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The growing number of women in their 40's who are childless, one person homes, "child-free" adults, higher rates of divorce, are not limited just to Western Europe, the U.S. and Japan. This is spreading rapidly in lower income countries in the Arab world and Asia also. In Europe the progress is relentless. With divorce rates higher and fewer women marrying, the probability of a women of reproductive age getting married in Belgium is about 40%, and divorce at about 50%, according to Eurostat. So that the probability of women getting married and staying married is about 20%. This is true of other European countries also. There is a huge increase in "child-free' adults, men and women choosing voluntarily to not have children. The proportion of childless women in their 40's is highest in Berlin and Hamburg, nearly 33%, about 25% in Italy, and 20% in Sweden. One person homes are increasing in Western Europe, with about 32% in Europe and 45% in Denmark, not from aging alone as in Denmark as many as twice the number of one person homes are under age 65 than over 65. The UN population Division's "World Marraige Data 2012," shows that places like Morocco, Libya, and other parts of the Arab world are also experiencing these trends, with income and schooling levels much lower than in Europe and the U.S. These trends are now worldwide and affecting traditionally conservative societies like China....

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The general elections of 2015 show a nation divided, with Labor strong in the north of England and the Midlands, the conservatives in the south of England, the SNP in Scotland, and the UKIP competing for votes with Labor in the north of England. The election also raised questions about seats and representation in the voting system when SNP gained 56 seats with 1.5 million votes, half the votes cast for UKIP, and UKIP gaining only 1 seat. The Conservatives won a majority of the seats, 330 seats with a third of the popular votes. Voters distrusted both the Conservatives and the Labor party but distrusted Labor more, says Malik, and decided to stay with the Conservatives. Malik reminds readers that as late as 1992, Conservatives won a third of the popular vote in Scotland, and close to half of the votes till the 1950's. Now there is only one Conservative member of parliament from Scotland. Labor suffered a severe defeat in its base in Scotland with the SNP gaining 56 of 59 seats. Labor also lost the seat that was previously held by former prime minister Gordon Brown. On the EU the election promise of prime minister Cameron to hold a referendum on Britain staying in the EU in 2017, creates more uncertainty. David Cameron put the situation in the right words- " I want to reclaim the mantle that we should never have lost, the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom....

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Merrill Lynch's Linenberg says the expectation of earnings for AMR is at $1.15 per share for 2006. JP Morgan's Baler's earnings per share estimate of $3.00 per share, and Standard and Poors stable outook for AMR Bonds substantially support evidence of turnaround in profits at American Airlines. American's business model factors in $65 per barrel oil.

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Brazil's Senate votes 55 to 22 to impeach president Dilma Rousseff for manipulating financial accounts to cover up a risky budget deficit. With the economy seeing a 3.8% GDP decline in 2015, and unemployment at 10.9%, Rousseff is affected by a stunning decline in popularity to about 10 percent. During the boom years the Workers Party of Rousseff under president Lula enjoyed soaring popularity, which now appears to be in retrospect a result of high commodity prices and subsidies, and not from careful management of the economy. The impeachment also follows corruption investigations of Petrobras with links to the government.

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The Indian government's restrictions on single brand retail store ownership by foreign companies has long been an impediment for companies like IKEA. The decision by the Indian government in 2012 to allow 100% ownership removes this impediment. However other restrictions are seen as onerous- one requirement is for 30% of sourcing to be done in India. IKEA management points out that the sourcing from small and midsize enterprises may be difficult. By contrast IKEA has increased local sourcing in China from 30 to 65% just to meet price competition fom local competitors, according to Jen Hansegard, head of the China operations.

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Since 2007 Applle has sold 50 million units of the Apple iPhone, making it Apple's largest business. With the New iPhone 4 analysts expect Apple to sell about 37 million phones in the fiscal year to September 2010. This would be a 79% increase over the 20.7 million sets sold in the prior year. And of global sales analysts say about 55% of sales for the iPhone are from outside the US, compared to 25% 2 years ago. There is a lot of excitement among iPhone fans waiting in line at Apple stores in Europe and Japan, long before the stores opened.

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The U.S. Fed FOMC's decision to continue paring bond purchases by $10 billion monthly. Fed chairman Bernanke said in 2011 responding to criticism from other countries -"it is upto emerging markets to find the appropriate tools to balance their own growth." The Fed Open Market Committee voted 10-0 to continue tapering bond purchases, by reducing it to $65 billion a month from $75 billion a month. The Fed is forecasting growth for 2014 of 3% in 2014 and over 3% in 2015 can be made without sparking inflation. 2013 growth estimated by the Commerce Dept is 2.7%.

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Three million additional Americans get access to Medicaid as a result of the Obama Healthcare Law (Affordable Care Act). Under the law states could expand Medicaid to people less than 65 years old with income of 133% of the federal poverty level of $15,521 for individual or $31,721 for family. About half of U.S. states expanded Medicaid and the rest kept the prior income guidelines. The figures are from a report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which show 58 million Americans on Medicaid in third quarter of 2013, and up to 61 million in March 2014.

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Akis Tsochatzopoulos, 74, a former defense minister from the socialist Pasok Party, is given a 20 year sentence for taking 55 million euros in bribes from a number of arms deals. He was defense minister from 1996 to 2001, and the charges relate arms purchases in that period of Russian TOR-M1 short range missiles and German submarines. He is already serving a eight year sentence for other offenses. Submarine deals with Germany at what were thought to be inflated prices were a topic of discussion as the Greek crisis and unemployment worsened in 2010-2012.

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IHS Global Insight estimates that output in the US for the auto industry for 2009 will be 9.5 million vehicles, with capacity of 16.9 milllion vehicles this amounts to 56% capacity utilization number which is very low. Center for Automotive Research estimates that the sales began moving ahead of trend in 1996 and really accelerated after 1998. The easy financing fueled the boom. Now the 16-17 million sales years that were considered normal are seen as inflated and way above the trend. All this suggests that there is a lot of restructuring ahead for the auto industry.

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GM share price plunged to a 55 year low of $11.43. It dropped 11% in one day June 26, 2008. This is te lowest price since the days of Eisenhower as President. GM according to anlaysts will end the year with $20 billion in cash, and will go through at least $10 billion this year. And the market is changing dramitcally towards smaller fuel efficient cars with GM not taking the initiative to move towards these types of cars which makes going forward into 2008 just as risky with the economic downturn making things worse in 2009.

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Private equity firms like Apollo and Blackstone and others may find themselves in trouble further down the road in the leveraged loan market where these private equity firms took on leveraged funding to purchase loans from banks at 85 cents on the dollar when they are down now to 65 cents on the dollar. This funding was obtained for 18 months so no immediate margin calls but if there is a long recession then further down the road both the private equity firms and the banks who thought they had unloaded these loans may have trouble with this.

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Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's role along with CEO Prince at Citigroup in relaxing strict oversight and risk controls to pursue riskier investments and increase profits at Citigroup. This led to the $65 billion in losses on mortgage related investments that caused its share price to collapse to $3.77 by November 21, 2008. About 75,000 jobs are already lost from 375,000 worldwide and Citi is in talks with government officials in emergency meetings this weekend before the markets open on Monday November 24, 2008. This time Citi is in crisis mode and a lot can happen in the coming days.

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Its now known that some of the money that the government used to bailout AIG is going to Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs, so that they can pay the hedge funds to whome they sold credit default swaps. The way it works is this. Hedge funds bet against the housing market that if mortgage defaults reach a certain level they would be paid a large amount. To do this they buy credit default swaps from banks like Deutsche Bank and Goldman. In turn Deutsch and Goldman go out and hedge the risks of selling these credit default swaps. Its hard to find someone to sell this insurance, but AIG becomes the dominant insurer for these credit default swaps. What does AIG get out of this. Only fractions of apenny for every dollar of insurance sold to the banks, less than $10 million for $1 billion of insurance. These swaps were sold in 2005, when some of these hedge funds saw risks in the housing markets excesses, and they were making the bets for an event that was a very plausible one, with very little risk to themselves. And the banks were passing on a lot of the risk for insurance on the cheap to AIG, which ends being the sucker holding a big part of the risk. What did have to gain from this, and why it agreed to sell this insurance is a mystery. Its this insurance that has caused AIG its biggest headache, to have to set aside money to pay the banks who in turn pay the hedge funds. When these pools of mortgage assets of companies like Countrywide Financial, which were created by Deutsche Bank and Goldman, called by names such as 'START' and 'ABACUS', went down in value AIG has to set aside money to pay the banks. As these assets fall in value from mid September to December 2008, AIG and by this the government which now owns 80% of AIG, paid $5.4 billion to Deutsche and $8.1 billion to Goldman under credit default swap contracts AIG has written. This adds up to $52 billion paid to all the banks that bought insurance for credit default swaps they sold and covered with AIG insurance. And this is a large part of the $170 billion of government money to AIG. Its for this kind of financial wizardry that makes little sense, and showed no sense of responsibility for the firm, that the Financial Products Group's 370 employees are to be rewarded with $400 million in bonuses, with binding contracts as reported in the Washington Post. The $165 million so widely reported in bonuses sent out recently, are only a part of the $400 million. While this is going on its surreal that on the other side Michigan is hurting , auto states in the midwest are hurting badly. And $17 billion barely makes it through in time to keep GM and Chrysler running in December 2008, and the money can be called in by the government in February 2009 leading to these companies ending up in bankruptcy. This puts the situation in new perspective, and Rattner who heads the group looking at the GM restructuring must be aware of this, when he said bankruptcy is not necessarily the best option and the loans would not be called in by the government. Its job losses in the economy, and the fragile nature of the economic outlook, and also the way in which money is being scandalously wasted in other places like AIG with no purpose, that Rattner must have in the back of his mind as he looks at money for GM restructuring and jobs for hurting workers. ...

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Compared to 2008 Hillary Clinton is now very clear that she will stand up for woman's issues openly- "it is about no ceilings, no limits, for any of us." About playing the women's card she says "deal me in." One of the paradoxes of this election season is that white women registered voters 35 to 64 years of age have shown less enthusiasm for Hillary, around 34-36 percent in polls such as the NBC-WSJ poll. Interestingly the figure climbs to 66 percent for ages 18-34, and to 56 percent for ages over 64, for all women. Experts attribute this to the fact that women over 35 are facing fewer barriers than the women over 64 who remember the hard won battles for women's rights when it was hard for women to get a credit card or run for office, or be promoted in business. Traditional career choices were being teachers or nurses. A lot has changed in the last 20 years, and this has left some women who are no longer facing such barriers turning to other issues to choose their candidate such as happened in their enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders. Overall for all women registered voters  Hillary gets 52 percent support, Trump 37 percent, according to a July 2016 NBC/WSJ poll.   ...

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This WSJ story provides a fascinating look at how Italy planned for too long, but failed to finally execute the final step of using the submersible steel floodgates that were already built to tackle just the kind of flooding that happened recently.  Problems include the use of submersible steel floodgates that would go back under water  after use in a flood, causing an additional complication to building the floodgates. The city itself was not entirely behind the plan so that execution was delayed. The politics and corruption added additional delays that astonishingly delayed the plan for over 10 years. About 80% of Venice was flooded with waters rising 6 feet above normal levels on November 12, 2019. It is hard to believe that 78 yellow steel barriers stayed on the seabed instead of blocking the three points at which water could enter from the sea into Venice. Most of the area has normal land barriers and the steel gates were designed to block water from entering at the smaller points that separate land barriers. It is also unbelievable that the plan started after a bad flood in 1966, construction beginning in 2003 after approval by over 12 public bodies, expert panels and courts on the complicated design. Costs went up as years passed from $1.7 billion to $5.5 billion. Ordinary Italians say Rotterdam has similar problems and has dams and no flooding, that the underwater design of the gates did not make sense just for aesthetics. Some experts say the underwater design doomed the project by making it costly and difficult, bureaucratic delays did the rest. The longer the delays and higher the cost the faster it eroded support in Venice and Italy, leading to this improbable result of building the flood gates with the underwater design, testing them but not making it operational in the final step, and not authorizing the use on November 11, 2019. The gates were in disuse astonishingly for so long that rust was discovered at one point.  Venice is now losing much of the population near its canals with only 50,000 remaining from a one time population of 171,000. The latest flood damage is over $1 billion and inexplicable after so much effort building the 74 yellow floodgates under water. ...

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Supreme Court protects parent opt out of LGBTQ stories and requiring age verification for porn sites. Texas was where the civil rights movement got its support from president LBJ, a Democrat and FDR follower. And still Texas vote for the age verification for porn sites was voted for with support being 164-1. Yet Elena Kagan, who was a Harvard legal scholar, now Supreme Court Justice did not support this decision, and offered a flaky and irresponsible dissent- “Carefully drawn age verification laws stand a real chance of surviving.” What about the harm done to minors while the scholars quibble about legal writing. Kagan was in elite schools all her life, Hunter high school in NYC, Princeton Worcester Oxford, Harvard Law School,  and deputy assistant to Clinton, before Clinton's economic aide Summers picked her for Harvard Law School Dean, and Obama picked her for SC Justice. In 2025 these elitist backgrounds have failed, and are failing to address the problems of the Nation in a direct common sense way as faced by ordinary Americans and even by the 164 of 165 members of the Texas state legislature, which is saying a lot. A search shows failure of Google and of AI after search of 10 pages on Google no mention is found that the vote in Texas legislature was 164 to 1. Parents have to protect their rights and 22 states are now passing this law. ...

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Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland says in the NYT that some way has to be found to respect the vote of 55% in Northern Ireland in favor of remaining in the European Union. He says Northern Ireland and Scotland should not be made to leave the EU because of a different preference expressed in England and Wales. He points to one of the most harmful effects of the Brexit i- the return to a hard  border between the EU state of Ireland and Northern Ireland. This will affect the economic, healthcare, tourism, business and cultural links of Ireland in the north and south, and reverses the gains of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He calls it a result of factional infighting in the Tory party, the rise of far right anti immigrant groups such as UKIP, and the Gove faction which never really supported the peace deal in Ireland that has brought two decades of peace. Adams says concurrent referendums for a united Ireland is one solution to this problem. Another is an All Ireland forum of political parties and civic partners to meet, and for the Irish Government to stand behind the Good Friday Agreement, so that the Brexit does not hurt the interests of Ireland as a whole. ...

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As the media in the US and world cover this issue the focus is on the war and Hormuz. In the background a different situation is playing out. US Iran peace talks with Pakistan/ Qatar mediation June 13 2026- different factions in Iran RGC and Foreign Ministry+mediators with different positions  put out conflicting reports throughout May and June. The mediators Pakistan, Turkey and also Qatar/Saudis which also have a keen interest in limiting the damage to their economies, are taking one position working with the Foreign Ministry and elected Iranian president Pezeshkian who won 16 million votes 55% in the 2024 election. Inside Iran the RGC under new leaders is pursuing its own interests that does not put the economy first in conflict with Pezeshkian and public opinion in Iran for putting the economy first.  Pakistan faces grave risks with its large population, the risks to the economy from oil prices at $125 a barrel to its balance of payments crisis. Turkey also faces risks to its economy with high inflation. Saudis and Qatar see their economic prospects as limited and need to cut economic projects as oil revenues decline. In this situation the US goal of getting nuclear material out of the country is now put into a phased process based on conditions for every step of the way by the US negotiators, yet with memorandum of understanding to accomodate a changing situation. This policy may also be now agreed on between China and the US, and to some extent Russia. This can be seen as playing out and media does not talk about it. China openly greets DJT in Beijing and US and China agree to work things out in May 2026. China cuts its oil use by 3 million barrels a day as shown in a WSJ report this week. This is a major step. UAE leaves OPEC and calls for cuts in oil prices. Next Delsy Rodriguez of Venezuela visits New Delhi, India, and meets to set up economic relationships that include large purchases of Iranian oil to replace supplies lost in Hormuz and what India can offer in exchange for these purchases to Venezuela, including infrastructure building support. This points to a Win-Win for the US, China, India, as oil needs are met from places other than Hormuz for major users of energy. China may have realized that its prolific use of oil for 25 years of rapid development may have led to wasteful use of oil- some of that wasteful use can now be cut- 3 million barrels of oil use cut accepting some slower growth for quality growth. Germany and Japan are using less energy per unit of GDP and China will be looking at their model of energy use as an example to follow. This has huge potential for limiting climate change, as without China and India becoming more efficient in energy use, nothing the US could do was going to make a big difference for climate change. This may be one of the unintended benefits of the Hormuz situation in 2026 - ways to cut energy use for climate change action. And ways to move away from Hormuz and Persian Gulf for supplies so that poorer countries and advanced economies have to pay less for oil helping the poorer countries (Pakistan, Turkey) survive and grow, helping middle economic status rapidly modernizing economies  continue rapid growth (China and India), and helping advanced economies with cost of living hurting the majority of their people (US and EU).  With less money Russia, Iran and other countries will face serious constraints for more military expenditures as for the first time alternative supplies (other than Hormuz) and lower oil prices are being brought about in a newly unfolding plan of the US, China, India and other nations, that is not discussed in today's world media headlines. This means when seen objectively there is room for optimism based on the one thing going for the US, China, India, EU, a host of poorer nations in Asia /Africa/ LatinAmerica, the  5 largest development blocs and population blocs today, which is that the US and China can agree on being custodians for peaceful development accepting their responsibilities for guaranteeing this world order- as DJT and Xi Jinping stated in Beijing in May 2026- with the US aim of nuclear free Iran also accepted by China, Russia, India, and large sections of the Iranian population that put the economy first. ...

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This report looks at the high tech devices that help monitor seniors at elder care facilities and at home in Japan. Japan has a rapidly growing seniors population with three million expected to be over 90 by 2025, and over 65's expected to be one third of the population by then. The government's goal is to keep seniors in their home for as long as possible, and use information technology to support caregivers. Of 92 Japanese startups looking for valuations over $1 billion 25 are focused on health care, with backing not much from VC's (only $32 million in 3rd quarter 2018) but from large companies looking for growth businesses. Patient monitoring devices are getting funding from companies such as Sharp Corp, Canon and others. Devices check details including whether people are at risk of falling out of bed or taking too long to get back from the toilet. Healthcare for elderly in Japan will reach about $300 billion by 2025 and new advances are expected in monitoring seniors- including for such devices as DFree that help patients  know about how to monitor bladders, also used by caregivers to know when to take someone to the bathroom.  ...

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India's economy has overcome the challenges posed by demonetization and the implementation of the GST tax that slowed growth to 5.7% for much of 2017. The growth rate increased to 7.2% in the last quarter of 2017. The GST tax change that created a single market is likely to increase growth. Growth of 8-10% matching China's growth rate in the last two decades is possible. Faster economic growth is needed to meet the need for more jobs, as 1 million new job entrants enter the job market each month. Indian Railways received 20 million applications for 100,000 new jobs showing the need for new jobs cannot be met at current growth rates. A major problem is the condition of the banking sector with bad loans affecting ability of banks to lend. A planned bailout of the banking sector and a new bankruptcy code are efforts to address this problem. Governance in the banking sector is also a problem that needs to be addressed. The price of oil is now up to $65 a barrel, increasing the cost to India which now faces a larger oil import cost.   ...

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Higher inflation in Germany could help rebalance the German economy by increasing imports. German inflation has averaged 1.6% since 1999, compared to 2.0 % for the eurozone. It was 2.3% in December. And after years of wage restraint German unions are increasing the wage demands. IG Metall is looking for a 6.5% wage increase. And interest rates at 1% are quite low for Germany where unemployment is down to 5.5%, according to Eurostat, and employers have to meet higher wage demands. The ECB is aiming at 2% inflation and Germany has a 26% weighting in the calculation of the rate. But as Italy, France and Spain see inflation decline there is room for addditional inflation in Germany before the eurozone goes well above the 2% inflation rate. By freezing wages and improving price competitiveness with German products, other countries could increase exports. Yet the prospects of this making a large difference is limited because German companies are likely to push for wage restraint. The Bundesbank predicts wage increases of 2.4% in 2012. Over time the wage restraint in other eurozone countries and even slightly higher wages in Germany would reverse the trend since 1999 of Germany having much lower inflation, and this could be one of the factors helping in rebalancing....

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Portugal's foreign minister, Paulo Portas, resigns in protest against continuity of austerity measures signalled by the selection of Ms. Albuquerque as the new finance minister. Portas's party is part of the coalition of centre right parties in the administration of prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho. Cuts in public employee pay and spending on health and education, income and sales tax increases, have cut the deficit to 6.4% of GDP by 2013 from about 10% in 2010. The cost of this is an economy that is shrinking more than expected- by 4.8% in 2011 and 2012, and an additional 2.3% in 2013. Unemployment exceeds 17% in 2013. The loan terms negotiated for the 78 billion euro bailout with the IMF and E.U. in 2010, were renegotiated so that the 3% of GDP target for the deficit for 2013 was relaxed to 5.5%. Portas's party and other leaders are calling for a further renegotiation to take into account the economic conditions in Portugal and boost growth. Portas's party opposed the effort to cut labor costs of companies with a large increase in worker social security contributions, a measure seen as counterproductive even by business leaders that was later dropped. In financial markets the 10 year Portugal bond yield increased 0.22% to 6.615%....