Is poor Joe off his meds again?
Sad to see he's arguing on the level of a right-wing chain email.
Are you serious? While I also question some of the examples that he gave (although he merely said that a government could be sued, not that the suit would be successful, however even the mere threat of litigation could drive governments to pass legislation as watered down as possible in the areas that he mentioned) you must not be aware or the quasi judicial dispute settlement tribunals that Stiglitz correctly claims is tilted in favor of corporations and against governments. My country of Canada has been taken to this international tribunal the most times of any country and has had to pay out tens of millions if not billions and has had to withdraw regulations passed by Parliament.
(Why can't ordinary citizens sue governments that pass laws or regulations that are largely without merit? We could get all drugs legalized that way.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/14/canada-sued-investor-state-dispute-ccpa_n_6471460.htmlI support free trade in principle, but other than those possibly rather odd examples that you cited everything that Stiglitz said in that interview is factually accurate. In fact, he didn't even did go as far as he could have. While he cited the evidence that has shown that the blue collar workers have had much more difficulty in finding new employment (yet alone new employment that pays anywhere near as much as their old jobs did), he did not cite the evidence that shows how U.S free trade agreements with other countries have concentrated wealth in the U.S thereby contributing to the rising income inequality.
In fact, given that everything else that he says is correct, and your post in un-researched ignorant and stupid snark, I'm inclined to believe that he is correct in those examples that you cited that he claimed.
The E.U has already said it will no longer sign free trade agreements that use these quasi judicial tribunals, at least not without the ability to appeal the rulings to the relevant national court. At a minimum I believe the TPP should not be approved without such a similar system as to what the E.U proposes, and as such, I personally will be very happy when the TPP goes does in flames, as it deserves to.
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