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TPP – The Bankster’s Secret Plan to Escape Regulation and Kill Public Banks



On July 14th, 2013, TradeJustice's Pete Dolack and Adam Weissman presented "TPP – The Banksters' Secret Plan to Escape Regulation and Kill Public Banks" at a pre-meeting of the Occupy Wall Street Alternative Banking Working Group.


Behind closed doors, the Obama administration is negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a secretive agreement between 12 Pacific Rim nations that Public Citizen describes as the “Banksters’ Delight.” Only one member of Congress has been granted access to the negotiating texts of the agreement, and the media, public interest groups, and the public have been denied the right to see even a word of it. Meanwhile 600 corporations have cleared adviser status, granting them access to read and influence this massive, binding international agreement. Disguised as merely a trade agreement, TPP is in fact a massive expansion of corporate power, a threat to national sovereignty, local governance, and democracy.


Corporations like Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs have joined together under the umbrella of the US Business Coalition for TPP to push for an agreement that according to Citizens Trade Campaign “will handcuff the steps governments can take to protect against “too big to fail,” regulate trade in toxic assets, erect firewalls between different financial service firms and control the flow of short-term capital into and out of economies. ”


TPP may also be used by private banks to destroy public banks. According to Alternet’s Les Leopold,“Clearly, from Wall Street’s perspective, the [publicly owned] North Dakota bank must go, and all other state efforts to replicate it must be thwarted. Wall Street’s stealth weapon may be lodged within the latest corporate trade agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which currently is being negotiated in secret. We already know that Wall Street is seeking to remove all tariff restrictions that prevent the U.S. financial services industry from doing business in countries like Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The biggest banks also want the treaty to eliminate “non-tariff” barriers including regulations that create “unfair” competition with state-owned financial enterprises.”


TPP also threatens to:


- outsource US jobs to exploitative sweatshops

- empower corporations to attack environmental, food safety, animal welfare, and other public interest laws in international tribunals

- wipe out family farm agriculture while expanding markets for genetically modified and factory farmed “food”

- compromises internet freedom

- raise the cost of pharmaceuticals by expanding the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies, placing lifesaving drugs out of reach for some of the world’s poorest people and hindering

- the ability of government health programs to purchase medicines for people in desperate need.



Watch Pete's Presentation:

Watch Adam's Presentation: