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The suicide of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain who had a popular television program, brings new attention to the increase in middle age suicides ages 45 to 64 in the U.S.  The CDC figures show a 60% increase for women and 37% for men between 2000 and 2016. A clinical instructor in psychiatry and medicine at Cornell, Ms. Boardman says life satisfaction is low at this age,a dip in satisfaction called the U curve. A 2016 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine  shows stress factors as problems with intimate partners job/finances, health, family, and criminal/legal problems.  The demographic group driving suicide rates up is mainly white people without a 4 year college degree, who have done poorly compared to that group in a previous generation, say experts at Columbia University. 

Generally isolation and loneliness is also a factor, and social connections a big antidote to depression type stress.

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Balancing medical work and family for young doctors. How a new generation of young doctors looks at the balancing of work and family and time for relaxation, the gym and so on. A whole new way of taking care of patients is taking shape that may promote better health of doctors themselves, better balancing the demands and stress in their lives from family members and their own personal needs for relaxation and exercize.

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Prof. Admati, of Stanford, says that with the March 2012 stress tests the Fed has prematurely announced the banks are healthy. Prof. Cole of DePaul University, questions some of the assumptions used by the Fed as too optimistic even though it used a 13% unemployment rate and decline in stock and real estate values by 21%. He says the loss of $56 billon on home equity lines of credit and second lien mortgages, 13% of the portfolio, is highly underestimated. He says the legal liabilities of banks are also underestimated.

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Prof. Barry Naughton at the University of California, San Diego, looks at how China has approached tech regulation in a way that has not yet happened in the US and Europe. It says tech regulation expands the role of the government, yet is one that has "a reasonable regulatory rationale," and can be easily supported on an individual basis. It says the US and Europe have recognized the issues that need to be tackled as tech companies were left with no checks or regulation after growing in insidious ways in the last ten years, but have so far failed to act on this knowledge. Some of the goals pursued in China made sense for China it says- technology self-reliance after delinking with the US, data security, de-risking the housing market, getting on a path to carbon neutrality. Other goals such as de-licensing tutoring companies and reregistering as non profit companies-  this was because of president Xi's concern that excessive costs and stress were discouraging Chinese families from having more children as China's population ages rapidly. This means the government plays a bigger role yet Naughton says when it coms to the goal of reducing inequality China has still to come up with ways to use tax policy and other ways to mitigate an extremely unequal distribution of wealth in China. Today this is limited to donations and giving by companies. In the US and Europe social democratic governments from Biden, Scholz and others are taking serious steps and have plans to address these problems of common prosperity with plans to help families and workers. ...

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Reinhart is saying something similiar to what Krugman said earlier, and Peter Eavis said in the Heard on the Street column on March 24, 2009. The Geithner plan is similiar to the Paulson plan. It is trying to get private investors to buy up toxic assets by offering incentives. But the pricing issue like before is left vague and unanswered. And its success looks increasingly doubtful as the is not only the problem of confidence and illiquidity that these plans are confronting, but something more structural and basic about how much these toxic assets are worh and whether it makes sense to bid for them and at what price so that ooooooone is protected on the downside. Reinhart points out that the stress tests are also there, and it may just be that the government is waiting for public support to build for taking on the losses involved in getting rid of toxic assets, and is right now going the longer circuitous route. At some point the government may decide the time is right to sort out the banking institutions finances through the stress tests, make the tough decisions for banks that are not healthy by government takeover, and deal with the toxic assets as owner of these failed banks....

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Putting a distance from the negative thoughts of the mind is essential to getting a good healthy mindset. This means not believing what it says. It also means woking hard to be able to change one's life in many positive ways and believing that you frame your own destiny. It is said that a wandering mind is often more of an enemy than a friend, in ancient wisdom. Developing a new calmness, being able to meditate, requires putting a distance from negative thoughts and not believing the thoughts of a wandering mind. This is called cognitive defusion. It is also part of what is needed for yoga and meditation. 

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"Feierabend" is the German word for when you stop working for the rest of the day. It is also the period after stopping work and beginning a period of leisure and rest. Germans working from home for government, in software industry and in other business places, are using this time when work stops at say 4 or 5 pm to shift to exercize. Here Nils Backhaus, of Germany's Federal Institute for Health, marks the end of a day's work by taking his racing bike and cruising along the the tranquil landscapes of the Ruhr river, just outside Dortmund. Stress and recovery go hand in hand, it is the bodily rhythm for Nils Backhaus and many Germans. You cannot do double time the next day. You have to first regenerate and get renewed after a day's work. This improves both health and the productiveness of work. It also creates enthusiasm the next day to begin work. A clean disconnection is needed says this report and "Feierabend" helps one do it. Workers working from home can end up working too much with no demarcation that ends the day. During the coronavirus with many workers working from home this demarcation has been lost for many people resulting in overwork and fatigue of body and mind. Microsoft 365 team has seen this surge to the point where managers have the software do this demarcation to stop work, and ask people using the software to say how they feel. What better way than something like Feierabend where one makes a clean break from work and goes out and does something completely different. It gives the mind and body a chance to rest and to regenerate. Prof. Rothauge of the Catholic University of Eichstatt who has studied the history of the evolution of work says this comes from an historical context. The industrial revolution introduced new work habits and days structured around work routines. This also provided a period of breaking away from work to rest. It was important to see the rest period as a way to regenerate not simply engage in some other equally taxing work. It was all part of the same coin, resting and renewal of mind and spirit after a day's work ended enabled one to make a fresh start the next day. It was what made productive work possible and an integral part of it.  During the coronavirus it is very important to do this regeneration and renewal, and to start this by having a clear disconnection from work after several hours of intensive work or a day of normal pace work. Intensive work of 3-4 hours or 4-5 hours can make up a days work at home because of the uninterrupted nature of working remotely from home, say workers with extensive experience of working from home. At that point break away and make the clean break or disconnection to regenerate and renew for the next day. ...

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The basics that promote health and productivity in the workplace. Kinds of boss behaviour that destroys productive work and relationships- lack of close rapport and face to face discussions, lack of good directions and feedback, loud behaviours and too short responses, not enough time to get the job done right.

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Analysts say that if Greek banks pass the European banks stress tests to be announced this week, the stress tests must not be rigorous enough.

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What is the difference between South Korea and the U.S., Europe in the handling of coronavirus? It is tracking and testing.  President Trump and health adviser Dr. Fauci, see South Korea as the successful model to be followed in controlling the coronavirus. What has happened till now it is accepted with shortage of basic medical supplies and equipment, stress on hospital systems, are merely mitigation actions. South Korea was prepared for the coronavirus crisis because of the MERS and other epidemics, and failures resulting in corrective actions. Labs were centralized and better equipped for testing and tracking the infected. One of the key tools is testing. President Trump says the goal is for the U.S. to exceed and far surpass tests per capita in South Korea. Five million tests are planned by the end of April in the U.S. Where the U.S. falls short is in use of multipronged digital tracking using data from people's use of mobile phones, credit card usage, and use of apps designed to separate infected people from others. South Korea is a democracy with a population of 52 million people, about the size of France. People who were student activists in the democratization era in South Korea say the use of digital technology is a need today. We have to adapt in emergency situation they say. Ki Mo-ran, epidemiologist, and adviser to South Korean government says this is a key part lacking in the European and U.S. efforts to control coronavirus. She says in South Korea we know the patient's contacts, where he goes and stays, so we don't have to lock down everybody. Without digital tracking one cannot know which place is contaminated, which place is clean, so that there can be a lockdown of just that area and not the whole country, says Ki Mo-ran. She asks the question- is one person's privacy more important than the lives of a family or other people who are affected. Is it OK to lockdown every child in the country in a home as in Spain for over a month so that particular people's privacy is respected? These are serious questions for western society, are they exceptions or is democracy not just a western idea but equally cherished in Asian societies, people talk about Confucianism in China and the Asian culture forgetting that the biggest democracies are quite large and functioning well in India in addition to South Korea, Taiwan Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Japan, far larger in area and population than China. The French government has chosen the app TraceTogether as the least intrusive one adaptable to France for use there. The U.S. is having Google and Apple develop one of its own. India will be developing one of its own. The NYT raises the question will it be watered down so much in France or in the U.S. and UK to be less effective than the  dire need for an alternative to lockdowns? ...

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David Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, is interviewed by Tom Keene. Stockman says the US has $52 trillion of debt on a $14.5 trillion economy, a ratio of 3.6 times GDP. Historically, before 1980, it has been around 1.6. This debtification of the US, he says, is the major problem facing the US today. Stockman sees little or no economic growth in the next 5 to 10 years, as debt reduction progresses.

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A survey by GlaxoSmithKline shows that 60% of S. Africans are clinically overweight. A study by Imperial College of London, shows 75% of S. African women are overweight, 43% are obese an increase from 24% in 1980. As a result about 13% of the S. African population suffers from diabetes.

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A study done by the Hudson Institute shows an increase in sales of 5.5% on average in same store sales of restaurants which increased lower calorie items on the menu. The reverse is taking place for restaurants that have neglected to do this, with these restaurants experiencing a decline in sales. This was based on research firm NPD and restaurant data at 21 fast-food and sit-down restaurant chains between 2006 and 2011. Chains that include lower calorie counts on menus include Panera, McDonalds, Denny's and Au Bon Pain chain. Federal regulations will require restaurants with 20 or more outlets to post the calorie counts in early 2014. The process of moving Americans away from eating habits that lead to obesity is moving at a slow pace. Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center of Science in the Public Interest, says large serving sizes at restaurants lead to overeating and obesity. Frequency of eating at restaurants is another problem, with studies showing women who eat out more than 5 times a week take in about 290 calories each day compared to women who do not eat out that often. The healthy options at restaurants are still restricted to a small portion of menus and healthy choices are limited....

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A study done at the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute by health sciences professor, David Kindig and PhD candidate Erika Cheng, shows the impact of smoking, graduation rates, poor choices and availability of food, and incomes, in declining life spans of women in some parts of the U.S.

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1.2 million people left Paris just before the lockdown to places in the countryside from Brittany to Normandy. What happened to these people and the Paris they left behind? There are positive developments- for the first time many have experienced the quiet of the countryside and being close to nature in a way they never did before, realizing now how precious this is. Some families have decided to make a new beginning leaving Paris and starting a new life in another part of the country. This means less stress for the family trying to get their children to the right schools, less stress at work with the new rules on how work will be organized, and a chance to be closer to nature and away from the bustle of the city. Others are returning but aware of how they were perceived. Parisians who stayed say this Paris under lockdown is "everything we need." The city was quiet with an unusual calm, a peaceful environment and neighborhoods that were never like this before. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris is looking for ways to keep some of what was gained such as more cycling and a better lifestyle. She is putting in new bike lanes as quickly as possible for as many kilometres as can be done. Hidalgo vows to keep the city from being overcrowded with cars after reopening May 11. A journalist who was going around this quiet calm Paris says Paris has never been more pleasant than it is now. Who could have imagined that there is something to be learned from adamantine difficulties, from stumbles such as this one. Paris and France were stuck in a problem that they had prepared well for in 2002 with SARS and 2009 with H1N1, having afterwards abandoned the public health precautions during austerity policies and misplaced priorities.      ...

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Joe Nocera talks to experts like Simon Johnson at MIT. Johnson says that when he talks to other experts, after a two minute discussion, they say we should just nationalize the banks. Here Christopher Whalen, a veteran bank analyst, of Institutional Risk Analyst, and Joshua Rosner of research firm Graham-Fisher, say the same thing, with the phrases, lets get on with it or just do it. Says Simon Johnson, thats what we told emerging market countries, Thailand in 1997, or Russia in 1998, when he worked at the IMF. He says we told them to close down some of the banks, and take over the others, and inject government capital. He adds its the best practices, and its straightforward. So asks Nocera, is Geithner talking about the stress test banks will be subjected to, as first step preceding nationalization, more of a calculated approach to gradually introduce the idea of nationalization. But he isnt sure, as Geithner also told David Brooks of the NYT, that governments were not so good at managing banks. No one knows for sure. But says Nocera thats exactly what the government did to solve the S&L crisis. And the man who was former chairman of the FDIC, and helped run the program for the Resolution Trust Corporation, says the government did a pretty good job of it, taking over banks, replacing top managers and directors, and stripping out the bad assets and selling off the now healthy banks to private buyers. So can it be done again and will it be that hard? Yes, its been done before, and its not that hard say these experts. Every month that the administration and Geithner procrastinate puts the banks in a deeper hole, and will mean more layoffs and a worse crisis, even years taken to recover. What he has'nt mentioned is that even if after some procrastination the government gets around to doing it to clean up the mess, there is one added complication this time that is different than what happened with the S&L crisis or with the Swedish cleanup, or the Japanese cleanup after 2003, this time the global economy is caught up in the crisis which makes recovery that much tougher....

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According to recent Center for Disease Control numbers, about two-thirds of American women are obese or overweight. Retail stores like Target are trying to appeal to women in the 14 plus sizes where demand is growing.

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Aizenman in this must-read describes the National Soda Summit and the presentation of one man Todd Putnam, a former executive from Coca-Cola that throws light on one of the truly important things that happened in the lives of Americans in the postwar period of development and growing prosperity. This is the development of marketing and advertising and its singular application in the case of Coca Cola to promoting sugary drinks. It is also related to what even business people describe as the single biggest problem in America. And it is happening at a time when the story is being repeated in developing countries such as China and India. Putnam describes the exhilaration, he and other Coca-Cola managers felt when the graphs at internal presentations showed Coke passing milk in consumption per capita in America. Several other facts stand out in Putnam's description of his experience- the ignorance on health issues among his marketing peers, the huge marketing prowess and dollars brought to bear once a goal such as increasing per capita consumption of sugary drinks was set- he was hired out of Purdue by P&G and worked at Disney before joining Coca-Cola- and the focus on the 12-24 demographic with 90% of all soft drink marketing targeted at this segment. What he regrets most is the focus on minorities who suffer some of the highest levels of obesity in America. No mention is made of the efforts underway in developing coutnries such as China and India which are seeing a surge in obesity rates and diseases such as diabetes. Coca-Cola says 41% of its sugary drinks are low calorie, but compared to milk, fruit juice and other healthier alternatives where does this rank? The cost to the nation's health care system alone would show that the performance of Coca-Cola's stock price over the postwar period came with a price tag that was never even thought about, when healthier alternatives as health drinks companies have found sell well when well marketed and formulated for different groups....

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Rising bond yields for the bonds of Germany, USA and Spain are seen for 2011. The absence of solutions for deficit reduction after the passing of Bush tax cuts in the US, and the debt crisis in Europe, create a situation with the potential for sovereign shocks in 2011.

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S&P downgraded France's credit rating from AAA to AA+ on Jan 13, 2012. S&P downgraded Italy's credit rating to BBB+ and Spain's credit rating to A. The AAA ratings for Germany, Netherlands and Finland were left unchanged. S&P stated its reasoning: "Today's ratings actions are primarily driven by our assessment that the policy initiatives that have been taken by European policy makers in recent weeks may be insufficient to fully address ongoing systemic stresses in the eurozone."