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trade cartoon snippet A respected human-rights expert at the United Nations, Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, has joined the global movement opposing trade treaties like TPP and TTIP. And he has novel and powerful legal arguments.

In international law, de Zayas says, there is a hierarchy of agreements, and at the top is the UN Charter: “in case of conflict between the provisions of the UN Charter and any other treaty, the Charter prevails.” In other words, trade treaties that lead to a violation of human rights — or breach any other obligation set out in the UN Charter — are legally invalid. Most countries have signed onto human rights treaties, but “they have also entered into trade and investment agreements that hinder, delay or render impossible the fulfillment of their human rights treaty obligations.”

De Zayas is especially concerned about Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clauses, which allow corporations to sue governments over laws or regulations that might diminish expected profits. Such mechanisms, he says, “actually constitute an attack on the very essence of sovereignty and self-determination, which are founding principles of the United Nations.” In fact, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights requires these kinds of disputes to be decided by independent, transparent and accountable tribunals. “Allowing three private arbitrators to disregard international and national law … is tantamount to a revolution against law.”

De Zayas notes that of the 608 known arbitration awards, many “have overridden national law and hindered States in the sovereign determination of fiscal and budgetary policy, labour, health and environmental regulation, and have had adverse human rights impacts… including a ‘chilling effect’ with regard to the exercise of democratic governance.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

And Now Trucking Is Suddenly Slowing Down

October 28, 2015

And Now Trucking Is Suddenly Slowing Down

This comes at the totally wrong time. Trucking had been booming. 2014 had been a banner year. Capacity was squeezed, and rates were rising, so trucking companies went on a buying binge, ordering everything in the book in preparation for red-hot demand in 2015 and more banner years down the road. But then came 2015.

Among businesses, over-ordering and tepid sales caused inventories to rise and the inventory-to-sales ratio to spike to Financial Crisis proportions. And now businesses are trying to bring them down by trimming orders because they’re having trouble selling more to the middle class, the over-indebted modern proletariat whose stagnant incomes are being eaten up by skyrocketing costs of housing, healthcare, college, and the like – and they simply can’t spend that much on shippable items.

And now this is ricocheting through the industry.

Monday after hours, the largest US truckload carrier, Swift, announced earnings. And on Tuesday, it clarified the debacle. It’s suffering from indigestion. The high costs from its red-hot capacity increase – average truck count jumped by 831 trucks in the third quarter from a year earlier – are now slamming into swooning freight demand.

Operating revenue declined 1%, which Swift blamed on the disappearing fuel surcharge, though it didn’t explain why it is getting away with still charging $109 million in fuel surcharges when diesel prices have plunged to rock-bottom.

So it’s cutting back. In its pervious disclosure, it announced that its average truck count for 2015 would grow by 700-1,100 trucks. Now it cut the growth down to 500-600 trucks, “given that the freight environment is softer than we originally expected, and peak volumes have not yet materialized as in years past,” it said.

September is the beginning of the holiday shipping season. Volume should be sharply higher. But it’s not happening [read… US Freight Shipments Have Worst September since 2010].

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

America Waiting to Explode: “If Supply Lines Go Down… Millions of FDA-Approved Drug Addicts Go Psycho”

October 22, 2015

America Waiting to Explode: “If Supply Lines Go Down… Millions of FDA-Approved Drug Addicts Go Psycho”

zombies-smell-food

How bad can things get?

Preppers know the scenarios – any major crisis from economic breakdown, to civil unrest and riots, an EMP, natural disaster or plain out martial law can bring things to a halt with shocking quickness. And chaos is nearly always the end result.

But this article examines just how far America has fallen into desperation. The closer that the nation spirals towards disintegration, the worse things seem to get.

Between the extremely vulnerable economic system and looming financial crisis, the decline of American values and morality and the utter dependence of Americans upon centralized supply chains, the feds and corporations for everything, the United States population stands all-too-close to disaster. Sam Gerrans at RT says that America is a bomb waiting to explode:

The United States is in decline. While not all major shocks to the system will be devastating, when the right one comes along, the outcome may be dramatic.

We can see how fragile the U.S. is now by considering just four tendencies.

1. Destruction of farms and reliable food source

2. Weak economic system

3. Americans increasingly on mind-altering drugs

4. Morals in decline

According to Gerran’s numbers, less than 5 million people are in a position to feed themselves with the SHTF. With preppers and backyard homesteaders, that number is hopefully much higher, but in any case, it still leaves well over 95% of the population utterly dependent on the grocery store or the government – and the shelves will empty out of literally every store within hours if a real crisis hits.

The average American might have three days of food in their pantry – but that still puts collapse and disorder on a schedule of nearly immediate:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Twenty-First-Century Fascism

October 21, 2015

Twenty-First-Century Fascism

Globalization of trade and central banking has propelled private corporations to positions of power and control never before seen in human history. Under advanced capitalism, the structural demands for a return on investment require an unending expansion of centralized capital in the hands of fewer and fewer people. The financial center of global capitalism is so highly concentrated that less than a few thousand people dominate and control $100 trillion of wealth.

The few thousand people controlling global capital amounts to less than 0.0001 percent of the world’s population. They are the transnational capitalist class (TCC), who, as the capitalist elite of the world, dominate nation-states through international trade agreements and transnational state organizations such as the World Bank, the Bank for International Settlements, and the International Monetary Fund.

The TCC communicates their policy requirements through global networks such as the G-7 and G-20, and various nongovernmental policy organizations such as the World Economic Forum, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberger Group. The TCC represents the interests of hundreds of thousands of millionaires and billionaires who comprise the richest people in the top 1 percent of the world’s wealth hierarchy.

The TCC are keenly aware of both their elite status and their increasing vulnerabilities to democracy movements and to unrest from below. The military empire dominated by the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) serves to protect TCC investments around the world. Wars, regime changes, and occupations performed in service of empire support investors’ access to natural resources and their speculative advantages in the market place.

When the empire is slow to perform or faced with political resistance, private security firms and private military companies (PMC) increasingly fulfill the TCC’s demands for the protections of their assets.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Europe Secretly Starts Imposing TTIP Despite the Public’s Overwhelming Opposition

October 20, 2015

Europe Secretly Starts Imposing TTIP Despite the Public’s Overwhelming Opposition

The terms of Obama’s proposed TPP ‘trade’ treaty with Asian countries won’t be made public until the treaty has already been in force for at least four years. The terms of Obama’s proposed TISA (Trade In Services Agreement) with 52 nations won’t be made public until the treaty has already been in force for at least five years. Obama’s proposed TTIP treaty with European countries has been so successfully hidden, that even the number of years it will be kept from the public isn’t yet known. Hello, international fascism — all in secret, until too late for the public to do anything.

There is even speculation that “The Ed Show” was cancelled by the Democratic Party’s propaganda-operation owned by Comcast Corporation, MSNBC, because its star, Ed Schultz, was that cable-news network’s only host who covered Obama’s proposed ‘trade’ deals; and he was highly critical of them — he was critical of them notwithstanding that his employer,

Comcast is one of the few companies that have been brought in behind closed doors – where our elected Representatives don’t even get to go – to help review and consult with leaders about the global trade agreement. Comcast is hungry for the power they would receive from the TPP because it would gut regulations for all industries, so they had to silence the only voice on their new network that had the courage to talk about how horrible the trade deal would be for American citizens.

But in Europe, things are being rushed, just in case secrecy breaks and the treaty fails to pass. The European Union is already secretly imposing provisions from the secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) treaty, even before anyone has signed it, and even before it has been formally approved in any nation. This was revealed over the last weekend in two places:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Aristocracy aren’t Satisfied; They Demand More

October 19, 2015

Aristocracy aren’t Satisfied; They Demand More

A new analysis of the Obama-proposed TTIP ‘trade’ treaty, which the U.S. would have with Europe, finds that it was initiated and shaped by large international corporations, which will, also according to the only independent economic analysis that has thus far been done of TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), be the only beneficiaries of the proposed Treaty — all at the expense of the publics in each one of the participating countries.

This new study is titled «Public Services Under Attack», but it’s about more than just the proposed treaty’s impacts upon replacing «Public Services» by private services.

Corporate Europe headlined about this study on October 12^th, «Public services under attack through TTIP and CETA», and listed 15 of what they consider to be the report’s highlights. The following will instead quote extensively from the study itself, so that this summary will come mainly from the report itself:

The study is »Published by Association Internationale de Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs (AITEC), Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), European Federation of Public Services Unions (EPSU), Instytut Globalnej Odpowiedzialności (IGO), Transnational Institute (TNI), Vienna Chamber of Labour (AK Vienna), and War on Want». So: it reflects a concern for workers, and for the poor, not mainly for corporate owners — the latter being the proposed Treaty’s sole sponsors and beneficiaries.

This new study opens by defining (page 8) «Public Service»: «Public services are those provided by a government to its population, usually based around the social consensus that certain services should be available to all regardless of income». Another way of stating this is that a «public service» is one provided to citizens as a right, available to all equally, instead of as a privilege, available only upon the basis of ability-to-pay.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trade Deals vs. ‘Core Community Values’

October 19, 2015

Trade Deals vs. ‘Core Community Values’

How a federal ‘no’ to Nova Scotia mine got whacked by NAFTA’s tribunal.

Canada lost a big chunk of its sovereignty as well as its right to protect local communities from bad developments earlier this year in a little reported NAFTA tribunal decision.

Furthermore the appalling ruling has major implications for any community or First Nation opposed to liquefied natural gas terminals, mining projects or bitumen pipelines.

The bizarre Bilcon case also represents a perfect example of why Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions, now commonplace in international trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal, face increasing resistance from citizens around the world.

The investor trade law expert Gus Van Harten has defined the ISDS or new pseudo-courts deftly. Their purpose “is to protect foreign investors, meaning usually the world’s wealthiest companies and people, from the rest of us. Instead of public courts, you now have private lawyers sitting as ‘arbitrators’ with the power to decide how much Canadians must pay to compensate foreign investors for our country’s decisions.”

Last March, a three-man NAFTA tribunal ruled that a federal and provincial environmental review process grossly erred by rejecting a controversial quarry proposed by a Delaware construction company on Digby Point in Nova Scotia.

Tellingly, the ruling can’t be contested under Canadian law.

The dismal facts are these. The Delaware-based firm Bilcon wanted to blast, crush, wash and stockpile millions of tons of rock a year and to build a 170 metre-long marine terminal that would load cargo ships with approximately 40,000 tons of aggregate, every week over a 50-year period.

Lots of Nova Scotians objected to the mining export project on the grounds that it would degrade a precious resource: the beautiful Bay of Fundy.

A joint federal review environmental panel noted that Bilcon didn’t do a very good job talking to First Nations or fishermen either.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

No More ‘Free Trade’ Treaties: It’s Time For Genuine Free Trade

October 18, 2015

No More ‘Free Trade’ Treaties: It’s Time For Genuine Free Trade

This article, by Ferghane Azihari and Louis Rouanet, originated here: https://mises.org/library/no-more-free-trade-treaties-its-time-genuine-free-trade

It is erroneous to believe that free traders have been historically in favor of free trade agreements between governments. Paradoxically, the opposite is true. Curiously, many laissez-faire advocates fall into the government-made trap by supporting “free-trade” treaties. However, as Vilfredo Pareto stated in the article “Traités de commerce of the Nouveau Dictionnaire d’Economie Politique” (1901):

If we accept free trade, treatises of commerce have no reason to exist as a goal. There is no need to have them since what they are meant to fix does not exist anymore, each nation letting come and go freely any commodity at its borders. This was the doctrine of J.B. Say and of all the French economic school until Michel Chevalier. It is the exact model Léon Say recently adopted. It was also the doctrine of the English economic school until Cobden. Cobden, by taking the responsibility of the 1860 treaty between France and England, moved closer to the revival of the odious policy of the treaties of reciprocity, and came close to forgetting the doctrine of political economy for which he had been, in the first part of his life, the intransigent advocate.1

In 1859, the French liberal economist Michel Chevalier went to see Richard Cobden to propose a free trade treaty between France and England. For sure, this treaty, enacted in 1860, was a temporary success for free traders. What is less known however, is that at first, Cobden, in accordance with the free trade doctrine, refused to negotiate or sign any “free trade” treaty. His argument was that free trade should be unilateral, that it consists not in treaties but in complete freedom in international trade, regardless of where products come from.

– See more at: http://www.cobdencentre.org/2015/10/no-more-free-trade-treaties-its-time-for-genuine-free-trade/#sthash.6G4lReoA.dpuf

Overcapacity “will be even greater than in 2009.”

October 10, 2015

Overcapacity “will be even greater than in 2009.”

“I would be open to the possibility” of reducing the fed funds rate “even further” and go negative, explained Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota on Thursday. Some folks just don’t get it.

Here are the results of seven years of global QE and zero-interest-rate policies:

Global demand is going from sluggish to even more sluggish. Emerging market countries are leading the way, it is said, and China is sneezing. Brazil and Russia have caught pneumonia. Japan is feeling the hangover from Abenomics. Even if there is some growth in Europe, it’s small. And the US, “cleanest dirty shirt” as it’s now called, is getting bogged down.

And here’s what this is doing to the shipping industry, the thermometer of global economic growth.

On one side: lack of demand.

Due to the “recent slowdown in world trade” shipping consultancy Drewry on Thursday slashed its forecast for container shipping growth, in terms of volume, to 2.2% for 2015 and lowered its estimates for future years. BIMCO, the largest international shipping association representing shipowners, issued its own, even gloomier report also on Thursday:

On the US West Coast, it’s been slow all year, starting with the labor disputes that weren’t resolved until mid-March. Since then, year-on-year growth in the second quarter was almost on par with 2014. But for the first half year alone, inbound loaded volumes dropped by 2% according to BIMCO data.

On the Asia to Europe trades, volumes were down by 4.2% in the first half of the year as 7.4 million TEU (Twenty-foot container Equivalent Units) was transported. Northern European imports fell by 3.6%, while the East Med and Black Sea imports fell by 4.8%.

Intra-Asia shipments remain a stronghold with ongoing positive growth around 4-5%, but the increased uncertainty surrounding the economic development in China adds doubt as to whether such a strong growth rate can be sustained for the full year.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Did the European Court of Justice Just Torpedo the Mother of All US Trade Agreements?

October 9, 2015

Did the European Court of Justice Just Torpedo the Mother of All US Trade Agreements?

Europe’s already rocky trading relationship with the U.S. just got a whole lot worse. Thanks to one young man’s battle against one of the world’s biggest tech companies, data traffic underpinning the world’s largest trading relationship has been thrown into jeopardy.

As the Wall Street Journal warns, hanging in the balance could be billions of dollars of trade in the online advertising business, as well as more quotidian tasks such as storing human-resources documents about European colleagues.

A Decidedly Unsafe Harbor

When, in 2013, the Austrian law graduate Max Schrems filed a data-privacy-infringement lawsuit against Facebook after Edward Snowden had revealed the full extent of the company’s collusion with the NSA, little could he have imagined the impact he would end up having. Now, two years later, the European Court of Justice has ruled that the Safe Harbor Agreement that has governed EU data flows across the Atlantic for some 15 years is no longer valid.

As Tech Crunch notes, the new ruling will affect all companies that outsource data processing of E.U. users’ data to the U.S:

The Safe Harbor executive decision allows companies to self certify to provide “adequate protection” for the data of European users to comply with the European data protection directive, and with fundamental European rights such as the right to privacy (under Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights).

In response to the ruling, Schrems said it “draws a clear line” by clarifying that mass surveillance “violates our fundamental rights.” The ruling will also directly affect the operations of some 4,500 European and international companies, including U.S. tech giants Alphabet (Google’s newborn parent company), Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

This is How the Trade Pact Escalates the Currency War

October 8, 2015

This is How the Trade Pact Escalates the Currency War

When negotiators from 12 nations and hundreds of lobbyists from around the world, after years of horse-trading, agreed on a “trade deal” on Monday – a deal that remains secret except for the sections that have been leaked – President Obama gushed that it “reflects America’s values.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pries open markets for American goods and services and impose rules on our trading partners that give “our workers the fair shot at success they deserve,” he said.

Similar praise ricocheted around the Pacific from Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Canada, and from politicians and heads of state in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the other participating countries. China isn’t part of the deal, but what the heck.

The free trade deal isn’t actually about “free trade.” Many provisions that have been leaked deal with reshuffling the power structure between corporations and democratic states at the expense of citizens and taxpayers.

So now this thing has to be ratified in the 12 countries involved. There might be one or the other hiccup – for example, Hillary Clinton has just come out against it to gain points in her battle to the presidency. “As of today, I am not in favor of what I have learned about it,” she told PBS, thus flip-flopping beautifully from when she, as Secretary of State, had backed the deal.

Despite these potential hiccups, delays, flip-flops, and re-flip-flops, I expect it to get ratified eventually by all 12 countries. Too many deep pockets have lined up behind it to let some elected politician screw it up.

Alas, there remains a little problem: does it really promote exports, which is what they all claim it does, or is that just hype?

That’s the question Krishen Rangasamy, Senior Economist at Economics and Strategy, National Bank Financial, in Canada asked in a note – and then provided the answer: um, no.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Permanently Locking In The Obama Agenda For 40 Percent Of The Global Economy

October 6, 2015

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Permanently Locking In The Obama Agenda For 40 Percent Of The Global Economy

We have just witnessed one of the most significant steps toward a one world economic system that we have ever seen. Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership have been completed, and if approved it will create the largest trading bloc on the planet. But this is not just a trade agreement. In this treaty, Barack Obama has thrown in all sorts of things that he never would have been able to get through Congress otherwise. And once this treaty is approved, it will be exceedingly difficult to ever make changes to it. So essentially what is happening is that the Obama agenda is being permanently locked in for 40 percent of the global economy.

The United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam all intend to sign on to this insidious plan. Collectively, these nations have a total population of about 800 million people and a combined GDP of approximately 28 trillion dollars.

Of course Barack Obama is assuring all of us that this treaty is going to be wonderful for everyone…

In hailing the agreement, Obama said, “Congress and the American people will have months to read every word” before he signs the deal that he described as a win for all sides.

“If we can get this agreement to my desk, then we can help our businesses sell more Made in America goods and services around the world, and we can help more American workers compete and win,” Obama said.

Sadly, just like with every other “free trade” agreement that the U.S. has entered into since World War II, the exact opposite is what will actually happen. Our trade deficit will get even larger, and we will see even more jobs and even more businesses go overseas.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Beginners Guide To Selecting, Stockpiling And Defending A Survival Retreat Part Two

October 6, 2015

The Beginners Guide To Selecting, Stockpiling And Defending A Survival Retreat Part Two

…read part one here…

Once you have your retreat purchased you can begin the serious work of getting it ready to receive you and your hand-picked group. Everyone needs a place to live, sleep, eat and relax. All members of your group will need a place to be alone or completely by themselves for a period of time. I learned that lesson when I took off on my forty-one foot sailboat many years ago and headed for the South Pacific. Take my word for it, everyone needs to have a place where they can be completely alone.

You must have adequate sanitary services for everyone. It should not be very close to your main retreat drinking water supply and close enough if during your rainy season or the winter snows that getting there won’t be a chore. It needs to be well ventilated for obvious reasons. There should be a kerosene lamp located in there as well or at least a candle.

I have always maintained that when you are setting up your retreat initially all buildings should be camouflaged when looking down at them from the air. Ideally, if there is time, you should build an underground structure as your main living area and as a gathering/meeting area.

They are climate controlled naturally year around, and are difficult to see from above. You always want to draw the least amount of attention on your retreat and your group. I cannot overemphasize to anyone who is a serious survivalist your retreat is the last stop and it will be your ultimate safety if and when the free trade and commerce stops around you for any reason. How bad things will get in the event of a national disaster such as an economic collapse can only be imagined, but all anyone has to do is look back on history to get a good idea.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Trans-Pacific Free-Trade Charade

October 3, 2015

The Trans-Pacific Free-Trade Charade

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.

Read more at https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trans-pacific-partnership-charade-by-joseph-e–stiglitz-and-adam-s–hersh-2015-10#J3RyoruABgKITiZc.99

Interest rate cuts a two-edged sword for Bank of Canada: Don Pittis

September 8, 2015

Interest rate cuts a two-edged sword for Bank of Canada: Don Pittis

Another decrease could spur exports but would announce serious pessimism

Conjure up an image of Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz in Hamlet pantaloons, hand to brow, declaiming to the middle distance: “To cut or not to cut?”

A confusion of contradictory economic data means it may be a melancholy choice. If the Bank of Canada were to lower interest rates for a third time this year at this Wednesday’s meeting, the cut could spur exports and challenge other countries that have pushed their currencies lower.

But there is a danger that it may instead be taken as a warning.

A poll of 40 economists last week by Reuters didn’t rule out another cut in rates. The consensus was that there was a one in four chance of a cut this week, and a 40 per cent chance of another cut “at some point.” But the most likely result, said the economists, was a rate freeze till 2017.

Frozen

More than a year of rates frozen at 0.5 per cent is not a resounding vote of confidence in a Canadian recovery. But in the face of that steady-as-she-goes opinion from economists, another rate cut would be a two-edged sword.

Cutting interest rates would help keep the Canadian property market strong. (Darren Calabrese/Canadian Press)

Lower rates would make it easier for Canadians to keep up their borrowing binge, helping retail sales and keeping house prices strong. More usefully, it would help secure lending for struggling or expanding businesses.

A byproduct of lower rates is a lower loonie. If, as many have said, our shrinking trade deficit can be credited to a low Canadian dollar, then a still lower loonie could be even better.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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