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Because of large cash needs with underfunded pension plan, losses in Europe, increased capital spending plans, and plans to repurchase shares held by the U.S. government, GM is in talks with banks in 2012 to increase its $5 billion line of credit to $10 billion.

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Of 317 Members of Parliament, 117 voted against Theresa May, in a no-confidence motion within the Conservative party ranks, With a margin of 83 May survived, promising that she will not lead the party into the next election. This leaves the Conservative Party badly divided with Brexit Leave supporters, the Brexiteers, calling for May's resignation.

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In a effort to boost slowing economies in the European Union, the head of the European Central Bank, Mr. Draghi, announces interest rates will remain unchanged till 2020. He also announced a fresh stimulus, offering cheap loans to jumpstart the economy. Economic growth forecasts were cut to 1.1% for 2019 down from 1.7% earlier. Growth of just 0.2% in the last quarter of 2018 prompted action by the ECB.

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How the Australian Central Bank raised rates starting in May 2002, with the key lending rate at 5.5 % in July 2005, compared to 3.25 % in the USA. The idea was to control the housing bubble which has scaled back, with the Australian economy growing at 2% and this growth coming mostly from the commodities demand in global markets. Meanwhile the US central bank under Greenspan is holding onto the view that its hard to tell when a bubble is occurring, and it would hurt a healthy economy to raise rates to cool developing bubbles. Australia's central bank holds onto the other view that it is wiser to act now before the bubble gets out of hand. Governor MacFarlane of the Australian central bank said in aspeech in early 2003 that a "scaling back" of household borrowing and property development would be in "the longer term interest of the Australian economy." And the state of New South Wales, which includes Sydney, instituted a 2.25% tax on the sale of investment properties. This move discouraged speculators who bought and "flipped" properties for quick profits. By early 2004 a glut of downtown apartment units emerged in Melbourne, and the bubble began to scale back. During the height of the boom consumer spending was growing by more than 6% ayear, in 2005 this has slowed to 3.5% a year. Because of commodity demand, Australia was able to see growth at 2%, and still avoid the longterm effects of a bubble in housing markets by scaling them back. Patrick Barta closes with a reference to Texas in the 1980's and early 1990's, and Southeast Asia in 1997, when housing prices and the economy went down in tandem hitting employment in the oil and banking industries in Texas. In the case of Asia hitting the economies of some Asian countries with the fall of their currencies. He refers to the overstretched US consumer with load of debt, and the possibility of housing and the economy going down in tandem in the USA, similiar to what happened in Texas and Southeast Asia....

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Maine is the only state in the US where the median age declined in 2021. More people from other northeastern states migrated to Maine during this pandemic leading to population growth as younger people move in. This puts Maine in the ranks of sunbelt states such as Florida and South Carolina. This has one drawback- the increase in home prices that requires the state to pitch in to make housing more affordable for locals. During the pandemic three years Massachusetts lost 100,000, New York 600,000 to out migration. Maine has some of the most spectacular scenery in the northeast with Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor on the long coastline.

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Arwa Mahdawi writes in The Guardian about issues facing the Democratic party in the US, and Labour in the UK, of turning their backs on the working class. And to the roots of their parties in the working class and rising middle class under FDR, Truman and Clement Attlee in the 1930's 40's and 50's. Woman's issues are about men's issues and issues of the people as a whole, of fairness in the economy, about correcting grossly poor misallocation of capital away from education, health, infrastructure and children, when seen in this larger and very real context.

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A Pew Research Center poll in September 2016 finds 81 percent of Indians have a favorable opinion of Narendra Modi in 2016, compared to 87 percent in 2015. Even among supporters of the opposition Indian National Congress a majority say they have a favorable opinion of Mr. Modi. The author of the poll, Bruce Stokes, says the opinion of frustration of the Indian elites and media about the Modi administration is not reflected in public opinion. Recently the Modi government passed legislation for a national Goods and Services Tax replacing overlapping state and federal taxes that are seen as holding up growth.  Issues the Indian public ranks high are corruption, unemployment and terrorism.

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In the 2008 financial crisis Libor went up from 2.81% to 4.82% in a six week period. By contrast during the current eurozone crisis Libor has failed to reflect the problems in credit markets. Three month Libor was 0.24975% on July 14, 2011.

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Prime minister Ranil Wickremasinghe has assumed the finance minister position as Sri Lanka completes one phase of negotiations with the IMF. The IMF says "Since Sri Lanka's public debt is assessed as unsustainable, approval by the Executive Board of an IMF supported programme would require adequate assurances that debt sustainability will be restored." Sri Lanka facing lack of capital to pay for essential energy and other food needs suspended payment on nearly $7 billion foreign debt repayment due this year with action taken under a new central bank governor. About $25 billion is due for repayment by 2026 and total debt stands at $51 billion. The IMF comments come after reports that Sri Lanka Monetary Board at the central bank and finance ministry in 2021 failed to address the debt sustainability issue even though the IMF in April 2020 had advised Sri Lanka to go for restructuring. Discussions IMF says "focused on restoring fiscal sustainability while protecting the vulnerable and the poor, ensuring the credibility of the monetary policy and exchange rate regimes, preserving financial sector stability, and structural reforms to enhance growth and strengthen governance." ...

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Wirecard has filed for insolvency.The $2 billion missing in a bank account for Wirecard is more than all the profits it has made over 10 years. It got off the ground in 2016 after Credit Suisse and Softbank took interest in investing. This report in the WSJ shows the hazy history of the company and the details about the missing money in the bank account in the Philippines. Ernst and Young says it was deceived, and the money did not exist in the accounts, as reported in this video by the WSJ. The billions of dollars invested in companies like Wirecard, WeWork and other companies, could easily have funded the PPE equipment, facial masks, and other healthcare equipment held as a reserve for emergencies such as this pandemic, in any large region such as North America or the European Union.   For every Wirecard there are 10 others in every region of the world. Just in the last month several imploded including a coffee venture copied right off Starbucks each involving losses of billions of dollars. ...