Posts tagged ‘Pacific Rim’

June 16, 2013

The DC Folly Trolley – 06/16/13

TPP

TPP. Sounds like some new drug the kids are getting high on. But it’s not and what it is will be far more dangerous to their health. And yours.

The TPP, of course, stands for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and if you think you’ve been scammed by NAFTA, CAFTA, the World Trade Organization and the China Trade Agreement, wait until you get a load of this monster.

nafta

Selling us out, us being the 99% in Canada, Mexico and the United States. Representatives signing the North American Free Trade Agreement.

It is an outgrowth of a 2005 agreement between four Pacific rim nations when in 2008 the United States and several additional Asian nations joined talks to extend the previous agreement.

So dangerous to the autonomy of state governments is this abomination that the talks are beheld in deep secrecy. So secret, in fact, the in the United States, not even Congress, the representatives of the people, have been informed of the terms being hashed out by the negotiators.

In a nutshell, the agreement represents the unleashing of global corporations to govern the economic policies of all nations who are a party to the agreement. Corporations will be able to bring before a kangaroo court created by the partnership any grievances it has against nations whose laws interfere with the corporations methods of doing business in any country.

For example, corporations doing business in the United States can challenge and overturn minimum wages laws because such restrictions do not exist in other countries who are a party to the partnership.

Health, safety and environmental regulations are all subject to challenge before the kangaroo court created to enforce the agreement and any and all national and state laws can and most surely will be overturned.

There are numerous articles about the agreement. But as far as the actual terms are concerned, they are top secret. Even the legislatures of the nations involved are being kept in the dark.

Who in the United States is supporting this nefarious arrangement and is largely responsible for the country’s membership in the TPP. If you guessed Barack Obama, you are exactly right.

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Mr Smiley Face. And why shouldn’t he be? He has shown himself to be securely ensconced among the 1% and in a few years he will be one rich dude.

And why shouldn’t he? After all, the TPP represents another great way for the people who paid for his presidency to make a fast buck.

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Privatization Or Don’t Believe Your Lyin’ Eyes.

Turns out getting government out of the business of governing is just another way for industry to make a fast buck.

all

The privatizers, a few among many.

Privatization – or profitization as it should be called – is a method of downsizing government by preventing those services that have been traditional the role of government in the first place.

Profitization is supposed to reduce taxes because private industry is so much more efficient at providing a service than government.

Social Security is the perfect example. The SS administration charges a 3% fee to administer the program. Estimates exist that predict the private industry would only charge a 15% fee for providing the same service. It’s obvious that privatization is far more efficient than government. Isn’t it!!!

The same applies to Medicare and Medicaid. Government is so inefficient at operating these programs that the cost to the taxpayer is far less than it would be if the operation of the programs were turned over to private profit making industry. The numbers are approximately the same as they are for SS, about 3% for government versus 15% if the services were profitized. Turning these services over to private companies certainly makes a lot of sense. Doesn’t it???

I bet you thought that was the end of it. Well, if you did, you’d be wrong.

It turns out that sneaking behind the backs of the American people by snooping on their electronic communications costs the taxpayer far more for efficient private companies to perform the evil deed than it does to have government commit the same violation. So here again, profitization is more efficient than government at snooping. Just because it costs the taxpayer a lot more money to utilize the services of a private company, doesn’t mean it isn’t more efficient. Right?  Right.

Guess who is responsible as any president before him for converting economical government services to costly profit making companies? Well if you guessed the “liberal Democrat” Barack Obama, you’d be right.

And why shouldn’t he? After all, profitization of government services is a great way for the people who bought him his presidency to make a fast buck.

Nobody can accuse Obama of being an ingrate.

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Barack Obama, by the way, is responsible for the profitization of one of the largest programs in world history, namely the Affordable Care Act.

The president reneged on the public option shortly after he was elected and when a public alternative was within the grasp of the White House, it selected Joe Lieberman to announce that he could not support a competitive alternative to profit health insurance.

The vote on Obamacare, you may recall, was brought up under the reconciliation maneuver which required a mere 51 votes to pass. When passage appeared likely, the White House, in panicky desperation, appealed to Lieberman to declare his opposition. That sneaky tactic killed the public option for good and Obama, after the scare, finally got his wish and turned his plan in total over to private, profit health insurance companies.

Barack Obama has earned his place among the privatizers.

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Well, here’s yet another article on global warming. Don’t these environmentalists ever give up.

It seems NASA has just discovered that a huge amount of methane is being released from the Arctic permafrost.

You remember the Arctic, right? You learned about it in high school. That’s the place way up north with a whole lot of ice.

It seems that place is in a rapid meltdown and is releasing the gas that is far more efficient at trapping heat and in the process accelerating global warming.

fire

God promised He would never again destroy the world by flood. Is there a fire in our future?  (Painting by Peter Suhr, 1788-1857, of the Hamburg fire of 1842). 

That gas by the way is also highly explosive and if enough of it gets trapped in the atmosphere, you may fire up the grill one Father’s Day and cause a planet wide conflagration that results in another mass extinction of carbon based life forms. That’s us, just in case you didn’t know it.

But it won’t happen today. So don’t worry and happy Father’s Day.

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Sleepy Time Gal.

Don’t look now, but the IMF, as in International Monetary Fund, may be awakening from its decade long somnambulance.

legarde

Eh, you no capiche a de austerity, eh.  (At the World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland, 2007).

Current somnambulist in chief of the fund, Christine LeGarde, said recently the sequester may be stunting economic recovery in the United States. Gee, she musta read a newspaper.

Finally and at last, the IMF has discovered that severe cuts to education, science and infrastructure have led to what LeGarde referred to as an economy “modestly tilted to the downside.”

I guess we have to consider the statement a modest victory in an economy suffering real unemployment measuring in the high double digits and one that is on the precipice of being demolished with the imminent approval of the TPP.

But at least the IMF has awakened from its sleep walk.

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Horse Goes Lame.

Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversight, Government Reform and Media Face Time Committee, charged into government scandals like a knight on a galloping stallion.

Poor Darrell, his horse seems to have gone lame.

His investigations into the Border Patrol gun smuggling operation, the Benghazi affair and now the IRS turning up “non-profits” that cheat on taxes are limping lamely along.

It seems his investigations just can’t gain any traction, sorta like a lame horse.

issa2

Darrell Issa, vying with Mitch McConnell for shit eatingest grin in Follyland.

Maybe he should privatize the committee.

What’s the worst that could happen? Let’s face it, a private company couldn’t screw up much worse than Issa has. Of course, it would cost us taxpayers a lot more money.  But then, that’s the point of it all.