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Brinkmauer and Pfister of the German magazine Der Spiegel interview German Chancellor Angela Merkel in September 2017. The interview covers a range of topics from whether Merkel is addicted to power, why she chose to run for a fourth term, revolving door for CDU politicians as lobbyists for the automobile industry, the AfD right wing party, the refugee crisis and the CDU's historic policy of controlled immigration, and whether democracy is losing strength.  In characteristic Merkel fashion the chancellor takes up the idea of her addiction to power by saying she is careful not to let this happen to her by reading critical articles in the press and having her staff bring critical reports. Her discussion with her constituents in her electoral district are also frank and open, more so in 2017. About the idea that Helmut Kohl's fourth term as chancellor being not good for Germany and for the CDU, Merkel responds that she has given it considerable thought. She found that she still has the intellectual curiosity to learn new things, understands that she has much to learn about how the country and the world is changing. This has been decisive in her decision to run.  Merkel believes that someone who has worked in politics should be able to work in private industry following historic practice in Germany. On the government links with the automobile industry Merkel says her approach has been to look at what was best for an industry employing 800,000 people in Germany, yet deplores the diesel emissions cheating at VW. Has democracy lost momentum after the U.S. elections and the refugee crisis? Merkel says democracy is still strong, and that she will do everything to strengthen democracy in Germany and other parts of the world.  Merkel's view is that it is important that there be counterweights in democratic systems. In this way democracy is strong in America, and also in Poland and Hungary. The chancellor cites high voter turnout of 82% in 1998, 79% in 2002, 78% in 2009. Since then she says in 2009 it dropped to 71% and 2013  72%, yet  expects that with the issues in this election people will come out to vote in larger numbers.  For many years Merkel is seen as co-opting the issues of the left parties and the SPD, being careful to move to the centre. Der Spiegel puts this idea forward to the chancellor by asking her if she is the best SPD chancellor Germany ever had.  In her matter of fact style Merkel responds that voters do not think of it this way, simply expect her to her job as best as she can possibly do it.       ...

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Washington Post reporters Clement and Gushkin with research and polling experience at Pew Research Center give the results of the Post-ABC News poll taken before the State of the Union 2023 address by president Biden. It shows what president Biden has said about his  investment spending of trillions of dollars in America's crumbling infrastructure, in new manufacturing for chips, advanced technologies, R&D, electric charging stations, EV vehicles, renewable energy. "Folks we are just getting started." The investments are taking place quickly because today there many projects ready for investment. Yet it takes time for the manufacturing plants to be built, new expressways and bridges to be built. The poll shows not enough people know- only a third of people know about two thirds do not know. That Mr.Biden is aware of this is apparent. He says-"It is one thing to have passed it all- now we have to make sure we're on it every single day. Not a joke." And on Jan 26, saying "Implementing it so people can see what we've delivered and give it to them directly."  This is why president Biden used his State of the Union address to make the points directly to the American people. This is also seen in his recent speech to a union audience when he told workers- Mr. Trump used infrastructure as a punchline, Biden turned it into a decade only headline. Creating well paying jobs and doing this while cutting the deficit by trillions of dollars. To give the contrast Mr. Biden told workers and working families the spending cuts proposed by the Republican House of Representatives were according to Moody's likely to result in a loss of 780,000 jobs.    ...

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COP26 stands for Conference of the Parties for Climate Change. The conference will be held in Glasgow from 31 October to 12 November 2021 in the UK. It is important because for the first time the major countries are keen on pushing forward with climate change policies and targets. This includes India, China, US, European Union, and major Asian, Latin American, African nations. In India Mr. Modi has set a target of 450 GW for renewable energy. China is aggressively cutting back on its use of coal to the point of tolerating cutbacks in electricity for industry and cities. US, UK, Germany, Nordic countries are pushing forward with new targets for reducing coal consumption and increasing renewable energy production, advancing renewable energy technologies. The new Biden administration in the US and the Greens in Germany have replaced administrations that were not as committed to tackling climate change. With China and India also committed to tackling climate change with renewed vigor the stage is set for serious steps to be taken. To reach the target of limiting global heating by no more than 1.5 degrees centigrade countries all over the world have to cut emissions by 45%. In reality emissions will increase by 16% in 2021 because China and India still depend on coal and developed nations have not cut back enough. To cut use of coal and preserve forests, avoid the drastic changes in weather patterns with drought and floods in different parts of the same country seen in Germany, India, African countries and other Asian countries a lot needs to be done. Here Mr Kerry the US Representative for Climate Change, says -"There is a significant increase in ambition on cutting emissions than ever imagined possible. A much larger group of people are stepping up." It is not clear if Mr. Xi of China will attend the Glasgow meeting. He has talked to Mr. Biden at length on this issue recently. Mr. Modi of India will attend and will meet Denmark's prime minister Mitte and other leaders before the COP26 in Glasgow.  ...

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Which European port is at the center of Europe's wind energy project. Answer: Esbjerg, Denmark. On May 18, 2022 the heads of state of Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium came together to sign the Declaration of Esbjerg. Together the countries want to increase wind energy production in the North Sea to 65 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 and rising to 150 GW by 2050. Esbjerg is one of the few ports in Europe and the key port serving the offshore wind industry. Industry leaders Vestas and Siemens Gamesa ship wind turbines from here, and Orsted provides spare parts that weigh several tons.  German ports such as Bremerhaven lack the infrastructure and it is tied up in disputes ending up in court. Dutch port of Eemshaven is much smaller. The harbor was recently expanded in Esbjerg by 0.5 million square metres to 4.5 million square metres or 45 million square feet. Environment groups are also part of this and there is no dissent in the planning. Here are some useful facts on wind power- Environment cost is 70 times less than that of coal fired power according to Germany's Federal Environment Agency. Within 3  to 11 months wind turbines generate the energy required to build them. No CO2 is produced in the electricity generation process but they do alter the landscape. The future of wind power giants is in the sea where the wind is reliable and strong. One such modern turbine can have an output of 10 to 15 thousand kilowatts to provide electricity for 40,000 people. Pioneers in wind energy are Denmark and Germany. Denmark gets 50% of its energy from wind power, for Germany this is 25%. Jobs are generated installing and operating these wind energy turbines. 1.3 million people are employed in it today. With additional wind propulsion energy consumption of freighters carrying most of the world's freight would be reduced by 30%. Wind and photovoltaic solar can combine for providing most of India's energy because of its sea coastline and having a lot of sun. To get an idea of what is doable in India - in Germany 41% of electricity demand is met from renewables mostly solar and wind. German farmers get 25% of their income from solar energy. Where Germany lags is in use of renewables for transport which falls to about 9% and for heating and cooling where it is about 18%, and it is making great strides to correct this. A big change is technology and how people use transport (more train than airline or automobiles), which will change the entire picture of how energy is created and used in the future. Energiewende the  term for this change is only beginning to take place with urgency in Germany in 2022. India needs to work closely with Denmark and Germany to stay in front of these developments.   ...

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A cut in interest rates by a quarter percentage point from the U.S. central bank is a decision that comes from the U.S. not wanting to see too wide a gap in interest rates with the European Union. Losing demand to Europe and resulting lower inflation is an outcome prevented by the U.S. acting to protect its own economy with  acut in its rate. The ECB rate at 0.4% is about 3 percentage points below the Federal Reserve's rate in the U.S. After the cuts in rates to near zero by the central banks of U.S. and Europe following the financial crisis caused by poor lending practices of banks, the U.S. central bank began a process of bringing rates to about 3%. Lower rates near zero badly hurt savings accounts of ordinary Americans. By December 2018 the rates had reached 2.25%.  President Trump has called for lower rates. because of the advantages it gives Europe in trade balances with a weaker currency that follows from lower interest rates. Capital flows to the country with higher rates and increases the value of the currency creating trade disadvantages and lower trade balances. WIth European interest rates much lower than the U.S. it pushes down the value of the euro vs the dollar and the British pound lower from Brexit fears. This increases European exports putting the U.S.  at a disadvantage. As the WSJ points out the U.S. central bank says though Mr. Trump is looking at trade balances and U.S. advantage, and Mr. Powell at the U.S. central bank is looking at U.S. inflation, the result for policy is the same- the U.S. acting to cut rates and stay close to what the European Union is doing. Bond yields in Europe have dropped from a negative 0.24% to negative 0.32% with the ECB's head Mr. Draghi moving to cut rates. The announcement of Ms. Christine Lagarde as the new head of the ECB to succeed Draghi and her views to push demand up, is pushing bond yields down. The U.S. as part of the globally linked economy has to act in line with policies in Europe. ...

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The bottom line is that China is so advanced in the deindustrialization of the US with US companies cooperating that the only way to get American companies to change course is by creating precisely this kind of situation where China responds with its about 100% tariff to the US 100% tariff. That sends a clear message to American companies and changes the culture of America's deindustrialization American companies are wedded to. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said DJT raising the tariffs from 34% on April 2 , 2025, Liberation Day by 50% to reach 104%  as a well thought out US tariffs policy was Trump’s “strategy all along.”  Bessent  said: “This was his strategy all along, and that you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position, they responded.” China responded to the 34% DJT tariff by going with it's own 34%. When this retaliatory move suggested China was not willing to consider US arguments that it only wanted a level playing field from China with it's complex system of non-tariff barriers against US imports, DJT added another 50% tariff saying that if China did not withdraw its retaliatory tariff on April 8, US would go with another 50% tariff on April 9. This is what Scott Bessent means by US having put China in a position where it would have to put its own 50% tariff on US products to get to US tariffs at 104% vs. China's at 84%.  The bottom line is that China is so advanced in the deindustrialization of the US with US companies cooperating that the only way to get American companies to change course is by creating precisely this kind of situation where China responds with its about 100% tariff to the US 100% tariff. That sends a clear message to American companies and changes the culture of Aamerica's deindustrialization American companies are wedded to. ...

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How currency exchange rates are creating shifts in production from Europe into the US and further accelerating the changes in the automotive landscape. Now more German factories are planned by the likes of VW and BMW and their suppliers, and near their production bases in southern states which are non-unionized labor. BMW figures currency swings cost it about $900 million in earnings in 2006 due to the stronger euro. Both BMW and Mercedes see the stronger euro as a long term thing and are planning investments in the US based on this. BMW is expanding its Spartanburg , NC facility. In addition to the X3 SUV it will make the X5 and X6 SUVs there. And product from here will be exported back to Europe and other countries in addition to the US market. Mercedes had already expanded in Vance, Alabama before the pronounced currency swing for the euro. The Korean car makers Hyundai and Kia are facing similiar situation because of the stronger won. The weaker yen is creating a revert back to production in Japan in the case of Toyota and a halt to expansion in the USA, see the article on this recently. ...

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Robert Kaiser, former managing editor of The Washington Post, reviewed this book on Joe McCathy in The Washington Post on August 7, 2020. It shows the link with today of Senator Joe McCarthy and Roy Cohn, the then 27 year old lawyer chief counsel of the senate subcommittee on investigation when Joe McCarthy became chairman in Jan. 1953. The book is-  Demagogue The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy by Larry Tye. Roy Cohn passed on some of the methods used at that time to Mr. Trump. Kaiser points out that the senator Joe McCarthy assembled "a coalition of the aggrieved." Tye shows that it started with the junior senator from Wisconsin making a speech in West Virginia for Lincon Day dinner to the Republican ladies of Wheeling, W. Va. The senator used it to talk about threat of communists working in the State Department. He claimed there were 205 Communists. Today we know that this was just made up by McCarthy, at a time when Winston Churchill made the speech about the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and a sense of shock in America at the People's Republic of China being formed in 1949 under CCP chairman Mao tse tung. McCarthy saw this as an opportunity to gain prominence and a Senate career. What is seen from this carefully researched book is that for a while it succeeded in putting many of the Nation's best leaders on the defense. This includes Harry Truman, Eisenhower himself who disdained McCarthy's and Cohn's methods, Gen George Marshall who was a mentor to Dwight EIsenhower, Joe Stilwell, and other military leaders who ran the 1940's war effort under Marshall in Europe against the Nazis and in China against the Japanese imperialists. On the domestic side it included the head of TVA and the new Atomic Agency setup by president Truman. Gallup said at that time of McCarthy's 38% support in the US following his censure in US Senate by 67-22  -even if it was known that McCarthy killed five innocent children they would still go along with him. Tye writes that in that atmosphere similar to the sense of shock at China's rise and America's loss of manufacturing and falling behind in infrastructure by 2016, in that atmosphere if one told a small lie or big lie it made not much difference in public's penalty or censure, then why not tell a whopper of a lie. This became the ethic for a while in 2016-2024 similar to the period till the collapse of McCarthyism in America by 1957 with McCarthy's death in 1957 and in 1960 the election of John F. Kennedy. What is forgotten is that Richard Nixon a young senator from California was part of the group in Congress, so that in some shape or form it existed and remained part of the Reagan efforts to push back against the Soviets that led to wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq sapping the Nation's energies and resources and with faulty economic theory allowed China to dominate key industries and outspend America in infrastructure investment, creating the kind of shock that led to the second McCarthyist decade under Mr. Trump. ...

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Morse's reasoning and figures for a fall in oil prices by the end of this year and eventually settling down in the $90 price range? On the supply side he sees the OPEC decision to last year withhold oil production increases and this year's decision to put more oil on the market putting an additional 1.2 million barrels a day on the supply side. About 500,000 barrels a day are added to this from Iraq as security improves in Iraq to make this 1.7 million barrels a day. And refined product with refining capacity for the heavier crude has increased creating more competition among refiners leading to refined product increases lagging behind crude price increases. Add to this the large investments in the middle east and especially in Saudi Arabia to increase production, also in places like Nigeria and Angola, says Morse. On ther demand side he sees an astonishing decline of as much as 900,000 barrels a day year over year from 2008 over 2007 in the USA as fuel conservation is kicking in. On this score he sees a decline in oil price even if this decline had not happened in the USA. (From the video interview). This underscores the importance of everything else that is happening. He sees demand in China declining after the Olympics. The Chinese economy will slow as the Indian economy is already doing and oil imports will decline for China. At this point demand from India, China and other developing countries says Morse is increasing at 1 million barrels a day year over year and will now head downward. A couple of points are relevant in this context. One is that credit contraction in one study by University of Chicago economist Anil Kashyap is expected to be $1 trillion, in recent BW report on the economic situation and banks lending. With such a big impact industrial production by the end of this year and into 2009 will be severely impacted, especially as other countries in the EU and Asia are affected. This plus the dramatic nature of the shift to smaller cars as companies like Ford and its CEO Alan Mulaly vow to transform their production by 2009 to smaller cars is sure to bring further declines in demand. See recent statements by Mulaly and Ford. Morse's credentials show that he brings experience un teaching monetary policy at Princeton, as well as experience going back to being Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for international energy policy in the Carter administration , cofounder of consultants PFC Energy and publisher of Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, following the petroleum industry for many years. He has in the past predicted the emergence of Russia as a dominant oil supplier rivalling Saudi Arabia, and predicted the oil price increases based on fundamentals. So as he says the oil price has always been affected by fundamentals, that being the reason for the oil price increases in the last few years and now the moderating influences that reverse someof these oil price increases in the coming year and continue to exercize that moderating effect in coming years. ...