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According to a report from China's Environment Ministry for the first half of 2013, only 4 cities met the acceptable air quality standards. The national grade 2 standard in China is for 35 micrograms per cubic meter for levels of airborne particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrograms in diameter. WHO standard is for 25 micrograms per cubic meter in a 24 hour period. The 4 cities with acceptable air qualty out of 74 cities monitored by the Environment Ministry are Lhasa in Tibet, island city Haikou, coastal town Zhoushan, and Pearl River Delta city of Huizhou.

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This analysis of coal use using graphs shows a clear move away from coal in the world, except for two growth markets China and India which account for 60% of the increase in coal use since 2008. India has gone black in its shift to increasing use of coal. China has begun the shift away from coal to address the smog over large urban areas, poor air quality and health impact of coal use. Because China used five times the coal used by India in 2017, the overall impact in China and India is showing a shift away from coal to hydropower, other renewables including solar energy. It is likely that India will make the shift following China's example in the future. 

The trend is clear when one looks at the incremental terawatt hour and where it comes from. The shift is clear to renewables, hydropower, and non fossil uses in the rest of the World and China which account for most of the coal use in the world.

 

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Galston focusses attention on the major problem facing democracies in Europe and the U.S.- that of providing decent paying jobs and improved economic prospects for lower and middle income households. He cites the surveys from the Pew Research Report and the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics showing how middle income households median net income remains stuck at levels of 1997, and lower income households at levels of 1996. The median net worth of American households adjusted for inflation presents an alarming picture of being at $96,000 in 1983 and $98,000 in 2013 for middle income families, and being at the level of $12,000 for lower income families the level of 1975. Most of the new jobs as much as 95% are being created in the low wage service sector and the BLS statistics show the future looking much the same- with huge numbers of low wage jobs, fewer decent manufacturing jobs because of automation and jobs shifts to low cost locations overseas, remaining manufacturing jobs in the U.S shrinking by another 800,000 to 7% of the workforce by 2025. The result is the alarming rise of populist politicians like Trump in the U.S., Le Pen in France , and populist politicians in Hungary and Poland. Cultural liberals in the Democratic Party and the Republican establishment are both threatened by the rise of cultural illiberalism, xenophobia, and nationalism, as economic anxiety increases, and fears of terrorism and immigrants add to this anxiety. Progressive tendencies in the Republican party since the days of Theodore Roosevelt and of professional elites in the Democratic Party could become endangered if no serious effort is made to come up with solutions to the problems these trends present. The disconnect between the concerns of the working and middle class and the professional elites as the gap widens and the social compact in America and Europe breaks apart, means a new mindset will be required in America and Europe to deal with this. ...

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The WHO, World Health Organization, comes under criticism for failing to warn about the pandemic. President Trump says the U.S. finances the WHO with $450 million but the WHO has opposed some of the basic common sense approaches to the virus such as early quarantines and suspension of flights from virus hotspots. Including opposing the U.S. action taken by president Trump on January 27, 2020 to close all passenger flights between U.S. and China. A 14 day quarantine was put into effect for Hubei province. About 8.5 million passengers visited the U.S. from China in 2018 according to the U.S.Transportation Department. Reports show Chinese cities deserted on NYT January 30, but infections only 1300 a week earlier going up to 12,000 and only 259 deaths. President Trump says the world was misled by the WHO on the extent of the crisis developing in China, as he sets up a review of the WHO's role in the crisis and on funding by the U.S. President Trump says the crisis in the U.S. would be much larger if some of the 8.5 million passengers from China arrived in U.S. cities. He also says the decision was his own intuition about what was happening with health experts not realizing the extent of the crisis as there was very little data on the crisis. Most of the experts Mr. Fauci and Dr Birx were also not aware at the time of the gravity of the crisis, and some leading epidemiologists at American universities even called it an emotional reaction. ...

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Portugal in 2012-2013 stands as a good case study of what is good and what is bad about austerity measures, about what makes sense and is needed and what does not make sense and is bad both in a fiscal sense and for growth. Patricia Knowsmann does a good job of bringing this out, from the hundreds of stories written about austerity vs growth in the media. During 2011-2012, the elected government of Passos Coelho has supported an EU-IMF-ECB program that reduced wages, raised taxes, privatized state owned companies and changed labor laws that reduced hiring by businesses. During this time the Portuguese have patiently accepted the program compared to other countries and the budget deficit is shrinking from 9.8% in 2010 to an expected 5% in 2012. The unemployment rate has gone up to 15%. Now a new plan by prime minister Coelho in September has created an uproar and sparked popular opposition to the austerity measures threatening what has been achieved in deficit reduction, including the credibility of the austerity program. The plan is to reduce the portion of salaries that employers contribute to the social security system from 23.5% to 18%, in the hope that employers would increase hiring. At the same time it increases the portion of salaries employees pay from 11% to 18%. Coelho was looking at Germany and Slovenia where employees pay more than 20% of salaries to Social Security. What he failed to look at was the situation in Portugal where workers and pensioners have lost about 24% of their income through wage cuts and tax increases. The new plan would reduce incomes even further. Portugal's small business owners expressed strong disapproval for the plan because it would mean a drastic drop in consumer spending. The president of a Portuguese shoe maker, Kyaia, with 600 employees, says it makes no sense to reduce companies contribution if the company can't sell enough shoes to keep its workers. Kyaia has already experienced a 25% decline in demand and its CEO Fortunato Frederico, says he cannot understand how a company can hire workers if demand declines. This impact on consumer demand and sentiment is a fact that policymakers cannot ignore throughout the eurozone as austerity measures are implemented, especially when demand has already declined to an unacceptable point. The move by Coelho ignored a study by Portugal's finance ministry and central bank that showed export businesses may be induced to hire from the savings in contributions, but the businesses serving the domestic market would simply take in the savings. The EU-IMF-ECB recognized this and suggested increasing taxes to pay for the reduction in employer contributions, which would also depress demand by reducing incomes further. Portugal's economy and business is not focussed on exports, small business makes up 97% of Portugal's companies and most of them do not export. The introduction of such a plan gives credibility to the idea that there is a transfer of wealth from workers to business under the austerity programs, which affects the credibility of the entire deficit reduction and competitiveness improvement programs. For Coelho it also means the strong opposition of a minority party in his coalition government and from members of his Social Democratic Party. Large demonstrations were held on Sept 15 in 40 cities in Portugal in the first large scale opposition to further austerity measures and the Coelho social security contribution plan. Capital markets in Europe also see a problem with such plans because it removes the essential element of popular acceptance of deficit reduction plans jeopardizing the entire program. After the failure to win popular acceptance in Greece capital markets see additional risks and failures as one too many for the eurozone. ...

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Municipal yields are back up. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says states in the USA will have to close budget gaps of $140 billion in fiscal year 2012, ending in June, down from $160 billion this year. But real shortfalls will increase because federal stimulus funds that helped state and local governments will fall from $59 billion this year to $6 billion next year. Local governments depend on states for one third of their revenue, according to a Congressional Budget Office report, which makes them vulnerable. Property taxes account for a quarter of local government revenue and this too will be declining with declining assessed values. The Federal Reserve Act limits open-market purchases of munis to ones with maturities of less than 6 months, which reduces the scope for help from the Fed.

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The transformation of towns in Iowa like Newton, once the place where Maytag and washing machine plants were located, and now with many of these plants closed the shift to making parts like blades for wind energy. The transformation of Toledo, a location for the auto industry factories, and now with the closing down of these plants the shift to manufacturing solar panels for solar energy. In all a transformation that is expected to generate 3 or 4 million jobs in the midwest in energy related products, to replace the jobs lost in the auto industry and in industries like appliances, like the Maytag plant in Newton that closed. Along the way there is hope and optimism and awe at the new product being built for wind and solar energy, which is cutting edge and not easily outsourced because of the size of the blades and the structures in wind energy generation. The struggles are chronicled of the people in Newton, Iowa and a whole generation of workers who even without a college education were able to live middle class lives because of Maytag plants in the area. And the distress caused as these plants cut employees and let the plants get antiquated, and finally the distress with the shutting down of the plants....

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Airlines are placing placeholder schedules full of flights 6 to 9 months ahead of travel dates. The 2 months before the travel date the real schedule will be placed. At the time of travel some flights with few passengers will be cancelled. Airlines are also flying directly to travel destinations from smaller cities, new flights are setup for destinations such as Israel because of vaccinations, Reykjavik, and other destinations such as Greece that are opening up for vaccinated people in the US. In 20 years there has never been a time when airlines are planning flights in this way. A vacation surge is under way as vaccinations increase. Federal money to aid airlines recovery is helping airlines bring back planes and new flights, retrain pilots. Business travel is down and likely to stay that way, so that the surge is expected mostly from vacation travel. Delta has the unique situation where it can increase capacity by 30% by ending its block on middle seats on April 30, 2021. Delta's available seat miles are expected to be 80% of 2019 showing that a recovery is underway as more people book airline travel. ...

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The knowledge that the virus  caused human to human transmission and that it spreads to wide parts of the population very quickly were critical pieces of information that remained with Chinese epidemiologists, doctors and medical researchers, and were suppressed by local authorites in Wuhan.  Yet China's version of the U.S. CDC, China's Centre of Disease Control and Prevention, modeled on the U.S. control efforts worked effectively to identify the problem. Virologist Gao Fu, heads China's CDC. This report in Germany's Der Spiegel says Mr. Fu made it a habit to scan China's internet before bedtime for any signs of possible disease outbreaks. On the night of December 30 he came across rumors of an internal memo from the Wuhan Health Commission of an outbreak of a vaguely worded lung disease. When he called the Wuhan health authority he found their answers to be evasive which alarmed him. The next morning December 31 Mr. Fu sent the first of three teams to Wuhan which is how China was able to identify the problem, in the sense that Chinese authorites in Beijing were to rely on Dr Gao Fu to overcome the problem of Wuhan provincial authorites. He informed the World Health Organization Beijing office on that day. The Der Spiegel report says "shortly afterward," the Seattle Times in its report says this was about New Years Day 2020- Mr Fu made a call to Dr. Redfield, head of the U.S. Centre for Disease Control, who was on vacation. Redfield is deeply disturbed on hearing this from Fu and they have conversations over the next few days to the point that Dr. Gao Fu is in tears about what has happened. On January 1 Taiwanese public health authorites shared the information with WHO that the cornonavirus was a human to human transmission, would the Taiwanese authorites not have shared it with the U.S. the same week during calls from the U.S. CDC or other public health authorites alarmed about the situation. (The WHO was proving useless by Jan 14 when it contradicted Taiwan's more reliable assessment  on Jan 14 going by the letter from president Trump to WHO). On January 6 a few days later Dr Redfield and Dr. Azar head of Health and Human Services ask China for permission to send a team of CDC U.S. experts to China. This is cited in the U.S. letter to the World Health organization- the lack of human to human transmission information being given to the U.S. officially early by China. A risk that could have been a topic of conversation between the U.S. and China heads of CDC. That letter from president Trump also points out that the team of experts the U.S. planned to send was not accepted by China till Feb 16, one and half months after that series of conversations between Dr. Gao Fu of China CDC and Dr. Redfield of U.S. CDC in an alert message.  In effect removing one of the key defences for the U.S. and Europe in making their own defensive actions and plans, laying the basis of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic affecting millions of people. Dr Redfield is a AIDS researcher at the University of Maryland who spent most of his life trying to control spread of HIV and was appointed by president Trump to head CDC agency in 2018. He set a goal of eliminating AIDS by 2030 and is more comfortable with aids patients and research than the bureaucratic nature of agencies- CDC has about 11,000 employees. Once it was clear that a team of U.S. experts was not given permission to make its own assessment in Wuhan in the few days after January 6 offer to sent the team to China by Redfield of U.S. CDC and Dr. Azar, would it have alerted the U.S. that something was seriously heading the wrong way for a epidemic risk. That letter of president Trump cites how the head of WHO during the first SARS crisis in 2003, Dr. Harlem Brundtland acted when she faced China's lack of cooperation during that crisis by saying openly that this was a danger to world public health and millions. Could CDC in the U.S. and the other connected health authorites have taken the responsibility and filled Dr Brundtland's role in this crisis, that the WHO failed to perform?    ...

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It is hard to imagine that one is even writing about this, as shocking as it is- the 4 or 5 minutes between a decision to launch nuclear weapons and the end of life on this planet earth as we know it. Here Sam Nunn, a U.S. senator who was part of the negotiations for arms control and who is the leading American in this field talks about the unimaginable danger. He says the strategy from the Cold War where Russia and the U.S. put their nuclear forces in a position to be launched within minutes, 4 to 5 minutes, is outdated and needs to be changed. Hillary Clinton described the issue in the television debate. Yet this was not discussed because of the nature of the 2016 presidential election with lack of serious discussion.  And both Nunn and Clinton emphasize that once the missiles are in the air they cannot be ordered to go back. Accidental error, judgemental error, informational error in which one side thinks the other has launched a missile, a firing by mistake, are possible. In this situation Nunn says Trump is temperamentally unfit, and Clinton is fit to take on the responsibility. Yet the question this raises is as Nunn signals- is anyone but God fit to make this decision to launch nuclear weapons. Nunn says it is outdated and wrong to have only a few minutes, as such a decision cannot be made in a few hours or days, much less in 5 minutes. Nunn brings up a discussion he had in Moscow when he brought this up with Russians and president Putin. Russian president Putin told Nunn that he was fully aware of this. Putin's response was- "Senator Nunn, at some point it becomes automatic."  Nunn does not clarify what this means, or what Putin means to say. For people on the planet it is not enough to have Reagan, Gorbachev, Clinton, as Nunn mentions being responsible people for a nuclear decision. The current state of affairs is simply shocking and the lack of attention to this is also shocking. Equally dangerous is that 20 countries have weapons usable nuclear material, and sophisticated hacking of command and control processes is another danger.       ...

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Meredith Whitney and her comments on the municipal bond market and potential defaults worth hundreds of billion of dollars. She said in a "60 Minutes" interview that she expected a series of municipal bond defaults. "You could see 50 sizable defaults, 50 to 100 sizable defaults, more. This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars worth of defaults," said Whitney. Other analysts have questioned her dire forecast. Most of the problems in municipal bonds are fairly well know say analysts, however these comments have only accelerated the trend, and more than $14 billion came out between Dec 22 and Feb 2. In other words her comments drove a rush to the exits, which is seen as irresponsible by some analysts.

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The cost of tution for four year colleges has doubled in the U.S. since 1985 even after adjustment for inflation, according to the College Board. Over 3 million households in the U.S. owe more than $50,000 in student loans. Ths is ten times the figure of 300,000 in 1989, and about four times the figure of 794,000 in 2001. Upper middle income families with incomes between $94,000 and $205,000, based on Wall Street Journal analysis of U.S. Federal Reserve data, shows they owed an average of $32,869 in college loans in 2010, up from $26,639 in 2007, after adjusting for inflation. This is affecting the choices parents and students in the middle class are making of colleges, preferring to go to second tier colleges to better manage the costs of tution.

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India's emissions rates up by 57% and China's by 34% in the past decade. U.S. contributes 25% of the world's greenhous gas emissions.

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The Economst cites an IMF June 2012 paper by Arcand, Berkes and Panizza that shows private borrowing and size of bank balance sheets once it reaches 100% of GDP begins to slow growth. A second paper by Cecchei and Enisse Kharroubi at the Bank for International Settlements confirms this showing that at low levels private borrowing and expansion of bank balance sheets increases economc growth, but at high levels exceeding 100% of GDP a large financial system actually hurts economic growth. Andy Haldane of the Bank of England points out the fact that for the century to 1970 bank assets increased by an average of 0.6% a year faster than GDP in 14 large economies, but increased much faster after this with ratio of assets to GDP increasing by about 3 percentage points a year. Bank assets increased from 50% of GDP in the 1960's to about 200% of GDP by 2007, reaching 500% of GDP in Britain, 800% of GDP in Switzerland, and 126% in the U.S. The increase in world trade accentuated this period with trade increasing from 22% of global GDP to 33% in the period 1996-2008, and banking following this trend across borders to developing countries. At the same time excesses caused an imbalance with hyper growth in bank balance sheets through taking on more leverage and banking risks. The Economist sees this process going back in reverse as bank balance sheets shrink in the face of regulation and efforts for financial stability following the 2008 global financial crisis....

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The director of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Cai Fang predicts that by 2009 there would be a widespread shortage of workers, pushing up industrial wages. Figures from the UN Population Division show that China's working age population will decline in the years ahead. There are two things here that matter. The millions of people in a socalled surplus labor force that can be tapped so that industry can hire more people expand and grow without wage inflation, and second the working age population 20-29, younger people being preferred by employers for the long hours, single people who can stay in dorms and can be mobile to move near factories and do not have the restrictions of married people with children. The one child policy has limited the growth of the working age population. After rising by 1.3% a year according to the UN Population Division during the decade to 2005, the population of working age is expected to increase at an annual rate of 0.7% until 2015, and then shrink by 0.1% ayear until 2025. The surplus labor pool figures estimates vary from 150 million people to 200 million people, but the Economist estimates the true figure to be much smaller because government figures for the rural labor force include millios of migrants already in the cities and others working in rural industry not farming. The population of workers in ages 20-29 fell from 233 million in 1990 to 165 million in 2005. Because of this shrinking of supply of eligible labor especially considering the preference of textile and electronics firms to hire young women because they complain less and put up with long hours and for single men preferred by construction firms, Cai Fang believes that this preferred or eligible labor pool is shrinking to the point where it will be a problem in the years ahead. This will have the impact of shrinking the growth rate to around 7% sometime after 2009. Problems that remained under cover because of the Olympics will also become evident as 2008 winds down. Some experts argue that there are other factors that will contine to sustain the pool of available workers, but its this pool of preferred available workers that will be in short supply according to Cai Fang. ...

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China's efforts to control air pollution by increasing supply of wind power, hydroelectric power and nuclear power. Efforts to control air pollution and the problems China faces. Proposal for a carbon tax on polluting plants.

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The US vaccination drive appears to be stalling when it comes to getting younger people vaccinated. On a recent day 1.13 million persons were vaccinated. About 150 million Americans are fully vaccinated or about 47% of the population. About 53% of the population have one dose. This still leaves the rest of the population close to one half unvaccinated as the US is opening up fully and removing the social distancing and mask mandates that existed before. The problem is that the coronavirus delta variant is about twice as transmissible than the original coronavirus of March 2020. Vaccination is uneven across the US. Large parts of the southern states and the western states lag behind. In these areas as well as areas with large urban concentrations of population, the densely populated cities where social distancing and mask mandates are being lifted as if the coronavirus crisis is over, are at risk of seeing a more powerful virus spread quickly before gene sequencing catches up with new variants- making the response lag behind in terms of weeks. That lag in response could lead to another wave in the US. Consider also that tourism is opening up in Europe with removal of mask mandates, that gene sequencing to track variants is tiny in even countries such as Italy and France. A WSJ report on June 22 shows gene sequencing to track variants at 1% of positive tests in Italy, and virologists in Italy saying they feel as if they are flying blind. This report in the Washington Post says surveys show as many as one third of Americans have no immediate plans to get vaccinated. This is showing up in the low numbers for the vaccination drive, of around 1 million a day at this time in June 2021. In April this was 3 million vaccine doses adminstered on a single day on average. India where the new delta variant has had the most serious impact has stepped up its response with the federal government taking complete responsibility for vaccine supplies and vaccination drives. It is now vaccinating aggressively in the range of 6 million to 8 million doses a day during the last 7 days with a plan to ensure enough vaccine supplies for 1.2 billion people to get vaccinated by December 31.  The European Union and the US have  vaccinated just over 50% of their population for a variant that is more than twice as transmissible than the original virus. This leaves the unvaccinated at real risk because all the social distancing and mask mandates that existed earlier are being removed- in the US, in France, in Italy, and other countries. Soccer stadiums are filling up in Europe, the kind of sports events that later hit Bergamo, Italy, in March 2020. Summer tourism is back in Portugal and Greece. The best intentions will not be enough. Are mask and social distancing protocols being lifted too quickly especially in tourist locations reminiscent of last summer in Europe and elsewhere. Germany and Britain are holding on to them a bit longer. Will this be enough to tackle a new variant. ...

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The apartment vacancy rate declined to 5.2% in fourth quarter 2011 from 6.6% in 2010, and down from 5.6% in the third quarter, according to Reis. The vacancy rate went up to 8.5% in 2009. Data from Reis shows rents went up in 71 of 82 markets it tracks. For the U.S. rents went up by an average 0.4% in the 4th quarter, to $1064 a month, increasing from $1026 in 2009. Rent growth for 2011 was 2%. Factors helping demand for apartment rentals are the reluctance of buyers to invest in a home when prices are declining in an uncertain economy, and fears of another downturn. Factors holding price increases down in New York are the declining jobs inthe financial services industry and the already high levels of rental prices- reaching $2876 a month. Demand in San Francisco and San Jose was higher and prices were up over 5% in 2011, with better properties raising rents by 10%.

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Hingh unemployment in important states including Florida, Pennsylvania, Colorado (8%). Unemployment has improved in Ohio (7%), Virginia and Iowa (6%).