LyrArc Article Gist
Gloomy spirits after Portman shifts to OMB Director and Susan Schwab takes over as Trade Representative. Doha Round stuck over negotiating points between Brazil, India and the EU and US over tariff reduction for agricultural exports from developing countries.

LyrArc Article Gist
An ad for a state sponsored campaign to promote women having babies on "Fertility Day," September 22, in Italy, shows a man holding a cigarette that is half burned, with the line: "Don't let your sperm go up in smoke."  The ads were deemed offensive and were withdrawn. Women say the problem is not that women don't want to have babies. It is because women depend on grandparents to provide childcare in a country that lacks enough child care facilities. Companies are still backward when it comes to offering flexible hours for women with small children. Birthrate in Italy is about 1.37 per woman compared to France at about 2.0, because France does better at flexible hours, and social safety net that includes day care and subsidies for families with children. In fact women say in cities it is prudent for women to think about having a second child because of work related issues. Italy spends less on social protection benefits- about 1% of GDP. Has a low female employment rate with some young women having to sign a pre-sign a resignation letter. Only recently did premier Renzi introduce a baby bonus of 80 to 160 euros. But the culture at work and the social support net is not encouraging. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
For senior executives of financial firms investing in August 2011- following weeks of extreme volatility in the U.S. stock market- is all about capital preservation. Executives interviewed here have moved all their money to high grade bonds and cash. This is happening even as the advisors of financial firms are telling the public to stay in the stock market for the long term, and even as many middle class investors have seen their savings shrink from the crash of 2008. It is the crash of 2008 that has made the executives interviewed here turn highly cautious.

LyrArc Article Gist
Generic brands and bulk buying  American thriftiness should increase savings cut inflation, hit pricey brands that are increasing prices. This will enable Americans to build up depleted savings, and live healthier lives by reducing processed foods and making intelligent choices in the supermarket. Products which offer better health, are priced to be economical, save buyers money and offer value, will do better in this market.

LyrArc Article Gist
Only 22% of 12th graders are proficient in NAEP Test Math in 2024. UC San Diego's freshman class math deficiency is shown in this report with many freshman having 4th grade math skills. This report says the problem is compounded by not having standardized tests for the freshman class because grades are often inflated. This problem is likely present across many US universities and colleges.

LyrArc Article Gist
Online 1 year certificates of deposit have annual percentage yield of 4.75% in 2023 compared to less than 1% in 2022. This is a significant improvement for what the average American gets on his savings accounts. For two decades low interest rates on savings accounts hurt average Americans whose savings did not grow through interest accumulation.

LyrArc Article Gist
The astonishing fact about America in 2023 is that 90% of people in retirement are insecure in retirement with less than $100,000 in savings, and 50% have no savings at all.  A situation like this would be impossible when America led the world in manufacturing in the 1960's and savings of a majority of Americans in today's dollars were higher multiple times. A tiny one tenths of one percent have around $5 million and 4% have over $1 million savings in retirement. This report in WSJ by Dagher and Tergesen shows that only 3% of Americans have saved $1-5 million and one tenth of one percent have saved $5 million plus in retirement. People shown here are  software salesperson, pilot, surgeon, veterinary practice specialist. About 4% have savings of $500,000 to $1 million. 18% have savings of $100,000 to $500,000 of which the greater part of this number are closer to $100,000. This reveals the shocking fact that in today's America in 2023 only 10% are income secure, the rest 90% are income insecure, of which a shocking 50% have zero savings. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
According to the Pew Research center the number of Americans saying airconditioners or dishwashers are a necessity dropped sharply in 2009 after years of moving upwards. Saving rates which averaged 9% between 1950-1980 and dropped to zero, went back up again in 2009 to 4%. One model developed by Obama's Council of Economic Advisors suggests it woill go up to 7%.

LyrArc Article Gist
Manpower decisive in 20226 for Ukraine as two hundred thousand deserted and 2 million dodge the draft. Ukraine has more older men at the front lines than before. The situation is where Ukraine with a population of 40 million faces Russia with apopulation of 120 million, three times its size. The war is in its 4th year. Ukraine needs young people to rebuild and the focus was to prevent loss of young generation to the war to rebuild. This is getting harder to do. It also show why after 4 years of war the war on both sides has dragged on for too long. Britain, France are further away from the frontlines, and Germany, Poland much closer, the Nordic countries and Baltics having lived with Russia as a neighbor, their respective locations affect how they talk about this war. US has rightly seen that it is in no one's interest to prolong this war with loss of tens of thousands of young people every month.

LyrArc Article Gist
This WSJ video shows the complex operations required, R&D over many years, new machinery developed, to produce, transport and install natural grass to specifications across stadiums in many cities of North America. FIFA'S experiment with consistent natural grass across stadiums in cities as different in climate and altitude as Mexico City Houston Dallas New York City Kansas City and Vancouver. The grass in all the stadiums in the venue locations has to be consistent so that players and team get the same feeling of playing on the grass. This was a huge challenge and machines had to be developed in Tennessee, research done at Michigan State over many years, and production set up in Denver, transport arranged for delivery to stadiums, and some stadiums having to lift the pitch by 1 inch to put the grass on top of existing turf. The game of soccer requires that players can slide across the grass without scraping their feet and this is why natural grass is the only grass surface for the sport. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
At this point in May (May 22, 2026) a glimmer of hope appears for settling both the crisis in Hormuz and the Ukraine war. Pakistan, Turkey and China following DJT visit to China may be pushing Iran to lower the scale of the conflict. China's first priority was to be accepted by the US at the Beijing meeting as an equal power with the US, and keen to show its willingness to bear responsibility for peaceful resolution in conflict zones as a sign of its maturity as a world power. Much of this is not shown in the media as it is mostly done behind the scenes in communications that the media knows nothing about. Note that even in the depths of the Cold War during the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and Soviet action in Budapest, the US and the Soviets when their economies were not intertwined as the US and China are today, were still talking to each other to limit the conflicts to low level conflict. Hong Kong takeover, China's actions near Taiwan, China's presence in Latin America, Chinese cooperation with Iran, and Russia on Ukraine, China's economic competition in rare earths, are relatively smaller levels of friction considering 1950's Soviet's and the US. At the same time China and the Us are aware of a new bloc emerging in Oslo in May, where India is merging its economy with the Nordic economies of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and of the European Union and Germany, creating a new bloc of 2 billion people that can only grow rapidly with India's potential to exceed growth rates of 20% in the 600 million Eastern region for a decade. EU would make the shift to strategic partnership with India displacing the vital role the European Union has played in China's growth and economy. This would create new pressures for Russian president Putin to decide it is time to listen to a friend India and de-escalate lower the level of conflict with an initial peace deal that would lead to more talks on a final settlement. Because Russia would have a harder time tackling both India and Germany at the same time. NYT shows on the same day May 22 a report on Russia and a report by the Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Sonegard that say the elites in Russia and Putin were by January 2026 having very serious discussion to change the administration, bring Igor Sechin as negotiaor to end the Ukraine conflict before serious, possibly irreversible damage, to the Russian economy. Sweden's Sonegard says that between 2020 and 2024 Russian economy declined by 8%, not grew by 13% as official figures show, inflation is much higher than 5% as official figures show, and credit is tightening, bankruptcies expected, growth even with oil prices up down to 0.4% for 2026. During 20 years running Russia Putin's No. 1 priority, his life's mission was to restore, then exceed by a large margin the living standards of the Russian people. Having at such great cost accomplished the goal of gaining recognition as a Northern Power in Europe, having gained much of Russian speaking eastern Ukraine, Putin could wisely with self respect wind down Ukraine conflict for good. The US gains something similar to Northern Power status for Russia in its recommitment to the Monroe Doctrine, with Russia withdrawing from any involvement- and China tacitly doing the same-  in the western hemisphere. With that the US can tackle its own losses that match Russian losses in lives- loss of more American lives than in the Korean and Vietnam and WWI combined to drug smuggling from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and restoring rule of law in Cuba, Venezuela, and through drug cartel free Mexico good governance in Mexico.  ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Jim Tankersley in the NYT says administration officials point out that president Biden is determined not to repeat the political and economic mistakes of the Obama era. Economists now say that these economic mistakes slowed the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis caused by faulty mortgages of banks and excessive leveraging. Obama cut back on spending on education, on relief for workers and families affected by the financial crisis of 2008, and in investing in education and other public goods. Administration officials also point to polls that show the public increasingly sides with the president on this. "The American people are absolutely right in saying that having the super wealthy and special interests pay their fair share is the right way to cut the deficit," says a communications adviser to the National Economic Council. Huge social gaps opened up in America with these economic mistakes, including the transfer of America's manufacturing base to China, an overconcentration in one country that is only now being reversed under president Biden. Jim Tankersley has covered this loss of opportunity for American workers for over a decade. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Young people in China express their anxiety about the economic situation in China on social media sites Weibo and WeChat. People compare the situation today in China with the situation in Japan after 1987. Young people worry about job security, some car-pool to save on gas, and others reduce expenses to increase savings. Lin Mo runs a financial column offering advice to readers on WeChat online site. In 2015 7.5 million new graduates will come out of Chinese universities, up 3% from 2014. There is a great deal of anxiety for these graduates as new job opportunities will be fewer for those not well connected or having skills in high demand.

LyrArc Article Gist
The contrarians not just then, but still today, as many economists shrug off facts about the new savings rate and predict a bounce back in 2009. Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of Boston money mangement shop GMO LLC, got the date right, predicting real risk to the financial system in October 2008. He pointed out for years since 2000 that the Fed's moves and the government's fiscal actions (including 2 costly wars) after the 2001 terrorist attacks, had simply postponed "a sensational bust". Its useful to see how these three, Peter Schiff, President of EuroPacific Capital, Bob Rodriguez of the FPA New Income Fund, and Jeremy Grantham agree and where even they disagree, and where the common thread of logic runs. Currency valuations including the US dollar, are the hardest to predict, and the predictions in this regard are also hardest to state for their timing. When separated from the rest of the picture, they give a better sense of what this common thread of logic in most of the crisis picture is. Grantham saw this crisis coming, but its not clear that he sees this running for a long period of a decade. He agrees with Rodriguez and Schiff about another 30% fall in the S&P 500 stock index, but at the same time he predicts over the next 7 years returns in the US stock markets will be 7.5% annually. Rodriguez sees this going on far beyond periods 1 and 2 to periods 3 to 10. And he sees government efforts to jump start the economy leading to some progress and then sputtering out because consumers are turning frugal. The savings rate will grow eventually going up to 10% by 2010. What this means is that as 70% of the US economy depends on consumption spending, and consumption spending has been too deeply damaged to recover in a few years, the downturn will only deepen in 2009 and 2010. This is his central point, and the analysis free of clutter and controversy. Basically he says the policy makers do not fully grasp that the US consumer has turned into a saver, and while the Obama administration puts one foot on the accelerator to stimulate spending, consumers will be pushing on the brakes. Schiff sees difficulties in financing the debt leading to higher interest rates and a serious drop in the value of the dollar. The views on the dollar face a lot of uncertainty as to timing, the relative strength of currencies in countries in Europe which have weak economies (UK, Ireland and Spain), and the rapidly weakening Chinese economy. But the common thread of logic runs through Rodriguez's argument about the savings rate and consumption spending, with debt and the overstretched consumer in the US running through every discussion about a weakening economy. Something much like what is happening to the auto industry because of its extraordinary degree of oversupply (with capacity reaching 94 million vehicles worldwide and demand inflated by the boom years and easy money now deflating) playing out in a few quarters, is likely to happen across the whole economy. In a gradual pattern playing out over a few years, as consumers postpone purchases of retail goods. Already this is showing up in the inventories of electronic goods that is building up. See links. Kelly Evans in the WSJ front page on January 6, 2009, confirms the signs of a seriously frugal American consumer....

LyrArc Article Gist
China's healthcare costs have increased in the last decade without effective cost control measures. With the decline in consumer spending in the last decade to where it is now only 35% of GDP, and ordinary Chinese setting aside a large portion of savings for costly drugs and healthcare, reducing healthcare costs is a high priority to rebalance the economy and increase consumer spending. By comparison in the U.S. it is 70%. Bussey points out the importance of this for the new leadership of Jinping-Keqiang in China. Xinhua, the Party offical news agency, expressed China's new policy, saying that "some believe China may see a nationwide price cut on medicines." Regulators have begun probes of Nestle and Danone for possible anticompetitive activity and the two companies dropped prices for baby formula.