Leverage

Days after Congress passed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act last week [with a score of almost communist party discipline], Beijing vowed to take countermeasures if president Trump signed the document. Beijing left out specifics, fueling concerns that China would pull out of trade negotiations with the US. But after Trump signed the bill on Wednesday, Beijing only released a strong verbal protest. They would have been better off saying nothing. It would have made Western analysts raise their eyebrows and maybe shudder a little…

Damian Paletta is the Washington Post's White House economic policy reporter and before we get into the much-discussed piece he wrote over the weekend, How regulators, Republicans and big banks fought for a big increase in lucrative but risky corporate loans, let's look at which current members of Congress have taken the most in bribes from the Finance Sector.