Jayati Ghosh — The End of U.S.-Led Economic Globalisation?

This is really about TTP and TTIP and the way they are being sold to the public as trade deals involving liberalization that increases efficiency and benefits everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth.

These deals are about strengthening the power of transnational firms at the expense of workers, consumers, national sovereignty and democracy. Jayati Ghosh explains how the scam works to rip ordinary folks off and increase inequality, while making sure that governments can do nothing to protect their populations. Outrageous? You betcha.

Fortunately, Western voters are not buying it. So President Obama has gone into full-on spin mode to get it through on his watch, obviously to reap the rewards after leaving office, the first matter of which is funding for his presidential library. As always, follow the money.

TripleCrisis
The End of U.S.-Led Economic Globalisation?
Jayati Ghosh | Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Defend Democracy — France demands an end to TTIP talks

French trade minister blames lack of progress on US intransigence and echoes recent comments from German counterpart

France’s trade minister has increased the pressure on the proposed EU-US trade deal by calling for the talks to be called off.

Matthias Fekl, the French minister for foreign trade, tweeted that his government demanded negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)should cease.

François Hollande, the French president, also raised doubts about TTIP and said France would not support a deal this year.

In a speech to French ambassadors, Hollande said: “The negotiations are bogged down, positions have not been respected, it’s clearly unbalanced.” He said he would withhold support from any agreement reached before the end of Barack Obama’s presidency in January.…

The vassals are getting restless.

Defend Democracy
France demands an end to TTIP talks

Also

Katehon
Europe revolts against the US

Sputnik — Economic Sanctions are Wall Street's 'Instruments of Destabilization

Big business in the US is manipulating world politics to make more profit, financial expert Ernst Wolff told Sputnik German. 

Economic sanctions are a political tool which benefits US big business, financial expert Ernst Wolff told Sputnik German. 

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the volume of trade between Germany and Russia increased to a record 80.5 billion euros ($89.2 billion) in 2012. However, since then, the amount of goods traded by the two countries has almost halved due to the imposition of sanctions in 2014; last year Germany exported 21.7 billion euros worth of goods to Russia, and Russia exported 29.7 billion euros worth to Germany.

Wolff, the author of "Pillaging the World: The History and Politics of the IMF," said that this situation affects, above all, small- and medium-size businesses, which face financial difficulties and are easily pushed out of the market by big business.…

Sanctions and counter-sanctions have resulted in a decrease in trade between Russia and other Eastern European countries, to the advantage of US firms seeking to weaken the EU, and institute the controversial TTIP trade agreements.…

"TTIP will be of tremendous benefit to US big business. If US employment law suddenly starts to dominate European companies, that is another step towards the world domination of the US. On the other hand, the Americans are in serious difficulties are the moment. They have the largest economy in the world, but this economy is in crisis."
Wolff said that US policy aims to weaken the relationship between the EU and Russia.

"The US is really worried that the EU will team up with Russia or possibly China. That is an apocalyptic scenario for the US, so it is always trying to isolate Russia and China as much as possible on the world market. Don't forget that Europe is dependent on Russian oil and gas to a large extent, and the US financial system doesn't like that."

"That's why they use instruments of destabilization, to weaken competitors on the world market. You have to look at sanctions in this context," Wolff concluded.

Sputnik
Economic Sanctions are Wall Street's 'Instruments of Destabilization

Michael Sauga — Free Tradeoffs: TTIP is Flawed -- But Necessary

Here, however, is what critics are overlooking: Germany is an export nation whose success largely depends on it determining relevant global standards. It currently still has an advantage, but since the population-rich emerging economies in Asia have begun catching up technologically and uniting themselves into powerful alliances, that lead is shrinking. In the next few years, new trade agreements will be created all around the world, with key regulations applying to security, the environment and privacy. The question is: Will they be more European or more Asian in spirit?

For this reason, the TTIP isn't just an economic but a political project. Are the aging democracies of the West prepared to overcome national reservations and create a common economic area for 300 million Americans and 500 million Europeans? Are they intent on playing a part in determining the rules of the global economic game in the 21st century -- or do they want to leave this task to others? Nowhere is the trans-Atlantic frustration about the TTIP being followed with as much secret pleasure as in the planning staffs of the Kremlin's Vladimir Putin or China's head of state Xi Jinping.…

Sounds familiar. Haven't I heard this before?

Oh, wait: "When more than 95 percent of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. We should write those rules, " — US President Barack Obama.

Spiegel Online
Free Tradeoffs: TTIP is Flawed -- But Necessary
A Commentary By Michael Sauga

Also

Sputnik
US Using TPP and TTIP to Challenge 'Sovereignty of Nations' – Ex-Diplomat

Thomas Fazi — "TTIP: We Were Right All Along"

On May 1, Greenpeace Netherlands released 243 pages of leaked secret TTIP negotiation texts, which offer an unprecedented glimpse into the far-reaching implications that the agreement would have for climate, environment and public health – and, crucially, prove that civil society organisations were right all along. According to Greenpeace, the documents raise four aspects of serious concern from an environmental and consumer protection perspective…

The bottom line is that the TTIP cannot be ‘improved’. As Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz has stated, it is little more than ‘an attempt to increase the power of corporations to control economies and societies’ – and for this reason should be, quite simply, thrown into the dustbin of history.…

Social Journal Europe
"TTIP: We Were Right All Along"
Thomas Fazi

Spiegel — The TTIPing Point: Protests Threaten Trans-Atlantic Trade Deal

An unprecedented protest movement of a scope not seen since the Iraq war in Germany has pushed negotiations over the TTIP trans-Atlantic free trade agreement to the brink of collapse. The demonstrations are characterized by a level of professionalism not previously seen.

Spiegel Online
The TTIPing Point: Protests Threaten Trans-Atlantic Trade Deal

Dinah Deckstein, Simone Salden and Michaela Schießl

Alexander Hagelüken and Alexander Mühlauer — TTIP Documents Revealed

The United States government is putting more intense and significantly more far-reaching pressure on the European Union than previously thought during the ongoing negotiations to reach an accord on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This has become evident from copies of confidential negotiation documents that have been made available to Süddeutsche Zeitung and the German radio and television stations WDR and NDR. The material, consisting of 240 pages, was provided by Greenpeace and will be published this coming Monday. Several people familiar with the negotiations confirm that the documents provided are current.

According to the documents, Washington is threatening to prevent the easing of exports for the European car industry in order to force Europe to buy more U.S. agricultural products. The U.S. government concurrently has criticized the fundamental prevention principal of the EU Consumer Centre which protects 500 million Europeans from consuming genetically modified food and hormone-treated meat. The documents further reveal the fact that the U.S. has blocked the urgent European call to replace the controversial private arbitration tribunals, responsible for corporative lawsuits, with a public State model; instead, Washington has made a suggestion on the matter that had hitherto not been disclosed to the public.

The publication of these TTIP documents provides citizens with an unfiltered insight into the negotiations between the U.S. and Europe. Ever since the start of negotiations three years ago, the public could only try to guess what both sides were discussing, which has prompted millions of people to take to the streets in protest of TTIP. While the EU is making its suggestions publicly available, the U.S. insists on keeping their stances on issues secret. Washington utilizes this tactic to ensure a larger scope for negotiations. The disclosure of these 16 TTIP negotiation papers finally offers a fuller transparency for the 800 million people spread over two continents whose lives will be affected by the biggest bilateral trade agreement in history.…

The Trojan horse:

Washington has also set its sights on controversial genetically modified foods that are mostly prohibited within the Europe Union. Both sides have often stressed up until now that the U.S. will respect European concerns in this matter, and that Europe’s citizens do not have to be worried about this issue. But the confidential material paints a very different picture of the situation. “It is really quite interesting to see the demands the U.S. has made,” says Klaus Müller, chairman of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations, while evaluating the documents. “Perusing the documents has shown that nearly all of our fears regarding the U.S.’ TTIP intentions for the food market have been proven to be justified.”

The U.S., for example, demands that statutory prohibitions on products to protect human health should only be allowed to be passed if it has been scientifically proven that these products really are harmful. The EU bans products such as hormone-treated meat or genetically modified food as a precautionary measure if only the slightest hint of risk emerges, whereas the U.S. only bans them if people have already been harmed as a result of consuming said products.…

Another serious point of contention is legislative cooperation. Both the U.S. and Europe gave the impression that they were mostly in agreement regarding legislative regulation.

But the negotiation papers suggest something very different. While the EU stresses its right to legislative self-determination in the documents, the U.S. wants to severely curtail the scope of European legislators in regards to economic decisions where it has demonstrated in several suggestions it has made. One example is the demand formulated by the U.S. that “each Party shall maintain procedures that promote the consideration of the following factors when conducting a regulatory impact assessment (RIA) for a regulation.” Namely, this means that the EU is supposed to introduce a process that will evaluate “the need for a proposed regulation” in conjunction with an analysis of “the anticipated costs and benefits (quantitative, qualitative, or both) of such alternatives.”

“It will severely complicate legislation in environmental and consumer matters should the Americans assert themselves in this matter,” says Markus Krajewski, Professor of Public Law in Erlangen, in regard to the currently published suggestions made by the U.S..

U.S. legislation is fundamentally different than that of the EU. In the EU, for example, the use of 1,308 various chemicals in cosmetics is prohibited in light of suspicions that they may be carcinogenic. The responsible U.S. authority on the other hand, according to consumer protection organizations, prohibits no more than exactly 11 substances.

The US has a strange interpretation of "freedom" and "self-determination," revealing paradoxes of liberalism resulting from failure to integrate and balance social, political, and economic liberalism by prioritizing economic liberalism.

Economic liberalism (free market fundamentalism) is incompatible with political liberalism (democracy as government of, by and for the people).

The American version of "liberalism" is elite rule. First US Chief Justice John Jay's political preference, "Those who own the country ought to governed the country," has morphed into, "Those who own the world ought to govern the world."

Süddeutsche Zeitung
TTIP Documents Revealed
Alexander Hagelüken and Alexander Mühlauer
ht Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism

See also

Naked Capitalism
Greenpeace Leak Exposes Big EU-US Rifts, US Thuggishness, in TTIP “Trade” Negotiations
Yves Smith

For all those who said that we were scaremongering and that the EU would never allow this to happen, we were right and you were wrong.Independent (UK)

Independent

After the leaks today showing just what it really stands for, this could be the end for TTIP

John Hilary

ht Lord Keyes at Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective

Expect firestorm to ensue, followed by official denials.

Ollie McAninch — Corporations will rule Governments if TTIP goes ahead

Even if TTIP goes ahead, ISDS needs serious rethinking. It will be interesting to see if the democratically elected Governments have the power or willingness to adhere to the will of the people who elected them, rather than the corporations that fund them.

The London Economic
Corporations will rule Governments if TTIP goes ahead

Ollie McAninch, economist working in journalism

Eberhard Hamer — The US are using Volkswagen (VW) to test their TTIP power

What the United States and their global corporations call “Free Trade Agreement” (TTIP) has been compared to NATO by former US-vice president Biden. It is meant to subject Europe to American economic domination and their interests. This has an inner and an outer goal….

Voltaire Network
The US are using Volkswagen (VW) to test their TTIP power
Eberhard Hamer

Karel van Wolferen — The Predators Behind the TPP

The designation “trade” used by politicians and the media when talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact and the proposed Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TPIP) agreement is another perfect example of a misnomer thanks to which a new shadow will be cast over the generally more fortunate parts of the world.

If signed and ratified, the trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic agreements, which seek to organize business activity under one gigantic umbrella of new rules, are likely to change our living environment in ways very different from what elected officials have been misled to imagine.

They have been peddled as trade treaties, and hence as being wonderful for economic growth, job creation, social well-being and general happiness.

But the TPP agreement, which aims to tie the United States together with close to a dozen countries in Asia, Oceania and a bit of Latin America, is not in the first place about trade, and may hardly be significant at all for stimulating genuine exchanges traditionally labelled that way. The same is true for its TPIP companion, which is meant to create and foster a new American-European business environment.

The TPP and TPIP accords are about power, not trade. More specifically, the agreements are about changed power relations between a collectivity of politically well-connected large corporations and the sovereign states in which these entities want to sink new roots. In particular, these treaties would allow U.S. corporations to engage in conduct unchecked by national rules of the participating countries. In eyes not fogged over through neoliberal dogma, such a thing would be recognized as predation.…

All this is easily understood. But it still leaves us with the puzzle of why Asians as well as Europeans, whose EU trade commissioners have been mouthing the same job creating nonsense around the TPIP that accompanies the TPP rhetoric, appear unable to tackle intellectually the dominant power aspects of these treaties.

Perhaps this is because the world in which they exist is politically sterilized by current economic suppositions. More generally, the concept of power (not influence with which it is often confused) receives a “stepmotherly” treatment in popular as well as serious writing, and the social science denizens of academia are entirely at sea over it.
Mainstream economics is ahistorical by design and hence has no room for power, which has helped continue the fateful division of political and economic affairs into separate realms for discussion that has long served the interests of power elites…

Raging Bull-Shit
The Predators Behind the TPP
Karel van Wolferen, former NRC Handelsblad correspondent for East Asia, and professor emeritus of comparative political and economic institutions at the University of Amsterdam
(cross-posted from The Japan Times)

Don Quijones — Uruguay Does Unthinkable, Rejects Global Corporatocracy [TiSA]

Often referred to as the Switzerland of South America, Uruguay is long accustomed to doing things its own way. It was the first nation in Latin America to establish a welfare state. It also has an unusually large middle class for the region and unlike its giant neighbors to the north and west, Brazil and Argentina, is largely free of serious income inequality.

Two years ago, during José Mujica’s presidency, Uruguay became the first nation to legalize marijuana in Latin America, a continent that is being ripped apart by drug trafficking and its associated violence and corruption of state institutions.
Now Uruguay has done something that no other semi-aligned nation on this planet has dared to do: it has rejected the advances of the global corporatocracy.…

Despite – or more likely because of – its symbolic importance, Uruguay’s historic decision has been met by a wall of silence. Beyond the country’s borders, mainstream media has refused to cover the story.…

This post is more about the spread of Global Corporatocracy through trade agreements being spearheaded by the US. It is about TiSA in particular, which includes more countries that TTP and TTIP combined.

Important.

Good summary of what we know about TiSA as the installation of neoliberal global corporatocracy and why not only Uruguay but also China and Russia are right in opposing it. It is the end of liberal democracy and the institution of plutocracy. Since the US has written the rules, it would give the US power elite and their cronies permanent global hegemony to extract rent without limitation.

The contents of TiSA would not be revealed publicly until five years after ratification.

There agreements are being designed as the final step enclosure and the suppression of democratic governance by neoliberal global corporatocracy.

This is a power play on a grand scale and little Uruguay has courageously said "nothing doing" to the gringos.

Pass this on.

Wolf Street
Uruguay Does Unthinkable, Rejects Global Corporatocracy
Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor at WOLF STREET

Don Quijones — Today It’s Brussels’ Turn to Tighten the Noose on EU Citizens

After months of wrangling and horse trading, the European Parliament finally passed a resolution on the secretly negotiated EU-US trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). The reason it had taken so long was that the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, decided at the last minute and in time-honored fashion to postpone the original vote, scheduled for June 10, when it became apparent that a majority of MEPs might actually reject the bill (read: Democracy on Hold: President of European Parliament Suspends Vote on Secretive U.S.-EU Trade Pact as Tide Turns Against It).

The biggest thorn of contention is the Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) clause, which would effectively allow corporations to bypass national court systems and sue governments in private arbitration panels if they felt that a particular law or regulation threatened their bottom line. Put simply, it is what gives trade treaties their razor-sharp claws and canine teeth.

Although ISDS has been in existence since the 1950s, it has only been in the last 15 or so years that corporations have really begun making the most of it. As the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) notes, foreign investors have mostly used ISDS claims to challenge measures adopted by States in the public interest (for example, policies to promote social equity, foster environmental protection or protect public health):…

Wolf Street
Today It’s Brussels’ Turn to Tighten the Noose on EU Citizens
Don Quijones

Don Quijones – LEAKED: How the Biggest Banks Are Conspiring to Rip Up Financial Regulations around the World

According to the treaty’s Annex on Financial Services, we now know that TiSA would effectively strip signatory governments of all remaining ability to regulate the financial industry in the interest of depositors, small-time investors, or the public at large. 

1. TiSA will restrict the ability of governments to limit systemic financial risks.

2. TiSA will force governments to “predict” all regulations that could at some point fall foul of TiSA.

3. TiSA will indefinitely bar new financial regulations that do not conform to deregulatory rules.

4. TiSA will prohibit national governments from using capital controls to prevent or mitigate financial crises.

5. TiSA will require acceptance of financial products not yet invented.

6. TiSA will provide opportunities for financial firms to delay financial regulations.Wolf Street.

Wolf Street

LEAKED: How the Biggest Banks Are Conspiring to Rip Up Financial Regulations around the World
Don Quijones

Pepe Escobar — American dreaming, from G1 to Bilderberg

The bottom line is that these three mega-deals – TTP, TTIP and TiSA – are the ultimate template of what could be politely described as global corporate governance, a Bilderberg wet dream. The losers: nation-states, and the very concept of Western democracy. The winners: mega-corporations.

Julian Assange, in a statement, succinctly nailed it “It is a mistake to think of the TPP as a single treaty. In reality there are three conjoined mega-agreements, the TiSA, the TPP and the TTIP, all of which strategically assemble into a grand unified treaty, partitioning the world into the West versus the rest. This 'Great Treaty' is described by the Pentagon as the economic core to the US military's 'Asia Pivot.' The architects are aiming no lower than the arc of history. The Great Treaty is taking shape in complete secrecy, because along with its undebated geostrategic ambitions it locks into place an aggressive new form of transnational corporatism for which there is little public support."....

Now for the counterpunch. As the show in the Bavarian Alps unrolled, the first BRICS Parliamentarian Forum was taking place in Moscow – ahead of the BRICS summit in Ufa next month.

Neocons – with Obama in tow - knock themselves out dreaming that Russia has become “isolated” from the rest of the world because of their sanctions. Since then Moscow has signed major economic/strategic contracts with at least twenty nations. Next month, Russia will host the BRICS summit – 45 percent of the world’s population, a GDP equivalent to the EU, and soon bigger than the current G7 – as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, when India and Pakistan, currently observers, will be accepted as full members.....

RT
American dreaming, from G1 to Bilderberg
Pepe Escobar

Don Quijones — Democracy on Hold: President of European Parliament Suspends Vote on Secretive U.S.-EU Trade Pact as Tide Turns Against It

Today was supposed to be a historic day — the day when hundreds of MEPs, representing hundreds of millions of European citizens, were to finally get their say on the hugely contentious EU-US trade bill commonly known as TTIP. Granted, the result would not have been binding, but a no-vote would have represented a resounding slap in the face of the European Commission.

Things began fairly auspiciously when, early on Tuesday, The Guardian reported that dissension was growing in the ranks as MEPs threatened to block the trade deal unless it guaranteed states’ rights to regulate over climate, health, and social laws. Now news is emerging that the President of the Parliament, Martin Schulz, has decided to postpone the vote altogether amidst fears that a majority of MEPs might reject the bill....

Elite getting scared of pushback, or just biding time while they grease palms and twist arms?

Democracy in Europe is on life support.

The aim is nothing less that the destruction of social democracy through undermining national sovereignty and the replacement of popular sovereignty with oligarchy and oligopoly.

Ironically, this is the New World Order as a Bircher conspiracy theory coming to fruition as reality in a different form. The Birchers were concerned with the UN rather than the transnational corporatocracy. But they anticipated the threat to national sovereignty from the direction of internationalism.

In other words, one should take the latest developments with a generous pinch of salt. On the bright side, it’s another small battle won by and for the people of Europe (and by extension, the United States of America), as our conniving leaders are forced once again back to the drawing board. However, if there’s one thing of which we can all be sure, it’s that it won’t take long before our leaders come back with a new, even stealthier strategy to force this beastly monstrosity into existence.

That's why capitalism is not reformable. They'll always be baaack!

Wolf Street
Democracy on Hold: President of European Parliament Suspends Vote on Secretive U.S.-EU Trade Pact as Tide Turns Against It
Don Quijones

Michael Wessel — I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned

Obama smackdown.

“You need to tell me what’s wrong with this trade agreement, not one that was passed 25 years ago,” a frustrated President Barack Obama recently complained about criticisms of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). He’s right. The public criticisms of the TPP have been vague. That’s by design—anyone who has read the text of the agreement could be jailed for disclosing its contents. I’ve actually read the TPP text provided to the government’s own advisors, and I’ve given the president an earful about how this trade deal will damage this nation. But I can’t share my criticisms with you. 

I can tell you that Elizabeth Warren is right about her criticism of the trade deal. We should be very concerned about what's hidden in this trade deal—and particularly how the Obama administration is keeping information secret even from those of us who are supposed to provide advice. 

So-called “cleared advisors” like me are prohibited from sharing publicly the criticisms we’ve lodged about specific proposals and approaches. The government has created a perfect Catch 22: The law prohibits us from talking about the specifics of what we’ve seen, allowing the president to criticize us for not being specific. Instead of simply admitting that he disagrees with me—and with many other cleared advisors—about the merits of the TPP, the president instead pretends that our specific, pointed criticisms don’t exist.

This is a Democratic trade expert speaking.

I’ve been deeply involved in trade policy for almost four decades. For 21 years, I worked for former Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt and handled all trade policy issues including “fast track,” the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization’s Uruguay Round, which is the largest trade agreement in history. I am also a consultant to various domestic producers and the United Steelworkers union, for whom I serve as a cleared advisor on two trade advisory committees. To top it off, I was a publicly acknowledged advisor to the Obama campaign in 2008. 

Scathing report.

Politico
I’ve Read Obama’s Secret Trade Deal. Elizabeth Warren Is Right to Be Concerned.
Michael Wessel

Michael Wessel is a cleared liaison to two statutory advisory committees and was a commissioner on the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission, as well as the international trade co-chair for the Kerry-Edwards Presidential Campaign.

Joseph Stiglitz — The Secret Corporate Takeover

The United States and the world are engaged in a great debate about new trade agreements. Such pacts used to be called “free-trade agreements”; in fact, they were managed trade agreements, tailored to corporate interests, largely in the US and the European Union. Today, such deals are more often referred to as “partnerships,”as in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But they are not partnerships of equals: the US effectively dictates the terms. Fortunately, America’s “partners” are becoming increasingly resistant.

It is not hard to see why. These agreements go well beyond trade, governing investment and intellectual property as well, imposing fundamental changes to countries’ legal, judicial, and regulatory frameworks, without input or accountability through democratic institutions....

President Obama, Remarks by the President on Trade: "We have to make sure America writes the rules of the global economy."

If "America" is writing the rules, then how is it that the process is being kept secret from the American people?

If there ever was a one-sided dispute-resolution mechanism that violates basic principles, this is it. That is why I joined leading US legal experts, including from Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley, in writing a letter to President Barack Obama explaining how damaging to our system of justice these agreements are.

Project Syndicate
The Secret Corporate Takeover

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University, Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, and former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank

Pavel Shipillin — All aboard the Lisbon to Vladivostok train, no stops in Kiev or Warsaw

More follow the money. Spheres of political influence are also spheres of economic influence.

A geopolitical game between the superpowers has become the main, and only cause of the Maidan. This same game has plunged the former brotherly country into an economic abyss, a crises which the Ukraine cannot get out of. The Ukrainians are standing shoulder to shoulder in between Russia and Europe, and are completely confident that they must sacrifice themselves so that in far away America the standard of living, god forbid, does not decrease.

Not only does the United States intend to extract gas from Ukraine and transport it across the ocean, but also to extract shale deposits in Poland and in the Ukraine, along the way destroying the native ecologies in these countries. In addition, the still wealthy European market has been buying produce overseas, and that should help the distressed American economy in staying afloat. Thus, the purpose of TTIP is to save the US at the expense of the local European population.

Of course, for this the Europeans must abandon their dangerous goals and thoughts of trading in the East via Russia and China. And I would have to say, that first in line is China, and then only us [Russia]. The "Hate Belt" is primarily created so that China would sit quietly at the edge of the world and not contemplate about a New Silk Road - an overland corridor through Kazakhstan and Russia, through which goods can be delivered to the expensive markets in Europe. [Which everyone is after. This is a key geopolitical idea, superpowers interfering with each other's plans to keep important and profitable markets in their own hands and not their competitors - tr.]

Following the same thread, the sea route through which China trades with the West and receives energy supplies from the Persian Gulf, is securely controlled by the U.S. Navy. The narrow aquatic necks of Hormuz, the Malacca Straits, and the Suez canal can be easily closed or embargoed. China is trying to counter American influence in the sea in the Indian Ocean. Yet it is clearly not enough, and the U.S. will keep an eye out for strengthening of its main geopolitical rival, China, in the region. And it seems, will not allow that at all costs.

Not only does the United States intend to extract gas from Ukraine and transport it across the ocean, but also to extract shale deposits in Poland and in the Ukraine, along the way destroying the native ecologies in these countries. In addition, the still wealthy European market has been buying produce overseas, and that should help the distressed American economy in staying afloat. Thus, the purpose of TTIP is to save the US at the expense of the local European population.

Of course, for this the Europeans must abandon their dangerous goals and thoughts of trading in the East via Russia and China. And I would have to say, that first in line is China, and then only us. The "Hate Belt" is primarily created so that China would sit quietly at the edge of the world and not contemplate about a New Silk Road - an overland corridor through Kazakhstan and Russia, through which goods can be delivered to the expensive markets in Europe. [Which everyone is after. This is a key geopolitical idea, superpowers interfering with each other's plans to keep important and profitable markets in their own hands and not their competitors - tr.]

Following the same thread, the sea route through which China trades with the West and receives energy supplies from the Persian Gulf, is securely controlled by the U.S. Navy. The narrow aquatic necks of Hormuz, the Malacca Straits, and the Suez canal can be easily closed or embargoed. China is trying to counter American influence in the sea in the Indian Ocean. Yet it is clearly not enough, and the U.S. will keep an eye out for strengthening of its main geopolitical rival, China, in the region. And it seems, will not allow that at all costs.

Fort Russ
All aboard the Lisbon to Vladivostok train, no stops in Kiev or Warsaw
Pavel Shipillin
Translated from Russian by Dvajdsitdva

Original
PolitRussia.com

Interpolit — The New Silk Road marks the Atlantic sunset and the rise of Eurasia

Game-changer. Here's an excerpt.

This is not an exaggeration - the struggle between the Atlanticists and Eurasianists becomes the main feature of the coming decades: to stop the advance of global Anglo-Saxon project, it is necessary to not just assemble all the opponents, but also to build an alternative international architecture - from values to security, from finance to infrastructure and economy. The major world civilizations need to create their own project - the US version of globalization (the"free market" controlled by the Anglo-Saxon financial institutions under the supervision of the American aircraft carriers) will not go away on its own.

Geographically, the center of gravity of world politics has to move from the Atlantic and the West to Eurasia and the East. Instead of "the United States plus Europe and Japan" emerges a single Eurasian space - China with Southeast Asia, Russia with the Eurasian Union and the EU. India, the Middle East, and Africa gravitate towards that trio.
That is, everything revolves around the Eurasian arc - this is a nightmare of the Anglo-Saxon geopoliticians, always fearing the emergence of the axis of continental Europe - Russia - Asia in any shape: previously - Berlin-Moscow-Tokyo, and now - Berlin-Moscow-Beijing. Instead, the Anglo-Saxons have always tried to pit the various continental powers and attract separate powers, preferably located at key transit points of Eurasia, primarily in Europe.

The current attempt to break Russia's ties with Europe is aimed at preventing the potential union of Eurasian Russia, continental Europe and China - instead, the US is pushing the idea of the Trans-Atlantic partnership designed to provide a final attachment of Europe to North America (and in Asia promoting a similar Trans-Pacific partnership). For now losing the fight with the United States for Europe and turning to the East, Russia is not abandoning bets on Europe - just first it will collect the pieces of the Eastern section (Russia - China) of the "Triple Union", and China will work in the Western direction....

Fort Russ
The New Silk Road marks the Atlantic sunset and the rise of Eurasia

Translated by Katrina Rus

Original in Russian at Interpolit

Don Quijones — Marriage Made in Corporatist Heaven Slams into Resistance [TTIP]

Status update on TTIP.

Wolf Street
Marriage Made in Corporatist Heaven Slams into Resistance
Don Quijones

James provided the link below in a comment on another post.

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE WORKING PAPER NO. 14-03
The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: European Disintegration, Unemployment and Instability
Jeronim Capaldo

October 2014