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The lack of economic opportunities for an increasingly urbanized African younger generation is a major challenge. The median age of 19 makes Africa the world's youngest continent. Megacities are growing up in places such as Lagos and Kinshasha as millions leave subsistence farming to go to cities. Unlike Asia and Latin American countries men and women are coming to shantytowns in cities at a time when Africa is much poorer for a similar level of urbanization that Asian and Latin American nations reached decades earlier. In 1993 this WSJ analysis and graphs show the Asian emerging economies and sub Saharan Africa had similar GDP per capita of $2415, by 2019 this was $4000 for Africa and $12,000 for Asian emerging economies. Latin America was at $10,000 in 1993 and in 2019 was at about $15,000. The gap widened considerably between Asia and African countries. Asian emerging economies increased GDP to 5 time from the same starting point as Africa in 1993, Africa doubled GDP over the period of 25 years to 2019. Latin America started from a much higher point and increased GDP by only 50% over 25 years. Asian economies that performed better over this period did better because of stable even entrenched governments such as in Singapore with Le Kuan Yew and in China with stable successive governments under CPC leadership of prime minister Deng. The difference in Asia was a commitment across all classes and groups to development, a sense of development as a way to make up for the years lost under colonialism of foreign powers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A sense of correcting historical injustice and wrongs. This is a missing ingredient in the processes unfolding in Latin America and Africa in the last 25 years. ...

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By May 2015 the Russsian ruble had recovered to 50 to the dollar from the low of 80 to the dollar in 2014. In August 2015 the ruble declined to 70 to the dollar as oil prices dropped below $40 per barrel. GDP growth showed a decline of 4.6% for the economy in the 2nd quarter of 2015. The ruble has lost close to 50% of its value in 2015 compared to the prior year.

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Individual investors reacted strongly to declining prospects for emerging markets with slowing growth, depreciating currencies, corruption and political uncertainty in 2013. As of the beginning of June, retail investors pulled $18.1 billion from emerging market bond funds, about one third of the amount that went in to emerging markets since the financial crisis in 2007, according to fund tracker EPFR Global. Institutional investors have pulled out less, about $9.3 billion, or 10% of their investments in emerging markets bonds since 2007. A similiar pattern is seen for investment in the stock markets of emerging market countries. The U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary expansion helped pull more money into emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey. As the Fed shifts away from these policies in 2013 emerging market countries have large current account deficits and less money to finance imports and debt.

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There is strong cirticism from many quarters about low interest rates as a prime culprit in causing the bubble in housing prices. In comments before the American Economic Association, America's Fed Chairman Bernanke defended his role as Fed governor in 2003 when he along with Greenspan was an advocate of the decision to cut the Fed's target interest rate to 1%, and to leave it here for a year and raise it only slowly. Bernanke says countries like Britain, New Zealand, and Sweden had tighter monetary policy but there home prices rose more, and monetary policy explains only 5% of the variation in home prices. Analysis has shown he says that capital inflows such as those the U.S. received from China and other Asian countries explains 31% of the variation in home prices, supporting a contrasting theory that that its these global imbalances that drove the crisis. He also placed the primary fault for the housing bubble on relaxed lending standards and views that housing prices would rise forever. Alongside these comments Fed chairman Bernanke also said that bank supervisors and other financial regulators of which the Fed was one, has a better ability to contain the excesses that led to the economic crisis including housing bubble and other excesses, than the Fed as a monetary policy maker. By saying this Bernanke is acknowledging that the failure of regulation was a key part of what happened in the economic crisis. The failure to fix the regulatory system even now leads Bernanke to say that he is open to using monetary policy as a supplementary tool for addressing risks should another bubble develop, if the regulatory system isn't reformed. Still Bernanke and Greenspan were quite complacent at the time of the low interest rates and did not point out the dangers of global capital imbalances which were evident at the time, preferring to say that the United States could benefit from the inflows of capital from overseas without serious risks. And the Fed did not exercize its role of vigilance in alerting the country to excesses in the way the housing industry operated and in exercizing its own powers to that effect. Instead the Fed as regulator and in role as asafeguard for serious risks let itself become part of the cheering section as the worst excesses in housing were being exposed....

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor rejects the McConnell plan for raising the debt ceiling. Senate Minority Leader McConnell says on a conservative talk show- "all of a sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy. That is very bad positioning going into an election." McConnell's plan is to shift the responsibility for raising the debt ceiling to President Obama, by separating debt reduction talks from debt ceiling talks. Cantor believes its best to push on with cutting back spending. Obama's response was to offer $1.7 trillion in spending cuts, at which point he expected Republicans to support tax increases, telling Cantor in negotiations "enough is enough." The McConnell plan is supported by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republicans in the Senate. The details of the plan are being are being worked out, with one strategy being to add to it the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts identified in bipartisan talks with Vice President Biden. Both sides are looking at this jockeying for advantage for the 2012 election. At one point in the talks with Cantor, Mr Obama is reported to have told him- "Eric, don't call my bluff. You know I'm going to take this to the American people." Cantor for his part, wants to limit the duration of the debt ceiling increase so that it would be a short term extension and would come up for a vote before the 2012 presidential election....

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Daniel Yergin of consultancy firm IHS describes the geopolitical disputes in the Middle East between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran that are leading to likely continued oversupply of oil in 2016, keeping prices in the $30-$40 range. Saudi Arabia is not likely to change its policy of going after market share, Venezuela is affected but lacks a voice in OPEC decisions, Russia continues its policies in Syria and Iraq under the Putin government affecting other Sunni states, and Iran following the lifting of sanctions is likely to ramp up supply to make up for its lost market share- all leading to an extended period of low prices. This situation benefits China, the European Union countries, India, Turkey and the U.S. in a period of slow economic growth in 2015-2016. Russia looks to use this period of low oil prices to shift to domestic industry after a period of rising imports when oil prices were high. The Saudis seeing their interests in the region threatened by Iran and Russia, and dissatisfied with the foreign policy of president Obama, see a policy of pushing for market share as appropriate in the current geopolitics of the region....

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Former World Bank chief Zoellick points to the need for investments in human capital and productivity improvements in emerging markets such as India, China and Brazil to overcome the problem of slow growth in 2013.

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Transcripts from U.S. Federal Reserve meetings in 2006 that show Bernanke, as Fed chairman, and Geithner, as head of the New York Fed, ignored the risks of a collapsing bubble in housing and mortgages.

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Simon Nixon points out that most of the 490 billion in euros borrowed by European banks under the Long Term Refinancing Operation of the ECB in Dec. 2011 is for rolling over maturing debt, rather than buying of government bonds. European banks financing needs based on figures from Barclay's Capital are over 300 billion euros for the 1st quarter of 2012. This suggests huge demand for the Long Term Financing Operation in the next quarter. For Spain and Italy the newly created lending facility should lead to higher bond buying by small and midsized Spanish banks and Italian banks, as this will boost their profitability. Spanish bonds yield 5% and Italian bonds yield 6.5% and loans from the ECB using the bonds as collateral are available at 1% for three years, which makes this an opportunity for these banks to boost profitability. The proportion of government bonds of Spain of Spanish banks bank assets is 7% and the figure for Italian banks is 9%. Nixon says an increase of this ratio by three percentage points by Spanish banks would created additional demand for Spanish government bonds of 45 billion euros, which is a third of the issuance for 2012....

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Gordon Brown, former prime minister of Britain from 2007 to 2010, chaired the April 2009 G-20 meeting that came up with ways to tackle the global financial crisis. Brown also led the way by recapitalizing British banks, a step the U.S. followed. He comments on the volatility in financial markets in August 2007 following the S&P credit downgrade of the U.S.. Brown gives an incomplete grade to the tasks the 2009 G-20 set out to accomplish. He points to three goals the G-20 had set in the middle of the financial crisis in April 2009. The first was to prevent a recession from becoming a depression. The other two were to establish a financial stability regime, and a compact for growth. These two became paper promises says Brown. Brown sees the best approach to prevent a lost decade is for U.S. and Europe trading their way out of a downturn as the Asian market absorbs more industrial goods from Europe and the U.S. This includes policies that would keep commodity prices low and ways of coping with currency shocks. Analysts have pointed to an export led recovery as one of the solutions the U.S. was hoping to achieve with a lower value of the dollar. This has had only limited success because of deep structural problems- high consumer indebtedness, bad debt at the banks, weak housing sector following the mortgage crisis, and a rising U.S. deficit- which will take some time to clear. Brown does not come to grips with these underlying imbalances built up during the boom years of the last decade, both in Britain and in the U.S., during which he was the finance minister of Britain....

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523 European banks borrowed 489 billion euros from the European Central Bank on Dec. 21, 2011, under the newly created Long Term Financing Operation of the ECB. This is designed to meet the financing needs of European banks which are shutoff from normal financing of selling unsecured bonds to private investors because of market anxiety. Much of this is for replacing other outstanding ECB loans, with analysts estimating about 190 billion euros of new liquidity being injected into the banking system. This also has the effect of reducing the borrowing rates for government bonds. In Spain the government sold 5.6 billion euros of government bonds at an auction on Dec. 20, 2011, with the interest rates dropping from 5.7% a month earlier to 1.7%. Small and midsize banks in Spain helped surging demand by buying the bonds to use as collateral for three year loans from the ECB at 1%.

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Energy Aspects, London based consultancy, estimates non-OPEC production declines of 700,000 barrels a day, up from previous forecasts of 200,000-300,000 barrels a day. Demand is expected to be higher than supply by June 2016, and drawing down inventory from that time. Agreement to freeze production is uncertain at a Doha meeting of OPEC countries, with Iran planning to increase production from 3.1 million barrels a day currently to 4 million barrels a day. Saudis increased production to 10 million barrels a day in 2015, and Iran is determined to increase its production to the higher level. The price of U.S. oil rebounded to $42.17 by April 2016.

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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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Martin Feldstein says China is gaining control of three problems it faces of shrinking export markets, the effects from a large stimulus in response to the 2008 financial crisis, and inflation especially high real estate prices. The economy is shifting to higher role for services and less dependence on exports under the new five year plan. The real estate prices are levelling off after steep increases. And inflation is under control. New investment will go into infrastucture needs such as power development and low income housing. As the economic problems are being tackled, the political problems remain. China faces an aging population under its one child policy, and it will have to support an increasing number of retired people in the future. Inequality and corruption are two problems that continue to grow and present challenges to the new leadership taking over in 2013.

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At one point the ruble reaches 80 to the dollar on Dec. 17, 2014, before settling at 60. It has lost more than half its value. The architect of Russia's finances in Putin's first and second terms, Alexei Kudrin, is critical of the way the central bank and the Putin administration is handling the economy and Russia's finances.

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This WSJ editorial in September 2014 says many of president Obama's statements and decisions on Obama healthcare legislation and implementation, Syria, NSA and privacy, the Middle East, Russia, showed poor judgement. It refers to a piece by Peter Baker in NYT where it is said that Obama mocked how people see him as too professorial, diffident, in a sarcastic statement. The problem says WSJ is that president Obama has poor judgement. Being academically credentialed and quick grasp of subject matter is not the same as having the ability to discern things, instinct and grasp of the essence of the matter. George Bush senior had a long resume and was academically credentialed. By comparison Truman had a short resume and was not academically credentialed or quick with data and analysis. He had something more essential and important- a discerning mind and grasp of the larger picture, as well as listening abilities for exceptional advisors such as General Marshall and Acheson he gathered around him....

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Geithner in written testimony to the Senate Finance Committee, stated that "President Obama - backed by the conclusions of a broad range of economists- believes that China is manipulating its currency." What is noteworthy is that experts are generally in agreement that something should be done about this in cooperative fashion, from Obama's economic team, Obama's own views on this, The National Association of Maufacturers, Labor and so on. The trade deficit with China has continued at high levels even with the current economic slowdown, so this issue remains as one that the Bush administration never really addressed. Simon Johnson, a MIT Professor, and former IMF Chief economist says that even the IMF has not addressed it, and that the Obama administration needs to call China to account. He says this could lead to a spat with China, and if the US does not back down to a row. The concern has been that China would not buy up Treasury debt the way it has in the past, at the same time the question is whether there is some point where the deficit is so large and the US so dependent on foreign buyers of Treasury debt, that it needs to be addressed on a number of levels. Including addressing currency and fair trade issues, a more rational balanced consumption of everything from oil to goods from lowcost Asian countries, to reduce the toll on the overextended American consumer and on the extent of US borrowing needed. From China's perspective there may also be the same concern about export led growth, which may come to be seen as undependable anyway, because with or without some currency advantage the overextended US consumer is not buying anyway, holding off on purchases of everying from cars to flatscreen televisions. With growth at 6.8% in 4th quarter 2008, according to the Chinese Government Statistics Bureau, and expected to drop to 5% in 2009, the export growth model is no longer the panacea for China's unemployed as it once was at 12-13% growth rates in 2006-2007. In fact it may now look to be a better wiser policy if China had increased the value of its currency even more than its slow gradual approach to slow the growth rate from 12-13% to a more sustainable 9-10%, and lower American imports and lower the American trade deficit. Part of the problem in China was the difficulty of applying any sort of brakes once the local governments were set free to expand as much as they could, and prevented any controls from being effective. Steel production continued to grow even after there was evidence of large overcapacity, and government direction failed. Buy some time to shift to domestic consumption based recovery, is what the Chinese policy may be now. Indications of this are evident with its grappling at the issues it has not tackled like giving ownership of land to farmers in rural areas, and to building a healthcare system for the country, both of which are part of a host of issues to shift to domestic consumption based recovery. So unlike the way the media and some experts portray it its not a tough line that the US is taking against Chinese unwillingness. China may want to cooperate.That may be true if China was missing out on 10-13% growth rates, but these were unsustainable anyway and bad policy. At growth rates below 5% as projected by analysts China may want to jettison the export model of growth and build an alternative one. In that case as China shifts to domestic consumption, currency adjustments may be seen quite differently than they were in the past....