WaPo...China "the U.S. president is messing things up"

Washington Post - Washington Post The Washington Post
Simon Denyer
4 hrs ago


BEIJING — In the eyes of many Americans, China bears a huge responsibility for the North Korea crisis for failing to rein its aggressive and volatile ally in Pyongyang.

But in Beijing, the story is told very differently. Here, a large slice of the blame goes to Washington for its consistently hostile attitude towards North Korea, which has only encouraged the regime to invest in and accelerate its nuclear weapons program.


China’s narrative about the reckless U.S. approach was only reinforced this week when President Trump threatened to respond to further threats from North Korea by unleashing “fire and fury like the world has never seen,” and Pyongyang responded by threatening to strike the U.S. territory of Guam in the Western Pacific with ballistic missiles.

It gave China the perfect platform to project itself as the voice of reason: especially as it had just agreed to join the world in stiffening sanctions against the North Korean regime.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, left, is greeted by his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi at the 50th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila, Philippines on Aug. 6.
© Bullit Marquez/AP North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, left, is greeted by his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi at the 50th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Manila, Philippines on Aug. 6.
“China is disappointed.” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing. “China has just made a compromise, but the U.S. president is messing things up.”

In an editorial on Tuesday, state-run China Daily said that instead of “hurling threats,” the governments of the United States and North Korea should talk.

“Over time, this mutual finger-pointing has pulled both into a spiral of escalating distrust and hostility, which is the biggest obstacle to resolving the crisis,” it wrote.

“The U.S. approach to the standoff has been counterproductive because it has simply escalated the threat from Pyongyang’s nuclear/missile programs.”

As Euan Graham at the Lowy Institute in Sydney says, China’s position has not changed. “It is still the default: it’s not our problem,” he said.

That shifting of the blame between Washington and Beijing is obviously not helpful in finding a solution to this escalating crisis, experts say.

But it is far from clear China has any answers to solve the crisis, apart from hoping that a war of words does not disintegrate into an actual war.

Its big idea — a dialogue — looks for now like a non-starter, even experts in Beijing say.

“North Korea said many times that it is absolutely not interested in anything requiring it to give up its nuclear weapons,” said Zhang Liangui, a retired professor from Communist Party’s Central Party School. “North Korea has completely shut the door to negotiations.”

China’s long-standing support has been central to the survival of the North Korean regime and allowed its ruling dynasty to live in luxury and security.

By far the country’s largest trading partner, it has been very reluctant to apply the sort of economic pressure that would really bite, concerned about doing anything that could destabilize its neighbor. Even when it has agreed to sanction the regime, experts say it has often allowed them to be bypassed.

But it has grown increasingly frustrated with the Pyongyang regime, even alienated from it, and has finally supported a significantly stiffer set of sanctions at the United Nations.

Now, Beijing argues, is the time for dialogue, urging a resumption of six-party talks, involving North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia that were abandoned in 2009. Indeed, the latest Security Council resolution explicitly calls for those talks to resume.

“China calls on relevant countries to remain restrained and make positive efforts to ease the tensions and properly resolve the Korean Peninsula issue,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement Monday. “China has always maintained that the Korean Peninsula issue should be settled through dialogue and negotiation.

China, with Russia’s support, has made what it calls the “suspension for suspension proposal,” calling for the suspension of North Korea’s nuclear and missile program in return for a halt to military exercises between the United States and South Korea.

Yet even in Beijing, many experts don’t believe that even this plan offers a viable path out of the crisis, or a way to convince the North to ultimately give up its nuclear weapons program.

“The U.S. is not on board, but that disagreement is negotiable,” said Cheng Xiaohe, a North Korea expert at Renmin University of China in Beijing.

“The main obstacle is North Korea,” he said. “It has said clearly, before and after the new U.N. sanctions, that its nuclear weapon program is not a bargaining chip, to exchange for any deals or benefits. It’s not negotiable. Then if this isn’t negotiable, the dual suspension plan is no longer an interesting game to play.”

This means military conflict between the United States and North Korea, previously unthinkable, now cannot be ruled out. For now, it may be a question of hoping that neither side really intends to follow through on its threats.

“My suggestion to the government: hold a while,” Cheng recommended to Beijing.

“When everyone is talking tough, people’s tempers may be at high tide. Given time, all parties may calm down. If not, and the conflict intensifies, China could take a more active step, like sending an envoy to Washington, Pyongyang, Tokyo, Seoul and Moscow for shuttle diplomacy.”

Yet there is certainly massive frustration with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as discomfort with the American approach.

“Kim’s repeated defiance of Security Council resolutions has increased Beijing’s frustration,” said Michael Kovrig with the International Crisis Group. “That has created space for a wider policy debate in China, between those who think China has to stand behind North Korea no matter what, and those who call for abandoning it and cooperating more with the U.S.”

But that debate is unlikely to be resolved before a key Communist Party Congress in the fall, Kovrig said, with President Xi Jinping reluctant to do anything that might alienate traditionalists within the party who still see North Korea as an important ally.

“For now, China’s preferred option is to maintain the status quo on the Korean Peninsula while getting the parties to de-escalate and return to some form of dialogue that kicks the can down the road,” he said.

Against that backdrop, experts say Trump’s rhetoric is particularly unwelcome in Beijing.

“Washington should stimulate Pyongyang’s desire to engage with the outside world and return to the international community,” China’s nationalist Global Times wrote in an editorial. “However, Washington only wants to heighten the sanctions and military threats against Pyongyang, which is adding fuel to the flames.”

The paper complained that United States has adopted a more hardline approach towards North Korea since Trump came to power, referencing comments from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson earlier this year that all options, including military options, were ultimately on the table.

It has also long underestimated the price North Korea is prepared to pay in pursuit of nuclear missiles, which the regime sees as essential to its survival, it argued.

The paper’s editor-in-chief, Hu Xijin, issued two short videos this week warning that as long as the hostility between the United States and North Korea remains unresolved, North Korea will continue to develop its nuclear weapons.

“When the U.S. fails to contain North Korea, it blames China for not handling it,” he said. “That is just foolish thinking, yet in the U.S. many people believe this to be logical. That’s just sad.”

It’s also dangerous, Hu argued, for the Washington to play a game of chicken with Pyongyang.

“There’s a Chinese saying: A man with nothing to lose doesn’t fear a man with something to lose,” he said. “So it’s best if Washington doesn’t try and engage in a battle of the wills with Pyongyang. They don’t scare easily.

Shirley Feng and Yang Liu contributed to this story.

Liam is 7 years old and has been in Japan since 6-8

visiting his mother's family in the Miyazaki region. But he's basically alone in a different culture and language. I would consider him fluent in Japanese, but what do I know....other than Spanish in HS, I've spoken English my entire life.

He's enjoying himself! He went to school with his cousins and was extremely popular as he was "American". He's gone camping and to Disneyland. Best of all tho, are all the spiders in his "Ba-Ba" and "Gi-Gi's" (grandpa and grandma) yard! There's nothing Liam loves more than spiders, he always has. He does love to read books tho, which makes me proud! I'm thinking Science might be his calling. His smile and laugh are truly infectious and he's quick with witty come-backs. Just a great kid with a big heart, wouldn't hurt a flea....seriously, he loves bugs!

Liam's father, my son Seth, and his younger 2 year old brother, Kai, will be traveling to bring him home 8-16. They fly from Chicago, through Seoul, to Tokyo. Then fly down to Miyazaki from Tokyo and will spend 2 weeks there. Their scheduled departure from Tokyo, through Seoul again, and on to Chicago is 8-30.

Liam is my grandson...Kai is my grandson...Seth is my son....

The "what ifs" are plentiful and gut wrenching, to say the least...

If you're of the religious nature, please keep them in your prayers...and I thankfully, welcome any positive vibes as well, as they make their journeys in these very uncertain areas and times.

Thank you from Seth's mom, and Liam and Kai's Nana


Liam, Seth and Kai

Not even close to being a "liveable" wage, more like "laughable! C'mon Wisconsin!

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel


Wisconsin taxpayers would need until 2043 to recoup nearly $3 billion in Foxconn payments
Jason Stein and Patrick Marley, Milwaukee Published 12:22 p.m. CT Aug. 8, 2017 | Updated 2:11 p.m. CT Aug. 8, 2017


MADISON - State taxpayers would need an estimated 25 years to recoup up to $2.85 billion in proposed cash payments to bring a Taiwanese firm's flat screen plant to southeastern Wisconsin, a new analysis finds.

The analysis by the Legislature's nonpartisan budget office found that if the Foxconn Technology Group plant operated at full expected employment levels — and attracted large numbers of jobs to Wisconsin through supplier companies — then state taxpayers could recoup their investment by 2043.

In Foxconn's industry — the competitive world of consumer electronics — the market could see multiple upheavals over that period.

The report released Tuesday by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau relied on projected jobs and investment numbers generated by Gov. Scott Walker's administration and a consulting firm paid by Foxconn. Walker and legislative leaders had no immediate comment.

The fiscal bureau found that over the next 15 years, state taxpayers would pay out $1 billion more to Foxconn than the additional taxes that would be generated by the deal.

The long payoff on the project is due to both the size of the cash payments to the Asian electronics giant and to the fact that in Wisconsin companies pay no corporate or income taxes on profits from manufacturing. That eliminates a major source of repayment for taxpayers that would be available if the award had been made to a different type of company, such as a financial services provider.

The review by the fiscal bureau takes into account the increased taxes generated by the company, its suppliers and other businesses that would establish themselves here. To do that, the budget office relied on a Foxconn-funded analysis that projected the deal would create a large number of additional good-paying jobs — 22,000 in all — at suppliers and other local businesses, such as restaurants.

The memo does not account for additional investments to which Foxconn might later commit, such as a second facility the company is considering siting in Dane County.

The memo notes it is difficult to project what will happen with Foxconn, particularly over a long period. Projections developed by the Walker administration “must be considered speculative,” the Legislative Fiscal Bureau noted in its report.

“Any cash-flow analysis that covers a period of nearly 30 years must be considered highly speculative, especially for a manufacturing facility and equipment that may have a limited useful life,” the report noted.

So far, Republican lawmakers who control the Legislature have not viewed the proposal as having a potential downside. For instance, when the deal first emerged, Sen. Duey Stroebel (R-Saukville) told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he believed it posed “no risk” to taxpayers.

The report makes clear that even under optimistic scenarios the deal will involve risk and the better part of a generation to pay off.

And if Foxconn stuck with 3,000 workers — its initial project employment instead of its eventual peak employment level of 13,000, the “break-even point would be well past” 2045, the report found.

In the short term, state government’s bottom line could benefit from the Foxconn development. That’s because building the plant over four years would create more than 10,000 construction jobs and spark other economic activity that would temporarily boost state tax collections.

That could increase tax revenues by $83 million over the next two years, according to the fiscal bureau. However, it concluded that possibility was not firm enough that the figures could be officially tallied in projections of future state revenue.

To receive state payments under the deal, Foxconn would first need to make investments in the plant and hire workers.

If by 2021 the company had hired 13,000 workers, then by the next year Foxconn could be receiving up to $119.6 million in annual cash payments, according to a memo from the state Department of Revenue that was also released Tuesday. Those payments could last more than a decade.

In addition, the company could receive up to $192.9 million in state payments for investments in its plant in each of seven years running from 2020 to 2026. So by the 2022 fiscal year the state could be making an annual payment of $313 million to Foxconn, according to both the revenue department and the fiscal bureau.


The jobs at the plant would have starting salaries of $41,600 a year and the average pay would be $53,900 plus benefits, with total payroll reaching up to $800 million a year, state officials have said. The jobs would have to pay at least $30,000 a year to qualify for state subsidy payments.

The company could qualify for up to $2.85 billion in cash payments from taxpayers — up to $1.5 billion to help offset the cost of Foxconn's payroll and another up to $1.35 billion to help defray the cost of its plant and building. The company could also receive another $150 million in sales tax exemptions on construction materials.

Scot Ross, executive of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, questioned whether the state could experience cash flow challenges at the beginning of the Foxconn deal when the company is investing in the plant and rapidly collecting subsidy payments from the state for those investments. They could amount to more than $600 million over a two-year state budget, complicating efforts to pass the next state spending plan, he said.

"Look how much trouble they are having with this budget in a relatively healthy economy," Ross said.

Midterms, Midterms, Midterms!

While we keep debating the 2016 election, or debating who should run in 2020, our focus needs to be on the 2018 midterm senate, congress and local official seats that are going to be held.....period!

Not to mention a giant "get your butts off the couch and VOTE" push!!!!

Anyone else familiar with and love the band Soup, from Wisconsin?

Featuring incredible Doug Yankus (RIP) on lead guitar.....

The Ironworker challenging Paul Ryan....his name's Randy Bryce!

Let's get this good mans name out there, fellow du'ers! He's going to need tons of help!

http://a.msn.com/01/en-us/AApzIL2?ocid=se

Big Pharma jerk gets his due justice

'Pharma bro' Martin Shkreli found guilty of securities fraud
Lydia Ramsey and Bob Bryan
Business Insider
3h
Former drug company executive Martin Shkreli is surrounded by news cameras as he exits U.S. District Court following the second day of jury deliberations in his securities fraud trial in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S., August 1, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Segar
The former drug company executive Martin Shkreli. Thomson Reuters
Martin Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical CEO best known for a 2015 price-gouging scandal, was convicted Friday on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

He was found not guilty on five other counts in the case: three counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

He faces as much as to 20 years in prison.

Shkreli said during a press conference after the jury's announcement that he was "delighted by the verdict" since he was found not guilty on a key charge regarding his former drug company Retrophin.

"This was a witch hunt of epic proportions," Shkreli said. "Maybe they found one or two broomsticks, but at the end of the day we've been acquitted of the most important charges in this case, and I'm delighted to report that."


Still, even the mixed verdict was a blow for Shkreli, who said before the trial that he was "so innocent" that the jury and prosecutors would have to apologize to him after the case.

Shkreli made headlines in September 2015 when as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals he raised the price of Daraprim, a drug used to treat a parasitic infection, by more than 5,000%, earning him the nickname "pharma bro." The charges in this trial weren't related to that price hike but stemmed from events earlier in his career while he managed hedge funds.

In court, his lawyer had argued that his notoriety shouldn't influence the case.

"You may not like Martin Shkreli," the lawyer, Ben Brafman, said in his opening statement. "And you may have reasons to hate Martin Shkreli, but that is not a basis on which to convict."

Prosecutors had argued that starting in 2009, Shkreli lost money in two hedge funds he ran, hid that from his investors, and instead paid them back with money from Retrophin.

Happy Birthday, (my) President Barack Obama!

Happy Birthday, President Barack Obama... Oh, how we miss your grace, dignity, intellect, and kindness. As we suffer through the disgraceful Trump presidency, we long for the days your steady leadership guided us out of the calamitous Bush recession and rebuilt America's standing and reputation in the eyes of the world as a beacon of peace, prosperity and freedom.

You deserved a better successor, and in that respect, the American people failed you. However, your exemplary eight years as President will always be cherished by those of us who haven't been blinded by Trump's deceitful web of lies, distortions, and bigotry.

While he stays up at night Tweeting, humiliating America, and obsessing over you, please know that a man of his feeble character will never fill your shoes -- nor destroy your legacy -- which will go down in history as one of America's finest.

Enjoy your special day, Barack... you deserve it.

Funny little sing-a-long.....

"Ooooh, iiiiit's beginning to look a lot like impeachment 🎶

Everywhere you go

On the Internet and nightly news, Republicans feelin' the blues 🎵

As a constitutional crisis ensues 🎶

Yes, it's beginning to look a lot like impeachment

There's excitement in the air 🎵

Grand juries being seated, Trump's ass is feeling heated

And his kids are lawyerin' up too...

But the prettiest sight to see, are the handcuffs that will be 🎵

At the People's House front door"

- Taken from Facebook

Thank you!