Trade, Aid and Development | Tags: Dean Baker, naked capitalism, rt, teleSUR, TPP, Yves Smith Comments Off on …us msm, tpping the lie? fantastic!……or, tripped up with its tpp lie?…
Where do we start? Why not with the US ‘newspaper of record’, of fame that includes from its pantheon the likes of Judith Miller, Michael R Gordon, John F Burns, and WMD.
There is that Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal being negotiated in secret. Not so bad, if one were not aware of the pervasive influence of US corporations in the process. Yet with this secrecy, back in November 2013 the NYT would give its still many readers, A Pacific Trade Deal. Red flags would go up on this,
A good agreement would lower duties and trade barriers on most products and services, strengthen labor and environmental protections, limit the ability of governments to tilt the playing field in favor of state-owned firms and balance the interests of consumers and creators of intellectual property. Such a deal will not only help individual countries but set an example for global trade talks.
Utter rubbish. Aside the fact that this proposed deal has very little to do with trade, and for its well-established obviousness, there was that awkward detail observed by the far less read EFF, How Can the New York Times Endorse an Agreement the Public Can’t Read? Read the rest of this entry »
…tpp, ttip, torpor, and wikileaks…
Posted: 2014-01-17 Filed under: Democracy, Economics, Media, Media Spin, Trade, Aid and Development | Tags: corporatocracy, environment, TPP, TTIP, WikiLeaks Comments Off on …tpp, ttip, torpor, and wikileaks……the obvious remains, or should remain, obvious. the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or the Trans-atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation. Multi-National Corporation (MNC), that is. And, as the immortal Alfred E. Neuman would say, ‘What, me worry?’…
And yes, Dean Baker over at beat the press has been ever diligently rebutting ‘curious’ editorials and reports from the corporate US MSM, and doing so with the same frequency that the drivel is trundled out as ‘truth’ to much of a populace seemingly lost in an unshakeable torpor. Similar efforts at informing the public, not just of the US, have been ongoing at other blogs such as common dreams, naked capitalism and firedoglake The UK newspaper, the Independent did look at the thing, with activists seeing advantages only to the MNCs. [The disadvantage of the other non-Five-Eyes group is that the members of the Five Eyes Benevolent Society already have access to their corporate and other information, naïvely thought to be confidential.]…
Then along comes WikiLeaks with its latest revelation, adding to its earlier leak of the two draft chapters on Intellectual Property (IP) rights of the TPP. This time the chapter is on the environment, and the pervasiveness of corporate influence and its disregard for the environment is made abundantly clear. Read the rest of this entry »
…’free’ trade, ‘full’ employment…only wapo…
Posted: 2014-01-12 Filed under: Democracy, Economics, Media, Media Spin, Trade, Aid and Development | Tags: Dean Baker, DS Wright, TPP, TTIP, WaPo, Yves Smith Comments Off on …’free’ trade, ‘full’ employment…only wapo……the perils of tardiness – the ever vigilant and acerbic Dean Baker has just done his bit…
Really, now. We would think that with all the analysis done on the thing and voluminous comments, with the leak from WikiLeaks on couple chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we would think prudence, that caution would prevail before even daring putting ink to the paper, digits to the keyboard. But no. That thing about ‘fools rush in’. And that, even after the NYT editorial on the TPP that even the casually attentive econ. 101 would have said, ‘Ehn?’. Yes, WaPo is at it again.
This time WaPo uses the very recent dismal US economic news on unemployment as its launchpad into lunacy or to bamboozle a totally disengaged readership – support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Most on the planet who are informed by other than US cable news and its other corporate MSM would have long known that things were already not so hot, since they would have read Dean Baker, Joe Stiglitz and Yves Smith among many other luminaries – not that lesser luminaries had not weighed in, but that thing about ‘commanding presence’, ‘authority’. So where do we begin? Read the rest of this entry »
……trans-pacific partnership?…trust us…
Posted: 2013-10-29 Filed under: Economics, Latin America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Trade, Aid and Development | Tags: copyrights, income inequality, Latin America, multi-national corporations, patents, resource capture, trans-national corporations, US Comments Off on ……trans-pacific partnership?…trust us……Tomorrow’s news from some time ago…
As the world revolves, the deal making continues. The US corporate politicians and the corporate MSM continue to spin tales of wondrous benefits that will accrue to the contentedly distracted, as voices of warning are ignored. After the fait accompli, there will be the inevitable, ‘Whocoodanode?’
Which raises the question, what percent of the population of the affected countries has ever heard of some ‘trans-pacific partnership’ (TPP)? And the word to the wise is the word, ‘partnership’, which should raise the alarm regarding principal beneficiary. One clue is the famous trans-national corporation (TNC), also known as multi-national corporation (MNC). And the many to be again disadvantaged may have forgotten the infamous entreaty, ‘Trust us.’ Partnership, you say? Of course, not to isolate and disadvantage China?
A sample of fairly non-technical postings from the blogs that should put things into stark context – even for those in the Atlantic, with the likely TTIP (and Britain as predicable proxy for the US) or the Caribbean and Latin America, saved from the FTAA. The titles are self-explanatory.
From the fair blog, To NPR, TPP Is a Poker Game With a Pot Full of Jobs
Two postings from cepr:
“Trans-Pacific Partnership” is Washington Speak for Corruption and Theft
What Do Latin American Countries Stand to Gain from the TPP?
From angry bear, TPP, Fast track, secret to you
And from firedoglake, The Trans-Pacific Partnership “Legislative Frankenstein from Hell” (Video)
Combine any of these with the continuing disclosures on US violation of personal privacy, its rampant economic, institutional, political espionage against its intended partners and others, and the more defined and accurate picture should start to emerge. Again, no mention of China. Cui bono?
Again, we ask, ‘Partnership?’…
