What the Heck?! Thread (Closed)

[Skywatcher]

@Skywatcher- I just want to make it clear you've been a standup guy with all your posts and publications.

Hah thanks. I'll take it that despite having spent over 5 years in the fetid swamp of Washington DC, that I still retain some semblance of a soul.

 

[Blackstone]

I suspect Vladimir Putin is playing Shinzo Abe like a violin by getting concessions from Japan, without giving up anything substantive. If Abe honestly believe he could get two of the four northern islands back from Putin, then I have green acres on Mars to sell him.

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TOKYO (REUTERS) - State-backed Japan Bank for International Cooperation will lend about 4 billion yen (S$54.3 million) to Russia's Sberbank, which is subject to Western sanctions, in the hope of advancing talks on a territorial dispute, the Nikkei business daily said on Saturday (Oct 22).

Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, will use the yen-denominated loan to help a company operating the port of Vostochny in the Russian Far East to buy coal-handling equipment.

JBIC will issue the loan by the end of the year in a bid to encourage progress on a dispute over a string of Russia-controlled Pacific islands, called the Northern Territories in Japan and Southern Kuriles in Russia, at a December summit.

"JBIC's move to provide financing to Russia comes because the Japanese government aims to make progress in the negotiations," the Nikkei said.

JBIC was not available for comment.

Japanese foreign ministry and the prime minister's office were not available for comment.

The United States and the European Union have effectively banned lending to certain Russian companies and financial institutions, including Sberbank, under sanctions imposed after Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region.

Japanese officials have previously said any economic cooperation with Russia would not run afoul of sanctions.

Japan also bars underwriting of bonds issued by Sberbank and other institutions. Though yen-denominated loans are not covered by the sanctions, Japanese banks are leery of lending in Russia amid concern over the US reaction, the Nikkei said.

The loan is part of an eight-point economic cooperation plan presented to Russian President Vladimir Putin by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in May as part of a "new approach" to the decade-long dispute.

JBIC has started offering ruble-denominated financing this month. To shore up the lender's capital, the Ministry of Finance earmarked 109 billion yen in investment in JBIC in the recently approved second supplementary budget for fiscal 2016, the Nikkei said.

Abe is betting that close ties to Putin, as well as Russia's economic woes and regional concerns about China's rise will help him make progress in a decades-old territorial row when they meet in December.

The dispute over the four islands north of Japan's Hokkaido has prevented Tokyo and Moscow signing a peace treaty formally ending the war they fought with each other in World War Two.

 

[delft]

Though yen-denominated loans are not covered by the sanctions, ...

There you are then. Besides Japan cannot survive by only creating Yens from hot air.

 

[AssassinsMace]

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First they complain about how China buys oil from Iran, Venezuela, and Russia. Now they don't like how Saudi Arabia sells oil to China, the only source they wanted China to buy from in the first place so the others don't make money.

 

[delft]

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First they complain about how China buys oil from Iran, Venezuela, and Russia. Now they don't like how Saudi Arabia sells oil to China, the only source they wanted China to buy from in the first place so the others don't make money.

Protection money! Was the writer born in Chicago?
BTW I thought the excessive buy of US weapons that until a short while ago were never used was a form of protection money.

 

[delft]

From Christian Science Monitor:

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Thousands of Calif. National Guard vets ordered to repay reenlistment bonuses



A decade after signing up to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan, nearly 10,000 soldiers in the California National Guard have been ordered to repay enlistment bonuses.


By

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Faced with the challenge of maintaining its all-volunteer military as wars dragged on in Iraq and Afghanistan in the mid-2000s, the Pentagon began offering its most generous incentives ever, issuing up-front bonuses to those who agreed to reenlist. The problem is that some of the recipients were ineligible.

The policy resulted in overpayments in every state, but nowhere were recruiters more generous than the California National Guard.

Now nearly 10,000 current and retired soldiers in The Golden State have been ordered to repay all or some of the bonuses they received to incentivize their return to war.

"We want somebody in the government, anybody, to say

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and we’ll stop going after this money," Robert Richmond told The Los Angeles Times.

After being told he qualified for a $15,000 bonus as a special forces soldier, Mr. Richmond, an Army sergeant first class, reenlisted and deployed to Iraq, where he sustained injuries to his back and brain when a roadside bomb detonated.

Then, in 2014, he was shocked to receive a letter ordering him to repay the bonus or face "debt collection action." Richmond had served in the Army too long to be eligible, officials argued. He has appealed.

"I signed a contract that I literally risked my life to fulfill," Richmond said.

A collection letter he received from the Treasury Department in March warned that his debt, counting interest and penalties, had risen to nearly $19,700. Consequently, he has been unable to qualify for a home loan.

The California Guard's incentive manager, Army Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe, pleaded guilty in 2011 to filing false claims after reports of the improper payments came to light in 2010. She was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, and three other officers who pleaded guilty to related charges were put on probation after paying restitution.

While those responsible for the misallocation of funds have been punished, the service members who received the improper bonuses are still suffering under the punishing debt. In a process that concluded last month, the California Guard audited incentive pay for 14,000 soldiers and determined that about 9,700 must repay some or all of their bonuses.

More than $22 million has been recouped thus far, but the process is likely to continue for years because of protests, appeals, and refusals, as the Times reported.

The money was part of the military's retention budget, which

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in as little as five years during the height of the wars, as The Christian Science Monitor reported in 2009.

"These bonuses were used to keep people in,” Christopher Van Meter, a former Army captain, told the Times. The Iraq veteran refinanced his home mortgage to pay back his $25,000 reenlistment bonuses plus $21,000 in student loan repayments.

Maj. Gen. Matthew Beevers, deputy commander of the California Guard, agrees that taking money back from veterans is distasteful.

“At the end of the day, the soldiers ended up paying the largest price,” Major General Beevers said. “We’d be more than happy to absolve these people of their debts. We just can’t do it. We’d be breaking the law.”

Mr. Van Meter, who was awarded a Purple Heart for his injuries sustained in combat in Iraq, said he could not handle the stress and headaches the debt was inflicting.

"I couldn’t take it anymore," he said. "The amount of stress it put us through financially and emotionally was something we wanted to move past."

Material from

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was included in this report.

People sign a contract with a duly authorized representative of the the government who however doesn't follow the rules so after these people execute their part of the contract the government denies its part. This can't happen in a civilized country.

 

[Blackstone]

From Christian Science Monitor:

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People sign a contract with a duly authorized representative of the the government who however doesn't follow the rules so after these people execute their part of the contract the government denies its part. This can't happen in a civilized country.

SNAFUs happen in all countries, I dare say they even happen in the workers' paradise, Communist China.

 

[solarz]

From Christian Science Monitor:

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People sign a contract with a duly authorized representative of the the government who however doesn't follow the rules so after these people execute their part of the contract the government denies its part. This can't happen in a civilized country.

I guess the takeaway lesson here is, don't join the US Military.

 

[broadsword]

SNAFUs happen in all countries, I dare say they even happen in the workers' paradise, Communist China.

Absolutely. The US will find its way out, as China.

 

[Equation]

SNAFUs happen in all countries, I dare say they even happen in the workers' paradise, Communist China.

Yeah but this is totally FUBAR by the US Military. After service, they TAKE AWAY their bonuses? Uh Oh, I smell a veteran protest coming up soon, like in China but only bigger and more dramatic, while the media tries to play it down.