Having our Cake and Eating it Too on 'public services'!
How do we make lots of money by getting countries to stop competing by giving them away with our exporting services like education and health care insurance - getting them to make changes to their laws and public sectors that might in many cases be controversial?
Current US policy is that its vitally important that national, state and local entities (both our own and other countries on our good countries list) not unfairly compete with commercial providers of education services, so we're making the definition of a public service (i.e. services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority )
rigidly defined only as "any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers".
In deal after deal, all around the world.
Here is the most important example:
"For the purposes of this Agreement…
(b) 'services' includes any service in any sector except services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority;
(c) 'a service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority' means any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers."
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So, now - unless a carve out was explicitly added (at the beginning, or in periodic negotiating meetings, with the agreement of other countries which may (intentionally) become impossibly costly once their firms get involved) either decades ago in the case of the text above or in negotiations going on right now in Geneva, we can say "public services are protected!!!!" AND in many cases the result is a defacto gradual, fairly difficult to see forcing of privatizations of virtually everything where some money is involved, including here in the US, while at the same time not really being too obvious about it. But it is enforceable by these various organizations. In a way which supersedes national laws, elections and politicians.
(After all they/we signed it!)
Without being that obvious about it except to the wonkiest of wonks,
Then the big corporations of all the involved countries also get rights to offer said services to one another, for money of course, without government interference, unless it existed before and doesn't change at all in some cases or in some other cases was explicitly carved out in writing (and not carved in) carved out in advance, and if they can do it cheaply they make more money.
They can even move their employees all around the world to make it happen with minimal interference. As long as its temporary.
Slick, huh?
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