As Trans Pacific Trade Pact MOVES FORWARD in several nations already tied to FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES----so too Trans Pacific Trade Pact is MOVING FORWARD here in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones.
TRUMP has been hyper-global neo-liberalism as a resident of NYC -----he is rich from these few decades of ROBBER BARON fleecing of America---and his job is MOVING FORWARD far-right wing, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM----exactly what China has been since MAO GREAT LEAP FORWARD-----today's MOVING FORWARD same as MAO'S GREAT LEAP FORWARD.
As all the nations' already tied to TPP by their global banking 1% pols openly embrace TPP----Canada/Australia for example have signed on---TRUMP is PRETENDING to be against TPP because he must look right wing conservative---while TPP is MOVING FORWARD in US cities faster then ever.
TRUMP IS MADE IN CHINA MADE IN AMERICA.
Below we see exactly why TRUMP is pretending to take US out of TPP-----it gives overseas nations time to install their global corporations. Below we see STENY HOYER----oh, no wait WERNER HOYER---working for the same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% KINGS AND QUEENS.
'“If the U.S. withdraws from international and multilateral trade agreements, this creates opportunities for Europe,” said Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank'.
A DELAY in installing TPP OFFICIALLY does 99% of US WE THE PEOPLE no good. The protest and political actions are needed in our US cities deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES. Our US city mayors and city councils are MOVING FORWARD faster under Trump then ever.
TRUMP has his STALIN/MAO look for the media---
POLITICS
11/07/2017 02:19 pm ET
Trump Pulled Out Of The TPP. Now He’s Trying To Win TPP Provisions In Asia.
On his Asia trip, Trump is pitching the same trade benefits that were in the Trans-Pacific Partnership he professed to hate.
By S.V. Date
WASHINGTON ― Lower trade barriers. Better protections for intellectual property. More banking transparency.
Those were some of the provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated by the Obama administration, that Donald Trump bashed on the campaign trail and then withdrew from days after becoming president.
Ten months later, as Trump heads to Vietnam during his trip to Asia, the White House says it is hoping to achieve these goals: Lower trade barriers. Better protections for intellectual property. More banking transparency.
The contradiction exemplifies the muddled U.S. policy that is sending mixed signals to trading partners and already encouraging European nations to jump in and fill the void.
“If you’re suggesting that there’s hypocrisy in the Trump administration, that’s not really new,” said Jared Bernstein, once the top economic adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden. “There’s always been a tension in the administration between the status quo group and those that are more protectionist. One of those two groups tends to prevail at any given time, depending on what’s in the news and what the president is tweeting.”
Senior Trump administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, defended the move as consistent with Trump’s desire to have multiple, one-on-one trade deals with countries, rather than a single agreement like TPP, which included a dozen nations.
“[Trump’s] own experience before he was in politics gave him a very firm conviction that on a bilateral basis, he would be able to achieve higher standards and better terms for American workers and for American business,” one official said.
In any event, a second administration official said, TPP was never going to be ratified: “I think that many lose sight that TPP was not supported by the Congress, and, in its form, it was not going to pass the U.S. Congress.”
OH, REALLY????
If you’re suggesting that there’s hypocrisy in the Trump administration, that’s not really new. There’s always been a tension ... between the status quo group and those that are more protectionist. Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Joe BidenAt the heart of the issue is Trump’s apparent unfamiliarity with international trade, despite frequent claims that he understands it because of his many business interests. Both during the campaign and now as president, Trump has repeatedly conflated the trade deficit with the budget deficit, and has suggested that trade imbalances are by their very nature always bad for Americans.
“His public statements seem to reflect some pretty basic lack of understanding,” said Scott Lincicome, a trade lawyer affiliated with the Cato Institute who is also a lecturer at Duke University. “Let’s just say his public statements are clearly out of the mainstream.”
Bernstein, who wound up opposing TPP because of some of its provisions, had a similar view. “I’m sure he’s never cracked open a trade agreement. In fairness, few people have,” he said.
NOTICE COMMENTS ARE NOW BEING MADE FROM LIBERTARIAN THINK TANKS---CATO
“He certainly doesn’t understand the mechanics or the economics of trade,” Bernstein continued, though he added that Trump did understand ― better than other candidates in both parties ― how an anti-trade message would resonate with voters who feel left behind by globalization.
Key to Trump’s campaign message on the topic was that U.S. trade agreements ― be they with multiple countries such as the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico or “bilateral” agreements with just a single nation ― were all badly negotiated and that he could do a better job.
For decades, Trump has railed against foreign trade, accusing other countries of taking advantage the United States by “stealing” American jobs. Mainstream experts from both political parties believe that increased international trade does result in U.S. job losses in some areas, but that increased exports in other areas and cheaper consumer goods make up for it.
The generally abstract topic became a focus of last year’s campaign because of former President Barack Obama’s push to ratify the TPP, which his White House spent five years negotiating and which included Canada and Mexico as well as Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan. Obama argued that trade among those nations was happening anyway, and that TPP would establish fair rules for all the participating countries, including enforceable labor and environmental standards that currently do not exist.
So far, though, Trump’s campaign bluster has led to little progress. He has threatened to pull out of NAFTA if he cannot renegotiate better terms, but has not yet reached any deal. His talk about entering a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom cannot move until that nation has ironed out its terms of departure from the European Union following last year’s “Brexit” vote. And Trump’s attempts to forge a free trade agreement with Japan do not appear to be getting anywhere.
To the contrary, Japan and other signatories to the TPP seem to be more interested in continuing ahead with that agreement, minus the United States – which would hurt U.S. farmers and manufacturers hoping to win easier access to markets in South America, Southeast Asia and East Asia, including Japan.
At the same time, as the United States pulls inward, Britain and the EU nations seem eager to step in and take America’s place as preferred trading partners with those regions.
“If the U.S. withdraws from international and multilateral trade agreements, this creates opportunities for Europe,” said Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank. “I’m sure the EU would love to deepen its trade relations with NAFTA partners, for example ― countries like Mexico, Canada and the Pacific Rim nations ― and I believe it will seek to do so if the U.S. offers them an opportunity by stepping back.”
“The EU has been extremely aggressive. They are trying to get deals quickly,” Lincicome said. “They understand the competitive advantages that can be achieved.”
Trade experts aren’t surprised that Trump so readily used trade to his advantage during the campaign. Through the years, Democratic and Republican politicians alike have railed against imports that cost American workers their jobs. Those anti-NAFTA, anti-TPP messages were heard during the presidential campaign in both parties.
“You can criticize trade on a bumper sticker. It takes a paragraph to explain it,” said Michael Froman, the U.S. trade representative under Obama who was in charge of negotiating the TPP agreement.
Lincicome said the Rust Belt has lost more jobs to automation and new factories in the American South than to cheap labor overseas, but that it’s much easier to blame foreign trade than the other two factors.
“You don’t see people campaigning against robots. You don’t see people campaigning against interstate trade,” he said. “A lot of the blame should fall on politicians, on union leaders, on CEOs who blame their mistakes on foreigners.”
If the U.S. withdraws from international and multilateral trade agreements, this creates opportunities for Europe. Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment BankLincicome says Trump’s strategy of opting for bilateral deals with 11 countries over a single agreement that includes them all is unworkable, given the complexities of these negotiations.
Trump’s background might make him think he could get his way dealing with one country at a time, Lincicome said, but crafting a set of rules for nations to use to deal with each other is very different from writing a single deal between two entities. “None of those things apply to the world of real estate or reality TV or whatever,” Lincicome said.
In fact, the U.S. has already tried negotiating a series of one-on-one deals with other countries under former President George W. Bush’s strategy of “competitive liberalization.” That effort stalled when Congress grew weary of voting on trade ― never popular for members ― and just stopped taking the agreements up.
“It ended up being a political failure,” Lincicome said. “Trade votes are politically toxic. Politicians hate taking them.”
For Froman, a particular irony of the new White House’s trade strategy is that the one element that’s actually moving ― an effort to renegotiate portions of NAFTA ― is mainly trying to replicate provisions that were already included in TPP, which both Canada and Mexico are party to.
“There’s about a 95 percent overlap between the administration’s stated negotiating objectives and TPP,” Froman said about the NAFTA renegotiations. “But it’s the last 5 percent that will make or break it.”
With the United States abandoning TPP, Froman added, China’s efforts to forge regional agreements to its own benefit will dominate Southeast Asia and the Pacific. “If we don’t write the rules in global trade, China will. And they are,” Froman said.
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What is MOVING FORWARD in US in sovereign debt fraud is what has already happened to our 99% European citizens who have global banking 1% pols pushing their governments to ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES. When we say US corporations are no longer AMERICAN ----so too EUROPEAN corporations are no longer Spanish, French, German, Italian----they are GLOBAL MULTI-NATIONAL as the example of IRON ORE ARCELOR MITTAL
What is designed to bring the US to bankruptcy and default into WORLD BANK/IMF hands is the gorilla-in-the-room financial public policy not being discussed at all by US national media----by all those far-right Clinton/Bush/Obama NGOs and think tanks. This is why shoring up our US city government control is tops in FIXING OUR US DOMESTIC ECONOMY. We are made to look at one financial disaster after the other while doing nothing locally to stabilize our domestic economies.
99% US WE THE PEOPLE DO NOT NEED TRADE POLICIES---WE DO NOT NEED TARIFF POLICIES-----WHEN THE GOAL IS REBUILDING OUR US CITIES WITH SMALL AND REGIONAL DOMESTIC BUSINESSES SELLING PRODUCTS TO OUR US 99% AND 99% OF IMMIGRANT CITIZENS.
We can VOID these illegal trade policies like TPP as we get rid of global banking 1% pols and players-----we cannot reverse the revenue losses if we allow global corporate campus global factories and infrastructure development to MOVE FORWARD. DON'T TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE DELIBERATE SOVEREIGN DEBT FRAUD ----
Europe's ticking time bomb: Credit default swaps
By Charles P. Wallace
January 4, 2012
In the midst of the eurozone meltdown, a new crisis has gone unnoticed: a shaky derivatives market.
Business & Finance
Wall Street Clairvoyance: How The $600 Trillion Derivatives Industry Works
November 16, 2015 Ole Skaar
Derivatives, a type of financial contract traded for trillions each year, is a thriving industry. But there’s little transparency into this complex web of trading, and many say the risks are high.
The technical definition of a derivative is “a financial contract whose value is derived from the performance of underlying market factors” such as interest rates, exchange rates, commodity and stock prices, among other things, according to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
What does that mean? Derivatives are basically bets on what will happen in a certain market in the future. They derive their value from the financial instrument they’re based on.
Manipulating the future
For example, with an interest rate swap (IRS) two parties swap interest rates on a certain amount of money.
Usually, one party will pay a fixed interest rate on specific dates, while the other party will pay a variable rate that fluctuates with the market, according to the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission’s glossary.
The fixed rate buyer earns money when the interest rate stays above the fixed rate, while the other party gains money if the interest rate stays below.
This form of derivative has been especially controversial, after it was revealed that banks frequently manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) – which often guides the variable interest rate in IRS derivatives – for their own profit.
How big is the derivatives market?
According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the total value of all derivatives at the end of 2014, the latest numbers available, was $630 trillion dollars.
While this may sound like a lot (in contrast, the world’s Gross Domestic Product was estimated by the World Bank to be $71 trillion in 2014), the majority of this value is notional.
That means that contracts such as interest swaps are based upon this value to calculate payment rates, but the money never actually changes hands.
Still, the actual gross market value, which the BIS says is a more accurate measure when it comes to risk and comparisons to other markets, was $24.7 trillion.
According to a 2008 paper by the German exchange Deutsche Bors, derivatives have “quickly developed into the most important segment of the financial market,” fuelling innovation and providing a low-cost, global, around-the-clock market.
High reward, high risk
In addition to a susceptibility to manipulation as seen in the LIBOR scandal, however, the largely unregulated derivatives market is also often accused of contributing to systemic risk in the global economy.
According to the OCC, “Credit risk is a significant risk in bank derivatives trading.”
The Office compares it with a regular credit loan, where a lender takes the risk of of borrowing out a certain amount of money.
With derivatives, however, both parties to the contract are at risk if the other party defaults on their obligation.
If there is a default, a legally enforced “netting” agreement usually allows the losing party to demand other contracts with a positive value be added to the agreement to even out the loss.
As the value of contracts are based on future market rates, however, banks can only estimate what their exposure to risk will be in the future.
Since it’s impossible to fully predict market conditions, large-scale investments in derivatives can therefore become very unstable in volatile markets.
A famous example is the $18 billion lost by insurer American International Group on credit default swaps, a derivative meant to protect against defaults, because the company didn’t predict that their insurers would not be able to pay.
However, the industry does recognize the potential risk posed by derivatives. In a market review on credit risk and collateral in derivatives trading, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association presents a list of actions companies can take to avoid risk.
The first one?
“[A]voiding the risk by not entering into transactions in the first place,” the paper recommends.
______________________________________________
'Tariff laws only control sovereign businesses----not global multi-national businesses'.
'Wall Street Clairvoyance: How The $600 Trillion Derivatives Industry Works
November 16, 2015 Ole Skaar'
To understand trade and tariff policies one has to keep in mind what the overall stock market including commodities like IRON ORE and steel products looks like these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. Below we see a very complicated explanation of DERIVATIVES AND CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS-----these polices are why the photo of a US TRUMP grimacing like an Asian authoritarian next to a Chinese authoritarian really happy at being made billionaire through these illegal financial instruments. The national media makes much about the illegality of these COMPLEX FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS as they pertain to our US subprime mortgage loan frauds or today's US Treasury bond and state municipal bond frauds------but these global banking cartel frauds hit every industry ESPECIALLY COMMODITIES MARKETS.
We were told after 2008 economic crash global banking Wall Street and our 5% ROBBER BARON pols and players created $600 trillion in leveraged debt on the back of US 99% of citizens and our government assets. The same continued through Obama and our global Asian 1% are VERY HAPPY as are the OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% EUROPEAN KINGS AND QUEENS. No need to have a happy face on a US President---the US is MOVING FORWARD to being a COLONIAL ENTITY.
TARIFF POLICIES REALLY BECOME MOOT IN THIS GORILLA-IN-THE-ROOM DERIVATIVES MARKET. WHAT CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA DO IN PARTNERSHIP WITH OVERSEAS GLOBAL 1% IS SIMPLY PRETEND TO USE TARIFF LAWS TO MANIPULATED OUR US MARKETS AGAINST OUR US INTERESTS.
ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE UNDER TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT WILL NOT HAVE TARIFFS. Tariff laws only control sovereign businesses----not global multi-national businesses. Please take time to read this long article for those interested in financial public policy.
OTC derivatives statistics at end-December 2016
1.
Highlights
Highlights from the BIS over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives statistics for the six months ending in December 2016:
The increase in OTC derivatives positions that took place in the first half of 2016 reversed in the second. The notional amount of outstanding OTC derivatives declined from $553 trillion to
$483 trillion between end-June and end-December 2016 (view data). Their gross market value –that is, the cost of replacing all outstanding contracts at current market prices – fell from
$21 trillion to $15 trillion over the same period (view data).
Central clearing made further inroads. In particular, the share of centrally cleared credit default swaps (CDS) jumped from 37% of notional amounts outstanding at end-June 2016 to 44% at
end-December (view data). In OTC interest rate derivatives markets, the share centrally cleared was more or less unchanged at 76% (view data).
2.
Developments in OTC derivatives markets in the second half of 2016
The increase in outstanding OTC derivatives positions recorded in the first half of 2016 reversed in the second. The notional amount of outstanding OTC derivatives contracts – which determines contractual payments – declined from $553 trillion to $483 trillion between end-June and end-December 2016
(Graph A1, left-hand panel, in Annex A of this release; and Table D5.1 on the BIS website).
_____________________________________________
SPREADING THE PAIN-----means moving all global banking losses to 99% of citizens while keeping all profits for the global 1%. That is why China's billionaire politburo have smiling faces. Indeed, here in China installing the same global banking 1% scheme in their neck of the woods to keep their 99% of sovereign citizens continually fleeced of wealth to assure job insecurity---just as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA --now TRUMP have done to 99% US WE THE PEOPLE.
We inserted this discussion of COMPLEX FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS like credit default swaps in discussions of TARIFFS to remind our US citizens that tariffs do not effect global corporations---they are designed to keep domestic small and regional businesses from growing. That is indeed what TRUMP's tariff policies have as goal...,.
China is not tying itself to TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT or ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE but it is adopting all of WORLD BANK/UNITED NATIONS policies-----especially tied to FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
China Calls on Credit Default Swaps to Spread the Pain
Unleashing 'financial weapons of mass destruction' could bring unintended consequences
By Fan Yu, Epoch Times
September 25, 2016 4:00 pm Last Updated: September 26, 2016 1:37 pm
China has a debt problem, and it’s desperate enough to employ drastic—and dangerous—means to counter it.
Chinese regulators on Sept. 23 approved trading of complex financial derivatives called credit default swaps (CDSs) that provide investors insurance against defaults. The move signals that Beijing may finally allow more delinquencies and even bankruptcies of state-owned enterprises.
But such swaps are a dangerous double-edged sword. The CDS market expanded in the United States before the global financial crisis. Their widespread use in speculation, lack of transparency and regulation, and complexity exacerbated the effects of the crisis and contributed directly to the collapse and bailout of insurer AIG in 2008.
The People’s Bank of China (PBC) outlined rules of engagement for the use of CDSs after weeks of consulting with banks and brokerage firms across China. The regulator had considered approving the swaps in 2010, but as bond defaults were relatively unheard of before 2014, the market had little appetite in trading CDSs.
Default swaps have been in existence in the West since their creation by J.P. Morgan in the mid-1990s. A CDS allows a party to buy or sell insurance that will cover payments if a company fails to repay interest or principal. Similar to an insurance contract, the party buying the swap pays premiums, while the party selling the swap receives the premiums. In the event of a default or other credit event, the seller must compensate the buyer by an amount specified in the CDS contract, usually the difference between the price at time of contract and the ending price.
Beijing has never been comfortable in allowing companies, especially state-owned enterprises (SOEs), to default on their bonds. This isn’t to protect investors per se; any company defaulting on its debt is effectively barred from raising new debts, thus preventing access to crucial working capital, as many SOEs are effectively insolvent otherwise.
Local and regional governments—which rely on SOEs to provide jobs, tax revenues, and local economic growth figures—often step in to help struggling firms repay bonds. But since last year, local governments’ ability to help has been diminished due to slowing economic growth and weakening real estate prices.
More Defaults Ahead
So how does China plan to use CDSs to help its debt problem? First, swaps lessen the pressure for Chinese authorities to act as an initial backstop on bond defaults.
Secondly, the allowance of CDSs gives banks and brokerages a way to hedge their portfolio of loans and nonperforming loans. “To have CDSs is a very good thing because, so far, there are no meaningful hedging tools in the domestic market. The market has high demand for such instruments,” Liu Dongliang, an analyst at China Merchants Bank, told Bloomberg on Sept. 22.
(The Epoch Times)Analysts also believe the decision is a sign that the Chinese communist regime may allow more bond defaults. That’s the raison d’être. After all, if authorities don’t believe the rate of bond defaults would increase, there wouldn’t be a need to introduce such insurance contracts.
And there’s increasing evidence to support that conclusion. Nine months after Guangxi Nonferrous Metals Group defaulted on its bonds, the provincial court on Sept. 12 allowed the metals company to go bankrupt and liquidate. It was a momentous decision—the company became the first Chinese SOE allowed to liquidate after defaulting on bonds.
So far, there are no meaningful hedging tools in the domestic market.
— Liu Dongliang, China Merchants Bank
More companies similar to Guangxi Nonferrous Metals—lower-tier companies in remote regions and supported by local governments—are expected to default. “It is very important to recognize that not all SOEs are equal in their likelihood of receiving support,” said Ivan Chung, Moody’s associate managing director, in a press release.
“If you look forward three to five years, it seems more and more probable that local government entities will need to increasingly stand on their own, and the likelihood of substantial government support will gradually recede for those not providing a public goods or service linked to national priorities as their sole or predominant purpose,” Chung said.
Passing the Credit Hot Potato
The Chinese financial sector has reason to applaud a liquid CDS market. But there is a big question left unanswered: Who will write the swaps and, in turn, assume risk of default?
Will they be the banks, the state-directed asset management companies, or perhaps the insurance companies that have an unenviable mandate to protect the pensions of millions of Chinese workers? Beijing talks a lot about “sharing” the risk of default—is it simply looking to shift the risk of default from various levels of government to the banking and the insurance sectors?
There is a host of other challenges to work through. What will the legal framework around swaps look like for China? The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has simplified most of the language and terms around “plain vanilla” CDS contracts in Western markets. Western investors in China would likely demand more clarification on enforcement and settlement of swaps.
Pricing volatility could be another land mine for CDS investors and regulators. The spread, or price the protection buyer must pay over the notional value of the referenced bond, will be extremely hard to determine for Chinese swaps. The likelihood of local or regional governments to step in and prevent defaults is unpredictable, and such possibilities could result in wild price swings.
Creation of a New Problem?
Credit default swaps also introduce undesirable consequences, which led Warren Buffett to describe such instruments as “financial weapons of mass destruction.” Many of these effects exacerbated the 2007–2008 global financial crisis.
Swaps can easily
be used by speculators to bet on defaults, due to the relatively small outlay necessary to make a wager. A party who does not own a particular bond can bet on its default by entering into a naked CDS, as long as there’s a taker on the other side of the contract. A naked-CDS contract is akin to taking out life insurance on one’s ailing neighbor. It’s not only hazardous from an ethical standpoint but also inflicts further damage on an already tenuous SOE bond market.
China must think about how to regulate its CDS market. If left unchecked, naked swaps would compound shocks to the financial markets in the event of mass default. A naked-CDS holder need not own the referenced bond. So if a bond defaults, the losses are not just limited to the holders of the bond itself (capped at the total issuance amount), but potentially thousands of other banks, insurance companies, and investors who may have written swaps on that same bond.
CDSs can also distort the market and hide true concentrations of risk from regulators. Leading up to the financial crisis, AIG’s Financial Products unit underwrote default swaps on more than $440 billion worth of asset-backed securities. When such securities defaulted en masse, the insurance giant was suddenly saddled with liabilities it could not pay, ultimately bringing about its collapse and $180 billion in government bailouts.
On top of managing credit risk, investors also must monitor counterparty risk to determine whether the seller of the CDS (counterparty) is able to pay up in the event of a default. In AIG’s case, it was not, and thousands of investors who previously thought their risks were completely hedged suffered a rude awakening when the insurer collapsed.
Swaps can indeed spread around the risk of default, but they add another layer of complexity for investors and a mountain of problems for regulators.
As Beijing readies a new way to deal with its debt crisis, it may have inadvertently sowed the seeds of a future crisis.
________________________________________________
We will end this week's discussion by reminding TRUMP'S goals is same as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA MOVING FORWARD. His job is simply to pretend MOVING FORWARD is MADE IN AMERICA and not MADE IN CHINA MADE IN AMERICA.
This is a 'FACT CHECK' that deliberately misleads 99% of WE THE PEOPLE. Giving an example of manufacturing coming to America using BROOKS BROTHERS as an US manufacturer-----when in fact BROOKS BROTHERS was sold in 2001 to a global banking 1% Italian owner which of course has its manufacturing being done in FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE in Italy filled with global 99% labor pool----Italians are largely being left unemployed-----same happening in MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES with Brooks Brothers.
'That’s not accurate. Although many of the products sold by Brooks Brothers continue to be made overseas, the company has in recent years been reshoring back to the U.S. some of its manufacturing'.
National media FACT CHECKS are as much propaganda as their articles.
'Owner of Casual Corner Chain Seen in Deal for Brooks Brothers
By ANDREW ROSS SORKINNOV. 23, 2001
Brooks Brothers, the retailer of classic American men's wear that popularized the button-down collar, is close to being sold to the owner of the Casual Corner women's apparel chain for about $225 million, executives close to the talks said yesterday.
Brooks Brothers is being sold by Marks & Spencer, a flagship of British retailing that is retrenching because of financial troubles. The purchase price is significantly lower than the $750 million that Marks & Spencer paid to Allied Stores for Brooks Brothers in 1988. Marks & Spencer had hoped to get as much $400 million.
The deal could be announced as early as today, the executives close to the talks said.
The purchaser is Retail Brand Alliance Inc., which in addition to Casual Corner runs the Petite Sophisticate chain. The company is controlled by Claudio Del Vecchio, whose family owns Luxottica S.p.A. of Italy, which owns the Sunglass Hut chain and makes eyewear for Brooks Brothers'.
US national media is quick to make bringing back global multi-national corporations having no ties to US the same as rebuilding manufacturing in America. We have had 300 years of domestic free market with thriving small, regional, and US corporations BECAUSE they were US DOMESTIC manufacturing. CLINTON/BUSH./OBAMA now TRUMP killed that domestic US free trade economy---we STOP MOVING FORWARD to rebuild our domestic economy.
Trump’s ‘Made in the USA’ Spin
By Robert Farley
Posted on May 11, 2016
When asked why he doesn’t lead by example and have more of his products from the Donald J. Trump Collection made in the U.S., Trump wrongly responded, “They don’t even make this stuff here.” They do.
When the interviewer cited Brooks Brothers as one example of a company that makes apparel in the U.S., Trump said, “They don’t make here, not that I see.” He’s wrong about that, too.
The issue was raised by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” on May 8, after Trump threatened to impose tariffs or taxes on American companies that move their manufacturing overseas. On the campaign trail, Trump has criticized companies such as Carrier, Apple, Nabisco and Ford for moving production to cheaper offshore locations. (Even if some of his claims about those companies were incorrect.)
“But don’t you have to also lead by example?” Stephanopoulos said. “You know, so many of the products in the Donald J. Trump Collection are made overseas — Bangladesh, China …”
“Well, that’s because you can’t even buy them here,” Trump said.
“But if you want other companies to make their products in America, shouldn’t you make your products in America?” Stephanopoulos asked again.
“But they don’t make a lot of these products,” Trump said. “They don’t even make them here anymore.”
This was not the first time Trump has faced criticism for outsourcing production of many of the products sold in the Trump Collection. Sen. Marco Rubio raised it during a Republican debate on Feb. 25.
“The second thing, about the trade war — I don’t understand, because your ties and the clothes you make is made in Mexico and in China,” Rubio said. “So you’re gonna be starting a trade war against your own ties and your own suits.”
Trump is correct that most clothing sold in the U.S. is made overseas. According to the American Apparel & Footwear Association, 97 percent of apparel and 98 percent of shoes sold in the U.S. are made overseas.
But he went too far in claiming that products in the Donald J. Trump Collection — ties, dress shirts, suits, glasses, wallets and other accessories — aren’t made in the U.S. anymore.
“Many of AAFA’s members make clothes and shoes in the United States,” according to a statement released to FactCheck.org by Natalie LaBella, marketing manager for the AAFA. “The member companies encompass a wide range of products and brands – including large and small companies, public and private firms, and companies manufacturing for the commercial market and making uniforms and other apparel and footwear for the U.S. military.”
“Demand for ‘Made in USA’ clothing and shoes is growing,” the AAFA stated. “In fact, there was a continued resurgence of the U.S. apparel manufacturing industry in 2015 despite 97 percent of the clothes sold in the United States being imported. U.S. production rose for the sixth consecutive year in 2015, rising 4.3 percent over 2014 levels. Because of this growth, U.S. production accounted for 2.7 percent of the U.S. market, its highest market share since 2008. U.S. production is up 50.8 percent since 2009.”
Trump should be aware of the availability of some U.S. apparel production, because while most of the products in the Trump collection are made overseas, at least some of them are made in the U.S., Robert Z. Lawrence, a professor of international trade and investment at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, told us by phone. For example, some of the suits in the Donald Trump Collection — sold on Amazon.com — are advertised as “Made in USA.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 133,700 people employed in making apparel in the U.S. in April 2016. And in 2011, Lawrence said, 29 percent of the U.S. demand for textiles, textile products and footwear was made in the U.S., and 25 percent was made in China, with the rest imported from other countries, according to a joint analysis of the value added by each country in the production of goods and services that are consumed worldwide from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization.
“It is certainly true that a huge share of our clothing and footwear is made outside of the United States,” Lawrence said. “But the idea that we don’t make any clothing is rubbish.”
Typically, Lawrence said, it is more expensive to manufacture in the United States. So Trump may be right that it would not be cost-competitive to make some products in the U.S., Lawrence said, but he is wrong to say he couldn’t make those products in the U.S.
As Stephanie Clifford for the New York Times put it in November 2013, “As textile and apparel companies begin shifting more production to the United States, taking advantage of automation and other cost savings, a hard economic truth is emerging: Production of cheaper goods, for which consumers are looking for low prices, is by and large staying overseas, where manufacturers can find less expensive manufacturing.”
We also reached out to The Americanologists, a website that compiles made-in-America merchandise.
“Mr. Trump is operating under a very common misconception: that ‘Nothing is Made in America anymore,’ ” Americanologists co-founder and editor Kathy Shaskan told us by email. “If he chooses, he can make this into a wonderful learning opportunity, for himself and the country, because there are plenty of American-made goods available, including menswear, and these manufacturers need our business. Hickey Freeman and Hart Schaffner Marx make suits in the USA using imported fabrics. Brooks Brothers makes suits out of both foreign and domestic fabrics.
“As for shirts and ties, our blog, www.americanologist.com, lists 17 manufacturers of American shirts and 20 tie manufacturers,” Shaskan said. “Again, some of them are made with imported fabric, some with domestic. Either way, they are providing American jobs. Mr. Trump could give American manufacturing a big boost in visibility by reshoring some of his products and I hope he chooses to look into that.”
What about Brooks Brothers?
After Trump insisted that “they don’t even make this stuff here,” Stephanopoulos cited Brooks Brothers as one company that does.
“Well, they — but they don’t make here,” Trump said. “They don’t make here, not that I see.”
That’s not accurate. Although many of the products sold by Brooks Brothers continue to be made overseas, the company has in recent years been reshoring back to the U.S. some of its manufacturing.
Arthur Wayne, a spokesman for Brooks Brothers, told us via email that currently “100 percent of Brooks Brothers retail ties are made in our factory in Long Island City, NY; approximately 85 percent of our suits are made in our factory in Haverhill, Massachusetts.; and our Original Button-Down Polo Oxford shirts, made to measure shirts, and some of our luxury shirts are also made in America at our factory in Garland, NC. We also offer some accessories and other furnishings which are Made in America.”
David Trumbull, a consultant and expert in textiles and U.S. manufacturing, told us Stephanopoulos was correct about the Brooks Brothers example.
But, Trumbull told us via email, “In the case of men’s dress shirts and neck ties there is a complicating factor. There is very little U.S. production of the fabrics that go into those garments. That means that they must be labeled ‘Made in USA of Imported Fabric’ which, obviously, undercuts, from a marketing perspective, the benefit of being able to claim made in USA, and could explain why someone such as Trump might choose to source neckties from overseas even while generally supporting U.S. manufacturing. After all, if you can’t get the benefit of an unqualified ‘Made in USA’ label, then in a sense, he’s right that no one makes it here. Further complicating it is the fact that the U.S. is a major producer of fabric, much of which is shipped to Mexico, Central America, or South America to be assembled into garments that come back to the U.S. The end product is not made in USA, but the most valuable component, the fabric, is made here.”
In the case of Brooks Brothers, for example, as its website explains (in the small print at the bottom), its collection of men’s ties and bow ties are made — “cut and piled” — in the U.S. out of silk, cotton and wool woven in Italy or England.
Trumbull agreed that Trump is simply incorrect to say they “don’t even make this stuff here.” While the vast majority of apparel consumed in the U.S. is imported, “we do still make apparel here and over the past five years U.S. manufacturing has had a bit of a comeback.”
As for Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on China, Lawrence told us that if he did, “Most of the impact would be to divert our imports to other low wage countries with significant textile industries. These would mainly be Asian countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan and India.”
We reached out to the Trump campaign and did not hear back, but in 2011, Trump was asked why he doesn’t look at having his Trump products manufactured in the U.S.
“Always do,” Trump told ABC News. “There are very few companies that do it because they can’t compete with the [currency] manipulation.” In his debate exchange with Rubio, when Rubio asked why he doesn’t make more of his products in America, Trump again raised the issue of countries devaluing their currency.
Fact checkers at the Washington Post concluded Trump’s repeated complaints about currency manipulation are dated. But at least his claim that there are “few companies” that manufacture apparel and accessories in the U.S. was accurate. It’s just not accurate to go further — as Trump did on ABC’s “This Week” — and claim, “They don’t even make this stuff here.”
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Here is ITALY'S FIAT ----FIAT now owns US CHRYSLER------Italy bringing in foreign factory corporations with global labor pool in employment across Italy creating mass unemployment of 99% of Italians who at the same time are dealing with having their wealth, homes, pensions taken to cover massive sovereign debt frauds. So, Italians are now angry-----national media tells us they are FAR-RIGHT WING FASCIST groups growing against immigrants and Muslims of course when as here in US the 99% are simply fighting for jobs and justice. We already see FIAT/CHRYSLER sending US auto manufacturing overseas.
We all know it is NOT THE FAULT OF OUR 99% IMMIGRANTS----let's just get rid of global banking 5% working for OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% KINGS AND QUEENS.
Italian car workers strike in protest at huge job cuts
AP Archive
Published on Aug 4, 2015 YOU TUBE
TRUMP has been hyper-global neo-liberalism as a resident of NYC -----he is rich from these few decades of ROBBER BARON fleecing of America---and his job is MOVING FORWARD far-right wing, authoritarian, militaristic, extreme wealth extreme poverty LIBERTARIAN MARXISM----exactly what China has been since MAO GREAT LEAP FORWARD-----today's MOVING FORWARD same as MAO'S GREAT LEAP FORWARD.
As all the nations' already tied to TPP by their global banking 1% pols openly embrace TPP----Canada/Australia for example have signed on---TRUMP is PRETENDING to be against TPP because he must look right wing conservative---while TPP is MOVING FORWARD in US cities faster then ever.
TRUMP IS MADE IN CHINA MADE IN AMERICA.
Below we see exactly why TRUMP is pretending to take US out of TPP-----it gives overseas nations time to install their global corporations. Below we see STENY HOYER----oh, no wait WERNER HOYER---working for the same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% KINGS AND QUEENS.
'“If the U.S. withdraws from international and multilateral trade agreements, this creates opportunities for Europe,” said Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank'.
A DELAY in installing TPP OFFICIALLY does 99% of US WE THE PEOPLE no good. The protest and political actions are needed in our US cities deemed FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES. Our US city mayors and city councils are MOVING FORWARD faster under Trump then ever.
TRUMP has his STALIN/MAO look for the media---
POLITICS
11/07/2017 02:19 pm ET
Trump Pulled Out Of The TPP. Now He’s Trying To Win TPP Provisions In Asia.
On his Asia trip, Trump is pitching the same trade benefits that were in the Trans-Pacific Partnership he professed to hate.
By S.V. Date
WASHINGTON ― Lower trade barriers. Better protections for intellectual property. More banking transparency.
Those were some of the provisions in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, negotiated by the Obama administration, that Donald Trump bashed on the campaign trail and then withdrew from days after becoming president.
Ten months later, as Trump heads to Vietnam during his trip to Asia, the White House says it is hoping to achieve these goals: Lower trade barriers. Better protections for intellectual property. More banking transparency.
The contradiction exemplifies the muddled U.S. policy that is sending mixed signals to trading partners and already encouraging European nations to jump in and fill the void.
“If you’re suggesting that there’s hypocrisy in the Trump administration, that’s not really new,” said Jared Bernstein, once the top economic adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden. “There’s always been a tension in the administration between the status quo group and those that are more protectionist. One of those two groups tends to prevail at any given time, depending on what’s in the news and what the president is tweeting.”
Senior Trump administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, defended the move as consistent with Trump’s desire to have multiple, one-on-one trade deals with countries, rather than a single agreement like TPP, which included a dozen nations.
“[Trump’s] own experience before he was in politics gave him a very firm conviction that on a bilateral basis, he would be able to achieve higher standards and better terms for American workers and for American business,” one official said.
In any event, a second administration official said, TPP was never going to be ratified: “I think that many lose sight that TPP was not supported by the Congress, and, in its form, it was not going to pass the U.S. Congress.”
OH, REALLY????
If you’re suggesting that there’s hypocrisy in the Trump administration, that’s not really new. There’s always been a tension ... between the status quo group and those that are more protectionist. Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Joe BidenAt the heart of the issue is Trump’s apparent unfamiliarity with international trade, despite frequent claims that he understands it because of his many business interests. Both during the campaign and now as president, Trump has repeatedly conflated the trade deficit with the budget deficit, and has suggested that trade imbalances are by their very nature always bad for Americans.
“His public statements seem to reflect some pretty basic lack of understanding,” said Scott Lincicome, a trade lawyer affiliated with the Cato Institute who is also a lecturer at Duke University. “Let’s just say his public statements are clearly out of the mainstream.”
Bernstein, who wound up opposing TPP because of some of its provisions, had a similar view. “I’m sure he’s never cracked open a trade agreement. In fairness, few people have,” he said.
NOTICE COMMENTS ARE NOW BEING MADE FROM LIBERTARIAN THINK TANKS---CATO
“He certainly doesn’t understand the mechanics or the economics of trade,” Bernstein continued, though he added that Trump did understand ― better than other candidates in both parties ― how an anti-trade message would resonate with voters who feel left behind by globalization.
Key to Trump’s campaign message on the topic was that U.S. trade agreements ― be they with multiple countries such as the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico or “bilateral” agreements with just a single nation ― were all badly negotiated and that he could do a better job.
For decades, Trump has railed against foreign trade, accusing other countries of taking advantage the United States by “stealing” American jobs. Mainstream experts from both political parties believe that increased international trade does result in U.S. job losses in some areas, but that increased exports in other areas and cheaper consumer goods make up for it.
The generally abstract topic became a focus of last year’s campaign because of former President Barack Obama’s push to ratify the TPP, which his White House spent five years negotiating and which included Canada and Mexico as well as Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and Japan. Obama argued that trade among those nations was happening anyway, and that TPP would establish fair rules for all the participating countries, including enforceable labor and environmental standards that currently do not exist.
So far, though, Trump’s campaign bluster has led to little progress. He has threatened to pull out of NAFTA if he cannot renegotiate better terms, but has not yet reached any deal. His talk about entering a free trade agreement with the United Kingdom cannot move until that nation has ironed out its terms of departure from the European Union following last year’s “Brexit” vote. And Trump’s attempts to forge a free trade agreement with Japan do not appear to be getting anywhere.
To the contrary, Japan and other signatories to the TPP seem to be more interested in continuing ahead with that agreement, minus the United States – which would hurt U.S. farmers and manufacturers hoping to win easier access to markets in South America, Southeast Asia and East Asia, including Japan.
At the same time, as the United States pulls inward, Britain and the EU nations seem eager to step in and take America’s place as preferred trading partners with those regions.
“If the U.S. withdraws from international and multilateral trade agreements, this creates opportunities for Europe,” said Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank. “I’m sure the EU would love to deepen its trade relations with NAFTA partners, for example ― countries like Mexico, Canada and the Pacific Rim nations ― and I believe it will seek to do so if the U.S. offers them an opportunity by stepping back.”
“The EU has been extremely aggressive. They are trying to get deals quickly,” Lincicome said. “They understand the competitive advantages that can be achieved.”
Trade experts aren’t surprised that Trump so readily used trade to his advantage during the campaign. Through the years, Democratic and Republican politicians alike have railed against imports that cost American workers their jobs. Those anti-NAFTA, anti-TPP messages were heard during the presidential campaign in both parties.
“You can criticize trade on a bumper sticker. It takes a paragraph to explain it,” said Michael Froman, the U.S. trade representative under Obama who was in charge of negotiating the TPP agreement.
Lincicome said the Rust Belt has lost more jobs to automation and new factories in the American South than to cheap labor overseas, but that it’s much easier to blame foreign trade than the other two factors.
“You don’t see people campaigning against robots. You don’t see people campaigning against interstate trade,” he said. “A lot of the blame should fall on politicians, on union leaders, on CEOs who blame their mistakes on foreigners.”
If the U.S. withdraws from international and multilateral trade agreements, this creates opportunities for Europe. Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment BankLincicome says Trump’s strategy of opting for bilateral deals with 11 countries over a single agreement that includes them all is unworkable, given the complexities of these negotiations.
Trump’s background might make him think he could get his way dealing with one country at a time, Lincicome said, but crafting a set of rules for nations to use to deal with each other is very different from writing a single deal between two entities. “None of those things apply to the world of real estate or reality TV or whatever,” Lincicome said.
In fact, the U.S. has already tried negotiating a series of one-on-one deals with other countries under former President George W. Bush’s strategy of “competitive liberalization.” That effort stalled when Congress grew weary of voting on trade ― never popular for members ― and just stopped taking the agreements up.
“It ended up being a political failure,” Lincicome said. “Trade votes are politically toxic. Politicians hate taking them.”
For Froman, a particular irony of the new White House’s trade strategy is that the one element that’s actually moving ― an effort to renegotiate portions of NAFTA ― is mainly trying to replicate provisions that were already included in TPP, which both Canada and Mexico are party to.
“There’s about a 95 percent overlap between the administration’s stated negotiating objectives and TPP,” Froman said about the NAFTA renegotiations. “But it’s the last 5 percent that will make or break it.”
With the United States abandoning TPP, Froman added, China’s efforts to forge regional agreements to its own benefit will dominate Southeast Asia and the Pacific. “If we don’t write the rules in global trade, China will. And they are,” Froman said.
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What is MOVING FORWARD in US in sovereign debt fraud is what has already happened to our 99% European citizens who have global banking 1% pols pushing their governments to ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES. When we say US corporations are no longer AMERICAN ----so too EUROPEAN corporations are no longer Spanish, French, German, Italian----they are GLOBAL MULTI-NATIONAL as the example of IRON ORE ARCELOR MITTAL
What is designed to bring the US to bankruptcy and default into WORLD BANK/IMF hands is the gorilla-in-the-room financial public policy not being discussed at all by US national media----by all those far-right Clinton/Bush/Obama NGOs and think tanks. This is why shoring up our US city government control is tops in FIXING OUR US DOMESTIC ECONOMY. We are made to look at one financial disaster after the other while doing nothing locally to stabilize our domestic economies.
99% US WE THE PEOPLE DO NOT NEED TRADE POLICIES---WE DO NOT NEED TARIFF POLICIES-----WHEN THE GOAL IS REBUILDING OUR US CITIES WITH SMALL AND REGIONAL DOMESTIC BUSINESSES SELLING PRODUCTS TO OUR US 99% AND 99% OF IMMIGRANT CITIZENS.
We can VOID these illegal trade policies like TPP as we get rid of global banking 1% pols and players-----we cannot reverse the revenue losses if we allow global corporate campus global factories and infrastructure development to MOVE FORWARD. DON'T TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE DELIBERATE SOVEREIGN DEBT FRAUD ----
Europe's ticking time bomb: Credit default swaps
By Charles P. Wallace
January 4, 2012
In the midst of the eurozone meltdown, a new crisis has gone unnoticed: a shaky derivatives market.
Business & Finance
Wall Street Clairvoyance: How The $600 Trillion Derivatives Industry Works
November 16, 2015 Ole Skaar
Derivatives, a type of financial contract traded for trillions each year, is a thriving industry. But there’s little transparency into this complex web of trading, and many say the risks are high.
The technical definition of a derivative is “a financial contract whose value is derived from the performance of underlying market factors” such as interest rates, exchange rates, commodity and stock prices, among other things, according to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
What does that mean? Derivatives are basically bets on what will happen in a certain market in the future. They derive their value from the financial instrument they’re based on.
Manipulating the future
For example, with an interest rate swap (IRS) two parties swap interest rates on a certain amount of money.
Usually, one party will pay a fixed interest rate on specific dates, while the other party will pay a variable rate that fluctuates with the market, according to the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission’s glossary.
The fixed rate buyer earns money when the interest rate stays above the fixed rate, while the other party gains money if the interest rate stays below.
This form of derivative has been especially controversial, after it was revealed that banks frequently manipulate the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) – which often guides the variable interest rate in IRS derivatives – for their own profit.
How big is the derivatives market?
According to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the total value of all derivatives at the end of 2014, the latest numbers available, was $630 trillion dollars.
While this may sound like a lot (in contrast, the world’s Gross Domestic Product was estimated by the World Bank to be $71 trillion in 2014), the majority of this value is notional.
That means that contracts such as interest swaps are based upon this value to calculate payment rates, but the money never actually changes hands.
Still, the actual gross market value, which the BIS says is a more accurate measure when it comes to risk and comparisons to other markets, was $24.7 trillion.
According to a 2008 paper by the German exchange Deutsche Bors, derivatives have “quickly developed into the most important segment of the financial market,” fuelling innovation and providing a low-cost, global, around-the-clock market.
High reward, high risk
In addition to a susceptibility to manipulation as seen in the LIBOR scandal, however, the largely unregulated derivatives market is also often accused of contributing to systemic risk in the global economy.
According to the OCC, “Credit risk is a significant risk in bank derivatives trading.”
The Office compares it with a regular credit loan, where a lender takes the risk of of borrowing out a certain amount of money.
With derivatives, however, both parties to the contract are at risk if the other party defaults on their obligation.
If there is a default, a legally enforced “netting” agreement usually allows the losing party to demand other contracts with a positive value be added to the agreement to even out the loss.
As the value of contracts are based on future market rates, however, banks can only estimate what their exposure to risk will be in the future.
Since it’s impossible to fully predict market conditions, large-scale investments in derivatives can therefore become very unstable in volatile markets.
A famous example is the $18 billion lost by insurer American International Group on credit default swaps, a derivative meant to protect against defaults, because the company didn’t predict that their insurers would not be able to pay.
However, the industry does recognize the potential risk posed by derivatives. In a market review on credit risk and collateral in derivatives trading, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association presents a list of actions companies can take to avoid risk.
The first one?
“[A]voiding the risk by not entering into transactions in the first place,” the paper recommends.
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'Tariff laws only control sovereign businesses----not global multi-national businesses'.
'Wall Street Clairvoyance: How The $600 Trillion Derivatives Industry Works
November 16, 2015 Ole Skaar'
To understand trade and tariff policies one has to keep in mind what the overall stock market including commodities like IRON ORE and steel products looks like these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA. Below we see a very complicated explanation of DERIVATIVES AND CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS-----these polices are why the photo of a US TRUMP grimacing like an Asian authoritarian next to a Chinese authoritarian really happy at being made billionaire through these illegal financial instruments. The national media makes much about the illegality of these COMPLEX FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS as they pertain to our US subprime mortgage loan frauds or today's US Treasury bond and state municipal bond frauds------but these global banking cartel frauds hit every industry ESPECIALLY COMMODITIES MARKETS.
We were told after 2008 economic crash global banking Wall Street and our 5% ROBBER BARON pols and players created $600 trillion in leveraged debt on the back of US 99% of citizens and our government assets. The same continued through Obama and our global Asian 1% are VERY HAPPY as are the OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% EUROPEAN KINGS AND QUEENS. No need to have a happy face on a US President---the US is MOVING FORWARD to being a COLONIAL ENTITY.
TARIFF POLICIES REALLY BECOME MOOT IN THIS GORILLA-IN-THE-ROOM DERIVATIVES MARKET. WHAT CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA DO IN PARTNERSHIP WITH OVERSEAS GLOBAL 1% IS SIMPLY PRETEND TO USE TARIFF LAWS TO MANIPULATED OUR US MARKETS AGAINST OUR US INTERESTS.
ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE UNDER TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT WILL NOT HAVE TARIFFS. Tariff laws only control sovereign businesses----not global multi-national businesses. Please take time to read this long article for those interested in financial public policy.
OTC derivatives statistics at end-December 2016
1.
Highlights
Highlights from the BIS over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives statistics for the six months ending in December 2016:
The increase in OTC derivatives positions that took place in the first half of 2016 reversed in the second. The notional amount of outstanding OTC derivatives declined from $553 trillion to
$483 trillion between end-June and end-December 2016 (view data). Their gross market value –that is, the cost of replacing all outstanding contracts at current market prices – fell from
$21 trillion to $15 trillion over the same period (view data).
Central clearing made further inroads. In particular, the share of centrally cleared credit default swaps (CDS) jumped from 37% of notional amounts outstanding at end-June 2016 to 44% at
end-December (view data). In OTC interest rate derivatives markets, the share centrally cleared was more or less unchanged at 76% (view data).
2.
Developments in OTC derivatives markets in the second half of 2016
The increase in outstanding OTC derivatives positions recorded in the first half of 2016 reversed in the second. The notional amount of outstanding OTC derivatives contracts – which determines contractual payments – declined from $553 trillion to $483 trillion between end-June and end-December 2016
(Graph A1, left-hand panel, in Annex A of this release; and Table D5.1 on the BIS website).
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SPREADING THE PAIN-----means moving all global banking losses to 99% of citizens while keeping all profits for the global 1%. That is why China's billionaire politburo have smiling faces. Indeed, here in China installing the same global banking 1% scheme in their neck of the woods to keep their 99% of sovereign citizens continually fleeced of wealth to assure job insecurity---just as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA --now TRUMP have done to 99% US WE THE PEOPLE.
We inserted this discussion of COMPLEX FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS like credit default swaps in discussions of TARIFFS to remind our US citizens that tariffs do not effect global corporations---they are designed to keep domestic small and regional businesses from growing. That is indeed what TRUMP's tariff policies have as goal...,.
China is not tying itself to TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT or ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE but it is adopting all of WORLD BANK/UNITED NATIONS policies-----especially tied to FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.
China Calls on Credit Default Swaps to Spread the Pain
Unleashing 'financial weapons of mass destruction' could bring unintended consequences
By Fan Yu, Epoch Times
September 25, 2016 4:00 pm Last Updated: September 26, 2016 1:37 pm
China has a debt problem, and it’s desperate enough to employ drastic—and dangerous—means to counter it.
Chinese regulators on Sept. 23 approved trading of complex financial derivatives called credit default swaps (CDSs) that provide investors insurance against defaults. The move signals that Beijing may finally allow more delinquencies and even bankruptcies of state-owned enterprises.
But such swaps are a dangerous double-edged sword. The CDS market expanded in the United States before the global financial crisis. Their widespread use in speculation, lack of transparency and regulation, and complexity exacerbated the effects of the crisis and contributed directly to the collapse and bailout of insurer AIG in 2008.
The People’s Bank of China (PBC) outlined rules of engagement for the use of CDSs after weeks of consulting with banks and brokerage firms across China. The regulator had considered approving the swaps in 2010, but as bond defaults were relatively unheard of before 2014, the market had little appetite in trading CDSs.
Default swaps have been in existence in the West since their creation by J.P. Morgan in the mid-1990s. A CDS allows a party to buy or sell insurance that will cover payments if a company fails to repay interest or principal. Similar to an insurance contract, the party buying the swap pays premiums, while the party selling the swap receives the premiums. In the event of a default or other credit event, the seller must compensate the buyer by an amount specified in the CDS contract, usually the difference between the price at time of contract and the ending price.
Beijing has never been comfortable in allowing companies, especially state-owned enterprises (SOEs), to default on their bonds. This isn’t to protect investors per se; any company defaulting on its debt is effectively barred from raising new debts, thus preventing access to crucial working capital, as many SOEs are effectively insolvent otherwise.
Local and regional governments—which rely on SOEs to provide jobs, tax revenues, and local economic growth figures—often step in to help struggling firms repay bonds. But since last year, local governments’ ability to help has been diminished due to slowing economic growth and weakening real estate prices.
More Defaults Ahead
So how does China plan to use CDSs to help its debt problem? First, swaps lessen the pressure for Chinese authorities to act as an initial backstop on bond defaults.
Secondly, the allowance of CDSs gives banks and brokerages a way to hedge their portfolio of loans and nonperforming loans. “To have CDSs is a very good thing because, so far, there are no meaningful hedging tools in the domestic market. The market has high demand for such instruments,” Liu Dongliang, an analyst at China Merchants Bank, told Bloomberg on Sept. 22.
(The Epoch Times)Analysts also believe the decision is a sign that the Chinese communist regime may allow more bond defaults. That’s the raison d’être. After all, if authorities don’t believe the rate of bond defaults would increase, there wouldn’t be a need to introduce such insurance contracts.
And there’s increasing evidence to support that conclusion. Nine months after Guangxi Nonferrous Metals Group defaulted on its bonds, the provincial court on Sept. 12 allowed the metals company to go bankrupt and liquidate. It was a momentous decision—the company became the first Chinese SOE allowed to liquidate after defaulting on bonds.
So far, there are no meaningful hedging tools in the domestic market.
— Liu Dongliang, China Merchants Bank
More companies similar to Guangxi Nonferrous Metals—lower-tier companies in remote regions and supported by local governments—are expected to default. “It is very important to recognize that not all SOEs are equal in their likelihood of receiving support,” said Ivan Chung, Moody’s associate managing director, in a press release.
“If you look forward three to five years, it seems more and more probable that local government entities will need to increasingly stand on their own, and the likelihood of substantial government support will gradually recede for those not providing a public goods or service linked to national priorities as their sole or predominant purpose,” Chung said.
Passing the Credit Hot Potato
The Chinese financial sector has reason to applaud a liquid CDS market. But there is a big question left unanswered: Who will write the swaps and, in turn, assume risk of default?
Will they be the banks, the state-directed asset management companies, or perhaps the insurance companies that have an unenviable mandate to protect the pensions of millions of Chinese workers? Beijing talks a lot about “sharing” the risk of default—is it simply looking to shift the risk of default from various levels of government to the banking and the insurance sectors?
There is a host of other challenges to work through. What will the legal framework around swaps look like for China? The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has simplified most of the language and terms around “plain vanilla” CDS contracts in Western markets. Western investors in China would likely demand more clarification on enforcement and settlement of swaps.
Pricing volatility could be another land mine for CDS investors and regulators. The spread, or price the protection buyer must pay over the notional value of the referenced bond, will be extremely hard to determine for Chinese swaps. The likelihood of local or regional governments to step in and prevent defaults is unpredictable, and such possibilities could result in wild price swings.
Creation of a New Problem?
Credit default swaps also introduce undesirable consequences, which led Warren Buffett to describe such instruments as “financial weapons of mass destruction.” Many of these effects exacerbated the 2007–2008 global financial crisis.
Swaps can easily
be used by speculators to bet on defaults, due to the relatively small outlay necessary to make a wager. A party who does not own a particular bond can bet on its default by entering into a naked CDS, as long as there’s a taker on the other side of the contract. A naked-CDS contract is akin to taking out life insurance on one’s ailing neighbor. It’s not only hazardous from an ethical standpoint but also inflicts further damage on an already tenuous SOE bond market.
China must think about how to regulate its CDS market. If left unchecked, naked swaps would compound shocks to the financial markets in the event of mass default. A naked-CDS holder need not own the referenced bond. So if a bond defaults, the losses are not just limited to the holders of the bond itself (capped at the total issuance amount), but potentially thousands of other banks, insurance companies, and investors who may have written swaps on that same bond.
CDSs can also distort the market and hide true concentrations of risk from regulators. Leading up to the financial crisis, AIG’s Financial Products unit underwrote default swaps on more than $440 billion worth of asset-backed securities. When such securities defaulted en masse, the insurance giant was suddenly saddled with liabilities it could not pay, ultimately bringing about its collapse and $180 billion in government bailouts.
On top of managing credit risk, investors also must monitor counterparty risk to determine whether the seller of the CDS (counterparty) is able to pay up in the event of a default. In AIG’s case, it was not, and thousands of investors who previously thought their risks were completely hedged suffered a rude awakening when the insurer collapsed.
Swaps can indeed spread around the risk of default, but they add another layer of complexity for investors and a mountain of problems for regulators.
As Beijing readies a new way to deal with its debt crisis, it may have inadvertently sowed the seeds of a future crisis.
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We will end this week's discussion by reminding TRUMP'S goals is same as CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA MOVING FORWARD. His job is simply to pretend MOVING FORWARD is MADE IN AMERICA and not MADE IN CHINA MADE IN AMERICA.
This is a 'FACT CHECK' that deliberately misleads 99% of WE THE PEOPLE. Giving an example of manufacturing coming to America using BROOKS BROTHERS as an US manufacturer-----when in fact BROOKS BROTHERS was sold in 2001 to a global banking 1% Italian owner which of course has its manufacturing being done in FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE in Italy filled with global 99% labor pool----Italians are largely being left unemployed-----same happening in MOVING FORWARD US FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES with Brooks Brothers.
'That’s not accurate. Although many of the products sold by Brooks Brothers continue to be made overseas, the company has in recent years been reshoring back to the U.S. some of its manufacturing'.
National media FACT CHECKS are as much propaganda as their articles.
'Owner of Casual Corner Chain Seen in Deal for Brooks Brothers
By ANDREW ROSS SORKINNOV. 23, 2001
Brooks Brothers, the retailer of classic American men's wear that popularized the button-down collar, is close to being sold to the owner of the Casual Corner women's apparel chain for about $225 million, executives close to the talks said yesterday.
Brooks Brothers is being sold by Marks & Spencer, a flagship of British retailing that is retrenching because of financial troubles. The purchase price is significantly lower than the $750 million that Marks & Spencer paid to Allied Stores for Brooks Brothers in 1988. Marks & Spencer had hoped to get as much $400 million.
The deal could be announced as early as today, the executives close to the talks said.
The purchaser is Retail Brand Alliance Inc., which in addition to Casual Corner runs the Petite Sophisticate chain. The company is controlled by Claudio Del Vecchio, whose family owns Luxottica S.p.A. of Italy, which owns the Sunglass Hut chain and makes eyewear for Brooks Brothers'.
US national media is quick to make bringing back global multi-national corporations having no ties to US the same as rebuilding manufacturing in America. We have had 300 years of domestic free market with thriving small, regional, and US corporations BECAUSE they were US DOMESTIC manufacturing. CLINTON/BUSH./OBAMA now TRUMP killed that domestic US free trade economy---we STOP MOVING FORWARD to rebuild our domestic economy.
Trump’s ‘Made in the USA’ Spin
By Robert Farley
Posted on May 11, 2016
When asked why he doesn’t lead by example and have more of his products from the Donald J. Trump Collection made in the U.S., Trump wrongly responded, “They don’t even make this stuff here.” They do.
When the interviewer cited Brooks Brothers as one example of a company that makes apparel in the U.S., Trump said, “They don’t make here, not that I see.” He’s wrong about that, too.
The issue was raised by George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” on May 8, after Trump threatened to impose tariffs or taxes on American companies that move their manufacturing overseas. On the campaign trail, Trump has criticized companies such as Carrier, Apple, Nabisco and Ford for moving production to cheaper offshore locations. (Even if some of his claims about those companies were incorrect.)
“But don’t you have to also lead by example?” Stephanopoulos said. “You know, so many of the products in the Donald J. Trump Collection are made overseas — Bangladesh, China …”
“Well, that’s because you can’t even buy them here,” Trump said.
“But if you want other companies to make their products in America, shouldn’t you make your products in America?” Stephanopoulos asked again.
“But they don’t make a lot of these products,” Trump said. “They don’t even make them here anymore.”
This was not the first time Trump has faced criticism for outsourcing production of many of the products sold in the Trump Collection. Sen. Marco Rubio raised it during a Republican debate on Feb. 25.
“The second thing, about the trade war — I don’t understand, because your ties and the clothes you make is made in Mexico and in China,” Rubio said. “So you’re gonna be starting a trade war against your own ties and your own suits.”
Trump is correct that most clothing sold in the U.S. is made overseas. According to the American Apparel & Footwear Association, 97 percent of apparel and 98 percent of shoes sold in the U.S. are made overseas.
But he went too far in claiming that products in the Donald J. Trump Collection — ties, dress shirts, suits, glasses, wallets and other accessories — aren’t made in the U.S. anymore.
“Many of AAFA’s members make clothes and shoes in the United States,” according to a statement released to FactCheck.org by Natalie LaBella, marketing manager for the AAFA. “The member companies encompass a wide range of products and brands – including large and small companies, public and private firms, and companies manufacturing for the commercial market and making uniforms and other apparel and footwear for the U.S. military.”
“Demand for ‘Made in USA’ clothing and shoes is growing,” the AAFA stated. “In fact, there was a continued resurgence of the U.S. apparel manufacturing industry in 2015 despite 97 percent of the clothes sold in the United States being imported. U.S. production rose for the sixth consecutive year in 2015, rising 4.3 percent over 2014 levels. Because of this growth, U.S. production accounted for 2.7 percent of the U.S. market, its highest market share since 2008. U.S. production is up 50.8 percent since 2009.”
Trump should be aware of the availability of some U.S. apparel production, because while most of the products in the Trump collection are made overseas, at least some of them are made in the U.S., Robert Z. Lawrence, a professor of international trade and investment at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, told us by phone. For example, some of the suits in the Donald Trump Collection — sold on Amazon.com — are advertised as “Made in USA.”
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 133,700 people employed in making apparel in the U.S. in April 2016. And in 2011, Lawrence said, 29 percent of the U.S. demand for textiles, textile products and footwear was made in the U.S., and 25 percent was made in China, with the rest imported from other countries, according to a joint analysis of the value added by each country in the production of goods and services that are consumed worldwide from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization.
“It is certainly true that a huge share of our clothing and footwear is made outside of the United States,” Lawrence said. “But the idea that we don’t make any clothing is rubbish.”
Typically, Lawrence said, it is more expensive to manufacture in the United States. So Trump may be right that it would not be cost-competitive to make some products in the U.S., Lawrence said, but he is wrong to say he couldn’t make those products in the U.S.
As Stephanie Clifford for the New York Times put it in November 2013, “As textile and apparel companies begin shifting more production to the United States, taking advantage of automation and other cost savings, a hard economic truth is emerging: Production of cheaper goods, for which consumers are looking for low prices, is by and large staying overseas, where manufacturers can find less expensive manufacturing.”
We also reached out to The Americanologists, a website that compiles made-in-America merchandise.
“Mr. Trump is operating under a very common misconception: that ‘Nothing is Made in America anymore,’ ” Americanologists co-founder and editor Kathy Shaskan told us by email. “If he chooses, he can make this into a wonderful learning opportunity, for himself and the country, because there are plenty of American-made goods available, including menswear, and these manufacturers need our business. Hickey Freeman and Hart Schaffner Marx make suits in the USA using imported fabrics. Brooks Brothers makes suits out of both foreign and domestic fabrics.
“As for shirts and ties, our blog, www.americanologist.com, lists 17 manufacturers of American shirts and 20 tie manufacturers,” Shaskan said. “Again, some of them are made with imported fabric, some with domestic. Either way, they are providing American jobs. Mr. Trump could give American manufacturing a big boost in visibility by reshoring some of his products and I hope he chooses to look into that.”
What about Brooks Brothers?
After Trump insisted that “they don’t even make this stuff here,” Stephanopoulos cited Brooks Brothers as one company that does.
“Well, they — but they don’t make here,” Trump said. “They don’t make here, not that I see.”
That’s not accurate. Although many of the products sold by Brooks Brothers continue to be made overseas, the company has in recent years been reshoring back to the U.S. some of its manufacturing.
Arthur Wayne, a spokesman for Brooks Brothers, told us via email that currently “100 percent of Brooks Brothers retail ties are made in our factory in Long Island City, NY; approximately 85 percent of our suits are made in our factory in Haverhill, Massachusetts.; and our Original Button-Down Polo Oxford shirts, made to measure shirts, and some of our luxury shirts are also made in America at our factory in Garland, NC. We also offer some accessories and other furnishings which are Made in America.”
David Trumbull, a consultant and expert in textiles and U.S. manufacturing, told us Stephanopoulos was correct about the Brooks Brothers example.
But, Trumbull told us via email, “In the case of men’s dress shirts and neck ties there is a complicating factor. There is very little U.S. production of the fabrics that go into those garments. That means that they must be labeled ‘Made in USA of Imported Fabric’ which, obviously, undercuts, from a marketing perspective, the benefit of being able to claim made in USA, and could explain why someone such as Trump might choose to source neckties from overseas even while generally supporting U.S. manufacturing. After all, if you can’t get the benefit of an unqualified ‘Made in USA’ label, then in a sense, he’s right that no one makes it here. Further complicating it is the fact that the U.S. is a major producer of fabric, much of which is shipped to Mexico, Central America, or South America to be assembled into garments that come back to the U.S. The end product is not made in USA, but the most valuable component, the fabric, is made here.”
In the case of Brooks Brothers, for example, as its website explains (in the small print at the bottom), its collection of men’s ties and bow ties are made — “cut and piled” — in the U.S. out of silk, cotton and wool woven in Italy or England.
Trumbull agreed that Trump is simply incorrect to say they “don’t even make this stuff here.” While the vast majority of apparel consumed in the U.S. is imported, “we do still make apparel here and over the past five years U.S. manufacturing has had a bit of a comeback.”
As for Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on China, Lawrence told us that if he did, “Most of the impact would be to divert our imports to other low wage countries with significant textile industries. These would mainly be Asian countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan and India.”
We reached out to the Trump campaign and did not hear back, but in 2011, Trump was asked why he doesn’t look at having his Trump products manufactured in the U.S.
“Always do,” Trump told ABC News. “There are very few companies that do it because they can’t compete with the [currency] manipulation.” In his debate exchange with Rubio, when Rubio asked why he doesn’t make more of his products in America, Trump again raised the issue of countries devaluing their currency.
Fact checkers at the Washington Post concluded Trump’s repeated complaints about currency manipulation are dated. But at least his claim that there are “few companies” that manufacture apparel and accessories in the U.S. was accurate. It’s just not accurate to go further — as Trump did on ABC’s “This Week” — and claim, “They don’t even make this stuff here.”
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Here is ITALY'S FIAT ----FIAT now owns US CHRYSLER------Italy bringing in foreign factory corporations with global labor pool in employment across Italy creating mass unemployment of 99% of Italians who at the same time are dealing with having their wealth, homes, pensions taken to cover massive sovereign debt frauds. So, Italians are now angry-----national media tells us they are FAR-RIGHT WING FASCIST groups growing against immigrants and Muslims of course when as here in US the 99% are simply fighting for jobs and justice. We already see FIAT/CHRYSLER sending US auto manufacturing overseas.
We all know it is NOT THE FAULT OF OUR 99% IMMIGRANTS----let's just get rid of global banking 5% working for OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE GLOBAL 1% KINGS AND QUEENS.
Italian car workers strike in protest at huge job cuts
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