Tobacco: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

A great deal of the Chamber's funding comes from Tobacco companies. In fact there are conference rooms named for them. If you haven't seen Last Week Tonight's take on the international bad behavior of the Tobacco companies I really encourage you to check it out. It's about 18min long, but well worth it: ▶ this video They've responded to a shrinking market in the US and other highly developed nations, by doubling down on their efforts to sell to everyone in the rest of the world. And woe to the country with a smaller GDP than Phillip Morris who decides to try to put restrictions on a pack of smokes.

There was a great John Oliver segment on the tobacco industry and how it's evolved to become even more profitable worldwide than it ever was in the US. Highly recommended to watch it. ▶ this video

Most countries in the EU are taking steps to combat this and the number of smokers is steadily diminishing, even if too slowly. I'm more worried about the non smoker countries which the tobacco companies are seeing as new territories to conquer. John Oliver did a good segment about that two years ago ▶ this video

Not a fan of Trump but this is a good thing. See this exert from John Oliver on the effect of such trade deals; ▶ this video And that's the existing trade deals, TPP would have made it much worse. There is a reason why democratically elected governments need to protect their sovereignty. The scope of the legal provisions along with the requirement to use easily corruptible mediation is superfluous to free trade. In addition, I don't understand those that think boxing out Russia and China from the rest of Europe and Asia is a good thing.

Those pre-TPP cases are nothing compared to the future combined scope of TPP (Pacific), TTIP (Europe) and RCEP (China, Korea, India, and other Asian countries). Never say there is nothing you can do. Tell other people about ISDS. Share the videos [1][2][3][4]. Jon Oliver's video [4] about the Philip Morris tobacco ISDS lawsuit against Australia (for brown paper packaging) caused such an outcry that TPP negotiators were forced to exclude the entire tobacco industry from ISDS. This is the first time such an industry-specific carve-out has appeared in a trade agreement. [1] link [2] link [3] link [4] ▶ this video

Keep watching - the corporate stuff starts a few minutes in, with the tobacco industry throwing around threats to various countries legislatures to stop those legislatures from passing Australian-style packaging laws and other public-health regulations. edit: if you're in a hurry, try starting at about 5:55 ▶ this video

Absolutely! When UK Parliament wanted Zuk to answer some tough question about his company facilitating electoral fraud, he simply refused to show up. Even first world nations struggle in dealing with American corporation, which often act as if they are above the law. God forbid you are a developing nation. British American Tabacco has taken poor developing nations to court for trying to ban children from smoking (!!) and got compenation and the law repealed ▶ this video I am not even mentioning illegal stuff: bribes, threats, drone strikes, strong-arming, etc. Even the EU was strong armed when it comes to GPS: link Those that think that American economic advantage was won in a 'fair game' are super naive

> I wonder if the cig companies have coped by pivoting into the global market and pushing hard that way. That is exactly what happened. Global tobacco business is better than ever: ▶ this video

Weird response, to say the least. And from a green account. (takes off tinfoil hat) Now, what is laughable is this idea of corporations suing governments because of lost profits from legislation. Happened with cigarettes too ▶ this video link As for the idea of civil war: obvious hyperbole is obvious. Democracy needs fixing, or much larger problems -- but if there is no fixing, corporate corruption might ensure the problems.

Are you referring to the part about corporations being able to sue nations if they take any measures that they can claim hurts their business? [0] I assume that the "ISDS" that Warren refers to in the linked article (which was written before the draft went public), is chapter 28, "Dispute Settlement," in the draft at readthetpp.com. [1] This is already happening, at least with tobacco companies. "Last Week Tonight" did a piece on this.[2] [0] link [1] link [2] ▶ this video

"A random Company invests in a country, sets up a nice subsidiary starts doing business, everything is legal. But the country (the State) sees that it's taking up the market, uh-oh," when this has been done and when it has happened not in the interest of public well being? on the other hand here is an example of what some corporations actually do in the present ▶ this video

They adjust their strategies to local conditions. In EU they can do little. Elsewhere, they actually sue countries [0] to keep their rights to advertise death. [0] - ▶ this video