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In a Nov. 8 S&P report S&P's estimate for net government debt to GDP ratio for 2013 is over 80%. What S&P will look for in the debt negotiations is for the parties to produce an agreement that will stick and for the debt to GDP ratio to stabilize at close to current levels. Less important is the Jan. 1 deadline for S&P and Moody's according to executives at the credit ratings firms and more important real agreement that lasts.

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The British pound recovered after the new coalition government announced its actions for the economy. It was $1.59 to one British pound at the beginning of August 2010. But problems for the pound remain with the economic outlook and monetary policy.

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According to the Labor Department nonfarm payrolls went down by 131,000 in July 2010. 71,000 jobs were added in the private sector and 143,000 temporary census workers were jobless. For June data, a revision shows that payrolls declined by 221,000 and not by 125,000 as previously reported. Overall for the first 7 months of 2010 the US had 100,000 jobs added a month on average, which will not make a dent in unemployment. Unemployment remained at 9.5%. In addition to poor rate of job additions in the private sector, the budgetary situation of states and local governments is exacerbating the situation. 48,000 jobs were lost in state and local governments in July. 45% of the unemployed or 6.6 million Americans were jobless for more than 6 months, making finding a job more difficult.

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This years pension hike of 5.35% in Germany is being completely eaten up by the inflation of 5.1% leaving pensioners in the same situation as before after many years when no adjustments were made. The catchup factor for meeting cost of living changes and inflation was put on hold by chancellor Merkel in 2018, another way social goals were not met under Merkel while infrastructure and child care were also neglected. Only now under a SPD Greens coalition are these problems of falling standard of living being tackled.

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The growing city of Monterey, Mexico, near the American state of Texas, is facing severe shortages of water as shown in this report in the NYT. Seven years of drought except for 2018 have left the Cerro Prieto and other dams nearby mostly dry. Water is sent in by truck from outside the region. This is an arid region and the lack of rainfall comes at a time when the population is growing in this part of the country, which is the largest industrial state in Mexico.

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China build its solar industry with huge subsidies, the US did not. From 2018 to 2022 the US solar industry suffered with lack of help from the US government under the Trump administration and the first year of the Biden administration. 30 US based solar companies shutdown in a bloodbath and many jobs were lost. Enter the climate law in 2022 under president Biden and in 2023 the US investment in solar reached $8 billion, three times what it was in the previous 6 years. 

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David Brat, a professor at a small liberal arts college in Virgina defeats Eric Cantor in Congressional primary elections of June 2014.

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Opinion polls in late July 2015 showed Syriza with support of 33% from Greek voters, well ahead of other parties. After accepting the third EU bailout following a "no" vote in a referendum in early July, prime minister Tsipras still remains popular in Greece. On August 20, Tsipras announced snap elections to win a new mandate to implement the program of cuts that enabled Greece to get 96 billion euros in the third bailout program. Some members of his own party remain opposed to the bailout, and Tsipras relied on opposition parties support to get approval of the bailout in the Greek parliament.

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Sarkozy's televised speech to the French nation from Toulon, on December 1, 2011

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The protests for democracy continue in Syria in May 2011. On May 20 2011, 26 protesters are gunned down. The Assad government continues to crackdown on the protests. Friedman sees the events in Syria having wide reaching impact on the Middle East. He calls it a keystone nation because of relations with Iran, the Golan Heights, the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, the long border with Turkey, the border with Iraq, and Hamas relations with Syria. Compared to Egypt the international community has been for the most part silent in its support for the democracy protests in Syria. Friedman also asks the question about rival sects in Syria and other Arab countries and what happens afterwards. Would a post Assad period lead to people from rival sects putting aside differences and working together to build and sustain a democratic government. He says there is uncertainty but also that something deep down is coming to the top in the Arab world- that Arabs want to be full citizens of their countries with a voice in their government and in the way things are run in their countries. ...

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The SEC requirement that companies disclose the ratio between median worker pay and the pay of senior executives. The SEC says it is putting out the rule as part of implementing Dodd-Frank legislation to control excessive executive pay. Companies will be allowed to survey a fraction of their workforce as appropriate for companies with global operations. Executive pay will include pension benefits and stock options under the new rule. A WSJ chart using information from the University of Southern California and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows the ratio between what CEO's on average make and rank and file workers make remained at about 30 times in the post war period till about 1970, a period of rapid growth in the U.S. economy. By 1980 this climbed to about 60 times and exceeded 100 times by 1990. The period of stratospheric growth for CEO pay and extreme widening of the gap then occurs between 1990 and 2000. By 2000 the dot com boom- telecom boom and the internet- creates a surge in executive pay reaching over 500 times. This drops to about 280 times in 2008 and picks up again to reach about 320 times in 2011. Many of the poor business practices, the excessive leveraging and risktaking in the financial industry, take place against this background of excessive pay for senior executives. Some of that risk was passed on to others through such methods as securitization in the period leading to the 2008 financial crisis, so that executives were compensated with higher pay for taking excessive risk that they personally or their companies did not assume. Dodd-Frank legislation following the 2008 financial crisis sought to correct this imbalance by having pay information disclosed. The excessive pay has also coincided with an increase in the frequency of boom-bust cycles in the economy. The busts prompted the needs for intervention by the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, to drop interest rates more than would otherwise have happened during this decade, culminating in the huge bond purchases and monetary easing by the Bernanke Fed. The SEC under Mary Jo White is mindful of these distortions in the economy as a result of misallocation of resources based on excessive executive pay, and the need to take action before the next crisis. ...

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By July 2011, when Solar Frontier KK's new solar panel factory is in full scale production, it will become the world's largest plant for photovoltaic cells. The parent company is Showa Shell Sekiyu KK, a Japanese oil refiner. The $1.25 billion solar-panel factory in Miyazaki prefecture is expected to open in a few months. The annual output will be 900 megawatts of photovoltaic cells. For Showa Shell the move makes sense as oil demand is declining in Japan, given a shift to cleaner burning natural gas for power generation, and adoption of hybrid cars. Showa plans to cut its oil refining capacity by 20% in 2011. And the solar business will account for 50% of the company earnings by 2014. Mr Kameda, head of the Showa Shell solar business, says his company is focussing on the market segment that is growing fast- thin-film CIS cells, made from copper, indium and selenium. These cells cost less to make and to buy, than thicker silicon based crystalline cells. The thin-film have a potential for increasing efficiency and reducing cost because they are relatively new. Showa's technology converts about 13% of sunlight into energy. Showa is also working with partners. It plans to supply panels to GE's solar energy projects, and is working with IBM to develop next-generation solar-cell material that is based on readily available materials....

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The stimulus checks in government pandemic aid packages are being spent prudently in the US. Government aid checks were sent out in the first wave since March 2020 and now again in the second wave in 2021. The stimulus pandemic checks are being allocated wisely. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study shows that Americans saved about 36% of the first stimulus payment checks, 29% was spent, and 35% was used to pay down debt. For the second stimulus payment underway in 2021 this survey also shows Americans are expected to spend even less and use even more to pay down debts. With stores mostly closed, travel restricted, and consumers not having the opportunities to spend, and the sense of insecurity, additional income from unemployment checks, saving has increased. Americans saved $1.4 trillion in the first 9 months of 2020 compared to half that in the same period in 2019, according to analysis by Berenberg Economics. That amount is about 10% of household spending. The tight spending during 2020 means, say economic researchers, that spending will jump in 2021 after the vaccination drive. The trend is positive in that Americans tended not to save enough. People in China and India, tend to save more giving government a larger pool of savings to draw from in national infrastructure spending. In November 2020 Commerce Department estimate is that saving in the U.S. was 12.9%, up from 7.5% in November 2019. Anecdotal evidence shows U.S. savings accounts for people at the lower end of incomes have been depleted for years, hit by the unemployment of the 2009 recession. This was caused by errors by the banking community and business. To this is added people in arts and culture, people in professions involving contact, travel and leisure, food, during this pandemic ten years later. National priorities need to be set to bolster this part of American society and its core social fabric. The steps to bring home manufacturing jobs under Mr. Trump and the "Buy American" initiative under Mr. Biden is just the first step. More steps are needed and the resources, implementation and drive to bring America back to the healthy society of social cohesion and upward mobility aspirations under presidents Truman and Eisenhower in the 1950's. ...

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IEA Director Fatih Birol says conservation of energy plans should be undertaken by all nations. He says Gulf countries and Saudi oil output will not be the same even when the war ends and the shipping lanes in the Hormuz Straits will not be handling the volumes of 100 ships that passed through the sea channel before the Iran War. Yet he says the best solution is for opening the Straits of Hormuz. This raises some serious questions about depending on the Straits of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf for oil supplies in 2027 and beyond. Can conservation, new sources of oil, acceleration of renewable energy use and electric car technologies lead to making the Middle East oil supplies becoming redundant, doing without this supply or turning it into a marginal source which would lower oil prices even further to the $50 level? Energy use decline for the same or higher GDP levels have potential in the US, China and India. Japan and Germany have cut energy use by about 50% in Japan and 35% in Germany with slightly higher Real GDP levels than 1996 in Japan and a 50% increase in Germany over a 30 year period( using 2015 as base year).  Major renewable energy gains have been made in the last 10 years with solar and wind technologies and electric car technologies. Much of the gains in electric car technologies lies ahead and this would cut crude oil significantly for cars and trucks which makes up 60-70% of oil use. Add to this conservation technologies. Other sources of oil can be found. And Venezuelan, Alaskan oil can be ramped up to replace volatile sources from the Middle East.  ...

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West Bengal gets a new start after 50 years of mismanagement, corruption and breakdown of law and order, and economic failures, with a new BJP Modi led administration. The speed of the changes are simply astonishing as a state of close to 100 million people -where industrialization never took off as it has in other states, and rural poverty exists in ways thought to belong to the colonial days under the British- gets an administration at the federal level under Modi committed to industrialization, modernization of the economy, on the same rapid scale as that launched in the rest of eastern India. This is a territory half the size of the European Union, once called the Bengal Presidency under the British Empire, comprised of states of Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Assam, and Andhra Pradesh, a region where the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers from the mighty Himalayas flow into the sea. It is a low moment for India similar to the period after the Proleterian Cultural Revolution of Mao in China by 1970 and the few remaining leaders under premier Chou-en-lai making a resolute effort under Deng Xiaoping to make a new effort to modernize and industrialize China working with the US and the European Union. That effort went through the initial phase to 1990 to familiarize Communist China with the US and European market systems, and a new phase to 2010 by which time most of these goals had been achieved. India is poised to make that scale of change today over the next two decades as it is already familiarized with the US and European market systems and its net step is in technological advancement and rapid industrialization at scale something that alone can meet the aspirations of the South Asian region. ...

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The LDP's landslide victory in the Dec. 2012 elections is not seen as a mandate for Shinzo Abe, the new LDP prime minister. Abe acknowledged this when he said: "We recognize that this was not a restoration of confidence in the Liberal Democratic Party, but a rejection of three years of incompetent rule by the Democratic Party." The LDP won 294 seats compared to the 308 seats won in the landslide win by the Democratic Party of Japan three years ago. Abe campaigned on a stronger stance in Japan's disputes with China. Yet he is committed to maintaining relations with China, a key trading partner. On China Abe says: "Our goal is to stop China from making these challenges, but we do not intend to allow an overall worsening in relations." Osaka Mayor Hashimoto's Japan Restoration Party was expected to do well but his campaign lost momentum after joining with Shintaro Ishihara, a nationalist politician. The Tomorrow Party which campaigned on the nuclear issue and anti-nuclear sentiment petered out after voters sensed the impact of electrical shortages and prices. The LDP is pro-nuclear and plans to reverse some of the anti-nuclear steps taken by the DPJ. The Democratic Party of Japan gained only 57 seats, and the former DPJ prime minister during the earthquake and tsunami, Naoto Kan, lost his parliamentary seat. Just as the PRI, a party that held a long monopoly of power was returned to power in Mexico in 2012, the LDP is returning to power, but very dependent on voters aspirations for good governance and its performance in office....

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Turkey's currency the lira drops 4% and its foreign currency reserves drop $2 billion to $71 billion. Turkey has local elections in 2019.

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Net profit for Telefonica dropped by over 50% to 748 billion euros in te first quarter of 2012. Latin America provided over 50% of operating income before amortization and depreciation of 5.08 billion euros .

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Samsung increases its share of the global smartphone market to 33% for the first quarter of 2013, and Apple's share drops from 23% to 18%, according to Strategy Analytics. Samsung is targeting the low end of the smartphone market. Samsung's manufacturing capabilities give it an advantage in responding to market demand.

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Adly Mansour, Chief Justice of Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court is sworn in as interim president in July 2013, after the ouster of president Morsi.

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Are there costs or are there savings from the Obama health care bill? Does it affect jobs and how? The Congressional Budget Office says the health care law will save $230 billion in ten years based on a whole set of calculations and assumptions. Commonsense and basic math leads others to question how spending $930 billion on insuring 32 million Americans could end up with significant savings. The different view argues that the Budget Office erred in making some calculations, by counting $70 billion in premiums from long term care because they would be used to pay benefits later, omitted $115 billion in spending to adminster the law, and omitted $208 billion needed to prevent scheduled reductions in Medicare payments to doctors. The money needed on the Stimulus, on two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the uncertain prospects of the US economy in the longer term till debt and other issues are resolved, injects the critical element of difficult choices and priorities. If state and local budgets are severely strained in 2011-2012 would that require federal help and will there be other needs that will have to be met by the federal government that are critical such as another unexpected downturn, or a resolution of unresolved bad debt at the large US banks There is also a sense that the health care law does not do enough to reduce the cost of health care that will be needed over the next decade so that other priorities are not neglected. Both parties are not up to the task in this respect for running the country's finances withot using the numbers to tell different stories....

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The Commerce Department says U.S. GDP was up an estimated 3.5% in the 3rd quarter of 2014. Government spending was up in the quarter, trade helped increase growth, consumer spending and business investment was steady, with housing still weak.

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As the price of oil hits $40 a barrel, and with the lack of investor confidence in China's economic policies in relation to the stock market and currency devaluation, global stock markets decline sharply in August 2015.

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Krugman points out that the high growth during Jeb Bush's period as governor of Florida was a result of the housing boom years. When that boom collapsed by 2008 the economy slumped badly. Taken as an average for the boom and slump years Florida's growth rate is slightly below the national average, says Krugman. Economists and other experts say productivity is a key factor for increasing wages and growth, which is a result of factors depending on the use of technology, business investment in productivity, human capital. It is stuck at a low level of 0.4% since 2010, according to economists, and not a factor that is dependent on who is president. During the two terms of president Obama growth was 2.1%, George H.W. Bush 2.0%, George W. Bush 1.6%- making the Bush and Obama years in office similiar in terms of growth. Before 2000 we see higher growth rates under a Republican president Reagan 3.4% and a Democratic president Clinton 3.7%. A significant factor since 2008 is the financial crisis and housing bubble which has in many countries such as Japan and Mexico, and to a lesser extent in the U.S., led to a lost decade....