A draft agreement leaked Wednesday shows the Obama administration is pushing a secretive trade agreement that could vastly expand corporate power and directly contradict a 2008 campaign promise by President Obama. A U.S. proposal for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact between the United States and eight Pacific nations would allow foreign corporations operating in the U.S. to appeal key regulations to an international tribunal. The body would have the power to override U.S. law and issue penalties for failure to comply with its ruling. We speak to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, a fair trade group that posted the leaked documents on its website. “This isn’t just a bad trade agreement,” Wallach says. “This is a ‘one-percenter’ power tool that could rip up our basic needs and rights.”
Source: Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/14/breaking_08_pledge_leaked_trade_doc)
The United States must restore its manufacturing base, revitalized with state-of-the-art non-human machines, superautomation, robotics, digital computerized operations (non-humans productive capital instruments of production) brought about by continued and accelerated technological innovation and innovation. The foundation for progress and economic growth is education and investment therein in the United States, not in foreign lands. Simultaneously as the economy grows through future productive capital formation, the ownership of the future assets must be broadly shared by individuals. This is the only way to compete against cheap labor production.
