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Concerns that the austerity cuts announced by Spanish prime minister Zapatero may not address the deeper causes of the financial crisis in Europe- taking on too much debt, government spending and the imbalances in the global economy. And the concern on the other side that even these small cuts and eventual larger cuts can squeeze domestic demand in countries with severe recession, weaken the tax base, test social cohesion, and dampen the prospects for recovery. Zapatero announced a 5% pay cut for public sector employees this year and a freeze for next year, cancelling index-linked pension increases, and cancelling a baby bonus tax break of 2500 euros, cutting back regional spending budgets, and postponement of infrastructure projects, all adding up to $15 billion in savings. This is intended to reduce the budget deficit to 6% of GDP from 11.2% in 2009. With Spain's unemployment at 20%, and the construction sector stalled, pain will be felt. Spain's large informal economy tied to tourism helps in this situation. Trade union Comisiones Obreras gave a muted response about a general strike saying that "it is the last thing this country needs at a time like this," after meetings with Zapatero. ...

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McGurn reminds readers that LBJ's war on poverty started not from a inner city area but from a poor white home in Martin County, eastern Kentucky. This has fostered the same degree of dependency in Martin County, eastern Kentucky, as it has in inner cities in the U.S., says McGurn. He also compares South Korea in the sixties, emerging from years of neglect under Japanese occupation and following this with the devastation of the Korean War, and pulling itself up in the next three decades to the point where it is a modernized economy with high living standards. Strong families, education, a strong work ethic, are vitally needed ingredients for building strong communities. Economic opportunity is another ingredient. In Baltimore the loss of the steel industry, and in Martin County the loss of jobs in coal mining, have reduced economic opportunities. How to put all the ingredients together is the challenge for decisionmakers.

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The government of prime minister Manuel Valls collapses in August 2014 after differences between Valls and Economy minister Montebourg over austerity measures. Montebourg is openly critical of the austerity policies that lead to no growth in France and a prolonged period of stagnation. Montebourg tells Le Monde "The priority must be exiting the crisis, and the dogmatic reduction of deficits should come after. Germany is caught in a trap of austerity it is imposing across Europe." Germany's growth also slowed markedly in the 2nd quarter of 2014.

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Peter Baker quotes Obama as saying "I am like a Rorschach test," even if people find me disappointing ultimately, they might gain something.?" So what does this mean someone may ask. By setting up people's hopes in so many places, and especially among long disenfranchised black Americans, and in so many other groups and constituencies, and the possibilities of human beings limited in what they can do, how will all this turn out?

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Zenedin Zidane returns to coach Real Madrid team but fails to make an impact, winning only half of the games played. His predecessor had a better record of 68% winning games. Team owner Perez and Zidane have differences on how the team should be rebuilt. Sergio Ramos has 2 years left on his contract but the club may not renew it. Zidane wanted Paul Pogba to join Real Madrid but Paris St. Germain is not cooperating.  Other players on the way out may be James Rodriguez, Gareth Bale. WIth so much uncertainty the close rapport between Zidane and the players is a thing of the past. That rapport helped Zidane lead Real Madrid to winning 3 Champions League titles. He took this job because Perez called and Zidane lives in Madrid. Jose Mourinho is reported to be the alternative to Zidane. His predecessor was in the job for 4 months before Zidane was brought in by Perez. More changes including Zidane, as his relationship with Perez is fraying, would leave Real Madrid in an even more unpredictable situation. ...

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Spain's banking officals at the central bank and at the IMF, Jaime Caruana, Rodrigo Rato, and Jose Vinals, failed to exercize proper oversight over the Spanish banking system and did not draw early attention to the problems that were building up. Each time this came up they insisted that everything was under control and Spain's banks were adequately capitalized. In July 2008 when the issue was raised to Mr Caruana at an IMF news confernece he said: " The financial system in Spain is able to cope with that and is properly capitalized."

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The Christian Democrats coalition with the Free Democrats fails to win in the German state of Lower Saxony by one seat in a close election. The CDU won 36% of the vote, the FDP 9.9%, the SPD 32.6%, the Greens 13.6%. Merkel's CDU and the CSU is showing 40% support nationally, the SPD 23%. The next election is in Berlin.

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All sides had to make concessions to reach a new agreement on a restructuring of Greece's debt, and new terms for loans to Ireland and Portugal. The agreement was reached after negotiations between France, Germany, the ECB, and eurozone countries with a declaration issued on July 21, 2011. The powers and financing of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) were expanded to be the main mechanism for channeling EU funding to reduce the burden of Greece's debt. Germany will provide new funding and be open to additional commitments, something German chancellor Angela Merkel had resisted since the beginning of the crisis in 2010. Earlier funding had come with high interest rates and only when the situation had reached a crisis, with Germany insisting on the punitive rates and conditions as a way to discourage countries from taking advantage of cheap borrowing. In exchange for commitment of German funds Ms Merkel had insisted that banks and private creditors share in the losses. Private bondholders resisted but finally agreed to take a loss of 20% of principal on a small portion of the bonds. Their larger concession was to take lower interest rates and extend the maturities to 15 years and 30 years on new bonds which are guaranteed by the EU. The specific terms of the agreement are as follows: The EFSF and the IMF will lend Greece 109 billion euros over 3 years at 3.5%. Private creditors including German and French banks will "voluntarily" turn in their old bonds for new ones that mature over 15-30 year periods. These new bonds include 15 and 30 year Greek bonds with varying coupons. Some of the bonds would have a 20% discount on principal. EU leaders say the private sector contribution amounts to 37 billion euros through 2014 and 106 billion euros through 2019. Another part of the program is for the EFSF to buy back some of the Greek bonds on the secondary markets, which would mean Greece would now owe a smaller amount to the EFSF on these bonds. The EFSF will now have additional financial support from Germany and other EU countries and be authorized to provide aid to countries before a crisis situation arises. It would also have power to buy Greek bonds at prices on secondary markets to reduce the Greek debt burden. Ireland and Portugal are also assisted in the agreement. The interest rate for EU aid to Ireland and Portugal is taken down to 3.5%. Ireland is paying about 6% on the EU portion of its 67.5 billon euros bailout and efforts to reduce the rate were resisted earlier. The main theme behind these concessions and provisions is to give Greece, (and Ireland and Portugal) a chance to grow. High interest rates came under strong criticism because it only increased the size of the debt burden of these countries with a shrinking economy and high unemployment. The failure to come together behind a broad and sensible agreement with all parties making serious concessions, the EU, the ECB and the political leadership in these countries especially Greece, was undermining confidence in the euro and the eurozone itself. By mid-July Italy and Spain were feeling the effects of contagion in the financial markets, U.S. debt ceiling negotiations were unsettling global financial markets, the pressure was intense to come up with the workable agreement achieved on July 21, 2011. ...

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Sluggish sales of GM cars in mature markets like Germany and in markets with exacerbated credit crunch like Spain lead to decliing sales for GM's Opel brand in Western Europe. GM announced that sales in western Europe declined by 11% during the first three quarters of the year. The Opel brand is the higher margin brand for GM and is prominent in western Europe. Its Chevy brand is prominent in Eastern Europe and these sales increased by 43%. In Russia the mood is uncertain as September sales for Chevy declined by 2% and Ford's sales slipped 13%. GM's shares dropped 19% on Thursday October 9 to $5.57.

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Japan's military budget will become the third largest after the US and China and take on offensive capabilities, under the new plan of prime minister Kishida. More than half of Japanese now support Japan taking on this role in defense against China and to ensure an open Indo-Pacific. The military buildup calls for $320 billion in spending over 5 years to deter China, and includes missile deployment. The national security paper released in Dec 2023 says- "The strategic challenge posed by China is the biggest Japan has ever faced." To do this Japan's foreign and defense ministers met with their counterparts in the US this week, ahead of a meeting in the US between Kishida and US president Biden. 

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People in Kalamazoo county Michigan star struck with the presence of Michelle Obama with Kamala Harris on one stage.

Michelle Obama says-

"The race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is too close for my liking. I am deeply concerned … that too many of us are still confused and buying into the lies and distortions from people who do not have our best interest at heart.”

Kamala Harris embraces Michelle Obama on stage to huge applause and says-

"She is an inspiration...And she motivates us to get to work, especially when the stakes are high.”

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France has a large public sector which gives it protection in this crisis from mounting job losses. According to the OECD France had91 public sector jobs for every 1000 peopple compared to 49 for Germany. Public spending is 52.4% of GDP in 2007, compared with 44.4% for the UK, and 37.4% for the USA, according to the OECD. Still the unemployment rate is rising. The unemployment rate was 7.9% in November 2009.

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How do schools reopen during the pandemic. This report shows how schools and students struggle with reopening. The first part of the report looks at how one family in Wisconsin is coping with 3 children  2, 4 and 11 years old, from kindergarten to middle school. Only the middle school child is going back to school. Both parents work from home, have struggled to cope with kids at home. Lack of enough computer equipment restricts kids learning long distance, and concentration is also an issue. 

The rest of the report covers how schools are reopening in cities- Bangkok, Jerusalem, Tunis, Stockholm, Dortmund, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro.

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Ideas for a national "bad bank" to assign bad assets and help improve the rate of bank lending in the economy from Bank of Italy head, Ignazio Visco. There is a sense that the undercapitalization of business is holding back Italy's economy, and problems are not only the high government debt level of 2.1 trillion euros. Italy's business investment per worker has declined 9% since 2009, Germany's increased by 8%, France's 2% in the same period, Mr Visco said at a banking conference in Rome in Jan 2014. Visco said the idea of a bad bank similiar to that setup in Spain would at a moderate cost free up resources to be used to finance the economy. In the current situation of weak bank balance sheets and borrowers weakened by the long austerity period, banks are not able to pass on the eurozone's low interest rates for businesses to pursue growth opportunities.

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With better control over the coronavirus than U.S. and Europe, South Korea is not rushing to buy the vaccines developed by Pfizer or Moderna. It is waiting to see how the vaccine rollouts work in other countries before buying the vaccine. South Korea is also looking at getting better price from manufacturers after the rollouts in the U.S. and Europe. South Korea is moving cautiously and has said it wants to get 10 million doses through the Covax initiative the main global effort to provide broad access to vaccines. Another 20 million doses would be secured from private companies. This is in contrast to the approach in Japan where the government has signed deals for purchase of 290 million doses for 145 million people for its population of 126 million. The money allocated is $6.5 billion and the goal is to vaccinate everyone by first half of 2021.  If it works this would prepare Japan for the Tokyo Summer Olympics to open in July, after 1 year delay. South Korea has the freedom to do this and wait to see what vaccine works best with least long term effects because their are relatively fewer cases there. A total of 313 new daily cases on November 18, lower than daily cases in a single county in the state of Michigan in the U.S. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use anew kind of gene based technology that has never been approved to prevent infectious diseases. Other competition is the vaccine from Oxford and Astra Zeneca which uses an existing technology that is used in existing vaccines modified for use in coronavirus. The Oxford vaccine and a vaccine from Johnson and Johnson are expected to have a lower price. Because life is functioning very close to normal South Korea is in the unusual position of saying that its people have no reason to be anxious for vaccine procurement, as indicated by its deputy director of Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Only three fifths of the population is the target for vaccination by fall of 2021. ...

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In an historic event, the young Senator who introduced bills on improving fuel efficiency in the Senate only a few years ago, announces his proposal for a single national fuel efficiency standard of 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016. Mr Obama had the chief executives of 10 global auto companies all gathered together, as he made the announcement. It reverses decades of conflict on this issue, and puts the US at the forefront of developing new technologies for fuel efficiency and emissions control.

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Athens is far from being her normal self with high unemployment, shuttered shops and periodic violence. Unemployment at about 23% and the worsening economic crisis is leading to dwindling support for the main parties Pasok and New Democracy. Support is growing for fringe parties, including neo-nazi type parties. The mood is shifting in Europe, with the presidential elections in France and the likely election of Socialist candidate Hollande, who has described the EU's handling of Greece as deplorable. New elections will take place later in 2012 in the Netherlands.

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EIA figures show U.S. stockpiles of crude oil, refined fuels and other petroleum products increasing to 1.149 billion barrels in the week ending Jan 2, 2015, excluding the strategic petroleum reserve. This is the highest ever since 1990, except for June 2013. Brent crude drops below $50 a barrel.

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Howes gives Marchionne high marks for doing what Daimler failed to do. He says Fiat took the best of what Chrysler had and melded it with the best parts of Fiat to create an integrated company. Both Chrysler and Fiat benefit in the process. There is a lot to be done especially with paying off government debt, building the fuel efficient vehicles essential to do well in a time of high gasoline prices, and operating in a highly uncertain economic environment. But the steps taken so far show Marchionne has put Chrysler on the right path. The new version of the Jeep Cherokee has done well- with a sales increase of 34% in first quarter 2011 over the prior year.