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Marathon gets 20% ownership of Athabasca oil sands from Western of Calgary.

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Tata Chemicals acquisition of a major soda ash producer in the USA General Chemical Industrial Products for $1.01 billion. General Chemical has sales of about $400 million. Soda ash or sodium carbonate is used in the manufacture of glass. General Chemical has major soda ash facilities located in the Green River Basin in Wyoming which is close to large deposits of trona ore which is converted into sodium carbonate.

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China's state owned China National Nuclear Power is planning a Shanghai IPO that will help finance $27 billion in investments for 5 nuclear power projects. Chinese law states that only 20% of equity needs to be raised for power projects, which means China National Nuclear needs to raise $5.4 billion for the projects in Fujian, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Jiangsu provinces. China's State Council, the country's cabinet, has approved the 2020 nuclear-safety strategy and inspections have been completed on existing nuclear reactors. This gives the go ahead for the reactivation of nuclear power development after the Fukushima accident in Japan. With the move away from coal in China's electricity supplies, nuclear power is expected to play a bigger role. It has 14 nuclear power plants in operation, producing 11.8 gigawatts, with plans to expand this to 40 gigawatts by 2015 and 60-70 gigawatts by 2020.

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Hispanics expected to make 20% of the US electorateby 2020 up from 9% today. In California efforts to deny social services to illegal immigrants alienated Korean and Chinese voters who are mostly small business owners. Thus it creates an anti immigrant bias. Another point made here most of the Latino illegal immigrants here are related to legal immigrants so these are mothers brothers, sisters and relatives so this issue and poor treatment of these immigrants sparks protest in the minds of legal immigrants as well. As the USA demographics change how will this issue develop and play out. By 2042 the Census Bureau projections stated that the ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the US population thanks to higher birth rates and the media has focused on this and the Republican platform has according to this editorial called for walling off Mexico.

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The European Union Commission says Ireland must recover 13 billion euros in back taxes for giving tax preferences to Apple that are against EU rules. The EU Commission says Ireland allowed Apple to pay a corporate tax rate of 1% on its European profits in 2003, and .005% in 2014. The EU Commissioner says the use of Ireland as the place where Apple pays taxes on operations in Europe has no base in reality, as most profits are earned in other countries outside Ireland. Taxable profits of Apple "did not correspond to economic reality," according to Ms. Vestager, the EU Commissioner.  In the current environment where political upheaval is unsettling the democratic process in the U.S., Britain, Spain, France and Italy, as well as in Brazil and other countries in the developing world- because of deep recessions, and efforts to cut the deficits with deep cuts in state spending including in education and healthcare, basic services- the moves by companies to reduce taxes to these absurdly low levels such as .005% when other companies in the EU are paying 12.5%, is becoming increasingly unpopular. As pointed out in this BBC News article this sounds like the way Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt operated during the late 19th century, and were seen as operating in a manner that was above the law. Janet Yellen pointed out at a Boston Fed Conference on inequality in Oct 2014 that the bottom half of the distribution or 62 million households in the U.S. in 2013, had a net worth of about $10,000, One quarter of these households had a net worth of zero dollars. The working class and blue collar workers in the U.S. provide much of the support at Trump rallies. Younger college educated people support Sanders, because of the situation of the working and middle class in the U.S., and a similar situation exists in Europe. It is for the sake of the democratic process and delivering services in education, healthcare, and other basic areas to all, that companies small and large need to pay their fair share of taxes, regardless of size, influence, or technological advantages. Today this is is seen by most leaders who draw public support as the right way forward for the U.S., Latin America, Europe and Asian countries, including proper allocation of resources to best serve the needs of working people. For example the 13 billion euros is equal to all of Ireland's healthcare budget, and 66% of its social welfare budget.    ...

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The National Federation of Independent Business report for May 2011 shows small business owners evenly split between hiring and shrinking payrolls with a slight edge of one percent for small businesses that plan shrinking payrolls. By contrast The Business Roundtable CEO Economic Outlook survey for May 2011 shows a much larger number of companies planning to increase payrolls than companies shrinking payrolls.

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Japan's new LDP government led by Shinzo Abe approved a stimulus plan of 10.3 trillion yen ($115.7 billion) in Jan 2013. This comes as Japan's current account deficit increased for November to $2.5 billion before seasonal adjustment, reflecting a decline in exports. The Abe administration says this will increase GDP by 2 percentage points from the current forecast of 1.7%.

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Treasury is looking at doing what Gordon Browns plan does in the UK which is to inject capital directly into banks. Paulson pointedly stated that the bailout law gives Treasury the right to use the $700 billion to inject capital into banks as needed. In return the law Paulson stated gives Treasury the right to take ownership stakes in the banks.

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The view on the oped pages of WSJ ask why Bush supports the bailout being negotiated between Congress and the White House on December 10 and being put to a House vote on that day followed by a Senate vote. Almost all Republicans oppose the plan with a supposed government appointed czar to run things and other aspects of the bailout.

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The Third Biennial Update Report at COP26 Glasgow shows where India stands on renewable energy, solar, forest cover enhancement, and improving carbon intensity in its climate change efforts so far.  For instance a 17 times increase in solar in the last 7 years to 45 gigawatts, with target of 450 gigawatts by 2030. In carbon intensity 24% improvement between 2005-2014. Scientist Bhatt presented the report for India's Environment Ministry saying India represented 17% of the world's population and historically 4% of world carbon emissions, today 5%. Improvements of carbon intensity per unit of GDP planned under Mod's plan for 2030 require 45% reduction in carbon intensity by 2030. This suggests the trajectory of China will be avoided where highly polluting parts of industries such as steel and cement were left unregulated and lacking strict supervision leading to rampant pollution in 2000-2021. Mr. Birol, head of the Renewables Energy Agency said on BBC's "Hard Talk" program recently that if you combine all of China's steel and cement factory carbon emissions, that alone would equal the total sum of carbon emissions of the whole European Union today. A quick look at a graph of global carbon emissions trajectories shows three fold increase of China's carbon emissions from about 4 billion tons to 12 billion tons between 2000-2021, the period and the explosion of carbon that is the one activity that singlehandedly created the crisis of climate change today. By comparison US remains at about 6 billion tons of emissions, and EU, US, Britain Japan show flat trajectories. Business, globalization interests, US and European financial interests, and local governments in China that financed this explosion in steel and cement ignored the implications of so much pollution in so short a time through unregulated activities- writing a chapter of failure with most of the world's people left to bear the results of such a failure.  It is this that India plans to correct with a 45% improvement in carbon intensity per unit of GDP by 2030, and nothing could be more important in the government's plan than this. New technologies will be key for this. Modi and India realize how vulnerable India is to floods, drought stricken areas, shortages of water, and climate extremes, and see these plans as critical for healthy growth that benefits all of India's people and regions, It is a long term vision like no other today and sets a new direction for all developing regions of Asia, Latin America and Africa. As India leads the way in new technologies and ambitious programs such as one solar, one world, one grid, these technologies will also break open new paths for the regions of the world that need this most from Brazil to Indonesia.  China too suffers from the impact of so much pollution. Even as early as 2010 reports showed the higher pollution had lowered life expectancy in northern region of China compared to its southern region. Yet the most polluting factories were not removed and only recently is the activity being conducted seriously leading to the shortages of fuel from so much overexpansion in the boom years, and making adjustments done abruptly today more difficult.   ...

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Eric Cantor, a House member from the Richmond area, who is the face behind the zero Republican votes in the House for the Stimulus Plan. He says Democrats should not take the message from this that they should not mess with the Republicans anymore in discussing the plans for the economy. Is this good policy though, when the bill has given some middle ground between tax cuts and spending, and the spending is on areas neglected for years such as roads and bridges, classrooms and energy infrastructure? And is there an element of lack of comprehension by Republicans stuck on ideological grounds, of the seriously deteriorating nature of this crisis which is likely not to come back with recovery in several years, and is a global crisis? When Prime Minister Thatcher, UK Prime Minister, left office, the British infrastructure rail, rapid transit, hospitals and schools, had been neglected for many years and voters were looking for ways to rebuild the dilapidated infrastructure. The economy was weakening under her Conservative party successor, giving the Labor Party its chance to make a come back on the grounds of rebuilding infrastructure and services, and improving the economy. In which case there are just as many risks in this approach of being left out entirely and losing credibility across the country. Sometimes a feel good position may not be the best, or the wisest option, and may be shortsighted. ...

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The incomprehensible situation that the UK Tory governments have not asked Shell and other oil companies to pay a properly implemented windfall tax on record profits. Shell made over $30 billion in profits in 2022 so far says this report in The Guardian and paid no windfall tax, because Mr. Sunak as finance minister put a huge offset to taxable profits by giving back 91p for every  1 pound as tax breaks to oil companies for investing in extraction in North sea fields when he imposed the windfall tax. Shell made large investments in North Sea fields that nullify the windfall tax so no such tax is paid. Mr. Sunak thus completely negated the very positive effect of the windfall tax. This tax if paid would help the UK with its fiscal situation during the pandemic and reduce borrowing costs, provide credibility in financial markets, fund assistance to vulnerable segments during a cost of living crisis, at a time of crisis in UK finances in October 2022.  ...