OK, let's go to the facts:

1. A treaty is negotiated between the two major markets in the world.

2. We know that when this kind of treaties are passed is almost impossible to go back.

3. We know that the most important input to those treaties come from corporations.

4. The conversations happen in secret.

5. The democratic representatives are not allowed to read the treaty except in a hurry and without legal help.

6. Free trade is already a reality but, somehow, a wider treaty that create new tribunals where corporations can sue states is necessary.

You are right. No need for tinfoil conspiracies.

Some further facts:

- the treaty tries to abolish market regulation differences between the two markets

- costumer protection regulations between the US and the EU are incompatible

- In the US often e.g. chemicals are allowed until proven hazardous, in the EU they are outlawed until proven harmless

- the tribunals will operate outside the normal juridical systems of the US and the EU

Resulting in:

- No differences, but

- US consumer protection (which is hardly any)

- US (bio)chemical regulations

- A non-conformative tribunal which is not elected, not governed, has no oversight and has no basis in any civil law (as you cannot appeal/trail as a civilian if you are disadvantaged by its rulings)

This "allowed until proven hazardous" vs "outlawed until proven harmless" is such a misrepresenting of the disagreement.

Okey, lets put this concept into practice. I will sell fungus as antibiotics, and I will stop once its proven if it work. This would of course not work, and we follow a "outlawed until proven harmless" when it comes to medicine. In the context of medicine, that is a good rule to have and both US and EU agree on this.

So, its not about "proven to be safe" vs "proven to be unsafe", but rather specific regulations in specific contexts where EU and US disagree which one is best. In medicine, both agree. With additive in food and pesticide residue laying around in crops, they disagree.

There could have been a public debate, but this treaty is not that. It even go as far as forbid laws that grants the consumer a legal right to know what substances they ingest.

> 4. The conversations happen in secret.

Not commenting on any other aspects of TTIP, but they happen in secret for a reason.[0][1][2] Most trade negotiations are secret too, and if the whole process was public there would be too much bikeshedding and pressure on the negotiators.

EDIT: forgot to include a TL;DR summary of why they are secret. Fixed NPR link

0 - http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/06/26/417851577/episo...

1 - http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/08/random-t...

2 - http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2015/08/random-t...

> and if the whole process was public there would be too much bikeshedding and pressure on the negotiators.

That's a feature, not a bug. Whence this argument that trade negotiations are somehow different from every single other aspect of good governance? For all other mechanisms of government, everyone agrees that transparency is a vital mechanism for preventing corruption, and that whatever inefficiencies it introduces into the system are a necessary evil. Yet somehow free trade agreements operate on a different set of rules; even though time after time it's been shown that this invites boatloads of the exact corruption that government transparency is meant to combat. [source: every TPP/TTIP leak thus far]

Literally having the exact same conversion on reddit. You are right, it is a feature not a bug.

I fucking hate these arguments, that "we need secrecy to negotiate effectively". The problem is, the negotiations are "effective" on behalf of corporations, not the public. Yes, they happen in secret for a reason, but that's not a reason we're bound to respect.

If only "in secret" really meant "only between diplomats" and not "hidden from the public but not corporations".

That might be true in theory. In fact, secrecy is used to hide a vast array of horrors and ram them through under the cover of "trade liberalization."

The first link doesn't even discuss secrecy, unless the implicit reason is, "because negotiator's lie".

Thanks, that was indeed the wrong NPR story. Fixed!

I don't think it's because of some conspiracy that EU leaders like Merkel favor TTIP. They probably think it's the right way to go, because TTIP will make EU's economy grow. (See for example http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/html/151787.htm)

And it is obvious that major internationals on both sides will be the ones that benefit most from the cuts in government regulations proposed by TTIP. So a substantial portion of the economic growth will go to them. Therefore I don't think you need to be in the tinfoil hat camp to support the believe that they are lobbying for TTIP.

The mistake that our EU leaders make, IMO, is that what's good for the EU's economy, is not necessarily always good for the majority of its citizens. Those government regulations were there for a reason, for instance to protect the environment, support area's who are economically behind etc.

That's the real problem. The term "economy" has been captured by big corporations. When I grew up in Germany the economy was supposed to be a benefit to all participants and a balance had to be achieved. Now the economy is supposed to be fine as long as big business is happy. The regular citizen doesn't count anymore.

TTIP is just the final expression of this. Whatever I hear only lobbyists have been involved. No other citizen organizations like unions, environmental organizations, politicians or wherever. Only big business.

I'd like to point out that German economy and by extension, regular Germans, heavily depend on exports to the US. So, reducing frictions in trade between US and Europe should make regular Germans better off not worse off. How do you suppose German economy works ?

The most likely outcome of this is that exports are sold at the price they are at now, not cheaper. The workers are paid the same as they are now, (which is the market rate). And the difference in what's normal and cost savings from TTIP will go to company bottom line. And the top officers at the company will collect a performance bonus.

The unlikely scenario is that the price comes down and more units are sold and/or the difference in export costs is divided between the workers to pay them above market rate.

And the company and the executives pay taxes from the bottom line Thus, according to your own logic, the state, which pays social security and benefits is better off and is more fiscally sound

"And the company and the executives pay taxes from the bottom line" ... this is sarcastic isn't it?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourg_Leaks] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-22/google-joi...]

So by your logic, since some companies and individuals evade some taxes, it follows that no companies and no individuals pay taxes?

How about paying better salaries so the state doesn't have to do that much?

Seems the companies want to have it both ways. Not pay much and have the state provide assistance for underpaid workers (see Walmart) and then complain about taxes too high.

>taxes too high.

At 3%, while the majority of earnings goes to the company, the workers carry the tax bill @18%

Well that's the typical discussion at least in the US. "Look how much taxes the top 1% pay over those low income slackers."

I don't really know what you mean to say here, but generally, 'low income slackers' pay 18% -24% on their income and the rich pay significantly less then that as a percentage of income. Are you implying this is not the case?

I don't think the goal is getting more money into the coffers of the state. But, if that's a big win for you I guess it makes sense.

Well, in Germany people get pensions and benefits from the state. So, if your goal is to not have to reduce those, then yes, getting money into the coffers of the state is partially the goal

Sure, so the company can pay pennies on the dollar for pensions for employees after a life time of service. What a great deal?

What actually ends up happening is the people who carry the tax burden ( workers ) end up paying their own pensions. Which is fine, as long as we aren't pretending that the pensions is a benefit of working.

I know Germany benefits big time from exports. But the benefits have stopped going to the workers. Like in the US wages are stagnating while the "economy" supposedly is doing well.

Really? How do you think Germany gets resources to pay for all the social benefits, pensions etc. if you think growth has stopped, then measures to raise it are a good thing

Growth has continued, net real wages haven't[0]. Although this seems to be changing[1].

[0] http://www.diw.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=diw_01.c.342374.de

[1] http://www.dw.com/en/germans-enjoy-highest-real-wage-rise-in...

There would be much less need for social benefits if the pay had kept up with growth. There is a whole generation of perpetual interns (Praktikant) because companies don't hire full-timers.

" should make regular Germans better off "

Please define a metric that we can use to establish this.

gdp per capita growth as well as sustainable financial situation so that German state can meet its social obligations without a fiscal crisis like in Greece

I live (now) in a country with a GDP per capita an order of magnitude less than the US.

Having just come come back from the US. I can say without doubt.

There is much less poverty here. The average citizens quality of life here is an order of magnitude better than the us.

Funnily enough. Money isn't everything. Stuff like personal freedoms. Social interaction. Inequity are much more important IMHO.

Which country ? If GDP per capita in your country is an order of magnitude less, I question your assertion

I don't think GDP/capita is enough, since it is taking an average of a highly skewed distribution. We really need something closer to a median: How about inflation-adjusted median income? Or perhaps inflation-adjusted median income after housing.

Thanks, just to be clear: I'm not an advocate for TTIP.

Not sure where you're from, but it's hard to imagine a rational basis for the European public to be an advocate of it.

My understanding of TTIP and TPP are that they're the US's last ditch attempt to standardise international trade along US lines before China overtakes and starts to set the tone.

On that basis they kinda make sense from a US perspective. From an EU perspective not so much.

(edit: not saying the US has a chance of staying ahead of China if TTIP/TPP are successful, just that standardised trade rules may soften China's negotiation position)

And in theory, this is actually a really good idea, and something the Western nations should be doing. China's human rights and environment records are abysmal. It would be to the advantage of western nations to be more unified for their common benefit, and force China to catch up. However the TTIP/TPP are going the wrong way: they're trying to water down or eliminate environmental and consumer protections in favor of large corporations' profits. In other words, they're trying to lower the bar rather than to raise it as they should be.

We really could use a standardized international trade treaty, but it has to be done in the open, and with input from more parties than just big corporations interested only in their profits, it needs input from environmental groups, workers' groups/unions, consumer rights advocates, food-safety organizations, etc.

Agreed, and it's unnerving that lobby groups seem to have a degree of access that neither the public nor many of our elected representitives seem to have.

My knowledge of history in this area clearly isn't strong enough; I have no idea how we got here.

> Not sure where you're from, but it's hard to imagine a rational basis for the European public to be an advocate of it.

Confindustria (the italian confederation of industrial companies) is strongly in favour of TTIP. Spirits exported to the US for example are heavily taxed, if they were not, we'd likely export more.

Or, if we get geographic denominations protection, we can get walmart to stop producing 40 things called "asiago" or "parmesan" (as it happened for german produced parmesan, or in reverse for the italian Tocai wine which clashed with hungarian Tokaji) and than it's a win for the producers of the real stuff.

Moreover in some things the US has _better_ legislation than europe, for example "bio" regulation is more strict, as are car safety rules, AFAIK.

I am not saying this will work out for the best, I am saying there are supporters of TTIP on the european side too.

Yeah, there's nothing conspiracy-like about a group of powerful people colluding in secret to produce laws, via illegal means, for nearly the entire planet. That's literally a superset of the definition of "conspiracy". Do you spend a lot of time looking into the sun?

If you call people stating facts and accurately describing the trade deal "tinfoil hat conspiracies" then you are arguing in bad faith and should stop. Even if you believe such a ridiculous thing the cheap insults and incendiary language doesn't help your cause.

You need to understand these deals as they are -- negotiated primarily by large corporate representatives, used as a back door to slam through legislation that would never pass domestic muster in its respective countries as a single up-or-down omnibus deal that legislators cannot reject. No conspiracy at all, rather, business as usual.