News Stories

[SaintessHeart]

Abe : US-JAPAN CLOSE TO TPP TRADE DEAL

Oh F***.

[KiraYamatoFan]

For those who can't read the full article from the Wall Street Journal, here's another take on the same topic:

US, Japan 'Close' On Pacific Trade Agreement Before Planned Summit; Deal Could Facilitate Broader Trans-Pacific Partnership

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

For those who can't read the full article from the Wall Street Journal, here's another take on the same topic:

US, Japan 'Close' On Pacific Trade Agreement Before Planned Summit; Deal Could Facilitate Broader Trans-Pacific Partnership

I am all for the TPP countering China's economic influence here so that Asia reduces dependency for their economy, but TPP isn't the way to go.

The problem with copyright is that it is indefinitely long when it comes to legal enforcement, and that release restrictions disallows it to be waived.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Copyright? I must have missed where that was mentioned. Who would be making concessions on that front? I'm guessing Japan... stupid backwards ass US copyright laws.

[aldw]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

Copyright? I must have missed where that was mentioned. Who would be making concessions on that front? I'm guessing Japan... stupid backwards ass US copyright laws.

Sonny Bono, who helped push through the DMCA in Congress, once said he would've made copyrights last indefinitely if he could, and far too many in the media business hold onto that notion in one way or another.

[SaintessHeart]

Major Chinese Developer Says It Can’t Pay Dollar Debts

Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. became China’s first real estate company to default on its U.S. currency debt, capping a month of distress in bond markets amid an anti-corruption probe and fueling concern that losses will spread.

The default coincides with the expiration of a 30-day grace period on $52 million of missed interest payments on two dollar-denominated bonds, according to a Hong Kong stock exchange statement Monday. Kaisa, based in the southern city of Shenzhen, is struggling to service 65 billion yuan ($10.5 billion) of debt owed to both onshore and offshore lenders while becoming embroiled in President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on graft.

The developer’s problems have rippled across the region’s debt market, where investors starved of yield elsewhere in the world have swooped in to boost returns. As the government’s anti-corruption probes widen, it’s raising concern that defaults will spread after overseas noteholders bought a record $21.3 billion of bonds issued by Chinese property companies.

“It’s been a canary that has been chirping for some time,” Gary Herbert, a money manager who helps oversee about $45 billion of fixed-income assets at Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC in Philadelphia, said in a telephone interview. “This is the beginning of an adjustment period in China that will see a lot of credit investors, who were chasing the promise of higher yields, ultimately disappointed.”
Founder’s Return

Kaisa’s default follows the surprise return of founder Kwok Ying Shing last week. The developer’s woes started late last year when the Chinese government blocked approvals of its property sales and new projects in Shenzhen, said to be linked to an investigation of the city’s former security chief Jiang Zunyu.

Kaisa “is focused on facilitating the release of its 2014 audited financial results,” according to its statement. Following that release, the company “will continue its efforts to reach a consensual restructuring of its outstanding debts.”

The company’s $800 million of 8.875 percent bonds due in March 2018 fell about 7 cents to 55.3 cents on the dollar as of 10:11 a.m. New York time Monday, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the lowest in more than a month. Standard & Poor’s had already downgraded Kaisa to default last month.
Sunac’s Stake

Kwok exited the company he founded more than 15 years ago on Dec. 31, citing health reasons. Kaisa said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing April 13 that he’d been appointed chairman and executive director.

In the interim, rival Sunac China Holdings Ltd. agreed to buy a controlling 49.3 percent stake from the Kwok family on Jan. 30, subject to a debt restructuring that would require investors to accept lower coupons and defer repayment by up to five years. Kaisa has said offshore creditors would stand to recover just 2.4 percent in a liquidation.

Kaisa last month postponed its results announcement for 2014, saying that auditors needed more time to verify its accounts. There may be a “significant adjustment” to the figures, the company said on March 31 without saying when the results would be released.

The earnings and profitability of some Chinese property developers may deteriorate further in 2015 and more defaults can’t be ruled out, S&P said in a report Friday. It said developers’ annual results for 2014 indicate many are in “significantly worse” shape than the previous year.

Moody’s expects Chinese builders’ results to stabilize this year on looser regulation and more cautious expansion, the ratings company said in a Friday report.

You dirty Americans export everything. From porn to junk food to even your HOUSING-RELATED FINANCIAL CRISIS.

[aldw]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Major Chinese Developer Says It Can’t Pay Dollar Debts



You dirty Americans export everything. From porn to junk food to even your HOUSING-RELATED FINANCIAL CRISIS.

That's why a new economic model is needed, even if it takes a ton of trial and error to overcome. If China is the one to do so first, well, so much the better.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by aldw

That's why a new economic model is needed, even if it takes a ton of trial and error to overcome. If China is the one to do so first, well, so much the better.

China's economic model is no different from the current one. In fact, I wouldn't look forward to it because it has got more nepotism and cronyism in it, seeing how state-run businesses are allowed to flourish and political ties boost business opportunities.

Today's economic model is just a modernised version of the colonial era, with the effects of crashes like the South Sea Bubble reduced from a 100 years in effect to only 3 in the dot-com bubble.

The economic model is as good as it is right now - there will always be financial engineers looking for the next windfall doing as little as possible at the expense of everyone else in the economy; any model or system can be hacked.

Texas Set To Clear Open Carry Law

[ganbaru]

A lose-lose choice for Hillary Clinton
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debat...2016-campaign/

Conservative donors Koch brothers prefer Walker in 2016: NY Times
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0NB2GS20150420

U.S. couple found guilty of 'sadistic' Bali suitcase murder
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0NC0LJ20150421

[SaintessHeart]

Legacy Of Agent Orange

NSFW, however a sombre read. It is certainly worse than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[aldw]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

China's economic model is no different from the current one. In fact, I wouldn't look forward to it because it has got more nepotism and cronyism in it, seeing how state-run businesses are allowed to flourish and political ties boost business opportunities.

Today's economic model is just a modernised version of the colonial era, with the effects of crashes like the South Sea Bubble reduced from a 100 years in effect to only 3 in the dot-com bubble.

The economic model is as good as it is right now - there will always be financial engineers looking for the next windfall doing as little as possible at the expense of everyone else in the economy; any model or system can be hacked.

Texas Set To Clear Open Carry Law

Not necessarily, the synergy between state economic actors and private parties that enabled things such as the mass infrastructure development in Mainland China couldn't be done using US methods of infrastructure development using primarily private capital, and as time advances the involvement of state actors in development will have to increase to compensate for capital shortfalls due to increasingly parasitic capital generation methods such as subprime loans that led to the Great Financial Crisis in the first place. This will at the very least require a different approach for sustained investment and development than the current private capital dominant approach.

If good human behaviour is predicated on universal prosperity, achievement of post-scarcity through things like replicators (or the more immediate 3d printing) is a minimum (besides the idea of people improving their behavioural baseline through genetic engineering).

[ganbaru]

Saudis end air campaign in Yemen, seek political solution
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0NC2LD20150422

UK speed trader arrested over role in 2010 'flash crash'
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0NC21220150421

[SaintessHeart]

Asian, African nations challenge 'obsolete' world order

When was the first instance when a certain son of a bitch said "Peace in our time!", and had his country rolled over?

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

Copyright? I must have missed where that was mentioned. Who would be making concessions on that front? I'm guessing Japan... stupid backwards ass US copyright laws.

More like everyone in the deal BUT the US.....

[Xellos-_^]

After simmering tensions gave way to open hostility between the two leaders this year, the White House is working to publicly mend fences with Mr. Netanyahu and demonstrate its support for Israel, including by sending Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to speak at an Israeli Independence Day celebration in Washington on Thursday.
Yet as Mr. Obama’s response last week suggested, substantive policy differences, exacerbated by longstanding distrust, remain between the American president and the Israeli prime minister, making a full-blown public reconciliation unlikely for now.
Instead, the White House is engaged in an aggressive effort to assuage the concerns of American Jewish groups and pro-Israel members of Congress over the nuclear agreement with Iran, and to limit the potential political fallout for Democrats of what has become a bitter rift in the American and Israeli relationship.



http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/23/wo...netanyahu.html

Why does the President of the United States needs to mend fences with Israel? What does Israel do for the US that is so important that President of the US needs to mend fences? Is Israel giving the US 3billion in military aid and guaranteeing the security of the US? Is Israel the US only allied?

[Ithekro]

Mended fences equals votes from wealthy American Jews and pro-Isreal Christians. There are about as many Jews in the United States as they are in Isreal. While that is somethig over 6 million voters (I guess) it is a set of powerful or at least influential groups. Also they can be loud if its Hollywood talking.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Xellos-_^

Why does the President of the United States needs to mend fences with Israel? What does Israel do for the US that is so important that President of the US needs to mend fences? Is Israel giving the US 3billion in military aid and guaranteeing the security of the US? Is Israel the US only allied?

Israel is also selling top grade hardware to China.

So when is China dumping its US Bonds on the market to raise funds for repairing this.

We're Just Learning the True Cost of China's Debt

[Irenicus]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Mended fences equals votes from wealthy American Jews and pro-Isreal Christians. There are about as many Jews in the United States as they are in Isreal. While that is somethig over 6 million voters (I guess) it is a set of powerful or at least influential groups. Also they can be loud if its Hollywood talking.

There is an internal struggle in the American Jewish community. There are those, of course, who are vehemently pro-Israel no matter what. However, many American Jews are traditionally progressive, vote Democratic, are more concerned with American domestic politics and/or view Netanyahu's practically open alliance with the Republicans and his leadership of Israel in bad taste.

The "representative Jewish lobby" is certainly dominated by the former group. I am not sure American Jews in the entertainment industry would follow AIPAC's lead, however, given that Hollywood's traditional ties with Democratic politics are at least as strong if not stronger. And in any case most American Jews have a relatively distant relationship with their Jewish identity; they are Americans who are Jews, not the other way around.

Though Hillary Clinton is not quite the figure that Barack Obama was, in 2008, when he could rally all the celebrities of the world to endorse him regardless of these subtleties -- hell, for a moment in time he could rally all the people of the world, apparently, except for an unfortunate half of America. While I'm not sure what Hillary, Elizabeth Warren, or any number of Democratic presidential candidates would be willing to do so, I think Obama can afford to tell Netanyahu off. The Israeli Prime Minister certainly does a good job of isolating Israel, himself. Moreover, the promise of a successful reconciliation with Iran is surely the kind of foreign policy legacy that Obama desires -- and is achieving, in Cuba -- now that Netanyahu denied an even bigger prize from him when Kerry's crusade for Israeli-Palestinian peace was sabotaged, and left what is apparently an extremely bitter taste among American diplomats who might have ordinarily been more well-disposed towards Israel.

In a time when European hangups of the past century's horrors are increasingly a distant past versus the current, open struggle in Palestine, a diplomat could have served Israel much better than a neocon hawk. I would even argue Netanyahu is "hawking up" the wrong enemy, as the Iranian state is far less a threat to Israeli's daily survival than an ISIS-infected Palestine. If ISIS and its blood ideology manages to gather enough supporters in Palestine, by no means a distant reality if Fatah continues to lose legitimacy and Hamas is no longer seen as an effective alternative, the Israelis would be praying for the days of Hamas' rockets for the next generation.

[RRW]

The Calbuco volcano in southern Chile has erupted twice in the space of a few hours - having lain dormant for decades.
Footage from the area shows a huge column of lava and ash being sent several kilometres into the air.
The authorities have declared a red alert and evacuated more than 4,000 people within a 20km (12 mile) radius.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-32425370

[ganbaru]

Jeb Bush knocks Hillary Clinton over Asia trade talks stance
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0ND2AF20150422

U.S.-led strikes have killed 2,079 people in Syria: monitor
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0NE0UL20150423

Special Report: British voters heading for a Disunited Kingdom
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...0NE0U520150423