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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
shakeup forces... so you're definition of a trade agreement is an agreement that put some things that are able force the other to do what they refuse to ?
That's the whole idea behind the european union already, we don't need another level of that bullshit. Most of your arguments are based on wind : "it will be better with the TTIP" "europe will gain a lot". All I see is a loss of sovereignty - again - in favor of the most powerful firms - again. The rest of the treaty is about what ? No tariff ? There's none already ? No limitation on importation and exportations ? There's almost none between the US and Europe ? Or maybe the US will finally put down their interdiction of french cheese ?
All we are seeing right now from the few informations we have is that most legislation that goes against full competition are discussed : legislation on national preference (in the US public market for exemple), legislation on finance (because everybody knows those rules are useless right ?), etc.
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I don't really understand what aspect of sovereignty you are so afraid of losing. I guess is the issue. Perhaps a set of policies that you think offend the treaty, but that you support, for illustrative purposes.
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On March 25 2015 21:36 phil.ipp wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2015 09:52 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
If you think there's a better forum for dealing with these disputes, fine. But acting as if you're getting sold down the river because of them is unwarranted. why is this unwarranted? why again should a company get the right to go to some secret court (no transparency) where not even judges rule, where the sentence is ultimate and you cant appeal anywhere? seriously this sounds like a very bad idea, and the fact that it already exists doesn't mean anything.
It is unwarranted because of the facts I just presented to you. Did you read them?
What alternative rights do they have? Germans invest in Switzerland and their money is expropriated by the Swiss. Do they go to the German court or the Swiss court? Might there be bias in going to one or the other? International justice is more difficult. If you look at Argentina's ongoing pari passu saga, things can get really messy for a really long time.
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On March 26 2015 07:01 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
What alternative rights do they have? Your question points to the core of the problem, don't you see that?
Why should anybody have 'alternative rights'?
What kind of world view is behind the demand to not have to follow the jurisdiction of a country?
Why? Because they are rich?
PS: If the Swiss expropriate your money, of course you go to a Swiss court! The Swiss, like every civilized nation on earth, do have the right of property in their basic law. So they can't take away your stuff without compensation. The amount of compensation differs, but that comes with the trade of foreign investment and should be taken into account beforehand.
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On March 26 2015 06:58 cLutZ wrote:
I don't really understand what aspect of sovereignty you are so afraid of losing. I guess is the issue. Perhaps a set of policies that you think offend the treaty, but that you support, for illustrative purposes.
It is pretty obvious... Firms will use the court to pass through national preferences : GMO ? Nationalization of firms ? State monopoly (in electricity for exemple) ? Environment ?
As soon as you give power to an institution it uses it.
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On March 26 2015 13:42 lord_nibbler wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2015 07:01 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
What alternative rights do they have? Your question points to the core of the problem, don't you see that? Why should anybody have 'alternative rights'? What kind of world view is behind the demand to not have to follow the jurisdiction of a country? Why? Because they are rich? PS: If the Swiss expropriate your money, of course you go to a Swiss court! The Swiss, like every civilized nation on earth, do have the right of property in their basic law. So they can't take away your stuff without compensation. The amount of compensation differs, but that comes with the trade of foreign investment and should be taken into account beforehand.
Arbitration courts do not mean that an investor does not have to follow domestic law. So there is no world view demanding that local laws should be avoidable.
As for your response to the Germany / Swiss situation - fine go to the Swiss court (I doubt jurisdictional issues never appear, but we can set that aside if you like). Arbitration doesn't replace the existing judicial systems, it supplements it. From the European Commission: Will TTIP allow foreign firms to bypass national courts to sue national governments?
No. This is a myth.
If a US company wanted to challenge a law or measure passed by an EU government it would have to do so in that country's local or national courts. If it were prevented from going to court it could then try to bring a claim under arbitration provided for by Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).
The other case where a US company could use ISDS would be where the point of law it wanted to raise was in the TTIP agreement itself rather than in a country's domestic law. International treaties are not enforceable in national courts. ISDS provides an international forum for settling points of international law.
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On March 26 2015 14:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2015 13:42 lord_nibbler wrote:On March 26 2015 07:01 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
What alternative rights do they have? Your question points to the core of the problem, don't you see that? Why should anybody have 'alternative rights'? What kind of world view is behind the demand to not have to follow the jurisdiction of a country? Why? Because they are rich? PS: If the Swiss expropriate your money, of course you go to a Swiss court! The Swiss, like every civilized nation on earth, do have the right of property in their basic law. So they can't take away your stuff without compensation. The amount of compensation differs, but that comes with the trade of foreign investment and should be taken into account beforehand. Arbitration courts do not mean that an investor does not have to follow domestic law. So there is no world view demanding that local laws should be avoidable. As for your response to the Germany / Swiss situation - fine go to the Swiss court (I doubt jurisdictional issues never appear, but we can set that aside if you like). Arbitration doesn't replace the existing judicial systems, it supplements it. From the European Commission: Show nested quote +Will TTIP allow foreign firms to bypass national courts to sue national governments?
No. This is a myth.
If a US company wanted to challenge a law or measure passed by an EU government it would have to do so in that country's local or national courts. If it were prevented from going to court it could then try to bring a claim under arbitration provided for by Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS).
The other case where a US company could use ISDS would be where the point of law it wanted to raise was in the TTIP agreement itself rather than in a country's domestic law. International treaties are not enforceable in national courts. ISDS provides an international forum for settling points of international law.
The reason many people are (rightfully) suspicious of TTIP is the fact that many corporations already lobby their way around national legislations, and TTIP might just exacerbate that even further. Apart from that people fear that the TTIP might be used to further erode workers' rights in the name of market liberalisation.
I don't know if you noticed, but the public opinion in Europe right now is that the EU has eroded national sovereignty too much already.
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On March 26 2015 14:46 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2015 06:58 cLutZ wrote:
I don't really understand what aspect of sovereignty you are so afraid of losing. I guess is the issue. Perhaps a set of policies that you think offend the treaty, but that you support, for illustrative purposes. It is pretty obvious... Firms will use the court to pass through national preferences : GMO ? Nationalization of firms ? State monopoly (in electricity for exemple) ? Environment ? As soon as you give power to an institution it uses it.
Which of those regulations would be banned by the treaty? You are just making things up really. If a country signs an international treaty saying that it won't nationalize its steel industry, that it will allow private competition in electricity (your examples) then goes back on those promises, (or more likely like forgiving contracts owed to a company, imposing speech restrictions, or capital restrictions), its better to have the international arbitration court try to settle it than the other methods of enforcement (which basically boil down to onerous trade restrictions and invasion).
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On March 26 2015 16:13 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2015 14:46 WhiteDog wrote:On March 26 2015 06:58 cLutZ wrote:
I don't really understand what aspect of sovereignty you are so afraid of losing. I guess is the issue. Perhaps a set of policies that you think offend the treaty, but that you support, for illustrative purposes. It is pretty obvious... Firms will use the court to pass through national preferences : GMO ? Nationalization of firms ? State monopoly (in electricity for exemple) ? Environment ? As soon as you give power to an institution it uses it. Which of those regulations would be banned by the treaty? You are just making things up really. If a country signs an international treaty saying that it won't nationalize its steel industry, that it will allow private competition in electricity (your examples) then goes back on those promises, (or more likely like forgiving contracts owed to a company, imposing speech restrictions, or capital restrictions), its better to have the international arbitration court try to settle it than the other methods of enforcement (which basically boil down to onerous trade restrictions and invasion).
Of course they are all in discussion. There are already state monopoly that ARE forbidden, for exemple the national preference in the united state for american public contractor will be cancelled with the treaty. There's also negotiation directly involving firms, most notably in drug firms, that push for a change in american legislation that will increase the price for drugs and erase the necessity, in the US, for independant trials on all drugs. You're all making it seem like we know NOTHING, there's plenty of things that have leaked, it's just that you don't want to see those.
And country change their point of view all the time, it's even accepted in international law : a country can cancel a treaty if it goes against the interests of the population.
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So, you have given examples that are positives, and then supported the position that I have always somewhat taken that treaties are meaningless.
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On March 27 2015 19:21 cLutZ wrote:
So, you have given examples that are positives, and then supported the position that I have always somewhat taken that treaties are meaningless.
Positives ? Increase in drug price ? Loss in national preference for public founding ? It's not at least up to discussion that some of these changes are bad ?
Ho you're a libetarian ? The state is bad blablabla let's arm ourselves and promote competition and business against tyranny.
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Wow cLutZ. 'Higher drug prices and less independent drug trials is a good thing'. What kind of parallel universe did you come from? That has to be a misread or straight up tl;dr, right?
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Higher drug prices in Europe will probably be a good thing. Under the current system he United States subsidizes the entire civilized worlds drug development because of European price controls (and threatening to strip patent rights in place like India, China, Russia). I read less independent drug trials as a system that gets drugs to market faster, with more risks, which is fine to me, I think we have swung the pendulum too far towards caution at the moment.
Its not just about the state being bad, its about transparency around the costs they impose on people. The problem with this whole thing is you are acting like the government officials who covet power are going to cede it. That's not a plausible outcome. The arbitration courts are going to be limited in scope and likely limited to a few causes of action. If pulling a direct subsidy is a COA or raising taxes, I'll be surprised.
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I'm fairly ignorant toward global drug subsidies, but one thing I do know is that I'd like strict testing regulations to remain in place so my grandmother doesn't develop a third arm from taking her arthritis medication.
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On March 28 2015 04:55 cLutZ wrote:
Higher drug prices in Europe will probably be a good thing. Under the current system he United States subsidizes the entire civilized worlds drug development because of European price controls (and threatening to strip patent rights in place like India, China, Russia). Do you have a source of that or are you just plain bullshitting? Because this is quite the ludicrous claim you are making, especially concerning that Switzerland, UK and Germany have considerably large and famous pharmaceutical companies.
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On March 28 2015 05:02 always_winter wrote:
I'm fairly ignorant toward global drug subsidies, but one thing I do know is that I'd like strict testing regulations to remain in place so my grandmother doesn't develop a third arm from taking her arthritis medication.
To clarify, it is not a subsidy in the traditional sense, it is a product of the somewhat unique way the pharmaceutical business works plus socialized medical systems that impose price restrictions.
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On March 28 2015 05:12 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2015 04:55 cLutZ wrote:
Higher drug prices in Europe will probably be a good thing. Under the current system he United States subsidizes the entire civilized worlds drug development because of European price controls (and threatening to strip patent rights in place like India, China, Russia). Do you have a source of that or are you just plain bullshitting? Because this is quite the ludicrous claim you are making, especially concerning that Switzerland, UK and Germany have considerably large and famous pharmaceutical companies.
Those companies make a majority of their profits in the United States. I'll re-find my research and post it.
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On March 28 2015 05:12 cLutZ wrote:
To clarify, it is not a subsidy in the traditional sense, it is a product of the somewhat unique way the pharmaceutical business works plus socialized medical systems that impose price restrictions.
Or you know, you could pass the same laws and all consumers would profit, instead of ruining it for everyone by handing over even more money to the pharma industry
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We couldn't, because that would just be another market distortion, one that probably hinders the future development of drugs.
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2009/RAND_RP1380.pdf
Implementing price controls in the United States would have adverse effects on European consumers, by depressing rates of innovation. These global linkages create major policy problems in an international marketplace, because a given country does not fully realize the benefits (or costs) of its own policies. European price controls, for example, have smaller effects on innovation, because of the presence of a large U.S. market, which acts as a counterweight to policies that reduce European revenues. Moreover, some of the costs that do accrue end up being borne by U.S. consumers, further dampening Europe’s incentives for higher prices.
http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/documents/s19834en/s19834en.pdf
The United States accounts for more than 40% of OECD expenditure on pharmaceuticals
The evidence is that the United States market is the primary driver of pharmaceutical development. Now, they can still make money in Europe, because the marginal cost of a dose once a drug has been developed is minuscule.
You might propose a new system that is different than the current Research>Patent>Regulatory Approval>Profit lifecycle for drugs in the modern economy, but because that is the model we use the US market (and US consumers) subsidizes the European market (by providing them with drugs that never would have been developed).
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Ah, so your healthcare system is that horribly bad by design, so you can altruistically support all of us poor european children in our silly socialistic ways which would never work without the glorious american capitalism saving us?
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On March 28 2015 05:52 Simberto wrote:
Ah, so your healthcare system is that horribly bad by design, so you can altruistically support all of us poor european children in our silly socialistic ways which would never work without the glorious american capitalism saving us?
Its almost like I provided objective evidence that Europe is being supported by the American system, and you countered with and unsubstantiated catty retort.
http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Speeches/ucm053614.htm
This year, Americans, who account for a fraction of prescription drug use worldwide, will pay for about half of all pharmaceutical spending worldwide. By contrast, citizens in the world’s third largest economy, Germany, paid less than five percent. The same kind of drug payment disparity is true for many other developed nations who have about as much ability to pay as Americans do.
Yet on the whole, people in these other nations are getting most of the same kinds of drugs and the many of the same kinds of health benefits as Americans. And it’s not only Americans that seem to be paying an unfair share. Drug prices on average are significantly higher in countries like Poland than they are in France and Germany – even though people in those countries have significantly less economic wealth than the countries of Western Europe.
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EPT
