There may be a need to pursue the deaths by Baltimore police in a different venue.

I am wondering if the Freddie Gray trial would be better served as a class action by including the others that have died and been injured in the back of a police van. Not that the other trials should be cancelled. The other trials and rehearing of this trial should go forward, but, the idea Freddie Gray is an unusual death is not correct.

I doubt the average taxpayer in Baltimore knows they are paying off wrongful conduct by police lawsuits.

April 23, 2015
By Doug Donovan and Mark Puente

When a handcuffed Freddie Gray (click here) was placed in a Baltimore police van on April 12, he was talking and breathing. When the 25-year-old emerged, "he could not talk and he could not breathe," according to one police official, and he died a week later of a spinal injury.
But Gray is not the first person to come out of a Baltimore police wagon with serious injuries.
Relatives of Dondi Johnson Sr., who was left a paraplegic after a 2005 police van ride, won a $7.4 million verdict against police officers. A year earlier, Jeffrey Alston was awarded $39 million by a jury after he became paralyzed from the neck down as the result of a van ride. Others have also received payouts after filing lawsuits.
For some, such injuries have been inflicted by what is known as a "rough ride" — an "unsanctioned technique" in which police vans are driven to cause "injury or pain" to unbuckled, handcuffed detainees, former city police officer Charles J. Key testified as an expert five years ago in a lawsuit over Johnson's subsequent death.
As daily protests continue in the streets of Baltimore, authorities are trying to determine how Gray was injured, and their focus is on the 30-minute van ride that followed his arrest. "It's clear what happened, happened inside the van," Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Monday at a news conference....

... Christine Abbott, a 27-year-old assistant librarian at the Johns Hopkins University...stated, "It felt like a roller coaster. Except a roller coaster ride is more secure because you're strapped in...."

I think there needs to be further hearings or investigation to this practice. It is a practice within the Balitmore Police Force. 

We, as a country, have witnessed how victims come forward when others are making a stand against their mistreatment. Maybe Baltimore needs a larger movement to bring the brevity of mistreatment of citizens to the average Baltimore taxpayer. 

Baltimore City (non-owner-occupied)*: $2.248 for every $100 of assessed property value.

To her credit Mayor Rawlings-Blake has asked for a property tax reduction by 20 percent to encourage affordable housing ownership.

In an effort to reduce the city property tax rate "20 cents by 2020," (a strategy outlined by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s administration in 2012) Baltimore City Council passed legislation approving the "Targeted Homeowners Property Tax Credit." This credit reduces the property taxes for owner-occupants. Each year, the board of estimates approves a new credit amount, which is then applied against the "improved value" of owner-occupied properties. (Property assessments are comprised of two parts: the "land" and the "improved value.") The city budget includes $20,900,000 for the "Targeted Homeowners Tax Credit" in Fiscal Year 2016, which runs from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016. In Fiscal Year 2016, the estimated average tax rate for homeowners in owner-occupied properties has been reduced by nearly 14 cents. This tax credit is on track to reduce the effective tax rate 20 cents by 2020.

Part of the property tax is because Baltimore has had to pay lawsuits due to extreme mistreatment of the citizens of Baltimore by their own police department. This is not funny. At what point does a police department stop being a liability?

December 15, 2015
By Brad Brooks

...How did our financial system weaken (click here) to the point where a quarter of a percent increase in rates is more than it can handle? 

The process started a dozen years ago, when Alan Greenspan -- then chairman of the Fed -- decided to lower rates to 1 percent after the country had emerged from the mild recession that followed the popping of the tech bubble. Then, when the Fed began to tighten policy, it did so with agonizing slowness -- raising rates just a quarter of a percent at a time, so as not to upset the financial markets. 

This set the table for the subprime housing debt mess in a way that neither Greenspan nor his successor, Ben Bernanke, could foresee. Everyone assumed real estate was too diverse an asset class to ever be in a bubble. Despite credible warnings about the potential problems starting in 2005, the Fed and Treasury were still blindsided in 2008 by the enormous losses at Bear Stearns, Lehman and AIG. Suddenly, the emergency 0 percent overnight lending rate was required and, almost seven years later, it's still deemed necessary. Meanwhile, three rounds of quantitative easing have added roughly $3.5 trillion in purchases to the Fed's balance sheet....

I don't think the Fed was blindsided. There was a lot of hubris following the implosion at Bear Sterns. Wall Street wasn't worried, they were joyful and laughing at the financial firm. They were joking at having to pay a dime or less for Bear Sterns stocks.

Bear Sterns fell and it wasn't as though they didn't know it was coming. James Cayne woke up one morning and stated, "Oops, the company just lost every bit of it's value." I don't think so. And no other bank believed it would effect them. Sure.

Colorful leader (click here) of tightly run New York investment bank Bear Stearns. After stint as scrap iron salesman, moved to New York to play bridge full-time. Fellow card player and Wall Street legend Alan (Ace) Greenberg hired him as a stockbroker in 1969. Earned stripes during New York City's 1970s financial crisis making market in the city's bonds. New York staved off bankruptcy; Bear made a fortune. Took over as chief executive in 1993; assumed chairman mantle from Greenberg in 2001. Bridge aficionados Gates and Buffett are richer, but Cayne plays better: 10-time national champ ranked one of the best in the world.

This is a shame. A man is dead and there is no justice for his death. "Oops" seems to be a reasonable defense argument.

The death of Freddie Grey was more than tragic. It wasn't that he was difficult to deal with and a victim of his own actions. He was neglected and victimized by the Baltimore Police Department. 

There has to be a retrial.

This is just a set back. This death cannot be regarded as a minor issue. He was killed in that van because of police negligence. It is a serious issue. 

I want to know what the jurors have to say. This is more than a mistrial, it is a carriage of misjudgement.

We know for a fact the police officers killed this man. Now, there is suppose to be something that is going to end a person's life without guilt in doing so? The justice of Freddie Gray has yet to be realized. 

Criminal negligence does not have to be premeditated.

Under some criminal law statutes, criminal negligence is defined as any type of conduct that “grossly deviates” from normal, reasonable standards of an ordinary person. It generally involves an indifference or disregard for human life or for the safety of people.

The defense is trying to make this into a case of corruption within the Baltimore Police Department. Somehow the death of a man is understood to be okay within the police department.

December 16, 2015

...What the trial revealed with great clarity, though, were the failings of the Baltimore City Police Department. We're not sure whose depiction of it was worse: the prosecution's account of police who express a callous indifference to the lives of those they arrest and then lie to cover for each other, or the defense's picture of a department so rife with incompetence that their client's failures were entirely unexceptional.

Prosecutors didn't just accuse Mr. Porter of lying or engaging in a cover-up. They suggested that the department has a "stop snitching" code for its officers just as repulsive as the one on the streets. And the defense attorneys didn't just portray Mr. Porter as an inexperienced cop who was following the lead of experienced officers. They drew a picture of a department where training is cursory and where standards of conduct are routinely ignored — if officers even bother to read them in the first place....

The accusations came from both sides. Is it another Ferguson?

This trial is not about violence and riots. There is NOTHING here the African American community needed to learn. Quite the contrary, they needed justice and they didn't get it.

Thinking Baltimore needed a lesson is racist. FOX isn't saying the white guys needed to learn a lesson, they are saying the African American community needed to learn a lesson. 

Where there are customers from India, there is Pakistan experts seeking them. What is Pakistan saying?

June 15, 2015
By K.K. Abdul Rahoof

Hyderabad: Like the FBI the TS cyber crime cops (click here) are on a mission to survey the dark side of the Internet where international cyber criminals rule the roost.

“Deep Web” or Dark Web has made its presence felt in Indian metros including Hyderabad with several covert illegal deals in child pornography, weapons, drugs and even hiring of killers being carried out by Indians.

When the FBI busted Silk Road, a popular Deep Web website, it was found that it had several Indian customers. Cyber crime officials say that since Hyderabad is a major IT hub an efficient surveillance system is necessary.

Cyber crime officials are constantly monitoring the Deep Web. “Absolute anonymity and encrypted data are the main features here. It’s not at all easy to track users. However, we are examining ways to build surveillance capabilities,” said an official from the cyber crime police station of Cyberabad.

Cyber experts say Deep Web is a part of the Internet that cannot be accessed through standard search engines. It can only be accessed by search engines like Tor. Users have password-protected or dynamic pages and encrypted networks to surf the Deep Web. In US there is a parallel market, notorious for drug trafficking, on the Deep Web. Many illegal products are sold in this way.

A few months ago, a private cyber crime consultant came across two strange teenage suicides in the city. “When we looked into the suicides it was found that the teenagers had used Tor in their computers and had watched several suicide videos. We think they must have got inspired after subscribing to it,” said Mr Sandeep Mudalkar, CEO of Sytech Labs. He added that there could be a few users in Hyderabad who might be active customers.

An anonymous major player in Deep Web, known by the pseudonym "HeadOfHydra", had declared in one of the forums that most illegal vendors on Deep Web had customers in India. “We are searching for a Hindi/English-speaking staffer. We plan to have localised markets for countries like India, China and Brazil,” the post said....

A free book on Google addresses the dark web.

"Dark Web: Exploring and Data Mining the Dark Side of the Web" by Hsinchun Chen

The illustration is from page 349.

Injunctions are the only way to end the myraid of complications to local and labor industry economics.

The bee and butterfly genocide of the USA and the textile specialty businesses of the USA have to seek injunctions from the TPP from taking over the QUALITY standards of the USA.

Injunctions are the only way to stop this mess. If the TPP is implemented it will result in cascades of litigation and American labor and cottage industries will suffer mercilessly while trying to recover from the invasion of the TPP.

I defy anyone to find the chapter in the TPP about the automobile industry (click here).

The Annex Section starts with this:

Subject to Legal Review in English, Spanish and French for Accuracy, Clarity and Consistency Subject to Authentication of English, Spanish and French Versions

So long about the time one thinks they finally have corralled the TPP into an understanding of some kind, that understanding has to stand up to translation analysis, too. 

The "Related Instruments" section only validates the complexity of the TPP. (click here).

This is the download section (click here).

I am not going to read this mess. The only way to end the hideousness of all of it is to stop it before it is implemented. I have no doubt the current Congress will try to engineer preventions to any opposition. It sounds like a re-election problem to me. 

Any Congress Engineering to defeat "The Commerce Clause" will be real interesting. 

...The “dormant” Commerce Clause (click here) refers to the prohibition, implied in the Commerce Clause, against states passing legislation that discriminates against or excessively burdens interstate commerce....

If company and labor interests can prove the TPP provides excessive burdens it can actually use the Commerce Claus to it's benefit. If the federal government can over rule citizens activities that complicate trade, the reverse has to be true as well. 

A recent NLRB decision took on the inappropriate authority of corporations to adverse outcomes to 'the people.' It seems to me there are many venues that can be presented to stop the TPP.

What good are labor unions if they can be easily undone under bizarre trade rules. Labor unions play an integral part of the American landscape in protecting the middle class.

The INSTRUMENTS left to American labor in the TPP are not realistic. There is no real way of accessing reasonable cures to American labor in the TPP. That matters.

The "man-bee" of China.

By Case Adams

The revelation (click here) that hand-pollination by Chinese farmers is growing and in certain areas hand-pollination is necessary ties directly to the loss of nature’s pollinators – honey bees.
While some insist the Chinese hand-pollination is specific to retaining genetics in high-value species such as the Jinhuali pear, the reality is that the bees in the Sichuan Province of China have simply disappeared after an avalanche of insecticides were applied in the early 1980s in order to kill a particular pest – the Psylla (Pear lice).
Duh – bees are also insects. The insecticides forced their disappearance in the region and their continued use sustains that reality....
 and
...It is also no accident that prior to the monocropping and resulting insecticide spraying, the region was rich with a diversity of bees beehives – both wild and cultivated.
But all that changed. Today there are no bees, even for the farmers that cannot afford to buy the pollen and pay for hand-pollination....

The production of crops in the USA will effect the world. The loss of bees in the USA and other insect pollinators such as butterflies will result in a global crash of the food supply.

The crash of the global food supply is not a good idea for Wall Street to pursue, it will ultimately collapse the commodities market. Where there is no food, there is no production of animal products such as pork bellies and cattle.

The corporate farm of the USA midwest will disappear and there will be a rise in family farms that have HEALTHY practices in farm production. The family farms are the only methods to insure production of agricultural products once the pollinators have disappeared from American farmland.  

The nice thing about bees and butterflies is that they are completely benign in their roles when pollinating crops. If American farmers have to rely on worms to pollinate their crops there is no said consistency and production will fall because these other pollinators will eat the crop as well as pollinate it.

Either way, the way forward from the destruction of pollinators will result in the rise of the family farm and the phrase "bye-bye to Monsanto, everyone say bye-bye to Monsanto. Yes!" will be heard from sea to shining acidic sea. 

For China pollinatoricide fits right into the national dialogue of how there can never be enough bees to pollinate all the corps needed by an increasing population of people. The real task for Chinese farmers is to find ONE or TWO bees in order to restore the populations that will ultimately be wiped out by the purchase of Syngenta AG.

December 15, 2015
 
It appears as if China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) (click here) continues to move ahead with a takeover plan for Syngenta AG SYT 0.82%, following Chairman Ren Jianxin's meeting with the company in Europe last week, Bloomberg reports.
If completed the chemical combination would be set to rival a merger between Dow Chemical Co. DOW 2.41% and DuPont Co. DD 3.29%, unveiled last week.
According to Bloomberg, ChemChina is in the process of discussing a revised proposal to acquire Syngenta. The company's initial cash offer of $42 billion was rejected on November 12.
A source familiar with the matter told Benzinga on December 9 that ChemChina was expected to bid $44 billion for Syngenta in a deal involving the bank HSBC. Sygenta and an HSBC analyst declined to comment.

Greed by Wall Street will result in the destruction of Monsanto.

There is a real problem in the agribusiness sector of Wall Street. It is getting to be impossible to preserve Earth's natural balance. The best example of that is "Syngenta."

To begin Syngenta does the same thing as Monsanto. They create genetic products for crops. Syngenta has a global reach. It is not the size of Monsanto, but, it is a Swiss company and it's practices are different. Currently, China is attempting to purchase the company.

But, the most egregious problem with Syngenta is with bees. You know the disappearing species of extremely needed pollinators. The Syngenta product, neonicotinoid, is regulated in Europe and has been eliminated from the market place because REGULATION has proven it's use kills bees. There is a lawsuit in Europe by Syngenta in order to maintain it's market share regardless of the death of bees. If Syngenta cannot turn a deadly poison into a viable product the value of the company is diminished when take over talks take place.

The USA EPA has not eliminated neonicotinoid pesticide from the market, but, there are specific limits set to its residue tolerated on crops to protect pollinators.

September 5, 2015

Seed and crop management company (click here) Syngenta Crop Protection LLC has petitioned U.S. EPA to increase the legal tolerance for a neonicotinoid pesticide residue in several crops -- in one case increasing the acceptable level by 400 times, according to a notice in today's Federal Register.
Syngenta, one of the biggest manufacturers of pesticides, wants to increase the allowable threshold for residues of thiamethoxam, a pesticide that has been linked to the decline of honeybees and other pollinators over the past several decades.
The petition would apply to alfalfa, barley, corn and wheat, both the crop itself and the straw and stover left over after cultivation. Syngenta is seeking to increase the levels from as low as 1.5 times for stover from sweet corn to as much as 400 times for hay from wheat....

Today, pollinators are protected from a toxin that kills them, but, if the TPP takes over there will be a new platform to change all that. The USA will have to lower it's standards to allow a 'partnership standard' to exist. That means the USA will have to hire illegal aliens to manually pollinate it's crops. That should be real interesting, because, if USA farmers have to resort to hand pollination, as China has, of their crops there won't be anymore corporate structure due to far higher production costs. 

...In 2007, (click here) 408 million acres of agricultural land were in cropland (down 17 percent from 1949), 614 million acres were in pasture and range (down 3 percent), 127 million acres were in grazed forestland (down 52 percent), and 12 million acres were in farmsteads and farm roads (down 19 percent)....

So, there is a way of getting rid of Monsanto and it is greed.

Most cottage industries in the USA are interested in expanding their product sales within the USA. This is not important.

This is the USA - Vietnam Trade Agreement and the international organizations that impact it.

...Noting that Vietnam (click here) is a developing country at a low level of development, is in the process of economic transition and is taking step to integrate into the regional and world economy by, inter alia, joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC), and working toward membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO)...

It isn't as though the USA doesn't have trade agreements with all these countries, but, the TPP provides for other agreements to take place while there may be disputes under TPP standards. It appears as though there is going to be a concensus of standards of the TPP partners and all countries will have their standards adjusted to a common understanding. That means the foreign source requirement on food labels in the USA will be negated. The standards for products in the USA that American consumers demand will be compromised.

The TPP is a return to melamine and compromises consumer safety.

Organic ProductsThe annex on organic products will promote trade in organic products and will encourage cooperation between the Parties on issues related to the production, processing, or labeling of products as organic.

Who sets the standard? 

This is a hoot. The USA has no textile business.

Rules of Origin (click here)

To ensure that the benefits of TPP go to TPP workers and businesses, TPP requires a “yarn forward” rule of origin, which means that to get the lower tariffs offered in TPP, a good must be made within the free trade area using U.S. or other TPP country yarns and fabrics. At the same time, we have carefully crafted exceptions to the general rules of origin. For example, the Textiles and Apparel chapter includes a “short supply list,” which provides TPP partners with flexibilities in cases where the U.S. and other TPP members do not produce enough of a particular fabric or yarn to meet production needs. In such cases, the short supply list allows apparel using these specified materials from outside the TPP region to qualify for TPP’s reduced tariff rates. There is also a special feature for Vietnam, linking improved access to the U.S. market for cotton pants to the purchase of U.S.-made cotton fabric.

You mean China hasn't filed a complaint at the WTO yet?

There was a time when the USA has a rather vibrant textile business. The industry itself was traded with China and the USA textile industry evaporated. In the year 2015 there are Cottage Industry textile businesses but there is no return of the textile industry in the way it existed before. 

This is partly the product, besides tobacco, where the 'cotton picking USA south' lost it's economy.

One of the very first acts (click here) of the very first Congress of the United States was to impose tariffs on imported gloves, hats, and clothing. That temporary protection was bestowed in 1789, when the small U.S. economy was agrarian, and textile and clothing production represented America’s industrial future. Two and one quarter centuries later, textile protectionism is alive and well, and features prominently on the U.S. agenda in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations to forge – wait for it…wait for it – a “21st Century” trade agreement....

China will sue the USA through the WTO and it will even wipe out the American Cottage Industries. 

The TPP is an attempt to circumvent any other trade decision regarding textiles. It won't work. China won't put up with it and will seek to destroy any cottage industry of textile goods. That means all the ladies that sew from their homes for an income will be ended. It means clothing specialty hand made like "Alabama Chanin" (click here) will be put out of business.  

The TPP will cause more hardship to local textile merchants and return power to Wall Street and China produced products. This is Walmart territory. Walmart will benefit from a complaint filed by China.

The TPP is not needed. At all. It is going to cause problems and not solve them. 

Didn't I just read in Chapter One how all trade agreements will continue to be in force? Then what is this?

Supposedly the TPP changes all these tariffs on American Made Goods. How is it the previous trade agreements remain in force while the TPP changes them?

...Some TPP countries (click here) impose tariffs that translate into very high costs for buyers of American products. For example, Malaysia charges tariffs of 30 percent on American autos, while Brunei has tariffs as high as 20 percent on machinery. Japanese tariffs on leather footwear can rise as high as 189 percent out of quota and 17 percent on fruits and vegetables (or even higher for oranges in season); Vietnam imposes tariffs averaging 9.4 percent on manufactured goods, and those tariffs often rise higher, as high as 27 percent for auto parts and 68 percent for trucks. Vietnam also imposes high rates in agriculture, as high as 30 percent on cuts of pork. These disadvantages are magnified by free trade agreements (FTAs) that do not include the United States. For example, Vietnamese auto parts buyers pay a 27 percent tariff if they choose American parts, but only 5 percent or no tariff at all on similar Chinese- or Thai-made auto parts under the China-ASEAN FTA and the ASEAN Free Trade Area....

Tariffs and core obligations

The Goods chapter (definition as stated in this agreement good(s) means any merchandise, product, article or material;) includes fundamental obligations for the TPP Parties to eliminate customs duties on qualifying goods from the TPP region, and to provide treatment to the goods of other TPP Parties equivalent to that which they provide their own nationals (“national treatment”). This means elimination of all tariffs on American manufactured goods and nearly all farm products. The majority of the tariff elimination will be immediate, although some tariffs will be eliminated over agreed timeframes. In agriculture specifically, TPP will eliminate tariffs on almost all U.S. exports of food and agricultural products, and for the remaining products will provide new and commercially meaningful market access and increased export opportunities through significant tariff reductions or changes to tariff rate quotas.

Forget this. It is a magical formula to make countries of the TPP treat American goods like their own.

There are no specifics thus far. Somehow there is a magical instrument that will transform USA goods into competition with foreign goods. This is not a guarantee and only solidifies the fact there will be increased demands on courts of other trade agreements. The WTO will receive more complaints about fairness and it then is suppose to include any of these provisions in the TPP. There is no guarantee about increased fairness, this is a guarantee that trade disputes will last forever. The WTO has not validated any provisions of the TPP. This agreement talks about OTHER TRADE AGREEMENTS as those they have signed on to the TPP.

If the TPP could actually deliver on reducing tariffs of American goods there would be appendices that included proceedings of all the other agreements consenting to accept the provisions of the TPP. There is mention of the other agreements, but, upholding them is by good faith of the signator countries. Unless there are specific indications in this agreement all other trade agreements have legislated their willingness to participate as stated, this is a waste of time and money. Just because the TPP wants to share authority with other agreements doesn't make it so. There needs to be resolutions between all the other trade agreement authorities and the TPP. Simply stating it only muddies the waters.  

Below is within Chapter Six - Trade Remedies

Notification and Consultation

When conducting a transitional safeguard investigation, TPP Parties must notify the other Parties of the key milestones in the investigation: initiation, making a finding of serious injury, a decision to apply or extend the measure, and a decision to modify the measure. Parties also must notify the other Party should they decide to apply or extend the transitional safeguard.

Compensation

A Party applying a transitional safeguard measure must provide mutually-agreed compensation in the form of concessions having equivalent trade effects or equivalent to the additional duties expected to result from the measure. Alternatively, a Party facing a transitional safeguard may suspend equivalent concessions, after notification to the other Party or Parties, if the Parties cannot agree on compensation.

Pretty please. Parties finding measures that are inconsistent with equal opportunity for USA parties MAY SUSPEND. This is where the TPP melts the other trade agreements. Supposedly two countries can dispute the fairness of each other's tariffs as established in other trade agreements and change them. 

This is a mutual consent document which has no brevity to other trade agreements. The mutual consent document will have to go before all the other trade agreements to find validation to it. 

This entire TPP is a lawyer's dream come true. There is no central authority and any mutual understanding between countries has to be rubber stamped by previous and standing trade agreements. It is ridiculous. There is no authority in the TPP except to agree that countries disagree. The TPP has no authority to make any changes in trade arrangements. The other trade agreements will have to entertain the mutual agreement of the TPP and validate them IF they don't violate the other trade agreements.

This is from the WTO: 

Dispute settlement is the central pillar of the multilateral trading system, and the WTO’s unique contribution to the stability of the global economy. Without a means of settling disputes, the rules-based system would be less effective because the rules could not be enforced. The WTO’s procedure underscores the rule of law, and it makes the trading system more secure and predictable. The system is based on clearly-defined rules, with timetables for completing a case. First rulings are made by a panel and endorsed (or rejected) by the WTO’s full membership. Appeals based on points of law are possible.

However, the point is not to pass judgement. The priority is to settle disputes, through consultations if possible. By January 2008, only about 136 of the nearly 369 cases had reached the full panel process. Most of the rest have either been notified as settled “out of court” or remain in a prolonged consultation phase — some since 1995.

There are thirty chapters in the TPP. (click here) They mean nothing until they are validated through other trade agreements. There are already entanglements in the WTO with outstanding resolutions between countries. The TPP only complicates the WTO processes and prolongs any resolution between countries. By the time these consulations are considered settled through TPP and the WTO the entire circumstance could have changed and the final decision will be worthless.

We have been here before.
 

The Uruguay Round (click here) was to set time limits on any proceedings regarding trade. None of this is new.

...Despite the difficulty, during the Montreal meeting, ministers did agree a package of early results. These included some concessions on market access for tropical products — aimed at assisting developing countries — as well as a streamlined dispute settlement system, and the Trade Policy Review Mechanism which provided for the first comprehensive, systematic and regular reviews of national trade policies and practices of GATT members. The round was supposed to end when ministers met once more in Brussels, in December 1990. But they disagreed on how to reform agricultural trade and decided to extend the talks. The Uruguay Round entered its bleakest period....

There are layers and layers of authority that will only complicate any time line to implement trade provisions. The TPP complicates the dispute process. 

If I have my dates right, the TPP review period ends the first week in January 2016.

This is Chapter One which states all other previous agreements are inclusive to any of the provisions in the TPP. There you have it. Why bother with the TPP?

This first chapter reviews the agreement between all previous trade agreements and the TPP. It also defines all the terms of the agreement. 

The TPP Parties have obligations to each other (click here) under other agreements, such as the WTO Agreement. This chapter affirms that these other agreements remain in place. In addition, although we have been careful to ensure that TPP does not create any obligations that would be inconsistent with any of our existing agreements (including the WTO Agreement), a TPP Party may request consultations with another Party if it believes there is an inconsistency. In many cases, TPP will broaden or improve upon commitments in existing agreements. For example, the commitments Mexico, Canada, Chile, Singapore, Australia, and Peru have made in TPP’s Labor and Environment chapters broaden and improve upon NAFTA and previous FTAs. Regardless of the agreements, TPP Parties will be obligated to implement TPP’s more ambitious standards....

Moving on...

Bush is the anti-Trump.

Same ole', same ole.

December 14, 2015
By Amanda Andrade-Rhoades

According to the Tax Policy Center, (click here) an authoritative and nonpartisan economic analysis venture, Former Florida Governor turned Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s proposed tax plan not only loses trillions, it makes inequality worse. Bush’s tax plan includes reducing the number of income tax brackets, cutting the corporate tax rate to 20 percent and shifting to a territorial tax system, capping the total value of deductions but nearly doubling the standard deduction. The plan also seeks to double income tax credit for those who are both childless and employed and eliminate a loophole that allows fund managers to claim their income as capital gains, NPR reported.
According to the Tax Policy center, the plan would reduce federal revenue by $6.8 trillion in the first decade and increase the national debt by as much as 50 percent....

This was "W"'s idea fun. The wealthy are always the focus in a Bush plan.