767 Trump defends Putin, says TPP "a disaster" - "I will bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan ... We owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more"

Trump defends Putin, says TPP "a disaster" - "I will bring back our jobs
from China, from Mexico, from Japan ... We owe China $1.3 trillion. We
owe Japan more"

Newsletter published on 3 October 2015

(1) Trump calls TPP "a disaster"
(2) Sanders: TPP Must Be Defeated
(3) The Trans-Pacific Free Trade Charade - Joseph Stiglitz & Adam Hersh
(4) TPP Power Grab: World Bank, Goldman Sachs, CFR
(5) Urugay rejects Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)
(6) TISA: Yet another Leaked Treaty you've never heard of - Jeremy Malcolm
(7) Discussion with Jeremy Malcolm about TISA
(8) Trump: "I will bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from
Japan ... We owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more than that."
(9) The Deindustrialization Of America -  by Michael Snyder of The
Economic Collapse blog
(10) Manufacturing in the USA: How U.S. Trade Policy Offshores Jobs
(11) Thatcher & Reagan hollowed out Industrial base, created asset
bubbles - Eamonn Fingleton
(12) Japan's non-tariff barriers - Eamonn Fingleton
(13) President Trump will declare US bankruptcy
(14) Trump says Putin has every right to support, defend and protect Assad
(15) Trump: let Russia fight Islamist extremists
(16) Trump praises Putin; would be friends with him, if elected
(17) Trump supports Russian efforts to tackle Isis in Syria

(1) Trump calls TPP "a disaster"

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/10/01/business/pacific-trade-deal-talks-resume-under-fire-from-us-presidential-hopefuls.html

Pacific Trade Deal Talks Resume, Under Fire From U.S. Presidential Hopefuls

By JACKIE CALMES

September 30, 2015

WASHINGTON — Trade ministers for the United States and 11 other Pacific
nations gathered in Atlanta on Wednesday to try to reach agreement on
the largest regional free-trade pact ever. But knotty differences
persist, and antitrade blasts from American presidential candidates have
not eased prospects for any deal.

The talks in a downtown Atlanta hotel are picking up where ministers
left off two months ago after deadlocking at a Maui resort, at odds over
trade in pharmaceutical drugs, autos, sugar and dairy goods, among other
matters. United States negotiators said last week that enough progress
had been made in recent contacts to justify hosting another, perhaps
final round.

For President Obama, who cited the potential agreement during his
address this week to the United Nations, success in a negotiating effort
as old as his administration would be a legacy achievement. The proposed
Trans-Pacific Partnership would liberalize trade and open markets among
a dozen nations on both sides of the Pacific, from Canada to Chile and
Japan to Australia, that account for about two-fifths of the world’s
economic output.

Failure would be just as big a defeat for Mr. Obama, and upset his
long-troubled foreign policy initiative to reorient American engagement
toward fast-growing Asia and away from the violent morass of the Middle
East and North Africa. Yet if the Atlanta talks yield no agreement by
the weekend, the Americans are unlikely to declare failure.

Time is not the president’s friend, however. Even if agreement is
reached this week, Congress will not debate and vote on it until late
winter — in the heat of the states’ presidential nominating contests —
because by law Mr. Obama cannot sign the deal without giving lawmakers
90 days’ notice.

He will need bipartisan support, given the resistance of many Democrats
and union allies to such trade accords. But presidential candidates in
both parties have already registered strong opposition.

The Republican front-runner, Donald J. Trump, the billionaire who boasts
of his own deal-making prowess, has called the emerging trans-Pacific
agreement "a disaster." While some Republican rivals also are critical,
it is the rhetoric of Mr. Trump, given his celebrity appeal, that has
Republican leaders more worried that a toxic trade debate could threaten
vulnerable Republicans in 2016. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the
majority leader, supports a Pacific accord but nonetheless wants to
protect his narrow Republican majority — and deny Mr. Obama an achievement.

On the Democratic side, where unions, progressive groups and many
members of Congress oppose an agreement, Hillary Rodham Clinton has not
taken a stand, though she repeatedly promoted the Pacific accord as
secretary of state. In June, Mrs. Clinton told an Iowa audience "there
should be no deal" if congressional Democrats’ concerns for workers were
not addressed, and many in the party, including administration
officials, expect she ultimately would oppose a deal, like her rival,
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

The United States trade representative, Michael B. Froman, said before
heading to Atlanta, "The president has made clear that he will only
accept a T.P.P. agreement that delivers for middle-class families,
supports American jobs and furthers our national security."

"The substance of the negotiations will drive the timeline for
completion," Mr. Froman added, "not the other way around."

Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has not ruled out
a bid for president, showed at the United Nations that they were
pressing hard to get an agreement. The president affirmed his support in
private meetings with several world leaders, according to administration
officials.

In his address to the United Nations, Mr. Obama told foreign leaders the
accord would be a model for the world, "an agreement that will open
markets, while protecting the rights of workers and protecting the
environment that enables development to be sustained." Should a deal
come together, central to the White House campaign to sell the agreement
to Congress would be the argument that setting economic, labor and
environmental standards in the Pacific region would counter China’s
influence, officials said.

Late Tuesday, Mr. Biden brought Mr. Froman to a Manhattan meeting with
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, who has made an agreement central to
his own economic platform.

The Obama administration has pressed for the Pacific accord for six
years, picking up the idea from the George W. Bush administration. Many
issues have been all but settled, but nothing is final until everything
is decided.

That progress, including tentative agreements on ending tariffs, setting
labor and environmental standards, and opening certain markets, has
sustained the negotiations despite setbacks.

But several issues continue to block a deal.

Dairy market rules divide the United States, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand; this has been especially troublesome for Canada’s team, since
the nation will hold elections this month.

Also divisive are provisions over auto exports, including requirements
that autos have a certain percentage of parts made in countries that are
parties to the agreement. Japan has sought a lower percentage of parts
in the "rules of origin," with some support from Americans, to allow the
export of autos with Chinese parts, while Mexico and Canada demand
stricter rules.

Perhaps most contentious are negotiations related to protections for
pharmaceutical companies’ drugs, especially cutting-edge biologics that
are made from living organisms and considered promising against cancer,
among other ailments.

Several countries, especially Australia, have opposed the United States
and its pharmaceutical industry for insisting that companies’ drug data
be protected for 12 years to create financial incentives to innovate.
Critics say this keeps lower-cost generic drugs and "biosimilars" off
the market for too long.

Here, too, the presidential contest has injected a wild card: Mrs.
Clinton and Mr. Sanders each have accused drug makers of price gouging.

While there is talk of an eight-year compromise, for many opponents that
is too long. Judit Rius Sanjuan, a manager of a campaign by Doctors
Without Borders to hasten access to lower-priced drugs and vaccines,
said she met with American negotiators last week in Washington, "and
they gave me zero indication that they are going to be more flexible on
this issue."

Andrew Spiegel, executive director of the Global Colon Cancer
Association, said drug makers needed the incentives of strong
protections for their intellectual property to encourage their research.
He did not offer an answer to the question dividing negotiators: how
many years the drug makers’ data monopoly should last.

"I leave it to them to pick the magic number," Mr. Spiegel said.

Last week, 156 members of Congress, mostly Democrats, wrote the
administration to complain that some parties to the talks, like Vietnam,
Singapore and Japan, manipulate their currency values to underprice
their products. While discussions are continuing, the administration is
counting on reaching a currency deal with the Asian nations that would
be a side agreement to any trade pact.

(2) Sanders: TPP Must Be Defeated

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/the-tpp-must-be-defeated_b_7352166.html

The TPP Must Be Defeated

Posted: 22/05/2015 00:29 AEST Updated: 22/05/2015 00:59 AEST

Congress is now debating fast track legislation that will pave the way
for the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) unfettered free trade
agreement. At a time when our middle class is disappearing and the gap
between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider, this
anti-worker legislation must be defeated. Here are four reasons why.

First, the TPP follows in the footsteps of failed trade agreements like
NAFTA, CAFTA, Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China, and
the South Korea Free Trade agreement. Over and over again, supporters of
these agreements told us that they would create jobs. Over and over
again, they have been proven dead wrong.

Since 2001, nearly 60,000 manufacturing plants in this country have been
shut down and we have lost over 4.7 million decent paying manufacturing
jobs. NAFTA has led to the loss of nearly 700,000 jobs. PNTR with China
has led to the loss of 2.7 million jobs. Our trade agreement with South
Korea has led to the loss of about 75,000 jobs. While bad trade
agreements are not the only reason why manufacturing jobs in the U.S.
have declined, they are an important factor.

The TPP continues an approach towards trade which forces Americans to
compete against workers in Vietnam where the minimum wage is 56 cents an
hour, independent labor unions are banned, and people are thrown in jail
for expressing their political beliefs. This is not "free trade." This
is the race to the bottom. While we must help poor people around the
world improve their standard of living, we can do that without
destroying the American middle class.

Secondly, when we are talking about the TPP it's important to know who
is for it and who is against it.

Large, multi-national corporations that have outsourced millions of good
paying American jobs to China, Mexico, Vietnam, India and other low-wage
countries think the TPP is a great idea. They understand that this
legislation will allow them to accelerate efforts to hire cheap labor
abroad. The TPP is also strongly supported by Wall Street and large
pharmaceutical companies who believe their global profits will increase
if this agreement is passed.

On the other hand, every union in this country, representing millions of
American workers, is in opposition to this agreement because they
understand that the TPP will lead to the loss of decent-paying jobs and
will depress wages. Virtually every major environmental organization,
including the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the
Natural Resources Defense Council, and 350.org[350.org], among many
others, also oppose this legislation. They understand that the TPP will
make it easier for multi-national corporations to pollute and degrade
the global environment. Major religious groups such as the Presbyterian
Church U.S.A. and the United Methodist Church, also oppose this
legislation because of what it could do to the poorest people on earth.

Whose views should we trust on this legislation? Wall Street and
corporate America or organizations that represent working families, the
environment and the religious community?

Third, the TPP would also undermine democracy by giving multi-national
corporations the right to challenge any law that could reduce their
"expected future profits" through what is known as the Investor State
Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system. Under existing trade agreements,
Phillip Morris is using this process to sue Australia and Uruguay for
passing laws designed to prevent the children in those countries from
smoking. These countries should be rewarded for taking action to protect
the public health of their citizens. Instead, they are being taken to an
international court because their laws are hurting the bottom line of
one of the largest tobacco companies in the world.

Vattenfall, a Swedish energy company, has used this process to sue
Germany for $5 billion over its decision to phase out nuclear power.
Should the people of Germany have the right to make energy choices on
their own or should these decisions be left in the hands of an unelected
international tribunal?

A French waste management firm, Veolia, used this process to sue Egypt
for $110 million because Egypt increased its minimum wage and improved
its labor laws. In other words, Egypt's "crime" is trying to improve
life for their low-wage workers.

Do we really want to tell governments all around the world, including
the U.S., that if they pass legislation protecting the well-being of
their citizens they could pay substantial fines to multi-national
corporations because of the loss of future profits? What an incredible
undermining of democracy! But that's exactly what will happen if the TPP
goes into effect.

Fourth, this legislation, strongly supported by the major drug
companies, would substantially raise the prices of medicine in some of
the poorest countries on earth. The drug companies are doing everything
they can to prevent countries from moving to lower cost generics, even
if it means that thousands will die because they cannot afford higher
prices for the drugs they need. That is unacceptable. Doctors Without
Borders has stated: "The TPP agreement is on track to become the most
harmful trade pact ever for access to medicines in developing countries."

Enough is enough. If we are serious about rebuilding the middle class
and creating the millions of good paying jobs we desperately need, we
must fundamentally rewrite our trade policies. NO to fast track, and NO
to the TPP.

(3) The Trans-Pacific Free Trade Charade - Joseph Stiglitz & Adam Hersh

From: Iskandar Masih <iskandar38@hotmail.com> Subject: The Trans-Pacific
Free Trade Charade [Joseph Stiglitz, Adam Hersh] Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2015
05:51:30 +0500

The Trans-Pacific Free Trade Charade

by Joseph Stiglitz & Adam Hersh

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/10/02/trans-pacific-free-trade-charade

Published on

Friday, October 02, 2015 Project Syndicate

NEW YORK – As negotiators and ministers from the United States and 11
other Pacific Rim countries meet in Atlanta in an effort to finalize the
details of the sweeping new Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), some sober
analysis is warranted. The biggest regional trade and investment
agreement in history is not what it seems.

You will hear much about the importance of the TPP for "free trade." The
reality is that this is an agreement to manage its members’ trade and
investment relations – and to do so on behalf of each country’s most
powerful business lobbies. Make no mistake: It is evident from the main
outstanding issues, over which negotiators are still haggling, that the
TPP is not about "free" trade.

New Zealand has threatened to walk away from the agreement over the way
Canada and the US manage trade in dairy products. Australia is not happy
with how the US and Mexico manage trade in sugar. And the US is not
happy with how Japan manages trade in rice. These industries are backed
by significant voting blocs in their respective countries. And they
represent just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how the TPP would
advance an agenda that actually runs counter to free trade.

For starters, consider what the agreement would do to expand
intellectual property rights for big pharmaceutical companies, as we
learned from leaked versions of the negotiating text. Economic research
clearly shows the argument that such intellectual property rights
promote research to be weak at best. In fact, there is evidence to the
contrary: When the Supreme Court invalidated Myriad’s patent on the BRCA
gene, it led to a burst of innovation that resulted in better tests at
lower costs. Indeed, provisions in the TPP would restrain open
competition and raise prices for consumers in the US and around the
world – anathema to free trade.

The TPP would manage trade in pharmaceuticals through a variety of
seemingly arcane rule changes on issues such as "patent linkage," "data
exclusivity," and "biologics." The upshot is that pharmaceutical
companies would effectively be allowed to extend – sometimes almost
indefinitely – their monopolies on patented medicines, keep cheaper
generics off the market, and block "biosimilar" competitors from
introducing new medicines for years. That is how the TPP will manage
trade for the pharmaceutical industry if the US gets its way.

Similarly, consider how the US hopes to use the TPP to manage trade for
the tobacco industry. For decades, US-based tobacco companies have used
foreign investor adjudication mechanisms created by agreements like the
TPP to fight regulations intended to curb the public-health scourge of
smoking. Under these investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) systems,
foreign investors gain new rights to sue national governments in binding
private arbitration for regulations they see as diminishing the expected
profitability of their investments.

International corporate interests tout ISDS as necessary to protect
property rights where the rule of law and credible courts are lacking.
But that argument is nonsense. The US is seeking the same mechanism in a
similar mega-deal with the European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership, even though there is little question about the
quality of Europe’s legal and judicial systems.

To be sure, investors – wherever they call home – deserve protection
from expropriation or discriminatory regulations. But ISDS goes much
further: The obligation to compensate investors for losses of expected
profits can and has been applied even where rules are nondiscriminatory
and profits are made from causing public harm.

The corporation formerly known as Philip Morris is currently prosecuting
such cases against Australia and Uruguay (not a TPP partner) for
requiring cigarettes to carry warning labels. Canada, under threat of a
similar suit, backed down from introducing a similarly effective warning
label a few years back.

Given the veil of secrecy surrounding the TPP negotiations, it is not
clear whether tobacco will be excluded from some aspects of ISDS. Either
way, the broader issue remains: Such provisions make it hard for
governments to conduct their basic functions – protecting their
citizens’ health and safety, ensuring economic stability, and
safeguarding the environment.

Imagine what would have happened if these provisions had been in place
when the lethal effects of asbestos were discovered. Rather than
shutting down manufacturers and forcing them to compensate those who had
been harmed, under ISDS, governments would have had to pay the
manufacturers not to kill their citizens. Taxpayers would have been hit
twice – first to pay for the health damage caused by asbestos, and then
to compensate manufacturers for their lost profits when the government
stepped in to regulate a dangerous product.

It should surprise no one that America’s international agreements
produce managed rather than free trade. That is what happens when the
policymaking process is closed to non-business stakeholders – not to
mention the people’s elected representatives in Congress.

(4) TPP Power Grab: World Bank, Goldman Sachs, CFR

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/20589-tpp-power-grab-world-bank-goldman-sachs-cfr

Written by William F. Jasper

Wednesday, 01 April 2015

The recently leaked Chapter 2 of the secret Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP), as we reported here on March 31, proposes transferring enormous
judicial powers to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment
Disputes (ICSID), a branch of the corrupt, world-government-promoting
World Bank.

The TPP draft text proposes creating tribunals (courts) that could
overrule the decisions of our state and federal courts, as well as our
local, state and federal laws — and our state and national
constitutions. This is already occurring under similar tribunals
established by the NAFTA and WTO agreements.

The international tribunals proposed in the TPP would be presided over
by arbitrators (judges) appointed by the Secretary-General of the
International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), an
institution of the World Bank Group. The general counsel of the World
Bank, Aron Broches, drew up the convention establishing the ICSID. The
ICSID is housed at the World Bank’s headquarters complex in Washington,
D.C. The ICSID receives its funding from the World Bank and the ICSID’s
governing Council is chaired by the president of the World Bank. So the
proposed TPP tribunals are, in essence, a means for transferring
judicial authority over vast areas of domestic law to "arbitrators"
picked by the World Bank — and the central bankers and the giant
commercial/investment bankers that run the World Bank.

Robert Zoellick, who stepped down as 11th president of the World Bank in
2012, quickly stepped into a number of high-profile positions at
"prestigious" organizations, perhaps the most notable being his
appointment as "chairman of international advisors" to Goldman Sachs,
the global investment banking goliath infamously known as the "Vampire
Squid." Zoellick is a Goldman alum; intermingled with his "government
service" — as U.S. trade representative, deputy secretary of state,
under secretary of state, etc. — Zoellich served as international vice
chairman at Goldman Sachs. Zoellich is also a longtime member of the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the key "Establishment" organization
that has been most responsible for guiding our nation on the globalist
path toward world government for much of the past century.

Zoellich, together with other former and current colleagues at Goldman
Sachs, the CFR, and World Bank, is prominent player in the "free trade"
power lobby that is now urgently pushing the TPP, the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Trade Promotion Authority
(TPA, aka Fast Track). He authored, for instance, an op-ed piece for the
Wall Street Journal entitled, "Leading from the Front on Free Trade,"
which carried this subtitle: "Republicans should make the case for Trade
Promotion Authority, not fear giving it to President Obama." Zoellick’s
WSJ op-ed was a full-throated cheer for TPP/TTIP/TPA. This was hardly
surprising, since, as U.S. trade representative, Zoellick was a key
facilitator/architect of these and other "trade" agreements. Now that he
has gone through the revolving door from Washington back to Wall Street,
he is hoping to soon reap the private rewards of the global deals he
helped craft while in "public" service.

However, Robert Zoellick is emblematic of a huge cohort of fellow
banksters of the Goldman Sachs/CFR stripe currently involved in public
and private capacities in the current push for the TPP, which certainly
qualifies in the "deal of the century" category.

Since its creation at the United Nations Monetary and Financial
Conference at Bretton Woods, in 1944, the World Bank has been a servile
creature and tool of the CFR/Wall Street globalists who created it. Of
the 12 men who have held the World Bank presidency, nine have been
members of the CFR. Here is the list:

Eugene Meyer (June 1946 – December 1946) CFR
John J. McCloy (March 1947 – June 1949) CFR
Eugene R. Black, Sr. (1949–1963) CFR
George D. Woods (January 1963 – March 1968)
Robert McNamara (April 1968 – June 1981) CFR
Alden W. Clausen (July 1981 – June 1986)
Barber Conable (July 1986 – August 1991) CFR
Lewis T. Preston (September 1991 – May 1995) CFR
James Wolfensohn (May 1995 – 30 June 2005) CFR
Paul Wolfowitz (1 July 2005 – 30 June 2007) CFR
Robert Zoellick (1 July 2007 – 30 June 2012) CFR
Jim Yong Kim (1 July 2012 – )

The older World Bank presidents that were not CFR members — George D.
Woods and A.W. Clausen — were, nevertheless, supportive globalists who
promoted the one-world cause. The current president, Jim Yong Kim,
likewise, while not a CFR member, toes the globalist party line. This is
evident, for example, in his appearance as the honored speaker at the
CFR’s special program on December 8, 2014, entitled, "World Bank
President Jim Yong Kim on Economic Development and the Paris Climate
Agreement." The World Bank and the CFR, for years, have been in the
forefront of the global propaganda effort to empower the United Nations,
national governments, and other entities with vast new powers for the
supposed purpose of dealing with the "crisis" of human-caused global
warming.

Goldman Sachs, of course, (led by CFR member Lloyd C. Blankfein) is a
big promoter of both the TPP/TTIP agenda as well as the Global
Warming/Climate Change Agenda.

Why has the Obama administration kept the Trans-Pacific Partnership
agreement text secret from Congress and the American people? Among the
many obvious features of the TPP that they want to keep in darkest
secrecy is the World Bank-Goldman Sachs-CFR web that has been confirmed
in the latest WikiLeaks release.

(5) Urugay rejects Trade in Services Agreement (TISA)
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/09/22/uruguay-does-unthinkable-rejects-global-corporatocracy-tisa/

Uruguay Does Unthinkable, Rejects Global Corporatocracy

By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at WOLF STREET.

September 22, 2015

Often referred to as the Switzerland of South America, Uruguay is long
accustomed to doing things its own way. It was the first nation in Latin
America to establish a welfare state. It also has an unusually large
middle class for the region and unlike its giant neighbors to the north
and west, Brazil and Argentina, is largely free of serious income
inequality.

Two years ago, during José Mujica’s presidency, Uruguay became the first
nation to legalize marijuana in Latin America, a continent that is being
ripped apart by drug trafficking and its associated violence and
corruption of state institutions.

Now Uruguay has done something that no other semi-aligned nation on this
planet has dared to do: it has rejected the advances of the global
corporatocracy.

Earlier this month Uruguay’s government decided to end its participation
in the secret negotiations of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA).
After months of intense pressure led by unions and other grassroots
movements that culminated in a national general strike on the issue –
the first of its kind around the globe – the Uruguayan President Tabare
Vazquez bowed to public opinion and left the US-led trade agreement.

Despite – or more likely because of – its symbolic importance, Uruguay’s
historic decision has been met by a wall of silence. Beyond the
country’s borders, mainstream media has refused to cover the story.

This is hardly a surprise given that the global public is not supposed
to even know about TiSA’s existence, despite – or again because of – the
fact that it’s arguably the most important of the new generation of
global trade agreements. According to WikiLeaks, it "is the largest
component of the United States’ strategic ‘trade’ treaty triumvirate,"
which also includes the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the
TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP).

TiSA involves more countries than TTIP and TPP combined: The United
States and all 28 members of the European Union, Australia, Canada,
Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan,
Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey.

Together, these 52 nations form the charmingly named "Really Good
Friends of Services" group, which represents almost 70% of all trade in
services worldwide. Until its government’s recent u-turn Uruguay was
supposed to be the 53rd Good Friend of Services.

TiSA has spent the last two years taking shape behind the hermetically
sealed doors of highly secure locations around the world. According to
the agreement’s provisional text, the document is supposed to remain
confidential and concealed from public view for at least five years
after being signed. Even the World Trade Organization has been sidelined
from negotiations.

But thanks to whistle blowing sites like WikiLeaks, the Associated
Whistleblowing Press and Filtrala, crucial details have seeped to the
surface. Here’s a brief outline of what is known to date (for more
specifics click here, here and here):

1.TiSA would "lock in" the privatization of services – even in cases
where private service delivery has failed – meaning governments can
never return water, energy, health, education or other services to
public hands.

2.TiSA would restrict signatory governments’ right to regulate stronger
standards in the public’s interest. For example, it will affect
environmental regulations, licensing of health facilities and
laboratories, waste disposal centres, power plants, school and
university accreditation and broadcast licenses.

3.TiSA would limit the ability of governments to regulate the financial
services industry, at a time when the global economy is still struggling
to recover from a crisis caused primarily by financial deregulation.
More specifically, if signed the trade agreement would:

     * Restrict the ability of governments to place limits on the
trading of derivative contracts — the largely unregulated weapons of
mass financial destruction that helped trigger the 2007-08 Global
Financial Crisis.

     * Bar new financial regulations that do not conform to deregulatory
rules. Signatory governments will essentially agree not to apply new
financial policy measures which in any way contradict the agreement’s
emphasis on deregulatory measures.

     * Prohibit national governments from using capital controls to
prevent or mitigate financial crises. The leaked texts prohibit
restrictions on financial inflows – used to prevent rapid currency
appreciation, asset bubbles and other macroeconomic problems – and
financial outflows, used to prevent sudden capital flight in times of
crisis.

     * Require acceptance of financial products not yet invented.
Despite the pivotal role that new, complex financial products played in
the Financial Crisis, TISA would require governments to allow all new
financial products and services, including ones not yet invented, to be
sold within their territories.

4. TiSA would ban any restrictions on cross-border information flows and
localization requirements for ICT service providers. A provision
proposed by US negotiators would rule out any conditions for the
transfer of personal data to third countries that are currently in place
in EU data protection law. In other words, multinational corporations
will have carte blanche to pry into just about every facet of the
working and personal lives of the inhabitants of roughly a quarter of
the world’s 200-or-so nations.

As I wrote in LEAKED: Secret Negotiations to Let Big Brother Go Global,
if TiSA is signed in its current form – and we will not know exactly
what that form is until at least five years down the line – our personal
data will be freely bought and sold on the open market place without our
knowledge; companies and governments will be able to store it for as
long as they desire and use it for just about any purpose.

5) Finally, TiSA, together with its sister treaties TPP and TTIP, would
establish a new global enclosure system, one that seeks to impose on all
52 signatory governments a rigid framework of international corporate
law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations,
relieving them of financial risk and social and environmental
responsibility. In short, it would hammer the final nail in the already
bedraggled coffin of national sovereignty. A Dangerous Precedent

Given its small size (population: 3.4 million) and limited geopolitical
or geo-economic clout, Uruguay’s withdrawal from TiSA is unlikely to
upset the treaty’s advancement. The governments of the major trading
nations will continue their talks behind closed doors and away from the
prying eyes of the people they are supposed to represent. The U.S.
Congress has already agreed to grant the Obama administration fast-track
approval on trade agreements like TiSA while the European Commission can
be expected to do whatever the corporatocracy demands.

However, as the technology writer Glyn Moody notes, Uruguay’s defection
– like the people of Iceland’s refusal to assume all the debts of its
rogue banks – possesses a tremendous symbolic importance:

It says that, yes, it is possible to withdraw from global negotiations,
and that the apparently irreversible trade deal ratchet can actually be
turned back. It sets an important precedent that other nations with
growing doubts about TISA – or perhaps TPP – can look to and maybe even
follow.

Naturally, the representatives of Uruguay’s largest corporations would
agree to disagree. The government’s move was one of its biggest mistakes
of recent years, according to Gabriel Oddone, an analyst with the
financial consultancy firm CPA Ferrere. It was based on a "superficial
discussion of the treaty’s implications."

What Oddone conveniently fails to mention is that Uruguay is the only
nation on the planet that has had any kind of public discussion,
superficial or not, about TiSA and its potentially game-changing
implications. Perhaps it’s time that changed.

(6) TISA: Yet another Leaked Treaty you've never heard of - Jeremy Malcolm

Date:  Sunday, 31 May, 2015
Subject: TISA Treaty
Author: Jeremy Malcolm

MAY 27, 2015

TISA: Yet Another Leaked Treaty You've Never Heard Of Makes Secret Rules
for the Internet

Jeremy Malcolm

A February 2015 draft of the secret Trade In Services Agreement (TISA)
was leaked again last week, revealing a more extensive and more recent
text than that of portions from an April 2014 leak that we covered last
year. Together with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and
theTrans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), TISA
completes a trifecta of trade agreements that the administration could
sign under Fast Track without full congressional oversight.

Although it is the least well-known of those agreements, it is the
broadest in terms of membership. As far as we know, it presently
includes twenty countries plus Europe (but notably excluding the major
emerging world economies of the BRICS bloc), who, with disdainful
levity, have adopted the mantle "the Really Good Friends of Services".
Like its sister agreements, TISA will enact global rules that impact the
Internet, bypassing the transparency and accountability of national
parliaments. The only difference is that its focus is on services, not
goods.

In our previous analysis, we focused our attention on two points from
the leaked text. The first was a provision that would prohibit
democratically-elected parliaments from enacting limits on the "free
flow of information" to protect the privacy of their citizens—limits
that, we argued, should be debated publicly, not behind closed doors.
The second was text on net neutrality, that would lock in a particular
set of global rules on net neutrality, including an open-ended exception
for "reasonable network management" that could become a loophole for
exploitation. Those provisions remain in the new leaked draft.

But the latest leak has revealed more. The agreement would also prohibit
countries from enacting free and open source software mandates. Although
"software used for critical infrastructure" is already carved out from
this prohibition (and so is software that is not "mass market software",
whatever that means), there are other circumstances in which a country
might legitimately require suppliers to disclose their source code.

For example, one step that might be considered to improve the dire state
of security of consumer routers might be to require that they be
supplied with source code, so that their security could be more broadly
reviewed, and third parties could contribute patches for critical
vulnerabilities. Although that may sound radical, this is already
required for many routers because they are based on software covered by
the GNU General Public License. TISA would prohibit any such national
initiative.

As in the TPP, and expanding on the earlier leaked draft, TISA also
includes a prohibition on laws that require service providers to host
data locally, which some countries have used to protect sensitive
personal information, such as health data, from being snooped upon on
foreign soil. There are arguments for and against such laws, and it is
inappropriate that a secretive international agreement such as TISA
should preempt these important debates.

The agreement would also require countries to introduce anti-spam laws.
Although spam is bad, that doesn't necessarily make anti-spam laws good.
In practice such laws have generally been ineffective at best, and ripe
for abuse at worst. As such, we believe that it would be a legitimate
choice for a country to decide not to tackle this blight through
legislation—a choice that TISA would remove from them.

These examples only scratch the surface of TISA, yet they are enough to
demonstrate a common problem that also affects the TPP and TTIP—that
they are locking in a very specific rules for the Internet that the
member countries may regret later. Locking in national laws through
international law is something to be done sparingly. If it is done at
all, then it should be through a transparent process that allows for
users to have a voice—a process at least as open as that by which WIPO
concluded the Marrakesh Treaty for the Blind.

What we have here is the very antithesis of that. The closed-door TISA
negotiations are designed to set some very technologically-specific
rules in stone—rules that will bind signatory countries for decades to
come. Users and other stakeholders are completely excised from this
process, and even our democratically elected representatives are being
kept in the dark.

Activism around TISA is still very diffuse and limited, but there's one
campaign that you can help us fight now, and it's the same action that
we're taking to battle the TPP—it's opposing the Fast Track bill. The
U.S. administration is relying on Fast Track not only to streamline its
accession to the TPP, but its future ratification of TISA as well. Even
if you're on the fence about the TPP, TISA is a further reason for you
to call on your representative to oppose Fast Track today.

(7) Discussion with Jeremy Malcolm about TISA

 From Peter Myers
To Jeremy Malcolm <jmalcolm@eff.org>, John Herman <hermann@chariot.net.au>

Jeremy,

 > TISA also includes a prohibition on laws that require
 > service providers to host data locally

I draw your attention to the following article in the UK Telegraph.

It says US Prosecutors can prosecute FIFA over corruption or anything
else, if FIFA stores its emails on a US server or uses an American bank
account.
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/international/11632230/Fifa-about-to-learn-a-stern-lesson-about-the-vigour-of-American-prosecution.html>

The US is targeting FIFA, because Blatter refused to take the 2018 World
Cup away from Russia. The Corruption charge is merely an excuse.

The point is that FIFA is subject to US Law even if it only stores its
emails on a US server.

Yet the TISA would bar countries from insisting on a local server.

This means that TISA members forfeit their sovereignty to the US.

Peter

Re: TISA members subject to US law Inbox

  Jeremy Malcolm<jmalcolm@eff.org> 3 June 2015 at 03:22
To: Peter Myers <myerspeterg@gmail.com>

Yes, pretty much. They can't force you to host in the US, but the
intent of these provisions is that that's what you will probably end up
doing... and once you do, you're at the mercy of the US legal system.

--
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://eff.org
jmalcolm@eff.org

(8) Trump: "I will bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from
Japan ... We owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more than that."

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2015/s4304342.htm

Republican candidates reveal their vision for China and the Asia Pacific

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 01/09/2015

Reporter: Emma Alberici

[...] DONALD TRUMP: I will bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico,
from Japan, from so many places. I will bring back our jobs and I will
bring back our money.

Right now, think of this: we owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more
than that. So they come in, they take our jobs, they take our money and
then they loan us back the money and we pay them in interest. And then
the dollar goes up, so their deal's even better.

How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are these politicians to allow
this to happen? How stupid are they?

TRUMP SUPPORTERS (chanting): We want Trump!

(9) The Deindustrialization Of America -  by Michael Snyder of The
Economic Collapse blog

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-04/shocking-truth-about-deindustrialization-america-everyone-should-know

The Shocking Truth About The Deindustrialization Of America That
Everyone Should Know

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/04/2014 21:03 -0400

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,

How long can America continue to burn up wealth? How long can this
nation continue to consume far more wealth than it produces? The trade
deficit is one of the biggest reasons for the steady decline of the U.S.
economy, but many Americans don't even understand what it is. Basically,
we are buying far more stuff from the rest of the world than they are
buying from us. That means that far more money is constantly leaving the
country than is coming into the country. In order to keep the game
going, we have to go to the people that we bought all of that stuff from
and ask them to lend our money back to us. Or lately, we just have the
Federal Reserve create new money out of thin air. This is called
"quantitative easing". Our current debt-fueled lifestyle is dependent on
this cycle continuing. In order to live like we do, we must consume far
more wealth than we produce. If someday we are forced to only live on
the wealth that we create, it will require a massive adjustment in our
standard of living. We have become great at consuming wealth but not so
great at creating it. But as a result of running gigantic trade deficits
year after year, we have lost tens of thousands of businesses, millions
upon millions of jobs, and America is being deindustrialized at a
staggering pace.

Most Americans won't even notice, but the latest monthly trade deficit
increased to 42.3 billion dollars...

The U.S. trade deficit climbed to the highest level in five months in
February as demand for American exports fell while imports increased
slightly.

The deficit increased to $42.3 billion, which was 7.7% above the January
imbalance of $39.3 billion, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

When the trade deficit increases, it means that even more wealth, even
more jobs and even more businesses have left the United States.

In essence, we have gotten poorer as a nation.

Have you ever wondered how China has gotten so wealthy?

Just a few decades ago, they were basically a joke economically.

So how in the world did they get so powerful?

Well, one of the primary ways that they did it was by selling us far
more stuff than we sold to them. If we had refused to do business with
communist China, they never would have become what they have become
today. It was our decisions that allowed China to become an economic
powerhouse.

Last year, we sold 122 billion dollars of stuff to China.

That sounds like a lot until you learn that China sold 440 billion
dollars of stuff to us.

We fill up our shopping carts with lots of cheap plastic trinkets that
are "made in China", and they pile up gigantic mountains of our money
which we beg them to lend back to us so that we can pay our bills.

Who is winning that game and who is losing that game?


Below, I have posted our yearly trade deficits with China since 1990.
Let's see if you can spot the trend...

1990: 10 billion dollars
1991: 12 billion dollars
1992: 18 billion dollars
1993: 22 billion dollars
1994: 29 billion dollars
1995: 33 billion dollars
1996: 39 billion dollars
1997: 49 billion dollars
1998: 56 billion dollars
1999: 68 billion dollars
2000: 83 billion dollars
2001: 83 billion dollars
2002: 103 billion dollars
2003: 124 billion dollars
2004: 162 billion dollars
2005: 202 billion dollars
2006: 234 billion dollars
2007: 258 billion dollars
2008: 268 billion dollars
2009: 226 billion dollars
2010: 273 billion dollars
2011: 295 billion dollars
2012: 315 billion dollars
2013: 318 billion dollars

Yikes!

It has been estimated that the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000
jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from
overseas, and according to the Economic Policy Institute, America is
losing about half a million jobs to China every single year.

Considering the high level of unemployment that we now have in this
country, can we really afford to be doing that?

Overall, the United States has accumulated a total trade deficit with
the rest of the world of more than 8 trillion dollars since 1975.

As a result, we have lost tens of thousands of businesses, millions of
jobs and our economic infrastructure has been absolutely gutted.

Just look at what has happened to manufacturing jobs in America. Back in
the 1980s, more than 20 percent of the jobs in the United States were
manufacturing jobs. Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the
United States are manufacturing jobs.

And we have fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than we did
in 1950 even though our population has more than doubled since then...

Many people find this statistic hard to believe, but the United States
has lost a total of more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

Millions of good paying jobs have been lost.

As a result, the middle class is shriveling up, and at this point 9 out
of the top 10 occupations in America pay less than $35,000 a year.

For a long time, U.S. consumers attempted to keep up their middle class
lifestyles by going into constantly increasing amounts of debt, but now
it is becoming increasingly apparent that middle class consumers are
tapped out.

In response, major retailers are closing thousands of stores in poor and
middle class neighborhoods all over the country. You can see some
amazing photos of America's abandoned shopping malls right here.

If we could start reducing the size of our trade deficit, that would go
a long way toward getting the United States back on the right economic path.

Unfortunately, Barack Obama has been negotiating a treaty in secret
which is going to send the deindustrialization of America into
overdrive. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being called the "NAFTA of
the Pacific", and it is going to result in millions more good jobs being
sent to the other side of the planet where it is legal to pay slave
labor wages.

According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million
more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if
current trends continue.

So what will this country look like when we lose tens of millions more
jobs than we already have?

U.S. workers are being merged into a giant global labor pool where they
must compete directly for jobs with people making less than a dollar an
hour with no benefits.

Obama tells us that globalization is good for us and that Americans need
to be ready to adjust to a "level playing field".

The quality of our jobs has already been declining for decades, and if
we continue down this path the quality of our jobs is going to get a
whole lot worse and our economic infrastructure will continue to be
absolutely gutted.

At one time, the city of Detroit was the greatest manufacturing city on
the entire planet and it had the highest per capita income in the United
States. But today, it is a rotting, decaying hellhole that the rest of
the world laughs at.

In the end, the rest of the nation is going to suffer the same fate as
Detroit unless Americans are willing to stand up and fight for their
economy while they still can.

(10) Manufacturing in the USA: How U.S. Trade Policy Offshores Jobs

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44625759

Sen. Casey: US Trade Policies Hurt American Workers

Lori Ann LaRocco

Thursday, 22 Sep 2011 | 11:23 AM ET

CNBC.com

While the buzz word on the hill is taxes, you can also add trade. This
week Congress has the three pending trade agreements before them-
Panama, Columbia and Korea. Just like taxes, there are two sides to the
trade issue.

While Myron Brilliant, senior vice president for International Affairs
at the U.S. Chamber, supports the agreements, saying they will be a jobs
generator, others disagree.

Senator Bob Casey (D-PA), Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee,
recently chaired a hearing titled, "Manufacturing in the USA: How U.S.
Trade Policy Offshores Jobs". The Committee examined the impact the
country's current trade policy has on the U.S. economy and the
manufacturing sector. Senator Casey addresses the Chamber's positive
endorsement and warns of the unintended consequences of such agreements.

LL: How many jobs do you think are in the balance of being off shored?

Sen. Casey: We've already lost over 5 million manufacturing jobs since
2001. And it's not just manufacturing jobs that are being offshored - we
know that legal services and information service jobs are moving
overseas. Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University has estimated
that 22 to 29 percent of all US jobs will be offshored or will be
offshorable over the next 2 decades - adding up to 30 to 40 million
additional U.S. jobs lost.

LL: What do you think of the three pending NAFTA-style agreements on the
table right now?

Sen. Casey: Since NAFTA's passage, U.S. trade policies have steadily
chipped away at Pennsylvania's manufacturing sector. From 1997-2010,
manufacturing went from 16.4 percent of Pennsylvania's Gross State
Product to 12.1 percent. In total, Pennsylvania has lost nearly 300,000
manufacturing jobs.

Despite these alarming statistics, advocates for trade deals promise
significant economic benefits. From exploding export potential to direct
job creation, proponents argue a significant net positive from these
agreements every time they are considered.

In reality, instead of creating opportunities for Pennsylvania, our
trade policies do little more than off-shore good-paying jobs while
giving our trading partners unlimited access to our market.

LL: Which industries would be hurt the most?

Sen. Casey: Broadly, free trade agreements have not had a beneficial
impact on US jobs. The year after NAFTA passed, the US saw its trade
deficit with Canada explode and its trade surplus with Mexico turn into
a trade deficit. The NAFTA model provides a strong incentive for all
producers to move out of the US and export back home.

LL: What do you say to the Chamber of Commerce who is in favor of such
agreements?

Sen. Casey: Taken in the whole, free trade agreements have not been good
for Pennsylvania, having offshored hundreds of thousands of jobs.

LL: We had another company (General Motors) announced they will be
expanding its relationship with China-based SAIC Motor Corp. What to you
think of this expansion? While it may be good for the American Taxpayer
who bailed them out? How many jobs could the American workforce be losing?

Sen. Casey: I am is opposed to companies expanding partnerships with
explicitly state-owned companies. We should not be rewarding China's
policy of grooming national champions.

LL: What strategies do you think need to be employed to encourage China
to adjust its exchange rate?

Sen. Casey: In my travels around Pennsylvania, business owners and
workers take every opportunity to tell me about how China's policies
have created an uneven playing field. One basic step that should be
taken immediately is to pass legislation to force action against China's
currency manipulation. The Senate will soon take up currency
manipulation legislation that should be quickly passed, signed into law
and implemented.

LL: What are the benefits of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program?

Sen. Casey: American workers have taken it on the chin as a result of
unfair, unbalanced trade policy that benefits countries like China and
India and results in the loss of American jobs. The Trade Adjustment
Assistance program helps workers get back on their feet by providing the
necessary training to help them compete in today's global economy.

(11) Thatcher & Reagan hollowed out Industrial base, created asset
bubbles - Eamonn Fingleton

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2013/04/14/thatchers-last-wish-another-clunker-from-the-iron-lady/

Thatcher's Last Wish: Another Clunker From The Iron Lady

Eamonn Fingleton

4/14/2013 @ 10:46AM

[...] The voters who elected Thatcher in 1979 were motivated powerfully
by humiliation at the UK economy’s constant loss of position in global
competition since the early 1950s. By the late 1970s, the labor unions
had come to be widely blamed as the fundamental problem. In reality,
however, in taking a meat cleaver to the unions, Thatcher was tackling
the symptoms not the disease. The unions were certainly far more
obstreperous than they had been in the 1950s but this reflected an
exogenous political reality, in that other nations, most notably Japan,
had taken over the UK’s former imperial markets. The pattern was
particularly obvious in the car industry: although the famous Austin
Mini of 1959 , for instance, was a far better car than the tinny little
Japanese three-wheelers of the day, the Tokyo government’s superior
trade diplomacy ensured that these latter enjoyed privileged access to
former British markets in East and South Asia, whereas Austin was
increasingly shut out. The resulting layoffs in British industry
poisoned labor relations for decades.

So how well did Thatcher do in reversing the trend and what in
particular did she do to improve the UK’s trade position? The eulogizers
are quiet on the subject. Advisedly so. The fact is that under
Thatcherism the UK’s trade position went from the merely weak to the
totally disastrous. The UK ran a current account surplus of 0.6 percent
of GDP in 1978, the last full year before Thatcher came to office. As of
1989, the last full year before she was ousted by her own party in May
of 1990, the current account DEFICIT had reached an appalling 3.9
percent of GDP. In the meantime Thatcher presided over a savage program
to destroy the UK’s core exporting industries and, with wholesale
financial deregulation, laid the groundwork for the catastrophic
financial bubbles of more recent times. She was smitten by the erroneous
notion that advanced nations should leave "rust bucket" industries
behind and move to a postindustrial model. Not a view shared by Germany,
which has now long eclipsed the UK as Europe’s premier economy. This
view is not shared either in any of the most successful East Asian
nations (though they are delighted if the English-speaking world
continues to believe in postindustrialism). For what it is worth, I have
consistently attacked the postindustrialist fallacy since the 1980s and
indeed I devoted a whole book to it in 1999 (In Praise of Hard
Industries: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Economy, Is the Key
to Future Prosperity). The book’s main point is that an economy without
a strong export sector is like a car without an engine: services in
general do little or no exporting, so if you allow your manufacturing
industries to decline, you lose your ability to pay your way in the
world. My book has now been vindicated on its analysis of finance: my
message was summed up in the heading of the relevant chapter, "Finance:
A Cuckoo in the Economy’s Nest." My point about manufacturing will take
longer to become generally obvious but in the end Thatcher’s true
believers will discover the hard way that there is no such thing as a
free lunch.

[...] Although it is not yet apparent to most Americans, General
Electric has played a starring role in the enfeeblement of the United
States. A key charge is that GE has led corporate America in the
torching of America’s once peerless industrial base on the funeral pyre
of globalism. It has done this principally by transferring many of
America’s most advanced production technologies, including aerospace
technologies, to foreign production partners. These partners, located
mainly in East Asia, have undertaken to low-ball their prices and have
thereby boosted GE’s quarterly earnings, but at the cost of hollowing
out the American industrial base. You may not have seen much written
about this subject in recent years but the trend is acutely apparent in
U.S. trade figures. With its industrial base almost gone, America has
consistently in recent years run a current account deficit of 4 to 6
percent of GDP – the weakest trade performance of any major nation in
history. The geopolitical consequences could hardly be more disastrous
as the United States has come increasingly to depend on funding from
such creditor nations as China and Japan. It is not an exaggeration to
say that America’s role now has been reduced to borrowing from China to
save the world from China. [...]

(12) Japan's non-tariff barriers - Eamonn Fingleton

http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/04/20/whats-japans-guiltiest-secret-hint-its-not-the-comfort-women/

Eamonn Fingleton, Contributor

What's Japan's Guiltiest Secret?: (Hint) It's Not The Comfort Women

For anyone who follows East Asia, here's a question: what is Japan's
guiltiest secret?

The "comfort women" scandal? The Nanking massacre? Official homage to
war criminals at the Yasukuni shrine?

No, no, and no. If by a guilty secret we mean something that Japan
really, really wants to sweep under the rug, none of the above comes
even close. Japan actually often goes out of its way to publicize these
issues: click here for the official Japanese news agency's account of
today's carefully timed visit by Keiji Furuya to Yasukuni. With Kyodo's
help and the fact that Easter Sunday is, of course, a particularly slow
news day in the West, this relative nonentity has made headlines
everywhere from the South China Morning Post to the BBC World Service.

We will look more closely at Japan's attitude to such controversies in a
moment. For now let's note that Japan does have secrets and big ones -
secrets it strives with unique ingenuity and success to keep out of the
Western media.

Top of the list is something that - at least for those of us who know
Japan - is hidden in plain sight: the Japanese auto market. Fifty years
after the Tokyo authorities ostensibly began opening to free trade, the
Japanese auto market remains one of the world's most closed. I don't
mean just that Detroit-made cars don't get a look in. These are, with
few exceptions, unsuitable for Japanese roads. But the Detroit Big
Three's subsidiaries in Europe make plenty of cars that - in a fair
world - should do well in Japan. After all such cars compete, and in
many cases compete strongly, against Japanese competition across Europe.
They don't have a prayer against Japan's non-tariff barriers.

Even more tellingly Volkswagen is a tiny also-ran in Japan, with just 1
percent of the market. Yet Volkswagen is no slouch in other markets and
in fact ranks broadly equal to Toyota as the world's largest auto-maker
(the days when that title seemed to be General Motors's by birthright
are gone).

Then there is Renault, which is supposedly (at least if you believe the
New York Times and the Wall Street Journal) the senior partner in an
alliance with Japan's second largest automaker Nissan. For more than a
decade now Renault chief Carlos Ghosn has been trying to get Renault
cars into Nissan showrooms. The last I heard he was even living much of
his time in the posh Tokyo district of Azabu in one of the world's more
expensive rental apartments. He has remarkably little to show for his
efforts: to the extent that the Renault has established any presence in
Japan it is as a make of bicycles. Made under license in Taiwan, Renault
bicycles have captured, on an optimistic count, perhaps 1 percent of the
Japanese bicycle market!

The Yasukuni Shrine: always in the news but at least no one is talking
about the car market. Photo credit: Wikipedia) Of course, umpteen times
over the years the problem of Japan's closed market has been declared
solved. Nobuhiko Ushiba, who served as Japan's ambassador to Washington
in the early 1970s, once told reporters: "There is no example in recent
history of a nation liberalizing trade policy as fast as Japan."
Meanwhile in 1982, Japanese foreign minister Yoshio Sakurauchi assured a
meeting of the GATT that Japan "is one of the most open markets in the
world."

A particularly impressive-sounding assurance came from President Bill
Clinton in 1995. Speaking in the White House Briefing Room, with
Japanese Trade Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto looking on impassively,
Clinton announced that Japan had agreed "to truly open its auto and auto
parts markets to American companies."

He added: "This agreement is specific. It is measurable. It will achieve
real, concrete results ... we finally have an agreement that will move
cars and parts both ways between the United States and Japan. This
breakthrough is a major step toward free trade throughout the world."

It was all empty rhetoric, of course, as Clinton surely knew. The
interesting thing is that the American press has never revisited the
record, not even the reliably anti-Clinton Wall Street Journal. Anyone
who knows the Tokyo news business knows why. The Japanese authorities
keep the foreign press on a remarkably tight leash and, with virtually
no exceptions, foreign correspondents are induced to censor themselves.
As a practical matter, Tokyo wields a panoply of carrots and sticks in
controlling what Japan-based foreigners say to the outside world and
most long-term foreign residents are overt or covert agents for Japan's
public relations agenda. Foreign correspondents are no exception.

Don't believe me? Do a Google search. The most important single fact
about the Japanese auto market is that for decades the share of all
foreign brands combined has been kept to just 4 percent. When did you
last read that in the New York Times? It is also worth searching for a
statement put out last July by the American Automotive Policy Council
itemizing some of the most blatant of Japan's non-tariff barriers. It
received virtually no coverage in the U.S. press.

Yet it is hard to exaggerate the consequences for the global economy.
Thanks to assiduous protectionism, the Japanese domestic auto market
remains a high-price sanctuary. The huge profits earned there enable
Japanese auto makers to invest at a super-fast rate in ever more
efficient production technology, all the while pricing aggressively in
foreign markets. Nor is the global auto market a small prize. The fact
is that autos and auto parts are by far the largest single manufacturing
category in world trade.

Now let's consider the comfort women scandal and other widely publicized
manifestations of Japan's "failure to come to terms with its past." The
first thing to note is that no one alive today had any responsibility
for the war, thus everyone has an alibi. For a nation with some real
skeletons in its closet, controversy over the war-time past is actually
a safe issue and if things become a little too heated the Prime Minister
or Emperor can always step in with another apology, thus putting the
issue to bed until further notice. Seen in this light there is no point
in Tokyo covering up such issues. Quite the contrary. While the foreign
press busies itself with the often completely contrived issues of the
war-time past, it has less time and energy to delve into issues on which
the Tokyo authorities really want to maintain radio silence.

The most obvious indicator that Tokyo has no interest in suppressing the
controversies is the behavior of the Japan Times, a semi-official
English language newspaper that the Dutch Japanologist Karel van
Wolferen has characterized as the Tokyo Foreign Ministry's megaphone.
What is clear is that as most American and British correspondents in
Tokyo don't read Japanese, the Japan Times is the unstated source of
many of their reports. A closely related matter is the role of Kyodo,
the official news agency whose English-language service follows the same
editorial policy as the Japan Times.

On issues that the authorities really want to sweep under the rug, the
Japan Times and Kyodo cooperate fully. Besides the auto market issue,
another key issue that has traditionally been censored in Tokyo is
Japan's stonewalling on compensation to war victims. In sharp contrast
to Germany, Japan has paid virtually nothing to victims of its war
crimes - a fact that for decades was kept almost completely sub-rosa in
the Western press. (Things have been liberalized somewhat in the last
few years, now that most of the victims are dead.)

(13) President Trump will declare US bankruptcy

http://ellenbrown.com/2015/08/18/trumping-the-federal-debt-without-playing-the-default-card/

Trumping the Federal Debt Without Playing the Default Card

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Ellen Brown

"The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print
money to do that. So there is zero probability of default."

— Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan on Meet the Press, August 2011

In a post on "Sovereign Man" dated August 14th, Simon Black argued that
Donald Trump may be the right man for the presidency:

[T]here’s one thing that really sets him apart, that, in my opinion,
makes him the most qualified person for the job:

Donald Trump is an expert at declaring bankruptcy.

When the going gets tough, Trump stiffs his creditors. He’s done it four
times!

Candidly, this is precisely what the Land of the Free needs right now:
someone who can stop beating around the bush and just get on with it
already.

Black says the country is officially bankrupt, with the government’s
financial statements showing a negative net worth of $17.7 trillion:

Nations that pass the economic point of no return can’t rebuild until
they hit rock bottom. And the US is way past that point. So let’s get on
with it already and hit the reset button.

Black recommends doing this by defaulting, preferably on Social Security
and Medicare. But that is unlikely to suit this leading Republican
candidate. As Trump said on Meet the Press on August 16:

I want people to be taken care of from a healthcare standpoint.… I want
to save Social Security without cuts. I want … a strong country with
very little debt.

How can the country remain strong with very little debt, without
defaulting on Social Security, Medicare, or the federal debt itself?

There is a way. The government can reduce the debt by buying it – and
ripping it up. The debt can be bought either with debt-free US Notes of
the sort issued during the Civil War, or with US dollars issued by the
Federal Reserve in the form of "quantitative easing."

The vast majority of the money supply today is created by banks when
they make loans, as the Bank of England recently acknowledged. Banks
create money by "monetizing" debt, turning loans into the digital
deposits that make up most of the circulating money supply. The
government could push the reset button by monetizing its own debt,
turning it into what it should have been all along – debt-free,
interest-free dollars. As Thomas Edison observed in 1921:

If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The
element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. . . . It is
absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency.
Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps
the People.

That is not just a quaint idea from the 1920s. Credible authorities are
making that argument today. In November 2010, Dean Baker, co-director of
the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, wrote in
response to the debt ceiling crisis:

There is no reason that the Fed can’t just buy this debt (as it is
largely doing) and hold it indefinitely. If the Fed holds the debt,
there is no interest burden for future taxpayers. The Fed refunds its
interest earnings to the Treasury every year. Last year the Fed refunded
almost $80 billion in interest to the Treasury, nearly 40 percent of the
country’s net interest burden. And the Fed has other tools to ensure
that the expansion of the monetary base required to purchase the debt
does not lead to inflation.

In 2011, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul proposed dealing
with the debt ceiling by simply voiding out the $1.7 trillion in federal
securities then held by the Fed. As Stephen Gandel explained Paul’s
solution in Time Magazine, the Treasury pays interest on the securities
to the Fed, which returns 90% of these payments to the Treasury. Despite
this shell game of payments, the $1.7 trillion in US bonds owned by the
Fed is still counted toward the debt ceiling. Paul’s plan:

Get the Fed and the Treasury to rip up that debt. It’s fake debt anyway.
And the Fed is legally allowed to return the debt to the Treasury to be
destroyed.

Congressman Alan Grayson, a Democrat, also endorsed this proposal.

In February 2015, financial author Richard Duncan made a strong case for
going further than monetizing existing debt. He argued that under
current market conditions, the US could rebuild its collapsing
infrastructure with quantitative easing without causing price inflation.
Prices go up when demand (money) exceeds supply (goods and services);
and with automation and the availability of cheap labor in vast global
markets today, supply (productivity) can keep up with demand for decades
to come. Duncan observed:

Quantitative Easing has only been possible because it has occurred at a
time when Globalization is driving down the price of labor and
industrial goods. The combination of fiat money and Globalization
creates a unique moment in history where the governments of the
developed economies can print money on an aggressive scale without
causing inflation.

They should take advantage of this once-in-history opportunity to borrow
more in order to invest in new industries and technologies, to
restructure their economies and to retrain and educate their workforce
at the post-graduate level. If they do, they could not only end the
global economic crisis, but also ensure that the standard of living in
the developed world continues to improve, rather than sinking down to
third world levels.

Abraham Lincoln revived the colonial system of government-issued money
when he endorsed the printing of $450 million in US Notes or
"greenbacks" during the Civil War. The greenbacks not only helped the
Union win the war but triggered a period of robust national growth and
saved the taxpayers about $14 billion in interest payments (figuring an
average of $300 million in outstanding US Notes over 150 years, at an
average real interest rate of 2.6% compounded annually). The US federal
debt has been growing ever since 1835, when President Andrew Jackson
last paid it off and closed down the Second US Bank. If judicious use of
US Notes had continued to the present, there might now be no federal
debt at all.

The Inflation Snag

In short, the sovereign debt crisis can be solved by issuing sovereign
money. But is there really such a thing as a free lunch? Wouldn’t buying
up the debt with newly-issued money lead to a hyperinflationary
disaster?That was the fear when the Federal Reserve began its QE program
in 2008. But the Fed has now monetized $4.5 trillion in QE ($2.7
trillion of which consisted of buying back federal securities, and these
fears have not materialized. The stock market has gone up, but not
apparently from an increased money supply. More likely it is from very
low interest rates, making bonds unattractive and facilitating stock
buybacks and borrowing to invest. The cost of produce has gone up, but
it is largely because of drought in California, which supplies nearly
half the country’s fruits, vegetables and nuts; and because speculators
have moved into foodstuffs. Despite all that, the overall inflation rate
remains at manageable levels.

Why didn’t $4.5 trillion in QE drive prices into the stratosphere? As
financial writer Matthew Kerkhoff explained in a November 2013 article,
quantitative easing is just an asset swap:

When the Fed creates $85 billion, it uses this money to buy bonds . . .
. When the Fed creates and gives $85 billion in reserves to its member
banks, it removes $85 billion worth of assets (bonds) from the balance
sheets of those same member banks. The result is that no new net
financial assets enter the economy. . . .

It’s much more accurate to think of the Fed’s QE program as an asset
swap. In fact it’s even more accurate to think of it as a liquidity
swap. . . . In this context liquidity refers to the ease with which
money can be used.

Bonds are more cumbersome to spend than cash, but they still represent
purchasing power. Government securities that can be quickly converted
into cash or that are near maturity are considered a form of "near
money". When the Fed buys the bonds, it is simply converting this
less-liquid money back into more-liquid money. As Warren Mosler and John
Carney explain on CNBC.com:

Quantitative easing is about the Fed buying Treasury securities. When
you (voluntarily) sell them to the Fed, at current market prices, the
Fed just shifts your dollars from your securities account to your bank’s
reserve account, all at the Fed. So why should that do anything to the
economy? You have the same amount of dollars, and you could have shifted
them in the same market place any time you wanted in any case.

The QE liquidity swap does not increase the circulating money supply.
The money supply increased when the bonds were issued – when the debt
was incurred and the government spent the funds.

Adding to the federal debt beyond its current level (i.e. by funding
infrastructure with new QE that is not repaid with taxes) would increase
the money competing for goods and services. But the economy actually
needs that increased "demand" in order to promote full employment (one
of the Fed’s mandates). Demand (money) precedes supply (goods and
services). The money has to be out there searching for goods and
services before employers will add more workers to create this increased
supply. Money can be added to the point of full productive capacity
(full use of workers, supplies and machines) before adding more will
drive up prices. And as Richard Duncan observes, we are a long way from
full productive capacity now.

Whether full productive capacity would exhaust the earth’s resources is
another question, but there are many ways to put people to work that
either don’t use physical resources (e.g. education, art, social
service, environmental cleanup) or that actually make resource use more
efficient (investment in improved infrastructure, sustainable energy,
research and development).

Time to Reset

Back to Donald Trump. Besides his experience with bankruptcy, Trump,
along with Bernie Sanders on the left, is unique in not being beholden
to big money. Sanders does not take it, and Trump does not need it. If
either candidate makes it to the White House, he will be in a position
to stand up to Wall Street and do what is right for the country. And
that includes restoring the power to issue the national money supply to
the people of the nation through their representative government.

(14) Trump says Putin has every right to support, defend and protect Assad

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/10/02/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-gets-an-a-for-leadership/

Donald Trump: Vladimir Putin Gets an A for Leadership

By Jonas E. Alexis on October 2, 2015

Donald Trump has surprised some people a few days ago. He said that
Putin is certainly getting an A for his leadership. Not only that, Trump
said that Putin has every right to support, defend and protect Assad in
Syria.[1]

Trump made another good point by saying that taking in Syrian refugees
in the U.S. can backfire because you never know if they are really
refugees.[2] "They could be Isis," he said, and "they are all
strong."[3] The refugee crisis in the Middle East, he added, could be
"one of the great tactical ploys of all time."[4]

Well, Mr. Trump, welcome to the club. We have been saying that the
refugee crisis is indeed one of the most covert "tactical ploys" in the
history of psychological warfare. But those "tactical ploys" did not
come out of thin air. NWO agents and Satan worshipers used those
"tactical ploys" to beat Europe over the head and to literally destroy
nations, families, decent people, and indeed Western civilization.

Of course, Trump did not get great accolades by NWO agents and Satan
worshipers for saying some of these things. Matt Stone, the Jewish
co-creator of South Park, one of the most disgusting animated sitcoms in
America, portrayed Trump being raped and murdered [...]

It got worse. Another Jew by the name of Sarah Levy from Oregon
collected her own menstrual blood in a Diva cup and used it to paint an
image of Donald Trump.[7] This is no joke:

Andres Jauregui, Huffington Post editor, entitled one of his articles:
"This Handsome Donald Trump Menstrual Blood Portrait Will Help
Immigrants."[8] Hopefully this guys was not being serious. [...]

[1] Chris, Spargo, "Donald Trump calls Putin better leader than Obama
and admits he has to grow up to get Republican nomination after he ends
his week long self-imposed exile from Fox News," Daily Mail, September
30, 2015; "Donald Trump supports Russian efforts to tackle Isis in
Syria," The Independent, September 29, 2015.

[2] Ben Jacobs and Tom McCarthy, "’They could be Isis.’ Donald Trump
warns against taking Syrian refugees," Guardian, October 1, 2015.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Quoted in Brian C. Anderson, South Park Conservatives: The Revolt
Against Liberal Media Bias (Washington DC: Regnery, 2005), 74-75.

[6] Quoted in Heather Havrilesky, "Puppet masters," Guardian, October
12, 2004.

[7] "Portland artist uses period blood for Trump portrait," USA Today,
September 16, 2015; Carly Stern, "Artist uses her menstrual blood and a
tampon to paint a portrait of Donald Trump in protest at the
presidential candidate’s ‘outrageous’ and ‘sexist’ comments," Daily
Mail, September 16, 2015.

[8] Andres Jauregui, "This Handsome Donald Trump Menstrual Blood
Portrait Will Help Immigrants," Huffington Post, September 14, 2015. [...]

(15) Trump: let Russia fight Islamist extremists

http://sputniknews.com/us/20150924/1027433298.html

02:33 24.09.2015 (updated 02:45 24.09.2015)

Donald Trump urged the White House to let Russia fight ISIL because the
Russians want to prevent terrorists from entering their country.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US presidential candidate Donald Trump urged the
White House during a campaign speech on Wednesday evening to let Russia
fight ISIL because the Russians want to prevent terrorists from entering
their country.

"You have Russia wanting to fight ISIS [ISIL]," Trump said at a town
hall meeting in South Carolina. "Let Russia fight ISIS - they don’t want
ISIS coming into Russia."

The Obama administration has been critical of Russia’s support for
Syrian President Bashar Assad in the fight against ISIL.

Moscow has urged the US-led coalition against the Islamic State to join
forces with the Syrian government in its fight against the violent
Islamist extremists.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that Washington was
prepared to immediately begin a dialogue with Russia on the war in Syria.

On Sunday, Kerry stated he would meet with Russian Foreign Affairs
Minister Sergey Lavrov to discuss the Syrian civil war at the upcoming
UN General Assembly meetings in New York.

Donald Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential
nomination, garnering more than 30 percent of likely voter support in
recent polling. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
got 38 and 31 percent of support respectively in a Bloomberg poll
released on Wednesday.

(16) Trump praises Putin; would be friends with him, if elected

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3254412/Donald-Trump-calls-Putin-better-leader-Obama-admits-grow-Republican-nomination-ends-week-long-self-imposed-exile-Fox-News.html

Donald Trump calls Putin better leader than Obama and admits he has to
grow up to get Republican nomination after he ends his week long
self-imposed exile from Fox News

Donald Trump appeared on The O'Reilly Factor Thursday night a week after
his self-imposed exile from Fox News      Trump praised Vladmir Putin
and his leadership on the program, saying he was far better than
President Obama     He also acknowledged that he will need to mature to
secure the Republican nomination next      Trump then made an apology
for calling fellow candidate Marco Rubio a 'clown'

By Chris Spargo For Dailymail.com

Published: 16:08 EST, 30 September 2015 | Updated: 18:21 EST, 30
September 2015

Donald Trump praised Vladmir Putin and even gave himself some critiques
as he appeared on Fox News Tuesday night after exiling himself from the
network - for a week.

The Republican hopeful appeared on The O'Reilly Factor where he told
host Bill O'Reilly that Putin is a much better leader than President
Obama and that he had to 'mature' before he can get the nomination from
his party. ...

Speaking about Putin he said that if he were elected he would be able to
be friends with the Russian leader, and then praised his skills.

'I will tell you that, in terms of leadership, he's getting an "A" and
our president is not doing so well,' he said.

'They did not look good together,' he added, referring to their recent
tense meeting at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

He also said he agreed with Putin on his backing of Syrian President
Bashar Assad.

(17) Trump supports Russian efforts to tackle Isis in Syria

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-supports-russian-efforts-to-tackle-isis-in-syria-a6671941.html

Donald Trump supports Russian efforts to tackle Isis in Syria

Tycoon said supporting Putin was better option than being 'jealous'

Andrew Buncombe

New York

Tuesday 29 September 2015 13:57 BST

Leading Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday
said he supported Russian efforts to fight Isis militants in the Middle
East, including Syria.

Asked whether he backed those like Russia who supported Syrian President
Bashar al Assad, or those who see him as the source of Syria's current
crisis, Mr Trump told NBC: "I side with the group that says if Russia
wants to go and fight ISIS, you should let them as opposed to saying
were jealous we don't want you to do that."

Reuters reported that the 69-year-old Mr Trump, who is leading public
opinion polls among those seeking the Republican Party's bid to win the
White House in the 2016 election, said the United States should support
those who want to destroy the militant group that has taken over large
parts of Syria, as well as neighbouring Iraq.

Republicans have criticised Democratic US President Barack Obama's
foreign policy in Syria, which has been mired in civil war for four
years and has seen an influx of Islamic State militants.

Asked about whether Mr Assad was the source of the country's ills, Mr
Trump said it was not clear and questioned who would replace him if he
were ousted.

"The people that want to come in and replace Assad, nobody knows who
they are and they could end up being worse," he said.

"We're constantly going out and siding with people and they turn out to
be worse than the people who were there before."