World Trade, World Bank, Privatization

INTERNATIONAL TRADE, NAFTA, FTAA, CFTA,
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The Crporatist State and Globalization, Exposed--jk
GLOBALIZATION - NEOLIBERALISM -- CORPORATISM
Neoliberalism exposed -- concise summary -- jk
Neoliberalism exposed--jk
WTO fact sheet--jk
Egypt, a Lesson in Globalizer's Crisis Management
Globalization--Palast's Armed Madhouse
NEOLIBERALISM--the economics favored by big business, banks, and Our Government
A fact filled review of Neoliberal economic policies
Neoliberalism's Myth on Benefits of Free Trade
Neoliberalism roots for the war in Iraq
INTERNATIONAL TRADE, NAFTA, FTAA, CFTA,
Top Reasons to Oppose the WTO
They have stolen democracy--Tom McCain, Republicans, Deomocrats
Free trade for globalization--Quackers speak out
2010 Bilderberg Conference
What has changed--Thom Hartmann
China, What Free Trade has Done!
Mounting Opposition to Neoliberalism and Why
World Bank & IMF, What They Really Are About--Greg Palast
IMF Insider Goes Public--Greg Palast
IMF Chief Economist Goes Public
World Bank's Plan Adopted by Ecuador--Greg Palast
GAFT Can Overturn U.S. Laws in the Interest of Commerce--Greg Palast
Its About Money, Stats and Drug Abuse Government Style
Biograrphy of Paul Wolfowitz with links
Biography of Paul Wolfowitz
LINKS

At these links on the left are many in depth articles.  An introduction to the multinational corporations and big banks’ view of global economics, which our government has fairly consistently supported.   

For a fact filled account of neoliberal/WTO plans for Iraq and how it ties into their overall plan to open up the Middle East.  The kind of reporting that American, Corporate media won’t air. 

—jk.


Carl Barks
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World Trade Organization (WTO) at www.citizen/org/trade/wto/ 

Established in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO) is a powerful new global commerce agency, which transformed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into an enforceable global commerce code. The WTO is one of the main mechanisms of corporate globalization.

Under the WTO's system of corporate-managed trade, economic efficiency, reflected in short-run corporate profits, dominates other values. Decisions affecting the economy are to be confined to the private sector, while social and environmental costs are borne by the public.

In November 1999, the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Third Ministerial Meeting in Seattle collapsed in spectacular fashion, in the face of unprecedented protest from people and governments around the world.

The WTO and GATT Uruguay Round Agreements have functioned principally to pry open markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of national and local economies; workers, farmers, indigenous peoples, women and other social groups; health and safety; the environment; and animal welfare. In addition, the WTO system, rules and procedures are undemocratic, un-transparent and non-accountable and have operated to marginalize the majority of the world's people. 

 

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)  at www.citizen.org/trade/nafta/

January 1, 2004 marks the tenth anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement’s implementation. NAFTA promoters - including many of the world’s largest corporations - promised it would create hundreds of thousands of new high-wage U.S. jobs, raise living standards in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, improve environmental conditions and transform Mexico from a poor developing country into a booming new market for U.S. exports. NAFTA opponents - including labor, environmental, consumer and religious groups -  argued that NAFTA would launch a race-to-the-bottom in wages, destroy hundreds of thousands of good U.S. jobs, undermine democratic control of domestic policy-making and threaten health, environmental and food safety standards.

Why such divergent views? NAFTA was a radical experiment - never before had a merger of three nations with such radically different levels of development been attempted. Plus, until NAFTA “trade” agreements only dealt with cutting tariffs and lifting quotas to set the terms of trade in goods between countries. But NAFTA contained 900 pages of one-size-fits-all rules to which each nation was required to conform all of its domestic laws - regardless of whether voters and their democratically-elected representatives had previously rejected the very same policies in Congress, state legislatures or city councils. NAFTA required limits on the safety and inspection of meat sold in our grocery stores; new patent rules that raised medicine prices; constraints on your local government’s ability to zone against sprawl or toxic industries; and elimination of preferences for spending your tax dollars on U.S.-made products or locally-grown food. In fact, calling NAFTA a “trade” agreement is misleading, NAFTA is really an investment agreement. Its core provisions grant foreign investors a remarkable set of new rights and privileges that promote relocation abroad of factories and jobs and the privatization and deregulation of essential services, such as water, energy and health care.

Remarkably, many of NAFTA’s most passionate boosters in Congress and among economists never read the agreement. They made their pie-in-the-sky promises of NAFTA benefits based on trade theory and ideological prejudice for anything with the term “free trade” attached to it. Now, ten years later, the time for conjecture and promises is over: the data are in and they clearly show the damage NAFTA has wrought for millions of people in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Thankfully, the failed NAFTA model - a watered down version of which is also contained in the World Trade Organization (WTO) - is merely one among many options. Throughout the world, people suffering with the consequences of this disastrous experiment are organizing to demand the better world we know is possible. But, we face a race against time. The same interests who got us into NAFTA are now pushing to expand it and lock in 31 more countries in Latin American and the Caribbean through the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and five Central American countries through a Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

 

Free Trade Area of the Americas at www.citizen.org/trade/ftaa/

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), currently being negotiated by 34 countries of the Americas, is intended to be the most far-reaching trade agreement in history. Although it is based on the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), it goes far beyond NAFTA in its scope and power. The FTAA, as it now stands, would introduce into the Western Hemisphere all the disciplines of the proposed services agreement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) - the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) - with the powers of the failed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), to create a new trade powerhouse with sweeping new authority over every aspect of life in Canada and the Americas. 

 

 

CAFTA: Part of the FTAA Puzzle at www.citizen.org/trade/cafta/

 

The Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is an expansion of NAFTA to five Central American nations (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua), and the Dominican Republic. It was signed May 28, 2004, and passed through the U.S. House of Representatives by one vote in the middle of the night by the U.S. Congress on July 27, 2005. El Salvador, Guatemala, NicaraguaHonduras, and the Dominican Republic have also approved the agreement. Costa Rica has yet to vote on the agreement.

CAFTA is a piece in the  FTAA jigsaw puzzle, and is based on the same failed neoliberal  NAFTA model, which has caused the "race to the bottom" in labor and environmental standards and promotes privatization and deregulation of key public services.

Due to strong resistance by several of the CAFTA countries’ parliaments who, when confronted by the reality of having to make the far-reaching changes to public health and other domestic laws required by the agreement are reluctant to actually implement the deal, the Bush administration was forced to delay the planned Jan. 1, 2006 implementation.

 

There is one more MEFTA, the roots for the Iraq war

One more legacy of this push for nations without borders has been our intrusion into Iraq, for these neoliberals seeks in the Middle East for to tear down their protectionist laws, and we have sent the our army to do their bidding.  The puppet government that we have installed in Iraq (much like the Vichy government of France) is planning to have foreign oil companies take over production and sales, has already opened up their borders to foreign corporations, and instituted many of the changes recommended by the WTO.   So far 13 out of 20 Middle East nations have signed MEFTA, Middle East Free Trade Area agreements.  This intrusion into the Middle East is what brought about 9-11 and other attacks.  The Moslem zealots oppose our heathen intrusion with its heathen values. 

I have repeated commented about the link between neocons, the WTO, and the effects of globalization.  Among the effects is the ability to over ride national interest, labor laws, environmental laws, public services through decisions made by the WTO and empowered through trade sanctions and fines.  It is the power of finance that has created them as the shadow government.  Watch The Money Masters at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H56FUHgqRNE