General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Context and the Assange case. [View all]AikidoSoul
(2,150 posts)Wikileaks released TISA docs that nix public ownership of banks and open doors for massive privitization schemes all over the world.
I found one of these items in a post by WillyT in a June 2015 entry entitled: "In Case You Missed This... 'Fast-Track Hands The Money Monopoly To Private Banks Permanently'" which linked to a WikiLeaks story here:
http://ellenbrown.com/2015/06/11/fast-tracking-tisa-stealth-block-to-monetary-reform/
SNIP, SNIP
TiSA Exposed
On June 3, 2015, WikiLeaks released 17 key documents related to TiSA, which is considered perhaps the most important of the three deals being negotiated for fast track trade authority. The documents were supposed to remain classified for five years after being signed, displaying a level of secrecy that outstrips even the TPPs four-year classification.
TiSA involves 51 countries, including every advanced economy except the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The deal would liberalize global trade in services covering close to 80% of the US economy, including financial services, healthcare, education, engineering, telecommunications, and many more. It would restrict how governments can manage their public laws, and it could dismantle and privatize state-owned enterprises, turning those services over to the private sector.
Recall the secret plan devised by Wall Street and U.S. Treasury officials in the 1990s to open banking to the lucrative derivatives business. To pull this off required the relaxation of banking regulations not just in the US but globally, so that money would not flee to nations with safer banking laws. The vehicle used was the Financial Services Agreement concluded under the auspices of the World Trade Organizations General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The plan worked, and most countries were roped into this liberalization of their banking rules. The upshot was that the 2008 credit crisis took down not just the US economy but economies globally.
TiSA picks up where the Financial Services Agreement left off, opening yet more doors for private banks and other commercial service industries, and slamming doors on governments that might consider opening their private banking sectors to public ownership.
SNIP
Here's the link to information about the 16 WikiLeaks TISA documents:
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/121967/whats-really-going-trade-services-agreement
SNIP
"Though member parties insist that the agreement would simply stop discrimination against foreign service providers, the text shows that TiSA would restrict how governments can manage their public laws through an effective regulatory cap. It could also dismantle and privatize state-owned enterprises, and turn those services over to the private sector. You begin to sound like the guy hanging out in front of the local food co-op passing around leaflets about One World Government when you talk about TiSA, but it really would clear the way for further corporate domination over sovereign countries and their citizens."
SNIP
Corporations would get to comment on any new regulatory attempts, and enforce this regulatory straitjacket through a dispute mechanism similar to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) process in other trade agreements, where they could win money equal to expected future profits lost through violations of the regulatory cap.
For an example of how this would work, lets look at financial services. It too has a standstill clause, which given the unpredictability of future crises could leave governments helpless to stop a new and dangerous financial innovation. In fact, Switzerland has proposed that all TiSA countries must allow any new financial service to enter their market. So-called prudential regulations to protect investors or depositors are theoretically allowed, but they must not act contrary to TiSA rules, rendering them somewhat irrelevant.
Most controversially, all financial services suppliers could transfer individual client data out of a TiSA country for processing, regardless of national privacy laws. This free flow of data across borders is true for the e-commerce annex as well; it breaks with thousands of years of precedent on locally kept business records, and has privacy advocates alarmed.
Theres no question that these provisions reinforce Senator Elizabeth Warrens contention that a trade deal could undermine financial regulations like the Dodd-Frank Act. The Swiss proposal on allowances for financial services could invalidate derivatives rules, for example. And harmonizing regulations between the U.S. and EU would involve some alteration, as the EU rules are less stringent.
SNIP