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Policies and actions taken today to reduce future consumption and to conserve oil will create expectations for lower prices in the future in relation to today's price. It will lower price pressures as these expectations get embedded, and as this makes it more profitable to produce more oil rather than leave it in the ground. In addition see the supply of Iraqi oil, and efforts to reverse the oil supply situation in Iran which may happen with a different administration in the US. The reduction in fuel subsidies in Iran would lower oil consumpion in Iran. Efforts to reverse years of decline in Mexican oil fields, and increase supplies in the US by drilling in new areas, would create new supplies. While supply would see changes, demand would see a new fuel efficient car fleet on the streets in several years, and better use of mass transit and rail transit, and oil conservation across the board, this would then create anew and favorable dynamic. But look for oil prices to stabilize at lower levels in relation to current levels of about 140 and higher as it rises in 2008 and 2009 till new expectations get embedded, and not a sharp decline in prices, as pressures from the developing world's demand will continue for years to come. Think a billion people being absorbed over time into urban type economies....

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The dollar has reached the mark of 86 yen by the begining of August 2010. Japanese analysts see the dollar at 90-100 yen as reasonable for Japan's export based companies. One factor causing this is the Chinese government increasing its holding of Japanese government bonds. By May 2010 China had accumulated 1.27 trillion yen according to the Japanese government. This rise of the yen will have a negative effect on Japanese exporting companies.

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Government GDP figures show the GDP shrank by 1.8% in the third quarter of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015, the first such contraction in the economy since 2009. Household consumption was down 3.2%. The sharp decline in the value of the lira by 20% in 2016 makes imports costlier, in an economy dependent on consumption spending and tourism for higher GDP growth. Political uncertainty with instability in Turkey following a crackdown on opposition and media also leads to decline in foreign investment and investment by domestic firms.

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Gerald Seib of the WSJ describes the huge wave of young supporters who helped Labor party leader Corbyn in Britain's 2017 general election. He cites an analysis by the Financial Times that shows young people backed Labor over the Conservatives by 51 points more than the national average. People over age 65 backed Conservatives by 32 points more than the national average. This points to a staggering age gap of 83 points, said the Financial Times. Young people failed to turn out in large numbers during the Brexit vote, and this was a large factor in the pro Brexit win. One exit poll shows turnout went up by 12% in 2017 compared to the 2015 parliamentary election. Only 26% of voters in a WSJ/NBC poll for ages 18-34 years say they approve of U.S. president Trump's performance, 64% disapprove. Seib says the movement of Corbyn is similar to the Bernie Sanders movement in the U.S. and has implications for a similar surge of support showing up in the U.S.

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Ewen Macaskill of the Guardian travels on the bus with Jeremy Corbyn through the east Midlands region of the UK. He describes how Corbyn is handling the negative media coverage from the Daily Telegraph and the tabloids. Corbyn's response to the demonization by the tabloids underway for the last two years is that he does not let it get to him. He does not respond to personal attacks, including ones made by Theresa May, because he says it means he would have to descend to that level. "It actually devalues yourself and the process," says Corbyn. He is not stressed, says Corbyn because it would do him no good, and no good to the people around him who are putting in their best to support Labor in this election. Calm, composed, is how this reporter sees Corbyn on the trail. This means not following the latest polls but staying focussed on the goal and the day ahead. As a result the people who had only seen him through the negative image projected in the media are now becoming endeared to him. Little things count, whether the campaign workers are getting their tea and coffee, and looking for a knife to cut a chocolate brownie cake given at a prior event. Calm, composed, not letting comments or the pessimism affect him, as he is in his words "there for the long haul." This is true for the way he is careful not to allow intrusions into his family life, that would affect his wife Laura Alvarez and three sons. This is the way he has come across during his first day as Leader of the Opposition in parliament, and during the event where he launched the Labor manifesto. Preferring simplicity and ordinary life he prefers public transport, simple layout in the campaign bus, and if elected he says he would prefer to remain where he is instead of the house at 10 Downing Street. Corbyn is 68, but after the way he has tackled the challenge facing Labor, the graceful attitude and dignity needed especially today, he is likely to be around for much longer. ...

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Selling of sovereign bonds by European banks to meet new requirements for adequate capital reserves by the European Banking Authority is having a Catch 22 effect, as this raises the yields at auctions of sovereign bonds of Italy, Spain and other countries.

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Eisinger says ten years from now people will look back and say Dodd-Frank has made our financial system safer. It has received the kind of criticism leveled at Sarbanes-Oxley which was a response to another period of bad practices in accounting and finance.

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The U.S. is moving quickly to gain access to an effective vaccine by September or October 2020. It is doing this by providing the money for companies to conduct trials and ramp up manufacturing in a big way. The U.S. government has agreed to give Astra Zeneca upto $1.2 billion to secure supply of a Oxford University developed vaccine which could be ready by October. Astra Zeneca has agreed to make the vaccine under a licensing deal with Oxford University's Jenner Institute and promised it will not make a profit on this. U.S. has also given $483 million to Moderna in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for making the vaccine. Both Oxford and Moderna are testing the vaccine on humans. Oxford uses a tested older technology, Moderna a new technology. UK has given Astra Zeneca $79 million to secure 100 million doses of the vaccine, with 30 million ready by September. Oxford is also in negotiations with Gavi the international vaccine alliance, and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations on further deals to boost production. Oxford began a 1100 person study in April, and is  doing a 5000 person trial in late May.  ...

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Britain and Britain's parliament now faces some tough choices as the economic costs of Brexit are spelled out by government and Bank of England forecasts. Already GDP per person is below what it would have been without the Brexit vote by some 2%, according to the Centre for European Reform think tank. The main problem is the expected drop in trade with the European Union of as much as 40%. Ending free movement also curbs European immigration, and add to this a drop in foreign investment. The government says the cost of the deal with the EU made by prime minister Theresa May could cost 2.7% in loss for GDP per head. Estimates range from 1.7% to 3%. A loss of 3% comes to an average annual loss at 2016 prices of 1090 British pounds per head. Worse a no deal Brexit could see this jump to 8.1%, according to the government. The Bank of England agrees and says the pound would go down by a quarter. Offsets from Britain making free trade deals are pathetically small of only only 0.2% if at all, and o.1% from likely deregulation. Not a picture that makes Brexit anything but a chaotic option for Britain. ...

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Mary Schapiro, head of the U.S. S.E.C., joins Promontory Financial, a consulting firm set up by former Comptroller of the Currency managers to act as a "bank doctor" for banks that expect to face regulatory scrutiny from government regulatory agencies. In one settlement for mortgage debt which banks settled for $9.3 billion, Promontory Financial was paid $2 billion, according to this WSJ report.

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Harold Meyerson looks into the causes of the decline of white working class Americans by 2015. A whole section of society that was helped by the work of FDR is being undone by a combination of forces, from the decline in working class wages and jobs through globalized business, social structures unravelling, and support structures weakening. Meyerson refers to the Deaton-Case Princeton study on increasing death rates for this group. The white working class is much smaller now than in 1940 when he says 82% of Americans over 25 had only an high school education, down to 29% in 2007. The result is that it has less power to affect policies, yet is close to one third of Americans. Economic recovery, the American dream, all remain hobbled without efforts to tackle this problem. Trump's effort to appeal to this class, Meyerson points out, is similiar to the National Front's effort in France, making the political dialogue even more divisive by targeting immigrants.

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Humor about how BMW and Mercedes completely missed the nature of this economic downturn in their forecasts, of continuing upbeat sales forecasts till about a month ago even though a lot of bad news has been coming in for some time. Is something like this happening in the Chinese economy, where things have been going strong for so long that forecasts have been toned down to 9% for GDP growth, even though car sales are flat for recent months and are expected to be flat or declining for 2009. If there is a decline in sales next year in auto sales is it possible that 9% GDP growth may be too optimistic for 2009. Would it somehwhere in the range of 6-9%?

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The percentage of credit card balances owed by subprime customers, according to Keefe Bruyette and Woods, is 30.3% for Bank of America, 29.8% for Capital One, 27.9% for Discover, and 27.3% for Citigroup. The companies ranked by market share in private label cards are GEneral Electric 39.2% and Citigroup 21.7%. All these companies that have turned risky customers into cash cows with hefty fees and interest rates will see much of this disappear with the President's new law banning some of the practices of these companies that hurt consumers. Most of the credit card industry has operated without some of the basic consumer protections one would expect in a highly educated and literate society with democratic governance. Even retailers like Target depend on this for profits. Target which has its own credit card operation earned $355 million in credit finance charges and $87 million in late fees and other revenue in the last fiscal quarter.

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Arizona, Utah and South Carolina are 3 states that are cited by the US Labor Department for not adopting any portion of the Occupational and Health Safety Emergency Standard for health care workers. The Labor Department says that by not adopting these standards for social distancing, mask use and paid time off for vaccination, these states are risking the health and safety of health care workers. OSHA sent letters to these states revoking the states abilities to run their own occupational health safety programs.

Texas is one of the states where governors are opposing the Biden vaccine mandate. Airlines based in Texas, both Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, say they will follow the Biden vaccine mandate for federal contractors, as they are required by law to abide by the president's order.

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Gen. Milley is being succeeded as chairman Joint Chiefs by Air Force chief C. Q. Brown. General Mark Milley completed a 4 year term as chairman Joint Chiefs at a ceremony attended by president Biden. He told the crowd- "We do not take an oath to an individual, we take an oath to the Constitution, to the idea that is America, and we are willing to die to protect it." Milley is a Bostonian whose father a Navy Corpsman fought in World War II. He was picked by former president Trump just as former Attorney General Barr and former vice president Mike Pence were picked by Trump, yet Pence, Barr and Milley, all had serious differences with Mr. Trump. All defended democracy and the transition from one president to another in January 2021.

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Saeed Jalili is the presidental candidate in 2013 Iranian elections backed by Ayatollah Khamenei.

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American corporations lost faith in the American worker with a series of missteps by labor in the US by 1999 which were also failures of top management and engineering for quality on the assembly line and wages to compete with low cost outshoring. In losing this faith in the American worker America's corporations lost faith in their own country, in their own people- the people of America. Larry Summers was mentored by Treasury Secretary Rubin from Goldman Sachs. Deputy Treasury Secretary under Rubin, president Clinton. Following Rubin in 1999 as Treasury Secretary. Several key events happened that damaged America and the working people of the Nation -and each time Rubin and Summers are seen as giving wrong advice. The first deregulation of financial markets setup by Clinton-Rubin-Summers in 1999 led to financial crisis of 2009. The second setting up China's entry into the World Trade Organization without safeguards that caused China to use unfair practices to destroy much of America's manufacturing base. The 2009 financial crisis-  The support for repealing the Glass Steagall Act in 1999 and for deregulation of financial markets by Rubin and by Summers led to deregulation that caused the financial crisis of 2009 with overleveraging of US banks and faulty mortgages. This was the first blow to the social and economic fabric of America, to America's workers and families. The second body blow came from decisions made by president Clinton with advice of Larry Summers as Deputy Treasury Secretary and Treasury Secretary in 1999.  Advice that Clinton regrets  and sees as wrong and which have shaken American workers faith in the traditional Republican and Democratic parties of Bush, and of Clinton-Obama 1992-2016, a 20 year period which saw almost the entire industrial base of the US shipped to China  by American corporations working with China. American corporations lost faith in the American worker with a series of missteps by labor in the US by 1999 which were also failures of top management and engineering for quality on the assembly line and wages to compete with low cost outshoring. In losing this faith in the American worker America's corporations lost faith in their own country, in their own people- the people of America.     ...

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Germany's exports dropped by 2.8% and imports by 0.1% in October over prior month. Trade surplus dropped to 16.8 billion euros from 13.4 billion euros. Germany's largest export market is the US. It now faces tariffs from the new DJT administration.

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The testimony of Paul Tucker, deputy governor of the Bank of England, before a parliamentary committee in the UK, defending his handling of manipulation of LIBOR rates by Barclays and other banks.

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Many of the candidates in the sixth Republican presidential debate were critical of the way John Kerry handled the issue of U.S. boats and sailors seized and then returned by Iran.

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The amazing story of Abdel Hakim Belhaj who is seen as a foe by the CIA and turned over to Gaddafi's regime from Bangkok, followed by six years in Libyan jails. He is in the Western mountains near Tripoli leading a brigade that enters Tripoli. Because of the military discipline and experience gained in Afghanistan, Belhaj is put in charge of Tripoli by the Libyan Transitional Council. He looks to the future and is grateful to NATO and the U.S. for freeing his country. He holds no rancor for the past and looks to the future.

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Rosa Ines Rivera, a cook at the cafeteria for the Y.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, with 2 small children, describes the protests over the increase by Harvard administration of the premiums charged on health insurance that now take up over 10% of the income. She says she lives in public housing with her parents as she lost her apartment because she is behind on the rent, and now cannot afford to pay the increase in premiums. About 750 workers at Harvard are on strike on this issue. She says dining hall workers want the current pay of $31,193  a year increased to $35,000 to provide a living wage that helps them afford medical care, because of the high cost of living in Boston.  To get some idea of the plight of workers who provide the kind of nutritious meals that a lot of students depend on for healthy living- Rivera says she takes in about $450 a week after taxes, or about $1800, rent is $1150, which leaves $650 for herself and two children for all food, and expenses in Boston. The $4000 in premiums for health insurance would be about 330 per month, leaving her about $320 for food and living expenses with 2 children. Why the need to bring up children in poverty in America, for generation after generation, after putting in a full day of work? ...

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Large U.S. companies with overseas operations increased their hiring overseas by 4.4% in 2011 compared to only 0.1% increase for hiring in the U.S., according to the U.S. Commerce Department. Two thirds of multinational employment was in the U.S. in 2011, compared to three fourths in 1999. U.S. multinational companies provide about one fifths of all private employment in the U.S.

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The resignation of Philip Hildebrand as head of the Swiss National Bank after emails showed that he had assented to a $500,000 transaction by his wife. His wife made the currency transaction into dollars on Aug 15, a short time before strong action that lowered the value of the Swiss Franc by the Swiss National Bank.

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Greenberg of AIG asks why Goldman got paid in full while AIG suffered and languished? Questions he raises about the way Goldman Sachs acted during and before the crisis, with its actions helping precipitate the crisis, and the need for investigative reporting to uncover the facts. Serious questions raised by Greenberg.