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Turkey's elections for parliament and for president are on May 14, 2023. President Erdogan is running again after two decades in power. Turkey faces high inflation of over 57% which has created a serious cost of living crisis in Turkey. Erdogan has issued a wide range of stimulus measures- energy subsidies, a doubling of the minimum wage, pension increases, and a chance for 2 million retirees to retire immediately. A kilogram of tomatoes used to cost 8-10 liras and now costs 25 liras. Rents are going up with steep increases. Turkey has been hit hard by the war in Ukraine as it depends on Ukraine for grain supplies. A popular mayor of Istabul Ekrem Imamoglu from the Opposition is shown here as an alternative for president. Erdogan started his political career as Mayor of Istanbul with the military opposing him. His management of the economy helped him win two terms as president, which is now in a severe crisis.

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Krugman says crypto currency has become a huge, really huge player in campaign finance. He says it accounts for almost half of corporate spending on political action committees PAC's in 2024 election year in the US. He calls it startling that this is happening even though crypto currency destroys value. Krugman says crypto is not like fossil which is doing the same thing getting people to deny climate change yet with benefits from using fossil as a transition fuel, crypto not being a real industry at all.

Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman is clear that it has dangers for the American economy-

He says crypto rests on nothing but a perception that some day there might be a genuine use for these products. That we do not know when the government gets serious about regulating crypto marketing practices and policing its criminal uses. And adds that much of the $2 trillion in crypto may simply evaporate.

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Amanda Lacaze of Australian rare earths maker Lynas- what can be learned from her experience in rare earths? Lynas is a Australian mining company with a mine in an eroded volcano Mount Weld that has a concentration of rare earths metals. In 2014 it was faced with China's near monopoly of rare earths and price subsidies, lack of awareness in financial markets and the government about the importance of rare earths in manufacturing. It was a period under the Obama administration that after the Bush administration had little grasp of the importance of manufacturing in America and how its decline would affect communities across the Nation, economists trumpeted the virtue of free markets without grasping how China would wrestle control of manufacturing with state subsidies and aggressive pricing and of strategic new technologies.  This included rare earths where the monopoly was close to 100%- if it is 90% today it is because of companies like Lynas. Production processes at Lynas's plant in Malaysia were not sufficiently developed in 2014. When Amanda Lacaze (now 66 years and head of Australia's Minerals Agency) joined Lynas in 2014 the first problem aside from getting Japanese creditors to restructure loans because of aggressive pricing by Chinese firms was to improve manufacturing processes to get 95% quality instead of 48% quality (measured in number of quality rejected product). This was achieved in the first year. To do this she thinned her management ranks and closed offices in Sydney (to cut costs) and moved management to Malaysia where the problems in manufacturing processes would make or break the company. She was able to get creditor Japanese government backed Japan Australia Rare Earths financial institution to renew and extend loans. Had this not happened the company may not exist today. It shows the sheer foolishness that pervaded most of the American industry at that time, the failed economic theory that said America could not support its industry when rivals were supporting theirs, the Bush and Obama administrations that had no understanding of how the industrial competition was takin place in world trade that could substitute other nations for America' s dominance in manufacturing and did little to push back and regain the position for America in world trade. This ignorance continues in some sections of business today that cannot see the plain facts and refuses to see the enormous damage to the Nation from the destruction of its manufacturing base and loss of good jobs in communities across the US. Lynas is now getting contracts from the US government for rare earths and is the only reason China's dominance in rare earths in 90% and not 100% along with MP Materials of the US. Planning was discredited in the crazy euphoria that turned the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Communist Soviet Union, as economists never understood that planning that was used by the Soviets and Chinese in their Five Yer Plans is just borrowed from centuries of basic ways of conducting business that had originated with the Industrial Revolution in Britain. Without planning the growth of the British Navy and the industry that supported it Britain could never have gained the dominance that it did in the 19th century Industrial Revolution. As the Industrial Revolution spread in the US in the 19th and twentieth century every major company had a 1 year Operating plan and a Long Range Plan for 5 Years and 10 Years. The government would have identified rare earths with foresight as one of the newer technologies and the manufacturing infrastructure needed to support its development if these plans were developed at the different levels of government and at the highest levels. This was done under market economy in China. Instead DJT was forced to step back from trade negotiations with China for unfair trade when China held out with a threat to stop export of rare earths materials in 2025, because a huge hole or gap in planning happened at the highest levels of the US government. That happened 11 years after 2014 when Australian rare earths maker Lynas survival was in doubt under a new CEO Amanda Lacaze. This is only one of many misses in American manufacturing and industry, in world trade, that came from misguided economic theory and failure to grasp the basic facts behind the success of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the US. ...

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Questions about the every 5 years 20th Party Congress of the CCP or Chinese Communist Party, and the 2300 representatives attending from all parts of China are answered in this report in The Guardian.  Xi Jinping is expected to get a third term. To outsiders in US and Europe it is all about power in China, to insiders in China it is about China making it through the 100 years since the 1901 revolution and the tumult, the chaos of the first 100 years, and now a period of modernization and growing incomes,  the need to create jobs, tackle climate change, ensure a good future for the Chinese people. 2300 party members representing millions of party members in China attend the gathering. New appointments and retirements take place at this Congress. Of this there are 200 elite members of the Central Committee with voting rights. This central committee is responsible for electing a 25 member Politburo, of which the seven most senior persons are appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi Jinping is the General Secretary, the most senior position in this hierarchy. Age related retirements are at 68 years and a new Politburo standing committee is announced at each Congress. After the Bo Xilai effort to take power and take China in a new and unknown direction, and the gradual loss of the party's respect from corruption and abuses of power by local officials, Xi Jinping sensed problems in the future and conducted a anti-corruption campaign. Most of the system of government set up during the Deng and Jiang Zemin years after 1980 remains in place with Jinping calling for a revival of China, the next stage of modernization, under the banner of the CCP. The result of the anti-corruption campaign and a third term assumed by Xi including lifting of a term limit for heading the CCP, gives Xi Jinping an opportunity to shape the future for China as Deng did after 1980. Jinping in the manner of Deng sees the CCP as the organization that can continue the modernization and growth of China. The model set by Deng and Zemin of local autonomy for economy and centralized overall direction continues under Jinping who is General Secretary since 2012. China has made rapid growth during the period 2000-2022, but faces challenges of reorienting its economy away from dependence on a tight economic export oriented relationship with the US and EU, as supply chains are being shifted after the pandemic. This means more unemployment and need for careful economic planning and investment to create jobs in other sectors, and to meet the challenges of unequal distribution of wealth in China after hypergrowth that hurt China in some ways, and in the climate change effects of use of coal other fossil fuels. As focus of interest is on Jinping externally, within China it is these three challenges that must be uppermost in the minds of the 20th Congress members. Much of this stems from the tumult of the century that began with the 1901 revolution through Japanese invasion and upheavals in the 60's and 70's, leading to the rare period of stability and growth in the last 20 years. Jinping like Deng and Zemin has personal memories of the anguish of this period and the tumult, the chaos of the 20th century for China, and the yearning for stability with modernization.   ...

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Mexican president Nieto's poll numbers are at all time low of 24%, according to Reforma newspaper. He took office in late 2012 and has been hurt by human rights scandal of the murder of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, corruption issues, and failure to improve the economy. The invitation to Trump to visit Mexico left even people close to the president surprised, and was criticized widely inside Mexico. It is not clear what Trump or Nieto gained from the trip. As Trump continued his talk about building a wall on the Mexican border and having Mexico pay for the estimated $23 billion it would cost. He did this in a speech to supporters in Pheonix on the same day he met Nieto, showing the use of teleprompters and prepared script was not his way of campaigning. Just as the message to black people that Democrats take them for granted cannot resonate without the basic message delivered with compassion and understanding- such as done by the presidents Bush and Reagan- so also the message to Hispanic people is suffering from the same lack of empathy. Recent polls show only 3% of blacks support Trump. McCain and Romney gained only 4-6% in the U.S. presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. The message of the wall is also baffling as an election strategy. A Gallup poll in July 2016 shows only 15% of Americans opposing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and only 24% of Republicans. There is another problem in the strategy. The rhetoric about walls and mass deportations, and the Trump temperament combined with handling of nuclear weapons is not winning college educated women in the suburbs with polls showing Trump lagging behind Clinton by about 20 points or 4 million voters with this group. It is hard to undo the damage done by this kind of rhetoric used in the primary elections as it gains distrust of voters. It would require a bad economy with illegal immigrants taking local jobs, and handling of immigration seen as weak, for such a message to gain some national traction. Both are absent for the most part with a steadily improving economy since 2012, lower unemployment, a tough enforcement policy on deportatons under Obama that exceeded that under Geoge W. Bush, and the talk of a wall comes with illegal immigration having declined steeply since the 2008 financial crisis. The real culprit appears to be elsewhere, the triple hit taken from hollowing out of the manufacturing economy that hurt the Conservatives in Canada, the insecurity created for older whites from the job losses and hits to net worth from the 2008-2009 financial crisis, and the increasing loss of access to health care and educational opportunities with high  costs. About 62 million households or the bottom half of the distribution in the U.S. have a net worth of about $10,000, a quarter of this group having zero net worth, according to the Federal Reserve's Janet Yellen at an Inequality Conference in Oct 2014. Problems no wall is going to solve, problems that built up over 2 decades, problems that will take a generation to fix.  It shows the tech miracle of the last 2 decades as a mirage for quality of life of the middle and working class. Tech as a tool to a goal, not a goal in itself, is the better way forward. ...

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Remarks by president Biden in Accokeep, Maryland, at the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 77, April 19, 2023 outlining his vision for American workers and for its economy. "I am pro-union because union workers are the best workers in the world. Not a joke. That's the God's truth. That is the God's truth. You are the best in the world. It's better  for them to hire you, because you get the job done, you get it done on time, and ultimately it costs them less when they hire you." "So I've said many times Wall Street didn't build America. The middle class built America. And unions built the middle class. That's a fact. Unions. One of the reasons I ran for president was to rebuild the backbone, the backbone of this country, the middle class, to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy do very well still. And we middle class can get a shot. We do well as well." "And that's in clear contrast to my friends on the other side of the aisle these days. DIdn't used to be. Did'nt used to be, but it is now. For decades they've said the best way to grow the economy is from the top down- trickle-down economics. Well, growing up, I didn't see a whole hell of a lot trickle down on our three-bedroom house with four kids at our dad's kitchen table. You know what, Trickle-Down did'nt work for us, and it did'nt work for a long time." "And by the way it's not just what's been with MAGA Republicans. For the last three, four decades we have been losing ground. And you know- it's hollowed out the middle class, you know rewarding wealth, not work; rewarding companies moving overseas because they get cheaper labor. Look at all- a lot of you know- and maybe you come from neighborhoods and small towns, like Scranton, Pennsylvania, where I come from, or Claymont, Delaware- where there used to be a lot of pride, because we had businesses, we had factories that were working, operating. In Scranton, and Claymont, there were 4500 steelworkers. There are none today. And not only do you lose jobs, you lose a sense of pride, lose a sense of who are you. You begin to wonder. Does anybody see me? I mean it sincerely." ...

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When the president and his administration are investing trillions of dollars in the economy as Biden is doing with support from friends in Congress from both parties and the US economy is growing with Made in America reviving American manufacturing- this changes the way labor and immigration can be viewed. There is an expanding demand for labor in such an economy and this is true today. Paul Krugman in the NYT shows evidence that the native born Americans have not lost jobs to immigrants in 2019-2024. Much of the demand in the restaurant, hotels and health care industries, in construction, agriculture and occupations native born Americans are less interested in filling are filled by entry level workers who are immigrants. The Wall Street Journal showed in a recent report that Topeka, Kansas is trying to recruit new immigrants to come and live in Kansas where the unemployment rate is lower than the national average today under Biden of 3.7%, and there are thousands of jobs to be filled. This is why Senator Graham of South Carolina and Tillis of North Carolina, the senior Republicans in the Senate, were trying to fix asylum and parole policies in immigration with the help of president Biden to close the border and yet allow an organized flow of new immigrants to the US to fill jobs that would otherwise remain unfilled. Not everybody wants to live in Topeka but there are immigrants such as the Venezuelan and Colombian immigrants shown in that report who are happy to live in the Kansas winters in the prairies of the American heartland. Many come from educated backgrounds and are similar to other Americans already in Topeka such as the mayor of the town, and fit in well say officials in Topeka promoting economic development in the state. It is noteworthy that Kansas is a Republican state for decades.  ...

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In the meeting in the Oval Office Biden and Modi had this to say about India US relations. Modi called it a "transformative" decade. Mr. Biden called it a "new chapter" in ties, taking on tough challenges in coronavirus vaccines for the rest of Asia outside India and China, tackling climate change, and ensuring rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region.  Biden's view- "I think that the relationship between India and the US, two of the largest democracies in the world, is destined to be stronger, closer, tighter, and I think it can benefit the whole world." A look at the US under the Biden administration shows a US that is very different from that of the US in the period of presidents since Harry Truman when he met Jawaharlal Nehru at the White House in October 1949. Biden sees the US needing renewal of its infrastructure, reviving worker incomes and families, regaining its leadership of the free world, for its role and place in the world. Throughout the period 1949 to 2020 for 70 years India was never seen as a modernizing nation of 1.2 billion people. For most of this period it lacked the good governance and speedy implementation of modernization of economy that is essential for a truly good relationship. By releasing the potential of the younger generation in a country where people under 35 years form the major part of the population, with good governance and development agenda, the Indian prime minister has changed the entire dynamics of the India US relationship. This is happening in the way China had done in its relationship with the US after 2000 by modernizing the country. India is now the country with huge potential and the country the US sees as helping it build its own role and place in the world. The sheer size of India and its population with countries around it in the east such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam with shared values in south and southeast Asia bring together a population of close to 2 billion people much larger than China, to determine the direction of Asia.  This is the new chapter that president Biden has in mind, and it is also the "transformative decade" in the eyes of prime minister Modi as India finally puts behind it years of bad governance, and speeds up modernizing its economy.   ...

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India in 2022 and looking at 2030 has great potential in the world. India's interests as a democracy are clearly aligned with the US and Europe. In the past when India was small in economic terms after emerging from the British Empire as an independent nation and out of the fire of the partition and wars in South Asia in 1962, 1965, 1971 policies of ambivalence in foreign affairs took place. At that time says Manmohan Singh, a former prime minister who negotiated for rouble -Indian rupee agreement in the 1970's and 1980's India was finding its way for its small but growing economy. This was in the context of the Nehru-Indira Gandhi policy of non-alignment of the early years after independence when India was never presented with an opportunity to make a difference in the world and was only a small part of the world economy. Today's situation is different. The US and European Union now see the need for a principle based economic order and while one may quibble about the small details, in the larger sense, history has intended for us, the US, the European Union, UK,  British Commonwealth of which we are a part, to stand together economically and politically with our shared parliamentary systems based on western- British and American- democracy and values.  Never has history presented such a huge opportunity for billions of people- to meet the aspirations across continents from North and South America, European Union, to Africa, Asia south and south east and Japan. All countries that aspire to the free societies that have evolved over hundreds of years. It is also the spirit in which Hind Swaraj was written in 1910 by Mohandas Gandhi and which was turned into reality only 37 years later under his leadership and vision for India. The non-alignment period of 2 decades was more of a intervening chapter that resulted from a sense of grievance rather than in the spirit of courage and spirited effort that Mohandas Gandhi embodied and led India with. In Manmohan Singh's direct unmistakable terms and from the vast experience he brings as a respected Indian civil servant- "India as the largest peace loving democracy stands to gain enormously from this principled trade aspiration of the western block of nations of the US and European Union. It presents a tremendous opportunity for India to become a large producing nation for the world and a global economic powerhouse. However, to capitalize on these opportunities India needs free access to these markets, an accepted and global currency to trade in and seamless trade settlements." Manmohan Singh sees millions of factories manned by hundreds of millions of people of all castes, creeds and religions of India. This is a pivotal moment of change for India and India must grasp it firmly. It is also the Mohandas Gandhi of Hind Swaraj taken to a new level from 1910 to 2050, and today's young people's aspiration for India.  ...

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Some local governments in China are making vaccination mandatory. China is setting a goal of getting 64%  of the population fully vaccinated by the end of 2021. In European Union countries mandatory vaccination by country or region is now being put in place to fight new coronavirus variants that spread faster in the population. The reopening of economy, business and tourism is increasing the risk from variants in summer 2021. The mandatory vaccination is a way to increase the percentage of the population that is vaccinated. Getting younger people who lag behind to get vaccinated is important to protect the percentage of the elderly population that is still not vaccinated. There are risks also to the younger population as seen in previous waves of the pandemic. The initial hesitation to make health pass showing a person is vaccinated mandatory was because only a small fraction of the population was vaccinated in Europe. Now that over 50% are vaccinated in most EU countries and UK, that hesitation thinking that it is discriminatory to those people who did not have access to vaccines no longer exists. Ample vaccine supplies and the misinformation spread about vaccines are making action on health pass necessary to protect the overall population. National governments in France, Denmark, Austria, Greece, and local governments in Germany, Portugal and other EU countries such as Ireland, Italy, see the danger from coronavirus variants that spread quickly as too big to take any risks a second time. ...

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This report in the WSJ  shows that president Xi is pulling back from his signature economic policy to reduce wide gaps in wealth and opportunities in China. In 2021 this was a policy that Xi pushed to reduce inequalities that have built up over decades of hypergrowth. One tenth of the population owns 68% of the wealth in China creating an highly unequal society. Concerned about the future of the Communist party as disparities kept widening and 40% of the population was left behind, Xi early on in his first and second terms made tackling corruption and inequality part of his policy.  Yet the way China's economy is structured, its dependence on the construction industry for growth, and on local governments for investment, it is easier to tackle infrastructure projects than address widening gaps in society. Xi's efforts have led to slowdown in growth to 5% or less. With the US and Europe moving to shorter supply chains and moving supply chains to less integration with China, slowing growth to less than 4-5% presents a major challenge for China. Leading to a pull back from the Common Prosperity policies that Xi initiated and which are part of Communist party policy in its early period after 1949. A major problem for China says WSJ is that social security contributions revenue is 6.5% of GDP compared to 9% for advanced countries in the OECD, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Personal income taxes are 1.2% of GDP compared to 10% in UK and US. This prevents the better funding of programs for maintaining a better safety net and social support for the less well off in society. The pandemic followed by Ukraine war have added new urgency to the acceleration of the effort to build new supply chains, leading to new manufacturing innovation and manufacturing leadership in the US and European Union, and in countries such as Japan, India, and other parts of Asia. This too has made the goals of reducing inequalities and addressing the wide disparities in Chinese society more difficult with sharply slowing growth in China. This was also the experience of Japan and South Korea with decades of fast growth followed by sharp slowdown with unanticipated problems. ...

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AP/NORC poll March 2023 shows 7 out of 10 adults in the US feel that the US is spending too much on development assistance when the budget for USAID is $40 billion. In general Republican administrations prefer foreign aid to be adminstered by the State Department not a separate agency. USAID was setup during the Cold War with the Soviet Union by president John F. Kennedy in 1961. Today it adminsters programs for HIV/Aids and for pandemics, health programs that can be done through the State Department. Attitudes have shifted following the pandemic with 9 out of 10 Republicans opposed to foreign aid through USAID. Some of the criticism is that it funds bureaucrats favorite programs. The actual impact is now uncertain in the developing of an economy. For example Sri Lanka benefits more from aid and development assistance from neighbor India than from programs of USAID as it tackles the current economic crisis following the pandemic. India pulling together the aid through IMF for Sri Lanka, and the investment in energy from India is way more important than the small USAID programs.  ...

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Elected to the Politburo in 1980, Gorbachev became president of USSR in 1985. In the six year period to 1991 he launched a movement to free the USSR from the rigid constraints of communist party rule called Perestroika to improve productivity, freedoms and quality of life. He came from a peasant family with Ukrainian origins and was born in 1931 during the period of upheaval in Russia. The rapid removal of Soviet rule was something Russia was not able to adapt to in the early years with no experience in democratic process. By 2000 after drop in life expectancy and fall in the standard of living Mr. Putin emerged as president.  Russia's economy recovered under Putin's three terms till the miscalculations in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that were itself a result of a sense that Russia had lost something with the fall of the Soviet Union and the advancement of NATO and the European Union. Gorbachev's sense in his memoirs was that Russia would do best under democracy. Even in 2017 he wrote that Russia and its people were "ready for a real multiparty system, fair elections and a regular rotation of government." Yet he was too much of an optimist and not enough hands on to grasp that Russia was a large economy and safeguards had to be put in place for the rule of law to prevent lawless elements that could control companies, safeguards for the vulnerable sections of society such as pensioners and older people, and limited self government through elected assemblies and parliaments were needed for a decade before democracy to take roots. Gorbachev's knowledge of American and British democracies, constitutions and parliaments and their evolution over centuries was non existent, with little contact and education of this sort under the Czar or Soviets. The democracies in Germany and Japan were established with American power and extensive education, the Marshall Plan, and unlimited imports by the US from Japan to prevent economic catastrophes of the kind experienced by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's. No plan from western aid and assistance, limited self government of the people was introduced as training ground as in India. In India the British introduced limited self-government or Swaraj in the 1930's with elected assemblies in Indian states, in the pattern of Dominion states such as Canada and Australia. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated the rights of indentured Indians in South Africa in this arrangement and studied British law and constitutions. This led to the catastrophic failure of the rule of law in Russia after 1979, lawless elements emerging under Yeltsin  that controlled companies and the state, high unemployment, failure of the economy, and drop in life expectancy between 1979 and 2005. How this led to the Putin years and now led to the war in Ukraine is covered in more detail under the Lyrarc article on Gorbachev and how he is seen in Germany. ...

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A centrist 73 years, and mentor of Macron, the head of the Movement Democrate allied to Macron's Renaissance party is appointed to succceed Banrnier as PM of France. Macron hit a new low of public approval rating of 23% by Ipsos. Scholz of Germany is at 18% following reaching 65% in Jan 2022. Bayrou says-“I am fully aware of the Himalaya of difficulties that lie before us,” Bayrou says he would strive for a “necessary reconciliation” with Melenchon of France Unbowed party and Marie Le Pen of National Rally on the left and right of the centrist Macron. These are mere labels- both Melenchon and Marie Le Pen want to see higher public spending and no cuts in the Budget for 2025, Macron is not eager for cuts, Barnier wanted to cut the budget to cut the growing deficit but this is not a time to cut spending as investment is needed to grow the economy and meet needs for public services and cost of living assistance. Macron was taken by surprise by Barnier's approach leading to a no confidence vote and Barnier resigning.  ...

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The media fails to give a clear complete picture of effects, context, concept behind tariffs and AI won't know. Effects on inflation- June inflation is 2.7% compared to May inflation of 2.4%. The central bank head, Fed chairman Powell has not cut rates to gauge the effect on inflation with new data. Powell says the US economy is strong and inflation remains low. US Market access fee-The US and overseas media including WSJ has not pointed out that the tariffs agreed to by Japan, European Union and South Korea of 15% are really not tariffs but a fee these countries and their business sectors in major industries such as autos and machinery, pay to access the US market. DJT, USTR Greer, Treasury's Bessent expect these companies to not increase prices. Fairness: US had 2.8% tariff on cars EU had 10% since 1980's. Rebates will go to some income groups. Rebates- In the one third of products in clothing, shoes etc of the $50 billion in tariffs for first half 2024 where about 5% price increase is passed on to consumers as shown in WSJ report this is likely offset by rebates to certain income groups. DJT says- “The big thing we want to do is pay down debt, but we’re thinking about a rebate. We have so much money coming in from tariffs that a little rebate for people of a certain income level might be really nice.”     ...

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Ekrem Imamoglu, three time elected Mayor of Istanbul follows a career similar to that of Erdogan who became Mayor of Istanbul and was then elected prime minister in 2003, as the administration of the CHP party failed to manage the economy. A period of economic growth followed with increasing foreign investment and Erdogan was reelected till 2013 when he decided to run for president following the term limits for prime minister. At that time his rule had become increasingly authoritarian. He was elected with smaller majorities with no effective opposition leader ,and the Middle East in turmoil with ISIS and Syria's civil war. Erdogan fought a tough election against a civil servant candidate from CHP turning out the nationalist  and conservative vote.in 2020. By this time the economy was having high inflation and his popularity was down, and he won barely with 52% of the vote. By 2019 Ekrem Imamoglu, 47 years, emerged as a more effective opposition leader, winning election for Mayor of Istanbul. He won again in 2024 and is now emerging as an alternative to run the country. Erdogan is 71 years and the world around Turkey has changed with DJT in the US, and Russia- Ukraine peace talks, trade tariffs worldwide, and the investment climate completely different, inflation increasing to 39 percent, and no easy solutions to economic problems. Some of the conservative and small business vote is no longer assured for Erdogan as the economy and Turkey's situation in Europe has changed. ...

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Advertising revenues increased for Google, Facebook and Amazon in 2020 as these three companies took over 50% of total ad revenues in 2020. Large companies shifted more ad spending from television and print media to digital in the pandemic after finding the return on ad spending was increasing on digital. Smaller companies including the jump in startup companies increasing from 300,000 a month over the decade to 500,000 by July 2020, put all their ad dollars into digital. The result is that the pandemic has given the 3 digital companies a dominant role in the advertising economy. More time spent in front of computer screens, more ec-commerce, new business formation, and tech companies ability to steadily increase return on ad investment, has produced strong revenue generation. The pandemic had the effect of increasing retail purchases online from 10% to 16% in the second quarter of 2020. Biscuit maker Mondelez found that return on ad spending was 25% higher on digital compared to television and now spends about half of its $1.1 billion ad budget on digital. Trendy garment makers are seeing returns on ad spending that are high with quadrupling of sales following a doubling of ad budget for active apparel maker Vuori of California. Small advertisers such as Vuori are the reason digital ad spending has remained strong for Google, Facebook and Amazon. For furniture maker Steelcase in Michigan the return on ad spending on digital using Amazon made up for the lack of sales from its brick stores. It increased online staff from 2 to 25 and was able to bring in $30 in sales dollars from $1 in digital ad spending. ...

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Poland's economy is feeling the effects of the slowdown in the eurozone in mid-2012. Unemployment is up with labor ministry estimates of 12.3% unemployment in July 2012, up from 8.8% in October 2008. GDP was up by 3.5% in the first quarter od 2012 compared to 4.3% GDP growth in 2011. After a series of rate increases, including a quarter point increase to 4.75% in May, the central bank is expected to cut rates by as much as three quarters of a point in the next 12 months.

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Who is Nandalal Weerasinghe? This report in The Daily News gives some idea about the man chosen to help Sri Lanka negotiate a deal with the IMF.  Dr. Nandalal Weerasinghe was an alternate executive director at the International Monetary Fund before being appointed deputy governor of the Ceylon Central Bank in 2012. Before this he managed several macroeconomic departments at the central bank and was assistant governor of the central bank from 2007 to 2009, He has spent the large part of his career in economic positions at the Central Bank of Ceylon after getting his PhD in economics from the Australian National University. Weerasinghe is the leading expert in macroeconomics from Sri Lanka who has IMF experience. He says "things will get worse before they get better." He retired early from the central bank with a change in government in 2019. He was reappointed as Sri Lanka faced a debt crisis in March 2022 following the two year long pandemic, and the Ukraine war in 2022 that was bad for emerging market economies. Weerasinghe says about the crisis facing Sri Lanka- Recent decisons followed Modern Monetary Theory. This has dire consequences. In recent times the savings brought about by the low tax and interest rate regime passed savings on to the corporate sector and took away spending power from savers and pensioners. Surging inflation made things even worse for the lower income middle class and older parts of society. Years of accumulated debt have brought Ceylon to this point. In Ceylon one is seeing the effects of savings being passed on to the corporate sector in an economy dependent on tourism and remittances from overseas workers, both hit by the two year long pandemic. This is part of  a trend that has hurt emerging market economies from Argentina and Pakistan which also turned to the IMF to Turkey.  In other countries in the European Union savings also passed on to the corporate sector with low tax and low interest rate regime. With high inflation resulting in the cost of living crisis seen today in France and Germany. This type of policy that Weerasinghe calls 'Modern Monetary Theory' is not healthy for the European Union and the US, as these policies led to the neglect of much needed and vital investments in infrastructure, health and education. Only now are these effects being corrected by new administrations of Biden in the US and Scholz in Germany, with Biden's 2 trillion plan for workers and families, and a similar plan from chancellor Scholz. With this come needed investments to tackle climate change, all of which was neglected before. India has taken a different approach. By following good governance, managing vaccination effectively during the pandemic, social emphasis for food, water, electricity, cooking gas, medicine for the vast population of 1.2 billion, and a Master plan for building Made in India manufacturing,  India has avoided such crises and maintained strong economic growth. In this sense it is a model for South Asian, South East Asian, African, and Latin American emerging market economies that face a difficult situation today. Good governance is critical.   ...

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Higher prices of gasoline in the first quarter of average $3.92 in April 2012, are offset by higher fuel economy of cars at about 24.1 mpg compared to 20.8 in 2008. Natural gas prices have fallen and this reduces household utility bills, acting as another offset. The U.S. consumer held up in the 1st quarter of 2012, with real spending up by 2.3%, according to Macroeconomc Advisors.

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During the November 2011 to February 2012 period Spanish banks increased holdings of government bonds by 68 billion euros, and Italian banks by 54 billion euros under the ECB's Long Term Financing Operation. That program helped to lower bond yields of the two countries for the 1st quarter of 2012. With Spain's economy facing more austerity measures at a time of 23% unemployment, bond yields have moved back up for Spain in April 2012. The increased holdings of government bonds by Spanish banks increases risks at a time when banks in Spain have not increased lending in the economy and hold a large number of bad mortgages in the country's housing bust.

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Pocketbook issues are taking increasing importance in the French election on April 24. Greg Ip of the WSJ says inflation has risen in importance more than immigration, the war in Ukraine, and other issues related to Islamist separatism. About 45% cited purchasing power as the main issue in a BVA poll, and this is even higher for people who voted for Jean-Luc Melenchon who came within 1% percentage point of Ms. Le Pen in the first round. Greg Ip says that in economic issues France has done better than Germany, Italy or the UK. Unemployment is at 7.4% the lowest since 2008. Economic output has risen more than in Germany, Italy or the the UK since Mr. Macron took office. And one study shows disposable income has risen higher under Macron than under predecessors Hollande and Sarkozy. France also spent heavily to tackle the Covid pandemic's effect on workers and companies. Ip says Macron's efforts to liberalize labor markets, simplify taxes and wage bargaining and make training programs more effective could be the reason. Youth unemployment is the lowest in nearly 40 years, and the number of apprenticeships doubled from 2019 to 2021, according to BNP Paribas. Pisani-Ferry, economist at Sciences Po says compared to past performance the French economy did much better. Le Pen has promised to cut the value added tax to tackle inflation's effect on voters. Macron has said he will be flexible when it comes to raising the age for retirement and pensions and calls Le Pen's lowering the retirement age creating problems for the solvency of the pension system and highly unrealistic.   ...

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This report in WSJ shows how people are adapting to coronavirus pandemic taking the long view and settling down with new arrangements that will continue into 2021. Some software engineers are shown redesigning their homes to setup offices for working dads and moms where they previously worked out of temporary arrangements in the home. Physicians used telemedicine in the early months of the pandemic. They still see patients only once or a couple of times a week in specially designed arrangements where patients stay in the parking lot till they their appointment and waiting rooms are largely empty. It is a season of deeper adaptation as people realize they are in this for the long run into 2021. Workers are setting up new routines and home offices, families are trying new rituals, and businesses are trying new ways to energize their employees, all with the objective of making it work in the long term. Though the economy has reopened office buildings are largely remaining empty, schools and colleges are remote teaching as cases are climbing with the daily average at 40,000 a week in the U.S. and over 70,000 in India each day. ...

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In a policy unchanged since 1950's women in China retire at age 50 and men at age 60 years. China is aging faster than the US and it's population that is over 60 years is 20% of the population. Over the 5 years to 2025 about 40 million people will retire, about the size of the population of Canada. There will be 36 million fewer people in the working age population ages 16-59 to support them. Chinese migrant workers and families work longer hours than white collar workers making it difficult to raise the retirement age to European levels in a short time. The government's approach is to get public support by creating awareness about the problem and change the retirement age gradually over a longer period. The first step will be bringing the retirement age of women to the level of men. The 10 year gap in retirement age of men and women is not found in any advanced economy.

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Photos of industrial decline in the US with text by Helen Epstein, professor of human rights and public health in The Guardian. This was a period in the early 1980s when America's major industries in steel and other parts of the economy went into decline. Cities and towns across this vast land were left to decline with loss of jobs and with it decline in quality of life, decline in health, education, says Prof. Epstein, as the Democratic Party jettisoned its foundational principles. The term "Reagan Democrats" emerged in the late years of the Carter administration, and again after Clinton, Obama took the shape of the Trump vote. By 2021 the situation has reversed with the Democratic Biden administration putting forward a program for revival with his $1.8 trillion Families Plan for infrastructure and for the benefit of America's workers, students and families. What was a protest vote during 2016 is now taking new shape in the form of this plan for the renewal of America. ...