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In an effort to calm unsettled global financial markets ECB president Mario Draghi said in a speech on July 26, 2012: "Within our mandate, the ECB is willing to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro and, believe me, it will be enough." Yields on Spain's government bonds reached 7.5% as investors shunned Spanish bonds fearing the need for a government bailout.

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Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is interviewed by Ashok Malik for the Economic Times in this videocast. On what India did right and lessons learned from addressing the pandemic and the supply chain crisis, inflation, Sitharaman says-Getting input and listening to people about what was needed and the pain, was critical in developing the financial plans. On the realization of India's potential in manufacturing, exports, and industrializing its economy, Sitharaman says-India's strength is its rule of law, so that the country is tolerant of criticism including of the prime minister, and there are democratic institutions that protect ordinary citizens, the business and other sectors. Also important is friend shoring as expressed by US Treasury Secretary Yellen alongside Sitharaman, that sees India as a favored destination for the US and the EU. The efforts to develop first rate infrastructure and logistics removes impediments to foreign investment. Training and education of workers is part of this effort to create a supply of trained labor for foreign investment factories in India. The competition between states is also part of this effort to build attractive locations for foreign investments in manufacturing in India. On 20th century financial institutions transforming into 21st century institutions for the IMF, the World Bank and other international financial institutions Sitharaman says- India has full support from all G-20 countries on debt crisis of countries in Asia and Africa, Latin America to change the way in which help is provided. And the skills are put in place to access financial markets on terms that help meet the aspirations of the people in poor countries or middle income countries, including some G20 countries such as Argentina. Sri Lanka she says, is an example where India is the governor and representing the country at the IMF and World Bank for its financial needs. India took up the interests of Sri Lanka with the G20 and the US, so that the loans are not delayed or given in ways that lead to the country exiting the program, unable to meet the aspirations for development of its people. Sitharaman says the G20 found complete agreement on 15 issues facing the world out of 17 issues, these two related to the war in Ukraine and that too from only 2 countries. This suggests that the media focus creating a general perception of lack of unanimity does not reflect what happened at the G20 meetings in India, and is distorted. What really happened is that all countries agreed on the substantial economic issues facing the world- of food insecurity, of development needs, and of climate change impact.  Sitharaman's responses showed optimism based on the hard work put in at the Finance Ministry and connected to all ministries and agencies of the government. And of a resilient attitude, of concentrated effort on the issues facing India and its partners in growth in the US and EU.  ...

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Experts say about 110,000 votes separate Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the three states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that decided the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. giving Trump the win. Post election reflection in the Democratic party points to a disconnect between the establishment in both parties and the white working class. It is described as something that was not thought enough about even though as pointed out in Lyrarc, and in The Washington Post by columnists, and in news coverage about the inequality movement long before Bernie Sanders appeared in 2015. In the period when banks were favored over millions of homeowners facing foreclosure in 2010-2014, the surging stock market and the zero to to half percent interest on savings that hurt savings of most of the working class and lower middle class without stock investments, and the continuing problems in communities facing job losses from trade for the third decade. The hollowing out of the regions in Ontario from job losses from the Canadian industry helped Justin Trudeau win the Canadian election. In this election it helped Trump in crucial midwestern states, combined with a degree of indifference shown by establishment Democrats. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean is planning to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Bernie Sanders says he backs Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to be the next chair of the DNC. Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Sanders, says the problem lies in what has been clear for some time now "that the centrist wing of the democratic party has no standing with working class and middle class  voters in this country." In 2016 only 51% of union households supported Clinton the lowest since 1980, 43% supported Trump. Obama won 59% of union households in 2008 and 58% in 2012 to 40% for Republican Romney. Trump picked up 3% of union households, Clinton lost 7% of union households, creating about a 10 point gap that would be magnified in industrial states where union jobs are concentrated, for about 18% of the people who voted in the election, enough to create the shortfall in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsyslvania. Fed chairman Janet Yellen pointed out the problems at an Inequality conference in Boston in 2014, pretty stark in its reminder that inequality had surged to levels not seen since the depression of the thirties, with 62 million households having a net worth of $11,000. Krugman and other economists had pointed this out on the pages of the NYT. Yet the post election reflection in the media is as if this is some special insight when it was clear for all to see, and covered in depth in Lyrarc for years since 2008. There is voter fatigue after 8 years of one party in power as pointed out by Obama campaign strategist, David Axelrod. The loss of union enthusiasm made the task of  a third term for the Democratic party even more difficult.     ...

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In a aspirational country where even US president John Kennedy's grandparent's father Patrick Joseph arrived from Ireland during the potato famine in the 1850's and aspired to reaching the level of the more educated Americans over 2 generations, whose grandson JFK's father worked as a manager in the Quincy shipyards in Massachusetts, this extraordinary concentration of support for Republicans among less educated is astonishing, perplexing, and at odds with what America is. Super Tuesday results analysis of 1000 counties in 14 states in 2024 show Republican Trump getting 83% of the vote in counties with a higher share of voters without a college education. Where voters are a higher share of the college population this drops to 61%. A sharp drop in support is seen in counties with a higher percentage of voters who have college a rapid fall as one has college education.  A strange phenomena can be seen in graphs shown in WSJ of voters by counties and income, education. A large cluster of voters in incomes below 70,000 and without a college education then falling off like off a cliff. In Iowa, New Hampshire primaries it was seen as being mostly rural voters, more isolated and in less proximity to other people. The question remains how well this category of under $70,000 without a college degree reflects the country as a whole in 2024, how has the country changed since 2012, 2016 and 2020. It is easily said there is a polarized country yet this ignores the unusual nature of this support where it is concentrated so heavily in one group in this way with cutoff of $70,000 falling precipitiously in support for Trump for incomes above that. At above $70,000 support quickly drops to 80% and falls steeply with every $1000 increase in income after that. In a country like the US this means almost the entire educated population in the US and the entire population above the $70,000 per year level excluding itself from support, so sharp is the fall off from moderate income and education levels, and so heavily clustered is the support almost like a ball up in that corner of the graph with just a few specks on the rest of the graph. This is most unusual for the US and may not be reflective of the whole population of the US in 2024. This is also unprecedented in US history since 1776, may not compare to 2016, and for the Republican party even more unusual. Two questions also come up what happened to all the country club, more educated voters who voted Republican and made the party what it was an upper class business supported party, and what happened to all the factory workers, teachers, nurses and others in America who make about $70,000 or $80,000 and who are generally Democratic. These people will be part of the electorate for the whole country in 2024. ...

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Mr. Kasowitz  is hired by U.S. president Trump as his personal attorney on the Russia probe by Congress of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Kasowitz  has worked with Trump for 15 years helping keep his divorce records sealed, and in lawsuits. He is known as an aggressive litigator with his own firm of 270 attorneys- Kasowitz, Benson Torres LLP. This follows the appointment of Special Counsel Mueller to investigate Russian interference in the U.S. election with wide ranging powers. This report says Senator Joe Lieberman who is being considered for the post of new FBI chief works at this law firm, creating a potential conflict of interest situation.

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The undergraduate dropout rate in the US for its universities and colleges is a shocking 36%. EdSights texts students about their wellbeing with dropout rates so high. Alarming signal for more efforts by the US and state governments in education and keeping young people on track in schools and colleges.

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By a vote of 114 to 30 Slovakia's parliament votes in October 2011 to support $10 billion in debt guarantees to aid troubled eurozone economies.

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The U.S. Supercommittee in Congress fails to reach an agreement to come up with $1.2 trillion in savings to reduce the deficit by the Nov. 23, 2011 deadline. This shifts the focus to the sequester or triggering automatic cuts in Jan. 2013, as mandated in the Congressional deficit reduction deal of August 2, 2011. These automatic cuts would reduce defense spending by 10%, cut social programs without touching Medicaid and Social Security, by 7.8%, and reduce Medicare payments by 2%.

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Capital inflows into banks in Cyprus in the form of demand deposits accelerated in 2008 after it appeared that the banking system in Ireland was having serious problems. About $40.7 billion of capital inflows went into Cyprus in the form of loans and demand deposits in 2008, 161% of the GDP of the country, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. Cyprus became the place for hot money from other countries because of the higher interest rates on euros and the lax banking laws.

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Richard Portes of the London Business School provides two good reasons why the EU's decision to adopt the French Banking Federation's proposal for rollovers with 10% interest costs is a serious mistake. It doubles the interest costs from 4-6% to 10% with 2% Greek GDP growth and makes debt servicing untenable. Portes says the real Brady Plan from the 1980's included a 35-40% bondholders haircut. Deals of this type have a precedent- in Mexico in 1988 and in Argentina in 2001 such bond exchanges were soon followed by deals that placed bondholder haricuts on creditors. The lesson from Latin America in the 1980's, says Portes, is that the burdens of servicing a debt of such proportions under onerous conditions only extinguishes the enterprise, investment and productive capabilities of the particular country trying to service that debt, making the debt even less serviceable. See the Wall Street Journal's editorial on this deal which it calls "The French Deception." The terms sound like Greek to the editors leaving a sense that French banks are only saying "gimme." The only benefit achieved may be putting off the problem and avoiding contagion to Portugal and Spain. Yet this is not that much of a benefit when one realizes that the problem has not gone away, and is likely to look much worse six or nine months from now....

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Laurent Bonadei says of this German team as they fended off repeated French attempts at goal over the first 90 minutes- “Germany deserves their qualification because they defended very well. Usually we manage to create more chances. We were against a team that was very smart. There was no panic from them – we wanted to get them to panic but it didn’t happen.” It was a game of sheer chaos starting with a bizarre hair pull by Katherine Hendrichs of the German team leading to a red card, and two goals for France not given because of offside decisions by umpires, and two penalty kicks for fouls. Not to mention a saved own goal by Anne-Katrin Berger that was something sensational to watch.Berger faced constant French attempts on goal for 90 minutes as France controlled the ball 70% of the time. Somehow the German team with 10 players held its defense together. Berger's soft spoken style stands out- “All the credit should go to the team, not me. Everybody here should talk about the performance of the team.” ...

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Hon Hai has about 800,000 workers. About 400,000 are employed in the southern industrial town of Shenzhen. After a number of worker suicides (13 people have committed or attempted to commit suicide in 2010 so far), the company has announced that it will give 20% raise to its workers. Workers at one plant in Longhua are paid 900 yuan or $132, the legal minimum wage in Guangdong province, though many workers work overtime at 1.5 times the standard rate. The company is secretive about its activities and uses the trade name of Foxconn. It makes personal computers and other products for Apple, HP and other companies. The company uses a military style discipline and it is reported that there is excessive stress in working conditions.

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With inflation low at about 1.5% for an inflation measure used by the Federal Reserve, this article by Neil Irwin points to the low unemployment rate of 4.3% as the determining factor for raising interest rates. The Federal Reserve increased interest rates by a quarter percentage point in June 2017.The Federal Reserve under Janet Yellen raised interest rates for the second time in 2017 and the fourth time in 18 months, as it sees a tightening in the jobs market.

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Juarez, the city across from El Paso, has done well in the last 10 months with 27,000 jobs added in the maquiladoras. These foreign owned factories continue to attract business interest even with a drug war raging in the background. The reason is that Juarez connects straight to American Interstate highways and this makes it possible to deliver goods in 3-4 weeks in some cases from the time of order compared to 10 weeks for China. And wages can run as low as $4.21 an hour. Companies get incentives in the tax treatment and worker training is supported by the local government.

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South Korea's Posco received environmental clearance in January 2011 for a steel plant with a capacity of 4 million metric tons a year. Posco has now been given permission to clear forest land for the $12 billion plant and infrastructure. The plant capacity will later be increased to 12 million tons a year. Indian law does not allow forest land to be cleared if villages have claims to the land. Projects by Arcelor Mittal and Posco have been held up for five years because of hurdles in getting environmental clearance and permission to clear forest land.

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The U.S. Fed FOMC's decision to continue paring bond purchases by $10 billion monthly. Fed chairman Bernanke said in 2011 responding to criticism from other countries -"it is upto emerging markets to find the appropriate tools to balance their own growth." The Fed Open Market Committee voted 10-0 to continue tapering bond purchases, by reducing it to $65 billion a month from $75 billion a month. The Fed is forecasting growth for 2014 of 3% in 2014 and over 3% in 2015 can be made without sparking inflation. 2013 growth estimated by the Commerce Dept is 2.7%.

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Airport Hotels Grand Hyatt SFO $462 a night 2025 -owned by cities San Francisco and Grand Hyatt Dallas Dallas- Fort Worth owned by city of Dallas FW. It was $364 at Grand Hyatt SFO last fall 2024 with 84% occupancy. WSJ looks at the splurge by wealthy tourists and business people when a Hilton is close by for $116. Westin Denver Airport at $337 a night also city owned.

The author uses the Westin Airport when the Spark by Hilton is $116 nearby. It shows how prices are driven up by some splurge spenders.

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Women in senior management positions at GM include Mary Barra, Melissa Howell, Anne Larin, Victor McInnis, Grace Lieblein, Alicia Boler-Davis. Howell is senior vice president of global human resources. Leiblein, vice president for global purchasing. Boler-Davis, senior vice president for global customer experience and quality. Barra is the new CEO in 2014. Here Leiblein describes her decision as chief engineer for large crossover utility vehicles- to leave a gap at the bottom of the left foot rest making room for female drivers wearing a high-heel shoe. Barra says she concentrates on doing a good job and doesn't count the number of women in the room at meetings. Other female managers says women have to put in more than men to be recognized.

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Changpeng Zhao, 46 years,  comes from a family that immigrated to Vancouver, Canada from China after the Tianmen protests. He studied computer science at McGill University and worked for Bloomberg Tradebook. In 2017 he started Binance as a cryptocurrency firm. In the same year China banned cryptocurrency. In March 2023 the Commodity Futures Trading Commission sued Binance saying that the Binance exchange operated illegally in the US and violated rules on illicit financial activity. This WSJ report says traders are withdrawing billions of dollars from Binance as problems affecting the world's largest crypto exchange increase. Overall WSJ says Binance holds $63.2 billion in the exchange's publicly disclosed wallets. Regulators are concerned about bank runs of the kind that affected FTX, another crypto currency firm.

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What is the Pirates party in European Union countries? It started as a party of tech savy young people about 15 years ago who were fed up with the mainstream parties. For the first time Pirates and Mayors party in Czech Republic will form a coalition government in 2021. Ivan Bartos head of the Pirates party says the party is "a new wind, no oligarch or big sponsors and completely transparent." It is in a way a party like the Greens, away from established parties, with younger people who are tech savy and want openness in society. In the Czech election the party was able in alliance with other centrist parties to defeat a scandal ridden minority government of billionaire Babis that opposed EU climate change policies.

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The Biden administration sanctions 24 Chinese officials for their role in reducing the autonomous status of Hong Kong. Most of them are connected with Hong Kong, one of them is on the Politburo in the central government in Beijing. The action takes place ahead of a meeting between the US and Chinese representatives in Alaska. China's recent actions to ensure that only those deemed as "patriots" could govern in legislative assembly in Hong Kong have added to the already existing tensions between the UK, US, and China. Earlier the Trump administration had put sanctions on 10 government officials in Hong Kong for eroding Hong Kong' autonomy. This adds to the already existing trade tensions, and protecting US technology tensions with China.

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After winning a giant Pentagon cloud computing contract of $10 billion over the next decade Microsoft is mounting a challenge to Amazon's dominance in cloud computing. Amazon has 48% of the business renting out cloud infrastructure in 2018, according to Gartner. Microsoft has 15.5% and is gaining each year. Amazon took the lead by starting early by 2010. Microsoft and Google Alphabet were slow to start. Microsoft has an edge in its long history of working with business. These companies expand the business by building data centers called server farms around the world. Capital One Financial lost about 100 million in stolen customer records in 2018 with storage in Amazon's cloud infrastructure, safety being another issue in this business.

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Abrasive and greedy behaviour of some internet company leaders is turning off the public, investors, and management This was the situation at Uber, resulting in new management at the company. At WeWork there are other problems and behaviours that are seen as totally inappropriate, including partying. Like many internet companies including Uber that investors have shown exuberance about but are losing money, WeWork is a fast growing subleasing company with losses of $1.6 billion in 2018. During a time when a large percentage of Americans lack savings to meet a medical crisis, this sort of behaviour and the greed of a small class of investors who have supported huge valuations in the absence of tangible products of matching value presents a strange picture of America with misguided priorities.

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The role of the former Rhode Island governor Gina Raimondo, as Commerce Secretary. She pushed forward the CHIPS and Science Act through Congress securing votes from 17 Republicans and all except one Democrat in the House of Representatives. She is committed to moving fast on issues such as investments in America. Gina Raimondo believes that "the most important thing to do to compete with China is to invest in America." She says in an interview that America needs to dominate in certain areas of technology, including critical materials, electric vehicle batteries, semiconductors, artificial intelligence. This report looks at her role at the Commerce department and her relationships with president Biden, Congress, and foreign leaders including Piyush Goyal who is Minister for Industry in India.