At its core, the capitalistic system uses money (capital) as a means of exchanging goods and services between participating parties. Historically, it has proven to be a much more efficient method than bartering.
A corporation is a legally created entity which was originally designed as an equitable and efficient method of allowing multiple parties to participate in the operation of an enterprise.
Since artificially created capitalist systems and corporations both tend to have powerful profit incentives, they must -- through socially controlled democratic policies -- be continually monitored and legally restrained from their often devious and covert tendencies to damage the real world.
Until 1886, the corporations in the United States were severely regulated. Up until that time, corporations would lose their charters as corporations if they, for example -- broke the law, infused money into politics, caused public harm, owned other corporations, attempted to exist longer than the term that was required in their charter, etc. Additionally, and most notably, officers of corporations could be held civilly and criminally liable for the illegal actions of their corporation.
Since 1886 until the present, corporations have, in an almost imperceivable fashion, slowly manipulated the political and legal processes in the United States, as well as most of the world, to remove the severe legal restrictions that previously kept them safely under control. Today, these parasitic legal entities, whose artificial "existence" resides somewhere in a lawyer's file cabinet, have MORE rights than humans and are legally "authorized" to live forever -- even though the damage that they are continually perpetrating on humans and our environment is incalculable and all too often perpetually irreversible!
During the last few decades, large US corporations have manipulated the political/legal systems in order to free themselves even more from the legal restraints imposed upon them by the corrupted United States political/legal establishment. Among the many negative consequences that this corporate quest for "liberation" has spawned, is their instigation of a massive migration of major corporations to other countries. This process, while transferring massive amounts of wealth to the extremely wealthy, has been documented to leave behind a growing population of under and unemployed workers -- which was the very heart of the internationally envied United States Middle Class.
Now, the legislative bodies of twelve Pacific Rim countries are presented with a secretively created trade agreement and encouraged to approve it WITHOUT ANY MODIFICATIONS. This agreement simply builds on and greatly expands the corruptive practices that previous corporate created agreements have had.
It is critical that the media accepts its moral responsibility and honestly inform the public at large of the detailed ramifications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). After all, this is the largest trade deal in history and was created by a cabal of international corporations and bankers who explicitly stated that it was designed to counter the enormous economic influence of China. However, that is a rather narrow expression of what a more complete examination of its underlying objectives reveal.
While continually excluding the public, lobbyist from some of the largest corporations and banks in the world created this agreement. It is designed to maximize profits at the expense of the rest of humanity. Among those who were not invited to be involved in its creation, were representatives of labor organizations, environmentalist, civil rights organizations, international human rights organizations, advocates for an open Internet, the medical community and numerous other groups of similar ilk.
This agreement provides more international protections for these large corporations and financial groups when it comes to intellectual property, patents, trademarks, copyrights, loans, securities and global franchise agreements. At the same time, there are minimal to no protections for workers, small investors, health workers, consumers, the Internet, personal privacy or the environment.
For example, the pharmaceutical industry will benefit from stronger patent protections, which will allow higher prices as well as longer patent periods and thus retard the introduction of less expensive generic drugs. The end result is that, due to the excessive cost of these drugs, millions of financially challenged people will be forced to do without and literally suffer the often deadly consequences.
One of the more onerous aspects of the TPP is how it infringes on the national sovereignty of participating members. Rather than allow disputes to be settled between conflicting parties in the International Courts, the corporations instead create panels composed of corporate lawyers to resolve such issues. Additionally, should a corporation feel that it suffered financial injury in a participating country, they will legally be allowed to use a corporate staffed tribunal to bypass the laws of that country and sue that very country for damages.
A few more legal areas where any participating country's laws and/or regulations could be challenged by these sociopathic corporate entities include -- consumer protection laws, predatory lending laws, fraudulent investor protection laws, Internet privacy laws, worker protection laws, unsafe and unhealthy food and drug protection laws, environmental and toxic emissions laws.
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Personally, I can't understand why any informed and sane citizen would accept such an agreement. Additionally, I will find it hard to provide ANY support for ANY legislator who votes to approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In fact, I will go so far as to state that any informed politician or government employee who supports this agreement is not only immoral, but unconscionable and should be removed from office!
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