William Black on the TPP

He nails President Obama hard in this piece, and deservedly so. A couple of excerpts:

"Obama stacked the committees to ensure that the CEOs’ lobbyists would completely dominate the secret drafting of TPP. And everyone in America know that the result of that has to be a Faux Trade agreement crafted to allow the CEOs to plunder with impunity."

"TPP, of course, is being sold through a full court press of the economists who brought us the financial crisis and the Great Recession and the multiple Great Depressions in Spain, Italy, and Greece. Their lie, as always, is that this travesty of special interest deals drafted overwhelmingly by corporate lobbyists represents 'free trade.' They first torture the language and truth before they torture the world."


"TPP is the opposite of 'free trade.' In the jargon of its economic supporters, it is a moldering midden hiding the secretly drafted 'rent seeking' provisions designed to help CEOs enrich themselves at the expense of the people of the world. Adam Smith, who supported freer trade, warned over two centuries ago that when CEOs meet secretly it promptly turns into a conspiracy against the public interest and warned that CEOs use their power to aid their own interests at the expense of shareholders and the public.  Smith’s warned that it 'ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.'”