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Detroit carmakers Chrysler and GM are falling back on incentives to grow sales for 2010 models. Chrysler is offering rebates upto $4000 and 0% financing. But it is a sign of how low the capacity utilization is in the industry. North American auto capacity utilization will average about 50% in 2009 according to JD Power & Associates.

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It says a lot about America at this time in 2025, and should be reassuring to all that these women are standing tall in their effort to do this- to pursue satisfaction of contributing to national life and professional lives, and being good parents involved in raising children. Shown in this report in WSJ as examples of Conservative Women are Alabama Senator Katie Britt 43 years, May Mailman deputy assistant to the President, and ,Shannon Clark. Other women shown are former North Carolina governor Nikki Haley,  Karoline Leavitt, press secretary to the president, Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas. They all say their faith, grit, family and spouse, and setting priorities, are helping them both make it in their careers and be engaged parents at the same time. Pew Research shows of women in both parties Republican and Democratic, about 70% want careers outside the home, and about 88% want good parenting at the same time.   ...

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Plan B for US president DJT on Tariffs - Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act to place a 150 day 15% tariff. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Trade Investigations under Section 301. Much of this set of laws are already in place and being used by the US. A law passed in 1930 is another avenue for tariffs Section 338 of ther Tariff Act of 1930. The US government and US president DJT could also have Congress enact a new law as it has majority in both the Senate and the House and the president could make acase for the reasonable use of tariffs with the EU and Japan having taken advantage of trade to the disadvantage of the US. There is also broad support for fentanyl action by the president using economic action on tariffs on nations Canada, Mexico, China that continue to let the flow of fentanyl across their borders for use by drug trafficking gangs in Mexico to send over US land border at the 2000 mile long US-Mexico border.

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To make it possible to for the sale of Paramount with its CBS subsidiary to Ellison's Skydance for $8 billion, the company has stepped back from its confrontation with president DJT in a lawsuit. The 60's commentator Walter Cronkite was from CBS News, and Edward Murrow broadcast on  World War II on CBS News.  Somehow this has gone awry with recent coverage in 2024. DJT objected to CBS head Wendy McMahon's handling of news coverage on programs such as -60 Minutes, Face the Nation on Sundays, that he said was tailored to present Democrats candidate Kamala Harris in a certain way, that affected DJT's chances with voters. 

For the sale to Skydance to go ahead to Paramount which owns CBS, needed te cooperation of the Federal Communications Commission under Brendan Carr. Paramount settled the DJT lawsuit for $16 million with Wendy McMahon departing CBS News, the money going directly to DJT Presidential Library. 

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UK's Guardian shows Hope Not Hate detailed analysis of 11342 Reform UK 2025 voters split into 5 categories- Working Right 26% Squeezed Stewards 29% Reluctant Reformers 19% Contrarian youth 9% hardline Conservatives 18%. Squeezed Stewards are middle income voters who have lost patience with illegal migration and UK Conservatives and Labour slow to wake up to how it is having a corrosive effect on UK society. They are a crucial swing vote that could decide the next election in UK if a Labour government falters. These voters care about nature, fairness and local control. It also shows how as Lyrarc shows patience is wearing thin in UK on illegal migration when Denmark's Mette Frederiksen of a socialist Nordic party called for an end to illegal migration 10 years back- Wilders in Netherlands 5 years back. The Working Right and Hard line Conservatives form the core 44% of the vote- the part of workers who are conservative and religion conscious, and the part of the Conservative party's core base shifting to Reform UK. ...

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The foreign lobbying by Pakistan and then India in Washington DC for access to the White House using lobbyist firms in the US. This enabled leaders from Pakistan to visit the White House in the US soon after conflict between Pakistan and India erupted over terrorist incident. Terrorist incidents happened in New Delhi and Islamabad in November 2025. The DJT administration may have gained support from Pakistan/Turkey for the Hamas settlement through this lobbying effort. The DJT administration inadvertently put itself in a position of being influenced by lobbying in this case for access to the White House. Following that event China's president Xi Jinping tightened restrictions on rare earths in trade negotiations with the US for a temporary agreement that gives access to the US market. This leaves the issue of illegal fentanyl flows from China and Mexico to the US, important to the US, and of restructuring world trade, also important to the US, major goals of this Republican administration in abeyance.   ...

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US inflation in May was up 1% over April 2022, and 8.6% above a year earlier. Of the 1% increase in May over April about half was from increase in prices of appliances and furniture and consumer items bought from stores such as Walmart and Target. The trend is shifting quickly as buyers are shifting purchases out of this category and spending more on travel and eating out, entertainment. Retailers such as Target are stuck with excess inventory and plan to discount items. This will result in an easing of inflation.

Shortage of semiconductors for cars are persisting but should ease at some time. Service cost continue to increase. Overall there should be an easing of inflation but not enough for the Fed to change its policy of interest rate increases.

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Parmeswaran Iyer takes over India's development planning body Niti Aayog from Amitabh Kant on June 30. Iyer joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1981. He led the Swachh Bharat or Clean India Mission in 2016, and headed the national drinking water and sanitation department. In 2009 he left IAS to join the World Bank as Global Lead for Water Global Practice initiatives. He has also served as Professor of Management Practice at the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad. 

The Modi administration has selected a person in the right field of water resources with IAS background from Uttar Pradesh, and proven management ability to deliver results, for the critical task of leading India's development to 2030. 

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Adriana Kugler a Labor economist at Georgetown is president Biden's nominee for the Federal Reserve Board. In 2021 she was nominated as Executive Director at the World Bank. Her work is on how labor and social policies can improve the lives of working people, help create jobs, and help the less well off get education and training. Asked about Biden nominating labor economists to top jobs she says-"This is the key issue of our time. This is what we need to fix." As the first Latina in this position at the World Bank, Kugler who is a Colombian-American says, "they view me differently," and have a sense of being heard by someone who understands what it is like ot grow up in a developing country.

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This BBC independent review into its economic coverage by Dilnot and Blastland covered by The Guardian, shows that economics has been badly presented and mostly misunderstood in the culture and the media, leading to errors in policy that hurt workers and families in Britain and the US. Tory spending cuts in Britain have led to a lost 400 billion pounds in growth since 2010, says The Guardian citing the TUC report. Britain's GDP would be 2 trillion pounds higher today if the pre-1979 growth rate was maintained, says TUC. This editorial says about the framing of the debt and spending in the culture and media- "It is an anti-democratic bias that shuts people out of discussion about their lives and their society."

 

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US housing prices are seeing a decline in 2022 as a result of the Fed's interest rate increases even though there is no extra supply of housing. Renters are staying away from high mortgage payments at the higher rates, and families with a 3% mortgage are staying put rather than risk making larger mortgage payments for a new home. Fed's Jerome Powell has this to say- "You had housing markets go up at very unsustainable levels and overheating. Now the housing market is going through the other side of that and hopefully coming out at abetter place." This is more like the drop in demand for housing in 1979 which revived in 1983 after the Fed eased up on increasing rates, says the WSJ.

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Companies in retail, construction  entertainment sectors made layoffs in the first 2 years of the pandemic. White collar workers worked remotely and were not affected that much. In 2023 the layoffs are now affecting professionals and white collar workers. White collar workers are also paid more which creates savings for companies when they layoff higher paid professionals who do not perform critical tasks. In manufacturing and blue collar worker industries there are not many layoffs because companies are hoarding these workers as there are worker shortages. Many workers retired in manufacturing and blue collar leading to shortages in these sectors. Because this is not typical in the layoffs and hiring cycles seen previous to the pandemic this is an unusual situation.

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Much of inflation's rise in the US has been transitory after all, says Greg Ip in the WSJ, yet credit Jay Powell at the Fed for his resolute fight against inflation. Gasoline that was over $5.00 a gallon in June when inflation was at 9.1% following Russia's Ukraine war is now $3.27 according to AAA, and this is an important reason why inflation is at 6.5% in December 2023. Demand for autos after pandemic and lockdowns coupled with supply chain problems caused auto prices and used car prices to rise sharply. This is now reversing with price declines. Ultra low interest rates caused a jump in home prices- this is reversing with Jay Powell and the Fed increasing interest rates sharply.

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The large Indian communities living overseas has always been an important factor in India's development, the remittances, the two way flow of technology as ideas and scientific knowledge is brought back. This was true for China in its period of rapid development and is true also for India today. This report looks at Indians giving up citizenship (about 225,00 in 2022) yet most of the people interviewed  in this report say they do this only because there is no dual citizenship route. There are some areas that Indian business can improve on easily which are work life balance which are the reasons some have chosen to live overseas- this would also improve the productivity of the workforce and needs to be considered by Indian business leaders for their companies. 

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Germany's Economy Minister Robert Habeck says Germany has plans to almost completely end Russian energy imports by the end of the year. For this to happen Germany has to make extensive progress in cutting oil imports in a short time. By the end of summer the Russian energy imports will be cut by half. The effort is significant because before the invasion of Ukraine Germany received 50% of its coal, 55% of its gas, and 35% of its oil from Moscow. Coal deliveries will end by the end of autumn. 

Habeck confirmed that current contracts with Russian companies to import energy will not be renewed. He also confirmed that Russian gas deliveries will take longer to be stopped- not till mid-2024.

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The French British collaboration effort will bring a new vaccine to the global effort against coronavirus. This vaccine was expected in February 21. It will be ready by the third quarter of 2021 just as vaccine supplies are being ramped up. The Sanofi Pasteur unit and GSK Glaxo SmithKline are the two companies in this vaccine venture. This vaccine will address the problem of new mutations of the virus in the British and South African versions and can be stored at normal temperatures. 
 

The new vaccines will boost supplies just when the situation is bleak for vaccine supplies in Latin America and Africa, South East Asia, places left out in the vaccine race in advanced countries and in India. Britain has ordered 60 million doses. 

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Disagreements on how much to fund an education recovery effort in the Toy government of Mr. Johnson. Sir Kevan Collins resigns after his program designed to help students recover from the loss of study time from coronavirus at a cost of 15 billion pounds is rejected. The government plans to put 1.4 billion pounds, which Sir Collins calls too narrow, and not doing enough, delivering too slowly. Sir Collins had hoped to give 6th Formers and extra 100 hours of schooling and help prepare students for GCSE exams. He would have extended school time by 30 minutes in 2022 and setup a 35 hour week for students.

Netherlands plans to spend 2500 pounds per student, the US 1600 pounds per student, the UK 50 pounds per student. 

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US banks are awash with cash deposits by companies. During the pandemic companies borrowed- at rates close to zero set by the Federal Reserve at the height of the pandemic- in case they needed the money, and deposited cash at the banks. Verizon increased its cash holdings by 45% to 10.2 billion in the 1st quarter of 2021. Now banks in the US are turning down cash deposits by companies which have to carry it on their books earning no interest. Banks cannot lend out the cash deposits as there is not enough demand for loans.

Between late March and May 26 US bank deposits surged to $17.09 trillion, increasing by another $411 billion in April and May, according to the US central bank.

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US president Biden puts forward a sweeping clean energy plan that could zero out US emissions by 2050. It calls for paying utilities to make a rapid transition to clean energy, and financial penalties for utilities that are slow. Tariffs would be put in place on imports from oil and gas producers for leaking greenhouse gases into the environment from wells, pipes and tanks. Wind and solar units would get new tax incentives. Biden through this plan would achieve the pledge of clean energy so that the US would help eliminate emissions from US power generation by 2035. It also mimics state requirements for higher proportions of energy from solar and wind, other clean sources. The Biden program would invest $300 billion, on a scale that is needed to tackle the challenge.

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A look at how Germany voted on a map of Germany gives a better idea of what really happened in the 2021 election. The narrow margin of about 2% of Social Democrats over Christian Democrats looks different from the map. The CDU black color region is mostly all of southern Germany, the region includes Bavaria with its capital Munich. And parts of West Germany around Cologne.

In Cologne and Berlin the Greens dominated.

The rest of Germany is all Social Democrats red. Only in parts of the  east in Saxony and Thuringia one finds AfD far right.

Geographically SPD red is all over Germany except for the southern region of Bavaria. A seat Merkel held for 30 years went to the Social Democrats SPD party,

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A cargo ship hits Francis Scott Key Bridge which crosses outer Baltimore harbour and the bridge collapses on March 27, 2024. Pictures capture the bridge actually collapsing right in front of our eyes, a reminder of the infrastructure building that was neglected for so long during a period of foreign wars in remote mountains and deserts of the Middle East, and a period of tech and other monopolies where corporations paid less in taxes than teachers, nurses and childcare workers, both depriving the government of needed revenues for nation building infrastructure, and needed investments in manufacturing, health, education, reversing climate change. A period of neglect and lost decades which president Biden and a bipartisan group of Congressman are only now reversing with no time to lose.

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This editorial in The Guardian points out that only a tiny fraction of the British people, merely 160,000 members of the Tory Conservative party are for the last 2 months in July and August 2022 determining what kind of government Britain should have at a time of cost of living crisis. Most of these 160,000 are male, upper class, older and propertied. No government action is taking place to protect people from cost increases. In France the energy price increase is limited to 4% by the government, Spain is doing the same to limit cost increases. And in Britain Ofgem regulator has allowed the price cap for energy to triple relative to a year ago and no minister there available to answer the public's questions, kind of surreal.

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Unemployment rate in urban areas of India decrease for the fourth consecutive quarter to 7.6% in the April to June quarter of 2022. It is now lower than the pre-pandemic level.  Employment growth continued in July and August, as shown in the Global Purchasing Managers Indices for the Manufacturing and Services sectors. The Finance Ministry say what is at work are the reflection of "increasing effectiveness of income support and targeted subsidies provided by the government, creation of jobs from elevated levels of public sector capital expenditures, and general rise in employment levels."  Added to this are the foreign direct investment flows being the fifth largest among a "defined set of developed and developing economies," and the increase in exports.

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It is the biggest change for lives of women in India- the 100 millionth connection of cooking gas LPG connection in India. Nothing like this change has been seen in centuries of history where 100 million women from poor households and their families have been thrust into the modern age. The two videos shown here show the outlines of the Ujjwala Scheme for cooking gas launched in 2016. The prime minister visits the home of the recipient of the 100 millionth cooking gas connection at her home built under loans for new homes under another scheme. This is taking place as Indian Railways has increased its investment in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh to Rs.17,000 crores, $2 billion for 2023, with complete electrification of rail lines.

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Jeff Sommer in the NYT says no one could have predicted the pandemic or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He says forecasts for the stock and bond markets over the short term for 2023 are useless. Most have missed by 12- 25% he says and compares this to forecasts that predict a cold day when it is going to be 60 degrees outside. Sommer's says in today's situation only long term horizons are relevant, looking and saving, investing over a ten year period. He cites Vanguard's approach of looking at the long term horizon in its investment outlook over 10 years on the Vanguard site as the right one based on the experience of the last 20-30 years and historical experience over long periods.