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Delta Airlines CFO, Hank Halter, warned that high fuel prices pose a threat to Delta's profitability. At current prices he estimates fuel costs will increase by $1 billion in 2011.

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For US automakers each component of the savings above may cover all or more of the $2.5 billion in tariffs some of which may be returned in rebate form to the automakers over 4 years. For example GM CFO is cited as as saying the shift in EV's alone could reduce losses by $2 billion in 2025. That more than makes up for GM's  $1.1 billion losses from tariffs shown in this WSJ report. It is more accurate to say foreign automakers in the US pay $9 billion in tariffs if they don't raise prices, Toyota alone will take on $3 billion in tariffs. And American makers Ford, GM, Chrysler Stellantis pay $2.5 billion of which some of it will be returned to the automakers inthe form of favorable policies to increase market share of US automakers with the 15% on imported cars and savings from not having to make electric vehicles in volumes that don't sell without the charging infrastructure, and savings from not having to invest on rapid conversion away from gas powered vehicles.    ...

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Consumer prices in Brazil went up by 5.91% in 2013 compared to the 5.84% increase in 2012.

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November 2012 light vehicle sales of cars and light trucks shows sales up significantly for Honda at 39%, Toyota 17%, and sales at Ford up 3%, GM 6%. GM decides to reduce production and not reduce prices with incentives that match competitors. VW sales increased 29%, Audi 24%, Daimler 13%, and BMW up 45%. Experts expect the better conditions in the U.S. auto market to continue especially as many cars that reach a life of 11 years need to be replaced. Light vehicle sales reach 1.14 million in Nov. 2012, up 15% over the prior year, and seasonally adjusted auto sales of 15.5 million are the highest since Jan 2008, according to Autodata Corp.

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A big problem Spain is facing is that the room for spending cuts is shrinking and new taxes are not generating higher tax revenues for the government. Tax receipts declined by 1.5% in the Jan-May 2012 period even with the higher taxes on income, electricity and tobacco. The revenues from VAT, value added tax, declined by 10%. Spending to aid regional governments increased by 12% and interest payments increased by 32%. Under the government of prime minister Zapatero tax income declined by 19% in 2007-2011, even after adding higher taxes on the wealthy, increasing the VAT tax and scrapping of a tax rebate. The government predicts domestic demand will decline by 3.1% in 2012. Ms Cospedal who is cutting spending in the Castilla region near Madrid, a deputy leader of the ruling Partido Popular, says in some regions the margin for additional savings is "becoming small."

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Prime minister Abe's government passes an anti-conspiracy bill in the House of Representatives in May 2017. The measure is designed to monitor foreign and domestic suspects following terrorism incidents in Europe. The bill makes it a crime to conspire with others to commit terrorism or other crimes. The Japanese public is split in its support for the bill, with some experts arguing that it was hastily passed without proper discussion on safeguards for privacy and free speech. The move is also designed to increase security ahead of the 2020 Olympics.

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British prime minister Theresa May makes a bid for working class votes in the 2017 election, just as the Labor party under Jeremy Corbyn announces its own manifesto seeking working class votes. May has proposed increasing the minimum wage to 60% of median earnings by 2020, and increased funding for the National Health Service by 8 billion pounds over 5 years. Corporate taxes will be reduced from 19 to 17% compared to Labor Party raising it to 26% under Corbyn's manifesto. Some of the Labor Party's supporters in the north of Britain are leaving the party because of dissatisfaction with Labor's leadership.

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Serious concern about lower consumer spending in the U.K that would reduce growth and reduce government tax receipts. The unemployment rate has remained at 7.6% for 22 months. Wage levels are not keeping up with inflation of about 4.5%. The increase in the sales tax from 17.5% to 20% has added three quarters of one percent to the inflation rate, according to the National Statistics Office. VocaLink says annual wage growth in the three months through May 2011 was 1.8%, much lower than the inflation rate. Deep spending cuts are going into effect in 2011-2012, and about 300,000 jobs would be lost in the public sector with spending cuts by 2015. The IMF has reduced its estimate for growth in the U.K. to 1.5% from 1.7%. At the same time the Bank of England is under pressure to increase the interest rate of 0.5% (which is a record low), to control inflation. Britain under prime minister Cameron plans to cut government spending from 47% of GDP to 40% of GDP over six years. This will take 6 years of spending cuts, something even a previous prime minister Margaret Thatcher was not able to do. The government's Office of Budget Responsibility predicts a drop in the deficit from 11% of GDP to 7.9% by March 2012. Yet a lot depends on government tax receipts which in turn depend on economic growth. Britain showed a large deficit of 10 billion pounds in April 2011, and the situation is fraught with a high degree of uncertainty....

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All three countries in the South Asian neighborhood now face economic crisis of large proportions - Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, all turning to the IMF for help. In the case of Sri Lanka there was help from the beginning from India. It was lack of jobs and not enough jobs generated even with a decade of 7% economic growth. It was in protests over job quotas reserved for independence soldiers that led to the ouster of Sheik Hasina's government. This report in NYT shows overdependence on garment exports which generated growth for decades under PM Hasina as having a drawback during Covid. The disruptions in the supply chain during Covid hurt Bangladesh when garment earnings dropped. At one point the industry was closed for months. India provided assistance including vaccines during Covid and India is the largest destination for Bangladesh exports with economic ties to 5 Indian states. The recovery from Covid has not been strong and has led to reduction in foreign exchange reserves. In 2022 Bangladesh turned to the IMF for assistance. Not enough jobs were being created for a large population. In 2000 the population was 129 million, in 2019 before pandemic 165 million. Today in 2024 it is 171 million, increasing by 33% from 2000. By contrast in a communist state Vietnam population increased by 22 million to 99 million or 29% in 2024 from 2000   Foreign exchange reserves dropped during the pandemic to $23 billion in July 2023, in the last 11 months it dropped by $4 billion to $19 billion. By comparison Pakistan's are at $13 billion, up $4 billion in 11 months. Foreign remittances from Bangladeshis overseas are another source of foreign exchange. The major problem of getting tax revenues with people and business not paying taxes due is a problem for Bangladesh and for Pakistan. India has made huge gains through GST and digitization of economy to get tax revenues to support economic growth and infrastructure. And under the leadership of prime minister Modi there is discipline, girt, a strategic focus, with good governance, that is similar to what helped transform Japan and China into industrialized nations. This is missing in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh and in Burma. This gives some idea why in the present budget north and eastern Indian states of Bihar, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, with a combined population of 230 million people are in a specially designated region for development. It is a gathering momentum against centuries of foreign occupation and neglect similar to that seen in China. ...

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The WSJ Editorial Board speaking for the business community traditional Republican groups finally takes up the election on issues of policy difference between Trump run Republican party and Harris run Democratic Party which it should have from Day One. The former president says something that has never happened in the last hundred years- policy will be decided after the election depending on what he decides to do. Cost of Living action is No 1 on voter priorities. "Drill, Baby Drill," is the whole Republican party platform for cost of living action. What is the Harris Democrats policy plan for cost of living action? WSJ says it is spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness.The real reason for the increase in cost of living comes from the overconcentration of supply chain by American business in China, on which every president Bush, Obama, Trump, did little or nothing. The lack of an effective vaccination program and ineffective vaccines in China by 2021 and 2022 led to the loss of the supplies from China leading to shortages for automobiles parts and other supplies and surge in prices in 2021-2023. Powell and the US central bank correctly raised rates but cautiously and waited for this to correct, president Biden brought manufacturing home through huge investments called the "spending blowout" that brought down the inflation from 9% to 3%. Some of that "spending blowout" went to chips and science to correct the errors of American Business and Reagan-Friedman theory of the Republican party that created this problem with a culture of utter  indifference to the ultimate costs of who makes what and where. The Inflation Reduction Act also tackled higher health and other costs paid by American workers and families, and invested in public services and in repairing the dilapidated crumbling American infrastructure. Are Republicans saying let the roads, bridges, airports, built in the 1940-1960's heyday of American industrialization as China and India's is now, let them crumble? What do the educated minds of the WSJ Board say about coal in China and India and their effects on their massive use multiple times that of US and EU in history, is it not damaging to the environment and why the Chinese realized the health in North China with coal winter use was worse than in South China cut their coal use. Are they saying lets burn fossil fuels and ignore, and if investment has to be made in solar who is going to do it? Is it Ok for Republicans thet we just import from China all our solar panels indefinitely into the future. "Green New Deal" is just a perjorative term, policy has to be made thoughtfully and without prejudice or bias of any sort for the best that we can do for the American people, ignoring so called "right" or "left." Doing what is right, what makes sense, is a lot harder.     ...

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Edouard Philippe resigns as prime minister as he begins a new phase for the 2022 presidential elections. His popularity increased to 50% for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in France, exceeding Macron's 38% in June. Mr. Philippe won the race for New Havre in recent municipal elections in which Mr. Macron's party failed to win a single large city, making its future uncertain. The Ecology party recently split from Mr. Macron's party in parliament. In 3 years in office Mr. Philippe maintained his independence and did not join the Macron party. Mr. Philippe followed a conservative path in government. His replacement is Mr Castex, mayor of a small town Prades in southern France.

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Fuel efficiency rules require average fuel efficiency in the U.S. of 35 mpg by 2016. The debate is now on what to do for 2017 to 2025. New technology such as the P2 systems for hybrids already used in VW, Nissan and Hyundai vehicles makes a 20% increase in fuel efficiency possible. Large investments are being made to bring new technology to bear on increasing fuel efficiency significantly. Government agencies are looking at different scenarios by which the new fuel economy standards beyond 2017-2025 could be set between 47 mpg and 62 mpg. An additional factor is the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions- at 47 mpg the reduction would be 3%, at 62 mpg the reduction would be 6%. Another factor is how much the impact is on the cost of vehicles and reduced cost on gasoline. Here there is a wide range in the numbers for average mpg rules at 62 mpg- with EPA estimates at $2800-$3500 increase in vehicle cost and $5000 savings in fuel cost, Centre for Automotive Research estimates at $9790 increase in vehicle cost. The 62 mpg translates into "real world" actual efficiency of 45 mpg. In April 2011, 17 senators put out a letter of support for the 62 mpg proposal. There is a public value involved in this that is also significant- the reduced dependence on foreign oil means savings in defense expenditures in parts of the Middle East, and an economy that is less impacted by volatility in the price of oil. As this aspect of public value or benefits cannot be quantified easily even though they are significant, this may tend to be lost in the debate and the politics of fuel efficiency. For automakers there is significant marketing value in having a visible and strong presence in fuel efficient vehicles because of perception as forward looking- something that hurt Detroit carmakers in the last decade. During periods of gasoline prices at $5 a gallon this provides carmakers with an extra cushion of safety in securing car sales. Carmakers in one country such as the U.S. also have to worry about what carmakers in other countries such as Japan and Germany are doing- if the standards in the U.S. develop a gap compared to other countries developing advanced fuel efficiency technologies this poses significant risks because of the global nature of the automobile marketplace. See the group "Asleep at the Spigot" for more details on this. Many of these less quantifiable factors do not get the attention they deserve because they are significant from experience but not easily quantified. Throw into this the large unknown of what new technologies not yet developed lie ahead with a burst of effort by one country or another, which bring cost reductions at the same time - and the debate requires as much a good sense of what is the path offering the greatest advantages in years ahead than a pure exercize in numbers. ...

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Alas, economists and intellectuals such as Gita Gopinath of the IMF, just don't get it when they say the EU can increase growth by half percent meeting labor shortages using immigrants. As WSJ reports 50-60% of asylum seekers in Netherlands since 1999 are less skilled /less educated immigrants, are unemployed or on benefits.The new view across all parties is lets stop the immigration surges, its too overwhelming for the people to deal with, so that we can focus on cost of living and low wages for workers. Across Starmer's Labour in Britain, across Biden/Harris Democrats lined up with Republican Lankford in the US pledging to sign the legislation to close the southern Border, and in France Macron's premier Michel Barnier wants to do the same.   Mette Frederiksen of Denmark was a pioneer in the EU in showing that immigration acts as a distraction that hurts the working class as it distracts people from the key issues facing workers of cost of living and low wages, poor benefits. She was elected as a Socialist party leader in Denmark in 2015 and as prime minister in 2019. Sahra Wagenknecht, follows Mette Frederiksen, herself a daughter of immigrant, has formed her own party out of Socialist Die Linke in Germany which is now getting about 15% German voter support, 25% in the east, along similar lines to pause and stop immigration because it hurts the working class. In other parts of EU- France's Macron coalition has a prime minister who has called for a pause on immigration. US president Harris and Candidate Harris have pledged to sign bipartisan legislation drafted by Republican Senator Lankford to close the southern Border. The European Asylum Agency has the numbers at just over one million asylum seekers in EU in 2023 and agains in 2024 split by country- Germany 127,000 24% France 77,000 15%, and Italy and Spain 87,000 each 17% each Belgium, Netherlands and Austria 17,000 each at 3% each, Greece a bit higher. Some like the US and Germany with stronger economic base and industries can absorb the educated immigrants from middle class fleeing wars and strife, and less educated immigrants in construction and hospitality. The bigger danger is in creating support for parties that will use the issue to take whole economies and countries backwards by further depressing workers wages, benefits and rights, exacerbating social divisions around race and income that they say they will solve but have no economic policy to do this. All socialist and socialist democratic parties have grasped this in 2023-2024, some earlier by 2019. ...

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A 2024 US International Trade Commission report by David Riker of the effects on imports of 25% US tariff shows a 75% reduction in imports and a 5% increase in US prices.  It would lead to large new investments in the US auto industry in different states. Hyundai recently announced a $21 billion investment plan in the US and building of a steel plant in Louisiana. General Motors will increase investments in the US and expand production. Other Japanese companies will make large investments for a presence in the US market.

"A new 25% tariff on U.S. imports from outside of North America would reduce vehicle imports by 73.9%, increase average prices of vehicles in the United States by 5.0%, and increase variable profits from domestic production by 5.2%." David Riker, USITC

 

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Under new CEO, Georges Plassat, Carrefour focusses more on Europe and reduces expansion in emerging markets. As part of this strategy Carrefour buys 127 malls in which it operates stores and forms a separate propoerty company in which it owns 42%. This reverses the decision in 2001 to sell 150 malls partly to finance the push into China, Brazil and Argentina and other European countries. The prior CEO, Lars Olofsson, increased emphasis on hypermarket stores and expanded presence in emerging markets. Carrefour share price took a 60% drop in 2010-2012 and is gradually recovering. Plassat's strategy is to go back to focus on Europe and withdraw from poorly performing places such as Greece, Portugal, Indonesia and Columbia.

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U.S. gasoline prices at the retail level have come down only marginally with lower Nymex crude prices. The reason is the large difference between world crude oil prices and the prices for Nymex crude. Oil demand is expected to go up by 6.1% in China and 3.6% in India according to the International Energy Agency. J.P. Morgan Chase expects oil demand to grow by 1.2 million barrels a day in 2011. The IEA estimate is for 600,000 barrels a day increase for 2011.

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The US housing market in 2022 with sharp increase in cash out refinancing and home equity financing. Total home equity increased 20% in the first quarter to $27.8 trillion, a record high, according to the Federal Reserve, the US central bank. About 60% of equity was withdrawn through cash out refinancing in 2021, according to mortgage data. Cash out refinancing simply adds the amount borrowed to the existing mortgage balance. The amount borrowed through such financing by homeowners adds to inflationary pressures with more cash borrowed on the house for home improvement projects, gardening projects, appliance spending and automobile purchases. The increase in the interest rates by the US Federal Reserve including the 0.75% increase in the rate announced on June 15 slows the amount of borrowing through cash out refinancing. The supply chain disruptions disrupted flow of goods at a time of high demand in 2021 following the lockdowns, and then the war in Ukraine added another layer of inflation from high gas prices. The combined effect with housing price pressures created the perfect storm in inflation the US is facing with the rest of the world. ...

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COP26 stands for Conference of the Parties for Climate Change. The conference will be held in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021 in the UK. It is important because for the first time the major countries are keen on pushing forward with climate change policies and targets. This includes India, China, US, European Union, and major Asian, Latin American, African nations. In India Mr. Modi has set a target of 450 GW for renewable energy. China is aggressively cutting back on its use of coal to the point of tolerating cutbacks in electricity for industry and cities. US, UK, Germany, Nordic countries are pushing forward with new targets for reducing coal consumption and increasing renewable energy production, advancing renewable energy technologies. The new Biden administration in the US and the Greens in Germany have replaced administrations that were not as committed to tackling climate change. With China and India also committed to tackling climate change with renewed vigor the stage is set for serious steps to be taken. To reach the target of limiting global heating by no more than 1.5 degrees centigrade countries all over the world have to cut emissions by 45%. In reality emissions will increase by 16% in 2021 because China and India still depend on coal and developed nations have not cut back enough. To cut use of coal and preserve forests, avoid the drastic changes in weather patterns with drought and floods in different parts of the same country seen in Germany, India, African countries and other Asian countries a lot needs to be done. Here Mr Kerry the US Representative for Climate Change, says -"There is a significant increase in ambition on cutting emissions than ever imagined possible. A much larger group of people are stepping up." It is not clear if Mr. Xi of China will attend the Glasgow meeting. He has talked to Mr. Biden at length on this issue recently. Mr. Modi of India will attend and will meet Denmark's prime minister Mitte and other leaders before the COP26 in Glasgow.  ...

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A weaker dollar is good for US exports. It also increases the prices for foreign goods sold in the US, increasing incentives for Make in the USA, and reducing the huge trade deficits with EU countries and China, Japan, South Korea. The US dollar has gone in April 2025 from 145 yen to the dollar to 157 yen to the dollar.

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On June 30, 2008, oil prices hit an high of $140. Because of the opaqueness of the oil futures markets that help set the price of oil, very little is known about the different players in that market. Because of increasing demands for public scrutiny of such spikes in the market and its effect on the economy, the CFTC has released information about the players in oil trading and futures markets. This list for the period when the prices reached $140 in June 2008 include banks, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, private investment arms of wealthy individuals, and airlines. Investments related to million barrels of oil were made by 219 investors. The banks include: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley which have played a role in oil markets for a long time. BP and Delta Air Lines as users of oil products. It includes Yale University endowment fund, Singapore's government, hedge funds Brevan Howard and D.E. Shaw & Co., pension funds for Texas teachers, Cascade Investment LLC (the investment firm of Bill Gates), and the Danish pension fund ATP....

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There are more women drivers in the U.S. than men. In 2011 50.5% of licensed drivers were women. This is an increase from the 39.6% figure in 1963, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Part of the reason for this is the decline in young men getting drivers licenses, and the larger share of older drivers with more women in that age group. Even though women still earn less than men the numbers are increasing, with women making 81 cents to every dollar made by men in 2012, increasing from 62 cents in 1979. In educaton levels achieved women are doing better- Labor Dept figures show 30% of women born in the early 1980's with bachelors degrees, and only 22% for men. That suggests their earning prospects will continue to increase. Studies by R.L. Polk show women prefer more fuel efficient cars. A study by RDA Group shows women buying the average new car in 2012 at a price 12% less than the average car bought by men. Only two of the top ten cars purchased by women in 2012 were U.S. brands- the Ford Escape at No.7 and the Chevy Equinox at No. 9. This shows that Ford, GM and Chrysler have more work to do to attract women customers....