Warren, Markey, Baldwin Challenge Back-Door Financial Dereg Smuggled Into TPP

Rich Uncle Pennybags,
a.k.a. Monopoly Man

There is nothing big corporations' lackeys in Congress won't do to benefit their masters at taxpayers' expense. In this case, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), challenging the lackeys, "sent a letter to US Trade Representative Michael Froman demanding answers about backdoor financial deregulation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership."

What, exactly, are the Senators challenging? These provisions inserted in the TPP bill, provisions having little if anything to do with the TPP, though they benefit the same corporate entities and wealthy individuals:

1. Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which allows foreign companies or investors to sue governments for losses in expected profits
2. "Market access" provisions that could prohibit restrictions on predatory financial products, like risky forms of derivatives
3. Limitations on governments' ability to impose capital controls, which could stymie efforts to prevent future financial crises as well as efforts to pass a financial transaction tax

Hey, you small business owners and sole practitioners out there: who among you has the privilege of suing a government for "losses in expected profits"? Right... this is a sop to the corp's and the very wealthy, and if the provisions pass into law and Rich Uncle Pennybags sues our gummint and wins, his "losses in expected profit" come out of your taxpaying pocket. What's right about that? And the other two provisions are no better. Combined, these provisions could utterly soak you, the taxpayer, to make the wealthy wealthier.