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After premium increases in 2023-2024 auto insurance premiums have more than caught up with cost increases during covid years. This WSJ report shows auto insurance companies now have premiums that more than offset what they are paying out for repairs and other expenses. In Florida excess premiums led to $950 million being returned to customers, other states have similar laws. Competition between insurers should lead to lower rates says the WSJ.

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Three factors make up risk in diversification and risk reduction through bonds in 2025 with the estimated 1.5 -3 trillion in spending planned by 2030 with $400 billion in 2025 alone. AI in corporate bond indexes up to 15% and reach 20% by 2030 vs 40% of stock indexes (JP Morgan),  AI risk in bonds diversification from over issuance and downgrades is something to look at. One cannot assume bonds will reduce risk in the same way as before with overissuance of corporate bonds to power AI spending by Tech companies. There is also the risk to the Nation in the massive capital misallocation of funds that will crowd out essential spending in the crumbling infrastructure of the Nation, in education and healthcare, that degrade American leadership in industry, science and technology.

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Grethcen Morgenson says investor Paulson who handpicked the bad apples from mortgage securities that were placed in the basket called Abacus 2007-AC1, and sold by Goldman to institutional investors, knew exactly what he was doing. Paulson paid Goldman $15 million for creating and marketing the Abacus deal according to the complaint by the SEC. Gretchen does not fail to disclose the ultimate irony of these happenings in her own subtle manner. Paulson, a graduate of the Stern School of Business, and of Harvard Business School, makes a living out of shorting high-flying shares in the tech bubble, and now in the mortgage securities bubble. This time in 2007 he makes an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 and $2 billon in 2008 for his hedge fund with investors from pension funds, endowments, wealthy families and individuals. The irony- a Congressional committee invites him to testify in November 2008 about the credit crisis, they ask him for advice in solving the credit crisis. The other irony- Paulson gives $15 million to the Center for Responsible Lending, for a center that would provide foreclosure assistance to borrowers under water....

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The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its leader Khairat Al Shater. Al Shater talks to the WSJ's Kaminski on his plans for Egypt and his demands for reinstatement of the elected parliament, the newly elected president of Egypt Mohammed Morsi taking that position, and the military backing off from its decree of unlimited powers over the president and parliament. He says he does not want a collision with the military and prefers to achieve the goals over three or four years, feels the military betrayed them, and admits to having too many disagreements with other pro-democracy groups in Egypt. His new emphasis is on a broad based effort and national accord to bring democracy and the rule of law in Egypt. Al Shater is a new breed of Muslim Brotherhood leaders in that he is a businessman having made money in furniture, software and other businesses, and at the same time a devout Muslim who spent years in Saudi Arabia. An interesting fact about the Muslim Brotherhood is that many of the leaders are academics, engineers and doctors or businesspersons, yet devout Muslims....

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Women have one of three positions in senior management in the federal government compared to one of six in corporate management. Women make up 41% of management positions at the Government Accountability Office, a federal agency that has women friendly policies including family friendy culture, daycare site at the Washington headquarters, flexible relocation policy, telework policies, and advancing women to positions even as they balance their professional and personal lives such as needs of children. It is not necessary to work 70-80 hours a week to advance to senior positions as in law firms. Susan Poling is a senior executive supervising 156 lawyers, and says in the beginning she was able to work part time to spend more time with her son and still have great things to do and be given higher responsibilities.

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There are questions whether the Black Rock Germany "Dare Capitalism" (his book) model of CDU's Merz with a debt brake support limiting investments needed in the economy are right for Germany's future. Wash. Post says people close to him say he is direct and pragmatic but also arrogant and thin skinned. Friedrich Merz is 69 years, Konrad Adenauer was 73 years when he took office. 

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Becky Branford of BBC News gives five reasons for Emmanual Macron's win in the French presidential election. She cites experts who say Macron was lucky, had a canny ability to see the timing was right for a new party to be formed so that socialist voters had an alternative. His luck comes from the failure of Republican centre right party Fillon to mobilize right wing voters following reports that he had hired his wife and children for government jobs. Yet this is not a complete explanation. Macron had the intuition that something was happening in French politics and the courage to act on it early, the youthful energy to take up the challenge of a mass movement. The events were the declining popularity of the socialists, and the fragmentation of the left wing, the uncertain prospects of the Sarkozy effort at comeback because of his image from years in power, and the need to counter growing far right support for the National Front- to do this by offering an alternative in the centre. From that one courageous decision things from that point fell into place as the Republican party also failed to attract strong public support.  A mere 24% of the vote enabled Macron to enter the second round. Macron's grasp of the economy and conviction helped him win the final debate with Le Pen decisively. His sense of his own mission to revive the idea of Europe sustained him against attacks from the far right, including the late cyber attack on his emails in the last 24 hours.  Macron could still have prevailed over Le Pen without the strong campaign for staying on a positive message and confidence in his ability to turn France's economy around. Yet without a margin of victory of this size in the face of abstaining voters from the far left, Macron as president would not have looked the same. The next step is parliamentary elections in June, and governing France with a turnaround plan requires winning a majority in parliament of sufficient magnitude that he can implement a program which makes the French economy as competitive as Germany's. People forget that Germany was considered a economy with high unemployment and not as competitive under the Schroeder administrations that preceded Angela Merkel, this includes the French with the layers of pessimism. Emmanuel Macron deserves credit not for winning, but winning with the idea of Europe, and it has done as much for him from the French people who have put their faith in Europe when the chips are down, as he has done for Europe already. How this helps put a turnaround in the economy in place is that he will have the energy and enthusiasm of Germany behind him, as well as the energy of French industry and young people to do what Germany accomplished in the 2000-2010 period to emerge from years of high unemployment with a strong economy. ...

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Artificial coatings such as shellac and beeswax to make lemons and oranges shiny are seen as totally unneeded by buyers. When one goes to a neighborhood vegetable market for fresh fruits and vegetables one does not see this kind of behaviour, everything is how nature intended it to be. Then why do supermarkets and grocery stores behave in this way? Bad habits were acquired over the last two decades, including overuse of plastic.

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A young socialist leader in the Sanders campaign effort asks what it is about aging socialist leaders Jeremy Corbyn, 68 years, in the UK, and Bernie Sanders, 75 years, that makes them popular with young people. She says both leaders stood up consistently for decades on issues important to ordinary working class people, when Labor under Blair and Democrats under Clinton abandoned their base to a point when one political expert could say Democrats  were the "second most enthusiastic capitalist party" in the U.S. She says under Blair Clause IV was rewritten. That clause committed the Labor party in Britain to "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange." Under Corbyn, with support from young people, Labor received 40% of the vote. The party was reenergized on issues important to students such as making higher education accessible to all. A similar situation happened with Sanders in the U.S., who received more of the young people's vote in 2016 primaries than Trump and Clinton combined. ...

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Problems Russia faces in gaining entry into the WTO. This includes high import tariffs in Russia, arbitrary interpretation of rules, the customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, and corruption. Russia is the only major economy that is not part of the WTO. China was admitted in 2001. The WTO rules limit import tariffs and provides a legal system of dispute resolution for trade disputes. According to Business Europe, Russia increased tariffs for a range of factory products after the 2008 crisis. These tariffs alone cost EU companies $820 million a year. Russia's deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov, says that without WTO access modernization and innovation for Russia will be very difficult. Companies like Boeing would be big winners with WTO entry for Russia. Tariffs on wide-body aircraft would then drop from 20% to 7.5%, and Russia expects to buy 1,000 new commercial aircraft in the next 20 years.

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This report in DW.com presents a situation where supply of oil runs out as demand way exceeds supply as shale oils in US are depleted, and no new reserves are found. A story in WSJ last week reports that the salty water from shale oil extraction is injected back into reservoirs at a rate that creates serious problems in the Permian Basian of the US including East Texas. The IEA forecast in 2026 shows about 97 million b/d of production and demand slightly exceeding this in both 2030 and 2050 which would suggest defossilization has not taken place. Yet the US pullout from defossilization under DJT is sure to be reversed by future governments in as short as 3 years, and the current DJT policy is simply a response to the cost of living concerns of the majority of Americans. The scenario that fossil fuels will be required forever is promoted by the oil companies and by OPEC+ including Russia. But this situation will reverse as the cost of living crisis and the low wages and incomes, loss of factory jobs, low savings, health care inflation, is tackled under the DJT administration and the US economy becomes stronger with lower inflation.  This scenario of  steady oil demand can be reversed if China and India and Europe push ahead with renewable energy and technological change as is happening today, and will not be seriously impacted when the US joins the battle with its renewable energy push in 2028. This is not just an optimistic scenario, it is a balanced one as private industry in the US will sense this and move ahead with development of new technologies for renewable energy so as not to fall behind and to pioneer on their own. That is the history of innovation in the US for the last 100 years and will not change. ...

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Strong spending on services, on items like travel and leisure spending is helping the economy avoid a recession in 2023. About $500 billion in excess savings from the pandemic period that Americans have to spend, according to a report from the San Francisco  Federal Reserve Bank, is keeping spending strong in mid 2023. The strong demand for travel also enables airlines and hotels to raise fares and rates.

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It might come as a surprise to know as Roshan Kishore points out in this analysis in The Hindustan Times that the educational levels and incomes of Tory or Conservative voters in the UK are the opposite of what they used to be. The graphs shown here show that as education levels increases in different income segments there are significantly more Labour supporters than Conservative supporters. For Rishi Sunak this means he runs into the same problems that faced Johnson and Truss, of matching austerity cuts in spending that will be unpopular with the lower income support base with lower educational levels in the Tory party. His privileged background will only make the cuts in the middle of interest rate hikes and inflation appear as basically unfair to this support base. This is what Gerard Baker pointed out in the WSJ calling it an invitation for "abject chaos" that comes from Tories trying to represent working class families. Others in the The Guardian call it some form of myth that is far from reality with the myth and reality getting further and further apart. ...

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The BBC looks at burnout for service workers in the US and Europe leading to the great resignation. Most service workers are quitting their jobs as the level of burnout has increased in the last few months compared to the early days of the pandemic in 2020. One owner of a restaurant in Britain says she closed it not because there were not enough customers, not because it was losing money. She closed it because workers were not showing up for work. She says whether they say it or not workers at her restaurant were experiencing a lot of anxiety. This meant her carrying a heavy load till she decided it was better to close  when she was on top than be carried out on a stretcher. Another manager of a variety store in South Carolina says after working 60-70 hours a week for months the only way he could get a day off was to ask another manager to do a 16 hour shift. Long work days in the US, low pay, and disrespect for their work, was common for service workers in the US. They now face verbal abuse of customers feeling the accumulated stress of the pandemic and taking it out on service workers. Higher wages are not inducing workers to come back. Service workers are choosing to retrain for other careers with better pay, better hours, or going back to study. ...

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Jill Biden teaches at Northern Virginia Community College. She wants to continue her job teaching community college students helping them prepare for 4 year colleges, even after Mr. Joe Biden becomes the new president of the U.S.  This story of Jill Biden in The Times is exceptional in giving a vivid picture of the person closest to the new U.S. president. Both the Bidens, Joe and Jill, come from working class families in the northeastern U.S. Mr. Biden's life is marked by a single event that has affected his whole life the death in a car accident of his first wife Naomi in December 1972 when he was running for U.S. Senator in Delaware. He won that election becoming the youngest senator in U.S. history. The family retained high ambitions for Joe, hoping that he would become president. Jill met Joe Biden during this campaign and she married Joe in 1975. Jill had spent 13 years of her career teaching English in secondary schools, and the past 27 years teaching in community colleges, including the eight years when Biden was Vice President. Along the way she studied for 2 Masters degrees and a doctoral degree. Her dissertation for the doctoral degree was on the topic- Student Retention at Community Colleges: Meeting Student Needs. Student dropout rates are high about one in three in community colleges dropout.  It is a sign of the misplaced priorities of today that Dr. Biden takes pride in her degree and many do not think this is important enough a topic for a dissertation. Not only her education and hard work studying for advanced education makes her a unique asset, there are other parts of her character that make her exceptional and right for the times. Jill Biden entered a family that in some ways after Naomi's death was broken. The were two children surviving the fatal car accident in 1972, Beau and Hunter. This story shows how she handled this in a way that required extraordinary serenity and composure. There was the ambition of the family. There was the memory of the accident and Naomi. There was the cynicism about her passion for education in fashionable Democratic party circles out of touch with the roots of the national character in education and in libraries starting with Ben Franklin and Jefferson. With president Biden entering office at a time when the U.S. as a country is broken by the very neglect of education, healthcare and working class Americans, Jill Biden at 69 years has the experience, vigor of spirit and character needed today.   ...