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Gallup found last summer that only 16% of Americans polled had "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers, in its decades long polling of "Confidence in Institutions." For TV news only 11% trust it. Bret Stephens of NYT says the right approach to give marginalized communities a voice is to create more diverse newsrooms not let objectivity be eroded. He reminds people that in a democracy its not just about reporting, it's also about listening, listening to all the people. He quotes Arthur Miller- "A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself." President Biden showed this in his State of the Union address, by working hard to listen to what the nation is saying about itself, about communities all across America that were for too long being ignored while jobs were sent overseas and communities suffered. For far too long, a period that stretched into four decades, turning them into the "invisible" people. Ninety years after Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes" the task is one of restoring that voice of the people of America. About Lincoln, Sandburg wrote that he said Yes to the paradoxes of democracy, Yes to the hopes of government, No to debauchery of the public mind, Yes to people struggling in the middle of illusions, which of the faiths and illusions would he or she choose for his portion of the light, to take one out of the wilderness. If death was in the air, so was birth.   ...

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Gerald Seib points out that the choice between the Islamists and the military has always been a false one. The young people who are a large part of the population in the Middle East and their hopes for a better future are left out in this choice. The young protesters were the main force behind the ouster of Mubarak. These young people have to be brought into the political process for Egypt to move forward.

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The NYT editorial reminds readers on the day following the Bush bridge loan approval that it would have been far better to ask the the top executives to step down as anecessary step to push substantive change through Detroit's entrenched mind-set. Which again poses the question whether Wagoner is the right CEO to reinvent the company as he said he would do. And by February 17, GM has to get bondholders to convert at least two thirds of their debt into equity, so achieving even the near term hurdles remain uncertain.

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Turkey faces a economic crisis driven by high inflation and sharp decline of over 40% in the lira. The ENAgrup research group estimates inflation at 58% in November over the prior year, higher than the 22% official figures. ENAGrup estimates 50% inflation in October and 45% inflation in September. The steep inflation say experts is a result of an unconventional policy of president Erdogan to lower interest rates by 2%. In contrast the Russian central bank increased interest rates by about 3%, Brazil's central bank by about 6%. This report looks at two weak links for the lira and inflation prospects with graphs.  One is that the debt of Turkish banks is heavily in foreign currency debt with $82 billion due in next 12 months. A weak lira makes it harder to pay off these debts. Turkey's central bank net foreign assets taking into account all foreign currency liabilities is a negative $48 billion in Oct 2021, according to graphs shown in WSJ. The second is that Turkey's people are fleeing the lira. Nearly 60% of banking deposits are now in foreign currencies, according to data from Capital Economics. A sudden surge in requests to withdraw dollars by Turkish residents could make banks to draw down their foreign currency reserves. The government hopes that increase in exports could help Turkey in the crisis yet the situation today as shown by WSJ suggests a continuation of the current crisis of spiraling inflation and large drops in the lira's value. ...

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Pope Francis makes atonement for the treatment of 150,000 tribal children from Canada's Indian tribes in Quebec and Ontario. These children were separated from their families in a program of forced assimilation that failed. Indian tribal people and the regions of Quebec and Ontario are only now coming to terms with the treatment of tribal people who inhabited this land for centuries before the first European settlers from Britain and France arrived in North America through the Atlantic ocean voyages. This scene is relevant as India's leaders including Mr. Modi select a tribal woman from Odisha (Orissa) Ms Murmu a school teacher in India's northeast to the position of president of the Republic of India. It was never thought of this way yet tribal people exist in Indonesia, Philippines and many parts of Asia. In India tribe population is 106 million and makes up anywhere between 8 to 30% of population mostly in the northeast and tribes are the dominant population in the border regions facing China in its occupation of Tibetan region. This shows there is a lot to learn in how to respect the dignity of the people in these regions especially now when with climate change  sustainable living is the first priority.  ...

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Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke said the Fed would target a 2% inflation rate and keep short term interest rates near zero till late 2014. Eleven of seventeen Fed officials at a two day policy meeting ending Jan. 25, 2012 supported this policy. The announcement is part of the Fed's new communications policy which hopes to lower long term rates to stimuate growth and employment by signalling intentions on rates on a longer term basis. The Federal Reserve has lowered its estimate for growth in the U.S. to between 2.2-2.7% in 2012 from 2.5-2.9%.

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Sanders, the most senior leader  for Democrats in the Senate says Biden is the most effective president in modern American history, through the pandemic with a bold vision for the country. Bernie Sanders, the senior senator from Vermont, says he will do all to get president Biden reelected.  To critics he says Enough! Sanders says Americans should support Biden because of the American Rescue Plan that he orchestrated and helped the economy recover faster than was thought possible. It put Americans back to work, provided cash benefits to people worried about the future, and protected hospitals, small businesses and schools. Through his Infrastructure Plan Biden has created millions of well paying jobs and is repairing America's broken and neglected for decades infrastructure- roads, bridges, airports, and mass transit. Then there is the largest investment for climate change action in history, there is student debt relief for 5 million people, delivered free vaccines, cheaper insulin, and capped price pharmaceuticals. Biden says the health system is broken and hugely expensive and America still needs a health coverage for all single payer system. A lot remains to be done and this is just the beginning to fulfill the hopes and aspirations of the American people. No amount of dissimulation, distortion of facts can change that. Roosevelt said in 1932- "GIve me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people." ...

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Global smartphone shipment sales are dropping with sticker shock over new smartphone prices, dropping 7% worldwide, and 15% in China in third quarter 2018, according to Canalys. Apple sales have stagnated in China at 8% market share, and shipments volumes have declined by 11% in 2018. Apple gets 20% of its sales revenue from China. Apple is now in fifth place behind Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi in China. Each of the Chinese brands gained from 2 to 5% increase in market share while Apple with its high pricing has stagnated. Apple had high hopes for the Apple XR priced at $945 and ordered large volume of the phone for sale in China. It now has excess unsold inventory of that phone as Chinese competitors with prices at little over half the Apple price the Huawei Mate 20 are proving to be strong competitors. The fact that the Chinese market has declined by 15% in smartphone shipments hurts Apple, even though trade tensions have not created anti-Apple sentiment.   ...

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If it is possible and necessary for someone like David Attenborough to rediscover experience with nature unhurried and in quietness it is possible and necessary for all of us. The famous BBC personality and naturalist David Attenborough is considered to be the most popular person in the UK. In this interview in 2020 he talks about his garden and bird watching hobby during the lockdown, the way it is helping to preserve mental health. For the first time he is in one place for months. At 94 years, Attenborough is a bit subdued and looks back at his long career and bringing the natural world to television viewers through natural world series such as Blue Planet, The Living Planet, Our Planet, and Life on Earth. He was a speaker at the Climate Change conference in Poland in 2016 and hopes to speak at Glasgow conference in 2021 about the earth being finite and the need to change human behaviour.  The interviewer senses that something is amiss with all the naturalist wonders that Attenborough has been depicting on television. They seem too perfect and made for reaching large audiences. In the process was something being lost. Even Attenborough senses this as he starts discovering nature through birdwatching with excitement as if he had never done this before. He lists the birds one by one. It is the ability to discover and always treasure this sense of wonder at the natural world, and rediscover it again, that is what we strive for in this world, and so important for mental health.   ...

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China's trade surplus increased to $18.4 billion in April from $5.4 billion in March. Exports were up 4.9%, slower than expected and down from 8.9% in March. But imports went up by only 0.3%, much lower than March's 5.3% increase. The hopes for improving the trade balance in recent months may be dashed because of slowing imports for infrastructure development, as economic growth slows in China, even as export growth declines from its earlier high levels.

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Private equity firm 3G Capital Partners of Brazil innovates its way in cost reduction with the use of 'zero based budgeting' tool to have managers justify budgets each year from scratch. The firm hopes to use these skills in bringing down costs in the merged Heinz-Kraft Foods company. Shifting consumer preferences from packaged foods to fresher foods are pressuring sales and margins in the packaged foods industry, creating the need for new ways to run these companies to improve financial performance.

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Th Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, is designed to provide relief to homeowners facing foreclosure. HAMP has also prevented these homes -from the seven million home loans that are delinquent -from joining the overall inventory of homes, and depressing home prices further. Eighteen months after HAMP was introduced, it looks like HAMP has failed to help homeowners to the extent needed to revive housing. Of the 1.3 million modifications extended to homeowners, about half have been cancelled, and about one third or 422,000 homeowners have received permanent loan modifications. The results for July 2010 show that it is slowing down even more. The number of homeowners receiving modifications in July is growing at a much slower rate. 17,000 new trial modifications were started in July, 2010, but 5 times that number of loan modifications were cancelled. HAMP has reduced the montly payment through a lower interest rate and longer term, with the average borrower receiving a montly modification of $500. But even with lower payments and permanent modifications homeowners still have lots of debt. The median rato of total debt payments to pretax income is around 63.5%. And analysts estimate that 20% of borrowers with permanent modifications will re-default. The program had aroused huge expectations, hoping to help 3 million homeowners. Which is why Professor Kenneth Rosen, of the University of California, Berkeley, considers the results embarrassing for the Obama administration. Adding that the Obama administration should be ashamed of these results after all the hopes that were aroused for real help to homeowners. ...

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The global demand for dollars is driving up the currency as foreign banks from S. Korea to Swiss banks look for more dollars to fix their overleveraged balance sheets and repay in dollars where they had borrowed in dollars. The Fed announced a major expansion of its "swap" lies with other central banks which allow them to provide liquidity to to local commercial banks. Under this arrangemet with nine other central banks the Fed hopes to provide access to a total of $620 billion.

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This Journal editorial on Oct 5, 2012, says that by not offering leadership in the Syrian conflict beause it would lead to a wider conflict the U.S. and the European Union face a wider conflict. The current crossborder shelling between Syria and Turkey is the latest evidence of this. Turkey and the Saudis cannot handle this on their own. Without U.S. leadership the costs of this conflict will be even greater, and even poses risks for the Turkish economy if handled badly.

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Fruit and vegetable gardens one can harvest for free in the Rhine River Valley city of Andernach, a medieval city that is one of the oldest settlements in Germany. The city administration launched this project in 2010 to get more local people engaged in the outdoors in their community and raise awareness of how food is grown. The plants cover tomatoes to pomegranates. The mayor hopes other cities around the world will follow this example. The mayor Anneli Karlsson says one does not feel such a relationship to plants as when one goes out and picks out the food, the salad, that one is then going to use for dinner that evening. This is an idea that cities in Europe, the US and other parts of the world can take up in the middle of the current rise in food prices, so that the interest would lead to closer relationship with the food grown around us, and in even growing it oneself in one's own garden. In the first year 100 varieties of tomatoes were planted. Then other edible plants were added. It includes Greek mountain tea leaves as well as the usual pumpkins, potatoes, grapes zucchini, kale, almonds. No pesticides so it is all organic. There aren't any fences one just takes what one needs.  The gardens are good for tourism. They also hire unemployed people to add to the workers in addition to the team of gardeners. Rising food prices are getting people to take interest in how food is grown and urban area food gardens. ...

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The contrast between Erdogan and a modest humble civil servant Kilicdaroglu is shown here in FR24. Kilicdaroglu is from the CHP or Republican party setup by Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk founded the party in Ankara after the colonial powers took over Istanbul by 1921 following victory in World War I and planned to breakup the Ottoman Empire. To resist this plan Ataturk responded similar to Japan by forming a new country based on the model of European nations and introduced a new alphabet to increase literacy. He took the country back to its European roots before the Ottomans in the 16th century and turned the Hagia Sophia into a museum. In the process rural people in the Anatolian heartland were not fully integrated by the 1960's and Erdogan appealed to these people, increased social mobility and incomes in Turkey between 2001 and 2018. In the period since then Turkey is faced with an economic crisis and rampant inflation that hurt ordinary Turkish people. The pandemic and earthquake made things worse. This is why Turkey is poised for a change and the Republican party hopes to build the Turkey of Ataturk with Turkey firmly seen as a European nation, with some changes that respect the right to wear scarves for women. For just the earthquake alone Turkey needs $90 billion for reconstruction and there are changes that are needed that would integrate the Turkish economy with the expanding economy of the US and the EU which can take place under Kilidaroglu and the new mayors of both Istanbul and Turkey who are deputy leaders of the CHP Republican party. ...

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President Goodluck Jonathan as "Mr. Clean" aroused many of the same hopes now aroused by the election of Buhari as president of Nigeria. Under Goodluck Jonathan Nigeria's foreign reserves declined from $50 billion to $33 billion, and there is $1 billion in the sovereign wealth fund. About $20 billion in pilfering of state funds was reported by the Central Bank of Nigeria, but no action was taken by Jonathan. Indians may pride themselves on a better performance, yet prime minister Singh of India, seen as "Mr. Clean," allowed auctioning of telecom licenses in the second term, that had to be cancelled because of corruption. Throughout emerging markets not just in oil producing countries, poverty remains entrenched, because funds that should go into infrastructure and services are misused, which creates a disincentive for foreign investment, further adding to the problems in these countries. India and Nigeria are the two fastest growing countries in the planet, and the unspoken fear is that the demographic dividend with so many young people will be wasted by corrupt and inefficient management of the economy and resources of the two countries. The time lost in the last years of the Singh administration and the four years of the Jonathan administration will never be regained, the hopes of millions of young people are dashed again and again, and the goodwill of Europe and the U.S. eager to participate with the latest technologies in the development of the two countries, as they have done in China, is wasted....

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The Takata airbag recall increases by 35 million to about 63 million, about one in 4 cars in the U.S. by May 2016. The issue is connected to Takata's use of ammonium nitrate which poses a safety risk leading to explosions. The findings by 3 separate investigations from Honda Motor, Takata, and 10 automaker consortium have led to the massive recalls. A Takata engineer raised questions about the use of ammonium nitrate in the 1990's, and the company has fumbled in its response to the safety concerns.

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Free trade agreements have become a flood in Asia, with 42 in 1999 up to 166 in June 2009 according to the Asian Development Bank. The absence of trade agreement at the global level has not slowed this trend. Another 62 are being negotiated, including one between India and Japan, China and Taiwan. India signed an agreement in September, that it hopes will allow it to become a hub for Korean electronics companies seeking to exploit lower labor costs for products aimed at markets in the Middle East.

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This WSJ editorial says the Syriza party referendum in Greece poses a threat to the efforts made by the centre right Partido Popular party government of prime minister Rajoy in Spain to implement economic reforms and generate long term growth. The Podemos party in Spain is running close to the Partido Popular in polls for a national election in December. The WSJ editorial points out that there is a risk of political contagion for reforms in Spain and Italy that lay the path to longer term growth and the integrity of the euro.

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David Kirkpatrick, former Cairo bureau chief of the New York Times, gives an account of how the Obama  administration was split in its support of Egypt's beginnings in democracy. Chuck Hagel at Defense, and John Kerry at State Department, sent signals to the military that were different from that of some other members of the Obama administration. General Mattis at Central Command blamed president Morsi's failure on his " imperious leadership." General Flynn headed the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time of president Morsi's ouster by the military. Both Mattis and Flynn later joined the Trump administration with Mattis at Defense.  This report says president Obama accepted the military takeover. President Obama aroused hopes for democracy at Cairo University soon after he became president but he was not able to develop a coherent policy and support within his administration for what would be a difficult transition to democracy in countries that for decades have been ruled by the military. President Trump merely continued the policy followed during the last 2 years of the Obama administration.      ...

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Farmers are switching from paddy rice cultivation to apples in areas an hour from Srinagar in Kashmir. Farmers using traditional varieties of apples are also changing by planting high yielding varieties of apples imported from Europe, and doubling yield, profits. New varieties are also less susceptible to damage from hailstorms. By providing farm machines, tractors, sprayers, juice preservation plants, the government hopes to change the economic future of Kashmir. This sector has potential as a major employment generator, with 71% of India's apple production in Kashmir. In the last 3 years alone the sector has grown 50% from 6000 crore to 9000 crore rupees. Because apples are far more profitable than paddy rice cultivation it also enhances incomes in the state, with the additional benefit of generating many man days of work in orchards- one hectare creating 400 man days. Today 700,000 farming families or 3.3 million people are supported by apple production in Kashmir. ...

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Oil prices are at $73 a barrel in Jan 2025. DJT's goal for 2025 is for oil prices to drop to $45 to bring inflation down. To do this requires shale oil producers and Saudi Arabia to increase production. This report in WSJ says Saudis will have a hard time managing budget needs at this price and have indicated they will not increase production. Shale oil producers are also reluctant saying they are in a different phase in the production cycle and are not looking to expand production. 

Prices at the pump have dropped from $5.00 a gallon to $3.10. In 2024 per barrel prices were at $90. 

The new administration hopes that reducing regulations and speeding up the approval process, and new incentives would help increase production.

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The administration hopes to seize the initiative on the regulatory framework agenda before the G20 meeting on April 2, 2009. Broad outlines of the approach will be laid out. One of them is to give the Fed the authority to oversee the regulatory framework and oversee systemic risk. It includes stronger capital requirements for banks especially in good times, give regulators power to take over financial firms that are failing. Also included will be consumer protections, and strict enforecement of consumer protection laws opn credit cards and mortgages, and giving the government comprehensive authority over all financial products marketed to consumers.

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Karl Robe attributes Obama's vote getting success to intense grassroots efforts to register new voters and strategies to attract votes from Hispanics, Catholics and other segments of the voting public. And he economic downturn helped steer the election to his strengths. His calm and cool manner reassured voters in the economic crisis days of October. Says rove the country voted for change but the precise direction of the change remains unclear, so he thinks the Obama victory was personal rather than philosophical. "He became a large vessel into which people place their hopes and this can lead to disappointment and regret."