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As the pandemic continues to spread and numbers grow with reopening of the economy the question remains -what can we learn from other countries positive experience in controlling spread? Here the Times provides the example of German contact tracing- chancellor Merkel has emphasized that a lot depends on "total" contact tracing, and contact tracing "above all else." Germany's experience is that even if you don't get everything right, you make an honest effort with everything you've got and do it early it makes a real difference. Some of the offices across Germany are stretched and short of staff but they have been working since the beginning of March, sometimes in the early days 7 days a week. Only 33% or one third of the offices throughout Germany for contact tracing have the required 5 person team for every 20,000 people, and 35% are overstretched or at their limit, according to one survey. No apps, just a low tech effort with people from the state administrations who were not working during lockdown trying doing something else, or volunteers. Mainly using the phone, talking to people and tracing the contact chain of people testing positive. Putting this information on the computer with a central database.  The Berlin office has 115 workers and has tracked down every one of 666 virus cases it was given. Because of privacy concerns at the Munich office sometimes even the patient's name is not given and office staff have to locate the name and the person. It requires dedication, flexibility and above all resilience, says Harold Rau, the deputy Mayor of the Cologne office, cited in this Times report. The doctor alerts the local office with a test result. The office calls the person and finds out who he has been in contact with for the last 14 days. Then the people who were in contact with are grouped based on the directness of contact, face to face, so on. These people are asked to quarantine for 14 days, sometimes with the rest of their household. They get daily call to find out how their doing for symptoms. The effort goes back to Robert Koch in the 1892 cholera epidemic in Hamburg. Robert Koch, microbe hunter in Germany, was called in after the epidemic spread from Moscow. It devastated Moscow and Tokyo, but Hamburg suffered far less about 8605 deaths as a result of the contact tracing and strict closing off quarantining of affected chains after isolating them, closing off affected parts of the city. Bit by bit the cholera epidemics sparks were put out before turning into flames, says Koch. In the current pandemic Germany has suffered 8241 deaths and 178,000 confirmed cases. So far this is in line with the cholera epidemic in Hamburg 1892, and this for all of Germany. And it is not just affluent nations that can do this. where there is a will there is a way. In Kerala state in southwestern India, similar efforts have worked to limit spread  with even better results than Germany. ...

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The 1985 hit "Small Town" by John Mellencamp is about Seymour, Indiana. Republican State Representative Jim Lucas says the city of Seymour welcomes immigrants legally here who are properly vetted. The concern is about migrants not vetted and not legally here. At a recent city council meeting Lucas attended it was decided not to go ahead with an economic development agenda. Says Lucas- “However, Seymour has changed drastically in just the past few years, and many of us are obviously concerned about the direction we are headed,” he added. New immigrant cases or migrant arrivals for Jackson county, Indiana, where Seymour is located went up to 435 in 2024 from 66 in 2021. It is at that point that the welcome center idea ran into opposition in this small town in Indiana, an hour from Indianapolis population 21,000 in Jackson County. As the town's population mix changes - it was 1% Hispanic in 1990, then 5% Hispanic in 2000- jumping in two decades of Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden to 25% Hispanic, questions besides economic about the sense of uneasiness of resident came up. Also of cultural literacy of the state of Indiana, and of the history of the state within the Union forged by Washington and Lincoln, FDR and Eisenhower, and of Wendell Wilkie of Elwood, Indiana. Unemployment rate for Jackson County is 3.3%, median income $63,000, home ownership 57%. Issues were not about the economy alone, and about how many immigrants could be absorbed and the cultural and language literacy of arriving migrants. There were issues about the perceived crime rate (metrics show traffic related offenses were up), and about drawing too much of the school's resources as English learning went up slowing learning in the schools. Republican State Representative Jim Lucas says it is crowding the health care clinic downtown with immigrants. ...

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The new budget in France is designed around two goals. The first is to take aggressive action to bring the deficit down to 3% by 2013, not a gradual program but one intended to send a strong message to capital markets that France under a Socialist government is dead serious when it comes to the deficit and debt reduction. Every 0.1% increase in France's borrowing rate would mean $260 million going into interest payments on the debt, according to Pierre Muscovici, the finance minister. France's borrowing rate is close to Germany's 1%, and the French are determined to keep it this way. The other goal was stated by Mr. Muscovici: "I don't want a policy of austerity, hitting salaries, weakening the state and turning it into a pauper." The idea being that hitting the common man would mean decline in consumer spending and lower growth and tax revenues that would create the kind of negative spiral facing Spain of declining growth and rising unemployment, worsening deficits, and higher debt payments. The way Muscovici raised the $39 billion- beyond the $9 billion in higher taxes and savings already implemented for 2012- is through $13 billion in new taxes on corporations, and additional $10 billion from new income taxes, including a higher tax rate of 45% on incomes over $193,000. Additional $13 billion will come from a freeze in public spending, so that some ministries take cuts adjusted for inflation keeping the overall budget the same. Spending cuts could come later to balance the budget as growth picks up to 2% in 2014, is the government reasoning, softening the impact. The new budget is well received by German public opinion as showing the resolve of Germany's key partner in the EU. Part of the reason the French are able to get business and people with higher incomes to contribute is that France is unique in that there is a greater consensus than in other countries on the steps needed and a sense that austerity measures targeting the middle class would be counterproductive. The aggressive action with considerations for equity and fairness also gives France the chance for a faster turnaround and avoid the problems plaguing Spain and Italy, which French public opinion and business appears to have grasped and the government's experienced ministers for the economy have successfully presented. ...

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The Labor Department reports U.S. unemployment rate at 4.4% in April 2017, dropping slightly from 4.5% in March. Average hourly wage year over year growth is 2.5%. Including people working part time or those who dropped out of the labor market the unemployment rate was down from 8.9% to 8.6%. 211,000 jobs were added in April 2017- this makes the average for three months 174,000. But the picture for marginalized workers because of skills erosion, location, and other factors is still an issue- the labor participation rate fell from 63% to 62.9%.

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Alexsandar Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party wins half the vote in the Serbian 2016 general election. Socialists won 11% of the vote. Most of the parliament members are nationalists, who favor joining the European Union. The vote reflected a mandate to improve living conditions as Serbia's growth rate was only 0.7% a year in 2015. The Democratic Party that emerged after the fall of Milosevic has only a small number of seats. Democracy is only slowly taking root in Yugoslavia after the turmoil of the Milosevic years, the recovery after the war, and a struggling economy under the Democratic Party and the Progressive Party.

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This WSJ editorial points to the median income levels for 2014 being 6.5% below the level in 2007, median income level declining in 2011 and 2012, stagnant in 2014, according to the Census Bureau, as a reason why there is so much economic anxiety for average Americans. The appeal of Sanders and Trump reflects this anxiety and anti-establishment feeling. The official poverty rate at 14.8%, means 46.7 million Americans are below the poverty line. About 34.5% of the people experienced 2 or more months below the poverty line in 2009-2012, showing how it is hitting the middle class.

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Asking China to pay for part of the eurozone bailout is not in the interests of Europe, the U.S., or the world, says this New York Times editorial. China has said it expects the eurozone countries to stop criticizing China's currency policies in return for any help. It is not in China's interest to maintain these policies that create serious distortions inside China by tilting policies away from domestic savers with low interest rates and domestic consumption with higher prices. It maintains an export dependent model that is becoming harder to sustain as western economies face a slowdown.

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Most of the $180 billion in infrastructure spending in the stimulus plan will be spent in 2010 and 2011. Only $20 billion was spent in 2009. This includes money for rail lines and water projects. But this will not make adent in the jobless numbers because much of that work is mechanized, and the unemployment rate is expected to continue moving upwards. In all only one third of the $787 billion for the Stimulus that was approved has been spent in 2009. According to IHS Global Insight the ramped up stimulus spending could contribute 1.4 percentage points to GDP in 2010.

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Akio Toyoda and Yoshimi Inaba answer unrelenting questioning by a Congressional panel. Toyoda reafffirms the principles his grandfather stood for in building Toyota. A rare comment by former Toyota executive Jim Press throws light on the struggle going on inside Toyota betweeen the Toyoda family and career managers from the previous two CEO's. Jim Press said that the company was hijacked some years ago by anti family financially oriented pirates as he called the two previous CEO's Okuda and others working for them. And he added these managers lacked the character to preserve the company legacy.

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The glass ceiling facing women as they face hurdles to reaching top management positions in China, India, Japan, S. Korea and other Asian countries. The need for proactive efforts and programs to develop women for top and middle management positions. The figures show women represented at levels as low as 1-3% at board level and senior management positions in China and Japan. Cultural attitudes, women's tendency not to push themselves forward when they feel they lack all the skills needed, and a lack of programs to develop women, lead to this lopsided situation where skills of talented women are not utilized.

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India's lower house of parliament passes a Food Security bill which provides subsidized rice, wheat and other grains to the poorer sections of society, covering about 75% of people living in the rural areas and 50% of the people in cities. The legislation increases the cost of food subsidies by $4 billion to $20 billion a year. Because of high levels of malnutrition in rural areas in India, especially among children, the program helps the needy. Brazil's Bolsa Familia program is more far reaching in helping the poor because it also requires vaccinations of children and making sure children attend school.

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Unemployment hits 9.5% in June, with a loss of 467,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department. The labor underemployment rate which shows not only the unemployed but also those working part time because their hours are cut or they cannot find afulltime job is up to 16.5%. The average length of official unemployment increased to 24.5 weeks, the largest its reached since 1948. Economists say that as other sources of spending power have been lost, employment remains a very significant source of spending power. And employed consumers are also watching their spending as unemployment goes up, and a new frugality sets in.

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The concentration of particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter reached 700- 886 micrograms per square meter in Beijing in Jan 2013, 500 is routine. The World Health Organization says a level of 25 micrograms per square meter is safe, above 300 poses risks calling for one to stay indoors. This is the high cost of rapid motorization of China and lack of strict pollution control laws and enforcement for industry. The pace of car sales in the last ten years was extremely fast and unprecedented in comparison to Europe, the U.S. and Japan in a similiar period of development.

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China's GDP growth for the 4th quarter of 2012 was 7.9% over prior year, increasing from 7.4% in the third quarter of 2012, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. GDP growth for 2012 was 7.8%, down from 9.3% in 2011. Growth is stabilizing at 8% which shows China is managing the economy, slowing the growth rate with a smaller stimulus planned in 2013, and working on sustainable growth for the longer term. This is a significant positive as a new leadership takes over in China and sets priorities for stable growth, and improvements in housing and health care.

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Google's Schmidt reminds newspapers that they can opt out of Google Search and Google News with a single line of simple code. Schmidt understands that the Web runs a serious risk of becoming a wasteland as reporting declines. Only a few brave reporters take up the immense burden of keeping the U.S. public informed in international crises, at important international events, and as major changes take place in different parts of Asia and Europe. Reporters in the U.S. perform similiar tasks, with fewer reporters assuming bigger responsibilities for informing the public. Newspapers in other advanced countries Germany and France face a similiar situation.

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Global sales growth will be from developing countries as US sales slow down to the rate of a 4-5% growth, losing 1 percentage point and be at the level growth is in Europe. This growth will mean U.S. sales of 305 billion dollars in 2009 for pharmaceuticals. Next year two thirds of prescriptions will be generics, increasing from 50% in 2003. Forecasts from IMS. Also FDA is taking a tougher line in regulation. Top seven emerging markets will grow at 12 to 13% a year in contrast- from improving economies and greater demands for spending on health care.

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The Paulson Plan for helping homeowners facing higher rates will help only about 250,000 homeowners with 800,000 foreclosures already ocurred and 3.5 million defaults expected from now till 2010, too litttle too late in the view of the New York Times editorial. Lenders who agree to better terms for homeowners face potential lawsuits from investors and Congress should protect the lenders from lawsuits with legislation. Only then can really effective terms be worked out for homeowners facing defaults and foreclosures. Another legislative measure for Congress is to allow homeowners to restructure their mortgages under bankruptcy protection.

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Dallas Federal Reserve Bank Governor sees an economy that will have zero growth in the second half and he does not seee price pressures abating. He says the odds are even that inflation turns out to be a one-off event or becomes persistent, but his sense is that it will be persistent. Fisher has voted for rate increase at Fed meetings. For him the key issue is whether the increase in food and energy prices will be transient or persist, and his concern has been that expectations of future price increases will become embedded in the economy.

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In the next 15 years approximately India will have a higher percentage of working age population to non-working age population than China, based on information from the UN and Morgan Stanley. The number of people over 64 and under 15 has declined from 69% to 56% in 2010, according to UN figures. By 2020 the working age population will increase by 136 million in India, compared to 23 million in China. From this it can be seen that a huge demographic change is playing out. As China's economy matures and with the one-child policy in place, China's working age population is expected to decline; just as India's working age population picks up. This should give India momentum in the next 15-20 years, and lead to an increasing growth rate in India, just as China's growth rate slows. India's weak areas are infrastructure, and education. Infrastructure development will accelerate nevertheless, with larger private investments and participation in projects; and India will move up the experience curve as more projects are completed. Education for the poorer classes and in public schools will remain a problem. Private schools are making up for the weakness in this area, and private schools now make up 20% of attendance even in the rural areas according to one estimate. The strong points are democratic structures and the rule of law, private enterprise and private companies, English speaking middle class, and smart initiatives by business to develop low cost products that are affordable for all segments of sciety in India. For instance a $35 laptop developed by the IIT and Indian Institute of Science researchers, and Tata Chemicals development of a filter for 30 rupees or 65 cents that would filter water for a month for a family of five. This will bring the benefits of development to all segments of society as development progresses, and is crucial for balanced development in the poorer parts of Asia. Tata Motors 1 lakh ruppees car concept and the Tata Nano as its tangible product, is another verson of this kind of development being pioneered in India. Being a democratic country makes some processes slower, yet at the same time the private initiative enabled by democratic processes -cultivated over a long period from British times -enables a creative sort of development that could be turned into a distinct advantage....

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The U.S. perception that the shadows from the period of non-alignment in the Nehru era still linger in Indian policy, a sort of ambivalence that has denied India's true potential as an alliance partner for the free world. A perception in the U.S. that has not seen the true potential of the largest population in the world of 1.5 billion people in India and Bangladesh has also colored perception of the relationship. This population is now at a point at which a broad based development is not only possible (sab ka vikas sab ke sath) but also moving at an accelerated pace. With a combination of cumulatively increasing inputs of technology, capital, land and educated labor force this is now at the potential of becoming a very doable world changing event by 2035- a $20 trillion economy by doubling every 5 years based on renewable energy and dedicated to health, education and development. What makes this a world changing event is the opportunity to meet the aspirations of about 2 billion people in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and surrounding nations, offering new hope for Africa and Latin America. For this the U.S. commitment cannot have any traces of ambivalence, and the Indian commitment cannot have any traces of ambivalence. India needs one more change in its perceptions - to realize that for the first time in its history that this is within its reach. ...

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In his State of the Union speech president Trump was off on some points such as how many jobs were created, how good the economy is, and on on safety of cities El Paso and San Diego after border walls and fencing, according to the WSJ. El Paso was the second safest city of twenty similar sized cities in the U.S. before the border wall with Mexico, and continued to be that way after the wall was built over that section. San Diego has seen 91% drop in border apprehensions over a decade after fencing the border but this has not meant a discernible impact on people crossing illegally.  Mr. Trump was right that customs duties increased by $13 billion in the third quarter of 2018 after placing tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods. Wages are growing faster for manufacturing and construction workers than service occupations, as Trump claimed. On the growth of the economy the economy GDP grew by 3.5% in 2018 before slowing down by the end of the year. India and China's growth in GDP is much faster. Growth in jobs was at the pace in the first 2 years of the Trump administration in some 2 year periods of the Obama administration, and much faster in manufacturing in the 1990's, says the WSJ.   ...

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For the first time the U.S. focuses on the huge trade deficit with China in a serious way. The trade negotiating team led by Robert Lighthizer has set forth its negotiating terms.  1. China must reduce its trade deficit with the U.S. by $100 billion in the first 12 months. In the next 12 months it must reduce its deficit by another $100 billion. In 2 years the trade deficit the U.S. has with China must come down by $200 billion. The issue is no longer just the tariffs on steel, it is about the core issue of balance in  trade. 2. The U.S. says subsidies to state industries in the "Made in China 2025" program must stop. Here the focus is on gaining an unfair technological advantage with a combination of U.S. technology imports and subsidies to state advanced manufacturing industries to erode over time the U.S. technological lead.  3.  China is expected to cut its tariffs by about two thirds on imported products so that the tariffs match that of the U.S. This is the first serious negotiation the U.S. has conducted with China on the core issue of the trade surplus which is growing with a stronger dollar not declining. The surplus approaches $1 billion each day for about $365 billion a year, unsustainable from any perspective. The vital issue of the erosion of the U.S. technological advantage under the Made in China 2025 has turned this issue into one in which the U.S. is unlikely to back down. Especially now that Mr. Lighthizer is leading the  negotiations and has the confidence of the president of the U.S. Lighthizer is a veteran of negotiations from an earlier period -under the Reagan administration in a similar situation with another national competitor- then it was the Japanese. A relentless negotiator as the U.S. seeks to reverse a trade imbalance of stupendous proportions neglected by previous administrations.           ...

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The Russian economy has proved stronger than other emerging markets in a similar situation. The ruble has declined from 35 to the dollar before the Ukraine crisis and sanctions in 2014 to 86 to the dollar in Jan. 2016. Foreign currency reserves dropped from $600 billion to $385 billion in 2009, when Russia with memories of 1997 when the ruble collapsed, decided to prop up the ruble. In Nov. 2014 Russia's central bank let the ruble float, this time responding in a different way following western sanctions over Ukraine and a emerging markets crisis. Interest rates were increased to tackle inflation.A key rate was raised to 17% in Dec. 2014, dropping by Jan 2016 to 11%. Inflation was 12.9% in Dec. 2015, the target for 2017 is 4%. The economy has contracted by 3.7% in 2015, and expected to contract by 1% in 2016, according to the IMF. Alexsei Kudrin, former finance minister, expects modest growth in 2017.

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Pessimism about the pace of democratization in China with the continued dominance of the Communist party in the business and economc structures of the country. The interrelationships of the party with state owned companies and the role of its 80 million members in running all aspects of life in China. Experts in China say the 18th party Conress showed no signs of change in the party's control and no sign of experimentation to allow for change comng from within the system so that China could establish a constitutional democracy with the rule of law. Experts in China say the new leaders Jinping and Keqiang may not be able to make changes even if they wanted to, because of the party's control and the earlier presidents and prime ministers from the last two decades who still retain a strong influence on the direction of the country.