Stiglitz: TPP Is an Anti-Democratic Law For the Benefit of Corporations, Not a Trade Agreement

When you have corporations having a very short-sighted view, paying their CEOs such outrageous monies with less money spent on investment, of course you’re not going to make long-term investments that are going to result in long-term economic growth.

And at the same time, there’s going to be less money to pay for ordinary workers. And paying that low wages to ordinary workers, not giving them security, not giving them paid, you know, family leave, all that results in a less productive labor force.

So what we’ve done is we’ve actually undermined investments in people, investments in the corporation, all for the sake of increasing the income of the people at the very top. So there’s a really close link here between the growing inequality in our society and the weak economic performance.”

Joseph Stiglitz

Stiglitz tends to excuse Obama at some point and blames the Republicans, I think he is being naive at best, wrong-headedly kind perhaps to one of the worst betrayals of a public mandate for reform in American history.

Obama is, at the end of the day, a corporate brand, a clever vehicle to attract and divert reform-hungry Americans who are tired of being misused and lied to.  He has betrayed his supporters at every key turn and on every major political and social issue from financial reform to healthcare.

Deep State at Home and Abroad: Mike Lofgren and David Talbot

"Behind the ostensible Government sits enthroned an invisible Government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible Government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."

Theodore Roosevelt, The Progressive Platform


"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests...

Any individual who is able to raise enough money to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Hence, the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress."

Gore Vidal, The Decline and Fall of the American Empire, 1992


"Last year, pressed by progressive donors at a dinner party to act more like the progressive they thought he was, Obama responded sharply, 'Don’t you remember what happened to Dr. King?'”

Ray McGovern, Doubting Obama's Resolve To Do Right


"The TPP, along with the WTO and NAFTA, is the most brazen corporate power grab in American history. It allows corporations to bypass our three branches of government to impose enforceable sanctions by secret tribunals.

These tribunals can declare our labor, consumer and environmental protections unlawful, non-tariff barriers subject to fines for noncompliance. The TPP establishes a transnational, autocratic system of enforceable governance in defiance of our domestic laws."

Ralph Nader


"Citizens in many countries wonder how certain government policies can persist in spite of widespread popular opposition or clear perceptions that they are harmful. This persistence is frequently attributed to a 'deep state.'

'The Establishment,' as it’s been called in the United States, where it evolved from the Washington-New York axis of national security officials and financial services executives. They are said to know what is 'best' for the country and to act accordingly, no matter who sits in the White House."

Philip Giraldi, America's Establishment Has Embraced 'Deep States'

Debt, War and Empire By Other Means

This video below may help one to understand some of the seemingly obtuse demands from the Troika with regard to Greece.

The video is a bit dated, but the debt scheme it describes remains largely unchanged. The primary development has been the creation of an experiment called the European Union and the character of the targets.   One might also look to the wars of 'preventative intervention' and 'colour revolutions' that raise up puppet regimes for examples of more contemporary economic spoliation.

From largely small and Third World countries, the candidates for debt peonage have become the smaller amongst the developed Western countries, the most vulnerable on the periphery.  

And even the domestic populations of the monetary powers, the US, Germany, and the UK, are now feeling the sting of financialisation, debt imposition through crises, and austerity.   What used to only take place in South America and Africa has now taken place in Jefferson County Alabama.  Corrupt officials burden taxpayers with unsustainable amounts of debt for unproductive, grossly overpriced projects. 

It would be wrong in these instances to blame the whole country,  the whole government, or all corporations, except perhaps for sleepwalking, and sometimes willfully, towards the abyss.  For the most part a relatively small band of scheming and devious fellows abuse and corrupt every form of government and organization and law in order to achieve their private ambitions, often using various forms of intimidation and reward.  It is an old, old story.

And then there is the mass looting enabled by the most recent financial crisis and Bank bailouts.  If the people will not take on the chains of debt willingly, you impose them indirectly, while giving the funds to your cronies who use them against the very people who are bearing the burdens, while lecturing them on moral values and thrift.  It is an exceptionally diabolical con game.

The TPP and TTIP are integral initiatives in this effort of extending financial obligations, debt, and control.  You might ask yourself why the House Republicans, who have fought the current President at every turn, blocking nominees and repeatedly staging mock votes to denounce a healthcare plan that originated in their own think tank and was first implemented by their own presidential candidate, are suddenly championing that President's highest profile legislation, and against the opposition of his own party?  Where did that come from?

The next step, after Greece is subdued, will be to extend that model to other, larger countries.  And to redouble the austerity at home under cover of the next financial crisis by eliminating cash as a safe haven, and to begin the steady stream of digital 'bailing-in.'   They will not even have to ask, as if it mattered.

This is why these corporatists and statists hate gold and silver.  And why it is at the focal point of a currency war.  It provides a counterweight to their monetary power.  It speaks unpleasant truths. It is a safe haven and alternative, along with other attempts to supplant the IMF and the World Bank, for the rest of the world.

So when you say, the Philippines deserved it, Iceland deserved it, Ireland deserved it, Africa deserves it, Jefferson County deserved it, Detroit deserved it, and now Greece deserves it, just keep in mind that some day soon they will be saying that you deserve it, because you stood by and did nothing.

When they are done with all the others, for whom do you think they come next?   If you wish to see injustice stopped, if you wish to live up to the pledge of 'never again,' then you must stand for your fellows who are more vulnerable first.

The economic hitmen have honed their skills amongst the poor and relatively defenseless, and have been coming closer to home in search of new hunting grounds and fatter spoils.  There is nothing 'new' or 'modern' about this.  The only thing that changes are the names for it.

This is as old as Babylon, and evil as sin.  It is the power of darkness of the world, and of spiritual wickedness in high places.   The difference is that it is not happening in the past, or in a book, it is happening here and now.

"Economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain. As a result, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of the deified market, which becomes the only rule."

Francis I, Laudato Si

You may also find some information about the contemporary applications of these methods in The IMF's 'Tough Choices' On Greece by Jamie Galbraith which I highly recommend.

"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Agricola