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The WSJ provides a fact check of Trump statements on crime, debt, and taxes. Trump says he is looking at a new plan for taxes not the $10 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years reducing tax collection by 22%, but something about a third of the size. No details are available on the plan. WSJ disputes Trump's statement that the U.S. is "one of the highest taxed nations in the world." WSJ points out that the U.S. in 2014 for federal, state and local government taxes collected 26% of gross domestic product in taxes, compared to average of 34% for about 30 countries, according to OECD. Debt to GDP ratio is about 75% that is high, but because of low interest rates the budget deficit is less than 3% of GDP, which is close to the long run average. For this reason economists say the government should invest in infrastructure and R&D that supports long run economic growth. On crime the record is mixed with increase in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, but decreases in Washington D.C. and Baltimore. Police shootings were 67 in 2016 compared to 62 in July 2015, and the high being 280 officers in 1974 when Nixon was President. Crime was an issue in the 1968 Republican National Convention during the Vietnam era protests, police shootings and terror incidents attracted attention in July 2016, yet the situation today is very different from the war protests of the Vietnam era. On terrorism fact checks by the NYT and in Lyrarc shows Clinton at State Department and Panetta at Defense Department taking hawkish stands only to hit a barrier from President Obama for taking action needed in Syria, Iraq and Libya. Panetta's new book calls for robust action where needed. A Clinton administration would take action with allies in the Middle East. Even Hollande and Obama who pulled the U.S. and France out of following up in the French-British Sarkozy-Cameron led intervention in Libya, have changed policy, with Obama calling it his biggest mistake. France under Hollande with the U.S. is now actively engaged in the Middle East, having changed policy. It is highly unlikely that a Trump led policy which alienates most allies in the Middle East- Iran, Iraq and Saudis- is likely to work better than a determined Clinton-Panetta led effort which has support of the local countries on the ground actually currently on both sides because of complexities of Middle Eastern politics.  On trade a new administration will still have to work with China, India, the European Union, and other countries, as global trade supply chains are not likely to evolve overnight. Lessons will have been learned by Clinton about the need to bring back jobs and ensure the strength of U.S. manufacturing. Economic and jobs growth will require prudence in strengthening U.S. manufacturing coupled with global cooperation, which a Trump administration that alienates trading partners without the possibility of making any serious immediate gains in jobs, is highly unlikely to do better.      ...

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Shortage of oxygen tanks, and hospitals overrun with patients is leading to deaths at home in Mexico.

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Pakistan's economic delegation meets Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, at the IMF and World Bank Annual meeting in Bali, Indonesia. Lagarde calls for transparency in accounting and complete understanding of Pakistan's debt. IMF delegation will visit Islamabad to discuss terms for a loan. The previous government of Mr. Sharif came under criticism for not providing transparency on Pakistan's total debt. There is concern about debt trap diplomacy in loans from China, as loans may exceed the country's ability to repay and the interest rate terms are not seen as favorable to Pakistan. The Sharif government is criticized for not negotiating better terms for loans from China. Pakistan faces $8 billion debt load in 2018, with first payments to China under Belt and Road Initiative of $1 billion due in 2019. Pakistan's total foreign exchange reserves fell to a low of $8.4 billion, according to the central bank. Pakistan is seeking $12 billion in IMF assistance, but experts say more will be needed to bridge the financial gap. The Pakistan rupee dropped by 10% during this week in October 2018, down to 137 rupees for a U.S. dollar. The new government of prime minister Imran Khan took office in August 2018 after election promises to bring transparency to Pakistan's debt situation. Promises were also made to improve low income housing and meet needs of poor and low income public. Imran Khan opened a public housing project to build 5 million new homes. IMF terms could restrict the money available for badly needed housing and other social projects.  Pakistan's small tax base with a small percentage of the population paying taxes, also restricts the ability of the government to fund social welfare projects and infrastructure. It makes the country more dependent on outside assistance and loans. India has moved to expand its tax base, and is implementing GST tax reforms to increase the tax revenues available to fund infrastructure, health, education and housing. The war in Yemen has complicated other sources of funding traditionally accessed by Pakistan from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The financing gap is estimated by experts to be $20 billion, with the IMF assistance sought of $12 billion falling short of the financial needs. ...

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Indian finance minister Sitharaman announces a new stimulus package "Atman Nirbhar Bharat." This includes an effort to incentivize creation of employment opportunities for people making less than Rs. 15,000 a month ($215 a month), called "Atman Nirbhar Rozghar Yojana, for a period of 2 years. Sitharaman cited stock market rebound and foreign reserves reaching $560 billion to show that along with the government efforts and planned infrastructure the economy would make a robust recovery. Because of India's large informal economy help to street vendors and other small retail is critical in the Indian economy. The finance minister cited the "One Nation, One Ration Card" which allows street vendors and other retail merchants to access foodgrains from FPS of choice in 28 states and union territories in India. This is part of the effort to build demand and upward mobility in the economy. The names given for these efforts or yojanas are unique- PM SVANidhi stands for PM's Street Vendors Atmannirbhar Nidhi. Atmannirbhar is the overall plan for self reliance in the economy and the prime minister Modi has pushed for buying Made in India, to promote jobs and technology + capital accumulation in Indian manufacturing. India took a blow from the coronavirus with close to 9 million infected by the virus and lockdown in March. By September 20 the daily cases reached 100,000, and by November 10 the daily cases have dropped to 44,000. Social distancing and mask wearing are widely accepted in India. India has other advantages in the large pharmaceutical industry and access to drugs at government regulated and low prices as part of the planned effort after independence in 1947. Other aspects of Indian life are cultural preference for vegetables and fruits in the diet, and spices, herbs in cooking, yoga practice, which are anti-inflammatory and promote healthy living.  With the largest population in the world the region in the Indian ocean comprising the countries of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma and Indonesia, former parts of the British and Dutch empires, is a region where the coronavirus posed a great threat to human life. An early carefully orchestrated lockdown by prime minister Modi  helped with the message in March that India faced a singular choice - between going back 21 years in development or controlling the coronavirus in 21 crucial days. The setting up of the direct transfer of money to bank accounts  of farmers, urban street vendors and lower income people in rural areas by giving everyone a bank account under a government plan early in the first term of the current administration enabled it to send aid directly when coronavirus hit the country. Other schemes included cooking gas for women in rural areas who depended on firewood for cooking. These schemes and sanitation infrastructure setup under the Clean India campaign, helped India build an element of resilience when coronavirus hit.  The government plan to remove interstate barriers to commerce and integrate tax system collection at the federal level, bringing parts of the informal economy into the formal economy, have increased revenues that now finance an infrastructure plan that hopes to match the one in China over the next decade.   ...

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The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact led by Japan and the U.S. moves to the next stage with legislation introduced by Orrin Hatch and Ron Wyden in the U.S. Congress for granting trade promotion authority to the U.S. president. This would facilitate the negotiation of an agreement leading to concessions by different countries. Talks between Japan and the U.S. intensified with the U.S. president Obama saying in his 2015 State of the Union message that China wanted to write the rules for trade in Asia, and asking why the U.S. should not work to write its own rules. Defense Secretary, Aston Carter, called it more important than another aircraft carrier. Support from Europe, India and other countries for the China sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as a rival to the U.S. dominated World Bank and IMF, also give urgency to the TPP. The TPP countries, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Peru and Chile, make up over $400 billion of about $4 trillion in U.S. trade, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The TPP is now seen not just a free trade pact, but also as away to counter China's influence in Asia. Experts see the Obama administration as having bungled its handling of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which the U.S. did not join, and its allies in Europe, other Asian countries including India, decided to join as founding members. Democrats in Congress led by Senator Schumer, Warren, oppose the legislation granting fast track for free trade pacts citing the loss of jobs and lowering of wages for workers in manufacturing in the U.S., with only about a dozen Democrats favoring the legislation, leading to a split in the party. Projections by Peter Petri, Michael Plummer, Fan Zhai, of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, show a net negative impact on depressed wage sectors such as U.S. manufacturing with additional $45 billion in U.S. imports and $35 billion in exports for heavy manufacturing from the TPP free trade pact, and additional $33 billion of U.S. imports and $10 billion exports in light manufacturing by 2025. Higher wage sectors such as U.S. Services including IT get a boost with additional $42 billion in exports and $ 8 billion imports. Agriculture shows insignificant gains with additional exports of $2 billion and imports of 0.5 billion. The auto and transport sector disproportionately favors Japan with $33 billion in additional U.S. imports and $8 billion in exports. ...

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As the graph vivdly shows in 2005 and 2006 there is surge in subprime lending to Hispanics and blacks, with almost as many subprime loans to Hispanics and Black people as to whites. It slows down in 2007 by which time foreclosures were starting to take shape. WaMu, Countrywide, Ameriquest and other lenders who pushed subprime lending were backers of an initiative called Hogar which worked to spread lending to redline areas, in what an organization for responsible housing lending calls reverse redlining- in which high cost loans were pushed on those least able to sustain payments for a long time. Previously these areas did not get much lending because of the lack of good credit history.

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The former Chief Election Commissioner of India, Mr. S.Y Quraishi, looks at the 2019 Nigerian elections. Nigeria has about 47% of the population of West Africa. Muslims and Christians are almost equal in numbers and there are 300 ethnic groups. About 82.3 million voters were registered to vote. Quraishi sees the 41% registered voters to be disproportionate to the total population. In India about 62% of the total population is registered to vote. The Independent National Election Commission (INEC) chairman, Mr. Mahmood Yakubu, says security, fake news, hate  speech, and expenditure control are the top issues. Postponement, delays and chaos at polling stations contributed to a historic low turnout, 35.6% compared to 44% in 2015. Police presence was discreet and needed for the elections. A coalition of 70 civic organizations monitored the elections and contributed to its credibility. In Lagos there were 1.1 million valid votes. India has strong interest in Nigeria's democracy. Over 135 Indian companies have operations in Nigeria, including  State Bank of India, Bharti Airtel, Tata, Bajaj, Birla, Kirloskar, Mahindra. The election commissions of the two countries have met yet there is need for more engagement. About 50,000 Indians live in Nigeria. By continuing the process established by the two earlier elections including a peaceful transition from Mr. Goodfellow to Mr. Buhari, Nigeria is strengthening the democratic process. In continuing the fight against corruption, building infrastructure, the difficult process of modernization and development is taking place even with difficult economic conditions. ...

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India's Supreme Court rules on Aadhaar, India's biometric identification program, saying privacy is a fundamental right. Aadhar was started in 2009 as a way to help the poorest citizens and prevent leakage of fuel and food subsidies, and to fight corruption. Using biometric technology the government of prime minister Modi has extended the program as a way to build a database of digital fingerprints, iris scans of most of India's 1.2 billion people as part of a way to extend this into a national id card system for driver licenses, bank accounts, travel on Indian railways, making financial transactions. The government contends that privacy is not a fundamental right in a poor country where most citizens suffer from corruption and leakage of services and subsidies, given that basic safeguards against abuse are introduced. The Court's decision says privacy rights should be taken into account against surveillance by the state and for protection of data, and that it was part of the intrinsic rights of citizens to life and liberty. ...

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Karabell points out that Egypt ranks 137 in the world in per capita income (behind Tonga) and a population in the top 20. Two thirds of the population is under 30 years of age. The young in Egypt have no future with high rates of unemployment and little of the industrial development that you see in other large developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil. The 30 year rule of Mubarak also stifled any opportunity for public participation in the political process. During that rule Mubarak consciously decided to not pursue rapid economic development, something China has done even though it has a lack of public participation in the political process. As a result Egypt simply fell behind while the rest of the developing world improved opportunities in education, incomes and job opportunities.

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On the morning of Jan 15, 2015 the Swiss Franc jumped in value against the euro by 18%, and at one point up by 39%, following the Swiss National Bank's announcement of removal of the peg to the euro of 1.20 euros. Foreign exchange fluctuations of this scale are unprecedented. The peg to the euro was made in 2011 following the rise in the franc's value by about 44% in 2010-2011. The sudden rise in value in 2010-2011 hurt Swiss competitiveness and tourism, threatened to bring an onset of deflation, and recession. Part of the rise was due to external factors- the eurozone debt crisis led to decline in the value of the euro, and fears of a eurozone breakup led to money flowing into Switzerland as a safe haven.

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Studies by Professors who are co-directors of immgration studies at NYU show that the 16 million children of immigrant families are having hard times because of difficulties faced by their families including long periods of separation leading to depression, poverty, isolation. The absent parent being commonly the father. Most of these children are from Hispanic families. Immigrant children were crowded in the lower ranks for English language skills. The professors Marcelo and Carola Suarez-Orozco have studied immigrant children for over 20 years. This NYT editorial says the children are going to be part of a new generation of Americans and are th human capital of the future even as they are tangled up in the messy immigration debate that ends up treating many of these families poorly.

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Bernanke on mortgages and mortgage securtization process in talk to UC Berkeley. The system of covered bonds with excellent collateral held by banks used in Europe was mentioned as one option, or a government agency that insures bonds made of the mortgages for a fee from bond issuers.

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Melissa Eddy of the NYT provides this exceptional account of the debate in Germany on national priorities, as the child care educators represented by the Verdi service workers union go on strike for a 10% increase in wages. Workers at entry level jobs in manufacturing represented by strong unions earn the same pay as teachers in child care centers and early childhood education who have many years of experience. The child care education workers are supported by the federal family minister, SDP minister Manuela Schwesig, who says that the additional experience and education upto university level of the child care educators in early childhood education should be recognized. Schwesig said: "We need a debate in Germany on how much we value the work of those who take care of the early education of our children and with young adults." One aspect of the 240,000 child care educators strike has drawn less attention. This is the gender pay gap as a large percentage of educators in childcare centers are women. Equal Pay Day in Berlin was organized for June 5, to call for equal pay for women who have fallen behind in pay. Data from the European Commission in 2014 shows Germany ranks third to last in gender pay equality, with only Estonia and Austria trailing behind, as cited by Deutsche Welle. Schwesig who attended the rally pointed out: "When women, despite equal work and education, earn less than their male colleagues, it is not only unfair. It is wrong." While Germany has moved ahead in quotas for female employees, women in boardrooms, parental leave, this does not help women in critical areas such as early childhood education and elderly care, which suffer from a large pay gap with men working in manufacturing jobs. ...

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Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the IMF, and Peter Boone of the London School of Economics, compare the trip made by Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank and Dominique Strauss-Kahn of the IMF to Berlin to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German Parliament around April 29, 2010, to the trip Treasury Secretary Paulson made to the American Congress in September 2008. The seriousness is of that magnitude. The crisis is that big when you consider that it affects a number of eurozone countries, and the design of the euro currrency system in which Trichet and Strauss-Kahn were involved from the French side has some serious flaws in that it allows boom zone countries to overborrow and overspend. There is no way to resolve the situation through currency devaluations and other measures. Ultimately the cost will be similiar in the range of $1 trillion, say Johnson and Boone. The money would have to come from the G-20, and the IMF would have to represent the G-20 in negotiations with the ECB, the EU and Germany. The euro would have to be devalued and its value go back to $1 which is close to where it started. Eurozone bonds would have to be sold to finance the recovery, and countries that buy these bonds would then hold a proportional asset at the ECB. Johnson says Strauss-Kahn does not have what it takes to make the tough actions happen. His aspirations to run for President in France create a conflict of interest. A replacement is suggested in the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney....

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Are there costs or are there savings from the Obama health care bill? Does it affect jobs and how? The Congressional Budget Office says the health care law will save $230 billion in ten years based on a whole set of calculations and assumptions. Commonsense and basic math leads others to question how spending $930 billion on insuring 32 million Americans could end up with significant savings. The different view argues that the Budget Office erred in making some calculations, by counting $70 billion in premiums from long term care because they would be used to pay benefits later, omitted $115 billion in spending to adminster the law, and omitted $208 billion needed to prevent scheduled reductions in Medicare payments to doctors. The money needed on the Stimulus, on two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the uncertain prospects of the US economy in the longer term till debt and other issues are resolved, injects the critical element of difficult choices and priorities. If state and local budgets are severely strained in 2011-2012 would that require federal help and will there be other needs that will have to be met by the federal government that are critical such as another unexpected downturn, or a resolution of unresolved bad debt at the large US banks There is also a sense that the health care law does not do enough to reduce the cost of health care that will be needed over the next decade so that other priorities are not neglected. Both parties are not up to the task in this respect for running the country's finances withot using the numbers to tell different stories....

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An exceptional editorial on the steps taken since bankruptcy for reviving Detroit -with all the numbers one needs to know for how this was done and is progressing. The editorial gives credit to Michigan Governor Snyder and Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr for having the courage to guide Detroit through the bankruptcy. It sees the outcome emerging, including treatment of bondholders, pension funds, and city workers, as fair considering the problems involved. The steps are also being taken to correct the deep seated problems that caused the crisis.