bankruptcy

Trump’s trade war is devastating America’s farmers

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Unless there’s a breakthrough in the U.S.-China trade talks before midnight tonight, U.S. tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports are about to rise from 10% to 25% — an escalation of Trump’s trade war that could hurt major importers and trigger even more painful retaliation by China. China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement … Read more

Donald Trump is The Joker: default on the U.S. debt and ‘watch the world burn’

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TheJoker

Donald Trump gave an extraordinary interview to CNBC last week. Donald Trump’s Idea to Cut National Debt: Creditors to Accept Less:

One day after assuring Americans he is not running for president “to make things unstable for the country,” the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, said in a television interview Thursday that he might seek to reduce the national debt by persuading creditors to accept something less than full payment.

Asked whether the United States needed to pay its debts in full, or whether he could negotiate a partial repayment, Mr. Trump told the cable network CNBC, “I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.”

He added, “And if the economy was good, it was good. So, therefore, you can’t lose.”

Such remarks by a major presidential candidate have no modern precedent.

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Greece capitulates to its creditors demands, loses its sovereignty

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euroA week ago Sunday, the citizens of Greece gave a resounding “no” vote to the proposed bailout package from its European Union creditors.

By Thursday, when the government of Greece had to put its final offer on the table to avoid bankruptcy, the government capitulated to its creditors. In Greece, defiance dissipates into capitulation.

But even this was not good enough for  Greece’s creditors, they demanded even more. Germany doesn’t want to save Greece. It seems to want to humiliate Greece.

The Sunday deadline for a deal was extended into early Monday morning, and Greece accepted an aspirational deal that requires its parliament to accept harsh constraints this week before its European union creditors will consider extending a bailout package. This is not a completed deal. The New York Times reports, European Leaders Reach Deal on Greek Debt Crisis:

Greece agreed to a deal with its European creditors on Monday after long and bitter negotiations, swallowing substantial new concessions in the face of imminent financial collapse and insistent demands from Germany and other countries that it prove it was worthy of a third bailout in five years.

The agreement, announced after a contentious all-night session among leaders of the 19 nations that use the European common currency, requires Greece to move quickly to adopt a host of economic policy changes and to allow close monitoring by Europe and the International Monetary Fund.

If Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras can push the central elements of the package through his Parliament in the coming days — a political challenge likely to prove difficult — the creditors said they would be willing to open negotiations on providing as much as 86 billion euros, or $96 billion, to keep Greece afloat for the next three years, and to consider proposals to ease repayment terms on much of Greece’s existing debt of more than €300 billion.

The creditors also agreed, once terms of the bailout are settled, to pull together a short-term stimulus program of up to €30 billion to help Greece’s ravaged economy.

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