WikiLeaks Publishes Secret International Trade Agreement 222
schwit1 (797399) writes "The text of a 19-page, international trade agreement being drafted in secret was published by WikiLeaks as the transparency group's editor commemorated his two-year anniversary confined to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Fifty countries around the globe have already signed on to the Trade in Service Agreement, or TISA, including the United States, Australia and the European Union. Despite vast international ties, however, details about the deal have been negotiated behind closed-doors and largely ignored by the press. In a statement published by the group alongside the leaked draft this week, WikiLeaks said "proponents of TISA aim to further deregulate global financial services markets," and have participated in "a significant anti-transparency maneuver" by working secretly on a deal that covers more than 68 percent of world trade in services, according to the Swiss National Center for Competence in Research.
keeping the heat on (Score:4, Informative)
This thing is bad. It completely bypasses all the traditional controls of democracy. The people will have no say in it even tho its their money and lives. We need to keep the heat on this kind of thing just like SOPA only much, much more.... some good analysis and commentary over at Naked Capitalism [nakedcapitalism.com] these guys tell it like it is. Basically its looking like a global corporatocracy.
Re:Because clearly... (Score:5, Informative)
The restriction on what they can do (in relation to what they would do in the absence of regulation) has decreased. That the total number of rules has increased is irrelevant. They are now, and always have been, under-regulated.
They could choose to be unregulated. Investment houses and PayPal are not regulated as banks. But they choose to be regulated because it benefits them. If they were truly over-regulated, they'd opt out of the regulation. For all PayPal's faults, they don't lend money against deposits or borrow from the fed, so they stay out of "banking" territory. There's no reason any other bank couldn't follow the same rules. Other than they deliberately choose not to because the "regulations" they operate under are a beneficial shield, not a web of tight regulations.
Re:Maybe, if we boycott Sony AND Disney (Score:2, Informative)
Sadly, even when Sony commits illegal acts such as infecting their customers' computers with rootkits and stealing functionality which was used as a selling point from their consoles, people still worship them and defend their disgusting acts.
Re:Because clearly... (Score:5, Informative)
Nationalise the bank to ensure that investors who allowed such thing to happen lose everything regardless. In other words, make those guilty of taking the risk shoulder the consequences.
Then bail it out to save your taxpayers money.
But that would actually be socialist.
It's funny with Americans calling the Democrats and Obama socialist left wingers when there reaction to the banking crisis was the opposite. The big differences between the parties is who they are in thrall to, not whether one is left wing and the other is right wing.