Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
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Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#2> proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets.
But...
> The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt
These multi-nationals are purely a product of regulaiton (in this case, more specifically, regulatory capture). Without regulation, there would be thousands of healthy medium-size banks in the US, as there apparently used to be.
Overall, to characterize this as "deregulation" is completely sloppy thinking. We are never going to get a better situation when people think sloppily like this. To do so is, in practice, a moral crime. It supports maintaining the status quo through confusion.
Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#3Secret agreements are automatically suspect but this seems like more of the same rather than a change in direction.
This is partly a result of the move to multi-lateral trade talks (bad idea but when WTO rounds take a decade it's not unexpected), and partly inertia - there is little common agreement on how to prevent the next crash, so without a better idea we seem to follow the inverse of Einsteins quip - "the definition of insanity is repeating the last mistakes but hoping for a different outcome
Minor thought : this leak is still a pretty big deal. But it feels like wikileaks is the wrong place for this - like the main media organisations should have already got their investigatory acts together and made wiki leaks irrelevant.
Just wondering ...
Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#4Who are the people negotiating and agreeing to these 'agreements'(this, ACTA, etc) and what could their justification for keeping them secret possibly be?
Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#5Who are the people negotiating and agreeing to these 'agreements'(this, ACTA, etc) and what could their justification for keeping them secret possibly be?
Elected government officials from democratic countries and non-elected from non-democratic countries together. This is decided by politicians or bureaucrats representing government. I believe advisors from universities, think tanks and businesses are invited to speak.
Why they keep it secret, I don't know.
Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#6Who are the people negotiating and agreeing to these 'agreements'(this, ACTA, etc) and what could their justification for keeping them secret possibly be?
Elected government officials from democratic countries and non-elected from non-democratic countries together. This is decided by politicians or bureaucrats representing government. I believe advisors from universities, think tanks and businesses are invited to speak. Why they keep it secret, I don't know.
> Elected government officials from democratic countries
Such secrecy is incompatible with democracy, why refer to some of the countries participating in this as "democratic"?
Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#7> proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets. But... > The draft Financial Services Annex sets rules which would assist the expansion of financial multi-nationals – mainly headquartered in New York, London, Paris and Frankfurt These multi-nationals are purely a product of regulaiton (in this case, more specifically, regulatory capture). Without regulation, there would be thousands…
Overall, to characterize this as "deregulation" is completely sloppy thinking. We are never going to get a better situation when people think sloppily like this. To do so is, in practice, a moral crime. It supports maintaining the status quo through confusion.
Well put.
A problem with "deregulation" is that unless all regulations are being removed it's hard to tell what the new state of regulation will be.
There are some regulations that offer privileges, then other regulations that constrain those privileges.
Removing only the latter and calling it "deregulation" creates the impression that things will be more open or equal while doing the opposite.
Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Elected government officials from democratic countries and non-elected from non-democratic countries together. This is decided by politicians or bureaucrats representing government. I believe advisors from universities, think tanks and businesses are invited to speak. Why they keep it secret, I don't know.
> Elected government officials from democratic countries Such secrecy is incompatible with democracy, why refer to some of the countries participating in this as "democratic"?
The term "democracy" is kind of a fuzzy and abused word but if we limit its definition to include only the governments run by civilians voted in by fair enough, regularly occurring elections you could do worse. Democracies can have secrets, and in fact must if they want to achieve their interests. I am not sure why this would surprise anyone.
Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Elected government officials from democratic countries Such secrecy is incompatible with democracy, why refer to some of the countries participating in this as "democratic"?
The term "democracy" is kind of a fuzzy and abused word but if we limit its definition to include only the governments run by civilians voted in by fair enough, regularly occurring elections you could do worse. Democracies can have secrets, and in fact must if they want to achieve their interests. I am not sure why this would surprise anyone.
WHy do you say "must have secrets"? What part of "democracy" (or even "representative democracy", a republic perhaps) axiomatically requires secrets of any sort? Trade agreement negotiations almost axiomatically do not require secrets. If they're "negotiations" then everything ends up coming out in the wash, eh?
Re: Secret Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) – Financial Services Annex
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Elected government officials from democratic countries Such secrecy is incompatible with democracy, why refer to some of the countries participating in this as "democratic"?
The term "democracy" is kind of a fuzzy and abused word but if we limit its definition to include only the governments run by civilians voted in by fair enough, regularly occurring elections you could do worse. Democracies can have secrets, and in fact must if they want to achieve their interests. I am not sure why this would surprise anyone.
"Democracies can have secrets, and in fact must if they want to achieve their interests."
I can see how certain things can be justifiably kept secret in a democracy, like matters related to national security (military, intelligence, etc.). But secrecy in business and financial regulation is just corruption. Especially when the interests in question are those of private businesses and may not be in the best interests of the country as a whole - and if the deliberations are secret, how can we and our elected representatives decide whose interests are actually being promoted?