Barack Obama: Company Man

[brentspeak]

Obama and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Not only is Obama working to make it more expensive than ever to purchase needed medication, but he wants to prevent foreign governments from heading off their own Wall-Street-induced banking crises.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/08/tpp-trade-agreement_n_4409211.html

Obama Faces Backlash Over New Corporate Powers In Secret Trade Deal

New standards concerning access to key medicines appear to be equally problematic for many nations. The Obama administration is insisting on mandating new intellectual property rules in the treaty that would grant pharmaceutical companies long-term monopolies on new medications. As a result, companies can charge high prices without regard to competition from generic providers. The result, public health experts have warned, would be higher prices around the world, and lack of access to life-saving drugs in poor countries. Nearly every intellectual property issue in the November chart is opposed by a broad majority of the 12 nations. The December memo describes 119 "outstanding issues" that remain unresolved between the nations on intellectual property matters. The deal would obligate nations to develop many standards similar to those in the United States, where domestic prescription drug prices are much higher than costs in other nations.

Also according to the December memo, the U.S. has reintroduced a proposal that would hamper government health services from negotiating lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. The proposal appears to have been universally rejected earlier in the talks, according to the memo.

Australia and New Zealand have medical boards that allow the government to reject expensive new drugs for the public health system, or negotiate lower prices with drug companies that own patents on them. If a new drug does not offer sufficient benefits over existing generic drugs, the boards can reject spending taxpayer money on the new medicines. They can also refuse to pay high prices for new drugs. The Obama administration has been pushing to ban these activities by national boards, which would lock in big profits for U.S. drug companies. Obamacare sought to mimic the behavior of these boards to lower domestic health care costs by granting new flexibilities to U.S. state agencies for determining drug prices.

The U.S. is also facing major resistance on bank regulation standards. The Obama administration is seeking to curtail the use of "capital controls" by foreign governments. These can include an extremely broad variety of financial tools, from restricting lending in overheated markets to denying mass international outflows of currency during a financial panic. The loss of these tools would dramatically limit the ability of governments to prevent and stem banking crises.

[ProSense]

1. What we really need is

Barack Obama: Angry Black Man

Jennifer Rubin: Obama's Plan For Minority Boys As Bad As Arizona Anti-Gay Bill
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rubin-obama-s-plan-for-minority-boys-as-wrong-as-arizona-anti-gay-bill

Yeah, that Jennifer Rubin: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024554928#post48

[Enrique]

3. i sometimes think the two sides are working together

diverting attention from the important issues to fake issues, in this case from the TPP to whatever racial nonsense Jennifer Rubin is writing about.

[ProSense]

6. Me too.

It's like the TPP debate means nothing else matters. The reality of increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits or getting Republican Governors to expand Medicaid don't matters because the TPP.

I did see one post on unemployment benefits.

Even the push to end/regulate fracking deserves more urgency than the TPP. I understand the pros and cons in the TPP debate, but as some of the posts on the topic prove, it's being used to attempt to destroy the President's credibility. There isn't even a real push to get Congress to press for more transparency or halt fast track. Congress will end up doing what it wants to, even if it is fact track, and those who spent all every effort using the debate to attack the President's character, will be happy to be able to say I told you so. Of course, there is a chance that the hyperbole and speculation about the details of the agreement are wrong. If that happens, expect everyone involved to be called liars.

Krugman: No Big Deal
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024579421

[msanthrope]

9. Well...one ratfucker just bought it.....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=profile&uid=282755&sub=trans


To the jury...the term ratfucker is an historical one from the Nixon era, meaning fake "Left" views put forth by RW operatives. It is not homophobic, racist, or sexist.

[G_j]

10. so you are calling them a

RW operative?

[ProSense]

11. "Republicans love me"

[woo me with science]

2. From "Ring of Fire Radio" (Kennedy, Papantonio, Seder...NOT right wingers)

https://www.ringoffireradio.com/2014/01/obama-fraud-tpp/

Is Obama A Fraud?? TPP
Posted on January 3, 2014 by Joshua De Leon •

During his presidential run in 2008, Barack Obama made himself appear as a populist candidate; one who would act in the very best interests of the average American. Obama promised stricter Wall Street regulation and consumer protection. He promised protection for whistleblowers. He promised vast job creation and a stronger middle class. He promised change.

However, nothing has much changed and the provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “trade deal” reveal Obama as more of a job-killing, corporate marionette. We are now forced to ask the question: Has Obama lost control or has he been defrauding the American public from day one?

The TPP trade deal is a “corporate trojan horse” with corporate-friendly provisions that even overshadow those of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA was passed 20 years ago during the Clinton Administration and was meant to lubricate foreign trade with lowered tariffs and eased foreign trade barriers. NAFTA’s true effect was that it limited corporate regulation and gave incentives to corporations that outsourced American work to low-wage countries. In the process, it destroyed American manufacturing.

Should there be any regulation that companies felt would interfere with profits, they could challenge the regulation before trade tribunals and demand government compensation over such regulation. NAFTA eventually killed millions of American jobs, created a $181 billion trade deficit with Mexico and Canada, and resulted in over $360 million of government compensation to corporations over policy disputes, policies designed for public interest. The TPP proves to have more devastating implications.

I think the notion that circling wagons is the most important part of being a Democrat has been crumbling steadily as we have been sold out again and again and again.

We are hearing an increasing chorus of good Democratic voices pointing out the corruption within our own party and realizing that defeating Republicans is no longer the main or only problem. The focus needs to be on the corporate money-diseased system rather than individual politicians, though, because the system ensures that one corrupt politician will merely be followed by another.

[Lasher]

5. Somebody can't alert again for 24 hours.

The Jury voted 0-6 to LEAVE IT.

[mopinko]

7. oh for the good old days.

sigh

[woo me with science]

8. It's pro-Democratic Party to care about corruption in the party.

and in the system as a whole.

It's refreshing and a GOOD thing that people are finally confronting the fact that we have a real problem. Nothing gets fixed until a problem is acknowledged.

Good jury. Thanks for letting me know.

[LuvNewcastle]

4. We shouldn't have to depend on leaked memos to get info about this deal.

It's outrageous that members of Congress can't talk publicly about it and the people can't discuss the pros and cons of the different proposals. From the info we have so far, I haven't seen anything good about this deal. If the President wants us to see some good points about the TPP, he needs to release what they've agreed to so far. I see no reason why any of this should be kept secret. Our government has too much secrecy already.

[Demo_Chris]

12. For me, it has reached the point that if Obama is proposing something concrete...

I can safely assume it will be a freaking disaster for the American people. He's not Bush, not yet, but mostly because he doesn't snear at us. He laughs at us instead.