China Folds On Reforms - Bails Out 2nd Shadow-Banking Default After "Last Drop Of Blood" Threats

At Not Just The News, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us (See this article to learn more about Privacy Policies.). This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by Not Just The News and how it is used.

Log Files

Like many other Web sites, Not Just The News makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user"s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.

Cookies and Web Beacons

Not Just The News does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.

DoubleClick DART Cookie

• Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on Not Just The News.


• Google"s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to Not Just The News and other sites on the Internet.


• Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL - http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html.

These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on Not Just The News send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.

Not Just The News has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. Not Just The News"s privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.

If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browser"s respective websites.

China Folds On Reforms - Bails Out 2nd Shadow-Banking Default After "Last Drop Of Blood" Threats

Exclusive: Euro zone mulls cheap loans as incentive for economic reforms -document

Exclusive: Euro zone mulls cheap loans as incentive for economic reforms -document
http://currenteconomictrendsandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/4202a__?m=02&d=20131122&t=2&i=814181485&w=460&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBRE9AL165U00.jpg

BRUSSELS Fri Nov 22, 2013 10:10am EST

File picture shows European Union member states’ flags flying in front of the building of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, April 21, 2004.

Credit: Reuters/Vincent Kessler/File

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Euro zone governments are considering cheap loans to governments as an incentive to undertake structural reforms which pay off only in the medium-term, an EU document showed on Friday, introducing for the first time a discussion on fiscal transfers.

The document will form the basis of discussions of senior euro zone officials who will meet in Brussels on November 26 to prepare the next European Union summit on December 19-20.

The loans would be part of so-called contractual arrangements, which would be legally binding contracts with economic reform targets and macroeconomic milestones that trigger the payout of tranches of the agreed loan.

The loans would be attractive because they would carry an interest rate lower than the one a government could get on the market. In that respect, it would amount to a degree of subsidized lending, ultimately amounting to a mutualizing of risk among involved member states and a degree of financial transfer – an idea that Germany has long resisted.

“Loans would imply only limited fiscal transfers across countries,” said the 9-page document, obtained by Reuters.

“Indeed, the transfer element would be limited to a lower interest rate than the market rate of most beneficiary Member States, capturing the positive externality of the reforms for the EU as a whole,” it said.

To qualify, countries would have to draw up legally binding plans for reforms that would then be approved by other euro zone states. The conditionality would come on top of other macroeconomic programs such as the Stability and Growth Pact and the eurozone’s new budgetary oversight powers.

The size of the loan would not be linked to the cost of reform and would be meant as general support for the economy. It is not clear what time-frame the loans would be offered for, or what the limit on the size of any loan would be.

“The specific amount of financing would not be linked to the direct cost of reforms, which generally is difficult to measure,” the document said.

“Financial support should be conceived as an incentive or as general support to the overall economy rather than as a compensation for the specific cost of reforms as such, as well as a broader signal of European support to the economic reform agenda of each Member State,” the document said.

The loans would not be available to countries running excessive macroeconomic imbalances or currently under a bailout. However, an official briefed on the document said a country like Ireland, which is about to exit a program, could, for example, request a contract and if approved, benefit from the cheap loans.

The document did not specify how exactly the loans could be financed, mentioning only a European Commission idea from March that it could be either through direct contributions from governments or through designating a new revenue source.

One possibility, the official indicated, might be for the euro zone’s rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism, to raise money on international markets and on-lend capital to a contracted member state, although the exact framework and process of the lending is yet to be finalized.

(Reporting By Luke Baker and Martin Santa)

• Link this


• Share this


• Digg this


• Email


• Print


• Reprints

Reuters: Business News

Read more about Exclusive: Euro zone mulls cheap loans as incentive for economic reforms -document and other interesting subjects concerning Business at TheDailyNewsReport.com

WRAPUP 2-China unveils boldest reforms in decades, shows Xi in command

WRAPUP 2-China unveils boldest reforms in decades, shows Xi in command
http://currenteconomictrendsandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/0d7e6__p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif

Fri Nov 15, 2013 9:11am EST

* China’s unveils boldest reform plan in decades

* Document provides detail missing from initial outline

* Scope of proposed changes show Xi’s firm grip on power

* Much stress on social reforms alongside economic overhaul

By Kevin Yao and Ben Blanchard

BEIJING, Nov 15 (Reuters) – China unwrapped its boldest set of economic and social reforms in nearly three decades on Friday, relaxing its one-child policy and further freeing up markets in order to put the world’s second-largest economy on a more stable footing.

The sweeping changes helped dispel doubts about the leadership’s zest for the reforms needed to give the economy fresh momentum as three decades of breakneck expansion shows signs of faltering.

A reform document released by the Communist Party following a four-day conclave of its top brass promised land and residence registration reforms needed to boost China’s urban population and allow its transition to a western-style service and consumption-driven economy.

Pricing of fuels, electricity and other key resources – now a source of major distortions – would be mainly decided by markets, while Beijing also pledged to speed up the opening up of its capital account and further financial liberalisation.

“The reforms are unprecedented,” said Xu Hongcai, senior economist at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges, a well-connected Beijing think tank. “Reforms in 1990s were limited to some areas, now reforms are all-round.”

President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, appointed in March, announced several breakthroughs in social policy, pledging to unify rural and urban social security systems and to abolish controversial labour camps, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing the document.

The plans, more comprehensive and specific than initially thought, also dispelled concerns that Xi would need more time to take full charge of China’s vast party and government bureaucracy.

China-watchers took the establishment of a working group to lead economic reform and a new State Security Council as further signs of how effectively Xi managed to consolidate power just eight months after he officially took over.

“This is almost an unprecedented move toward unlimited power,” said Zhang Lifan, a Beijing-based historian and political commentator.

The initial brief reform outline published on Tuesday triggered a stock market sell-off, with investors taking its scant details as a sign of a lack of commitment on Xi’s part or his inability to convert vested interests, such as powerful state-owned companies.

But a raft of specific policy plans ranging from interest rate and currency regime liberalisation to residence registration and land reforms and the opening up of some of the protected sectors to private and foreign firms seemed to put such concerns to rest.

The commitment to abolish labour camps was also remarkable, given that several political sources had told Reuters this was an area where Xi was facing much resistance.

Few commentators had also expected any significant attempts to reform powerful state monopolies, even though many economists argue that other reforms will have only limited success if the big state-owned firms’ stranglehold on key markets is not tackled.

The initial outline of the plans on Tuesday had affirmed those firms’ strategic role in the economy. But the longer report on Friday raised state firm dividend payments, allowed private firms to enter some of the protected sectors and encouraged them to take part in reforming the state-owned firms.

What appeared to be an early leak of the document on Chinese social media set off a rally in Chinese stock markets hours before its official release, with investors cheering its relatively detailed language on reforms.

Still, economists said that having a good plan was only part of the success and making the ambitious agenda a reality would be the new leaders’ true challenge.

“Based on the headlines … they are moving in a positive direction,” said Jan von Gerich, fixed income chief analyst with Nordea Bank in Helsinki. “But one should not get too carried away as this will be a long process.”

• Link this


• Share this


• Digg this


• Email


• Print


• Reprints

Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate

Read more about WRAPUP 2-China unveils boldest reforms in decades, shows Xi in command and other interesting subjects concerning Real Estate at TheDailyNewsReport.com

Immigration reform"s No. 1 enemy: Time

A new challenge confronts immigration reform proponents: the debt ceiling. | AP Photo

Immigration reform advocates have a new enemy: the congressional calendar.

Fall’s fiscal fights have lined up in a way that could delay immigration reform until 2014, multiple senior House Republican leadership aides tell POLITICO, imperiling the effort’s prospects before the midterm elections.

Continue Reading

The mid-October debt ceiling deadline — an earlier-than-expected target laid out Monday by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew — is changing the House GOP leadership’s plans to pass immigration bills that month.

“If we have to deal with the debt limit earlier, it doesn’t change the overall dynamics of the debate, but — just in terms of timing — it might make it harder to find time for immigration bills in October,” one House Republican leadership aide said.

(PHOTOS: 10 wild immigration quotes)

That’s not the only scheduling challenge. There are fewer than 40 congressional working days until the end of 2013 — the unofficial deadline for passing immigration reform — and they’ll present some of the most politically challenging votes for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. It will be difficult to add immigration reform to the list, senior aides say.

Government funding runs dry on Sept. 30. The nine days the House is in session that month will be crowded with the debate over the continuing resolution to keep the government operating. The GOP leadership will have to reconcile the screams from conservatives who want to use the bill to defund Obamacare with their own desire to avoid a government shutdown. Of course, anything the House approves would need to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, which will ignore attempts to weaken the law.

Immigration reform isn’t certain to die if it slips into 2014, some in GOP leadership say. But major progress must be made in 2013 as it would be too difficult for the House to chart a course in 2014, an election year.

(CARTOONS: Matt Wuerker on immigration)

At a fundraiser in Idaho on Monday, Speaker John Boehner predicted a “whale of a fight” over the debt ceiling. That skirmish will surface in October. The House is in session for 14 days during that month, but there is certain to be a good deal of debate over passing a bill that would extend the nation’s borrowing authority.

GOP leadership is mulling its initial negotiating position, which is sure to include some changes to entitlements, energy policy and the health care law. Boehner’s leadership team also seems open to discussing ways to soften the blow of the sequester in October, which would add yet another explosive issue to the mix.

The White House refuses to negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit, leaving little clarity on how the standoff gets resolved — and when.

(Also on POLITICO: Janet Napolitano hits Congress on immigration)

“Congress has already authorized funding, committed us to make expenditures,” Lew told CNBC Tuesday. “We’re now in the place where the only question is will we pay the bills that the United States has incurred. The only way to do that is for Congress to act — for it to act quickly.”

A senior administration official said Tuesday that the increasingly crowded fall calendar was why Obama pressed the House to deal with immigration before the August recess. But the Republican leaders need to make time for it, the official said, and they should want to do it sooner rather than later because the pressure from the president and others isn’t going to let up.

But the scarce legislative days and the fiscal battles will be welcome to some House Republicans squeamish about voting on immigration reform. There is little support for passing the kind of comprehensive bill approved by the Senate. But even the piecemeal approach being pushed by the House leadership has its fair share of skeptics in the GOP conference.

(Also on POLITICO: Reince Priebus: Self-deportation remarks ‘horrific’)

November could provide a window for immigration reform — but two dynamics may interfere.

The debt-ceiling deadline could slip to November if tax receipts come in stronger than expected. If Congress votes on the debt ceiling during the eight-day November session, the Republican leadership is skeptical that it would be easy to turn around and vote on even a pared-back version of immigration reform.

The will just won’t be there, some aides say. A similar situation played out earlier this year, when Boehner delayed in January a vote on Hurricane Sandy relief because it came too soon after the tough vote when Congress raised taxes to resolve the fiscal cliff.

December will likely bring another government funding debate. The current plan for September is to pass a continuing resolution that lasts until Dec. 15, setting up another year-end spending fight. The House is scheduled to be in session for just eight days in December before leaving for the holidays.

(Also on POLITICO: Anti-immigration-reform’s laid-back summer)

Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, said the new debt limit deadline “is likely to push consideration of immigration to the latter part of October at the earliest.”

But Sharry and Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, said the House won’t be able to use the fiscal fights as an excuse.

“There are some in leadership who are going to look for any reason not to act,” Kelley said. “There will be a space where this issue is going to have to move. It’s not going to go away because other matters.”

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Immigration reform"s No. 1 enemy: Time

3 Reforms for the War on Drugs

Eric Holder, America’s first African-American attorney general, and his boss, Barack Obama, the first black president, haven’t been shy about pointing out racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Racial profiling?

It’s real, they say. State “stand your ground” laws? Obama says they don’t work for minorities. Yet both have been conspicuously absent when it comes to redressing racial disparities in their own home turf, the federal government’s ill-conceived war on drugs.

That could change when Holder addresses the American Bar Association in San Francisco on Monday.

The war on drugs has presented “a lot of unintended consequences,” Holder recently told NPR, and the federal government “can certainly change” its enforcement policies. NPR reports that Justice Department lawyers have been crafting reform proposals, which Holder may roll out at the lawyer confab.

It’s about time.

Tea party Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah have co-sponsored legislation (with Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.) to reform federal mandatory minimum sentences. Holder told NPR that the administration wants to work with legislators. Translation: Obama has been waiting for political cover, and now he has it.

Federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws were meant to deliver hard time for drug kingpins, but too often they have been used to incarcerate nonviolent low-level offenders for too long. As U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson told The New York Times, the system rewards people who know enough to inform on others, while “the small fry, the little workers who don’t have that information, get the mandatory sentences.”

Vinson was explaining how federal mandatory minimums required that he sentence Floridian Stephanie George to life without parole because her dealer boyfriend had stowed a half-kilogram of cocaine in her attic, but the boyfriend and his associates were sentenced to less than 15 years.

The Drug Policy Alliance, which opposes the drug war, has urged the administration to support the Leahy-Paul Justice Safety Valve Act and the Durbin-Lee Smarter Sentencing Act, as well as a bipartisan House bill to allow early supervised release of certain federal prisoners. The alliance’s Bill Piper believes “Holder considers sentencing reform to be a legacy issue.”

I hope Piper’s right. I still am waiting for Obama to make good on his 2008 campaign promise to “immediately” review federal sentencing “to see where we can be smarter on crime and reduce the ineffective warehousing of nonviolent drug offenders.”

Obama did sign the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 to reduce the disparity in sentencing for crack versus powder cocaine. Possession of 5 grams of crack cocaine had triggered a five-year mandatory minimum sentence, whereas the trigger for powder cocaine had been 500 grams. (In 2006, about 4 in 5 crack offenders were black, whereas 27 percent of powder cocaine offenders were black.)

Because the Fair Sentencing Act was not retroactive, law professor Douglas Berman co-wrote a piece in Slate last month in which he called on Obama to use his presidential pardon power to commute the sentences of about 5,000 crack offenders over-sentenced under the old law. “A stroke of the pen can undo vast racial disparities in criminal sentences,” the piece argued.

Whoa. Berman’s plan risks the release of some truly bad guys. It would make much more sense for Obama to name a panel to review old cases first. Over the phone, Berman agreed that there would be shrewder, safer ways for Obama to commute sentences and railed against the administration’s “inability to think you can do it shrewdly.”

To date, the president has commuted only one sentence. He has the worst pardon record of any modern president. That’s unconscionable when you consider George and Clarence Aaron, a nonviolent first-time drug offender serving life without parole.

Marijuana isn’t an issue of racial justice, but it is an issue of individual rights and states’ rights. As a candidate in 2008, Obama signaled that he was reluctant to sic the awesome power of the federal government on medical marijuana in states where voters had legalized it.

As president, however, Obama has allowed federal prosecutors to go to town on medical marijuana distributors. Piper described the Obama administration as “definitely more aggressive against medical marijuana than the Bush administration, although (its) rhetoric has been better.”

That rhetoric, Piper believes, resulted in Colorado and Washington voters approving measures to legalize the recreational use of marijuana last year. In December, Holder said the Department of Justice would announce a policy on the new laws “relatively soon.” Hasn’t happened yet.

Maybe marijuana is like same-sex marriage and Team Obama is asking: Is it safe to evolve positions now?
Here’s the question: Are Obama and Holder A) equivocators who can act now because, with no re-election at stake, there’s no downside or B) cold partisans who care about race and justice only as ideological wedges?

So far, the answer is B. 

RealClearPolitics – Articles

3 Reforms for the War on Drugs