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Barry Posen, Director of M.I.T.'s Security Studies Program looks at U.S. options as it confronts North Korea over missile tests. He says a conventional attack with bombers could invite a conventional attack from North Korea. A nuclear attack by the U.S. is seen only in the context of an impending attack from North Korea. Very little warning would be given to South Korea resulting in large casualties, says Posen.

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Doubts about a decoupling of the Asian and European economy from the US economy. Opinion that the US economy could have a stronger impact on the export driven economies of Japan S. Korea and China than is usually thought and differet view from the one given recently in the Oct-Nov. report from the IMF, the OECD forecast and other reports suggesting only a modest impact of the housing crisis in the US and the credit crunch.

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Claire Cain Miller points to the high cost of child care in the U.S. and the benefits to society from providing affordable child care. It has a high impact on women's employment and incomes, and ability to pursue opportunities in education and career. The effect on children especially for low income families is enormous. Average cost for child care in the U.S. is by one estimate $16,514. The higher the quality of care in early years the better the outcomes are for children in education, careers, income, and later in life.

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Taiwan's plan to increase its defense capabilities with increased purchases from the U.S. $15.4 billion dollars in 2021. The U.S. recently sent a spy plane over PLA drills on the mainland which were meant to warn the U.S. and  Taiwan. After the situation in Hong Kong watched closely in Taiwan sentiment in Taiwan is shifting to where about three fourths of people in Taiwan in polls want to keep Taiwan as a free and separate country, and defend its independent status.

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The U.S. stock market is in a mini cycle supported by tax cuts or a super long cycle supported by low inflation, says this article in the WSJ. There is little concern of a recession. Some indicators such as strong manufacturing growth suggest the U.S. is in the early stages of the cycle. Other indicators suggest the U.S. stock market in the middle or late stages of a cycle. Investors have some confusing information to sort out. Economic indicators suggest early cycle. The low inflation is a plus.

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The dire need for international scientific collaboration, sharing of information and economic coordination for relief measures in tackling the health crisis posed by coronavirus. U.S. president Trump says it would have helped if U.S. had more information earlier from China. U.S. medical personnel are in constant contact with medical personnel in Italy as reported in WSJ. This has helped American doctors understand the nature of the challenge they are facing and come up with better strategies that can work in America in anticipation of what can happen in the next 15 days.

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Attorney General Barr tells American business leaders that business with the PRC has short term rewards but ultimately hurts U.S. interests. FBI Director Christopher Wray says the transfer of U.S. technology "is so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history." All this has happened as communities and towns across the U.S. lost jobs as they were shifted out of the U.S. in large numbers over twenty years in accelerated manner leaving U.S. manufacturing weak. The pandemic showed the weakness of existing supply chains for delivering benefit to the American people.

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The failure to respond quickly with testing and contact tracing has been a major weakness of the response to the coronavirus in Europe and the U.S. Repeated fumbling in contact tracing has been common throughout Europe and in states in the U.S.

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Afghanistan, says aUN report, s seeing the development of narco-catels similiar to Columbia, where drug profits are seen as more imortant than insurgent ideology. The interdiction of opium crops says the UN office on Drugs and Crime has reduced production by 10% with 22% less land being cultivated. But this does not mean that the flow of opium has beeen affected. A stockpile of 10,000 tons of opium has been built up and is in the hands of narco-gangs, which is about 2 years supply for world demand. This also suggests that the efforts to cut financing of the insurgency are being dwarfed by the access for terrorists to this large source of financing. It also raises other questions about the billions of dollars that can be used for terrorist purposes. As the war situation deteriorates this financing suggests two ways in which the situation becomes intractable, first through the financing of the insurgency, and second through the corruption in the government of Afghanistan that this engenders. with the complete loss of confidence among ordinary people in the government. In these circumstances a democratic election does not have anywhere near the kind of credibility that for example the Iraqi elections had. Quite the reverse....

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Tesco plans to hire 20,000 new employees to help improve the shopping experience at Tesco stores in Britain. This would also act as a"shot in the arm" for the UK economy, says Tesco UK CEO, Richard Brasher. Official figures show 2.67 millon people in Britain are unemployed, with unemployment at 22% for young people ages 16-24.

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The squeeze on consumers and consumer spending in Britain as wage growth cannot keep up with the consumer price index from 2007 to 2013. A widening gap between average wages and the consumer price index. Basic items such as potatoes, milk, butter, ham, eggs, apples, pork and other food items have gone up much faster in price compared to wages. From 2007 to 2013 basic food staples such as butter are up 99%, potatoes 148%, apples 56%, ham and eggs 50%, milk 31%, pork sausage 37%. Gasoline up 40%. The gap between average wages and the consumer price index has steadily increased since 2010 when Cameron and the Conservatives took office and the austerity measures were introduced to cut the deficit. Upto that time wages kept up with the consumer price index except for a period during the 2008 financial crisis, according to information from the UK Office of National Statistics. Government figures show wages up 1.1% for the 2nd quarter of 2013, much less than half the rate of inflation of 2.8% in July. The household saving ratio is forecast to drop from 7% in 2012 to 3.5% in 2013, and Britons are dipping into savings to pay for basics, according to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. The House of Commons library compiled data shows average hourly wages down by 5.5% in real terms in Britain since mid-2010. Weak consumer spending hurts economic recovery and hopes of cutting the deficit. In the Bank of England's minutes for the August meeting policy makers said consumption growth cannot occur without increase in household incomes. ...

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The IMF's World Economic Outlook in March 2008. The IMF Outlook has been behind the curve in looking ahead at the world economy. The IMF chief economist Simon Johnson cut the baseline forecast cut its US growth forecast by a percentage point since its January outlook, its now at 0.5% for 2008 and 0.6% for 2009. But thats when the Fed minutes already show the discussion about a" severe and protracted recession " in the USA, so it looks like its a bit late and after the fact. And some experts expect a contraction in the US economy this year. More indicative is its forecast of the European economy which is not as upbeat as the OECD estimates and suggests that the ECB may be more receptive to monetary easing and lowering interest rates because of lower growth in the Euro region. IMF sees eurozone growth at 1.4% in 2008 and 1.2% in 2009. Germany and France are expected to grow at 1.4%.