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Britain's prime minister Boris Johnson lays out the rules for reopening in a 50 page document. It says people should use masks in public transport and outside. It also recommends people not use the subways at this time but use cars, bicycles or walking to work as better alternatives. Subway stations such as Waterloo were relatively quiet as people practiced guidelines and acted cautiously. The rules were seen as confusing but the prime minister says the reopening is much more complex than the closing which simply said "stay at home."

People were advised to work from home when possible and gave people in construction the ability to get back to work. Restaurants, hair salons, shops remain closed till a later stage. There is concern that cases could spike again and the prime minister clearly stated this would mean putting the brakes again. Britain is the second highest in deaths after the U.S. 

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Exceptional reporting in the Washington Post on the meddling in the U.S. election by Russia and president Putin. This report provides some inside details on how the issue was handled by Trump during the period before and after the election based on 50 interviews with Trump connected officials. According to the report Trump treated any thought that he was elected by factors other than his charisma and personality as an affront. When confronted with evidence from intelligence reports by U.S. spy chiefs on Jan. 6 at Trump Tower, Trump railed at the idea that he could not have won the election without outside help. Trump's larger than life personality made him take on the challenge of winning the president from outside with unconventional tactics. Here the same larger than life personality and ego conflicts with the effort of Republican advisers who sought to put the Russian issue behind them by accepting the findings of the intelligence community.

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The Republican House Health Care pLan in 2017 relies on tax credits of between $2000 and $4000 based on age. Under the Affordable Health Care Act the elderly poor in high cost insurance areas received additional help. These people would lose over $2000 per person and may forgo full coverage or coverage entirely under the Republican House Health Care Plan. A report by Standard & Poor's estimates about 2 to 4 million people who are in 50's and 60's not yet qualifying for Medicare might lose their coverage they now have under ACA. The Republican plan also gives incentives through tax credits higher for older people, $4000 for a 60 year ol and $2000 for a 25 year old. Under the ACA the insurers are not allowed to charge more than three times what is charged for younger people, under the Republican plan this goes up to five times. 

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The mass transit system in Dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, cost $150 million and provides transport connections cutting commutes by 2 hours for 400,000 people. 
Dar es Salaam has population 6 million and has grown eightfold since 1980. Four of five people live on the sprawling fringes in informal settlements that take a commute of over 2 hours to city centre. Dar es Salaam has chosen a bus system with dedicated lanes and areas instead of a metro which is costlier to build. The city has only four arterial roads with 2 lanes each way. Most of the growth is on the periphery and unplanned. The Dart System now in place separates the bus lanes from other traffic to reduce stoppages. The average journey from the centre to the terminus at Kimara is now down from 2 hours each way to 45 minutes.saving 50 hours each week for the average bus passenger.

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According to a report from the Southern Education Foundation about 51% of the students from pre-Kindergarden to 12th grade in the U.S. were eligible for the federal program of free and reduced price lunches, using an analysis of 2013 federal data. With the highest proportion of students in poverty concentrated in states in the southern and western U.S.. States all across the south, including Texas, show high concentrations approaching 60-70%, and states in the west such as California show about 50-60%. Midwestern states such as Illinois and Michigan show rates over 50%. The implications of this data are that these children from poor and sometimes chaotic backgrounds trail other children in educational development, are less likely to have educationally enriching activity, and more susceptible to dropping out or never attending college. Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation says the map showing this is striking. He points to the disinclination to invest in young people today, compared to the focus on leadership in areas of creating opportunity and upward mobility in the decades of the 50's through the 80's. Michael Rebell of Teachers College at Columbia University, says reaching this point where a majority of public school children are from poor backgrounds has happened sooner, and the trend has accelerated over time. ...

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This WSJ report shows Russian oil exports to European ports actually increased in April compared to March 2022. Some of the shipments are sent out with destination unknown, and some oil is transferred to bigger oil tankers further out at sea. Mixing of the oil blurs its origin says this report. It cites TankerTrackers.com showing that ports in European Union member states which are historically the largest buyers of Russian oil had seen exports of Russian crude oil to these ports rise to an average of 1.6 million barrels a day in April from 1.3 million a day in March. Companies such as Shell consider oil that is less than 50% Russian as not Russian oil. Countries such as Netherlands are seeing increase in oil from Russia according to charts shown here. Simon Johnson, professor at MIT and former chief economist at the IMF says until there is an oil embargo this is likely to happen, and it is all about cheap energy. Even with an oil embargo Johnson asks will they sanction tankers out at sea. ...

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Kemal Kilicdaroglu is the leader of the Republican PHP party of Kemal Ataturk, who built modern Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. He was a civil servant for 30 years and headed the social security administration. Kilicdaroglu campaigns in a modest way with videos made in his kitchen in a big contrast to Mr. Erdogan. Since losing the election for Istanbul in 2009 and 2014 he has lost 2 presidential elections to Mr. Erdogan during the period of economic growth in Turkey. He now heads an alliance of 6 parties that includes popular mayors of Istanbul and Ankara. With inflation at over 50%, Turkey seen as stalling strengthening of NATO by blocking Sweden's membership, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the earthquake leaving over 50,000 people dead in Turkey and the government seen as having allowed substandard construction in Turkey, there is a sense that Turkey is ready for a new government. Kilicdaroglu says he will restore the parliamentary system, and restore independence of the judiciary, central bank and foreign ministry if he wins.    ...

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The two waves of the coronavirus in India can be compared looking at the graphs and this report in the Times of India. The case volume and deaths in the worst hit state Maharashtra is shown here. The case volume increased by about 50% in the second wave but deaths were about half that in the first wave. Most of the deaths were in the people over 65 and most of the cases in the ages below 40 years. In the over 65 age only 5% have been vaccinated which means that medical management is still the best way of tackling the coronavirus. Vaccine supplies are the bottleneck and this is beginning to change- so that by August ample supplies of the vaccine should make the difference in bringing down cases and deaths.  Lockdowns are managed carefully so that the economy can recover in the second half of 2021 and in 2022.  Any assessment of the crisis management must take into account the speed of the response, its effectiveness, and keeping in mind the economic recovery needed following the pandemic. ...

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Living longer and healthier lives the sixty year old of today may look like a 40 year old. Working years may now be much longer say experts. Instead of 30 years, it could be 40 or 50 years. People may need to engage with meaningful work longer to have the stimulation that comes from work that interests them. The work may even be broken up in increments of 20 years, each devoted to different areas of interest. Experts say the friendship and stimulation from work is better than that in bingo halls, beaches or on a golf cart. Working part time or going back to school is in the works. It makes more sense too to accumulate savings longer as the official social security retirement ages are being extended to beyond 66 years. In fact the only age group where labor participation is already growing is in the over 55 years age group. In this sense the struggle to preserve older pension schemes retiring early look more like a thing of the past, even though they arouse passions such as in mass protests in France on this issue. ...

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M.r Modi recalls the blessings of Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav given to him with his advice in 2014 when he became prime minister and met Opposition leaders in India. Mulayam Singh was mentored by Ram Manohar Lohia, a socialist educated at Humboldt University in Germany in the 1930's and an early activist in India's Independence struggle under Mohandas Gandhi. PM Modi who has translated many of the ideals of Mr. Lohia into practice with development work for water, sanitation, electricity, gas stoves, housing, for tens of millions, says Mr. Mulayam Singh's advice has stayed with him even today. Without the stability given by leaders such as Lohia and Mulayam Singh India could not have navigated carefully the difficult period of the first 50 years after independence in 1947. For democracy to prevail leadership of this kind is essential. America turned from time to time to leaders such as Lincoln, FDR during its history, India is in a formative period for its democracy as it goes through modernization for a country with 1.2 billion people and many languages.  ...

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Five of eight unions in the German Confederation of Trade Unions DGB have increased membership. There is a shift to younger members as older workers retire. Membership is more engaged than ever before. More unions are taking up the issue of wage increases after workers were accomodative during the pandemic and Ukraine war. DW.com shows graphs of German workers having lost 18 days due to strikes coming ninth in the developed economies compared to 92 days in France, Canada 78, and the US 9 days. Cost of living action is seen as needed by workers for fair wages. There are 1.8 million open jobs and workers are now getting more confident to ask for better working conditions and higher pay, say experts. This is also happening in the US with president Biden's support. The problem is that only 50% of jobs in Germany are covered by collective bargaining agreements designed to ensure that companies pay decent wages. The EU directive in 2022 set a target of 80% for collective bargaining agreements. This makes it harder for unions yet the unions and workers are taking up the work with enthusiasm.   ...

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Turkey's inflation rate continues to rise even after a government effort in December to stabilize the economy by stabilizing the lira. Annual inflation jumped from 21% in November to 36% in December, according to the Turkey Statistical Institute. The true inflation rate could be much higher. The ENAGrup estimate after assessing thousands of prices is that true annual inflation is 82%. Ordinary Turks have difficulty affording essential food supplies, says this WSJ report. Turkey has overdependence on the US dollar in its government and bank borrowings which has intensified the impact of the cost increases world wide with the supply chain problems and higher energy prices. Food imports now are much costlier. Depreciation of the lira currency by about 50% added to the impact of the overall global inflation. The lira has come back a bit to 40% loss of value after an unorthodox government plan, yet inflation continues to rise. Deeper problems within the economy that were hidden when the economy was in high growth years are now apparent as the world sees an inflationary surge during the second year of the pandemic. ...

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After the National Rally party of Le Pen wins 30% of the vote to Macron's En Marche 15% in EU elections, showing the unpopularity of Macron, Macron responds by calling for snap elections. Macron is taking an aggressive approach to stop NR party as so far  parliamentary elections in France  have led to voters on the left and right veering to the centre to avoid giving the far right National Rally of Le Pen a win. National Assembly elections also require getting 50% of the vote under different rules than EU elections.  Politico points out that the situation is different today as the NR is more in the mainstream of politics. Macron's hope is that the NR would increase its seat numbers from 88 but not as much, and that other parties such as the Republicains and the Socialist parties, the parties that governed France since 1945 would also make gains. He could then appoint a prime minister not from En Marche his party but from the Republicains party of Nicholas Sarkozy, French president (2007-2012), which supports Macron.  ...

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DJT announces actions on Liberation Day, April 2, 2025 freeing America on attacks on its manufacturing base and its workers for 50 years since the 1970's. He announces reciprocal tariffs on all nations with large trading imbalances with the US, a 34% tariff on China and a 20% tariff on all imports from the European Union. These nations he says have taken advantage of the US and looted and pillaged the US workers and communities for decades mainly because of the presidents who sat in the White House executive room and allowed this to happen. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent advised all trading nations-  "My advice to every country right now is, do not retaliate." His advice- "sit back, take it in.... Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation". The US is in no mood to be lectured or retaliated when these countries including China, Japan, South Korea and the EU, Taiwan, India a list of about 20 nations have taken unfair advantage of the US in trade for 3 decades. ...

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Spotify acquires podcasting firms to broaden its appeal and acquire nonmusic content including listening time on radio. Spotify thinks it can bring to nonmusic content podcasts what it has done for music by bringing better curation, customization and recommendation, while developing tools and collecting data for podcasters. Talk enhances the experience of listening to music, says Spotify CEO Daniel EK.  Spotify aims to take some of the two hours people listen to radio globally and make money off of it. Ek says video is a bout $1 trillion market, and music plus radio $100 billion, but he questions whether our eyes are worth 10 times as much as our ears." Adding more monetization opportunities is key. Spotify says it has seen that podcasts command an engaged audience- people who see podcasts spend twice as much time using the service, and tend to stream more live music. They are less likely to cancel subscriptions.  Spotify has 206 million users and 96 million subscribers. Average revenue per user is 4.89 euros as many of Spotify's users come in through family plans and in international markets with lower pricing power. ...

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Moody's lowered long term ratings on Unicredit, Intesa Sanpaolo, Banco IMI by 2 notches to Baa2. Moody's recently lowered Italy's rating to Baa2. Moody's cited the high direct exposure of Italian banks to sovereign debt of Italy and risks that the Italian government may not be able to provide financial support to Italian banks in the event banks need help.

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Three regional Fed bank presidents have expressed skepticism of the Fed plan to buy medium to long term Treasury bonds- they are Kocherlakota of Minneapolis Fed, Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed, and Plosser of the Philadelphia Fed. There are 12 regional Fed banks, and five voting seats on the Federal Open Market Committee rotate for the 12 Fed bank presidents. Opposition to Bernanke will increase as these presidents take voting positions in the Fed Open Market Committee. The Wall Street Journal reports that there is deep skepticism about Bernanke's plan among some of his colleagues. Thomas Hoenig of the Kansas City Fed says that more expansive monetary policy was "a bargain with the devil." The Fed's plan is to take a measured approach with U.S. Treasury bond purchases with maturities between 2 and 10 years. A WSJ survey of private sector economists in October 2010 found that the Fed is expected to purchase about $250 billion of Treasury bonds each quarter, and continue till mid 2011, amounting to $750 billion in all. By pushing down Treasury yields the Fed hopes to have an impact on the federal funds rate of one-half to three-quarter percentage point impact for $500 billon of bond purchases, says Dudley, President of the New York Fed. Treasury yields on the 10 year note have fallen from 4% in April to 2.6% partly in anticipation of Fed's action. The previous Fed intervention in March 2009 was a program to buy $1.75 trillion of Treasury and mortgage bonds over 6-9 months. This time the approach will be careful and measured based on results, according to the Fed. Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Fed, says this is the tool less preferred and of unknown effectiveness, as fiscal tools would be the preferred choice. The deficit concerns, he says, have restricted the preferred option....

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Ian Talley provides this excellent account of how this drop in oil prices is likely to add to economic growth in major world economies, removing any ambiguity about the positive effect on the global economy. West Texas Intermediate crude dropped to about $65 from $105 between June and December 2014. The IMF estimates growth in 2015 will increase from 3.1% to 3.5% largely because of the lowering in energy costs. JP Morgan Chase economists see an addition of 0.7% points in global growth in the first half of 2015. ECB president Draghi sees the lower oil prices as an unambiguous positive. Estimates from Rhodium Group show major oil importing countries seeing import bills cut by $500 billion if prices remain low for 6-8 months, with $90 billion going into the U.S. economy. IMF estimate is that only 20% of the drop in oil prices is from lower demand, about 80% from higher fuel efficiency, increased supply using new technologies, decisions by OPEC to lower oil price, increases in supply. Based on estimates by the Rhodium Group, IEA and the IMF, the extra money flowing into the economies of the U.S., Asia and Western Europe from reduced oil import bills, as measured in percentage of GDP is: the U.S. 0.5%, Germany 0.8%, Japan 1.2%, China 0.8%, India 1.8%, South Korea 2.4%. Italy and France and other oil importing countries benefit. The impact comes at a time when Japan, China, India and eurozone economies badly needed a boost after significant slowdown in growth in 2014. It could not have come at a better time and because it is technologically driven as in the case of highly fuel efficient automobiles and new oil exploration technologies, a self sustaining process. The corresponding impact for oil exporters is: Russia -4.7%, Nigeria -5.4%, Venezuela -10.2%....

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Robert Doll, equity strategist for Black Rock, the world's largest money manager, says the growing population of the U.S. will drive economic growth in the next decade compared to Japan and Europe. He says that over the next two decades the U.S. work force will grow by 11%, Europe's will decline by 5%, and Japan's will decline by 17%. China's population growth will be only slightly more than that of the U.S. during that period and Doll expects China's growth to slow. He sees America as the best bet in a bad neighborhood. Higher immigration in the U.S. is a huge positive, as he points out economic growth is simply the product of the change in the size of the work force multiplied by its productivity. And America's productivity is good enough compared to other nations, is how Doll sees it. In 1995 the U.S. produced 25% of the world's goods and services, it was still 25% in 2010 says Doll. Other economists have pointed to this and observed a similiar pattern for most of the twentieth century. Doll sees this pattern continuing. India's population will show signficant growth and he sees greater opportunity there for long term investing. Doll sees a decoupling between U.S. stock markets and high unemployment. Most of the large U.S. companies generate a large portion of their sales and profits overseas. He estimates 40% of the business of these companies is overseas. Doll's estimate is for 70% of the incremental earnings growth of the S&P 500 companies coming from overseas markets. He also expects higher inflation with the Fed keeping it from getting out of control, and deficit cutting efforts to cut some trillions over the years. He sees favorable prospects for equities based on the money growth being strong and credit markets being good....

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Story about a Quant's life, this a math smart kid, Peter Muller, who worked for a risk analysis firm called Barra Inc in Berkeley, California, and later joins Morgan Stanley to help set up its Quant trading business. "Pairs trading" is one of the strategies Quants have used in the past in which two stocks which have a strong historical relationship provide clues as to how to short one and by another betting that the historical relationship will assert itself. "Statistical Arbitrage" is a more complex version of this and Muller's specialty was in this field at Morgan Stanley's Process Driven Trading Group (PDT). This Group produced profits from trading of about $3.5 billion in ten years upto 2006. This group now contains about $6 billion of Morgan Stanley's own money and accounted for 7.2 % of Morgan Stanley's net income with profits of $540 million in 2006. In the two weeks prior to August 9, Morgan Stanley's PDT lost about $500 million as the mortgage crisis broke out and put a wrench in the normal workings of the Quant's strategy and the fact that there are so many Quants operating with computerized trading may have added to the problem. the PDT has since recovered some of its losses. And its by no means certain that this has shaken Morgan Stanley's continued pursuit of income from Quant trading operations. The story thats told about Peter Muller is interesting as he tries everything to find happiness leaving his job for a while and playing his own music on albums and in the streets of Barcelona and New York city subway stations to soothe his restless soul and still comes back to his old job. All this happens while he is still 43. ...

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The private sector ignores health insurance. And state coverage in China is inadequate. More than two thirds of China's 1.3 billion people have no health insurance at all. If you have insurance you still pay up front in cash, if you do not have the cash up front you cannot get a surgery, treatment of any kind or any drugs, even if the insurance will later reimburse you. The Chinese health care system is dysfunctional and in a crisis because of the way it is structured, and the faulty policy incentives. It caps prices for basic drugs and procedures at below market rates, yet it lets hospitals profit from everything else from advanced drugs to sophisticated diagnostic tests. So hospitals invest heavily in technology and expensive testing. and drug sales account for 45% of revenues. And enforcement is lax. Doctors in Shanghai make monthly incomes of about $400, about what a taxi driver makes, so they supplement their income with bonuses earned by prescribing more expensive tests and drugs. There is no utilization review so the state reimburses for whatever the hospitals charge regardless of whether the test was needed or not. So the system is dysfunctional and lurching towards a crisis. In fact heavily burdening the middle class. The private outlays and burden of total health care spending has increased from 20% to 60% of total health care spending from 1978 to 2003, as the the health care system got the same dose of unfetterred capitalism as the rest of the system. The Government's share of total health care spending has dropped sharply. In addition there are design flaws that push expensive care and build in incentives for expensive care at the expense of good medical care. The government recognizes this problem and sees it as athreat to social stability. It has committed to increase spending on healthcare. ...

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After Mohandas Gandhi one of the main leaders of modern India is one who came from the untouchable castes, the lowest caste in India's caste system which had declined over centuries. Babasaheb Ambedkar comes from Ratnagiri district in Maharashtra from a family that had gained its way out of the caste constraints by working for the British East India Company. He later studied at Elphinstone College in Bombay, and went to Columbia University on a scholarship. He finished Masters degrees at Columbia University and later at the London School of Economics, in economics and political science.  Returning to India he wrote "Annhilation of Caste" in 1936. Mohandas Gandhi was at this time working on his own movement to get rid of the untouchability that over centuries made its way into the original caste system and weakened the foundations of Indian society. To understand this one has to know that in many upper castes it was seen as becoming an outcaste even to travel overseas, which by itself may have led to the decline that India experienced in the period 1500-1950, and which Gandhi personally experienced and fought his way out of. By 1942 even the British recognized Ambedkar's efforts and he was Minister of Law and Justice in the war cabinet. In 1947 Ambedkar was chosen to lead the team that would write India's Constitution. In his latter years Ambedkar became a Buddhist and has written several books on Buddhism. By 2015 Ambedkar day was recognized as a public holiday by the new government and his memory is enshrined in the efforts now underway in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh to bring modern ideas, and modernization through next generation infrastructure, and opportunity for Dalits of which caste Ambedkar was one, and the same for all of the 250 million people of Uttar Pradesh, almost the size of America. ...

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Germany's national broadcaster DW.com looks into the details of the vaccination drive in countries around the world, including Germany, and finds that there is more to the story than meets the eye in headlines about safety in vaccinations. Many headlines do not tell the whole story carefully. DW revewed reports from Italy, Austria, South Korea, Germany, Spain, the USA, Norway, Belgium and Peru, and found that in most cases health authorites have not found causal links between the vaccination and deaths.  As of March 15 it says 360 million people have been vaccinated in 120 countries, or about 9.25 million a day.  DW.com cites the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) which states: 'there is no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side effects with this vaccine. Information available so far indicates that the number of thromboembolic events in vaccinated people is no higher than that seen in the general population." As of March 10, 2021 30 cases of blood clots are recorded for 5 million people vaccinated with Astra Zeneca vaccine in the European Economic Area.  The Paul Ehrlich Institute which is in charge of vaccination in Germany has looked into 113 reported deaths in 46 years to 100 years old patients in Germany. Of these 113 deaths PEI finds that 20 died of the Covid 19 infection as it takes 14 days after the second dose for full protection, and 43 died of pre-existing conditions or other infections. For the patient population it says "they were seriously ill patients with many underlying diseases." PEI says "based on the data we have we assume they died of their underlying disease- in a coincidental time with the vaccination." A virologist at the Technical University of Munich, says that the deaths after vaccination are below the expected number of deaths without the vaccination.  ...

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How do you setup a vaccine business. Consider Mr. Adar Poonavalla in the city of Pune in India. His company Serum Institute of India, remains family owned. Founded in 1966 by Cyrus Poonavalla, it produces billions of doses of vaccines for measles, polio and other diseases. It is expected to be one of the key sources of vaccines because of its expertise and the stocks of vials and other supplies that it has in stock for the next 2 years of vaccine production. It is working on a separate facility for coronavirus production that could turn out 800 million doses of vaccine at a price of about $13 a dose over 2 years. Serum Institute is working with 3 companies that are doing the research on the vaccine for coronavirus in the U.S. and Europe, and will play a key role in the manufacturing of vaccines. To respond to the question how do you setup a company to produce vaccines for the people of the world. This is what Mr. Poonavalla says- he will only work with ethical long term funds and sovereign funds because he does not want to be in the situation where he has to charge high prices to give them returns. Unlike most countries in the world, India is unique in making certain that most of the basic pharmaceutical drugs are available to over a billion people at a low cost. Serum's goal is low cost quality vaccine production so that over a billion people in Asia can be "protected from the birth onwards." As the U.S. and Europe and large parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America, face the second vaccine phase of the coronavirus response following difficulties in PPE, Ventilators, and Masks in the first phase, they can have confidence because of companies such as Serum and the research centers in U.S. and Europe like the one at Oxford University. ...