Aug. 18, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Joe Biden’s sweetheart deal with China to put Chinese companies on U.S. exchanges a ticking time bomb for investors
In 2013, the Obama-Biden
administration, after years of top-level talks with China led by former Vice
President Joe Biden, finalized a Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)
memorandum of understanding allowing Chinese companies to skirt U.S. risk
disclosure regulations and participate in America’s capital markets. The move came after a series of meetings in
2011 and 2012 between former Vice President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi
Zinping (then-Vice President of China) that helped to orchestrate the
sweetheart deal, in which Chinese officials pleaded for improved access to U.S.
capital markets. “There’s no telling when Biden’s ticking time bomb could blow
up the retirement savings of millions of Americans,” said Rick Manning,
President of Americans for Limited Government, a political advocacy group that
is leading a national effort to divest private, state and federal pension funds
of all Chinese companies. “These Chinese investments could not only destabilize
our economy, they also pose a national security threat because many of them are
tied to the Chinese military buildup,” added Manning. “Furthermore, many
Chinese companies are up to their necks in producing goods using child- and
slave-labor. By allowing investments
into these companies, states are effectively making individual 401(k) owners or
pensioners parties to and profiteers from the exploitation of the victims of
such cruel abuse.”
Cartoon: Commucrat Manifesto
Joe Biden gets his biggest endorsement
yet.
Video: Intel agencies need to stop issuing assessments about which candidates foreign adversaries prefer
Why is the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence warning the American people about who China “prefers” in
the 2020 election?
Pelosi’s claim that Trump’s 2018 Postal Service reforms were intended to ‘sabotage the election’ in 2020 amid Covid is a conspiracy theory
To hear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
tell it, President Donald Trump’s efforts to reform the Postal Service — which
began with an April 2018 executive order appointing a task force to bring USPS
into solvency almost two years before there was any COVID-19 pandemic — were
intended to undermine increased requests for mail-in and absentee ballots in
2020 in response to the pandemic. In an Aug. 16 dear colleague letter, Pelosi
alleged, “Alarmingly, across the nation, we see the devastating effects of the
President’s campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal
Service to disenfranchise voters… [with] sweeping new operational changes that
degrade postal service, delay the mail, and… threaten to deny the ability of
eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming
elections in a timely fashion.” It's a conspiracy theory. For it to be true,
Trump and the Postal Service had to know in 2018 there would be a global
pandemic in 2020 and that states would extend deadlines associated with mail-in
and absentee ballots which would preclude timely delivery by the Postal
Service. In reality the Postal Service is warning states that voters should
request ballots at least 15 days before Election Day, or Oct.19, that election
officials should use first-class mail and not third-class mail to send blank
ballots and allow one week for delivery to voters, and that voters should mail
in their ballots no later than Oct. 27, a week before the election on Nov. 3,
in order to be counted in time. And that it first class mail takes 2-5 days to
deliver and receives higher priority than third-class or marketing mail, which
can take 3-10 days to deliver. The truth is, Pelosi wants $25 billion for the Postal
Service including $3.3 billion for mail-in voting and she’s holding up
President Trump’s request for more relief for small business forgivable loans and
checks to the American people, who have been hard hit by the pandemic and its economic
fallout.
Video: President Trump should reconsider Medicare drug pricing plan that could lead to socialized medicine
ALG President Rick Manning explains a new
ad campaign on cable TV where his group says the president's executive orders
on Medicare Part B prescription drug pricing, which will use an International
Pricing Index that includes countries that already use price controls and
socialized medicine, that could lead to socialized medicine here. Manning also
explains there is a market-based alternative path to take.
Joe Biden’s sweetheart deal with China to put Chinese companies on U.S. exchanges a ticking time bomb for investors
By Catherine Mortensen
The Trump administration is threatening to reverse a sweetheart deal former Vice President Joe Biden orchestrated giving Chinese companies access to U.S. capital markets because it puts the retirement accounts of millions of Americans at risk. The 2013 Biden deal gave Chinese companies access to America’s capital markets without complying with the same strict disclosure regulations required of U.S. companies.
As a result of Biden putting his thumb on the scales in favor of China, as of Feb. 2019, 156 Chinese companies were listed on U.S. exchanges with a market capitalization of $1.2 trillion, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
Under the terms of the Obama-Biden Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which came after a series of meetings between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (then-Vice President) in 2011 and 2012, U.S. regulators have very little ability to “open the kimono” and look into the books of these Chinese companies. Investors have virtually no idea what the true value of those Chinese investments are.
“There’s no telling when Biden’s ticking time bomb could blow up the retirement savings of millions of Americans,” said Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government, a political advocacy group that is leading a national effort to divest private, state and federal pension funds of all Chinese companies.
“These Chinese investments could not only destabilize our economy, they also pose a national security threat because many of them are tied to the Chinese military buildup,” added Manning. “Furthermore, many Chinese companies are up to their necks in producing goods using child- and slave-labor. By allowing investments into these companies, states are effectively making individual 401(k) owners or pensioners parties to and profiteers from the exploitation of the victims of such cruel abuse.”
On Aug. 19, 2011, Xi publicly pressed Biden in Beijing, stating, “we hope the United States will eliminate the interferences of trade and investment protectionism. We hope that there will be early and concrete actions on the part of the United States on … providing a fair environment for Chinese businesses to make investment in the United States.”
To which, Biden responded, “President Obama and I, we welcome, encourage and see nothing but positive benefits flowing from direct investment in the United States from Chinese businesses and Chinese entities… we will have more good news later today about greater access and also continued development and investment both ways.”
Ultimately in May 2013, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which is overseen by the Securities and Exchange Commission, signed off on the official MOU giving the Chinese want they wanted, as a necessary step to be listed on U.S. exchanges.
The PCAOB board was created as part of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act to help protect investors from fraudulent corporate financial reporting in the wake of the Enron corporate accounting scandal. Under the Act, all companies wishing to be traded on the U.S. stock markets must meet high standards for transparency and disclosure by subjecting auditors of U.S. public companies to external and independent oversight. Without that kind of oversight, every single one of these Chinese companies could be an Enron waiting to happen.
And now, PCAOB is warning that China is breaking the deal, stating in June, “since signing the MOU in 2013, Chinese cooperation has not been sufficient for the PCAOB to obtain timely access to relevant documents and testimony necessary to carry out our mission consistent with the core principles identified above, nor have consultations undertaken through the MOU resulted in improvements.”
Keith Krach, the U.S. Department of State’s Undersecretary for Economic Growth, told Reuters in July that the lack of transparency has prompted administration officials to lay the groundwork to exit the deal soon: “This is a National Security issue because we cannot continue to afford to put American shareholders at risk, to put American companies at a disadvantage and allow our preeminence of being the gold standard for financial markets to erode. In addition to terminating this MOU, which allows Chinese companies to openly defy U.S. laws and regulations for financial transparency and accountability, we must address the Chinese Communist Party’s exploitation of U.S. capital markets, which is a clear and ongoing risk to U.S. economic and national security.”
For those who wonder what Biden got out of the 2013 deal, it is telling that in that same year his son, Hunter Biden, became a board member at BHR Equity Investment Fund Management Company, a Chinese state-backed private equity firm, according to the New York Times and the South China Morning Post. In 2017, Hunter Biden bought 10 percent of the company for about $420,000, The Times reported.
“It appears Joe Biden used his office as vice president to enrich his family at the expense of hard-working Americans,” said Manning. “His sweetheart deal for China is a ticking time bomb could blow up Americans’ retirement pensions at any time and destabilize our economy.”
Catherine Mortensen is the Vice President of Communications at Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/08/joe-bidens-sweetheart-deal-with-china-to-put-chinese-companies-on-u-s-exchanges-a-ticking-time-bomb-for-investors/
Cartoon: Commucrat Manifesto
By A.F. Branco
Click here to view a higher level resolution version.
Video: Intel agencies need to stop issuing assessments about which candidates foreign adversaries prefer
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q6RFF0K9uQ
Pelosi’s claim that Trump’s 2018 Postal Service reforms were intended to ‘sabotage the election’ in 2020 amid Covid is a conspiracy theory
By Robert Romano
To hear House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tell it, President Donald Trump’s efforts to reform the Postal Service — which began with an April 2018 executive order appointing a task force to bring USPS into solvency almost two years before there was any COVID-19 pandemic — were intended to undermine increased requests for mail-in and absentee ballots in 2020 in response to the pandemic.
In an Aug. 16 dear colleague letter, Pelosi alleged, “Alarmingly, across the nation, we see the devastating effects of the President’s campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, one of the top Trump mega-donors, has proven a complicit crony as he continues to push forward sweeping new operational changes that degrade postal service, delay the mail, and… threaten to deny the ability of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming elections in a timely fashion.”
It's a conspiracy theory. For it to be true, Trump and the Postal Service had to know in 2018 there would be a global pandemic in 2020 and that states would extend deadlines associated with mail-in and absentee ballots which would preclude timely delivery by the Postal Service.
Pelosi’s dear colleague letter came, not after Trump began appointing his task force in 2018 or when the task force delivered its findings in Dec. 2018, but after the Washington Post reported on Aug. 14 that the Postal Service had sent letters to 46 states and the District of Columbia warning that, given state deadlines for sending out and casting ballots that are “incongruous” with how long it takes to actually deliver mail, it cannot guarantee all ballots will be counted in time for Election Day.
For example, in the letter sent to Missouri Secretary of State dated July 31, USPS Vice President and General Counsel Thomas Marshall warned “under our reading of Missouri's election laws, certain deadlines for requesting and casting mail-in ballots may be incongruous with the Postal Service's delivery standards… it is particularly important that voters be made aware of the transit times for the mail (including mail-in ballots) so that they can make informed decisions about whether and when to (1) request a mail-in ballot, and (2) mail a completed ballot back to election officials.”
The letter recommended that the voters request ballots no later than 15 days before Election Day, or Oct.19, that election officials should use first-class mail and not third-class mail to send blank ballots and allow one week for delivery to voters, and that voters should mail in their ballots no later than Oct. 27, a week before the election on Nov. 3, in order to be counted in time.
The Postal Service reports that first class mail takes 2-5 days to deliver and receives higher priority than third-class or marketing mail, which can take 3-10 days to deliver.
So, voters and states are being warned months ahead of time that many states’ new extended deadlines the 2020 election and mail-in ballots are problematic and may need to be modified so that ballots are sent and received on time, and to only use first-class mail to deliver the ballots to guarantee timely delivery. Here, the Postal Service is rightly raising red flags about states’ election planning — so that the states can adjust their deadlines accordingly and we don’t have a catastrophe on Election Day and the weeks that follow.
In any given election year, about one-quarter of ballots will be either mail-in or absentee, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. It was 23.6 percent in 2016, 25.9 percent in 2012 and 19.2 percent in 2008. But in 2020, the number is projected to be much, much higher, not because of some far-fetched Trump-Postal Service conspiracy, but because of the virus.
The solution is for states to institute proper deadlines for requesting and receiving ballots that will allow for timely delivery.
And that would be the case whether President Trump’s efforts to reform the U.S. Postal Service that began in 2018 were taking place or not. On April 12, 2018, the President issued an executive order appointing a task force on the U.S. Postal Service with the goals of “the expansion and pricing of the package delivery market and the USPS’s role in competitive markets… the decline in mail volume and its implications for USPS self-financing and the USPS monopoly over letter delivery and mailboxes… the definition of the ‘universal service obligation’ in light of changes in technology, e‑commerce, marketing practices, and customer needs … the USPS role in the U.S. economy and in rural areas, communities, and small towns; and …the state of the USPS business model, workforce, operations, costs, and pricing.”
According to the Congressional Research Service, in FY 2019 the Postal Service had a $9 billion operating budget deficit, with an $80 billion budget but only $71 billion of revenue. 2020 will be even worse.
Nobody cared then. There were no dramatic press conferences called by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or other top national Democratic leaders in Congress. No demands for additional funding outside the normal course of budget negotiations or concerns expressed about the integrity of elections. Nothing.
Then, again, in Dec. 2018, the task force the President appointed delivered its recommendations, “United States Postal Service: A Sustainable Path Forward.”
The recommendations included:
- “overhaul the USPS’s business model in order to return it to sustainability…”
- “the [Universal Service Obligation] must distinguish between the types of mail and packages for which a strong social or macroeconomic rationale exists for government protection … versus those types of mail and packages that are commercial in nature.”
- “The USPS should have the authority to charge market-based prices for both mail and package items that are not deemed ‘essential services’… [to] allow the USPS to optimize its income in order to fund its operations, capital expenditures, and long-term liabilities.”
- “The USPS must pursue new cost-cutting strategies that will enable it to meet the changing realities of its business model. These should include evaluating modifications to delivery processing standards, and the expanded use of private sector partners in areas such as processing and sortation.”
- “The USPS [should] more closely align wages for both its career and non-career workers with those of other federal employees, drawing from like examples in the broader labor market.”
That was in Dec. 2018, about a year before there was any COVID-19. In short, the Postal Service should charge more, especially for non-essential, commercial deliveries like Amazon, contract out certain functions including processing where needed and address labor costs.
And again, not so much as a peep from House Speaker Pelosi or Democratic leaders at the time of the proposals, which really are not that controversial and mirror recommendations that have been made over the years by similar task forces, such as the one from 2003.
Yet the entire country is supposed to drop everything and assume that Speaker Pelosi is giving the American people all the facts about this issue. She isn’t. She’s had a proposal to increase Postal Service funding by $25 billion, including $3.5 billion for election services, since April, to accommodate additional mail-in voting.
And for Pelosi, it’s simple how to get it done. As President Trump clearly stated at his Aug. 14 press conference, “Sure, if they give us what we want. And it's not what I want, it's what the American people want.”
Trump wants another coronavirus relief funding package, and explained his terms: “I’ve directed the Secretary of the Treasury to get ready and send direct payments — $3,400 for a family of four — to all Americans. Democrats are holding this up. I am ready to have the UST and SBA send additional PPP payments to small businesses that have been hurt by the China virus. Democrats are holding this up. So we’re talking about — those are two things directly involved and, really, victim of the China virus. We’re ready to send; Democrats are holding up. I’m ready to send rental assistance payments to hardworking Americans that have been hurt by the China virus. All of these things are in a list. Democrats are holding this up. I’m ready to send $105 billion to the states to help open schools safely, with additional PPP — E. And Democrats are holding this up. So that’s $105 billion to the states to help open schools safely, with additional PPE. Democrats are holding that up. Right? And I’m ready to send more money to states and local governments to save jobs of our great police, our firefighters, our first responders and teachers. It’s all ready to go. Democrats are holding it up.”
So, agree or disagree with the President’s demands for additional spending, the hold-up for the additional funding for the Postal Service that Pelosi is demanding has almost nothing to do with President Trump’s proposed Postal Service reforms. The hold-up is legislative and it is political. Each side has priorities they want to see in any new legislation. No bill can become law without President Trump’s signature unless Pelosi has the votes to override a veto. She doesn’t, and so it’s called, make a deal, or don’t make a deal. That’s up to Speaker Pelosi.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
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