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An obscure parliamentary precedent was used by Speaker Bercrow to end Theresa May's strategy of repeated votes in Britain's parliament to browbeat reluctant Brexiters to vote for her negotiated settlement with the European Union. The precedent was set as far back as 1604 and was designed to protect the powers of parliament in the face of a Scottish royal assuming the role of sovereign of Britain. Repeated votes on the same proposals are not allowed if the intention is to find ways to get reluctant members of parliament to vote in favor, essentially by bullying them into this. This is also why Brexiter MP's have hailed the Speaker's decision in their opposition to Theresa May. Britain's constitution is based not on a single document like the U.S. Constitution. It is based on a a collective set of laws and precedents. A parliamentary rule book published by Thomas Erskine in 1844 sets out these rules in 1097 pages, available for 439 pounds in parliament's bookshop. It has gone through 24 editions. Speaker Bercrow says of the rule he was referring to as a statement on page 397 of the 24th edition.  There is not much time, just 10 days, for prime minister Theresa May to end the current parliamentary session and call a new one to nullify Speaker Bercrow's decision. This would also further antagonize the 40 Brexiter MP's led by Mr. Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson in May's own party, making it impossible for parliament to agree on a course of action. ...

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As farm product rotted on farms because of a lack of buyers, India has come up with new ways of getting farm agricultural product to buyers in urban areas. The Indian government has approved online sales direct from farmers to buyers outside the country. Within the country enterprising farmers  and app developers for farm produce sales directly to consumers in cities are changing the way agricultural produce distribution works. This report in the Guardian shows how sales are being made from remote Meghalaya state to buyers in cities for product ranging from turmeric, pineapple, jackfruit, and cashew. Prices are about 70% higher helping boost farmers incomes.  Several states have relaxed rules allowing farmers to sell anywhere in the country.  In other parts of the country this is happening with a proliferation of such apps creating a virtual marketplace. Other examples are a grape orchard farm in Gudahalli with sales made in Bengaluru at 30 apartment complexes. One site founder in Chandigarh says he has in 2 months sold 20,000 tons of produce ranging from avocados of the Nilgiris to papaya from Chattisgarh. His app Harvesting Farmer Network also helps with packaging and delivery. In other developments Gaia Agritech is helping farmers on the Konkan coast in Maharashtra hit hard by a pause in exports, sell to housing societies in Pune and Mumbai. This is part of a broader debate in India after coronavirus pandemic. One idea is that people have a family farmer just like they have a family doctor, encouraging organic agriculture, fresh produce for healthier living. By helping farmers it makes for a better economy, as about a sixth of India's GDP comes from farmers and most of the jobs are in farming and agricultural economy. ...

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Here are some ways to make for a better day at work.  1. Have what is called a "monk-mode" morning when you just keep out all phone calls and focus on "deep work," without distractions. Every little distraction in the form of a call or some other interruption has its costs in terms of having to refocus and not being able to concentrate on the task at hand as it deserves. 2. Have "meeting-free" days. These are days that you can focus, concentrate on tasks without distraction of meetings. Have walking meetings and meetings where you can walk out in the open for fresh air and some exercize. And no phones at meetings. 3. Replace reading with presenting powerpoint presentations. Have people write out their ideas for others to read so that discussion can be engaged and effective. Amazon CEO Bezos never believed in powerpoint presentations and required staff to write so that they could in the process improve on the clarity of their thinking. 4.  Have weekends free of email. This reduces the stress of workers under a manager who spend time writing and answering emails over weekends when they could replenish their energies and come back charged up on Monday morning for a fresh start on a new week. 55. Grab a coffee with a colleague and do some one on ones talking as one walks around the offices. This was done by Intel's Andy Grove as an effective way to get things done eliminating some of the need for formal meetings. This also provides an opportunity for casual conversation Also laugh and socialize in different ways.       ...

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Administrative costs are one of the key reasons tution costs have increased to excessive proportions in the U.S., putting a heavy burden on the middle class, reducing social mobility that is an important aspect of postwar progress in Europe and the U.S. by putting college out of reach for millions of young people. This also creates a heavy debt burden for young people- U.S. student loan debt passed $1 trillion in 2012- who are less likely to buy a first home because of years needed to repay student loans. The market pressures to control costs do not exist in the same way as industries such as automobiles, because of the demand for college education in a modern globalized economy. Douglas Belkin and Scott Thurm have provided an indepth look at the University of Minnesota to show the spending surge and internal tendencies for faculty and bureaucracy to increase spending on hiring, building expansion to compete with other schools, and salaries to support their own within the college and university system, with a passive student community, and passive parent community, and lack of other outside pressures. Tution and fees for state residents doubled in the last decade at the University of Minnesota to $13,524. The figures tell the story- total debt with borrowing for building construction at U.S. 4 year public colleges tripled to $88 billion between 2002 and 2011, according to the Department of Education. Debt servicing costs doubled at the University of Minnesota to $106 million in that period. Minnesota's government provided $570 million for university operations in 2011, same as 2003-2004 school year even with inflation and 10% higher student enrollment. Yet analysis by the Department of Education and the Wall Street Journal shows in that period the spending increased disproportionately compared to inflation, student enrollment and teaching activity, with little restraint. WSJ analysis showed the University of Minnesota system added 1000 administrators between 2001-2011, with administration hires increasing 37%, double the increase in the students and double that of teachers. During that period the number of employees to manage people, programs and regulations went up 50% faster than the number of instructors, according to the Department of Education. Bureau of Labor Statistics cites this as the reason tution costs went up faster than health care costs. The 19,000 employee payroll at the University of Minnesota means one employee for three and half students. The new university president in 2011, Eric Kaler, interviewed by WSJ's Belkin and Thurm, says no one knew what it cost to run the school when he started....

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Steven Lee Myers provides an exceptionally good report from Russia on the 2014 Sochi Olympics. He describes an effort by the Putin administration in Russia to develop Sochi which extends for 90 miles along the Black Sea, the only subtropical seashore in Russia. Here Myers interviews Pakhomov, a Putin supporter, who is Mayor of Sochi, to get a picture of how Putin supporters see this effort. Pakhomov says this part of Russia was never developed and foreigners have a poor view of Russia, with one westerner telling him that Russia had little except vodka and bears. For the first time the entire Sochi areas has seen a massive infrastructure effort with roads, railways and a new airport. Myers gets a different picture from Yulia Naberezhnaya, a scientist who is a Putin critic and environmental leader in the Western Caucusus, who he interviews after meeting at a bus stop in Sochi. Naberezhnaya heads Environmental Watch of the North Caucusus which sees the environmental laws being ignored in construction work. The country is divided with nationalistic feeling running high before the Olympics, and a friend of Naberezhnaya finding herself on the opposite side with work in the security services. She warns her to be careful- something Naberezhnaya says has Kafkesque overtones. Myers also meets Boris Nemtsov, a senior official in the Yeltsin government, who participated in street protests during the recent elections in Russia, and is critical of the money spent in this Olympics. Estimates of the money spent run as high as $51 billion, in comparison the Olympics in Beijing, China cost about $40 billion. Dmitri Chernyshenko, president of the Sochi Olympics Organizing Committee sees the project as one that unites the nation, while critics such as Nemtsov see it as a huge overspending and corruption favoring Putin's friends in the business community. Myers is acting Moscow Bureau Chief for the NYT and has done extensive interviewing for this report, including an interview with Vladimir Yakunin, head of Soviet Railways. Yakunin says his company's investment of $1.3 billion will take 20 years to recover but puts it on the scale of the Trans-Siberian Railway build by Czar Nicholas II, which helped bring Russia its current borders reaching to the Far East. And yet the question of cost is never far from people's minds, coming at a time when growth is slowing in Russia- emerging markets currency values incluing the ruble are declining and they are having a tough time attracting foreign investment. A member of the International Olympic Committee, Gian-Franco Kasper, is reported to have told Swiss SRF radio that about a third of the spending on Sochi was lost because of corruption and excessive costs....

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Lightsquared which invested about $4 billion in developing a new wireless network is facing huge losses as U.S. regulators block the proposed wireless network. Federal regulators say it will interfere with Global Positioning System devices. Investors in Philip Falcone's Harbridge Capital Partners had provided most of the funding. Before Lightsquared Philip Falcone made successful bets against the subprime mortgage market. Falcone used lobbying firms to press his position, to no avail because the GPS issue was a serious one for the federal government, as it would interfere with aircraft systems and military devices. Harbinger's biggest funds have also lost money in other fields, losing 23-27% in 2008 and Falcone had to suspend redemptions by 2009. In that situation Falcone increased his investment in LightSquared in 2010-2011. In 2011 Harbringer lost 47% in its biggest fund. Harbinger's assets declined from $26 billion in 2008 to $4 billion by Jan. 2012. The S.E.C. is now investigating his hedge fund for possible market manipulation....

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After 22 months the Brazilian government of President Lula has come up with 4 bills in Congress that willl lay out the basis of ownership of the new oil discovered offshore, called pre-sal because its deep below salt deposits in the Atlantic ocean. The oil in the new fields is made the property of the state, and not that of companies that buy concesssions. In each block half of any oil produced will go to the state. The other half will go to a production sharing agreement between Petrobras and companies that partner with it in proportion to their costs. One bill creates a company Petrosal to finance social spending, infrastructure and other projects. And this is modeled on the Norwegian Oil Fund that has saved oil revenues for the people. Petrobras will also get an injection of the monetary equivalent of 5 billion barrels of oil to strengthen it as the dominant oil company.

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Late Show with Stephen Colbert cancelled by CBS as parent company Paramount merges with Skydance in 2025. The televisions late night comedy show with political overtones was a show that lasted 30 years. It goes the way PBS goes as PBS funding is no longer renewed by the US Congress and PBS seen now as a leftover from the 1960's. PBS covered a better part of the Cold War period from 1960 to 1990 and continued for another 35 years before funding was cutoff under DJT. The situation is different today with the rise of Asian nations, China and India. The Voice of America was also a part of the 1960's period and covered the Cold War, and lost its focus after 1990's. VOA is also being defunded for lack of effectiveness. New media, and new ways to reach the American people with new ideas, and reach the people of the world with new ideas are needed today.

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Governor Newsom and the LA riots as events unfold in immigration enforcement of the nation's laws under the mandate received by the president in 2025. Newsom as governor is playing to the politics of standing up to a president seeking to fulfill a mandate that has received support in most parts of the country including California, to make all immigration legal. 

California's sanctuary laws set it up in a collision course with the Nation's immigration law enforcement. This is also true of other states. No matter how it is presented, including peaceful protests, the policies under Obama and the deterioration with open borders under Obama appointed Mayorkas and Biden's egregious lack of proper oversight in 2023 with the largest flow of 2.3 million illegal migrants across the border, have created problems for the Nation that will take time and patience to correct.

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Foreign investment in the auto industry is having a significant impact in the growth of Mexico's middle class. VW has plants in Puebla, General Motors in Silao, Chrysler in Toluca, Nissan in Aguascalientes. Production increased by 24% in February 2012 over the prior year. The growth is likely to continue. Facilities in Mexico have high productivity and are technologically equiped comparable to plants in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Nissan plans a $2 billion investment in a plant in Aguascalientes. Because of the lower cost of living, with food, transportation and health care costing less, even though household appliances cost more, workers at a Mexican plant earning $4 an hour in pay and benefits or $130 a week can still have a decent standard of living. Foreign investment is likely to grow with Mexico's emphasis on technical education - about 130,000 engineers graduating each year according to Mexico's president Calderon- the work ethic of young Mexicans joining manufacturing plants, the productivity of these lower cost plants, and a growing market in Latin America. Nissan plans to produce 1 million cars in Mexico with an investment of $2 billion in Aguascalientes. Nissan has succeeded in taking over from VW as the preeminent manufacturer in Mexico, and has 32,000 workers in the Aguascalientes area, once a small town but now a thriving city of 700,000. Drug cartels have no interest in places like Aguasalientes, which is why foreign investment continues to come into Mexico. The lack of economical credit- interest rate on car loans is about 10%- and the flow of about 600,000 used cars each year into Mexico from the U.S. has restricted growth in Mexico's automobile market. Jose Munoz, Nissan's senior executive for Latin America sees this changing as more credit including Nissan's new financing center in Aguascalientes make lower cost credit easily available to a growing middle class....

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The Biblioteca Alexandrina, as a symbol of the new Egypt. This library dates back to classical antiquity. Youths formed a human cordon to protect the new library during the weeks of protests in Alexandria. The library's director, Ismail Serageldin, says the people love the library and protect it. He says the library is revising its work program to operate from now on as the focal point for the promotion of reform and civil liberties. In 2002, the library opened with a soaring structure designed by the Norwegian architectural firm Snohetta. It was funded by Unesco, the Egyptian government and other Arab countries, Mr Serageldin says the library is spreading the values of democracy, pluralism, freedom of expression, tolerance, diversity, which he is hoping is taking root in the younger generation. The library had 1.5 million visitors and 700 events in 2010. It has 4 museums, a planetarium, a children's science center, a library for the blind and 8 research institutes. It holds 1.6 million books, including a gift of 500,000 books from the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. The library has access to 50,000 electronic journals, and houses an archive of every page on the internet. We taught a lot of the kids who are demonstrating and protesting how to use the internet and how to use social media, and he is glad it has been put to good use, says the chief librarian, Sohair Wastawy. Wastawy is now dean of libraries at Illinois State University. Debate at the library has been open and and annual confernece is held by its Arab Reform Forum to promote human rights and civil society. A website is run to facilitate communication between Arab NGO's. Vartan Gregorian, a trustee of the library, who formerly headed the New York Public Library, says Serageldin has been a marvelous defendor of freedom and scientific thought....

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The 2016 primaries with Sanders and Trump have brought to the forefront voter dissatisfaction with the agenda of both parties, especially so for Republicans with the lack of specifics and personality driven campaign of frontrunner Trump. On a whole host of issues from poverty, wages and inequality, regulatory reform, to trade, borders, security, ISIS, both parties are facing questions from voters. Particularly the Republicans who have lacked specifics during the two terms of the Democratic Obama administration with a divided Republican Congress, and the risks for Republicans running for Congress under frontrunners Trump or Cruz who have provided few details on their agenda. The Agenda project of Ryan will have about 25 meetings and prepared specific agenda, including white papers and legislation, that would give Republicans hope to run on positive proposals that are placed before the Republican Convention in Cleveland. Chairmen of House standing committees were assigned 6 areas- health care, taxes, national security, regulatory reform, poverty, and Congress reasserting constitutional authority. Ryan told the Ethics and Public Policy Center on April 19, 2016- "A lot of people don't like conservatism as they know it. For too many people Republicans seem to be caught in a time warp. They're thinking, 'We don't control our borders. Wages are going nowhere. College and healthcare keep getting expensive. ISIS continues to spread. And what are Republicans going to do about it?' So we need to adapt our policies to meet the challenges of the 21st century."...

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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor rejects the McConnell plan for raising the debt ceiling. Senate Minority Leader McConnell says on a conservative talk show- "all of a sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy. That is very bad positioning going into an election." McConnell's plan is to shift the responsibility for raising the debt ceiling to President Obama, by separating debt reduction talks from debt ceiling talks. Cantor believes its best to push on with cutting back spending. Obama's response was to offer $1.7 trillion in spending cuts, at which point he expected Republicans to support tax increases, telling Cantor in negotiations "enough is enough." The McConnell plan is supported by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republicans in the Senate. The details of the plan are being are being worked out, with one strategy being to add to it the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts identified in bipartisan talks with Vice President Biden. Both sides are looking at this jockeying for advantage for the 2012 election. At one point in the talks with Cantor, Mr Obama is reported to have told him- "Eric, don't call my bluff. You know I'm going to take this to the American people." Cantor for his part, wants to limit the duration of the debt ceiling increase so that it would be a short term extension and would come up for a vote before the 2012 presidential election....

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Bennhold and Erlanger of the NYT point out that prime minister Theresa May has remained vague about the nature of the negotiations for Brexit. The snap election increases the confusion with a hung parliament and no party getting a majority. The result can be seen as sending mixed signals. The British public by supporting parties such as Labor, SNP and Liberal Democrats with over 50% of the vote, is saying that it is not sure about Brexit being a priority for Britain, given the uncertainty for the British economy and other pressing problems. All this had been lost in the debate about hard and soft Brexit, in the political rhetoric taken up by Ms May when the basic questions about Brexit have not gone away. Here Erlanger and Bennhold take leaders back to these questions posed by former finance minister George Osborne. Osborne as Editor of The Evening Standard asked readers 10 questions- How is withdrawal going to increase trade when you leave the biggest free trading bloc in the world? How can withdrawal help London as the financial capital of the world? How is migraton going to be tackled when its not clear which business will have its labor supply restricted or curtailed. For these reasons- apart from many others about the whole process of withdrawal and the cost to Britain- the whole idea of Brexit appears to have not been thoroughly thought through. As a result the referendum vote may be seen in Europe as a temporary reflection of British opinion at that point of time, and subject to change over time.   ...

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Crude oil or crude world. This book by Peter Maas "Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil," shows how places like Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea suffer from the lack of infrastructure and jobs, as the oil industry does not create many jobs and the companies and the ruling classes in these countries are the main beneficiaries. Nigeria's anticorruption official, Nuh Ribadu, is cited in the WSJ, with an estimate of $380 billion of $400 billion in oil revenues in Nigeria over 3 decades being wasted through corruption and misuse of funds, with little money going into infrastructure and jobs. Manufacturing in China, Vietnam, and Malaysia for basic consumer products from textiles to shoes, creates jobs even at low wages, making the people in these countries better off as wages rise. Oil on the other hand creates few jobs and companies do not move upscale manufacturing tech products in the next stage of manufacturing, leaving the people as worse off as before. The margins are thin in manufacturing, whereas much of the oil revenue can be deposited in accounts of influential individuals. Mouwad in the NYT points out 93% of profits go to the government in Nigeria, only 7% to western oil companies. Even in countries which have tried to root out corruption through socialist experiments such as Venezuela and religious parties such as in Iran, the failure to integrate with the globalized economy and extremist policies leads to lack of development and backwardness. This shows that the best way to develop is through emphasis on education, science and technology, building a culture that thrives on modernization and technological advancement over several decades, even if this means starting with basics and continually moving forwards into higher technologies. Japan, South Korea and China moved from shoes and textiles to iPads and smartphones, Japan starting in the 60's, S. Korea in the 80's and China in the 90's. ...

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House members frustrated and angryover high unemploymet and the rescue of Wall Street that is doing little for americans who are losing jobs and shrinking small business, traded insults with Secretary Geithner and some called for hime to quit. A measure calling for for Congression Government Accountability Office to conduct audits of the Fed that includes interest rates and lending to individual banks that was proposed by Ron Paul was passed 43-26 by the House Financial Services Committee. At one point a Hopuse Republican told Geithner "the public has lost all confidence in your ability to do the job." And Geithner shot back with "what I can't take responsibility for is the legacy of crises you've bequeathed this country." Rep. Fazio (Dem. Oregon) was one of the voices calling for Geithner's resignation and said in an interview that Mr. Geithner is too close to Wall Street: "Quite frankly, all the gamblig on Wall Street is doing nothing to put people back to work in America and rebuild our economy." Geithner is coming in for criticism for the rescue of AIG that indirectly rescued Goldman Sachs. Congressman Ron Paul is the author of a best selling book "End the Fed." Mr Paul says his amendment would not hinder the Fed pusuing an independent monetary policy. What he is concerned about is that "ther's plenty of political influence goig on now- presidential politics, influence by Goldman Sachs and the banking industry, and its all done in secret." See the links to Geithner and contacts with the banking industry. It was in 1978 that a law was passed shielding the Fed from Congressional auditors reviewing the Fed's monetary policy operations, loans to foreign governmets and direct lending to banks. The Fed isn't disclosig interest rate deliberations and only agreed to do this with a5 year lag in the 1990's and Ron Paul/s proposal would reduce this time lag to 6 months for the GAO access to this information....

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When Manmohan Singh and Wen of India and China said in Beijing that the people of both countries were united in their aspirations for the future this was very real and sincerely stated. Geopolitics is somebody's game who does not know his own country, people and history in these long neglected parts of Asia. Here in India or China in different ways its these aspirations that matter. India is desperately trying now to improve schooling after years of neglect for the country's rural poor, where the quality of government schools is startlingly poor. The figures are dismal. In general only 1 in 10 college age Indians go to college. But its worst at the lower poorer parts of society. Among the poorest 20% of Indian men half are illiterate and only about 2% graduate from high school. For the top 20% of Indian people only 2% are illiterate and 50% are high school graduates. The problems even as the government pans to triple spending in the next 5 years run deep. There is no motivation among school teachers because for years the schools have been neglected and there is no education culture in poor villages, teachers are poorly trained if at all, they are late or absent and there islittle discipline and education ethic. Parents are very poor and do not understand the value of education and want to pull children out of school to earn wages for the family as migrant labor. The parents are illiterate or poorly educated so there is very little help at home. And there is corruption as some of the money to be invested in school buildings, equipment, lunches, teachers, etc is stolen or goes to bribes. There are some dedicated people but they get washed out in the midst of so much apathy, lack of conviction, corruption and lack of motivation among teachers parents and village officials....

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New targets are reviewed for malnutrition and under nutrition in India by prime minister Modi for the year 2022, the 75th year of Indian independence. Current status and nutrition initiatives were discussed and new targets set for the whole country, region by region. Real time monitoring will be conducted. Greater awareness is needed for this problem in India to get better results.

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Even though E-Bay executive Meg Whitman has outspent Jerry Brown by $130 million, much of it her own money, she trails Brown by 8 percentage points in an Oct 20 survey by nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. That survey showed Brown leading 44% to 36%. She had a hard line stance on illegal immigration in her ads for the primaries, which changed later in the campaign to attract Latino voters. Her campaign crafted by consultants focussed on three themes- cut government spending, create jobs, and fix education. Brown is a former Governor of the state and current attorney general. Experts attribute the lagging Whitman campaign to voters leery of 2 kinds of politicians- the first is the career politician and the second is longtime corporate executives. In other polls Senator Barbara Boxer is leading Ms Fiorina, former HP executive, 43% to 38%. Because of last minute surges in the polls, a lead of 8 points or more is considered necessary for the governor's campaign, for a candidate to win. Another factor is that Governor Schwarznegger came in with no political experience, and was beset by the state's fiscal troubles, with his poll ratings now at 28%....

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Applebaum talks to two researchers at the University of Chicago and Princeton, Prof. Sufi and Prof. Mian, on the record of U.S. president Obama and Fed chairman Bernanke in helping homeowners facing foreclosure and underwater borrowers, comparing that record with their record in helping the banks. The issue is relevant as the policy and handling of homeowners had to be part of an overall effective plan for recovery in the U.S. economy, because ultimately without the U.S. consumer any recovery would be weak in the long run- a situation the U.S. faces in early 2014. The response to the issue of irresponsible homeowners borrowing beyond the limit without an equally robust response to irresponsible bank management that allowed wildly excessive leveraging of assets, and successful aggressive lobbying by banks in a shortsighted policy of going through with a wave of foreclosures; besides creating questions of fairness and equitable handling of the problem, also had major ramifications for the future of the U.S. and global economic growth. Here Christina Romer and other administration advisors say Bernanke was right in tackling the problem from the perspective of the banks needing to be recapitalized. Thoughtful advisors looking at the entire problem, Martin Feldstein and Sheila Bair strongly pushed for providing the same help to homeowners without getting caught up in the issue of who was responsible home buyers or the banks, and looking at the interests of the U.S. economy and the U.S. people. Proposals by Feldstein and Bair were equally robust in helping banks as they were in helping homeowners, only the banks understood their interests narrowly and had more access to policymakers in the Bush, as well as the Obama administration, Paulson as well as Geithner. This leaves us with the ultimate irony of the Obama administration pushing for the minimum wage, even to the point of electoral posture, when lasting damage had been inflicted on homeowners from the weaker portions of America's middle class by a policy that went against what two respected financial and economic experts from the Reagan period, Sheila and Bair had strongly advocated. See links and groups on Feldstein and Bair. Applebaum has followed most aspects of this problem closely and continues to provide exceptional reporting including the piece on the thinking of new Fed chairman, Janet Yellen. Private enterprise rules that require management at banks just as for other companies to take responsibility for failures, and be replaced with new management, was largely avoided leading to a fundamental failure in how a free market economy such as the U.S. and western European economies are supposed to function. Rules aggressively pushed by Geithner's mentor Treasury Secretary Rubin for a vigorous cleanup at banks in South Korea during a similiar situation in 1997, were not followed in any way here, also setting wrong precedents for the long run. ...

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One of the favorable factors for Iraq in recent years was the surge in oil production, adding 1 million barrels a day to reach 3.3 million barrels a day. It surged to an average of 3.7 million barrels a day in December 2014 after a deal with the Kurdish region in northern Iraq for an additional 550,000 barrels a day in exchange for Kurds getting a 17% share of federal revenues. This helped Iraq overcome other problems. The drop in oil prices has led to a 40% drop in revenues and the invasion by Islamic State in a loss of some production.The federal budget of $101 billion planned revenues is based on an oil price of $56 and exports of 3.3 million barrels a day, resulting in a $20 billion deficit. It assumes $10 billion in new tax revenues which may be hard to achieve with a lack of strong central government. Experts on Iraq's oil industry say large investments are needed to offset declining oil production from older oil fields in southern Iraq. Oil exports were 2.5 million barrels a day in 2014, and experts say even this will be hard to achieve for 2015. Investments could come from western oil companies, but Iraq and the Kurdistan region are behind in payments to oil companies. Iraq is considering issuing bonds for $10-$15 billion....