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The Obama administration's foreclosure prevention programs were designed for subprime lending situations. They were not designed for the high unemployment experienced in the U.S. A Treasury Department effort allows jobless people to postpone mortgage payments for 3 months, the average length of unemployment however is 9 months. Only 7,397 participants are in this program. As part of the bailouts Treasury had $46 billion to spend to prevent foreclosures, as of May 2011 Treasury has spent only $1.85 billion. Because housing provide so much of the underpinnings for the U.S. economy, it is essential to put housing back on a stable footing for an economic recovery. The lack of a sensible plan in this area is simply incomprehensible. Morris Davis, a former Federal Economist, has estimated that a million more homeowners went into foreclosure because of a lack of help for the unemployed. Davis is an associate real estate professor at the University of Wisconsin. He says its simply outrageous that the Obama administration has done so little. President Obama recently took credit for a recovery and jobs saved in the auto industry in Detroit. The failure to come up with a workable plan and to do so little in the larger area of housing and unemployment, is likely to overshadow everything else. This is especially so with the Fed approaching its limits after QE II, and with the administration and the Congress in a stalemate over further stimulus and the deficit....

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This interview by Michael Schmidt of the NYT with president Trump shows a more conciliatory mood following the passage of the Republican tax law. Trump says he feels Mueller will treat him fairly but that the investigation will drag along for some time. Trump says this is bad for the country.  On the tax law he says he would have tackled the local and state tax deduction either not touched it or worked out a compromise if Democrats agreed to talk to him about taxes. Democrats he says thought they had McCain's vote when he left for Arizona, yet that did not happen. He says expensing for investing in equipment should unleash growth through new investment in the U.S. On infrastructure he sees a hundred Democrats joining the Republicans in Congress to do a deal. He says Democrats need him for DACA on the Dreamers issue, and he will work with them.  Other topics covered were the election itself which Trump says he fairly won by focussing on the Electoral College and going frequently to small states like Maine, up and down the East Coast knowing he would lose New York. He says there was no collusion with the Russians for his campaign and says it was Democrats who did the collusion. Manafort worked longer for others including Reagan, says Trump, and was with him for only about 4 months. This interview shows a upbeat Trump following the passage of the tax legislation. ...

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Krugman says the the higher population growth in Texas has led to higher job growth there relative to the rest of the country. Other factors mitigating the effects of the recession in Texas- the housing and mortgage lending laws in Texas prevented the building up of home equity debt and foreclosures that hit other states, and the oil industry in Texas helped with higher oil prices. Lower wages in Texas, lower living costs, and lower housing costs have attracted jobs to the state. In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2%, lower than California and close to that of New York.

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Gail Collins of the NYT describes the Hillary she came to know during the period she was Senator, a liberating time for Hillary Clinton, when she could be more of a private citizen, free of the publicity and attention as an active First Lady.  She chose to take up her assignment as New York Senator by visiting constituents and getting to know New York state, coming from Illinois and settling in Arkansas with her husband Bill Clinton in the early years. As Hillary herself said that was the first time she had lived in New York, and it was a time in which nobody cared in a nation having gotten tired of hearing about the Clintons, a welcome moment for Hillary who chose in her inimitable style to get to knowing her constituents. Collins tells about the enthusiasm of middle aged women in those days when women used their husband's name just to get a credit card, and it was harder for women to get a job than men. Bill Clinton talks about the Hillary he knew at law school and the years in Arkansas at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, and describes a real person that he came to know, not gregarious and easy with strangers as he was but with something deep inside caring for other people. One time he tells her that she could run for office, and she tells him in the courtship days that he was being silly that no one would vote for her. Americans must appear to Hillary as not caring much for First Lady or presidential spouses getting deeply involved in government, and American men not really passionate about women in key roles in government,  and as time passed and women in the thirties had grown accustomed to the newly won rights that Hillary and others had fought hard for to the point of looking for something new- throughout this Hillary was tested as never before. As the nominee of the Democratic Party for president she now had to prove that the old was also part of bringing in the new, that a passion for new encounters, experience and learning, combined with patience and perseverance, were also needed in the tasks of regenerating and renewal. If only she looked more carefully she would find that the first president having fought a long and difficult war for about ten years with men "half starved and often in rags", George Washington, also faced skepticism and doubts about him, which he alludes to frequently in his letters.      ...

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The balloons detected over US airspace at 40,000 feet that stirred up tension are now seen as intended for surveillance over Guam and Hawaii and blown off course by winds into Alaska and then Montana. This report in the NYT says US State department officials told Chinese diplomats on Feb. 1 about the balloon - 24 hours later China's Foreign ministry officials told US diplomats at the US embassy privately that the balloon a harmless civilian machine had gone off course. On Friday Feb. 3 China issued a public statement expressing regret. What happened after wards showed a series of poor decisions by Chinese officials and the balloon's civilian run balloon company under contract with the PLA says the NYT.  At that point the balloon's operators tried to accelerate it out of American airspace before it was shot down over South Carolina. On Saturday NYT says China told the US this acceleration was intended to get it out of American airspace.This story may not be widely read or covered so that most of the people in the US may already believe that China had intentionally flown surveillance equipment over Montana and the continental US. The US flies hundreds of reconnaissance flights near the coast of China says one defense expert.  This NYT correction of the original story on the spy balloons did not get any front page coverage in the WSJ, BBC, The Guardian, DW.com, FR24, and the NYT story itself got only 5 comments, showing how important it is for governments and information communicators to get each story right. A similar situation of a lack of communication with poor decisions may have delayed a unified response to the covid pandemic in its earliest stages. It shows how gaps in perception and information can gradually affect a relationship which the US had once nurtured into a critical part of its supply chain manufacturing following wartime cooperation against the Japanese invasion, the civil war in China, and later the Korean,  Vietnam Wars during the Cold War.    ...

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For the first time in decades the U.S. trade deficit with China is falling significantly. China's exports to the U.S. dropped 12.5% to $296 billion in 2019 from $323 billion in 2018, according to Chinese customs data. Actually China's trade surplus with the U.S would have fallen even more had not the U.S. exports to China declined by 21%. With the Phase 1 trade deal negotiated recently U.S. exports to China will increase significantly, while 25% tariff on $250 billion in Chinese goods still in place limits China's exports. This means in 2021 and 2022 and years ahead China's surplus should shrink much faster achieving one of the principal goals of Mr. Trump and his trade negotiator Mr. Lighthizer. Mr. Lighthizer was chosen by Mr. Trump for having accomplished a similar goal decades back in the eighties with Japan's surplus. Even though China has not stated this in writing, American officials have said China will increase purchases of American goods and services by at least $200 billion over the next 2 years from 2017 levels. China and the U.S. have essentially agreed that the two economies so tightly intertwined works to the detriment of the U.S. with the Chinese surplus creating tensions. China will now have the European Union as the largest trading partner followed by south east Asian countries, and other regions. China decided that its priority is technological development and was unwilling to meet U.S. demands to reduce its efforts for technological competition and access to western technologies. Instead opting for shifting it economy away from dependence on exports to the U.S. in a gradual way. The other demand of the U.S. for stopping state subsidies is also a concession China is not willing to make as it sees it as an economic feature of its business model that is working and a competitive advantage.  This leaves the U.S. with a limited win so that trade and resulting jobs can be brought into favoring the U.S. a key Trump goal, and not a win in the technological competition with China which will continue. ...

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If the trade war escalates to the point at which president Trump imposes tariffs on all Chinese goods imported into the U.S. on Jan. 1, 2019, China could retaliate with its own tariffs and this might affect Boeing aircraft as well. The results would be to tip the economies of both countries into a recession, and affect Mr. Trump's best chances for reelection in 2020. This can happen as Mr. Trump has a great deal of confidence in his negotiating style. The negotiations so far have shown China misread the U.S. and Mr. Trump leading to a strong U.S. response.  There is also the importance of not losing face, Mr. Xi's domestic audience, Chinese industry that sees a fundamental change from state subsidies model as eroding its position and offering resistance, patriotic sentiment making it harder to meet U.S. demands. Fundamentally for Mr. Trump it is about U.S. trade deficit and changing the huge trade surplus of almost $1 trillion that China enjoys each year with the U.S. which has been and is no longer sustainable. Mr. Trump also has the backing of Republicans on this issue and Democrats cannot afford to be soft on this issue as it involves American workers and jobs are at stake. Both sides could be in for a protracted negotiation as Mr. Trump feels it is right for Americans to expect fair trade and technology transfer that respects American concerns. In addition the U.S. could sense that it exports less to China, is less dependent on exports than China, and as the party that is hurt by unfair practices insist on its position. After Japan agreed to U.S. demands that it reverse a huge trade surplus in the seventies in which Mr. Lighthizer was the negotiator its growth declined sharply and is economy stagnated. China may sense inside that this could happen to its economy. Today Lighthizer the U.S. negotiator and Trade Representative could also push hard because of he was able to convince Japan to change its course. ...

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Apartment prices in HongKong are up 28% so far in 2009. THey are at their highest levels since the 1997 Aisna financial crisis. This occurs with rising unemployment and falling household incomes. It is fueled by low interest rates and cash rich investors from mainland China.

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While much of the focus is on the brief air war in the Punjab region in the media. In China, India and the US the real and major challenges are economic. As US tariffs is really about getting back its industrial base from the EU and China, China faces the challenge of adapting to this situation and loss of access to EU and US technologies for the next generation, and India with a smaller industrial base faces challenge of building a large enough industrial base for modernization with full access to US and EU technologies. This is then the study of change starting right here in Uttar Pradesh and in the city of Kanpur. New Metro in Kanpur, new power plants, and new manufacturing plants and infrastructure. PM Modi says- "There are two most essential conditions for the industrial progress of a state: first, self-reliance in the energy sector — that is, uninterrupted electricity supply; and second, infrastructure and connectivity. Today we have inaugurated several power plants: the 660 MW Panki Power Plant, 660 MW Neyveli Power Plant, 1320 MW Jawaharpur Power Plant, 660 MW Obra C Power Plant, and 660 MW Khurja Power Plant. This is a major step toward fulfilling Uttar Pradesh’s energy needs. With these power plants, electricity availability in UP will increase significantly, giving a boost to industries here. Today, development projects worth over $6.7 billion (Rs 47,000 crore) have also been inaugurated or had their foundation stones laid.” ...

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The new head of Roche, Severin Schwan, sees a huge opportunity in the current state of pharmaceuticals. He says drugmaking is still "so crude," because half of all known diseases cannot be treated at all, and the drugs for the diseases that are being treated don't work as well as they should and with a lot of side effects that make serious drawbacks in using them. He compares this state of affairs to acar that starts only half of the time and has brakes that don't always work. What gets hime excited is the rapid advances in diagnostics, genomics and biotechnology that can bring a"brand new revolution" in personalized medicine. He is pushing forward in the areas of biotechnology with the $47 billion deal that integrates Genentech into Roche, and in molecular diagnostics with the integration of 454 Life Sciences and Ventana. Doubts were raised during the integration of Genentech into Roche about whether the research climate at Genentech could be preserved and whether research scinetists would leave. But most have stayed. With the resources of a larger company behind Genentech and the patient approach that a firm with a founding family controlling the firm can take under a leadership determined to invest in research, experts like Tim Anderson of Bernstein Research see Roche well positioned to grow by aquarter over the next five years....

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It is not clear what this bazooka is. China's leaders are studying the economy carefully. Recent actions for stimulus were designed to offset weak performance of stock markets which have rebounded with Shanghai index up 11% into positive territory. Consumption spending is weak with worries about the safety net and propensity to save so that lower mortgage rates will mean households will pay of their mortgage first before increasing spending. Real estate construction is weak after bankruptcies in this sector. Some suggestions are for China to improve its safety net as in the US for working class people, low income families- to give them better medical insurance. And increase pensions of farmers, migrant workers, and low income families. They may still be inclined to save yet it is a move in the right direction as is happening in the US, and the trend worldwide is to reduce stark social divisions. China just lacks the resources for the kind of revival in the US that Harris has planned. As long as the US was frittering away its resources in foreign wars it had one hand tied behind it's back, as long as it did not invest these dollars going to wars overseas in the domestic economy it would languish and fall behind. It was in this sense Joe Biden who did the hard work that Trump after raising the alarm signals failed to do for lack of focus, and now it is Harris who is building the game plan for the kind of US that led the US into the twentieth century once before- optimism, imagination and hard work. ...

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A detailed account by Thomas Schweich, a senior official and deputy in the law enforcement bureau to Anne Patterson, Assistant secretary of State for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs. He talks about how the Pentagon and the UK military have thwarted efforts for aerial eradication of poppy fields which has worked in other countries like Columbia. In fact Anne Patterson was an Ambassador to Columbia and knows about this first hand. He also talks about how through their efforts northern Afghanistan was cleared of poppy fields but how the cultivation has shifted to the south to Helmand and Kandahar provinces. The government officials in these provinces are actively involved in the poppy farms that are being setup there and support Karzai and help him organize the Pashtun vote for coming elections. So Karzai is protecting these officials and because of this opposes aerial eradication and does not support using Afghan Army for land eradication. The military in the U.S. and the UK does not want to take more casualties by turning against them the officials and farmers who support the government, but this is a short sighted policy because this helps make the Taliban insurgency stronger with access to cash and weapons because they also are actively setting up farms in their areas of southern Afghanistan. Aerial eradication takes care of poppy farms in all areas and has been effective in other countries. In the long run the military takes many more casulaties because of the bigger insurgency and Taliban they have to deal with. The military's policy is called "Sequencing," and its basically we'll deal with drugs later which is based on a complete misperception and understanding of the situation facing them. Schweich is in the thick of these battles and has fought them wit courage it appears from this account. He has the support of Secretary of State Rice but has not been able to get the Administration to get Karzai to change the way he is operating. It risks making the situation and insurgency in Afghanistan a lot worse if not corrected. Its a call for action and for educating the public and clearing all the misunderstanding and myths and fog about whats happening in Afghanistan....

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Compared to the situation in North Africa in 2016 with emigration to Europe and the migrant crisis happening without any preparation to prevent it in 2015-2016, Germany and France are acting in coordination with Russia and Turkey, Saudis, UAE, to provide stability to the region. Angela Merkel will host leaders Macron, U.S. Secretary of State  Pompeo, and representatives of foreign powers in Berlin to work out a deal for disengagement of foreign powers. Turkey and the United Nations support a government of National Accord in Tripoli which controls the west of Libya, and a Libyan-American Mr. Haftar has a militia that controls the south and east with the help of Egypt, UAE, and Russia. Earlier the U.S. under president Trump had distanced itself from the region, but Mr. Trump and his advisors now see the need to engage in the region to ensure stability, and support the Europeans in the effort to prevent the large scale emigration that threatens European unity. Europe following the 2015 Merkel migrant crisis is acting with the policy of heading off both wars, terrorism and economic dislocation that fuels emigration right at the points of origin, before it even starts. This shows that the French after action in Ivory Coast and Mali and the Germans with aid to Africa are remaining involved in development and stability programs in Africa, lessons learned from 2015. The goal of the Berlin meetings is to arrange high level agreement for foreign powers to withdraw from destabilizing the Arab regions in North Africa particularly Libya by supplying weapons and support to quarreling factions. ...

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Argentina's government of president Alberto Fernandes is making a state takeover of Vicentin, a soyabean exporter which filed for bankruptcy in 2019 and is in ongoing court proceedings. Mr. Fernandes says he is doing this to rescue the century old agricultural firm to protect Vicentin workers, and 2600 farmers who sell crops to the company. Vicentin is Argentina's top exporter of soy meal and soy cooking oil. Mr. Fernandez says the company is a very important asset for the entire Argentine economy. Argentina's farm exports are its main source of earnings in dollars.  A drought in Argentina's farm sector in April 2018 led to a drop in export revenues and worsened Argentina's financial position leading to the 2020 default on Argentine debt. In 2018 the farm sector lost a third of its crop value and 1.5% of GDP. Growth in 2017 was 3% but declined to 1% in 2018. A number of other factors including overborrowing using dollar denominated debt led to the economic crisis in 2020 right in the middle of the pandemic in May 2020. Fernandez is a moderate compared to the previous Kirchner administrations and was elected in 2019 to get Argentina out of the debt crisis after confidence in president Mauricio Macri declined. Fernandez has tackled the coronavirus crisis with an early lockdown compared to neighboring Brazil which has not taken decisive action making Brazil the second largest after the U.S. in cases. This gives Argentina some room to tackle the debt crisis and negotiations with the IMF, lenders. ...

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Losses on aTishman/BlackRock property in New York , the 11,000apartment, 56 building, Bedford Stuyvesant property built by MetLife for veterans of World War II, is in danger of default. Losses would approach $500 million for Calpers, $575 million for Singapore's GIC, $250 million for Florida State Board, and $70 million ofr the Church of England. The property was purchased in the hope of using easing rent control laws to increase rents but tenants successfully blocked the rent increases in court.

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Home prices are surging in Australia in 2015, with home prices in Sydney up about 39% since June 2012, according to CoreLogic RP Data. As a multiple of annual income home prices in Sydney are at 9.8, Melbourne 8.7, and Wollongong near Sydney 7.5, compared to 6.1 for New York and 8.5 for London, according to a 2015 affordability survey by Demographia. Australia's surging home prices are happening just as the mining boom that powered its economy is winding down and unemployment is up to 6.1%. Interest rates are down to 2.25%, and low interest rates with speculative purchases are likely to fuel the market up further, say experts. About 40% of home loans approved in Feb. 2015 were to investors, increasing from 31% in 2009, according to official data. According to Australia's Reserve Bank the wealthiest 40% of the population have 75% of the debt. This surge when the economy is feeling the effects of the slowdown in China, and the rest of the world is cutting down on debt, puts Australia in uncertain territory....

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Pakistan has moved ahead in developing its nuclear arsenal. The production of uranium and plutonium for bombs and developing new weapons to deliver them has actually been accelerated during the recent period of unrest in Pakistan. Four years ago Pakistan had an estimated 30 to 60 weapons. Hans Kristensen, is the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists and author of the annual global nuclear weapons inventory published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Kristensen says it is not unreasonable to say that Pakistan has produced at least 100 weapons. Simon Gregory, Director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Britain's University of Bradford, puts the number at between 100 and 110. India is estimated to have 60 to 100 nuclear weapons. A 2008 agreement that lets India purchase nuclear fuel for civilian purposes was a motivation for accelerating nuclear weapons development in Pakistan. In December 2008, Peter Lavoie, the US intelligence officer for South Asia, told NATO officials that despite impending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world," according to classified State Department cables released late last year by the Intenet site WikiLeaks. This leak angered the Pakistan army chief Gen. Kayani who said "the real aim of US war strategy is to denuclearize Pakistan."...

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Tom Keene of Blomberg BusinessWeek talks to a panel of experts about the future prospects for the US and the global economy. The discussion was spurred by Carmen Reinhart's paper at the central banker's Jackson Hole, Wyoming, conference. This paper forecasts high unemployment, low housing prices and very low growth in the US upto 2017. Shiller, Calomiris, Orszag, Kaufman and Bill Gross are part of this panel. Shiller's to do list main item is to get help to local and state governments by restoring general revenue sharing arrangements. Gross would focus on jobs that can hold up in a competitive economy, and put back some of the production that is taking place in the developing countries back into the developed countries, as part of a rebalancing; through a currency realignment. Kaufman would like to see a capital expenditure program by the US government, including infrastructure and education. Calomiris would like to see a setup of a new Republican Congresss to set the stage for post 2012 efforts. Calomiris favors cutting entitlements, cutting payroll taxes, but is not clear how this would help lower the deficit. Orszag points to feedback from business leaders suggesting a lowering of payroll taxes will not spur hiring, as the real reason for not hiring was low 1-2 % expected growth. Shiller, Kaufman and Gross see government efforts as realistically needed in the current situation....