The best example of this I know of is the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services which is effectively the most restrictive “terms of service” imaginable-- it represents an attempt at corporate capture of the entire planet that is on the verge of succeeding. All of the deregulatory changes enacted by Speaker Cruz are ratcheted in, and nobody in the nation, seems to realize this. Actually, that’s not a joke, I am completely serious. And this is The World Trade Organization and Health Care. The “ratchet” is called “progressive liberalisation” and its one way. Voting cannot reverse it. This ratchet began on January 1, 1995, and you’ll notice that not a single nation has initiated universal health care or any wide reaching new social programs after that date. (Switzerland, home of the WTO was the last, in 1994) The changes that have been made are all essentially [self-ratcheting and silent]- so the noose gets tighter on its own. People in effected countries (especially the US) have no inkling of the real conditions causing their frustration and politicians continue to make promises they know are barred by the agreement (unless carved out before certain changes occur) confident that those lies are reliable vote getters. While the people suffer. Since the WTO’s legitimacy has recently come into question, two new agreements, one proposed and almost completed by the US, the other just proposed around a week ago by India, hope to deliver the final stroke. The effect will be the destruction of the “middle class”, and one way de-regulation of all “measures of general application affecting trade in services” basically all laws or policies of any kind- and a barring of new public services that are not explanation of the meaning of the “governmental authority exception” Only the most narrow definition of noncommercial services (free and without competition) are exempt from privatization and monetization and eventually, globalization. This will push all wages down to global norms and prohibit new safety nets, while dismantling the old ones. The people of the US will never know what hit them, lulled into a state of ignorance as they have been by extreme levels of dishonesty by both “parties”. Its really an amazing, unprecedented situation. Its appropriate that Cruz wrote this paper, no doubt he was thinking about these services agreements. Other trade agreements on goods are similar but nowhere near as outrageous in the scope of the takeover they attempt. But they all attempt to do an end run around democracy and make it irreversible. The core concepts are things like “indirect expropriation” which basically give new corporate rights to MNCs that transfer the wealth of the planet silently to corporations, giving them property rights in bad policy, so voters are left unable to vote things back to the way they were, and corporations profits always have to increase with every change in laws or governments are obligated compensation.
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