Asia Times World braces for first real shot of Trump’s trade war

‘This would be beyond a trade war. You're talking about blowing up the WTO’

The US Commerce Department finally released its report on investigations into steel and aluminum imports on Friday, recommending wide-ranging tariffs and quotas on products coming into the United States.

It will be up to President Trump what he wants to do with the recommendations, though he has publicly indicated he sides with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on the issue of trade restrictions. Cabinet members including Gary Cohn, Steven Mnuchin, Rex Tillerson and James Mattis are reportedly opposed to using the Section 232 law, cited by the report, to impose tariffs on national security grounds....

Asia Times

World braces for first real shot of Trump’s trade war

Staff

Sino-American trade war brewing?

Everything was looking so awesome this morning, until Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told a group in Davis that China's 2025 Technology Plan was a "direct threat" to the US, sparking another round of protectionist-fear-driven selling in stocks….

Zero Hedge
US Equities Tumble On Ross' China "Direct Threat" Comments

Tyler Durden

Also

It appears the rhetoric coming out of Davos is slowly but surely catching up to markets - after initially just impacting the dollar - as former fund manager and FX trader Richard Breslow details below, the market is not priced at all for a "hot trade war" and Ross/Mnuchin's rhetoric suggests we are closer to that that not.

One Trader Warns "A Hot Trade War Is Not Priced-In"

Inessa Sinchougova — Busted: Americans supply Europe with gas, which they buy in Russia

American capitalism at its "best."

The United States supplies fuel to the liquefied gas terminal in Belgium's Antwerp, which is purchased in Russia. This story was initially reported by TASS, the journalists of which were investigating activities of offshore companies.

It turned out that the liquefied gas arriving in Antwerp is delivered by four tankers, which belong to the Navigator Holdings company registered in the Marshall Islands.

Almost one third (31%) of Navigator Holdings shares belong to US Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross.

The company buys gas from the Russian "Sibur" in the port of Ust-Luga.

The investigation confirms the opinion of the Russian ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, that it is "naive to count on the arrival of liquefied gas from the United States in the terminals of Europe."

The terminals for liquefied gas in Europe were created to reduce the dependence of the EU countries on the export of fuel through Russian pipelines. However, the gas comes to the terminals not from the USA, but from the nearest source - Russia, at a higher price than for pipeline transportation.…

Fort Russ
Busted: Americans supply Europe with gas, which they buy in Russia

KtovKurse by Inessa Sinchougova

Wilbur Ross and the dopey finance capitalists

It would be so easy to beat these dopey finance capitalists at their game. So, so, easy. If I were only in charge. If only there was a leader somewhere who understood the power of his/her nation's own sovereign money and what they could do. You could bury these guys who produce...nothing.

Don Trump's new Commerce Secretary, octogenarian loser hedge fund elf, Wilbur Ross, spoke these "pearls" of wisdom today.

"Brexit is a God-given opportunity to steal business away from UK."

"I recommend that Cyprus should adopt and immediately announce even more liberal financial service policies than it already has so that it can try to take advantage of the inevitable relocations that will occur during the period of confusion,"

Wilbur Ross is an elf

So, our new Commerce Secretary is basically advocating for other countries (maybe for us, too) to zealously deregulate finance and give the banksters in Cyprus free reign to commit massive fraud like the banksters in the City of London and Wall Street did, which nearly destroyed the entire global economy.

This is great business, I guess, to him.

Finance creates nothing. NOTHING. It produces nothing. It's a tax on everyone that flows to a small few like the elf, Ross.

Ross should be promoting investment in infrastructure, health care, education, basic science and research, alternative energy, but instead, he's saying, steal London's financial casino's. What a dope.

If only I were in charge. I'd bury these guys. BURY THEM.

Finance needs to be shrunk down to practically nothing. Wilbur Ross, as I said before was a terrible pick for Commerce and he's proving it with these idiotic comments, but I am sure Trump thinks it's brilliant.

Actually, upon hearing Ross's comments the Brits ought to be laughing and cheering and saying, Here! Take the City for all we care, but, no, I am sure they are shaking in their misguided boots at what's about to be "stolen" away from them by Cyprus and Dublin.

Lol!!

Wilbur Ross. Another emperor with no clothes.

Oh, I cannot tell you how much fun this is. How much it warms my heart. It's beyond words.

I'm talking about how great it is to see these Wall Street charlatans exposed for what they are...losers and frauds.

Here's the latest "titan" who we discover is, in reality, an emperor with no clothes 

Wilbur Ross.

Yes, Ross is a billionaire and that's WAY more than I got, but now we get a pretty good sense of how he "earned" it: most likely rigged deals and lots and lots of fees on the billions he manages.

But take a look at the stock of Ross's company (his hedge fund) if you really want to see how  he's doing, 

Wilbur Ross Holding Company (WLRHU) did shit in the last two years. 

Since it has been publicly traded the stock has done nothing. Ross made an "impressive, 5.0%, TOTAL, it looks like, in two years. Wow. Whoop Dee Fucking Doo. And that with 2% annual management fees and 20% of the profits. 

Obviously, then, he made no profits. It was probably ALL management fees. That's right, 2% for doing nothing.

Now in order to save his company he is telling clients he is not going to take his 20% incentive fee. Ha!! That's no skin off his nose because by the looks of this chart he never made any profits!

I'm not surprised. This "genius" was all over these hedge fund "clown" gatherings like SALT and Ira Sohn pontificating about nothing. He spiel was the same inane crap all the other morons were saying at these things: that the "Fed was out of ammunition" or, there was going to be "hyperinflation because of all the central bank money printing," or, "China was a debt bubble." (Or Japan was a debt bubble. Take you pick.)

These morons are absolutely clueless. Thankfully, some of the smarter pension funds are pulling their money out--for good.

We've seen it with Gross, Bass, Ackman, Einhorn and now Ross. Actually, it's all of them. They're a bunch of brainless sheep all running around like kings, spouting the same, idiotic bullshit.

Here's some advice I'd give these guys: If I were them I'd NEVER go public because that gives the rest of us a glimpse at just how big of fucking losers they are.  

Wilbur Ross. Hahahaaha!!

If you had any doubt that the upper echelons of finance were sociopaths, read this

Great piece in New York Magazine by a reporter who crashed the annual gala of the Kappa Beta Phi "secret society" of financial titans. If you had any doubt that these people are a bunch of depraved, egomaniacal sociopaths, read this.

Here is an excerpt:

As I walked through the streets of midtown in my ill-fitting tuxedo, I thought about the implications of what I’d just seen.

The first and most obvious conclusion was that the upper ranks of finance are composed of people who have completely divorced themselves from reality. No self-aware and socially conscious Wall Street executive would have agreed to be part of a group whose tacit mission is to make light of the financial sector’s foibles. Not when those foibles had resulted in real harm to millions of people in the form of foreclosures, wrecked 401(k)s, and a devastating unemployment crisis.

This should be a siren call telling us that if our nation is to survive--no, if THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT is to survive--where societies are established for the benefit and "general welfare" of the people who live in them, then the Finance, Insurance, Real Estate (F.I.RE) sector has to be dismantled or shrunk down to a level where it's parasitic tentacles are no longer a threat.

Wer're a long way from that.

Here is a list of the Kappa Beta Phi members.