Thread: Donald Trump: Establishment ‘Against Me’ but ‘Coming on Line’

Ted Cruz does not deserve to be treated like this for having stood up to the GOP sellouts in the Senate.

W

Sep 23, 2015 @ 11:11 AM 14,205 views

Boeing To Build Its First Offshore Plane Factory In China As Ex-Im Bank Withers

Loren Thompson, Contributor

Facing severe pressure from state-subsidized foreign competitors and the end of federal export financing, Boeing BA has decided to throw in the towel. After a hundred years of producing its commercial aircraft exclusively in the U.S., the nation’s largest exporter will build its first offshore aircraft plant in China.

The new plant will be a joint venture with a Chinese entity to install interiors and paint exteriors on 737 airliners, Boeing’s popular single-aisle jetliner that competes with the Airbus A320. China’s official Xinhua news agency reported yesterday the company has signed a huge deal for 300 737s with three Chinese companies, besting the record 250-plane deal that Airbus received for its A320 last month from low-cost Indian carrier IndiGo. The news agency report coincided with the visit of Chinese president Xi Jinping to Seattle, the home base for Boeing’s commercial aircraft operations.

Company insiders say the precise location of the new plant in China has not yet been decided, but it appears the uncertain fate of the U.S. Export-Import Bank figured in the decision to establish offshore production. (Disclosure: Boeing is a contributor to my think tank.) All of the 737s airframes destined for China will still be built in Renton, Wash., at the plane’s main assembly facility, and then finished at the new plant. But the relationship with China is likely to grow over time, because China, like Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and every other industrialized country (except now the U.S.) assists plane exporters in securing financing.

Boeing will establish a joint-venture facility in China to install interiors and do exterior paint jobs for 737s sold to Chinese carriers. Over time, America's biggest exporter will likely expand its industrial presence in the Middle Kingdom. (Retrieved from Wikimedia)

Boeing will establish a joint-venture facility in China to install interiors and do exterior paint jobs for 737s sold to Chinese carriers. Over time, America’s biggest exporter will likely expand its industrial presence in the Middle Kingdom. (Retrieved from Wikimedia)

China’s rapid economic growth in recent years dictated that Boeing take steps to increase its presence there. The company estimates Chinese carriers will buy or lease 6300 commercial transports over the next 20 years, and 4800 of those will be single-aisle jetliners like the 737 and A320. Airbus began delivering A320s from a Chinese plant in 2009, and signed an agreement this summer to build a second such facility in the country. Boeing can’t afford to be left behind in the trillion-dollar Chinese market, and the Beijing government has been eager to attract the kind of high-tech manufacturing its products entail.

Boeing planes typically are more technologically advanced than those of its competitors, but they often cost more to buy than Airbus offerings even though they are more economical to operate across the lifetime of the aircraft. Federal export financing has been an important factor in sustaining Boeing’s global market share, because with price-tags frequently exceeding $100 million per plane, they are among the world’s most expensive types of capital equipment. Until recently, Boeing’s plan had been to source 80% of its production inputs in the United States while selling 80% of its jetliners overseas, but the end of Ex-Im Bank financing appears to be causing a shift in strategy.

Boeing chairman James McNerney recently told a Washington gathering that the company may have made a mis-step in planning to do all of its aircraft production in the U.S., given the failure of Congress to reauthorize Ex-Im Bank. Another big U.S. exporter, General Electric GE +0.00%, recently disclosed plans to move aerospace activities to Europe because of the easy availability of export credits there. Unlike in Europe, where export assistance often takes the form of subsidies, Ex-Im Bank costs are covered by fees charged to users, so no subsidies are involved. That fact does not appear to have mollified bank critics, who have blocked the bank’s reauthorization despite majority support in both chambers of Congress.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorentho.../#7b6f89315252

July 30, 2015, 05:34 pm
Cruz on Ex-Im: Battle won, war rages on

By Jordain Carney

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) claimed a victory in the fight over reviving the Export-Import Bank Thursday, but he warned that the war against the "Washington Cartel" isn't over.

“Today was a major win. Just one week ago, the Washington Cartel was certain that the Export-Import Bank — a quintessential example of cronyism and corporate welfare — would be reauthorized. The fix was in," Cruz said in a statement. "And yet, after a long battle on the Senate floor, as Mark Twain might say, reports of Ex-Im's revival were greatly exaggerated."

Cruz made the comments after the Senate sent a three-month extension of federal highway funding to President Obama's desk that did not include a reauthorization of the bank's charter.

The Senate passed a six-year bill that did include a roughly four-year reauthorization of the bank. But that legislation is headed toward a conference committee with House lawmakers, who are more skeptical of the bank, later this year.

Cruz, who is running for president, has been vocally opposed to reauthorizing the bank, saying that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) lied about making a deal to allow a vote on the bank as part of an effort to get additional votes for a trade bill.

The Texas Republican said that McConnell denied to him that there was an agreement with Democrats, adding that "the majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask him such a question."

Cruz also praised his House colleagues for refusing to take up the Senate's long-term bill, saying they "stood strong" and showed "strong leadership."

But he added that proponents of the bank would try again to reauthorize the bank's charter once they return to Washington in September, following Congress's summer recess.

"This Fall, no doubt, the Washington Cartel will make yet another run at reviving Ex-Im," he said. "But, if the House continues to demonstrate their courage of their convictions, together we will make permanent a major victory for hard-working taxpayers. No more cronyism."

Cruz's speech against McConnell launched a public battle between the Texas Republican and the Senate's top Republican.

McConnell and his allies in the Senate lined up on the Senate floor during a rare Sunday session to take veiled and direct shots at Cruz.

McConnell appeared to take a closing shot at Cruz on Tuesday, saying, "I don't know what one considers the definition of a deal, but we've been discussing quite openly for months that I would make it possible for the supporters of the Ex-Im Bank [to get a vote.]"

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...t-import-fight

I don't know why anyone would support or defend a US Senator for President who just ran Boeing out of the United States to China. Or General Electric to Canada:

GE cutting 350 jobs in Wisconsin, moving work to Canada citing US Congress Ex-Im Bank impasse
Associated Press
September 28, 2015 — 4:36pm
Thibault Camus, AP
GE is laying off more U.S. workers as a result of the shutdown of the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

WAUKESHA, Wis. — GE Power & Water said it will stop manufacturing gas engines in Wisconsin and move the work to Canada, meaning the loss of 350 jobs in a Milwaukee suburb, because the U.S. Congress has failed to reauthorize the Export-Import bank.

The plant in Waukesha, Wisconsin builds engines for power generation applications. GE said it plans to build a $265 million factory in Canada over the next 20 months, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

GE blames Congress for failing to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank that finances sales of industrial equipment.

"We believe in American manufacturing, but our customers in many cases require Export Credit Agencies financing for us to bid on projects. Without it, we cannot compete and our customers may be forced to select other providers. We know these announcements will have regrettable impact not only on our employees but on the hundreds of U.S. suppliers we work with that cannot move their facilities, but we cannot walk away from our customers," GE vice chairman John Rice said in a statement.

Rice said the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company continues to urge Congress to reauthorize the U.S. Export-Import Bank for all American companies.

"However, we must prepare for the worst case and arrange export finance outside the U.S. Unfortunately, this will come at the expense of American jobs. In a slow growth and volatile world, we must go where the markets are and compete in over 170 countries," Rice said.

GE said the plant closure will be take place over the next 20 months, in phases, and that its decision will not be reversed.

GE Power & Water is headquartered in Schenectady, New York. Most of the 350 Waukesha manufacturing employees are represented by the International Association of Machinists.

Union spokesman Frank Larkin said the U.S. Export-Import Bank "was one of those rare government programs that worked as intended; it protected American jobs and returned a profit to the U.S. Treasury. Killing the bank means thousands of U.S. jobs will be needlessly sacrificed for an extreme political agenda."

Waukesha Mayor Shawn Reilly said he hopes a solution can be reached to retain those jobs.

"My hope is that this is not a final decision and I will be able to work with General Electric and our state and federal partners to retain those important jobs here," Reilly said in a statement.

The 81-year-old U.S. Export-Import Bank provides loans, credit guarantees and insurance to aid sales by U.S. companies. The bank's charter expired June 30 when Republican members of Congress, who say the bank benefits only a few large corporations that don't need government assistance, blocked a reauthorization vote.

http://www.startribune.com/ge-plans-...obs/329816991/

And to France:

General Electric Says to Move 500 U.S. Jobs Overseas Blaming Ex-Im Bank Closure

GE signs financing agreement with France’s export credit agency
Employees work as a diesel locomotive stands on the final assembly line at the General Electric facility in Fort Worth, Texas.

By Nick Timiraos
Updated Sept. 15, 2015 10:46 a.m. ET

General Electric Co. will move about 500 U.S. jobs overseas to avoid losing business to foreign rivals, a decision the company said was prompted by the lapse of the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s charter earlier this summer.

For months, GE has said that the failure to reauthorize the export financing agency, which congressional Republicans have singled out as an example of corporate welfare, would force the company to move jobs overseas or risk losing contracts for turbines, power projects and other industrial equipment.

GE on Tuesday said it had signed an agreement for a line of credit for certain power projects from France’s export credit agency, Compagnie Française d’Assurance pour le Commerce Extérieur, or Coface, which would result in 400 jobs moving to Europe, primarily from facilities in New York, Texas, South Carolina and Maine. It said another 100 jobs would be moved next year from a facility outside Houston to Hungary and China to access export credit for customers of gas turbines used in aviation.

Executives say the company is bidding on $11 billion worth of projects, mostly in developing nations, and that bids won’t be entertained if they aren’t sponsored by an export credit agency. GE said, for example, that countries where such export credit agency sponsorship is required have accounted for 80% of total sales of those aviation-related turbines over the past three years.

”In a competitive world, we are left with no choice but to invest in non-U.S. manufacturing and move production to countries that support high-tech exports,” said John Rice, vice chairman at GE, in a statement on Tuesday.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/general-...ure-1442322192

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Ted Cruz does not deserve to be treated like this for having stood up to the GOP sellouts in the Senate.

W

Actually he deserves far worse than he's getting. Running our best manufacturers out of the country by "leading the fight" to terminate the Ex-Im Bank that these companies use to finance US made exports is not what we need in the US Senate, let alone in the Oval Office.

Originally Posted by Judy

Actually he deserves far worse than he's getting. Running our best manufacturers out of the country by "leading the fight" to terminate the Ex-Im Bank that these companies use to finance US made exports is not what we need in the US Senate, let alone in the Oval Office.

W'eve already had the discussion concerning the Export Import Bank at length. Ted Cruz did the right thing in working to disband it! Boeing is a sell-out and could care less about Americans and our jobs! Hiding behind the Ex-Im Bank is just an excuse for a greedy corporation to make more profit through cheap labor!

Originally Posted by MW

W'eve already had the discussion concerning the Export Import Bank at length. Ted Cruz did the right thing in working to disband it! Boeing is a sell-out and could care less about Americans and our jobs!

Obviously, Ted Cruz cares even less. So where does that put you?

Boeing, GE and many others didn't want to leave, they waited through the summer to see if Congress would re-authorize the Ex Im Bank but it didn't. It's still working on it, but not in time to save Boeing, GE and several others who have already announced.

Originally Posted by Judy

Obviously, Ted Cruz cares even less. So where does that put you?

Boeing, GE and many others didn't want to leave, they waited through the summer to see if Congress would re-authorize the Ex Im Bank but it didn't. It's still working on it, but not in time to save Boeing, GE and several others who have already announced.

Like I've said before, your letting your support for Trump cloud your judgement. Cruz did the right thing by fighting the renewal of the Ex-Im Bank. I find it a little dismaying that you would take the side of greedy corporations who insist on having their operations subsidized in this manner.

Excerpt:

It is not surprising that Boeing, GE, and Caterpillar, among others, would be doing everything in their considerable political powers to win reauthorization of the Ex–Im charter. Subsidized financing is an attractive perk to offer their customers. But those subsidies carry considerable costs—to taxpayers and the American businesses that are left to compete against foreign firms subsidized by the U.S. government. Given the vast resources of Ex–Im’s beneficiaries and the abundant supply of private export financing, there is no need to lament the expiration of the bank charter. Given the unbridled expansion of government, eliminating Washington’s interference in this corner of the economy is something to applaud.

http://www.heritage.org/research/rep...-or-employment

Yep, Ted Cruz definitely should be applauded for his move against the Ex-Im Bank. Anyone that feels otherwise is on the wrong side of the issue.

I've supported the Ex Im Bank my entire career because of its importance to US manufacturers. Only morons who don't care about our producers and the economic foundation they provide to our country would oppose the Ex-Im Bank.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...0OK0BM20150604


Politics | Thu Jun 4, 2015 1:07am EDT
Related: Election 2016, Politics
In Ex-Im Bank fight, Texas has most to lose, and fiercest bank opponents
WASHINGTON | By David Lawder

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) speaks during the testimony of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray (not pictured) in Washington September 12, 2013. REUTERS/Gary Cameron
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Representative Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) speaks during the testimony of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray (not pictured) in Washington September 12, 2013.
Reuters/Gary Cameron

In a fight in the U.S. Congress over the future of the Export-Import Bank, no state looms larger than Texas, on both sides.

The state has the most companies backed by the government's export credit agency, and - paradoxically - is home to the bank's fiercest congressional critics who want to let the institution die when its charter expires at the end of June.

Representative Jeb Hensarling leads a contingent of fellow Texas Republicans pressing hard for the shutdown of the bank, despite its support for many large and small Texas businesses.

Arguing that "Ex-Im" embodies "crony capitalism" doled out by Washington bureaucrats and that it puts taxpayer funds at risk to guarantee foreign loans, many Republicans want to end the tradition of renewing the 80-year-old bank's charter.

If Hensarling, the influential House Financial Services Committee chairman, stands by his stated intention not to advance a bill to reauthorize the bank, it will soon have to stop lending and writing new trade insurance. The bank's only hope then would be legislation in the Senate.

The bank's closure would be cheered by Republican fiscal hawks, but be seen by many as a fresh blow to U.S. international economic clout months after Washington failed to stop China from launching its own Asian development bank.

If the bank dies, China and 58 other industrial countries with export credit agencies would gain a bigger share of major international sales and projects, Ex-Im backers say.

Texas exporters, with a high concentration in oil and gas equipment and engineering, say thousands of jobs are at risk. The bank lists 1,233 companies in Texas it has helped to export $22 billion worth of U.S. goods and services, a dollar amount higher than anywhere except Washington state, home of Boeing Co.

"We're all conservatives in our company, and our elected representatives are working against us," said Jim Adams, managing director of privately held Control Flow Inc, a Houston-based maker and exporter of oil wellhead equipment.

Control Flow has exported $75 million worth of equipment, including valves and blow-out preventers, backed by low-interest Ex-Im loans and insurance in the past five years.

Without that support, Control Flow would have to slash prices and accept lower profits to keep export business or cut its 160-strong workforce, Adams said.

Texas lawmakers' opposition to the bank partly reflects the rising power of the Tea Party and conservative groups in the state such as the Club for Growth, which promotes a fiscal conservative agenda and funnels money to such candidates.

Hensarling acknowledges there will be collateral damage as some firms lose support, but says they would be better served by a reformed tax code and reduced regulations.

"I hope to help these small businesses, maybe just not in the way they wish to be helped,” he told Reuters during a break in an Ex-Im hearing on Wednesday.

"There are better ways to do that without transferring credit risk to the taxpayer balance sheet, which when last I looked, was an unsustainable balance sheet.”

In the nine months since Ex-Im's charter was last extended, Texas House Republicans opposed to renewing it have drowned out the handful who support keeping the bank open with reforms, such as House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions, who is allied with House Republican leadership.

By contrast, House Republicans from Missouri, where Boeing has a major presence, have voiced strong support for the bank.

Like other Ex-Im opponents, many of the Texas Republicans say the bank provides "corporate welfare" to Boeing and other huge corporations, interferes in private finance and puts U.S. taxpayers on the hook for foreign loans.

"Ex-Im Bank has exceeded its period of usefulness. Period," said Republican Michael Burgess, a Dallas-Fort Worth area congressman.

TEA PARTY EFFECT

For Texas Republicans, supporting the Ex-Im Bank could invite a primary challenge ahead of the November 2016 congressional elections, said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston.

Ex-Im "has successfully been framed as being associated with crony capitalism, and that's a dangerous place to be with Republican primary voters in Texas," Jones added.

Support for economic "liberty" and small government runs deep in the vast, largely Republican state. Republican primary election voters are typically the most committed conservatives, exerting an outsize influence on the state's politics.

"This is a red meat issue for the Tea Party," said Tony Bennett, president of the Texas Association of Manufacturers.

Trying to explain to Texas conservative voters the role that Ex-Im plays in promoting exports is an "impossibility," he said. "It's ironic that we're the largest user of Ex-Im and the most vocal opponents are from Texas."

Club for Growth ran ads in April in the Waco, Texas district of Representative Bill Flores, urging him to abandon his prior support for the bank. When he came out against Ex-Im last month, the group ran ads praising him.

Air Tractor Inc, a maker of crop-dusting and fire-fighting aircraft, would not be able to find replacement financing for the small Ex-Im bank loans of $750,000 to $1 million that foreign customers use to purchase its planes, said Tyler Schroeder, a financial analyst with the firm.

These customers, largely in Brazil, would turn to a model made by Brazil's Embraer SA that has less spraying capacity, he said. Air Tractor would likely have to cut 65 to 70 of its 270 workers.

"At what point does the betterment of your constituents outweigh the ideology of this?" Schroeder said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...0OK0BM20150604

___________________________

Texas you better wake the hell up!

Facts About the Export-Import Bank


The Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) Provides Taxpayer Subsidies Primarily to Multinational Corporations

• More than 80 percent of the bank’s financing benefits major firms, including the Boeing Company (market capitalization exceeding $91 billion). In the past five years, the aviation giant has profited from 197 Ex-Im deals totaling $48 billion. In fiscal year 2013 alone, about 66 percent of Ex-Im loan guarantees benefited Boeing.
• According to Mercatus Center economist Veronique de Rugy, the Ex-Im Bank provides export financing for just 0.009 percent of America’s small businesses. The proportion of smaller businesses that do receive aid is artificially inflated by the bank’s expansive definition of “small,” which includes firms with as many as 1,500 workers and companies with revenues of up to $21.5 million annually.
• Ten companies benefited from 75 percent of the Ex-Im subsidies in FY 2013. Along with Boeing, these major beneficiaries included General Electric (valued at $267 billion), Bechtel Corporation (2013 revenues of $39.4 billion), and Caterpillar Inc. (with 2013 sales and revenues of $55 billion).
• The vast majority of exporters—98 percent—do not receive assistance from the Ex-Im Bank. There is no shortage of private financing available, particularly for multinational corporations that could finance their own exports.

Ex-Im Subsidies Threaten U.S. Jobs

• The bank funnels billions of taxpayer dollars each year to overseas businesses for the purchase of American products. These subsidies put U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage. Ex-Im financing of coal mining in Colombia, copper excavation in Mexico, and airplanes for India has been identified as contributing to job losses among domestic companies.
• Ex-Im officials fail to properly consider the impacts of export subsidies on American workers and the businesses that employ them. The Ex-Im Inspector General concluded that the bank’s analyses ignored economic impacts contemplated by the Ex-Im charter and omitted relevant data.

Ex-Im Puts Taxpayers at Risk

• All Ex-Im financing is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government. Taxpayer exposure will exceed $140 billion by the end of FY 2014.
• The Congressional Budget Office recently reported that Ex-Im will operate at a deficit of $2 billion in the next decade (in addition to the bank’s operating costs).
• The Inspector General has concluded that the bank lacks sufficient policies to prevent waste, fraud and abuse, and has inadequate risk management policies and recordkeeping.
• Ex-Im subsidies benefit China, Venezuela, Cuba, and Russia. State-owned foreign airlines have received $16 billion in subsidized financing since 2009.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/07/facts-about-the-export-import-bank