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Bernanke in reflections on his policies for quantitative easing in response to the 2008 financial crisis, says the policies were intended to protect Main Street and the average American, even though this is not readily apparent. He says the policies did not lead to inflation as critics have stated, and one has only to look at today's inflation statistics to know this- referring critics to the government CPI report in Jan 2014 that consumer prices went up by 1.5% in 2013 and less than 2% for 2012. Bernanke says he hopes he took the right actions, and still retains the conviction that the American economy will recover losses from the 2008 financial crisis- even though the answers to this questions won't be seen for some time.

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The Seattle area, Bay area, Denver show slowing in rent and housing prices with improvement in affordability, increasing vacancies for rental housing. The housing and rental part makes an outsize part of the CPI index -35%. As prices of housing decline this has an effect on inflation. Fed chairman Powell says activity in the housing area has flattened out and remains well below levels in 2022. One reason Powell says he may cut interest rates next year.

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The inflation worse than Germany in the Great Depression, and the collapse of the economy made worse by US sanctions of Democratic and Republican administrations on Venezuela's Maduro regime has led to the largest migration in the history of Latin America. About 7 million refugees leaving a country of about 28 million people or a fourth of the population in a large oil producing country. Socialist Policies of Bolivarist military leaders promoting populism such as oil at pennies a gallon led to the collapse spiralling inflation, and as relations worsened with the US and its oil sector was neglected. US sanctions played a part by 2012. Yet the economy worsened with further deterioration and stronger sanctions under the Trump administration by 2017.  The situation is such that even the US and both parties had never anticipated this, and not the middle and educated, or the working classes in Venezuela. Such a massive failure has never happened in Latin America in its whole history in the twentieth century. Considering the scale of this disaster, actions of all parties in Venezuela, and the political parties in the US have at every step exacerbated the situation. For further interest on this topic use search term Venezuela. ...

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Who will take up the difficult work in American childcare centers at $10-$15 per hour when retailers such as Amazon and Target are paying $20-$25 an hour during labor shortages in the US in 2021. As a result thousands of childcare centers in the US are closing and others are operating at a fourth or fifth part of their capacity. The result- less childcare and fewer women able to return to the workforce. Fewer men who can go back to work if caring for a child. This leads to further labor shortages. For a long time retailers like Amazon and Target were faulted for paying wages that made it difficult for workers to support their families. With the increase in inflation of about 5% in 2020-2021 it is even more difficult to pay for essential food and clothing. Another problem that America and Europe have lived through under different administrations in the last 2 decades is now getting even worse. Left to markets alone the whole system breaks down when one by one essential services such as healthcare, sanitation, childcare, transportation, cannot be provided. The US is facing an existential crisis not just in climate change but also in childcare, healthcare services. Both are caused by same source, a lack of emphasis on the right and essential national priorities. The causes go back to faulty capital allocation in America and Europe. $390 billion is allocated for childcare in Biden's plan in October, yet the Biden Families and Workers plan faces resistance. Gradually many of president Biden's programs for women including paid leave, child care and others are being shriveled into smaller and smaller amounts and the $3.9 trillion in spending for the workers and families plan is down now to $2 trillion.  The US and Europe face splits in society with one more urban and from the professional classes and the other more rural and in smaller urban communities and from the less educated classes each having different priorities. Only a clear resolution in the proper direction can bring relief for women, children and all segments of society, needed for a good society. ...

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The Tories are seen shifting their position from working with the unions during the pandemic and Boris Johnson's position that there would be no return to the period of "low wages, low skills, and low productivity," in this analysis in The Guardian. Faced with risks of higher inflation in Britain the conservatives have shifted to supporting no more than a 3% wage increase for rail workers in the face of 8% increase in inflation in Britain in 2022. Rail airline, other workers,, and the government now are on opposite sides on wages after joining together during the pandemic. Shortages of workers have pushed up wages in some sectors but others are lagging behind including transport workers, leading to the rail strike and other strikes of public sector workers.

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US inflation was up 3% in January 2025. Egg prices were up 15%.

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Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviews Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas and asks him direct questions about the border with Mexico, published Feb 2, 2024 in NYT. Why the surge in migrants asks Navarro. Mayorkas is himself a Cuban born immigrant. Republicans in the House are impeaching Mayorkas. Navarro asks can you clearly say what has gotten us to this place and what went wrong? Clearly something had happened in Latin America. Central America drove migrants north after conflicts in Salvador, in Nicaragua and drought affecting Guatemala's agriculture for over 2 decades under different administrations. Mayorkas says in response to the question that the world is experiencing the largest level of human displacement that it has seen since World War II. He says the entire hemisphere is experiencing the enormous displacement in Venezuela as its economy collapsed. During the nineteenth century after president Monroe put forward the Monroe Doctrine that created a uniquely American sphere that asked European powers to stay away from the Americas north and south, any attempt by European powers was seen as an hostile act. It was American opposition to European colonialism. By the time of the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations this policy was not followed with the intervention of the Soviet Union in Cuba leading to a a wave of refugees from Cuba in the sixties. In the last decade the situation in Venezuela has worsened to the point that 8 million people have left Venezuela for neighboring nations, 2 million to Colombia alone, destabilizing the southern hemisphere. Venezuelans many from the educated middle class form the bulk of the surge in migrants across the US border with Mexico in 2022 and 2023. The problems were actually exacerbated under the Republican administration as the Venezuelan inflation spiralled after 2016 skyrocketing into hyper inflation by 2018 leading to the flow of immigrants outward that reached 8 million. This kind of hyperinflation the worst in the history of Latin America need not have happened with better managing of the crisis at that time. Mayorkas says the problem is that America's system of asylum is broken and both parties need to fix it. This is proposed by Tillis-Graham and Lankford all Republicans in the US Senate with president Biden's support. When he joined the Department of Homeland Security in 2009 Mayorkas says, US Border Patrol chief told him the real problem was that from the moment a migrant claims asylum at the border under US law and the adjudication of that claim it takes several years. This is the root of the problem the law can be fixed with the will of enlightened persons in both parties by simply passing a new law. Immigrants from Latin America are just as likely to vote Republican as Democratic and this may be particularly true for Venezuela's middle class that left the country as the economy collapsed with policies that led to inflation not seen in this hemisphere.  The other alternative is for the US and both parties to agree to what would be today's version of the Monroe doctrine- then opposing European colonialism, now opposing the breakup from within of Democratic countries in Latin America leading to waves of migration north of the border and causing upheavals all over the western hemisphere. Much less a policy of such resolution both parties have failed to fix basic policies of asylum and parole that today are being addressed by legislation being put together by Senator Lankford of Oklahoma, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, Senator Tillis of North Carolina, three core states that are Republican since the Civil War, with the help of the White House and Senator Schumer. Yet in the House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson calls it dead on arrival simply refusing to break the status quo. ...

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Gerard Baker in the WSJ says the abortion rulings of the Supreme Court and the Inflation Reduction Act, Climate Change bills have energized Democrats. He says that as the chances of president Trump running as the nominee of the Republican party in 2024 increased in August, the electoral prospects for Congress of the Republican party have diminished. He says the Mar-a-lago taking of documents by FBI and investigation are also now seen as part of national security issues.

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The workforce participation rate reached a high of 84.5% in 2023. WSJ points to how the flexibility to work from home, remote work, is playing a role in bringing more women, and men into the workforce. More jobs are being created 275,000 in February, and the economy is resilient with inflation coming under control with a larger supply of labor productively used in the economy. Additional immigration, though the need for it to be organized is clear, has added to supply of labor.

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A recent study by the IMF shows that China has accumulated foreign exchange reserves that are twice what would be needed for traditional purposes such as supporting the economy in a financial crisis. China is still very much a developing country with per capita annual income of $3000, low consumer spending, and rising inflation. This makes the policy of accumulating reserves and preserving an undervalued exchange rate to support export companies counterproductive. There is growing debate about this as inflation is becoming difficult to control. Yu Yongding, an advisor to the PBOC monetary policy committee says China as a developing country should not be exporting capital, which should be used to raise living standards. A rising exchange rate would increase spending power of people throughout China. Fan Gang, head of China's National Economic Research Institute, was a member of the central bank monetary policy committee. He wrote in a recent essay arguing for a higher exchange rate, and societal, tax and other changes that help increase China's household spending. Central Bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan said recently that China's foreign exchange reserves have exceeded reasonable levels that the country needs, adding to inflation risks and making it difficult to conduct monetary policy. The reserves are now over $3 trillion, pasing that mark in March 2011 after increasing 25% in the last year....

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A Lebanese shopkeeper's son who is a lawyer, did his Masters degree in Economics at the University of Sao Paulo. In this interview he is shown as a tucano, a member of the white, college educated, wealthy and male group in Brazil, also the name of the centre right Social Democracy party of Cardozo since the 1994 elections. PT's Lula da Silva elected as president in 2002 turned to Haddad to run the Education ministry in 2005. Since then Haddad has mediated between worker's factions and the moderate elements in the PT Party of Trabajadores or Workers Party, the party Lula founded with others in 1980 during the redemocratization period. During the period when Lula was in prison in 2018- after the election in which Haddad lost 45% to 55% to a representative of the military and centre far right parties Captain Jair Bolsanaro- Haddad visited Lula in prison.  Haddad is now Finance Minister in Brazil with inflation at 4.5%, unemployment at 7.5%, and GDP growth of 1.5% following 3% growth in GDP in 2023. Haddad says in this interview that he is seen as austerica within the PT because of his economic policies. Popularity of PT has dropped with Lula's approval at a low of 28 percent in June 2025. ...

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Wages have gone up less in Europe than in the US. In the last 3 months of 2021 wages were up 1.2 % and inflation was up 4.7% for a fall in real wages of 3.1%, which has accelerated since then with the war in Ukraine and shortages of energy and food supplies. A YouGov poll shows that 15% of Germans cannot afford basic necessities and 53% are concerned about rising prices. Because basic things like food and energy where prices have gone up the most also take up large portions of the budget for lower income households. In Germany some unions are giving one off payments for energy bills and other costs to workers till negotiations lead to a settlement on increasing wages. The situation is similar in Greece, Italy and France. In Greece the government has given $3 billion for subsidies on gas and electric bills. Elections are now focusing on cost of living as in France where the second and third place winners in the first round Le Pen and Melenchon together took about half of the vote. ...

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Spain's deficit as a percentage of GDP is expected to be 6.0 percent for 2011. The target set by the Rajoy government is for the deficit to be lowered to 4.4% in 2012. Newly elected prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, told parliament that the "outlook could not be darker," with the economy expected to contract in the fourth quarter and in 2012. Rajoy, plans to introduce emergency budget measures on Dec. 30, 2011, labor market changes in the first quarter of 2012, and a banking sector cleanup in the first half of 2012. Savings of 16.5 billion euros will be needed to meet the 4.4% of GDP deficit target for 2012. Rajoy is studying the situation before announcing budget cuts. He affirmed that pensions which were frozen in 2011, will be raised in 2012 in line with inflation. He enjoys the support of France's president Sarkozy and German chancellor Merkel, as all three leaders are heads of conservative parties in Europe, and has excellent rapport with them going back to the period when Rajoy led the opposition party in Spain....

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Apple follows Microsoft in increasing workers pay. Apple increased the hourly pay for workers to $22, increase of 45% over 2018. It follows Microsoft which has doubled its worldwide budget for meit based pay increases. Annual increases are moved up by 3 months and new pay increases take effect in July at Apple. Apple shares have fallen 21% this year to May, making stock based awards ineffective.  Apple has paused plans to call workers to office for at least 3 days a week as coronavirus cases rise again in California. Apple was one of the first companies to move to remote work in 2020. The pandemic has increased Apple sales tremendously of laptops and iphones so that the increase in workers pay was long overdue. In this sense the Biden administration has brought with it president Biden's genuine and deeply felt concerns for workers and families to the forefront of company and workers attention. Overall for private and government employers the first quarter of 2022 brought with it a 4.5% increase in workers pay, says the Labor Department. Inflation was higher and outpaced worker wage increases so that worker pay has more room to grow under president Biden's leadership. ...

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The jobless rate of 7.1% in Germany in April 2011, is down from 7.8% in the prior year. In the states of Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemberg, where BMW and Daimler are located, the unemployment rate is down to 4% in April. Jurg Kramer, chief economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, says this could lead to higher inflation. Inflation went up to an annual rate of 2.6% in April. The ECB raised the official interest rate to 1.25% in April, but Kramer says the rate appropriate for Germany is more like 3%. The euro is rising with expectations that the ECB will raise rates further. The euro was at $1.49 on April 28, 2011. Kramer also cites some factors that could slow inflation and wage increases in Germany- most union wage contracts continue till 2012, and the change that allows people from Eastern European countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic to be easily hired.

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Tether is a cryptocurrency based out of the Virgin Islands that is pegged to the dollar 1:1. It has $120 billion in assets mostly safe US Treasury bills, and gold, bitcoin. It made $6.2 billion in profit for its owners more than Black Rock largest American asset manager fund. What does this mean? It offers an outlet for trade in oil for Russia and other countries such as Venezuela. At the same time it is useful to people in countries with high inflation such as Argentina and Turkey  where people use it to protect their assets from inflation erosion. When its use is widespread this also results in diversion of funds away from the Treasury as in Venezuela where an oil minister was toppled, says this WSJ report. And at the same time it gives protection to Venezuelans from extreme inflation. How it works- Tether Holdings issues virtual coins to a select number of direct customers, mostly trading firms, who wire real world dollars in exchange for Tether.  Tether buys US Treasury bills with these dollars to back Tether's value. Who runs Tether? Tether's cofounders included a plastic surgeon Giancarlo Devasini. All co-founders sold out to Devasini, who runs it from an enclave in southern coast of France. The company was founded in 2014. Interest was slim in a stable token backed by US Treasury bills. Then in 2020-21 bull run in the stock market traders started using it to buy and sell out of risky bets. It's market capitalization exploded from $4 billion to about $80 billion.  Tether says it avoids illicit transactions. WSJ report says 2713 wallets or about $1.2 billion were blacklisted, this out of $153 billion provided by Tether to its 2 popular blockchains. Rest of the funds already sent on, says WSJ. ...

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A general strike in Argentina in Nov. 2012 to protest rising inflation, estimated at 25%, and demands for a reduction in federal taxes for workers. The economy has deteriorated since the election of Christina Kirchner as president in 2011. Kirchner also has a fallout with the major unions.

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The problems that hit the UK economy with the announcement of unfunded tax cuts were worsened by very poor communications, the cavalier attitude of the new Truss government and finance minister Kwarteng, and a lack of experience, says this report in the WSJ.The toxic mix of inflation, higher interest rates particularly in the US, and the conflicting messages from the Conservative party with critics within the Conservatives calling the step misguided, had a strong impact on financial markets. Yields on British government bonds jumped beyond that of Greece and Italy, and the British pound fell with large drops in its value falling to 1.03 to the US dollar. Only the intervention by the Bank of England helped recover the pound to $1.11 and yields that went up from 3.6% to over 5% to drop back down to 3.8%. Many other countries face the same high inflation and rising interest rates in the US, so that poorly managed political situations such as the leadership race in the Conservatives party in the UK can have damaging economic consequences. This is a point of caution for other countries economies and governments says the WSJ. Italy's new government coalition has managed to keep expectations of major changes to policy to the Draghi government to the minimum in anticipation of economic problems that could emerge with differences with the European Union, and to avoid poorly managed communications. This is true of all countries in the world and a reminder of the importance of correct messaging in financial markets, and taking a prudent role of funding extra spending programs. This was also done in the $360 billion Inflation Reduction Act and Climate bill of 2022 by the Biden administration. where the dollar spending was adequately accounted for with policies considered prudent to tackle climate change, support badly impacted segments of society, and new infrastructure. This is a learning lesson for other governments. ...

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U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke, says the Fed will keep interest rates low till unemployment reaches 6.5%, as long as inflation remains at about 2%. If unemployment reaches 6.5%, and this is because more people are dropping out of the labor market, he will take this into account. If unemployment stays high the Fed indicated in its statement that it would tolerate a higher inflation of 2.5%, as long as the longer term outlook was for inflation to be at 2%. Bernanke said this doesn't mean monetary policy is on autopilot, because the Fed will watch conditions carefully and will leave room for flexibility- keeping an eye out for new asset bubbles that could develop, and monitoring labor market conditions and inflationary pressures and inflation expectations. If inflation falls well below 2%, or unemployment rate falls mainly because of people dropping out of the labor market, the Fed may continue to keep interest rates low. This policy was announced as U.S. fiscal cliff deficit negotiations continued in Dec. 2012 with one scenario being considered by both political parties being going over the Jan. 1 deadline before coming to an agreement. Bernanke pointed to this, saying "this is a major risk factor right now." The Fed's activist policy in economic policy has given financial markets and business a measure of stability not provided by government and Congress. Fed policy is to buy $40 billion of mortgage securities, and $45 billion of long term Treasury securities for each month in 2013. It will fund the purchases by adding reserves to the banking system, which is to say that it will print money to buy more bonds. This is a major decision by the Fed in that the Fed has shied away from unemployment targets in the past. Bernanke described this action as a new"automatic stabilizer" in the U.S. financial system- if unemployment rises investors know this pushes the Fed's interest rate increases further down the road and would drive interest rates down, if unemployment drops sooner than expected, investors anticipating Fed's rate increases would drive long term interest rates up, to keep stable growth....

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On Monday August 8, 2010, the Dow Jones Industrial Averages went down by 634 points and closed below 11,000 points. This is not far from the 10,165 level of the DJIA on August 27, 2010. It was on August 27, 2010 that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke made the speech at the Kansas City Fed's Jackson Hole conference about the strategy for a QE II. Its about the time for this years Jackson Hole conference and the gains in the stock market are melting away. The DJIA closed at 12810 by April 29, 2011, then went below 11,000 by August 8, 2011. With higher inflation the Fed's options are limited.

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Inflation in the US went down slightly from annual rate of 8.5% in March to 8.3% in April 2022. Inflation was highest for gasoline, energy, automobiles and food. Supply chain bottlenecks have accelerated inflation in 2021-2022. The war in Ukraine has pushed up energy and food prices. Inflation is likely to ease in coming months. Wage gains are being eroded by higher inflation in 2021-2022.

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A dwindling supply of basic smaller models and higher new car prices that peaked with shortages in the supply chain in 2022 are still problems in 2023, says this report in WSJ. Car manufacturers and dealers have not increased the supply of new cars. Higher interest rates and higher prices have led to a situation where car leases can run on an average car to $736 compared to $585 2 years before. This report also says new cars will run you an average of $51,000 up 30% over 2 years. The situation is really bad for buyers compared to the situation before the pandemic, after problems in the supply chain and profit seeking by car dealers. One lower income buyer cited here during the pandemic ended up with a lease of a basic Toyota Corolla for $500 with $236 in insurance payments costing $736 a month that was almost as much as her payment on rent, leaving little in savings or for other expenses. A significant part of inflation today can be attributed to the higher price of cars that constitute basic transportation for the large majority of buyers. Profit seeking behavior of carmakers and car dealers makes the situation that much worse as dealers seek to preserve the high profit margins of the last 2 years, that were the highest in a long time. ...

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After two decades of missteps by management and workers in the auto industry that led to worker concessions on wages to revive the US auto industry the labor movement in the US was weakened. Workers wages have fallen behind with tiered wages offering new workers even less per hour, loss of cost of living adjustments during a period of high inflation. Shawn Fain won the election at the UAW in March 2023 following a direct vote of the leadership by every member of the UAW under a government supervised arrangement. He is now shaking things up at the auto workers union in Detroit and midwestern states asking autoworkers to end the tiered wages, return cost of living adjustments and a 46% wage increase.

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Experts say China's official GDP figures are unreliable and cannot be verified. Transparency is sorely lacking. The methodology, inflation assumptions and other basis for the calculations are not presented, so that many of the numbers cannot be reproduced. The official figure for 1st quarter GDP growth is 7%, from China's Bureau of National Statistics. GDP growth estimates developed by Capital Economics show 4.9% growth, by Citi 4.6%, by the China Center of the Conference Board 4%. Since 2012 the Capital Economics estimates are just above 5%, and the Conference Board estimates about 4%, showing that the growth rate has slowed markedly since 2012. As Communist party chief of Liaoning province, the current prime minister showed serious doubts about the GDP numbers and preferred to rely on figures for rail cargo, electricity consumption, bank loans.

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The behavior of the US stock market is examined in this analysis in the WSJ. It shows that tech stocks that comprise a major part of the S&P 500 made a big surge in 2020 and 2021, dropping by 30% in 2022. Consumer discretionary stocks which also experienced an upsurge in 2020 and 2021 are facing headwinds from higher inflation and decline in demand. Retailers such as Target and Walmart are reducing inventories as demand shifts.