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Rick Rieder of Black Rock and David Kelly of  JP Morgan Chase and others sense that the US is entering a phase they call "the satellite economic phase in which there are no crash landings and takeoffs but steady orbiting in space. Less boom and bust and more steady growth for years is the new economy Biden is creating with huge investments in infrastructure and manufacturing and worker skills training that upgrade the workforce. Investments in health and education are part of this. This makes the US economy more resilient with government working both as a partner and agencies of the government that regulate and provide the rules for fairness and level playing field acting to prevent the booms and busts of the past such as the 2009 financial crisis and other crises. With China, EU, India, Japan+South Korea and the US, all 5 of the largest economies aligned to maintain steady growth for their people the prospect of war acting to reduce growth potential will also be managed in a setting that is needed following the pandemic. This will make both the Middle East and the Eastern European recurring crises to be toned down and a shift made to growth in these regions from the war ravaged periods of reckless behaviour of nation actors. This is a view now emerging among key people in the US economy such as Rieder Black Rock and Kelly JP Morgan. Both says the ways of understanding this and the terminology "soft landing" or "cylical, midcycle" are now outdated and no longer apply. Says Reider-“But one point to keep in mind is that satellites don’t land and maybe that is a better analogy for a modern advanced economy” like the United States.  ...

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Exxon and Cono Phillips leave behind oil assets in Venezuela and the knowhow for processing heavier oil from the Orinoco belt in Venezuela. Petroleo Brasileiro, Russian oil company Lukoil, and China National Petroleum Corporation have a presence in the Orinoco belt.

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This report in the WSJ gives the background and positions taken by Patriarch Krill of the Russian Orthodox Church, and his support for the war in Ukraine as part of Russian lands nationalism. Russian lands nationalism is an idea that comes from the beginnings of the Russian version of Christianity that had its origins in Kviv Ukraine in the 10th century. Patriarch Krill has had a varied role questioning some some state policies and then backing off and supporting the state says WSJ. In 2011 patriarch Krill stood up for protesters critical of manipulation in parliamentary elections that year. Patriarch Krill grew up in the years of Soviet rule and was 24 in 1970 when he began his work in the church. He was rector of a seminary in Leningrad by 1984 and after being critical of the Soviets and war in Afghanistan was sent to Smolensk says this report in WSJ. After he returned he worked with the Soviet state, and after voicing concerns in 2011 about parliamentary elections described as manipulated he has supported the Russian state as it becomes assertive about Russian lands nationalism. To understand the Orthodox Church in Russia one has to know its presence in the post Soviet period. About 63% of Russians belong to the Orthodox Church. It also includes Ukrainians. After Crimean invasion by Russia the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that makes up one third of the Russian Orthodox parishes was recognized as a separate church by Patriarch Bartholomev of Constantinople. Patriarch Bartholomev and Pope Francis the two leaders of the eastern and western churches in Constantinople and Rome have been critical of Patriarch Krill and his support for the war and the idea of Russian lands nationalism. Since the war some parishes in Russia have signed a letter opposing the killing of brothers in Christ and one parish leader was fined $500 for his statements. There is now intense debate among Russians about what this war means in bringing conflict on brotherly peoples about their preferences in 2022 for aligning with Europeans in the western part of Europe. For most of Europe in the 21st century there is a big change, in the countries near the Baltic sea in Northern Europe, in countries in the middle of Europe, in Eastern Europe, the 21st century is seen as a time when states and peoples are making their own choices about freedom and what their preferences are particularly the young people. They no longer understand or conform to ideas of the earlier period or centuries. And this is what has made Ukrainian young people oblivious about what Russian lands nationalism means and its relevance today. Buddhism is today not prevalent in South Korea a democratic state and in China a Communist state in the way it existed for centuries. For it to be relevant people need to begin to believe in it as in Japan or Sri Lanka or Thailand. In the 21st century young people are making different choices and this may well be where the Ukraine war shows that people's choices count particularly in the 21st century, and it has little to do with the west or the US or NATO or even Russia. ...

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America has its own conversation points. Ischinger says we would love to vote in the US election as it affects us greatly. Americans would love to vote in the German and French elections as it affects us. As America fights to give workers and families their rights and invests trillions of dollars in infrastructure when will Germany and France do this? When will Germany and France fight to give all workers and families opportunity to get ahead and make a decent living? Are Germany and France aware that the Biden-Harris, Biden-Walz fight is for domestic policy to determine foreign policy and this is the domestic policy of America. Wolfgang Ischinger ,who heads the Munich Security Conference Foundation, writes in NYT about the importance of keeping the conversation with European allies going. He says US and European Union do not have a common policy towards China and this needs to be discussed and clarified. US and EU need to come closer for NATO to carry out it's mission now that the EU countries are shouldering a fair share of the defense burden in percentage of GDP devoted to defense. Ischinger says the Europeans are not investing defense dollars efficiently and developing European arms suppliers. His third point is that there should be consistent application of rule of law, democracy and western values in policy to build the alliance. He remains blissfully unaware that the same divisions that are fostered in America exist in Europe and some of them started in Europe- for Europe to be strong it must invest in its People, in workers and families and in infrastructure, domestic policy will become foreign policy.    ...

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In his second part of the series on Capitalism and Globalization Schieritz says Trump's arguments have backing, and goes back to the studies done by David Autor of MIT on the adverse impact of free trade on communities across the U.S.. Lyrarc has covered this issue since 2006, and the reality is that this issue was brought up long before the Autor study gained prominence. On Nov. 12, 2010 Robert Lighthizer, Deputy Trade Representative under U.S. president Reagan wrote an op-ed in the NYT titled "Throwing Free Trade Overboard," that made a strident and strong case for what Trump says 5 years later, and from no less than a top trade official under Repubican Reagan.Trump comes late to this in 2015 when it was already amply clear what was happening. It is not so much Trump having discerned this, than others who should have paid attention, including Lew and leaders in both parties, and the business community,  who for too long ignored it. Or as Hilsenrath in a recent WSJ report says, simply said we have seen this before with Japan's entry into the American market, not realizing the speed and widespread impact of the changes in trade with China, that are unprecedented in history- evident just from the great speed of urbanization and manufacturing work force growth in China, policy rapidly impacting vulnerable communities across the U.S. The corrective course has to be credible which is why it has to come from a a reawakening among leaders such as May, Merkel and Clinton, who are keen students of change, and capable of designing and executing a corrective course of action, and winning the popular support and patience needed to stay the course which could run for most of the next decade. It would also provide leadership and show the way for societies in Brazil, China, India and other countries facing similar problems.     ...

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India's industrial output declined 3.5% in March 2012, according to the statistics ministry, larger than the 1.5% expected.

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Thailand's prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra's intervew with foreign journalists on Dec. 11, 2013. She says no one listens to people in the northeast and northern region of Thailand around Chinag Mai where most of her support lies. She was only 18 when her mother died and her older brother, a former prime minister, is seen by her as more of a senior figure. Protesters in Bangkok see her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a Thai businessman in London as the one who runs the government's policies. The country is badly split between urban Bangkok and the rural regions in the north. The military ousted Thaksin in 2006 and protesters where shot in 2010 in a crackdown. The latest episode of confrontation between the two parties reflecting the two regions is a followup to this, as an amnesty bill was introduced by Yingluck which would let her brother return to Thailand. The interview was setup at an airbase outside Bangkok, as the country remains deeply divided and protesters occupy most of Bangkok....

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The impact of labor laws that were once designed to offer job protection to workers are now having a pervasive and pernicious effect on Italy's economy. The world has changed too with globalization, making the inefficiencies of labor laws that freeze the labor markets- protecting existing jobs and at the same time making it difficult to create new ones, diminishing job mobility to an extreme level- lead to lack of competitiveness and economic stagnation. Most Italian businesses remain small because of the fear of hiring new employees who cannot be laidoff as in other countries. With manufacturing competitiveness growing in emerging markets, Italy is losing markets and job growth potential to places in Poland and China. Foreign direct investment as a percentage of GDP is the lowest of any country in Europe except Greece, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The system also lacks fairness because it divides the labor market into three tiers. According to Italy's National Institute for Statistics, the labor force of 27 million people is divided into three groups. The first group of 15 million, of older workers, has stable jobs with generous benefits. A younger group of 8 million works in a freelance capacity with rolled over short term contracts, and few benefits. An additional 4 million work in the underground economy. Because of the way the system is structured there is considerable resistance to change, especially from the older workers who work in a stable system, even though the system offers younger workers in the second tier few opportunities. What started in 1947 with a constitution that protected the rights of labor at a time of difficult industrial relations in Europe and the U.S., with the added fear of change during today's period of economic crisis, is now holding back economic renewal in Italy....

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This Washington Post article by Henry Farrell explains the implications of the 2016 EU ruling on Apple asking it to pay 13 billion euros in back taxes. Other countries in the European Union are upset that Ireland is taking away business and siphoning away tax revenues from their country, and giving most of it back to Apple. Normally the European Union Commission does not have authority over taxes in the member states. However considering the social and political implications at a time of deep recession and political upheaval in the EU and the U.S., the European Union Commission under Margarethe Vestager has seen it proper to look at arrangements in which companies come up with tax arrangements that deprive member states unfairly of tax revenues- revenues that could support social welfare and basic education, healthcare services at a time of painful cuts. A tax rate of .005% in 2013 for Apple is cited by Vestager as she points out that Apple's taxable profit does not correspond to economic reality, as most operations are conducted outside Ireland. Ireland is just on paper the tax location for EU operations. Vestager has thus come up with a legal approach based on Ireland's tax arrangements being a form of illegal state subsidy, which is not allowed under EU rules, and gives the EU Commission authority to require that it be reversed by paying the back taxes of 13 billion euros. Farrell answers the question why the U.S. Treasury is saying that Apple should not have to pay these taxes, as the U.S. also hopes to get some of these taxes at some future date with Apple repatriating profits to the U.S. under a still to be set tax arrangement. ...

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This New Yorker has resilence in his roots in the Scottish Hebrides islands. No wonder he was able to take up the challenge of a US unable to extricate itself from  wars in the Middle East (Reagan, Bushes, Obama), and unfair trade with China, and an onslaught of unfavorable media attention. His name is DJT. According to the BBC in this story on Donald Trump's mother Mary Ann Mcleod, she was a regular churchgoer, well respected in the community, who visited her homeland in Scottish isle of Lewis, British Hebrides, frequently. Mary Ann McLeod is the youngest of 10 children of a Scottish family in the town of Tong in the Hebridean isle of Lewis in the North Sea, northwest of the Scotland mainland. Her father ran the local post office. The family was  relatively poor coming from Scottish people cleared of Highlanders during the Clearances and with fishing disasters in the family. Two hundred servicemen returning from the first world war to Tong lost their lives in a shipping disaster and the economy of the island was in poor shape. With no opportunities or future many immigrated to Canada. Mary Ann's sister Catherine immigrated to Canada and on a visit to Tong she took Mary back with her to New York in 1930. Mary worked as a nanny for a wealthy family in New York before meeting a socialite of German immigrants Fred Trump. Mary returned to Scotland in 1934 and by then she found a new life with Fred Trump whom she married. The couple lived in a wealthy area of Queens and Fred Trump ran a real estate business he had inherited with his mother. Donald Trump still has three cousins in Tong in the British Hebrides Scottish isles. His older sister Maryanne Trump Barry regularly visited Tong. Donald Trump visited Tong in 2008. Of this family a local who knows the cousins and the family John MacIver, a local councillor and friend of the cousins told BBC in 2017- "They are very nice, gentle people and I'm sure they don't want all the publicity that's around. I quite understand that they don't want to talk about it."   ...

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Russia's exports to the USA only 3% of total exports, 21% to China, 19% to India, and 16% to Brazil. But does this suggest the Russian economy is insulated It exports natural gas to Germany, its largest trading partner. Are oil exports from Russia to the US so insignificant that they constute only 3% of total exports? This needs to be verified. Russia built the $478 billion reserves based on oil exports. If prices drop this will affect future increases in these reserves and affect foreign investment in the Russian economy, investment it badly needs to modernize. Russia is less affected relative o other countries, but its stock markets dropped 20% after the global markets reacted in cascading effect in January 2008. There is some insulation but not really that much and the case is overstated. Russia is starting out with a smaller manufacturing economy. It badly needs to build this up and the effects of a global slowdown will mean reduced investment than would otherwise occur.