Posted on 02/08/2010 9:18:55 AM PST by FromLori
That sounds dramatic - even drastic.
But is it?
There's an argument raised over at "Washington's Blog" that the real cause of all the financial problems -the global mess - is the WTO:
On March 1, 1999, countries accounting for more than 90 per cent of the global financial services market signed onto the World Trade Organization's Financial Services Agreement (FSA). By signing the FSA, they committed to deregulate their financial markets.
But let's be straight here.
"Deregulate" does not give license to fraud, even though there are some who would argue otherwise.
The root issue with all of these "financial products" is that they are unmarketable unless someone lies.
You can't sell a "structured product" comprised of liar loans if you're honest about the "qualifications" (or rather, the lack thereof) of the borrowers at anything approaching a profitable rate of return. Nobody will buy.
With honest ratings a CDS + Bond will always yield less than the risk-free rate of return. This is because nobody works for free, and the more complex something is, the more it costs.
These are facts, not suppositions.
So WTO or no WTO, without willful blindness toward fraudulent practices the market will take care of the scoundrels. Without the ability to lie - that is, if we simply lock up all those who misrepresent credit quality the liar loan + CDS will yield less than a Treasury of equivalent duration, and as a consequence the purveyor of those liar loans will have to price them at a rate that accurately reflects their risk of default (plus his profit.)
This instantly cuts the BS.
Yes, we could simply tell the WTO to get stuffed, and I can make a cogent argument that we should - for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that "free trade" doesn't make allowance for those working under literal (or near-literal) slave conditions, such as Chinese and Vietnamese workers who are working under effective conditions of indentured servitude and lack the human and labor rights protections we enjoy in civilized nations. "Competing" with a labor source that effectively has a gun in its mouth is not only impossible, the concept is idiotic on its face.
But that's irrelevant to the argument that "we were forced by treaty to deregulate." Among other things deregulation does not mean legalizing fraud and never has.
Second, the WTO's "FSA" appears to have never been sent to Congress and thus has no force of law as a treaty. It is a mere "suggestion" - and one that Congress has every right to ignore, as do our regulators, as under The Constitution all Treaties must be ratified by The Senate - without that consent any purported "international agreement" is of no legal force whatsoever. Treaties cannot be amended once voted upon without being subjected to a second vote (and possible refusal); the FSA was an amendment to an existing treaty, and thus without being considered by The Senate is a nullity in terms of actual United States obligations.
The "globalists" (and scaremongers who believe we have sold out to them) would have you believe that we have somehow obligated ourselves. This is false. We have done no such thing, and whether our government has complied with these wishes (some would say demands) out of a desire to appease those who have bribed legislators with million in campaign contributions the fact remains that when it comes to legal force of law in this regard there is none.
This, by the way, includes the WTO, which has a nice list including the US on the web page referenced above. That too is, as far as I can determine, a lie as the FSA was never put to Senate Ratification, and without that having occurred it is legally void, whether the WTO likes it or not.
(PS: For those who wish to argue that the Republicans are to blame for all of the world's ills, you should look into who was President when the negotiations too place on the predicate parts of the treaty that was ratified prior to the FSA "add-on" that has no force of law. Hint: He tried to hide what he had spilled on a particular blue dress.)
And NAFTA!
you mean it is not Bush’s fault..............
Yes. No supra-national body should have the power to decide ANY policy of the United States.
We traded just fine in the days prior to the WTO.
Only if we don't want it to happen again. Although impalement might also be an effective option, or good ol' fashioned hanging in the public square.
Didn't we used to hang horse thieves? There's your precedent!
The WTO is a worthless, meddling, foreign body. We should not have joined it. Thank you Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich for going along with the stupid GATT treaty, rushing it through while the democrats still had the majority before the republicans took over in ‘95. We hold you responsible.
Yes. End it.
After reading both articles, per Denninger WTO didn’t go through the Senate, and per George Washington WTO/FSA created certain deregulation obligations. Was the WTO fast-tracked?
I hadn’t thought of that good question also can’t the President do it with a signing statement or something similar like what was done with Nafta?
NAFTA was fast tracked. I have been doing some research on fast-tracking at:
http://www.fasttrackhistory.org/index.html
I haven’t completed reading, but it looks like congress ceded much of its authority to the executive branch regarding fast track treaties. Prior to fast track, the executive branch only negotiated re tariffs.
Fast track negotiation included non-tariff items, including, but not limited to “increased monopoly protections for pharmaceutical companies, allowed foreign corporations to skirt U.S. courts to sue the U.S. government for cash compensation, or required Congress to conform wide swaths of law unrelated to trade to its terms”, eventually including changes to immigration (guest worker visas). It also changed the rules regarding congress participation in treaty negotiations pretty much minimizing/negating it.
It even looks like (I haven’t completed reading), if the executive signed a treaty, congress had both limited time and ability to act on it or by default the treaty ‘passed’.
Fast track was used to back-door in many domestic changes deemed “necessary to compete in a global market place”.
per the book:
“Since Congress first approved it in 1974 (it was signed into law the following year), Fast Track has been passed on five additional occasions. It has been employed 13 times among the hundreds of U.S. commercial agreements completed since the mid 1970s. Fast Track enabled passage of the most controversial commercial pacts, such as the Uruguay Round General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) negotiations that established the World Trade Organization (WTO), and also the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).2”
Thanks for that info. I worry about that being used for Gun Control and other things too.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.