Trade agreements now serve as legal shields against domestic financial regulation

Evidence

To take but one telling example, if the hundreds of lobbyists and millions of dollars of campaign contributions were not sufficient to neuter all attempts at financial reform in the United States, such as the so-called Volcker Rule, then the banksters were not subtle in summoning their second line of defense, insisting that any such rule would violate NAFTA and other international “free trade agreements” instituted under prior transnational neoliberal regimes. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 903

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in the thought collective’s transnational institutions — NAFTA as a locked-in irreversibility device, echoing the law merchant/private-judge material from earlier reading. — connects to: Financial reform legislation was converted into an effort to restrain regulators; Finance requires the state to regulate markets and police its own excesses — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 504; Regulatory exemptions function as exploitable loopholes undermining enforcement — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1536
• SEED: Possible piece on trade agreements as constitutional-level constraints that render domestic reform legally impossible — jurisdictional lock-in as a governance device.

Broader Connections

• Financial reform legislation was converted into an effort to restrain regulators #corroborates (0.85)
• Finance requires the state to regulate markets and police its own excesses #complicates (0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 504
• Regulatory exemptions function as exploitable loopholes undermining enforcement #complicates (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1536