LyrArc Article Gist
According to preliminary estimates of the UK Office for National Statistics, gross domestic product fell 0.5% in October through December 2010, after expanding 0.7% in the third quarter of 2010. The UK inflation rate increased to 3.7%. At the same time the money the UK needed to borrow in December 2010 came in at 16.8 billion pounds, down from the 21 billion pounds in December 2009, showing an improvement in public finances. The two main drivers of UK growth are now set to slow down. Consumption spending down because of higher unemployment and inflation, and tax increases equivalent to 8% of GDP over 4 years. And government spending cuts leading to a reduction in spending for the 2011 fiscal year of 23 billion pounds. UK economic growth is 2010 is 1.4%, after contractions of 4.9% in 2009 and 0.1% in 2008. The UK Treasury chief George Osborne said the government will "not be blown off course by bad weather." Central bank governor Mervyn King pointed to the choppy recovery. Referring to the austerity policies King said, "the right course has been set and it is important to maintain it."...

LyrArc Article Gist
Seen as a rural urban divide, less educated and well educated and tech workers the situation in France looks similar to that in the US in the elections of 2016 and 2020. With business in the US and European Union shifting manufacturing to China and the governments neglecting rural areas, decline in standard of living for people on pensions that have not kept up with the cost of living, the situation in France as in the US is decades in the making. Bernie Sanders and Melenchon were appealing in different ways to younger people yearning for change and a system that would correct these changes.   Melenchon coming this close to less than one percentage point of Le Pen in the first round of French elections shows that a straight Macron Le Pen version of what has happened is an oversimplification, just as seeing the changes in America under president Biden vs Trump would be a simplification, as voters for Sanders who voted for Biden are changing the Biden agenda and setting America on a new path. A path to reshoring jobs that were sent to China, rebuilding American manufacturing, increasing workers wages and restoring workers leverage for higher wages, investing $2 trillion in child care, housing, supporting worker incomes and families, supporting older Americans on pensions. In the same way beneath the idea that nothing has happened after the yellow vest protests for cost of living, that has not only not gone away- but increased in the concern for cost of living in this election with the surging inflation - new developments are happening.  Even as Germany under Merkel appeared not be changing in 2020- 1 year after Merkel the situation will have changed completely to address social concerns that were ignored earlier and to invest in infrastructure in a big way. Behind this is a fundamental change that is taking place. Facing a challenge from totalitarian states the fabric of society in the free world, the US, Germany, France, other EU states, India, and nations in the free world will have to respond with changes that restore the fabric of society to what it was before this kind of fracturing, bringing all parts of society together to bring all the energies in place for rebuilding, investing in infrastructure, restoring local manufacturing and renewal. It requires a unified effort to be put in place to respond in the right way.     ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Romney picks seven term Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate for the 2012 U.S. presidential election. It is a daring pick because Ryan has clear ideas about reducing the U.S. deficit which are in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Obama and Biden, offering American voters a clear choice. This is similiar to the contrasting choices between Reagan-Bush and Carter-Mondale during a period of high unemployment and inflation in the 1980 presidential election. The contrast was also made clear by the release of the Shultz memo to President Reagan and the comparisons with the Reagan election by Romney economic advisor Glenn Hubbard, both recently published in WSJ.

LyrArc Article Gist
Growth of 2.5% for the second quarter in S. Africa, and expected growth of 2% in 2013, down from 2.5% in 2012. High unemployment at 25% and a 23% depreciation of the Rand against the dollar in 2013. The current account deficit is at 5.8% putting pressure on the Rand which is at 10.45 to the dollar in August 2013. Labor unrest at mines which make up about half of exports is hurting the economy. This has spread to other sectors. About 100,000 airport technicians and construction workers were on strike in August 2013 for wage increases at twice the annual inflation rate of 6.3%. Strikes are also taking place at Ford's auo plant.

LyrArc Article Gist
hOw the conventional thinking about the availability of oil to supply ever increasing demand is changing. At some point oil availability will not satisfy increasing demand in the very near term. Current production is 85 million barrels a day, some experts see the supply ceiling at 100 million barrels a day and that ceiling could be reached as demand increases by 2012. The reasoning is based not on what is under the ground but on what is likely to happen considering all the factors, political factors with countries preferring to leave oil in the ground, shortages of engineers and high prices of drilling rigs and equipments creating constraints, and the inflation in exploration costs leading to underinvestment.

LyrArc Article Gist
The US economy is growing at a much faster pace than Europe or China in the last quarter of 2021- at 7% annualized growth in the fourth quarter up from 2% in the third quarter, according to Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. This compares to 2% in eurozone and 4% in China. Major US ports such as Los Angeles are processing 20% more container volume in 2021 than in 2019, while Rotterdam and Hamburg are almost flat compared to 2019 level. Consumption of durable goods has jumped 45% above 2018 levels in the US, only 2% in eurozone, according to ECB data. The factory gate prices in China are far outpacing the consumer prices in China, suggesting weak domestic demand and strong foreign demand. Lars Jensen, head of network at container ship company A.P. Moller-Maersk says the global supply bottlenecks were started by this surge in US demand with more ships headed for the US taking ships away from other places. The US economy will grow at 6% in 2021 and 4% in 2022, with wages growing 4% a year above the pre-pandemic trend rate, compared with 1% in eurozone, according to Bank for International Settlements. This is pushing inflation up in other countries by pushing up the value of the dollar. In Mexico hitting 7.4% and the central bank raising interest rates 0.5% point to 5.5%. In Russia inflation up to 8.4% and central bank raising interest rates by 1percentage point to 8.5%. The equipment investment in the US is up by 13% this year according to JP Morgan Chase, only 3.6% in eurozone, 0.1% in Japan. All this is creating a large gap between the US and Europe, US and China in economic growth and demand growth, and in income growth. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Across Africa the situation is worsening for food security following the pandemic. More people are likely to die from food insecurity than from the pandemic. A succession of crises including drought, a locust swarm moving over vast parts east Africa into South Asia, and tons of crops rotting in the field after the lockdowns, are making the situation worse. With the lockdowns many informal economy workers are not able to earn a living, with no safety net this means they are going without food and slipping deeper into poverty. Remittances from overseas supported many people in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and this has dropped by about 20-30%. As a result the World Food Program estimated in April that 265 million people, double that in 2019 will face world hunger- 3 in every 100 in the world. About 821 million will face food insecurity. The world food system is fragile with just none plant species accounting for two thirds the global crop, with threats of soil erosion, rising temperatures, extreme weather and disease. Wars, high inflation, political struggles, and conflicts make things worse. The hope comes from the fact that this time the largest countries China and India are emerging in 2020 very different from what they faced for most of the nineteenth century, with recurring famines and lack of access to food supplies. India now even allows farmers to export food to buyers in other countries directly. Getting money into the hands of farmers and people in food insecurity areas is one way for them to access existing food supplies all over the world. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The Guardian shows pictures in both black and white and in color from the last 50 years of US president Joe Biden. The first picture is a black and white picture from 20 November 1972 showing him cutting his 30th birthday cake with his wife Nelia, sons Beau, and Hunter. He is shown taking the oath of office for the Senate as he turned 30 the youngest senator and now the oldest former senator to be president. On the Metroliner Amtrak in 1988. He spent decades riding Amtrak to Washington D.C. He campaigned with Jill Biden for president in 1988. Not till the extraordinary situation of the pandemic in 2020 did Americans who largely ignored him give him the opportunity to lead- and at what a time when the Nation desperately needed his vision and his leadership through the largest vaccination program in history with the exception of that in India. And following this with his skills in Congress to get the legislation passed with Republicans for trillions of dollars to go into aiding families recover, and the economy to recover, investing in chips and science, and in infrastructure in ways that have happened only three times in American history, first in the early days of rail transforming a largely agricultural country during Lincoln and Grant's years as president in 1860's and 1870's, and again during the TR, Woodrow Wilson years in the 1900, 1910 period, and in the period under FDR, Truman and Ike 1940's, 1950's. No other country recovered better and stronger, and yet because of the lingering effects of the pandemic with 1 million dead from the Covid virus, and increases in the cost of living even as inflation was brought down from 9% to 3% for reasons stemming from unwise decision of American business to concentrate the supply chain in China, from housing and automobile price increases, the Nation did not immediately grasp the sheer magnitude of what had been achieved. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The overheating economy in Turkey. Inflation could reach 7.5% by the end of 2011 according to Goldman Sachs. HSBC economist, Murat Ulgen, estimates the current account deficit could reach 8% of GDP in the the 12 months ending in March. Goldman Sachs economist, Ahmet Akarli, says the government has kept the fiscal and monetary stimulus for too long. The AKP party is expected to win elections in June 2011 elections and the growing economy is helping it win voter support. His estimate is that nominal wage growth is 18% a year, domestic demand is rising by 25% and credit growth is 30-40%. It is proving hard for the central bank to control capital inflows which is making monetary conditions far too loose. In 2010 the central bank cut interest rates and raised reserve requirements for foreign and local banks to slow capital inflows but this was ineffective. Now the central bank is raising interest rates. Consumer lending is at an all time high and raising reserve requirements is not working. Turkey's new central bank governor, Erdem Basci, says the seas are choppy and a storm may erupt at any time even though things are steady at this time. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Sergio Massa, mayor of Buenos Aires, wins the midterm elections in Buenos Aires with a margin of over 12 points over a Peronist candidate supported by Christina Kirchner. Kirchner won election in 2011 with 54% of the vote. Since then her popularity has declined. Her faction of the Peronist party won about a third of the vote in the 2013 midterm elections but lost in Buenos Aires province which has about 40% of the national vote. Inflation estimated at 25% and slowing economic growth of about 3% are leading people to question the policies of president Christina Kirchner. Sergio Massa is a former chief of staff of Christina Kirchner who has formed his own party after differences with Kirchner on the need for a more business friendly policy to attract foreign investment.

LyrArc Article Gist
UK economy declines 0.3% in April 2025 as exports to US decline. The UK is one of the few countries that reached a trade agreement with the US. Also important to note is that the UK economy grew by 0.7% in the 1st quarter of 2025. The US tariffs are a negotiating strategy says Treasury Secretary Bessent to get countries  including the EU and China to have a level playing field in trade with the US, and not take the US for a ride. This has some costs but they are temporary and we are all better off that world trade can now be on a firmer footing than the imbalances of before. Bessent for instance told members of the US Congress in the last 2 days that US inflation is actually 0.1% and has come down, the 10 year yield in the US bond markets has come down, and the US is managing this transition without cost increases. He said Walmart had increased prices after tariffs, Amazon and Home Depot had not, and he sees American buying from sellers like Amazon and Home Depot. The British economy will also benefit with the certainty that it now has a clear trade agreement under fair rules that will promote bilateral trade with the US. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
US president Trump appointed Powell in 2016 in his first year in office. DJT's advisers have told him that it is important that the Fed have autonomy, and that the Fed was structured from inception for having the independent judgement for what is best for the economy. At times DJT has wanted the Fed in his first term to at least consult with the president.

In this context remember that Powell as chair of the Fed will be till May 2026. And Powell will remain as Governor on the Fed Board till Jan 2028. Of the current 7 governors the only other terms of a Fed Governor that expires early is Adriana Kugler in 2026.

DJT tariff and tax policies could increase inflation and growth which will require the Fed to recalibrate its views on cutting rates. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Paul Krugman describes the situation of slowing inflation in America and the prospects for president Biden in 2024. In just a few months since the midterms inflation is receding. Shoppers are showing resistance to price increases in retail stores. The Fed under Jay Powell has taken a resolute stand against inflation slowing inflation in house sales and rental, in automobile pricing and other sectors of the US economy. New investments under the climate change bill passed in Congress and the CHIPS and Science Act, Inflation Reduction Bill, mean more factory openings and jobs in America. A milder winter in Europe is helping it tackle an energy shortage and bringing oil prices under control.

LyrArc Article Gist
Italy raised 18 billion euros in a record auction on Oct. 18, 2012, meeting its needs for the rest of the year. Italy's yield dropped to 4.64% on Oct 18. Spain raised 4.6 billion euros at 5.32%. Italy sold most of the BTP Italia bonds to Italian citizens with a 4 year bond linked to Italian inflation and designed for Italian retail investors with a new eBay type internet platform, including a loyalty premium of extra 40 basis points. Italian retail investors have 8 trillion euros in net private wealth and household wealth in Italy is more than 4 times the sovereign debt, according to the Bank of Italy. This is a big difference compared to Spain, because the interest on the bonds remains in Italy for consumption and investment. Spanish households are highly indebted after the housing bubble.

LyrArc Article Gist
Kessler says the assumption that pension systems such as Calpers (California Public Employees Retirement System), can make returns of 7.5% is fantasy considering that U.S. Treasury bonds are yielding 1.74%. Calpers reduced its expected rate of return on its portfolio to 7.5% fom 7.75% in June 2012. Public pension funds in Illinois use 8.18% for expected returns. U.S. public companies with defined benefit pension plan assets of $1.3 trillion use an expected rate of return of 7.5%, even though these assets have return of 5.6% since 2000. Kessler's estimate for expected rate of return is about 3%- fixed income yielding negative real rates of return and pulling returns down. For equities he estimates return at the total of inflation component at +2%, productivity component at +2%, and multiple expansion at -1% because interest rates are at zero.

LyrArc Article Gist
Ben Hubbard of NYT looks at the difficult situation in the Turkish economy in 2023 with high inflation and the costs of rebuilding after the earthquake. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Greg Ip in the WSJ says president Biden's popularity has not surged because of lack of results in the fight against inflation. Yet inflation has been cut in half as reported in the WSJ recently, with May inflation of 4% in the US being about half of what it was at its peak of 9% in 2022.  Inflation is much worse in Europe. Biden policies that helped fight inflation included the Inflation Reduction Act to control health costs, the policies to keep Russian oil below a certain level that reduced oil prices to $75 a barrel, and the sequential interest rate increases by Jerome Powell at the Fed. The long term benefits of increased investment in manufacturing in the US for jobs growth, and competitive policy to gain US leadership in many technologies also provide for sound growth in the long term. 

LyrArc Article Gist
Moderate far right, right and socialist have less meaning in the context of the French government of prime minister Michael Barnier. The NFP as the largest single party sees the turning down of it's moderate candidate Lucie Castets by Macron as not representative of the vote. Michael Barnier's choice as prime minister from the Les Republicains party with 47 members in the new National Assembly, the smallest of the top four parties NFP, Renaissance, RN and LR, means he will have to depend on Marie Le Pen's RN party to remain prime minister. Together the Les Republicains of Sarkozy and the Ensemble of Macron  have 213 members in the National Assembly representing the status quo, 168 for Ensemble Macron and 45 Les Republicians the Gaullist party. These two parties are the largest bloc combined compared to 182 seats for the socialist NFP Front Populaire and the Le Pen party with 143 seats. The strange twist is that Macron started out in the Socialist Party and was part of the Socialist administration of Francois Hollande, who formed his own party Renaissance (now Ensemble) to bring younger faces and replace the old political parties. This led to the decline of the Gaullist Les Republicains party. In 2024 Macron is back to the old parties- becoming part of an alliance with the old Les Republicains Gaullists. Yet the financial crises of 2009, the pandemic, and the inflation crises in France have changed France from what it was in the Gaullist De Gaulle period in the 60's to 90's, with a struggling lower and middle class who have shifted their support to Le Pen and to the Socialist Front Populaire. Barnier is left with the challenging job of combining new immigration policies (Le Pen) with socialist policies to help the middle and working class. A new consensus that says stopping migrants is part of helping working class (in Denmark and other EU countries) is how Barnier has to approach this situation to bring together different parties. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
RDQ Economcs expects the consumer price index to come in at 4% by the end of 2011. Rising prices of corn and fuel largely account for this rise.

LyrArc Article Gist
The Economist view is that the USA, the Euro-zone, and the emerging markets, are all moving in different directions. The US has failed to address deficit concerns in the recent Bush tax cuts deal between Obama and the Republicans. The Euro-zone faces the prospect propping up its weaker members facing a debt crisis. and slowing growth from spending cuts.The monetary conditions are too loose and the flow of capital into emerging markets risks increasing inflation. This increases the chances of a macroeconomic shock if the govenments and central banks in emerging markets don't get the adjustments right- either doing too much or too little. The US faces the prospect of problems in the bond market with current management of public finances.The Economist views the risks compounding as a result of these divergences between these three regions, with the prospect of 2011 becoming a year of damaging shocks.

LyrArc Article Gist
Turkey's lira depreciates by 21% in 2013 and an additional 7% by January 24, 2014. The central bank uses up a third of its foreign exchange reserves or $19 billion in intervention to support the lira since June 2013. The intervention on June 24, 2014, did not work and the lira continued its downward slide to 2.30 to the lira. The political protests in Turkey and divisions within factions in the government about corruption probes has led to a political crisis and investors pulling back from Turkey. The central bank failed to increase interest rates as expected by investors and suggested by the IMF. Inflation is running at 7.4% for 2013. In August 2001 a currency crisis caused the banking system to collapse. The financial position is stronger than in that crisis, yet the recent political crisis and the large current account deficit has badly dented investor sentiment.

LyrArc Article Gist
Gerald Seib of the WSJ says president Biden is coming back with new actions to revive the Democratic agenda after a challenging period in the first year. Yesterday's first formal press conference of 2022 gave Biden an opportunity to respond. Why the WSJ, NYT, did not cover on their online edition front pages president Biden's first formal press conference on Jan. 19, after 1 year of the Biden administration, will remain a mystery. With the American press acting this way it did not take much for Germany's DW.com to run the story with the title "Biden's first year weighed down by disappointment," with a thoughtful Biden at the press conference replaced by a picture of Biden staring downwards.  This is only the first year of the Biden administration. Actions are planned to ease the supply chain situation and bottlenecks at ports. Much is made of inflation, Afghanistan, Ukraine, by Republicans assailing the Biden record. President Biden responded to this by asking at the press conference what Republicans are for. On Afghanistan Biden held firm on not investing billions of dollars every week when there is so much need in America and the rest of the world at this time of the pandemic after a failed adventure for 20 years in "a graveyard for empires."  Biden pointed to the bright spots in 2022- vaccination and testing achievements in the face of anti-vax sentiment with 200 million vaccinated, the job creation in the economy with unemployment way down and wage increases by employers, and the $1 trillion in infrastructure spending tackling much needed projects state by state with immediate impact. Rarely has a president faced so many challenges in the first year as Biden pointed out- vaccination drive in the face of the Delta variant and anti-vax sentiment, the Ukraine crisis with a president Truman period like event of the Berlin Wall coming up just potentially around the corner, and efforts to tackle problems left untackled for a generation in infrastructure, for working families and climate change. Scoring on infrastructure spending, one of the three, with the other two for working families and climate change to be tackled in the remaining three years and beyond.  Biden also told the American audience at the press conference that he was reminded of what his father used to tell him- that if all goals are equally important, nothing is important. In saying this he said help for working families through child tax credit, child care assistance, community college education funding, health care costs, climate change investment were priorities for his administration that would be tackled step by step. And he pointed out from the outset of the conference that only one or two senators were blocking the party's plan for children and working families. All 48 other senators were united in the Democratic party behind his plans for workers and families. As were 5 Republican senators who he said he would not disclose because of confidentiality. In that sense president Biden already has the majority he needs in Congress. This is not happening because of the peculiar situation of the 2016 and 2020 elections in the US and also in Europe- the historical problem of administrations of Democrats in US, Social Democrats in Germany, and Labor in Britain having give up on their working class families and middle class roots. Tech revolution and internet has further complicated the situation with economic changes, tech companies not paying taxes normally due, and tech workers shifting to Democrats yet living in a world distant from working class families fracturing social cohesion. This is changing in Germany with Scholz in Germany with the help of the Greens determined to restore the dignity of working class families, for Biden with a similar coalition, and a process underway in Britain as Labor returns to its roots. In essence Biden was saying- the process of unwinding decades of unwise policy that hurt America as a nation and leader of the free world would take time, requiring a patient step by step approach. To bring America closer to its own roots and Jefferson's immortal words of "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Jefferson went on to say in the Declaration that when government becomes destructive of these ends it is the Right of the People to alter it.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
After all the media talk about tariffs inflation- inflation is at 2.4% in May 2025. Tariffs was part of the toolbox of strategies under Lighthizer and Jamieson on getting fair world trade, and not like Congressman Hawley in the 1920's who understood little about the workings of the US economy. This fact the official media such as the WSJ and NYT, Wash Post, BBC need to get it right about the Hawley Tariffs. Hawley was born in rural Oregon in 1864 went to country schools, and was president of Willamette University in Salem, when it's population was 4258. As House Ways and Means Committee chairman he wrote the failed tariffs bill Hoover signed in 1930. DJT's US Trade Representative Lighthizer in 2016 led the successful negotiations with Japan under Reagan, Scott Bessent who leads negotiations on tariffs with China with USTR Jamieson, has a deep understanding and grasp of today's financial markets. Tariffs is one of the tools in the US toolbox to get Japan, China, South Korea to even the playing field for US companies and bring back manufacturing to the US. Without it China would not budge from its unfair advantage and would not negotiate in fairness. This is proven in the way Japan in the 1980s and China today are responding to the US position preparing their economies for not relying on sudden surges in exports putting whole industries and workers in America and Europe out of work and out of jobs. DJT says- "No we are not going to accept that," the EU is catching on and adopting a similar position, China knows that.  The media is irresponsible in presenting tariffs in a negative way, irresponsible to American workers the 10 million put out of work since 2000, and to American families and the Nation.   ...