Subject:  GATS Privatising all Services (Philips).
Date:     Fri, 02 Mar 2001 071030 -0600
From:     Roy Beavers 
To:       guru 
--------------------------------------------------

.......From EMF-L.......

The GATS has been in existence for decades.....  But as an
international treaty that "defines" the terms of trade between
nations, it has continued to expand its scope until -- as you 
see below -- it would substitute the profit$$$$ principle into
the area of public services and other traditionally "non-profit"
activities......  I think the writer below is correct in raising
the question whether we (mankind) really want a world that is
totally profit$$$$$ driven???  That (implicit) assumption is
too evident in the arguments that reach the public arena about
EMF hazards, for example.

Those of us who see a world wherein limitations SHOULD be set
upon profit$$$$$-making enterprise when the PUBLIC HEALTH AND
SAFETY (as well as some environmental considerations) is at
stake -- are frequently "marked" by the government/industry 
forces that measure all success in profit$$$$$ terms....  We
are accused of being "anti free market" or "anti free enterprise."

I, for one, am NOT anti free market.  I well understand and
believe that the "capitalist" free market has been ONE of the 
most powerful "engines" of progress as well as production for mankind.

BUT!!!  It is NOT the ONLY such engine for promoting mankind's good -- comfort,
health, happiness and welfare!!!

And, it certainly does not provide the most useful "value
system" for measuring mankind's QUALITY OF LIFE......	

As Alasdair suggests below, we all need to start voicing our concern about a
world that is being "defined" ONLY in a profit$$$$$$ "value system."  Such a
system serves GREED much 
more than it does QUALITY OF LIFE.........guru.......

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: GATS Privatising all Services
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 09:11:47
From: Alasdair Philips 
To: Roy Beavers 

The following disturbing item is from The News Report, Issue 279, Wednesday
28 February 2001 (Australia) and is of importance to everyone. It is high
time that we all contacted our elected representatives about the
implications of political actions - or lack of them. From Alasdair Philips.

Feedback:
G.A.T.S.. Privatising all Services!

In secret, governments are negotiating the end to all not-for profit public
services. In less than 2 years, 130 plus governments expect to quietly sign
an agreement called GATS, General Agreement on Trade in Services. This
binding and irreversible treaty will lay all government services open for
international tender, and no doubt international labour, that is, foreign,
lower paid nurses, teachers, builders, water technicians, posties, media,
maintenance, childcare and transport workers.

Public services are next in line for the WTO's corporate battering ram.
Global corporations have been so successful in persuading governments
everywhere that their agendas are the same - that the pursuit of corporate
profit and the good of society are one and the same - that their access to
many areas of public life has already been improved. Quality of service and
democratic access has not necessarily improved.

Services is the fastest growing sector in international trade, and employs
72% of Australians. Services offer rich pickings for canny corporations. And
of all public services, health, education and water are shaping up to be the
most lucrative. Global expenditures on water services now exceed $1 trillion
every year; on education, they exceed $2 trillion; and on health care, they
exceed $3.5 trillion. Since multinationals pay little tax, these services
are becoming increasingly hard for governments to provide.

The USA might suggest a model for the dismantling of public services which
GATS will unleash all over the world. In fact, much of the GATS policies and
the World Trade Organization policies are designed to increase USA mega
corporation domination of world markets.

In America, health care has already become a huge business, with giant
healthcare corporations registered on the New York Stock Exchange. Rick
Scott, the president of Columbia, the world's largest for-profit hospital
corporation, is clear that health care is a business, no different to any
widget manufacturer. He has publicly vowed to destroy every public hospital
in North America - doctors, he says, are not 'good corporate citizens'.
Americans spend twice as much on Health as a percent of their bloated GNP as
Australia, yet over-service the rich, and cannot really care for 40 million
of their own increasingly large poor segment of society.

Meanwhile, investment houses like Merrill Lynch are already predicting that
public education will be globally privatised over the next decade the way
public health has been. They say there is an untold amount of profit to be
made when this happens. The European Union recently announced that every
publicly- run school in Europe must be twinned with a corporation by the end
of the decade. The conquest of foreign market and support of big business
has now become a key common strategy among universities around the world. So
much for academic freedom!

Disturbingly, GATS also includes authority over 'environmental services' and
natural resource protection. Our parks, wildlife, river systems, and forests
could all become contested areas as global transnational 'environmental
service' corporations demand the competitive model. The fate of our sacred
and essential soil and water is at great risk.

Many parts of the 'Third World' have been forced to dismantle their public
infrastructures in recent decades under International Monetary Fund -
imposed structural adjustment programs. In order to be eligible for debt
relief, for example, dozens of 'developing' countries have been forced to
abandon public social programs over the last 20 years. Foreign corporations
have come in and sold their health and education 'products' to wealthy
elites''consumers'. Billions are now without basic social services, with a
lower standard of living than 20 years ago in 100 countries! Latin American
countries are currently experiencing an invasion of US healthcare
corporations.

Asian countries allow branch plants of foreign-based university and health
care chains. Recently, the World Bank has been forcing the same countries to
privatise their water services and are openly working with corporate water
giants like Vivendi and Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, to establish their 'rights'
to profiteer in the Third World. Bolivian people have been shot protesting
water charges that cost a third of their wages. Water may be bought and
internationally shipped according to WTO rules. When the market rules, the
rich get most of whatever is valuable!

Now, through the GATS negotiations, these corporations want binding and
irreversible rules guaranteeing them access to government service contracts
everywhere in the world. And they are succeeding. Already, over 40
countries, including all of Europe, have listed education within the realm
of the GATS, opening up their public education sectors of foreign based
corporate competition. Almost 100 countries have done the same with
healthcare. As the new talks progress, it will be very hard for any country
to swim against the tide - even if any are brave enough to try.

Frighteningly, there can be no local restrictions on quality of graduates
and service standards, this would be seen as a "barrier to free trade". Does
the WTO want us all to live and shop like Americans? Or die if we're too
poor to do so? If we all lived like Americans we'd need three planets!! How
will 72% of Australian workers in health, environment, childcare, transport,
tourist, broadcast, social work, dentist, teaching, office staff feel if
cheap foreign labour can come in? How can we complain when, like Australian
refugee / prison workers are controlled by a USA corporation like Wackenhut,
which is brutal to staff and refugees and prisoners in its "care". And to
whom can you complain if governments have given away all their serious
roles; perhaps we will just have a branch office of the WTO; secret,
undemocratic and only interested in money.

We better start spreading the word soon!! While we still have shreds of
democracy and objective media and unions. Ask your cowardly pollies why they
are silent on this issue!! Remember Beasley and Howard wanted us to sign the
MAI Treaty, later shown not to be Australia's interests!! Perhaps some of
the 700 billion dollars that has come into Australia in the last three
decades to buy our industry and land, the profits of which leave Australia
untaxed, has influenced Canberra. Perhaps its their superannuation! What do
you think? What will your children think?

Please reprint this and pass on!!

Dr E. Elliott with Maud Barlow, catcher@norex.com.au.
http://www.communitycauldron.com



 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Alasdair Philips,   BSc(Eng), DAgE, MIAgE
Advisor to Foundation for Children with Leukaemia
 Director, UK Powerwatch, (aphilips@gn.apc.org)
  EMC Engineer and EMF-bioeffects researcher
         http://www.powerwatch.org.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com