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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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Attorneys in al 50 states are investigating foreclosures. This will increase the uncertainty for banks in addition to other short term losses.

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James Areddy explains why the Jinping administration in China was so keen on promoting gains in the equity markets. It was seen as a way to ease the debt overhang from the 2008 Stimulus of $586 billion. The Stimulus was put together in November 2008 to pay for infrastructure, construction and social spending, at a level that was 3 times the stimulus proposed in the European Union. Critics say that the initial signs of a crisis that might affect the government are magnified in China's authoritarian political structure, with one example being the size of this stimulus. With this kind of hasty spending a common problem is that not enough good projects can be found. One example of wasted spending is the $930 million spent to build the Shanghai West rail station from a older structure that had fallen into disuse. With three other stations serving Shanghai this station gets little traffic. The Jinping administration promoted the stock market as a way for companies to issue equity and reduce debt, and make less reliance on bank loans. The result was to push the Shanghai Composite Index up by 150% for the one year gain by June 12, 2015. The government also made it possible for individual investors to borrow money to invest in the market. About $354 billion of margin lending to finance stock purchases is estimated by Goldman Sachs, which now poses problems with a one third decline in stocks after June 12, 2015, leading to losses for individual investors. The loss of the boost from the stock market is likely to hurt GNP growth by 1% percentage point, according to Capital Economics. As China's real growth according to experts is closer to 4%, because of statistical errors and overestimates, according to experts, this could pose a serious problem for the economy. Countries dependent on commodity exports to China such as Australia, Chile and Brazil are likely to feel the effects of a decline in demand for iron ore, copper and other metals....

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EU Competition Commissioner, Margarethe Vestager, on a trip to the U.S. to meet FTC and Justice Department officials, says the situation in Europe is different from that in the U.S. In Europe Google has a dominant position with over 90% market share, much more than in the U.S. where Yahoo and Microsoft are competitors in general Internet search. She said about Google following the filing of formal antitrust charges by the EU against the company- "is a successful company because they have good products. But the compliments, they stop when you get the suspicion that there may be an abuse of this very strong and dominant position." In earlier statements Vestager has said that the dominant position in all its ramifications poses "societal challenges." Complaints to the EU Commission originated with Microsoft and smaller companies affected by Google. News Corp, publisher of the WSJ, has joined a group of companies in filing new formal complaints in April 2015 with the EU Commission about Google practices. Google now has 10 weeks to respond to the charges. In the U.S. the FTC also had concerns, with FTC staffers favoring filing formal charges. In the end the FTC decided to rely on Google making voluntary changes to three practices taken up by the FTC- including complaints about "scraping" of content from rival websites, and its restrictions on the ability of advertisers to use competing platforms. Vestager sees the need to get the process moving, as it has dragged on for about 5 years, saying "it is important for us to be more speedy in getting the question out, to be able for Google, for competitors, but most of all for consumers to see our concern." The EU Commission charges about Google favoring its own comaprison shopping service are a way for Vestager to establish a broader precedent, as it looks into other ways Google's uses its dominant position to favor its own products and services....

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In this interview with Alessandra Galloni of the WSJ following the June 28, 2012 European summit, Monti says Italian spreads with German bonds would be 1200 or something if the Berlusconi government were still in power. Monti later called Berlusconi to say he regretted the extrapolations on spreads mentioned in the intervew that could be seen as banal or abstract. This is taking the phrase out of the context as the comment was made in the context of a question by Galloni asking why Italian spreads were so high even after the actions taken by Monti to improve competitiveness including labor reforms. Monti's answer was that this was because markets are sensing that eurozone governance is weak, that though France has done less reform its spreads are low because people think Germany would never let France go. Monti makes the statement here that the agreement of Europe's political leaders that they would do whatever is necessary to save the euro after the eurozone June 2012 summit, including stabilizing the markets through EFSF/ESM instrument, gives the ECB the political and moral justification to engage in buying Italian and Spanish bonds to stabiize yields at acceptable levels. He just hopes the ECB does not wait till the night before the catastrophe (disintegration of the euro) before it acts, and does this slightly before that time. And his words to Merkel and Germany about the need for ECB interventions to stabilize yields are clearly stated- Merkel risks facing an Italian parliament that rejects Europe and the euro and is not a friend of Germany if the action is not taken.Throughout Monti remains committed to the idea of a economic and monetary union of Europe. To give up on the euro is to give up not just a currency but a civic culture. It is the most forceful statement of any European leader during the eurozone crisis....

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This WSJ story shows how China started its steel industry from small beginnings when Chinese leader Deng visited a Nippon Steel plant in 1978. He made the decision to go big with Baosteel, with an investment of $6 billion, with the words- "if we do it lets do it big." This was 36 times the Chinese foreign exchange reserves at the time. From 4% of steel production, this went up and up, passing the U.S. in 1993, past Japan in 1996, and in 2018 producing three times the steel of U.S., Russia and China combined, producing 923 million metric tons of steel in 2018, or more than half of world production of steel. With steel China was able to build its automobile industry, shipbuilding, bridges, infrastructure, high speed rail network. This was done using global demand, subsidies from the government, cheap loans and tax breaks. Markets worldwide were affected by substantial excess production in China. From Baosteel the spread of the steel industry to all 23 Chinese provinces led to China accounting for 25% of world exports. By 2016 5 million workers mostly from the agrarian countryside were employed in the steel industry, helping China transform itself into an rapidly urbanizing and modern economy. It was a period when the rail network was tripled between 1975-2017, with shipping companies that ensured access to Australian coal and Brazilian iron ore. From 2011 to 2017 Chinese steel dropped global prices by 57% triggering closure of steel mills in EUrope and the U.S. About a third of trade complaints since 2001 by G20 countries against China are about steel. After entry into the WOrld Trade Organization Chinese steel exports rose to 8% of GDP from 2%. Subsidies, cheap energy, and shift of agrarian workers to cities. U.S. investigations around 2006 showed Chinese steelmakers subsidies covered 30% to 45% of the subsidized value of steel pipes exported overseas. China's steel prices were set 20-40% lower than the U.S. China responded to complaints saying it was trade protectionism. The WTO rules call for full disclosing of all subsidies. This was disclosed 5 years after joining WTO in 2001, and only for central subsidies. Local government subsidies were not disclosed till 2016- the U.S. says 15 years late. Still the Bush and Obama administrations failed to take action. In 2018 Mr. Trump seized on this as a campaign issue that resonated with American workers in manufacturing communities across the U.S. In 2018 November president Trump announced a 25% tariff on imports of Chinese steel. A six month probe by U.S. officials had already shown 40% of sales value came from subsidies for corrosion resistant steel from China. The U.S. Trade Commission imposed tariffs of its own from 39% to 241%, with the Trump tariffs of 25% coming as an additional tariff to tackle the trade surplus with China. Meanwhile in China the government is closing uncompetitive smaller steel mills and in 2016 it combined baosteel with Wuhan Steel to create a larger company, and consolidate remaining companies. Baosteel now provides the steel for CIMC to dominate the steel container business, and to make ship to shore cranes, and make the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.  It also goes to show what can be accomplished from small beginnings for countries in the developing world from Asia to Africa and Latin America, with government and industry focussed on development and growth.   ...

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The financial system for mortgages and the legal system are on a collision course say experts. The courts require due process, and one expert discounts reassurances from banks, because it does not go into how easily banks can prove ownership of the underlying mortgages. A legal expert at Georgetown University, sees a scenario in which the whole system comes to a halt, if instead of being lost, it is shown that mortgage documents were not properly transferred during each step of the securitization process. Much of the paperwork was rushed through in a mass production line during the recent wave of foreclosures, because the banks did not have the people and technology in place to deal with it- as pointed out in a Washington Post investigative report.

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The advanced technology on the Noble Bully 1 oil drilling rig in deep waters 140 miles south of New Orleans. It is jointly owned by Shell and Noble Corp. The technological improvements on the rig could only have been imagined a few years ago. A Eiffel tower shaped structure is completely enclosed in the rig compared to open derrick structures used on earlier rigs. The technology includes GPS, wind sensors, motion sensors, hydraulic systems, computer controlled thruster propellers on the bottom of the vessel to drill wells with precision. It can operate in water 8250 feet deep to 12,000 feet with safety upgrades, and upto 40,000 feet. A similiar ship Noble Bully 2 operates on the coastal part of Brazil. A new platform called Olympus will be a tension leg platform floaing on the sea like a cork, held together by tying it to the ocean floor using cables. The project is called the Mars B development. New sensors use seismic technology with devices closer to the ocean floor in the Gulf picking up data. The data is sent to Shell scientists working onshore and produces four dimensional maps of oil reservoirs using computer chips. The cost savings for the smaller structure include less steel and less fuel used, zero toxic emissions, and operating with 160 workers- 40% less workers than previous rig designs. Veteran drillers say its a lot better working environment and lot safer. Chief drillers sit in "drill chairs" and adjust the speed and direction of drill pipes using joy sticks and computer screens. It is this kind of technology that countries like Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and India need to develop their off shore oil fields, creaing new opportunities for oil companies such as Chevron, Shell, BP, Exxon and Total. The new technology equiped drilling ships, platforms and LNG processing ships are a way for Shell to reduce costs and improve capital efficiency, the new focus for CEO Van Beurden in 2014-2015....

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The U.S. takes in 70,000 refugees a year, but only 1500 Syrian refugees have been taken in by the U.S. by Sept. 2015, as a huge migrant refugee crisis unfolds in Europe. Germany has to make the same background checks and is moving quickly, the U.S. takes 18-24 months. The withdrawal of the U.S. from the Middle East under the Obama administration led to the collapse of the fragile situation in Libya, Iraq and Syria, and the unraveling of these countries, a direct cause of the massive refugee crisis in the region with about half the Syrian population and large parts of Iraqi, Kurdish, and Libyan population dislocated. The result is a massive humanitarian crisis, turning the hopes of the Arab Spring into something no one could have imagined across North Africa. In a small Lutheran church in Frankfurt, Paulskirche, is the German story of a popular movement that spread throughout Europe in 1848, for a transition from autocratic governments to parliamentary democracy. Aspirations similiar to that expressed in the Middle East and North Africa in 2013-2014 in the Arab Spring were expressed in Germany and many parts of Europe in 1848. In the centre of Berlin on the Kurfstendamm lie the bombed but preserved ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, telling the story of the intervening years 1848-1949. It took many years before the same aspirations for liberty found shape in Germany's Public Law of 1949, finally finding a safe resting place after years of failing to unify a people around the ideas of liberty and justice for all, and not nationalism. Germans who had the hardest time waging that fight, by embracing the refugees in a spirit of openness carry on that fight into this century. Paul asks the question- who will lead? A Lutheran pastor's daughter takes up the fight without the slightest hesitation, and full measure of confidence with the words- "Europe will have failed on the question of refugees, if the close connection between it and universal civil rights is destroyed." ...

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China's total public debt was 95% of GDP in 2022, Japan's was 62% in 1991. It's population aging faster than Japan's with population declining in 2022, Japan's declining in 2008 twenty years after its bubble burst. China's per capita income at $12,850 in 2022, compared to Japan's at $29,000 in 1991. China is facing more difficult headwinds than Japan in many ways. There is also higher tension in trade relations with US and EU limiting export growth. There is also the policy stance of the Communist Party that sees rural areas left behind with about 35% people in rural areas and Xi is slowing growth to reduce disparities and housing construction led speculative growth. In Japan urbanization was 77% in 1991, compared to 65% in China today. 

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China's Producer prices declined by 3%, Consumer prices flatlined, and imports and exports are both down 6.2% in September 2023. Growth is expected not to exceed 5% in forecasts by IMF and others.

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This report by NYT's Choe Sang Hun shows in a brief and lucid manner the charges against South Korea's president Park Geun-hye, as the National Assembly votes on a motion to impeach her.  Her close friend and advisor, Ms. Choo Soon-sil, is involved. Ms. Soon-sil is accused by prosecutors of seeking favors from corporations such as Hyundai, and using the help of the president or the administration to secure these favors. This includes contracts for companies and foundations run by Ms. Soon-sil. In the proceedings before the National Assembly business leaders of the nation's largest companies have confirmed that they could not say no because of requests coming from the administration and the presidential office. About $69 million of donations to the foundations were made. The conglomerate Lotte donated $6 million for a sports complex to be built so that Ms. Soon-sil's company Blue K could run it. Prosecutors say these companies feared retaliation or tax investigations if they did not comply with requests from the presidential office. Other charges are about national intelligence and this relates to orders from president Park to an aide to give 47 classified documents to Ms. Choi Soon-sil between 2013 and 2016. Choi had no security clearance and the documents showed who would be appointed to top government positions including national intelligence director. The opposition in the National Assembly says this violates her constitutional obligations. The constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press were violated say opposition leaders because a newspaper's president was fired for covering Ms. Choi's activities. ...

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Defense Secretary Gates does not see Russia as the threat it was in the Cold War, first because Russia's conventional forces are a "shadow" of what they were during the Cold War, and Russia has adverse demographic trends that will diminish Russia's ability in conventional forces. He sees the Georgian war in the context of Russia's seeking to exorcize, as he puts it, past humiliations. And Gates sees opportunities in the relationship with Russia. Such things as Russia's willingness to work with the US on Afghanistan. Evidence of this is Russia supporting the renwal of the UN resolution on Afghanistan. Another indication is that Russia he says is very worried about the drugs coming out of Afghanistan, and has been supportive to provide alternative routes for Europeans to get equipment and supplies into Afghanistan. These views come across in an interview on December 17, with Charlie Rose, a five time elected Congressman, for the PBS Charlie Rose show. They are also reflected in an article in Foreign Affairs journal's current issue. Gates was a CIA analyst and has some insightful observations. Gates told Charlie Rose that he does not see the Islamic radicals and violent Islamic extremists as a threat in the same way as the threat in the Cold War years. This threat is not as big as the threat to freedom during the Cold War. He says the failure in strategic communications was huge as agencies of the US government engaged in activities in other countries, like the Agency for International Development and the US Information Agency, were neglected starting in the in the 1990's. Communications in other countries of what the US represented and stands for was left to the Pentagon, a role the Pentagon was ill-suited for. He sees the Islamic terrorism as more of an ideological conflict. Speaking at a town hall meeting at the Balad Air Force base in Iraq, in December, Gates pointed to these communications failures as a real challenge for the new administration. But he now sees a huge opportunity in this past failure, and ways of addressing it creatively, in addition to commiting resources and people to this effort. Walter Pincus wrote this article, and its part of the fineprint analysis effort at the Washington Post in which speeches, reports, and other documents are examined by people like Pincus, to catch the really important things, uncovering the fine print that really makes the headlines. Another aspect of this fineprint effort is that there are a huge number of reports, and speeches and documents that had a tone reminiscent of the Cold War during the Georgia war and yet they do not correctly reflect the real situation about Russia, as Gates sees it from his analysis of what is actually happening. Gates has used Foreign Affairs, the Dec 17 Charlie Rose Show on PBS in which he was interviewed, and the speech at the Balad Air Force base in Iraq, to communicate his views and analysis. They are important to underline and emphasize precisely because they show that all that cold war hysteria reporting and speeches may be misleading and lead to improper conclusions and mistakes in policy, wasted effort, wasted resources, and lost lives. And just as the US strategic communications was starved of resources and effort, so also this necessary work to retrieve and give emphasis to the important things is neglected. One additional link to this is the speech, discussion, and QA session in Washington DC at the time of the G20 summit in which President Medvedev and the new administration's elder statesman and diplomat Marilyn Albright, former secretary of state, expressed their hopes and plans for a new era in Russian-American relations. ...

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The lack of consensus on social distancing and stay at home lockdown, poses huge problems for Brazil, with the governors of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro calling for social distancing and the president not taking action. The public health systems have been underfunded for years and are at risk of being overburdened. Dengue and other virus are also a risk in Brazil, along with coronavirus. The government froze all social spending under the previous president Michel Temer. Years of overspending and dysfunctional pension systems put Brazil into this situation.  Azevedo Silva, a researcher at Rio's state university UERJ, says it is of utmost importance that Brazil guarantees social isolation now so that fewer people will need hospital treatment. Health minister Henrique Mandetta also supports social isolation measures to be taken now as the crisis escalates in the U.S.