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Israelis from across the political spectrum say the nuclear deal with Iran in negotiations with the U.S., Britain and France, threatens Israel. Israel's nuclear experts say the 12 month breakout window for Iran to break the agreement and rush to develop a nuclear weapon in 12 months is not sufficient, because of the time it takes for detection and develop the response. Israelis have a deep distrust of Iran's intentions. On the other side of the Middle East the Saudis are also expressing serious concerns about the negotiations giving Iran enough leeway to keep the nuclear program and make a weapon at a future date. The proposed agreement creates further disagreement between prime minister Netanyahu and U.S. president Obama.

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There was some question about the accelerated depreciation tax break for new investment that is part of the business side to the stimulus package. It lets business take 50% of the depreciation upfront and the 10% thats allowed for a straight 10 year depreciation. A study at the University of Michigan and other expert opinion showed that this tax break had minimal effect when it was introduced in 2002. But other experts say that it was because there was not much taxable income after the meltdown and the bursting of the tech bubble at that time. This time there is a good deal of taxable income and it might have some effect.

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The US supreme Court has to decide whether states can block access to treatments for transgender to persons under 18 years. This was an issue in the 2024 elections. Parents unease at not being informed about children at school and the social trends that add to the social tensions for a middle and working class already beset with cost of living concerns and childcare.

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Many of the one million veterans get their care at VA hospitals. Between 2018-2021 Medicare paid insurance companies $44 billion for Medicare Advantage plans that many of the 1 million veterans covered did not use as they went to VA hospitals for care, according to this story in the WSJ. During that time VA paid $46 billion for veterans care.

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Senator Thune's election as the majority leader acts as continuity for the work of Mitch McConnell, the longest serving Majority Leader, who was Leader for 18 years. Cornyn of Texas raised $400 million for Republicans. Rick Scott is likely to throw his support to Thune of South Dakota, and DJT  asks for concessions from Thune and Mitchell on getting his nominees approved.

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Melissa Abadia, 28 years old, with a nursing degree, leaves Madrid to work in retail stores in the Netherlands. Alba Mendez, with a Masters degree in Sociology, leaves to find work in a supermarket, not something she had envisioned. Spain's younger workers, and youth in Italy and France face similiar problems finding work, or face problems working in unpaid internships with long hours or temporary contracts.

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Zaragoza a city of 700,000 is the capital of Spain's fastest growing region, and its halfway between Barcelona and Madrid. It has grown rapidly. The arrival of GM here was a big turning point in 1982. The GM plant here can turn out 2000 sub compacts, small minivans and delivery trucks a day, now it is one of 7 GM plants in Europe to suspend production for 2 weeks in October to work off inventories. About 600 of 7000 workers were laid off. Young people here who have never seen anything but good times see this as a big shock. And its a sign of how things across Europe are shaping up. Spain's economy contracted by 0.2% this summer. The European Commission expects the 15 nation eurozone to be flat next year with no growth, but this is an early estimate and may be revised to show a contraction as the economic downturn is just beginning.

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Wagoner says GM can get 37mpg on average by 2012 for its cars in response to Congressional demand for higher fuel efficiency and energy conservation. Congress is looking for European mandated levels of 50mpg by 2015, which were initially opposed by European automakers also. It becomes the condition for loans. The awfully bad unemployment numbers for November of 533,000 layoffs led to some compromise from Speaker Pelosi, so that $15 billion could come as a bridge loan to the Detroit automakers from the $25 billion allocated for the specific purpose of fuel efficiency technologies. The only way this compromise could be reached is by a complete shift by the auto executives on the issue of fuel efficiency, which is a sore point with Congress especially the way automakers in Detroit have dragged their feet on this issue over 2 decades, contributing to the jump in oil prices in 2007 and early 2008.

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What low cost small space housing in China would look like and the shift to building such housing in China. Homes of 160 square feet that are about the size of a parking space!

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Average return on U.S. IPO's for 2011 is a loss of 18% for institutional investors getting in on day one according to Dealogic analysis of 23 IPO's. For small investors the losses are 34%.

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The sharp decline in share prices of GM and Ford since the IPO offering for GM in 2011. Analysts say the shares are pricing in a 15% decline in sales for Europe in 2012.

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The Russian government said it would ban exports from August 15 to the end of the year. Fires and dehydration from asevere drought in 25 regions of the country is affecting the grain harvest.

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The Likud party led by Netanyahu wins 30 seats in Israel's 120 seat parliament in the March 2015 general election. The Zionist Union wins 24 seats. The party of Israeli Arabs wins 13 seats.

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Twitter share price is down 23% to March 2014 year to date and declined 11% in March. Tesla Motors and SolarCity both declined during the 1st quarter of 2014 after sharp rise in prices.

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The Bank of America settlement for $8 billion that will enable 390,000 borrowers to do loan workouts and make serious and beneficial loan modifications with state attorney generals from 11 states monitoring the deal.

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David Stockman, Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan tells Tom Keene that the first step to deficit reduction is to means test the 2 milllion to 5 million or 10 million people who are very affluent, and have the benefits of some part of this population eliminated entirely. The next step he suggests is for spending much less on defense. A defense budget at $800 billion he says does not make sense today, because it is 35% larger in real terms than the budget when Reagan was President and the U.S. faced the Soviet Union. The U.S. does not need to be the world's policeman.

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What should be considered an extraordinary achievement by thinking outside the box by Howard Luttnick alongside Bessent, Greer and Akazawa is correctly reflected in this NYT report by Anna Swanson, when today's WSJ Editorial Board opinion ignores this achievement and criticizes the president. Howard Luttnick a WSJ bond trader and businessman thought up the idea of the investment fund when he realized Japan was not going to give DJT all he wanted to see in opening up Japanese markets to US products. This fund of $400 billion with 50% of profits on investment going to US would be put together by Japan for the US to sign the agreement with just 15% tariff total on Japanese autos and other products. The president calls it a signing bonus. WSJ Editorial and similar efforts to shortchange DJT tariff efforts to level world trade playing field also belittles the extraordinary effort of Luttnick, Bessent and Jamieson as trade negotiators in getting the deal with Japan for $400-$550 billion. It says DJT was lucky to get the deal when it is clear that Japan is returning the US the favor the US did to Japan, as a true ally should do, aside from US defense of Asia. ...

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Jannik Sinner grew up in South Tyrol in northern Italy near Austrian Alps. His first love was skiing and he was skiing since the age of 4 years. By 12 he had won an Italian championship. He shifted to tennis because he says in skkiing you make one mistake and you are gone, everything happens very quickly in a minute and a half a race is won. Tennis appealed to Sinner because it gave him more time, you did not have to be the best all the time, and mental fitness counted a lot over a longer period. He says giving it his all through good days and bad days is important in practice and this is true also in winning a game. Sinner says- "I always go on a practice court with a purpose, and I believe that the mindset you start to build in practice sessions, when you struggle, when you have pain, when you at times don’t want to practice, but you still go and you still do everything possible to make it a good day." “If you cannot do it in practice sessions, then you cannot do it in the real matches. So, I think this is one of the biggest parts.” ...

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NYT says DJT ratings have been resilient and stable around 43% in September similar to April 2025. Shows slight improvement on the economy and slight drop on immigration. DJT gets higher approval in fighting crime 48% supporting, 51% saying government was deporting mostly those needing to be deported, and 54% favoring deporting of illegal migrants. On the major issues of the economy, illegal immigration, the support is fairly resilient and stable says the NYT. Even the groups that say the biggest problem is the other side Democrats saying that of Republicans and vice versa, is only about 15%, or what has been seen in polarized periods in American history such as with Jefferson and Adams, Andrew Jackson after British wars,  Abraham Lincoln and Southerners before Civil War, Hoover and FDR as Depression progressed, and Harry Truman and Wendell Wilkie/Eisenhower periods of this history. The current polarization is not something new even though it is seen as unsettling to an onlooker. On immigration Eisenhower led Operation Wetback in the 1950's similar to today's effort to reverse illegal migration. Efforts to bring Common Prayer or Christian prayer to schools is part of America's history and Prayer existed in American schools throughout most of America's history, so that this is also nothing new. ...

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Can OpenAI pay? Does it have $300 billion? These are the questions analysts are asking. Remaining Performance Obligations is RPO's which refer to a company meeting probable targets which are not certain. Oracle stock went up 36% in one day because it was saying it would get thei $300 billion from OpenAI. Now as analysts look carefully at Oracle surge they are saying wait a minute who has this $300 billion. This report in the WSJ says RPO's for Oracle are now up to $523 billion. Oracle stock is now down 43%. Analysts are questioning these outlandish claims. Another claim is from the "circularity" in the AI sector, which means A is connected to B is connected to C. OpenAI expects $100 billion in investment from Nvidia which makes advanced chips, but is it definite? Nvidia says in it's latest quarterly report that "there is no assurance that any investment will be completed, on expected terms, it at all." Note that OpenAI makes hardly any money today and is in fundraising stage- it has expectation to make $20 billion. And the $300 billion where does all this come from? When most people in the Nation are living from paycheck to paycheck there is this wild speculation and mania in the AI sector.   ...

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Fundamentals such as private inventories buildup, are about 10% higher than last year according to EIA, suggesting prices $3 to $15 lower than they are now. Prices are higher because of uncertainties in the VIIN countries (Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and Nigeria) which combined produce just as much as the Saudis. And the VIIN component is there for the long haul. OPEC does not need to cut output, output is cut by the VIIN countries with their political and geopolitical issues.

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This is something new, building budget hotels using stackable metal containers. Travel Lodge a British chain is doing this using as supplier Verbus Systems that builds roms in metal containers in factories near Shenzen, China, and delievers them ready to be stacked into buildings upto 16 stories tall. In this way a Verbus manager says it can build a 300 room hotel in 20 weeks. One is coming up in Oxbridge a West London neighborhood, and one near Heathrow airport.

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The New York Times editorial says the constitutional option looks better than the recession option, now that huge cuts in spending including Medicare and Social Security are planned in the budget talks between the Republicans and the Obama White House. The Times points to $4 trillion in defict reduction in 10 years, that is being discussed as part of a grand agreement in White House talks. It reminds the Obama White House that it is not likely to win independent voters if unemployment increases as a result. The constitutional option is for the President to to point to the 14th Amendment that the public debt cannot be questioned, in effect saying the debt limit cannot be controlled by Congress as it is today. See the piece by Krugman on the same subject in today's New York Times. Krugman asks why Obama's economic advisors have not cautioned him about the size of the cuts and the potential impact on unemployment in a fragile economy. And he points out that most of the senior economic advisors have left and it may be Obama's political team that is looking for a way to win points with independent voters for next years election....

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After denying clearances for development projects for three decades, the Indian Supreme Court green bench of Justices Gavai and Vikram Nath clears 118 development projects already delayed for 5 years for pending litigation. 118 projects were cleared, including 15 held up for 10 years, based on the "sustainable development" idea that takes a look at the bigger picture, the aspirations of youth, and the bigger possibilities for renewables and environment with a bigger economy. It shows how India which at one time in 1990 had about the same GDP as China, has today one fifth the GDP of China, and with it lacks the same scale of investment for renewable energy and climate change action that China has because of China's larger economy. In this sense the whole country of 1.2 billion Indians, including hundreds of millions of farmers and urban residents, the Supreme Court and India's institutions, have suffered more than the one lost decade the prime minister referred to in the Budget session of parliament. It is more like three decades since China pushed ahead after 1990. China having suffered from the Japanese invasion and civil war for three decades in the 1920-49 period and three decades of drift in economic direction following 1949. India faced its own period of failed governance that matches the failures in China by 1990. The SC bench stated- "The Supreme Court is flooded with applications after applications, seeking permissions to construct primary schools, public health centers, anganwadi centers, an other public utility buildings in remote areas. Himachal Pradesh is constrained to approach the Supreme Court even for seeking permission to connect villages in remote areas by roads. Needless to state, the citizens residing in the remote areas cannot be deprived of the developmental activities that are being done in other parts of the country."  The Supreme Court called it ridiculous that the states were required to rush to the Supreme Court to do the minimal developmental activities.  That the Supreme Court and other institutions have taken so long to say and do this is itself one of the reasons India has fallen behind China. It will need to accelerate its efforts, in the way that the rest of the country and the world is doing to create an environment in which development can meet the aspirations of the Indian people. Efforts for climate change action can take place at the same time with bigger investment capabilities from the larger economy and advanced technological capabilities. The two can and do go together, a point missed for far too long.  An approach even the US has grasped and is doing under president Biden. The US has gone through its own period of failed governance for four decades of neglect of manufacturing and infrastructure that president Biden talked about in his State of the Union address to the US Congress last week.  Biden now sees the problem itself as an opportunity to get it right. So can India.   ...

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The failure of the 117th Congress to pass key parts of president Biden's agenda for hard hit families and workers in America is now taking place. The 50-50 standoff in the US Senate and failure of two Democrat senators Sinema of Arizona, Manchin of West Virgina to support Biden's Families and Workers Plan leaves key parts of the safety net being left out. This leaves out the education, and paid leave part of the agenda and provisions for utilities to accelerate shift away from coal out of the bill. It fails to implement a new national agenda for upward mobility, child care and paid leave to help stressed out mothers and families. The failure to include even a modest community college 2 years of support at a time when men's college enrollment is dropping to disastrous levels for America's economic competitiveness is a failure of the 117th Congress to grasp the needs of families and workers in America today. Only a new Congress in 2022 can take up the needed action for families and workers in education, health care, child care and help for families. The passage of the infrastructure bill and the current version of the social spending bill can only be seen as a first step in the right direction, after three decades of different administrations neglecting infrastructure, education, healthcare, childcare, elderly care, upward mobility, and climate change. On the plus side as the first step to restore dignity and health of families and workers in America it includes- $150 billion for rental assistance, home buying help, public housing repairs, and building 1 million affordable housing units. $150 billion for federal programs for home health care and community care for older Americans and people with disabilities $165 billion to reduce premiums for people under Affordable Health Care Act, cover additional 4 million through Medicaid, adding hearing coverage but not dental or vision to Medicare. $200 billion for child care tax credit to parents. $400 billion to reduce health care costs and give universal pre-kindergarden for 3-4 year old children. $40 billion for worker training $555 billion for fighting climate change including through tax incentives for sources of energy that are low emission and low carbon. It will be paid for by additional taxes on incomes of very high income earners in annual $1 million plus range, and by having a corporate minimum tax of 15% for large corporations, including on profits overseas, that previously did not pay this tax. A wealth tax on unrealized capital gains of billionaires or other wealth of the richest Americans is left for a future Congress to consider for financing the key parts of climate change provisions, education and health care that were left out. The education and healthcare provisions need to be expanded to restore America's historic mission of upward mobility for all. A provision for Medicare to comprehensively negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies that would be taken for granted in any advanced country as in Europe, is also left for a future Congress that understands and responds to the dire needs of families and workers in America for affordable healthcare medicine neglected by administration after administration for the last three decades.   ...