As I’ve noted before, the TPP is shockingly bad and destructive.

First, it adds another layer of intellectual property protections, which means broader, longer and deeper limitations on access to, and use of, information. In doing so, the TPP will hurt the ability of consumers and entrepreneurs to make informed decisions, and then to act on them. This will lead to less efficient resource allocation by markets.

It is not enough for consumers to be well informed. They also need to have the ability to make choices, either by using information or by being offered real choices about whatever they might want to purchase. Any regulation that: 1) prevents consumers from using information and/or grants monopoly/oligopoly rents; 2) stifles new competition by creating artificial barriers to entry for new competitors; and 3) creates different classes of actors in front of the law (creating both moral hazards and incentives for “gaming”) should be treated with the utmost suspicion.

As if that’s not bad enough, there is this.

Article 18.78 adopts a potentially very broad concept of a trade secret, a very wide range of activities that might constitute a breach and a very broad potential class of persons who might be liable. Worse, it also calls for criminalization. The potential risk for would-be entrepreneurs to start a business in anything that even remotely relates to their past job are now enormous.

The resulting chill in entrepreneurship alone would cost the U.S. and Canadian economies significantly higher orders of magnitude in terms of lost growth, jobs and welfare than any positive benefits that the TPP might bring.

I’m impressed with how pervasive and effective the pro-TPP propaganda has been. People who should know better seem to support it, when its primary purpose is to prop up large corporations and to eliminate their potential and actual competition. And of course as always to reduce wages in both rich and poor countries.

The TPP is just a nightmare.