and stream specialty stores the chain ality ltd the chain initially limited sales of assault rifles to these stores after the two thousand and twelve massacre of twenty children and six adults at sandy hook elementary school the fortune five hundred company also says that they will no longer sell any firearms to anyone under the age of twenty one and will discontinue all sales of high capacity ammunition magazines the corporate statement said that our thoughts and prayers are not enough and listed policies they urge elected officials to pass including universal background checks and a database of prohibited buyers this bold move is reminiscent of c.v.s. alpha's choice to stop selling cigarettes back in the day. the e.u. is demanding that the united kingdom remain subject to the european court of justice the e.c. j. for an indefinite period of time under the bracks divorce proceedings the move puts british prime minister theresa may into yet another big battle may who has

considered e.c.g. jurisdiction over the u.k. as a potential part of the divorce deal is faced with internal pressures from u.k. breakfasters who want nothing to do with the e c j and they're dry for independence from the e.u. the final departure of the u.k. from the e.u. is planned to be at the end of twenty nineteen if the e.u. proposal were to become effective it would indefinitely subject the u.k. to e.c. j. decisions. and mere curia the large commodity trader is seeking permission from the us department of treasury office of foreign asset control oh fact to buy out one point five billion dollars in a loan between rosneft the world's largest publicly traded petroleum company and p d v s a the event of what venezuelan state oil company which holds a major state. citgo the american refiner in an effort to less control of moscow's

influence in the united states p.d.s.a. has borrowed more than six billion dollars from rose enough and has put up a large share of p.t. vs a's ownership as collateral if p.t. vs a defaulted on the loan theoretically rosneft could all in forty nine point nine percent of citgo if approved by ofac mercurial would be permitted to buy p.t. vs a's cit go back to portions of the loan. citi group has become a major banking investor and lone operator in puerto rico including interest in the puerto rican electric power authority known as prefer now is deep and delinquent in loan repayments that will be auctioned off while city is being paid to ensure the

energy goes to the highest private bitter the circumstances have raised issues about which banks are involved in puerto rico and what real role they are playing now here's discuss we're joined by kate long the founder of the puerto rico clearing house kate thank you so much for joining us put this into perspective for us first of all the overall puerto rican debt and then let's talk specifically about prepaid please. sure puerto rico has issued basically since the one nine hundred fifty s. and when they started to fall tina twenty fifteen they had about seventy two billion dollars of debt outstanding. that includes seventeen classes of debt for the central government and for the utilities it's the largest municipal bankruptcy probably in the history of the united states and no state level entity has to fall today since in one nine hundred thirty s. when arkansas defaulted on debt there just came from the local communities. and what was the problem i mean was it poor management the electric power company there

are or are there is something else going on just too expensive to provide power. well that's a lot of things part so proper is the largest publicly owned utility in the united states it has the poorest safety record in the united states probably around fifteen or sixteen percent of the electricity they produce is taken through a legal means it's theft essentially. it probably was a public utility became a place for you know basically brothers and sisters and cousins to work. they had a terrible you know issue of just even building out the system the u.s. army corps of engineers are there now repairing it after the hurricane and said you know really poles were just barely put into the ground when you know and don't meet you know standards that you would find on the mainland so there's this whole raft of issues there and then they kept issuing debt on top of all those operational problems and there's issues you know related to late fuel fuel prices that they've

paid there's a case in federal court now where they overpaid over a billion dollars in for fuel to venezuela and other suppliers so there's this raft of problems and you mentioned privatization and that's basically where they need to go it sort of sounds like it were the people but the board you know the general manager or president were they political appointees with this sort of you know quote to use them at its worst yep yep that's it you know the so the governor it has changed numerous times in less number of years but the governor essentially appoints the members of the board of couple were elected in the past like the consumer won and then the governor also appoints the upper management approach and you know there's been testimony that every time a governor changed that they would change centrally all the people running it so you know instead of having professional management there to oversee and make sure the utility is running well it was just kind of like you know friends are for you

know contributors positions and stuff you know patronage can be good in some cases but it's a pretty poor policy by and large let me ask you because. the article i read kate talked about you know city and it mentioned in there that one point they had a seven hundred eighteen percent interest rate now i mean obviously. you know all these problems we've been discussing but boy a seven hundred eighteen percent interest rate if that's the case would certainly way any borrower down is that a typo or a well how do they come up with that number so what's the dead the private. interest rates like four to six percent maybe even maxing out the seven hundred eighteen percent which is people that are not the market people like to toss around it's just a particular structure upon called a capital appreciation and it's basically a zero coupon and you can see in the treasury market so i mean if you want to look

at it like that that you're not accruing any interest till till the end you know when the bottom of chores i guess you could say it was had that high rate but just a particular structure it's essentially. you know a lender gives the money to the utility now and gets all the interest and principal back when the bottom of chairs so kate is there any let's talk more broadly about puerto rico and their debt is there some agreement to life seen figures all over the map but maybe i'm reading the wrong places is there some agreement on what the actual number of the puerto rican debt is. yes so basically the bonded pretty goes around seventy two billion there is some a fair amount of this capital appreciation debt which depending on how you want to value that could boost it up there's also another forty to fifty billion dollars of unfunded pension liabilities which most people consider debt and secured so maybe that's part of what you're seeing is this bond in debt in bonded debt plus pensions

and what role are the banks playing this i know that with prepaid you know city is going to be involved in the auction but there are other major lending institutions involved in the puerto rican overall now so it's like the last deal last time that was in the market was march of two thousand and fourteen they issued a couple billion dollars of jim obligation to twenty firms. that were helped adroit that but they haven't issued any debts instant city did not participate in the deal in two thousand fourteen hundred but they have been the financial advisor to the oversight board which is the body that congress put in place to try and straighten a puerto rico so what are they going to do we have a sixty seconds left can you solve the problems in sixty seconds how are they going to get out of debt. yes so that basically they need to shrink the government because they have you know a lot of people been leaving because of the hurricane they need to just take some really active anti-corruption measures they need to work consensually with

creditors to get this debt restructured and they need to also improve the schools there are very important and you know basically pretty close a lot of really positive things but they just need to start acting more grown up a thing let me before we go you know we talk about economics and that's what our show is but i hate to you know ask about just that stuff without asking about the people there you get any reports of the recovery effort to after the hurricane you know i talk to puerto ricans are you know many every day and basically in the urban areas most everything is operating you know near to normal and then you go into the rural areas where power has not been restored for a number of people those people are suffering there's no question and you know the army corps pushing hard and the private contractors and i guess prep as workers to appreciate hard to get that last fifteen percent of people in power it's been five months so. you know people have suffered a lot their number of people have suffered a lot so thank you for the update both on the economics and on the personal

circumstance kate long the founder of the puerto rico clearinghouse we appreciate your time thanks but. we're back in a moment so don't go far because when we return alex mahela bitch tells us why the chinese government is seizing billions of dollars worth of canadian real estate plus boris silly as he and i talked about those toxic exchange traded funds and here are the numbers at the closing bell all three major stock markets down for a second day in a row. from north korea to syria's president donald trump's foreign policy is literally all over the map north korea says it is open to direct talks with washington only to be met with preconditions in syria peace is within view this is not what the trumpet

ministration wants. i've played for many clubs over the years so i know the game inside out it's. football isn't only about what happens on the pitch put the final school it's about the passion from the fans it's the age of the super manager killian erroneous and spending two hundred twenty million on one player. it's an experience like nothing else i want to because i want to share what i think what i know about the beautiful game played great so one more chimes for. the base this minute. or.

there's a big push back in south korea over president moon j. ends a minimum wage increase of sixteen percent which is in u.s. dollar equivalent six dollars and ninety two cents per hour this was the largest pay hike since two thousand and it's already having a real positive effect on four point six million south koreans who represent about a quarter of the nation's workforce but mr j.n. is also urging the wages go even higher by twenty twenty now small and medium sized businesses in the country are bucking saying that they will need to lay off workers

if it continues a representative a business a business association said the increases are becoming unbearable and a study has shown that ninety nine percent or ninety percent rather of businesses say they may need to cut workers from payrolls altogether. top military officials in saudi arabia have been replaced in the country's continuing shake up king mohammed bin solomon m.b.'s has appointed a new military chief of staff and commanders for land and sea forces in an effort to reshape his military last year hundreds of business in saudi officials and princes and saudi officials were rounded up as part of an anti-corruption effort and held in the ritz carlton hotel while most of those individuals have reached unpublicized settlements some remain under house arrest although they do so in style and speaking of saudi arabia many are eagerly awaiting a decision on when saudi aramco will be there will be there are initial public

offering the i.p.o. as various exchanges around the world including the new york stock exchange vie to be the trading venue for the primo petroleum based stock u.s. president donald trump has supported the around call i.b.o. being housed at n.y.s.e. . and t. boone pickens the famed oil man and corporate raider has a stablished an exchange traded fund himself an e.t.f. it's called the pickens oil response e.t.f. and it began trading today under the stock ticker boon b o o n at the new york stock exchange and why ses says this is the first time it has branded an individual's name with the stock ticker moniker. and now we move north to toronto to hear a tale about how the chinese government is seizing billions of dollars worth of canadian real estate alledge mahela that joins us alex it seems like china is doing some cleaning house which has poured over some into your country what exactly is

going on up there so that it definitely has as you mentioned billions of dollars of real estate estate it's a company called and bank it's a massive insurance company from china they bought up tons of canadian real estate and now they're under investigation in particular it's their c.e.o. by the name of lou we they're basically under investigation by the china insurance regulatory commission due to suspicion of economic crimes we know that the government there and china president and his government have been doing a lot to weed out corruption this seems to be another step in that direction and just happens to be that canada is caught in the middle of this one now that the chinese government has basically taken these assets they are planning on temporarily holding them for about a year but they have the ability to sell whatever they want off so really these assets that happen to be in canada are in the chinese government's hands this one of those things that a lot of people here in this country find perplexing is the fact of the chinese

company was able to buy so much assets in canada and this is an s. o. we so it's actually a company run by the chinese government it's a government company it's not a private company right so these are all concerning elements to it now in canada we're going to give you a little. a breakdown of what they have here in vancouver for example they have the ben tall center which is an office office complex in that city also alberta and british columbia affected by this they own a very large senior care company that happens to hold a lot of real estate assets and here in toronto we're looking at the h.s.b.c. building in toronto again this was all approved by the canadian government and that's why a lot of people are right now looking out what actually happened here about how much money about much real estate is in the hands of the chinese government so alex are they i mean is any big buildings like h.s.b.c. bank i mean are they actually taking it back what i mean what are they what are they doing and so we said we have to have i say they're seizing it we've say

they're seizing it what it what are they seizing actually what they're seizing a company's assets and a company that is causing problems for china in china and that's it's this economic crime thing so as might happen here as might happen in the states i mean once you get into this mix of that you're have tons of shareholders or in this case you have tons of clients the government sometimes has to step in to secure those clients and that's what the chinese government's doing is trying to make the clients of this insurance company to secure their assets and to secure their ability to move forward otherwise this company if it gets into trouble if there's actually economic crimes happening well everybody might go under then what sort of economic crimes do you think they're speaking of alex you know you know what will happen to china you have a lot of it like there was a lot of corruption in china in the past we know that president g. is doing all his best to to win this out and this is something that has been ongoing in this effort to weed out corruption is massive it's still

a moving effort this means that he's digging into his own government into the communist party and nobody here is safe if you're involved in any type of business that you know might smell to high heaven while president g.'s going to be down your back and this happens to be one of these examples of this and for the canadian government the problem here is. we have a lot of chinese investment in this company in this country coming from as always and this is the equation i'm going to just bring up a quick graph here just so you can see how much of it actually is s. so we so this is state owned enterprises compared to a private so you can see that close to six billion dollars canadian but for over six billion baht four point five billion u.s. is is in canada and it's just a small fraction we're looking from private to private companies from china so this is the concern also we know the liberal governments now thinking of opening up energy to the chinese government we're in free trade talks with them so a lot of people are concerned with this especially when you see something like this going down super interesting alex thank you artie correspondence alex mahela bitch

take care thank you. and we're here to talk a little bit more about exchange traded products and we're joined again by boris li f.c. and boris is a member of the nodal exchange and formally of the international security exchange and the dortch of bursa group morris good to be with you again last time we spoke a little bit about exchange traded products and there's been an investigation by the financial other financial regulatory association and perhaps the f.c.c. is looking into this even perhaps my old agency the c f.t.c. because these exchange traded products that we've been discussing last several weeks we spoke last time that we were together involved the volatility of decks explain first of all what the volatility index is sometimes they call the fear

gauge explain to our viewers what that is short so the vix at the c.b.o.t. has been around for quite some time it uses a combination of implied volatility calculations based off of s. and p. five hundred options that is the flagship product of the c b only to create and then. x. that implies near term volatility now over the past dozen years it's become an incredibly successful vix futures products and a vix options products so the vix itself is just is just a data point though it but it that you're saying that the trading on that a future is related to the vix is now a traded product that's exactly right and it's a traded product first it was a traded product in the futures and options space while the agency regulated that then take it from there but now it's also it's also now wrapped inside of exchange traded products the flagship and the regulated by the f.c.c.

regulated as easy to products that's right it's an exchange traded product listed on a regular equities exchange that holds vix futures and now that's the v x x and there are other products versions of that product leverage products that either directly hold the x. futures that's the ticket for them or they are exchange traded notes actual over the counter swaps sponsored by banks like credit suisse for example that provider we turn based on the performance of vix futures so that's a great background and thank you for explaining it because i think a lot of people are unclear about where these things fit the vix what is a data point vix futures and options are traded in the futures and options world regulated by the see if t.c. vix related equity products are traded at like the new york stock exchange and regulated by the securities exchange for a little convoluted but you did

a great job of explaining that and hopefully you did they're wrapping it up ok so in these products you're just a you're just started to talk about how there is an extra added bonus and i've talked in recent days about where. when you are at a casino and maybe you've made a little bit of money and you're walking out and there is this final big slot machine and you can win you know five times your what you put in but it cost you twenty dollars but you're up see a figure you go with it now that may be an unfair analogy to these inverse vix related products but there is a similarity in that you are they are one that the profits for losses are compounded daily so exchange traded funds which people know it have been around for decades are tracking like the s. and p. five hundred really a legitimate thing and i'm not saying the others aren't legitimate but they're way

more complex explain not just the inverse and the two three times but explain why they are complex the reason they're complex is that a lot of people don't realize that they reset daily as you point out a regular stock e.t.p. one the tracks the s. and p. or the russell they simply hold a basket of stocks and reflect their day to day value a lot of the leverage products and the e.t.f. ends they don't do the exchange traded notes they reset every day so every day is a brand new day and at the end of the day whatever happens it happens and that's one of the reason some of these funds and you could lose two sometimes three times what you lost that day so it's not just a little bit it's not just what the market moved it's multiplied amplifier that day up or down which is why they are really to me and i'm curious of it in your view to me they require

a little bit different level of disclosure for average investors or maybe they're just not a product for an average investor maybe they're only as sophisticated investors i mean i'm not saying that these aren't potentially good products for risk management but what's your view well i think that's an excellent point i think there are a couple of. issues one of the major ones that's being discussed now in a way that it hadn't before is in fact suitability so these are f.c.c. approved exchange listed products available to every securities account institutional retail investors of all levels retail investors who can't even trade options because they have been approved in fact can freely purchase these inverse leveraged products now it's up to the individual brokers to decide whether or not it's suitable and each one of them has the ability to prevent access to those products and some of them have some of them have done so after the fact but the f.c.c. is now also looking at whether or not these products perhaps should have never been

approved in the first place and what additional disclosures might be required the fact is most people don't read disclosures and that doesn't just apply to retail investors most sophisticated investors don't read disclosures either however those investors tend to have a broader and more generally sophisticated understanding of the dangers and the implications of being a long or short some of these funds well you and. many of our viewers may find this surprising but as a former regulator i agree that there's too many disclosures out there because there's so many pages that you eat that don't mean anything and you just it so but for these products so i'm also a big believer in trying to have regulations that live and breathe new change and maybe they should go through and find out which one of these disclosure requirements that they need to delete and then after they've done that perhaps they should go back in and put in big red twenty four point type with

a skull and crossbones and be careful about these a.t.p.'s. thank you so much for being with us sure appreciate it thank you for having me. and finally aircraft maker boeing has reached a tentative deal with the trump administration for two new replacement air force one aircraft the total cost of the seven forty seven's is estimated at three point nine billion dollars a white house spokesperson claim that president trump haggled the price down by one point four billion dollars you may recall that the president had complained about the cost of the aircraft on twitter prompting boeing to point out the unique and costly needs of a presidential plane while there have been some cynics sniping at the president if it's actually save some money good for him now he can go on to the other four hundred forty billion dollars in annual deficit godspeed thanks for watching be sure to catch boom bust on youtube youtube dot com slash boom bust r.t.

see you next time. you can't. honestly. think. feel and you know they have a bottomless shyness six million. an

estimated eight says since i'm very sorry now living in greece. you know still more go. to your home in there you go food shopping for many sell their bodies just to make ends meet it's. always in the second or the one the second on again you know all the sins and when that is the hope and the says in the last things. all there is turns to dealing drugs to make a living. well that's the single isn't love love love is a little. game of it been. looted who. everybody i'm stephen both gosh i'm a task hollywood guy you know suspects every proud american first of all i'm just washed and r.v.'s to suggest this is my buddy max famous financial guru and well

he's a little bit different i'm not a going to the loner windows up with all the drama happening in our country i'm shooting the brood have some fun meet everyday americans come home and cook for the store to bridge the gap this is the great american people. look. at the moment we've had the period of fake the flavor of engineer by all the central banks and the they don't have the control that they think they have and that once you start to see this being picked up in markets like the gold market and others you know you've got to start to see it feed on itself in a big way.

the ceasefire in the syria don't crave fails for a second day as reports of terrorist trailing stop hundreds of civilians leaving a war torn area. facebook admits it still found no sign that russia interfered in the u.k.'s proxy vote despite a renewed effort to dig up proof. and south africa's parliament passes a measure that could see the entire white population stripped of their land without compensation. you know watching the latest headlines here at r.t. international thank you.