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Several experts point to a dangerous change in the nature of unemployment in this downturn. Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, says people are more likely to get stuck with unemployment now than at any time in the post war period. Andrew Stettner, deputy Director of the National Employment Law Project, says a larger share of the unemployed are not going to be able to go to the same line of work. They will need new skills, just like an auto worker in a permanently downsized industry would have to find new skills to make a product in the renewable energy field or health care. And the law as it currently stands does not help either. Because if an unmeployed worker looks for training or goes back to school he loses his unemployment benefits, something the Obama administration proposes to change. What this means is that many of the unemployed will end up as permanent job losers. Rob Valetta, an economist at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank says that throughout the the last 3 decades including good times, the unemployment pool is shifting towards permanent job losers. Lawrence Katz, a Harvard University economist, points out that once workers exhaust their unemployment benefits and don't get new training, they become disconnected to the labor market, and bascially end up on disability or become permanently unemployed. The statistics bear this out. In April 2009, 47.1% of the people collecting state unemployment insurance exhausted the usual 26 weeks of benefits without finding work, according to the Bureau of Laor Statistics, that is the highest rate on record. In December 2007, there were about 2 unemployed workers for every job opening, according to Labor Department data. In March 2009 there were five unemployed workers for every opening. Mark Beaupre, 49, of Providence, R.I. lost his $8 an hour manufacturing job an year ago, one of many manufacturing jobs he has held since the 1980's. His wife Cathy lost her customer service job a year ago. This couple who together made $50,000 a year, are now behind on their mortgage payments and have applied for food assistance. At a recent job fair in Providence he says three thousand people turned up and he could not even get into the parking lot. ...

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Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam focusses on the widening gap between upper middle class youth and working class youth in the U.S. for educational and other opportunities, in his book "Our Kids," published in 2015.

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Romney says his 47% remarks were "just completely wrong." Adding "My life has shown that I care about 100%, and that's been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100%."

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With the drop in Brent crude to $67.53 on Nov. 28, 2014, for a drop of 13% for the week, the ruble takes a further hit. The ruble declined to 52.67 to the dollar.

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Rate of diabetes is rapidly going up in India. In addition scientists have shown that Indians are more prone to diabetes if they are obese to the same extent as someone from Canada or the U.S. This is called thin-fat diabetes- a higher impaired glucose intolerance- and comes from centuries of body changes following famine in parts of the country from failure of monsoon rains. The obesity rate is going up dramatically and with it diabetes is up significantly.  From 6.4% obese or overweight in 1990, by 2017 18.8% are obese or overweight, according to Health Metrics and Evaluation Institute of the University of Washington. The International Diabetes Federation now predicts 123 million with diabetes in India by 2040. By 2017 diabetes rates went up from 1990- from 5.5% to 7.7% or 63 million people. The major problem in South Asian countries and in China is the growing use of packaged and processed foods, fast food and carbonated drinks. Efforts to prevent the sale of junk foods is a battle being fought between private citizens and the large processed foods companies such as Coca Cola, Pepsi and Nestle. This is the subject of this article with Mr. Verma taking the case to the Delhi High Court facing large opposition. Mr. Verma left his job as a marketing executive as he took care of his sick child. He filed a case in the Delhi High Court in 2010, and faces the opposition of the India Food Processors Association- so far there is little progress.   ...

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David Stockman was Budget Director under President Reagan and known for his prodigous grasp of statistics in the national budget. Here he takes on what he describes as disproportionately large and destructive banking system for the U.S. economy, which he says the nation desperately needs less of. He supports the small tax of 0.15% of the debts other than deposits of financial conglomerates. His words are some of the strongest yet to come from one of the most prominent people on Reagan's economic team about how the nation's banking system has beome unproductive in supporting economic activity which is its reason for existence. The destructive effects on social cohesion and the middle class is emphasized. He says for years the Fed has run an insanely loose monetary policy that has encouraged this behaviour and socially detrimental profit seeking by the banks and other companies. He sees the big banks as dangerous institutions in today's economy engaged in a bull market culture which believes in entitlement and profitseeking behaviours regardless of its detrimental nature for the national economy. The recent profits of the banks in 2009 and the resulting bonuses are a result of the Fed's easy money policy and bank's gambling at the Fed's monetary casino as he puts it, with money obtained at little cost from Fed-controlled money markets. This article helps to eliminate the distorted perspective in today's climate that paints criticism of splitting up the banks, or otherwise restricting banks in engaging in proprietary trading and risky behaviours, as government interference. As Stockman puts it these banks are already in some sense wards of the state and not private enterprises and this issue is not relevant. The question now is how to set things right and this involves possible solutions such splitting up banks that are too big to fail, restricting risky behaviours and preventing proprietary trading, and other actions as unusual steps for unusual times to get things working back to normal. In other times Stockman would not have said this in an op-ed piece if this were not so....

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This report in the Economist magazine says views in the Trump base of support in rural areas and among white working class voters are likely to persist for some time. One reason given is that many of these people live in isolation and little contact with the more educated urban voters in America. Another factor cited here is that only a fifth of voters follow politics closely, and of these voters only a small fraction have a good grasp of the positions of the two major parties. Most people follow the instincts and thinking of the groups they are with. As a result many of the issues covered in the media such as climate change and U.S. withdrawal from the Paris agreement, the Comey firing and the Mueller investigation into Russian meddling in the election, president Trump's Twitter comments, are not having much impact on the president's ratings among his support base at this early stage of the Trump presidency. Yet it is too early to tell only 6 months into the Trump term in office. After 8 years of president Obama's two terms in office voters who feel left out are not likely to change their views in so short a time. Republican voters as distinct from the core Trump base voter are also unlikely to change their views after 8 years of Democratic party administration. By staying close to traditional Republican party positions president Trump is likely to continue to have the support of the lifelong Republican party voters unless things change. Can a centrist position emerge after voter fatigue with excessive partisan opinion, as voters seek to make America a more quieter place and a consensus on working together to lift all boats emerges. This could be expected as time passes.   ...

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DJT was supported by Shinzo Abe of Japan, also Germany and Italy, only Anglo-Saxon Canada and UK opposed to Russia staying in G-8.  “Barack Obama and a person named Trudeau didn’t want to have Russia in. And I would say that was a mistake because you wouldn’t have a war right now" “Putin speaks to me, he doesn’t speak to anybody else because he was insulted when he got thrown out of the G8.” Just to understand support for DJT and the huge mistake made by Obama and Merkel, Canada, UK prime ministers in 2014 to cancel the G-8 Summit in Sochi, Russia and expel Russia from G-8 in 2014. Did it help solve anything not to have discussions. Hidden in all this was Obama's lack of understanding of role Russia plays in Northern Europe and his mistake to judge Russia on basis of GDP alone as an insignificant power. Shinzo Abe-" Russia's in G-8 discussions is "crucial to tackling multiple crises in the Middle East" Italian and German leaders also felt Russia in G-8 was important to end Cold War atmosphere.  ...

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The Dutch election as elsewhere in Europe marks a significant shift away from the migration issue to the urgent problems of housing and cost of living, infrastructure, that were neglected as the migrant issue moved up in importance. Housing shortages with need for 400,000 new apartments and homes in Netherlands is a major issue in Dutch elections. Migration is not the major issue it was in 2023-2024 and Geert Wilders Freedom party lost 12 seats in the new parliament . D66 Centrist party gained 18 seats, and its leader Rob Jetten 38 years says this is a shift to cooperation as the new style in government. He told NOS in an interview- “In the coming years, we will do everything we can to show all Dutch people … that politics and the government can be there for them again." Jetten says he had noticed during the election campaign that voters liked his positive approach to “say goodbye to the Wilders era and truly seek the cooperation to move the country forward.” The Wilders era with participation of the Freedom party in Dutch government 2023-2025 led to much infighting in the Dutch government leading to neglect of major issues such as housing shortages and cost of living.    ...

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As US through USAID pulls back India can and should step forward with aid to Norman Borlaug Institute that created India's Green Revolution. During the Kennedy-Johnson period in the 1960's US agricultural technologies assistance and Norman Borlaug helped engineer the Green Revolution through higher productivity in agriculture. Norman Borlaug developed many high yield, disease resistant varieties at his Institute which were adopted in India. In the period of the 1950's and 1960's there was still famine in India. The last famine in India was in 1966 in Bihar when drought led to 45% drop in agricultural production, and in China in 1960. The American contribution to Indian agriculture is huge and the scale of the impact has never been fully grasped, forgotten 60 years later. Shown in this report by Harish Damodaran, is MS Swaminathan of India and Norman Borlaug in the wheat fields of India. The Norman Borlaug Institute is based in Mexico and will need funding. India's contribution is only $0.8 million. Norman Borlaug Institute head Bram Govaerts says- "We are looking for support from countries such as India that have interests in CIMMYT continuing to empower farmers through science and innovation and breeding varieties today for tomorrow’s climate.”   ...

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A year after Butler, Pennsylvania attempt on the president's life DJT reflects on it in this interview he granted to Gary O'Donoghue of the BBC. DJT said- "I don't like dwelling on it because if I did, it would be, you know, might be life-changing, I don't want it to have to be that." DJT says he liked "the power of positive thinking, or the power of positive non-thinking". On Russian president Putin and the continuing war in Ukraine- "I thought we had a deal done four times and then you go home, and you see, just attacked a nursing home or something in Kyiv. I said: 'What the hell was that all about?'" "I'm not done with Putin. I'm disappointed in him." On Prince Charles, now King Charles- "a great gentleman." And on Britain's prime minister Starmer hear this- "I really like the prime minister a whole lot, even though he's a liberal."   ...

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Kristof of the NYT writes about DJT Action in Venezuela January 3, 2026.  Some of the least understood aspects of the US president's language on Venezuela- The president's reference to oil resources is not for the US to benefit from the oil reserves. It is about oil in the sense that the oil industry in Venezuela is in total disrepair and broken from years and decades of nationalization followed by lack of investment, lack of western technology.  Sanctions put a huge price on the Venezuelan economy with the brunt of it borne by ordinary people- the same people that a socialist like Hugo Chavez thought he could help with his erratic ideology. As China, and now India has learned the only way to get ahead in this world for nations is to invest, invest, invest with larger and larger pools of capital, technologies and labour. By alienating the US or EU there is a loss of technologies and of investment so that one is going to bat with only one strike and you are out, so that from Day 1, China under Mao, India under Nehru had lost the race, so did all the "socialist" regimes in the world. Conversely China under Deng and successors, and India under Modi are breaking development records. How does the US change this? First it removes the sanctions on the Venezuelan economy. Second it gives Chevron the green light for increased production. Oil facilities of the Venezuelan oil company will get foreign investment and US investment from American oil companies with returns for both and the state oil revenues invested under a government that is able to invest it free of corruption or it being funneled out of the country to support other regimes in Latin America. This will rebuild the country's health system, its broken infrastructure, restore its finances, and make it in a decade one of the advanced economies in Latin America. But only if- the gangs and other private militias, the other military elements from the two decades of utter mismanagement and drug trafficking are  removed. A new way will have to be devised that the US as to work out ad hoc meaning in the process of doing, invented that meets the conditions of getting this done and the process of reconstruction of Venezuela under the Monroe doctrine of keeping the entire western hemisphere free of such elements. The US achieved this with the help of Great Britain in 1823 when it was only 50 years since it's founding in 1776. The US has the resources in 2026 to make this happen in the interests of the people of the western hemisphere, in the quality of life of people in the western hemisphere. It does not seek any country's resources, it seeks the development of the countries in the western hemisphere in the great tradition of Jefferson, Monroe, Lincoln, FDR and JFK. ...

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Opinion polls in France show a drop of 20 points in popularity for president Hollande after just 6 months in office, from 60% to 40%. Hollande is seen in France as slow to make decisions compared to his predecessor Sarkozy. Hollande has suffered in popularity over the decision to increase value added taxes to give tax rebates of $26 billion to companies hiring new workers starting in 2014. The opinion to the left is that this hurts the working class which has to pay more in taxes. Jean-Luc Melenchon of the Leftist Front, which asked voters to vote for Hollande, went so far as to cal the program "a shame." And the Greens with two ministers in the government have discussed withdrawing from the government. The conservative supporters of Sarkozy question the need to wait till 2014 considering the 10% unemployment and closing factories. They also cite the $39 billion figure recommended for payroll tax cuts, not tax rebates, by the commission setup by Hollande to look at ways to revive the economy. Centrist parties say the bloated government which takes up half of the economy is a cause of the problems. Hollande's Socialist supporters question the wisdom of moving this quickly to reduce the budget deficit to 3% of GDP by 2013, as required by committments to the EU, especially now that the downturn is seen by the EU, the IMF and the Bank of France as prolonged....

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The WSJ provides a fact check of Trump statements on crime, debt, and taxes. Trump says he is looking at a new plan for taxes not the $10 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years reducing tax collection by 22%, but something about a third of the size. No details are available on the plan. WSJ disputes Trump's statement that the U.S. is "one of the highest taxed nations in the world." WSJ points out that the U.S. in 2014 for federal, state and local government taxes collected 26% of gross domestic product in taxes, compared to average of 34% for about 30 countries, according to OECD. Debt to GDP ratio is about 75% that is high, but because of low interest rates the budget deficit is less than 3% of GDP, which is close to the long run average. For this reason economists say the government should invest in infrastructure and R&D that supports long run economic growth. On crime the record is mixed with increase in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, but decreases in Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Police shootings were 67 in 2016 compared to 62 in July 2015, and the high being 280 officers in 1974 when Nixon was President. Crime was an issue in the 1968 Republican National Convention during the Vietnam era protests, police shootings and terror incidents attracted attention in July 2016, yet the situation today is very different from the war protests of the Vietnam era. On terrorism fact checks by the NYT and in Lyrarc shows Clinton at State Department and Panetta at Defense Department taking hawkish stands only to hit a barrier from President Obama for taking action needed in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Panetta's new book calls for robust action where needed. A Clinton administration would take action with allies in the Middle East. Even Hollande and Obama who pulled the U.S. and France out of following up in the French-British Sarkozy-Cameron led intervention in Libya, have changed policy, with Obama calling it his biggest mistake. France under Hollande with the U.S. is now actively engaged in the Middle East, having changed policy. It is highly unlikely that a Trump led policy which alienates most allies in the Middle East- Iran, Iraq and Saudis- is likely to work better than a determined Clinton-Panetta led effort which has support of the local countries on the ground actually currently on both sides because of complexities of Middle Eastern politics.  On trade a new administration will still have to work with China, India, the European Union, and other countries, as global trade supply chains are not likely to evolve overnight. Lessons will have been learned by Clinton about the need to bring back jobs and ensure the strength of U.S. manufacturing. Economic and jobs growth will require prudence in strengthening U.S. manufacturing coupled with global cooperation, which a Trump administration that alienates trading partners without the possibility of making any serious immediate gains in jobs, is highly unlikely to do better.      ...

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Robert Kaiser, former managing editor of The Washington Post, reviewed this book on Joe McCathy in The Washington Post on August 7, 2020. It shows the link with today of Senator Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn, the then 27 year old lawyer chief counsel of the senate subcommittee on investigation when Joe McCarthy became chairman in Jan. 1953. The book is-  Demagogue The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy by Larry Tye. Roy Cohn passed on some of the methods used at that time to Mr. Trump. Kaiser points out that the senator Joe McCarthy assembled "a coalition of the aggrieved." Tye shows that it started with the junior senator from Wisconsin making a speech in West Virginia for Lincon Day dinner to the Republican ladies of Wheeling, W. Va. The senator used it to talk about threat of communists working in the State Department. He claimed there were 205 Communists. Today we know that this was just made up by McCarthy, at a time when Winston Churchill made the speech about the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and a sense of shock in America at the People's Republic of China being formed in 1949 under CCP chairman Mao tse tung. McCarthy saw this as an opportunity to gain prominence and a Senate career. What is seen from this carefully researched book is that for a while it succeeded in putting many of the Nation's best leaders on the defense. This includes Harry Truman, Eisenhower himself who disdained McCarthy's and Cohn's methods, Gen George Marshall who was a mentor to Dwight EIsenhower, Joe Stilwell, and other military leaders who ran the 1940's war effort under Marshall in Europe against the Nazis and in China against the Japanese imperialists. On the domestic side it included the head of TVA and the new Atomic Agency setup by president Truman. Gallup said at that time of McCarthy's 38% support in the US following his censure in US Senate by 67-22  -even if it was known that McCarthy killed five innocent children they would still go along with him. Tye writes that in that atmosphere similar to the sense of shock at China's rise and America's loss of manufacturing and falling behind in infrastructure by 2016, in that atmosphere if one told a small lie or big lie it made not much difference in public's penalty or censure, then why not tell a whopper of a lie. This became the ethic for a while in 2016-2024 similar to the period till the collapse of McCarthyism in America by 1957 with McCarthy's death in 1957 and in 1960 the election of John F. Kennedy. What is forgotten is that Richard Nixon a young senator from California was part of the group in Congress, so that in some shape or form it existed and remained part of the Reagan efforts to push back against the Soviets that led to wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq sapping the Nation's energies and resources and with faulty economic theory allowed China to dominate key industries and outspend America in infrastructure investment, creating the kind of shock that led to the second McCarthyist decade under Mr. Trump. ...

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The Gulf States sovereign funds lose value with Abu Dhabi and Kuwait's funds losing a third of their value. Prince Alwaleed 's Kingdom Holding loses $7.92 billion. and business confidence index takes a big hit.

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William Dudley who spent 20 years at Goldman Sachs and was its Chief Economist, before his position as executive vice president of the Fed's markets group, will now head the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

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Labor unions and some of his political allies propose increasing taxes on the rich to pay for additional stimulus that would ease the effects of the economic downturn in France as the jobless rate rises.

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Weymouth interviews Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos. Santos was finance minister, foreign trade minister, and defense minister under former president Alvaro Uribe. The U.S. is negotiating a free trade agreement with Colombia. Santos has improved relations with neighboring Venezuela, which under Uribe were strained upto the breaking point. He is also improving relations with Ecuador, and working to strengthen the Andean Development Council. Santos says Colombia has a smaller drug problem after defeating the major cartels, though mini-cartels still operate in the country. On fiscal responsibility Colombia has introduced a rule in the constitution to limit deficits to 1% of GDP. Santos expects 5% growth in 2011. He hopes to protect Colombia's growth in a global financial crisis by strengthening regional reserve funds, multilateral cooperation of Andean countries, and central bank monetary policies. Santos plans to abolish the DAS intelligence agency in 3-4 months. He plans to create a new intelligence agency and transfer functions such as immigration that were under DAS to other agencies. He has also launched investigations and action against corruption in the government and against public officials working with local mafias. To do this he is working with the attorney general, prosecutor general, the controller general, and police. This has led to criticism from Uribe who sees the changes in policy pointing to deficiencies in the Uribe administration. Colombia is a country with a population of 46 million and plays a significant role in the northern part of Latin America. Santos assumed office in 2010 and was the choice of Alvaro Uribe. His policies have won him a 71% approval rating....

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Robert McFarlane, national security advisor to Ronald Reagan, describes three qualities of Reagan that made him a great President. He looks back at the President on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan. The first is belief in America's core values: a sense of right and wrong, tolerance for risk, and compassion for the less fortunate. The second political courage, the committment to do the right thing, regardless of how it would affect one politically. And the third the ability to take his case to the American people and inspire confidence. He cites Reagan's courage and committment to do the right thing in the case of nuclear deterrance strategy. Reagan viewed the nuclear strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction as immoral and one that would ultimately lead to the annhilation of mankind. And he decided to change the entire strategy and move it towards protecting Americans and the free world, with the ultimate objective of doing away with all nuclear weapons. McFarlane says today the development of defense against ballistic missiles is accepted wisdom but not at that time, when it was seen as risky, costly and not likely to work. At the time in 1983, the Strategic Defense Initiative was criticised by nuclear experts and respected senators. One could add that this applied also to Reagan's looking at the Berlin Wall and sizing up the situation in one line- "Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall." One in which Reagan combined courage with simple straight talk to Russians, Germans and people in the free world, in a manner that struck a chord with millions of people....

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This piece by Kanter in the NYT gives an account of Jean Claude Juncker's background as a political leader in Luxembourg. His father worked in the steel industry and was active in the trade union movement at a time when farming and steel making supported the economy of Luxembourg. In two decades under Juncker Luxembourg was transformed into a banking and insurance center with one of the largest per capita incomes in Europe. As a Brussels insider Juncker, according to British public opinion, is an odd choice to head the EU when it is trying to make its administration more democratic and less distant from the average person in the EU. Britain's prime minister Cameron says Juncker "was never on any ballot." The reason for Juncker's candidacy is that he is supported by the centre right parties in Europe, which also lost support in the recent elections. The Socialist and left parties fared worse in the election, but both centre right and left parties lost votes to third parties and nationalist parties such as the Marie Le Pen's nationalist party in France and the Independent party in Britain. Even chancellor Merkel of Germany initially hesitated to support Juncker, but confirmed him as her choice when German public opinion showed it favored the selection based on the largest party in the European parliament making the choice. This puts Britain and Cameron at odds with Germany, with the Swedes and the Dutch calming their doubts about Juncker and going with Germany. Little is mentioned in the media about the other candidate, an SPD leader from Germany representing the socialist and Left parties. ...

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The American consumer is becoming frugal since the crisis hit in 2008. But it will take along time to reduce the debt piled up over the years. By 2008 end American households had $13.8 trillion in debt, which is close to the $14.3 trillion output of the entire US economy, not adjsted for inflation in 2008. American households started 2008 with debt at 133% of disposable income. At the end of 2008 this had only dropped 3 percentage points to 130% of disposable income. With unemployment higher, companies reducing hours, and local governments having a certain number of days of furlough, and wage growth slow or nonexistent, the debt will take longer to reduce. WIth this debt overhang, and the lack of easy credit even though the credit markets are working again, its going to be harder to see a consumer driven V shaped recovery. In the 2001 recession consumers took on more debt to provide aconsumer driven V shaped recovery. At that time the debt to disposable income ratio went above 100%. See graph. And its gone up steadily since, with super low interest rates encouraging borrowing, and then as the Fed raised rates consumers went heavily into mortgages and housing in a speculative bubble. This time not only is the credit not there to finance such a recovery, but a number of conditions such as permanent loss of a large number of manufacturing jobs, rising unemployment and use of parttime workers, the need to payoff debt, create definite constraints to consumer spending....

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Few will believe Jill Biden taught aclass on the day of her husband's inauguration as U.S. president. Times change and anew president takes office. With him is Jill Biden a dedicated teacher for all her life. She has two masters degrees and a doctoral degree on the problems in higher education with dropping out in community colleges in the U.S.

As the U.S. goes back to the days of the Truman presidency in 1952 when it was all about rebuilding the country- education and access to education, healthcare and access to healthcare, infrastructure and funding the infrastructure from bridges, roads, airports, terminals. A new focus takes shape.

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Peggy Noonan says in this WSJ article that Republicans should not shy away from telling president Trump that his erratic style is affecting the entire Republican agenda on taxes, infrastructure, and economic growth. This follows the firing of FBI Director Comey, the president's tweets about Comey as a "nut job" and the media coverage, followed by appointment of a Special Counsel. Her concern goes back to U.S. democracy. Her friends in Europe tell her the U.S. is having a nervous breakdown with the behaviour of the Trump administration. She tells Republicans to tell president Trump that democracy is a serious thing, not something to be toyed with.

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Ten years after the severe banking crisis in Ireland that led to a collapsing economy and a lost decade, the curtain finally comes to a close on the actions of banking executives at Anglo Irish bank. 

David Drumm of Anglo Irish bank is sentenced to 6 years in jail for his role in the crisis. Lise Hand describes the total silence in the court as the sentence is handed out, accepting the severity of what had happened for Ireland and the Irish people affected by flashy money of banks, politicians as well as regulators who failed to live up to their duties to Ireland.