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Foreign Developed-Markets Debt 5.06%I generally assume that promo material borrows from legal filings - companies risk suits if they deviate. What the VG prospectus says is:
Corporate Bonds 2.29%
Sovereign Bonds 2.73%
Cash & Net Other Assets 0.03%
Emerging-Markets Debt 15.76%
Corporate Bonds 4.02%
Sovereign Bonds 10.80%
Floating-Rate Debt 0.40%
Cash & Net Other Assets 0.55%
While the wording doesn't say that this list is exhaustive ("bonds which include ...."), developed market debt is conspicuous by its absence. The odd wording is consistent with not considering corporate foreign debt to be foreign debt.Under normal circumstances, the Fund will invest at least 80% of its assets in bonds, which include fixed income securities such as corporate bonds; emerging market bonds; and U.S. Treasury obligations and other U.S. government and agency securities
I've been tracking, but do not own, AGEPX. It's offered as a frontier-market bond fund. Morningstar pegs its yield at 8.75%. I thought that was higher than you could find anywhere else, but that Eaton Vance fund is a tiny bit higher. For what it's worth, the EV fund gets just a neutral ranking, while AGEPX is awarded a bronze decoration at Morningstar. But then again, Morningstar's proprietary system seems indecipherable. And one of those two is granted 5 stars, while the other holds a 4-star rating. Check the monthly pay-outs, if you hasve not done it. One reason I'm not yet in AGEPX is because I'm getting monthly divs that are as good or better in my domestic junk bond fund: TUHYX. I'm still behind the curve in terms of my losses in that fund, but the YTD move is quite positive, so far. So, I'm riding the wave.Based on Ms. Sonal Desai input I am looking into an emerging market bond fund EADOX. Is anyone else considering them?
Reread the article you cited. All the manufacturing was done in Saipan, USA.So, one famous maker of blue jeans hired Vietnamese workers because they could be paid in peanuts. The jeans were manufactured, finished, ready to wear. Then they were shipped to Saipan.
That's a way of circumventing US labor laws; nevertheless, those workers were employed in the USA, which is all that the label "Made in the USA" communicates. It represents jobs, not wages or working conditions.The island of Saipan is in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI). Beginning in the 1980s, many clothing manufacturers had their garments made in Saipan because such items could be labelled “Made in the USA”. ...
In 1999, three separate lawsuits were filed in US state and federal courts against numerous American retail apparel companies and Saipan-based garment factories.
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/complying-made-usa-standardFor a product to be called Made in USA, or claimed to be of domestic origin without qualifications or limits on the claim, the product must be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S. The term "United States," as referred to in the Enforcement Policy Statement, includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territories and possessions.
That was then. Now:According to U.S. government reports and information contained in lawsuits, garment workers from China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Thailand and elsewhere pay $2,000 to $7,000 per worker to obtain jobs in the Mariana Islands that frequently have them working 12 hours a day, seven days a week for $3.05 an hour, often without overtime pay.
...
in 1998, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt spoke of the relationship established between the U.S. Congress and the Mariana Islands in 1976 that was intended to provide a transitional economic stimulus but which has produced an experiment “gone horribly awry. It has created a plantation economy, dependent upon the massive importation on a continuing basis of low-paid, vulnerable, short-term indentured workers.” Babbit called the situation in the Northern Mariana Islands a “disgrace.”
Most of the garment workers in Saipan come from China.
https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-22-105271.pdfThe Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 ... included a provision to apply U.S. minimum wage to the CNMI [Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands], increasing the CNMI’s minimum wage in periodic increments until it reached the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which it did on September 30, 2018
McLennan will examine the risks of monetary and fiscal tightening amidst high debt levels in the U.S. and discuss the types of companies that can succeed despite these challenges.
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