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Corruption is not a necessary factor for a market economy, it is one of its ills that if left uncontrolled or unregulated risks the downfall of the entire market system with loss of confidence among the people in a market system. This BBC report shows the staggering sum of $44 billion taken out of Saigon Commercial Bank. The report says 93% of loans  given by the bank went to Truong My Lan who set up the bank by merging 3 smaller banks, and shows the brazenness and the scale of the corruption. My Lan started with a market stall during Vietnam's shift to a state driven market economy in 1986 like China, and gradually acquired hotels and other property. Nguyen Phu Trong is the General Secretary of the Communist Party since 2011 and president 2018-2021. The risks to the Communist Party of such corruption have become evident and Nguyen Phu Trong as leader of the Communist Party in Vietnam started his campaign against corruption in 2016 after pro business prime ministers of the past had led to Saigon's economy being left unregulated after 1986 in then Doi Moi reforms. It is Vietnam- and China's- lack of familiarity or experience with the market system that has led to tolerance of outright corruption in the past. In no way does a market system need any corruption of any sort to function that damages the credibility of the system with the people. As it is insidious and can affect the whole economy it requires vigilance, oversight and regulatory checks. ...

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Colombia's GDP is $350 billion, in 2025 Venezuela's is $50 billion. Socialism under Chavez imitating Simon Bolivar as shown here starts out well with more housing, health care reaching poorer neighborhoods and parts of the population that were ignored. But only till 2011 in the early years. As mismanagement, corrupt cronies take over the nationalized enterprises, petroleum company fails to invest, and mismanagement of the economy sets in, educated classes leave the country in the class warfare, the results are disastrous. As much as 20-30% of the population leaves, hyperinflation, bad relations with the US, leading to the worst humanitarian disaster in the American continent since 1900.  It shows that the educated classes of every nation bear a major responsibility to  create a healthier society at the beginning so that the glimmers of hope of free services lead to the wrong people ending up in power and mismanagement on a massive scale destroying everything. New York City's educated classes should shoulder the responsibilities that people like Felix Rohatyn as head of MAC describes in his book- Bold Endeavors, that is the true spirit of the Nation (2009). ...

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Greg Ip looks at the Chinese economy its strengths and and many weaknesses including debt and declining foreign investment in 2023, as president Xi visits the US this coming week. With a slowing economy, high youth unemployment and excessive debt, China remains a resilient economy because it has strengths in manufacturing. It would take the US the next decade to build up its manufacturing capabilities after neglecting this important field with mistaken policies for three decades under presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama and Trump. President Biden is taking steps for this new manufacturing revival to take place.

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Najib Razak of the UMNO United Malay National Organization who succeeded post independence leader Mahathir Mohamed of Malaysia is implicated in the1MDB scandal that also involved Goldman Sachs. $4.3 billion is estimated to be stolen from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. Razak is given a15 year jail sentence in a scandal that has rocked Malaysian politics and reduced confidence in Malaysia's investment for modernization. irreparable harm is done to the nation's British inherited institutions for law and order, responsible parliamentary government, following the long premiership of Mahathir, ethnic nationalist "putra" movement of the UMNO, and the governments that followed Mahathir including Razak. Similar problems have affected other countries with ethnic nationalist movements in Sri Lanka where corruption and mismanagement of the state finances and treasury led to lack of funds for essential imports, and in other countries in Asia. Corrupt practices and misuse of state funds intended for development became a feature of government in Indian states following the rule of the Indian Congress party under Jawaharlal Nehru, with ethnic nationalism creating ethnic states in India, and causing irreparable harm to development and modernization with lack of capital and policy decisions. This has led to the lag of modernization in India with China of about 10-15 years that also affects defense at the Himalayan border with China as China's hybrid state capitalist economy surpassed India and matched the US in 2 decades 2000-2025. Only now is India under responsible governance pushing to close the gap and modernize rapidly under a new government in it's third term. Much of the thinking that accompanied post independence decolonization is now under question with it's assumptions that decolonization alone would lead to development is debunked. Modernization as China and India has learned comes from the good and responsible use of abundant capital, abundant labor, and abundant management resources, abundant technological access, good policy and plans at the federal and state levels, and good sustained leadership from the top. ...

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During the November 2011 to February 2012 period Spanish banks increased holdings of government bonds by 68 billion euros, and Italian banks by 54 billion euros under the ECB's Long Term Financing Operation. That program helped to lower bond yields of the two countries for the 1st quarter of 2012. With Spain's economy facing more austerity measures at a time of 23% unemployment, bond yields have moved back up for Spain in April 2012. The increased holdings of government bonds by Spanish banks increases risks at a time when banks in Spain have not increased lending in the economy and hold a large number of bad mortgages in the country's housing bust.

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The Russian central bank under Elvira Nabiullina raises interest rates by 3.5% to 12%. In the first 5 months of 2023 the Russian government spent 50% more in rubles than in the same period in 2022. The increase in spending meant increase in wages and more hiring for production of goods including production for the war effort. The policy was to carry on the war effort without the effects of the war being felt by ordinary Russian citizens. The result has been higher inflation at 7.6%. Nabiullina faces a unique set of challenges to control inflation, maintain the economy even as Russia continues the war effort in Ukraine. 

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China is not experiencing high unemployment in 2012 the way it did in 2009. The lower growth rate of 7-8% is not having an adverse impact on unemployment. This makes it possible for the stimulus this time to be much smaller. There is rising upward pressure on wages. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, CEIC and WSJ, average annual wages at private sector manufacturing companies in current U.S. dollars was up 5% in 2009, 16% in 2010, and 20% in 2011. This is being encouraged by the government as China gradually shifts its economy towards higher domestic consumption and better standards of living for workers. Hon Hai Precision Industry Company added 82,000 workers in China in 2011. Salaries at the Shenzen plant were 2200 yuan or $345 a month in February 2012, an increase of 10%. An April survey by Manpower Group showed that a majority of companies will increase workers or hold employment stable, only 3% of companies will have job cuts. Demographic changes are also playing a part-with fewer people in the 15-19 age range, dropping from 120 million in 2005 to 95 million in 2015, according to UN estimates. The number of migrant workers remains steady at 252 million in 2012, up 4% from 242 million in 2010, according to the Bureau of National Statistics....

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Traditional IPO's have raised $7 billion down a huge 94% from this time last year says this report in the WSJ. IPO of Rivian a new electric car manufacturer in 2021 was priced so high that it made the valuation of the new company at over $70 billion more than that of Ford Motor. Rivian had only made a little over 1000 cars in 2021 and about 7000 cars in the first half of 2021, which shows the size of the excess and the potential waste of capital that could be better allocated to vital needs for the economy such as achieving self reliance in semiconductor chips for the US which is not getting the funding it deserves and needs. These kinds of excesses are now a thing of the past. Larger companies, well known names such as Intel's Mobileye subsidiary or companies with a with a proven track record are now the companies that are more likely to have success with IPO's, as the economic environment, higher interest rates and other changes lead to the withering away of the novel idea startups of the past. Startups that had no meaningful effect on improving people's lives in any significant way, or strengthened the US economy and industrial base, and merely sucked up valuable resources.  It is not that the US lacks the resources to compete effectively with any country in the world including China, in renewables, in semiconductors, in 5G, in new technologies, it is just that hundreds of billions of dollars are going into unproductive channels and wasted. ...

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Dipti Deshpande writes in the Economic Times that how India's economy recovers depends a lot on how well the government tackles the problems of vaccine supplies, vaccination staff and incentives for vaccination to the public, vaccination logistics, and vaccination skepticism. Vaccination plays a large role in the reduction of fear and permits resumption of normal activity as seen in the US, UK and France. Government education of the public on vaccine safety should be conducted on an organized basis across the country starting now for the gaol of vaccinating the entire population by December 2021. In the 200 days remaining in 2021 the government would have to administer over 1000 million doses or at the rate of 5 million doses a day just for the single dose population, with the second dose meaning additional supplies and logistical effort, organized health staffing, all to be organized.  The thrust of this article is that the economy and especially laggard sectors such as services would gain a fully powered recovery if the problems of vaccine supplies and vaccination drives are resolved early with preparation, lessons learned, and proactive action all taking place immediately. The period after the decline in cases to below 50,000 a day which is fast approaching for India is one that needs to be used to take deep yogic breaths, and prepare the Indian mind for the next challenge for government and nation.   ...

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Simply put the party that makes the best case for the economy and for a better future consistently and constantly will prevail as at the end of the day white, black, rural and urban voters will be listening carefully. The cost of living, immigration, the economy, are major issues in 2024. Nate Cohn of the NYT looks at the 2020 election, the 2022 midterms and polling for 2024. He says Republicans are doing better in states they did well in the midterms in 2022. Nationally they are doing as well as in the midterms making gains in noncompetitive blue states such as New York and California where there is less impact of Roe vs Wade abortion rights and voters can show discontent with Democrats for the way they have governed. Trump can also gain with black and Hispanic voters but more in California and New York and Texas noncompetitive states.  Harris does well in Florida, and Texas, and in some red states for the same reason as voters look for alternatives from being tied down to the Republican party or the Trump Republicans.  In the key Electoral College states in midwest Harris is holding up well in polling- in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In these states Black and Hispanics are not in the same population numbers as in other states. ...

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With the government goal of a $5 trillion economy in the next five years, India is expected to be the fourth largest economy in the world by 2026 after the U.S., China and Japan. India moved past France and Britain and will move past Germany by 2026, making the U.S. the only non-Asian economy in the top four. Britain is holding its own and its economy is expected to be larger than France's in five years.

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The US economy is showing a stronger services sector in 2023 as demand for goods slows, manufacturing slows, and there is more spending on travel, leisure and in hospitality sectors. This is shown by recent S&P Global Surveys.

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Of the 45 million US student loan borrowers in 2025- only 11 million are on time with payments. The rest seeing sharp credit score declines that limit their access to home loans, other credit, or increase the costs of access to credit. This limits access to housing, and other needs for this group, it also affects demand in the economy. A recent WSJ report showed Moody Analytics research that 80% of US consumer spending is now done by 20% of the top income earners in the US. Decline in demand from this group will affect the economic growth in the US and how well the stock markets do. This will affect the job growth in the economy month to month.  This means with inaction from the DJT administration and the SCOTUS lack of comprehension of the economic aspects of this issue in ruling out action taken by the Biden administration- that this failure to take action on relief poses added risks to the US economy in 2025. It also means uneven and unbalanced growth where some groups upper income are favored by the virtue of the way the economy operates leaving many young people out of the benefits of growth. This adds to the general feeling of frustration and discontent after the pandemic and after cost of living surges in 2022-2024. It also means university education is no longer affordable or accessible to young people. Other issues play into this such as the surging cost of university education and action needs to be taken to bring this into line with earlier post 1945 patterns where university education was affordable and taken up. The increase in apprenticeship programs is a good thing, yet the gradual turning away of young men from college education is a serious danger to the cultural literacy in the US in 2020-2030. Leaving aside Ivy leagues making state college and universities affordable is one of the big problems needing to be solved as a priority in the US.  ...

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It is not a story that most people grasp or understand- the long term effects of the US immigration surge of 2023 and its source mostly from Venezuela. The  US Congressional Budget Office says labor force in 2033 ten years from now will be larger by 5.2 million people and younger as a result of the immigration surge in 2023 from about 1 million immigrants each year in the 2010's to 3.3 million. About 2.5 million crossed the southwestern border in 2023. Much of it the result of the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and its middle and upper classes leaving the country. This was worsened by the US sanctions on the Maduro government including under president Trump, say experts in an adjoining NYT article on the 7 million people who left Venezuela to go to Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile since 2012, then making their way up the Darien Gap to the US. Something that could have happened under a Republican president if the US Congress could not reach bipartisan agreement on correcting asylum and parole policy. As a result of this surge US Gross Domestic Product  in 2033 will be 3% larger. When the large Asian economies are seeing a aging workforce, Japan for the last decade and China now following Japan, the US labor force will be younger than it would be without this unusual surge in immigration of the last 2 years. The federal deficit will be smaller at 6.4% instead of 7.3% in 2033 as immigrants will pay taxes on income. Another aspect of this larger infusion of immigrants is that after the pandemic shut down immigration entirely there were severe shortages in the hospitality and restaurant, construction, healthcare industries. And with the trillions of dollars in investment that the Biden administration is making with more factories - this will absorb most of the immigrant surge by 2033. With some positive effects in the competition with rising Asian economies China and India. Particularly consider with the younger demographic India of 1.4 billion people. It will mean more factories can be built in the US and there will be workers for these factories in the US at wages that keep the US economy competitive years from now in 2033. This is a sobering aspect of the current situation viewed from what will be seen by America's younger generation. And under the bipartisan compromise in Congress correcting asylum and parole policy that was shut down by the former president, Republican senators understood very well that the immigration surge of 2023 would have some constructive effects for the long term, while its effects on the short term would be mitigated by Biden's commitment to close the border in 2024. This did not happen, yet the future for America's younger generation is bright under the Biden plan for massive investment in manufacturing and jobs in the US, and with the millions of immigrants needed to fill the jobs that investment will create by 2033. It will make America with a younger work force than Europe or China, only India having a younger workforce in 2033. ...

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Guardian's David Smith has short memories as he compares response at Obama's stops and visits in 2012 and compares that to Biden's as he visits Detroit and Atlanta in May 2024. In 2012 in the last weeks of the election Mitt Romney was much closer than is remembered today. Obama was at risk of being a one term president and depended on a strong turnout from Latino voters. Mariachi bands were called out in states where Hispanic vote was critical in these closing weeks. This is also just after the pandemic once in a century event that has affected younger people more than other groups, and after the dislocation and misinformation, the suppression of real information about the massive investment in the economy by president Biden for the first time in 50 years. Obama then lacked the kind of bipartisan support from all groups including Republicans and suburban voters that Biden now has that were never part of the Obama coalition. As shown by Nate Cohn in NYT what Biden is after are the disengaged younger voters and new voters in 2024 that have no awareness of the president's efforts to improve standards of living of the American people, who president Biden is working hard at campaign stop after campaign stop to reach about 6 months before the election. ...

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Project 2025, originating at the Heritage Foundation, most dangerous idea similar to abolishing Social Security is to consider abolishing the US Federal Reserve. Why? Because the Fed was established to avoid banking panics and setup a sound banking system, a sound economic system. It suggests unravelling solutions that were developed after one hundred years of experience gained by US that has made the period since 1950 the least crisis prone compared to prior to Fed's formation in 1913.  Mr. Trump himself said in 2022 that the Heritage Foundation will "lay the groundwork and detail the plans" for what our movement will do, according to the WSJ report." It has become a matter of huge controversy with plans for outright attacks on the civil service, a blueprint of plans to shut down important government agencies such as the Education Department, Department of Homeland Security, and affect the functioning of the government of the United States in accordance with the Constitution.  The most radical is to change the financial system of the US that evolved from the Great Depression and previous economic crises since 1900 that led to the formation of the US Federal Reserve as the central bank that monitors aspects of the economy such as inflation and unemployment. Project 2025 says consider abolishing the US Federal Reserve and replace it with 'free banking' that does not control interest rates or the supply of money. These are untested ideas but more significant is the fact that it is the US Fed that under different presidents has taken the lead in managing the economy when a crisis happened. President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the founding of the US Fed, and its regional Fed system with a. supervisory board in Washington on Dec 23, 1913. Before the Fed the US currency was printed by individual banks and inflation or the economy could not be controlled. This led to banking panics the last in 2007, with great loss to the working people and families of America. It is unthinkable today that individual banks not the central bank the US Fed would issue US currency dollar banknotes. Yet it is just this kind of radical Barry Goldwater type of idea that is being put forward in Project 2025 that is written for a future administration running the country. ...

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Mexican president Nieto's poll numbers are at all time low of 24%, according to Reforma newspaper. He took office in late 2012 and has been hurt by human rights scandal of the murder of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, corruption issues, and failure to improve the economy. The invitation to Trump to visit Mexico left even people close to the president surprised, and was criticized widely inside Mexico. It is not clear what Trump or Nieto gained from the trip. As Trump continued his talk about building a wall on the Mexican border and having Mexico pay for the estimated $23 billion it would cost. He did this in a speech to supporters in Pheonix on the same day he met Nieto, showing the use of teleprompters and prepared script was not his way of campaigning. Just as the message to black people that Democrats take them for granted cannot resonate without the basic message delivered with compassion and understanding- such as done by the presidents Bush and Reagan- so also the message to Hispanic people is suffering from the same lack of empathy. Recent polls show only 3% of blacks support Trump. McCain and Romney gained only 4-6% in the U.S. presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. The message of the wall is also baffling as an election strategy. A Gallup poll in July 2016 shows only 15% of Americans opposing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and only 24% of Republicans. There is another problem in the strategy. The rhetoric about walls and mass deportations, and the Trump temperament combined with handling of nuclear weapons is not winning college educated women in the suburbs with polls showing Trump lagging behind Clinton by about 20 points or 4 million voters with this group. It is hard to undo the damage done by this kind of rhetoric used in the primary elections as it gains distrust of voters. It would require a bad economy with illegal immigrants taking local jobs, and handling of immigration seen as weak, for such a message to gain some national traction. Both are absent for the most part with a steadily improving economy since 2012, lower unemployment, a tough enforcement policy on deportatons under Obama that exceeded that under Geoge W. Bush, and the talk of a wall comes with illegal immigration having declined steeply since the 2008 financial crisis. The real culprit appears to be elsewhere, the triple hit taken from hollowing out of the manufacturing economy that hurt the Conservatives in Canada, the insecurity created for older whites from the job losses and hits to net worth from the 2008-2009 financial crisis, and the increasing loss of access to health care and educational opportunities with high  costs. About 62 million households or the bottom half of the distribution in the U.S. have a net worth of about $10,000, a quarter of this group having zero net worth, according to the Federal Reserve's Janet Yellen at an Inequality Conference in Oct 2014. Problems no wall is going to solve, problems that built up over 2 decades, problems that will take a generation to fix.  It shows the tech miracle of the last 2 decades as a mirage for quality of life of the middle and working class. Tech as a tool to a goal, not a goal in itself, is the better way forward. ...

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Compared to 1971 Bangladesh has come a long, long way, on its 50th anniversary. From 80% of the population struggling with extreme poverty in 1971, Bangladesh now produces enough food for its 167 million population. The economy is only 13% agriculture with most of GDP coming from industrial production and services. Girls education is remarkable. 98% of children have attended primary school and there are more girls in secondary schools than boys. Norwegians and other European observers who visited Bangladesh in 1970's compare the situation with today and are astonished says this report in DW.com. By 2030 the GDP of $409 billion is expected to double, bringing the country close to 1 trillion dollar economy. The garment industry is the second largest after China, with $35 billion a year in exports. It has changed life of women in Bangladesh, employing 4 million people. Remittances from overseas bring in $24.7 billion for 2021. Overall target for exports is $51 billion for 2022. Problems include the rural urban divide with development concentrated in Dhaka and Chittagong, and increased urban poverty. And despite rise in number of children and girls in school the quality of education for a skilled workforce remains poor, says this report in DW.com ...

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The 1.4% decline on an annualized basis for the US economy in the first quarter of 2022 masks evidence of a recovery that is basically strong, says this report in the NYT. Consumer spending was up by 0.7 in the first quarter of 2022, even thought the omicron wave hit, and gas prices were high. This NYT report says the decline resulted mostly from the way inventories and trade figure in the calculation.

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For the Jan. to Nov. 2011 period Japan shows a trade deficit of 2.3 trillion yen. Analysts expect a trade deficit for the full year- the first since 1980 and setting a new trend as long as the yen stays at a high level. The yen is at 77 yen to the dollar in Jan 2012. Japan still maintains a current account surplus because of returns from investments overseas. The Bank of Japan reports that the economy is expected to contract by 0.4% for the current fiscal year.

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The US dollar is rapidly appreciating against currencies such as the Indian rupee, the Japanese yen, the euro and the pound. The aggressive interest rate policy in the US and investor sense that the US central bank will take action against inflation is one reason the US dollar is stronger and will continue to strengthen in coming years. The weakness of emerging market currencies, the Bank of Japan's policy to continue keeping interest rates low, and the stronger US economy vs the European economy as Europe struggles with a war and cutoff of energy supplies from Russia, are other reasons for a stronger dollar in 2023 and beyond.

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NYT's Jeanna Smialek says there are lower inflation expectations with the Fed in the fight. This will help the economy in 2024, and help president Biden in managing the economy. Slower rent increases, and declining demand for housing, cars, with higher interest rates sharply increasing mortgage payments and car leases, is helping to slow inflation. Lower inflation expectations help because buyers are less willing to pay higher prices and falling demand acts to slow price increases by retailers and manufacturers. The Fed's fight against inflation without letting up, and China's slowing economy have reduced demand to where inflation expectations are set to be much lower by 2024.

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Guiding the debt ceiling talks in a safe way that does not distract in any way from the stronger economy that is taking shape with large investments in every sector, and which people can see and feel in their own lives, is the goal of president Biden. It would be a win for Biden if overall spending can be kept at the level of 2023 for the next two years. How he does this is by maneouvres that concede somewhat in some areas- one example is by reducing spending on the Internal Revenue Service by $10 billion from $80 billion to $70 billion, and shift the $10 billion saved to education and other similar spending. The idea is to mitigate the effects of small cuts by shifting money from other places in the budget spending plan. These maneouvres are designed to keep the overall investment largely intact and deliver results in 2023 and 2024 in a rebuilding of America that the people can see. 

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The iphone 16e 2025 for $599 more battery, more camera and larger screen offers more features at the lower end of the price range. One can see this as a phone that helps tackle the cost of living crisis that could hurt Apple sales from buyers with moderate incomes who are cutting back. It could also target a growing middle class buyer segment in India. The e in 16e could stand for economy buyers who want basics in the Apple and could attract upper income buyers of Xiaomi , Huawei and Samsung. Apple iphones have strengths in: seamless ecosytem navigation interface reliable and secure ios software higher resale value Apple discontinues support for older iphones after about 7 years. iPhone 13's can still be used in 2025 4 years old, a good time to change would be by 2026. iPhone 15 was introduced in 2023 which means a good time for changing it is 2028 using a 5 year change which balances the need to update and  update to have access to newer iphones. ...

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Counting only people who voted in 2020 Biden is ahead 2 percentage points. 2024 Biden campaign is complicated by irregular and disengaged voters. Will disengaged mostly younger voters stay home or will they vote? What will happen with the churn- how many of the irregular voters from the last election will turn out and how many stay home. Many are Democrat leaning and as the election campaign progresses they may become more aware and vote but this is by no means certain. Many are younger voters or minority voters who are disengaged and do not follow what is happening. The economy not abortion or the border is important to these voters. President Biden has secured the vote of only 75% of these voters and has to find ways to reach them all.