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Barney Frank, of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, is interviewed by the New York Times one year after the passage of the legislation. He says we did not punt anything, it was because the legislators couldn't get everything right that they set up the provision for extensive rule making. He would rather forget financial matters as they are not his strong point, he has learnt more about repos and derivatives than he ever wanted. Critics have pointed to the extensive rule making delegated to regulators in Dodd Frank as a major weakness. It makes Dodd-Frank as effective as the regulators want it to be, something that goes back to an earlier period before 2008 when lack of regulatory discipline led to the financial crisis. He gives the regulatory agencies CFTC and the S.E.C. good grades for writing some of the rules because of the difficult conditions they face. His main fear is the stalling by Republicans in Congress and efforts to weaken the law by crimping resources for the agencies. And he fears the Republicans with support from the banking industry see the 2012 presidential elections as an opportunity to reverse the legislation....

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China takes a different approach to the stock market declines on August 24-25, 2015, after the earlier failed interventions in July and early August called into question the transparency and integrity of the financial markets. The main Shanghai index opened 6% lower on August 25, and ended down 7.6%. This time the government let the market find its own level. Li Jiange, vice chairman of state owned investment company Central Huijin, wrote in his blog post that "The trade volume of the market can reach 2 trillion yuan ($300 billion) a day, which means if it collapsed no one could save it...The issues of the market should be handled by the market itself." In July and the early part of August Central Huijin was reported to have intervened to support the market. On Aug. 14, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) stated achange in policy to intervene "only when the market changes dramatically and introduces systemic risk." It is important to note that even with the 40% decline in the market index since June 2015 peak, it is still up 35% compared to the prior year....

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Ram Nath Kovind is selected by the BJP party as its candidate for President of India. Kovind is a lawyer practicing before the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court, former member of the upper house Rajya Sabha for 12 years. He was appointed Governor of Bihar in 2014.

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Efforts are being made at the current Commonwealth meeting in London to revive the organization of nations that were part of the British Empire. In earlier years India had stayed away from the organization and it was becoming outdated. Prince Charles personally carried an invitation to prime minister Modi of India asking him to attend Commonwealth meeting in London in 2018. Britain is keen on reviving the organization following plans to exit the EU and set up trade deals with countries such as India.

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While Italy's budget deficit of 5.3% of GDP in 2009 is relatively healthy, its public debt as a percentage of GDP is rising and forecast to be 118%. The growth in tax revenues is negligible because Italy has seen only 0.54% annual average growth in GDP in the past decade, so its much harder to manage the debt. As the interest on debt exceeds the rate of growth, debt keeps rising all the time, say experts. This makes it harder for Italy to borrow in capital markets, a 9.5 billion bond offer in April 2010 drew onlly 9.78 billion euros in bids. The debt financing is helped by the Italian households having a high savings rate of 15%, and holding 25% of Italy's bonds.

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Anna Botin, new CEO of Banco Santander says she is acting on the three goals she set for the bank- to increase the number of independent directors on the board, bring in new management, and strengthen its capital cushion. Santander moved to increase its capital cushion to 10% under Basel III rules by selling 1.2 billion shares at 6.18 euros each to raise $8.8 billion in Jan. 2015.

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A report published by Capital Economics of Toronto, based on Labor Department data, shows the U.S. is not adding the kinds of jobs with the pay, benefits and hours of the 8.75 million jobs that disappeared during the recession. Labor Department data support this analysis. The number of food preparation and serving workers are expected to grow by 394,000 by 2018, but the pay is only $16,430 for these jobs. The good well paying jobs are continuing to be lost. Large employers such as Lowe's home improvement chain is eliminating 1700 managers, and adding 10,000 weekend sales positions and new assistant store manager positions. This use of parttime workers also reduces income levels of workers. The impact of this is to limit the consumer spending. As local government is shrinking from budget cuts, better paying jobs are being lost in state and local government, and workers are earning less in the new jobs that do similiar work.

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ECB executive board member Peter Praet, says that the oil price drop could mean negative inflation for a large part of 2015. He told German financial newspaper Borsen Zeitung, that inflation could be lower than the 0.7% forecast by ECB economists. The risk is that businesses would be reluctant to invest in such an environment. Praet said the danger is that businesses and households would reduce their long term growth expectations and adapt to low growth and low inflation. For the ECB the question will be has it done enough to avoid this.

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The opioid crisis, covid pandemic and failures in healthcare caused the life expectancy in the US to hit new lows in 2021, the lowest since 1996. Life expectancy dropped from 77 years to 76 years, with the death rate rising 5% in 2021.Before the covid pandemic the life expectancy was at about 79 years in 2019. Black people had a life expectancy gap of 6 years in 2021 compared to white people, 70 years compared to 76 years.

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This report by James McCauley of the Washington Post, points to the uncertainties in the French presidential election. About one third of French voters are undecided. Le Pen and a surprise candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon are pulling in voters on the far right and the far left. There are questions whether Macron's effort to pull together centre right and centre left voters will work in such an environment. McCauley says the gist of Macron's approach is summarized in a line in his 2016 book- removing "the obstacles on the road," making equality of opportunity a reality in a land of elite government and business running the country, and key being " renewal of ideas and men."  It is not exactly a way forward, more about renewal in French society. His opponents are pitching exiting the European Union and different visions of a protectionist welfare state. Macron is pitching continuity with renewal and changes to bring more opportunity to young people by investing in vocational education, recreate French schools, and expand health services, lower residency taxes. A lot depends on centrist voters coming out to vote as happened in the recent Dutch election, and undecided voters looking for renewal instead of the uncertainty of drastic changes. ...

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After a chemical attack by the Assad government in Syria in 2013 Trump urged president Obama not to make air strikes on Syrian government targets, saying jobs, healthcare and other priorities should be remembered. After the use of chemical weapons in April 2017 by the Syrian government and the outrage following media photographs of the men, women and children who suffered from the brutal attack, Trump had changed his mind. The graphic images led to a change of heart. President Trump said that "it was in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons." Reports on CNN state the president was offered two options to strike several airfields or one airfield near Homs in Syria, just before meeting China's president Xi Jinping. He chose the latter option and went on to his meeting with China's president. Pictures on the internet show Trump with key advisers, Mcmaster, Tillerson and others huddled together in a room at the Mar Lago resort following the strikes. It may be a decisive moment in the Syrian conflict as it was an expression of disapproval and action with the use of chemical weapons in any conflict. ...

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The letter of December 2017 from Director NIH that announced the lifting of the ban on "gain of function" research. The lifting of the ban led to research at labs that is seen as a possible scenario of what happened to cause an accidental pandemic. 

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The People's Bank of China lowers the benchmark lending and deposit rates by 0.25 of a percentage point, and cuts the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 of a percentage point. The PBOC said the move was designed to offset "the persisting downward pressures on the country's economic growth." It was also designed to offset the large volatility in China's stock markets. The PBOC also removed the upper limit on interest rates for fixed term deposits of more than one year, as part of interest rate liberalization. The move also counters the large capital outflows affecting China, as is happening for all emerging markets, of $70 billion in July. These outflows may have accelerated in August 2015 with declining investor confidence. Experts say the reserve ratio cut should inject about $100 billion into the banking system.

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The 2009 budget of the Obama government has some optimistic assumptions built into it for the deficits in future years. For 2009 the GDP declines by 1.2%, for 2010 the GDP growth is 3.2%. With these assumptions its possible to bring the $1.75 trillion deficit in 2009 to less than $600 billion by 2012, and getting to that point requires GDP to rise by 4% a year by then. This is assuming the growth quickly returns to the growth rates of the 1990's. In one area the administrations' forecasts are more optimistic than the Fed's and may turn out to be too optimistic. The administration's assumption is for unemployment to average 7.9% in 2010 when it may be close to 9% or higher. For example Goldman Sachs economists expect the unemployment rate to be at 9.5% by late 2010. And Goldm,an's growth rate for 2010 is just 1.3%, and that also may prove to be optimistic whereas the budget assumes 3.2%. What all this means that money has to be spent on the priorities outlined by the President, but the most buck for the money has to be obtained because further outlays will be needed in future years. This is a very important point, and a lot of checks and transparency and careful monitoring of projects has to be put in place throughout 2009....

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U.S. Fed chairman Bernanke tells a IMF conference on financial crises in Nov 2013 that the unemployment rate of 7.3% does not reflect the problems in the labor market, which require strong action to improve job creation. He says the level of student debt is a serious issue that also needs to be taken into account.

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China expands the trading range of the yuan to 1%. The yuan is set by the People's Bank of China, China's central bank, at 6.2879 yuan per U.S. dollar on March 14, 2012 or 15 to 16 U.S. cents to the yuan. The yuan rate is set daily by the PBOC, called the parity rate, and was previously allowed to trade in a 0.5% trading range.

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Hundreds of thousands of American children are missing after the pandemic. Many are not accounted even when increase in home schooling and private schooling is considered. The Associated Press, Stanford University Big Local News Project and Prof. Dee of Stanford show in their study that 240,000 students in 21 states absence from school could not be explained. In 2023 missing students have become more of a budgeting problem to secure federal and state funds. The actual number of missing students is much higher as this study found that public school enrollment inthe US has fallen in the 2 school years 2019-2020, 2021-2022 by 710,000. Much remains to be done to locate these students so that they are not forgotten. Voice of America ran this story on its Learning English site. The WSJ has an editorial on these missing children today.

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As the US central bank, the Fed, considers cutting high interest rates that affect housing costs and mortgages this WSJ report looks at the consumer debt in September 2024. It says consumer debt is at $17 trillion in 2024. This is high except that when inflation adjusted it is only 3% above the consumer debt in 2019, the peak happened in 2008 before the banking induced financial crisis. Then there is the question of what the debt composition is. Here overall debt has grown by 4% yet credit card debt is up 11%, not a good sign when the interest rates charged by banks is 12%, by cards 22%. Households are paying off credit card debt by borrowing from sources with lower interest costs.

This is more evidence why many households are hurting as debt servicing remains as and additional cost of living issue for Americans.

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This NYT editorial provides statistics for the problems of young people facing high student debt, high unemployment, and working in jobs that do not require their educational qualifications. Federal Reserve data show 44% of young college graduates in 2012 working at jobs that did not require a college degree. Underemployment stands at 16.8% in the U.S.- this includes young people too discouraged to look for work and those stuck in part time jobs. Put another way the hope that existed in the 1970's for a better future is simply lacking. The boom, bust, and corrective policy preceding and following the 2000 and 2008 crises have acted as a huge distraction for needed policy steps and imposed additional penalties on young people, just as other trends in the globalized manufacturing and IT industry were shifting jobs overseas.

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A terrorist attack in Istanbul, Turkey, in Jan. 2015. Most of the people killed and injured are German tourists. The attack targets Turkey's tourism industry.

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Russia's leading business paper Vedemosti summed up the situation on Dec. 17, 2014, in its editorial- "This is a very dangerous situation; we are separated from a fully fledged run on the banks by just a few days..If the currency market is not reassured right now, the banking system will require large external support." Warning signs were evident at a banking conference in Moscow in October 2014 when the Economy minister, the central bank head Nabiullina, and the head of the largest bank Sberbank, German Gref, expressed skepticism about the economic policies and the risks involved. Not until Dec. 17, was a decisive response evident and the risks of a collapsing ruble openly addressed with economic actions by the Putin administration. A collapsing ruble would have repercussions on the global financial markets and slowing global economy, increasing potential geopolitical risk, and adding to risk of contagion for other emerging markets, which was reflected in the nervousness of global financial markets on Dec 15-16, 2014....

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The reduction in tensions between the U.S. and Iran after the beginning of talks in Istanbul in April 2012. Other factors include differences within Iranian leadership and government leading to more flexible positions and differences within the Israeli leadership. Iranian and Israeli public opinion is moving in the direction of moderate positions.

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Problems with the July 2011 plan for Greece and other troubled eurozone economies include the lack of funding and powers for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). The contagion effects to Italy and Spain will require larger funding and powers for the EFSF for it to be able to deal with future crises. The bondholder debt haircut for Portuguese and Irish bondholders, and the sense that the crisis in Greece may have to be revisted yet again, are other issues that remain unresolved. Analysts sense that the EU's governance mechanisms are always a step behind in dealing with the repeated crises and EU leaders are doing only enough to get to the next crisis moment.

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Lower demand for Tecfidera, Biogen's drug for multiple sclerosis led to a drop of 22% in the company's share price. Because of the lower demand the 2015 revenue growth for Biogen will be 6-8% instead of 14-16% predicted earlier for the Cambridge, Mass. company. The lower demand is because of a rare side effect, patients discontinuing treatment because it was not helping, and lower reimbursement price in Germany. Tecfidera sales were $2.9 billion in 2014. Another factor is the competition from Gilenya for MS by Novartis.

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Judge Carl Barbier's ruling on Jan. 14, 2015 against BP which increases its exposure to a maximum penalty of $13.7 billion under the Clean Air Act. Judge Barbier's decision was that BP was liable for 3.19 million barrels of crude that spilled into the Gulf of Mexico in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig disaster. Judge Barbier's ruling said that BP acted recklessly in the events leading to the rig explosion an oil spill, giving the company exposure to the maximum penalty of $4300 per barrel. BP asked for a smaller penalty of $3000 per barrel.