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Article about what should the Fed do by Robert Lucas, Jr, who was given the 1995 Nobel Prize in Economics, and is a Professor at the University of Chicago. He thinks inflation targeting is where the Fed should be, and lender of last resort is a qualification of this role in exceptional times when there is a bank run type phenomena in the market. However he argues caution in the role of lender of last resort so that it does not become automatic based on questionable economic forecasting as this part of economic forecasting can be fuzzy, for example who knows with reasonable certainty that something bad is going to happen. So a good case has to be made for lowering rates and a cautious approach like the one Ben Bernanke took is not at all a bad one. he did lower rates the day prior to this article appearing, by half a point.

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Hardship withdrawals from 401(k)s reach high of 4.8% in 2024. Analysis of 3 million retirement accounts at Vanguard research for 2008-2022 shows higher volatility for hourly paid workers than salaried workers. Hourly paid workers have income swings of 15% compared to salaried and when they leave an employer often take out savings in 401(k)s- 42% with income $50,000 to $75,000 took out their savings compared to 28% in salaried group with same income. Many do so to deal with emergency needs. Thus income volatility hurts workers savings in the hourly sector.

A US law passed in 2022 lets employers automatically enroll employees earning less than $160,000 in emergency savings accounts that they can put in $2500 every year in a Roth type account and withdraw from it penalty and tax free. This is helping some employees avoid touching their 401(k)s.

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Behind the June jobs numbers is the information that the average workweek fell to 33 hours, the lowest ever on record, and 0.8 hours lower than before the recession began. With the extra 48 minutes the same aggregate work says Denning of the WSJ, could be done by 3.3 million fewer employees. And the unemployment rate would then be 11.7% rather than the 9.5% it is now. The number of people working parttime has doubled to about 9 million or about 5.8% of the workforce. Employers will first try to employ parttime workers as full time, and increase hours of existing workers before they hire new workers deepening the recession.

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The Ifo Institute's Hans-Werner Sinn presents the German view on bailouts for Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy. He says that socializing of debt was proved to be a bad idea even in the U.S. experience when eight states and territories were allowed to go bankrupt in the 1830's and 1840's, and even though California is close to being bankrupt no one suggests socializing the debt. The European Economic Advisory Group has favored short term assistance and liquidity assistance but not aid for insolvency. Bundesbank assistance for international shift of refinancing credit, also called Target credit, is estimated at $874 billion, since 2007. Greece and Portugal current account deficits were financed using this. ECB purchase of government bonds $250 billion, and $500 billion in rescue programs from the IMF, and additional help from the European rescue funds such as EFSF. Sinn says Germany would lose $1.35 trillion if the euro fails. If Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain go bankrupt and repay nothing, and the euro survived, Germany would have lost $899 billion by his estimates. He responds to critics by saying that the Marshall Plan gave Germany 0.5% of GDP for 4 years, or 2% in total, or about $5 billion today if taken as 2% of Greek GDP....

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John Cochrane provides a no-nonsense assessment of what is happening in the euro-zone financial crisis. He says Americans should stop swallowing all that talk about "contagion" from Ireland. He puts it in plain language- there is no bailout of Ireland, this bailout is about bailing out of German and British banks that made risky loan to Irish banks and the Irish government. And he says that European governments if they choose to bailout German or British banks should do so frankly and openly and not by covering it up as a country bailout. If they did this he fears the governments and the German and British banks would face some serious questioning about their risky bets on Irish debt and the Irish property bubble. The German insistence that debt-holders would have to take a haircut, or losses on the face value of their bonds, has been diluted by the French inserting a provision that this would be after 2013 and on a case by case basis. Cochrane sees the vagueness of a case by case threat as the worst combination possible. He says this relies too much on the assessments of IMF and EU officials. The result would be for big financial institutions to bet on a bailout and to lobby these same officials hard. Cochrane's says the big culprit in the problem facing the euro-zone is short term debt. If Europeans won't let governments default, then they must insist on long-term financing of government debt. It is the short term debt of these countries that creates a crisis atmosphere. If investors become pessimistic about long-term debt, bond prices can go down temporarily without causing damage. The way a crisis happens is bad news develops, and governments having financed with short term debt need new money to pay off old debts. The way to handle this refinancing crisis is to have a large forced exchange of maturing short-term debt for long-term debt, and this is what occurs in "restructuring." And this kind of restructuring ocurred with the Brady plan that helped Latin American economies recover from a debt crisis in the late 1980's and early 1990's. This is the only viable solution, as it will be virtually impossible to bail out all euro-zone countries- Portugal, Spain, Italy and so on. For the US this is an eye opener to get its own financial house in order. US government debt is also tilted to short-term debt maturities, with the majority rolled over every year. and the Fed's quantitative easing will tilt this further to shorter term debt. And in the US, many states and local governments are in serious financial trouble....

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Parussini describes the different style of new RBI Governor Urjit Patel, who is no rock star economist like his predecessor Raghuram Rajan. Rajan is quoted as once saying; "My name is Raghuram Rajan and I do what I do." Rajan engaged widely with the media. At his first press conference Patel made a short statement thanking RBI staff, and turned it over to staff at RBI who talked about financial supervision, banking regulation and other issues. Patel's answers were short without follow-up questions, the whole event over in 20 minutes. Patel was chosen by the new government of prime minister Modi to run RBI in 2016.

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Kenneth Lewis's thinking that the Merrill acquisition would work in September 2008, and the brutal markets in the months afterwards.His urgent meeting on December 17 with Paulson and Bernanke after learning of large new losses at Merrill. The decision to do what was he says patriotic and not cancell the deal leading to his staying mum on the meeting and on the huge new losses. Shareholder protest. Merrill's loss for the 4th quarter of 2008 was a huge and devastating $15.3 billion, leading to the firing of Merrill's John Thain for not disclosing everything he knew about the new losses.

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Beatrice Weder di Mauro of the German Council of Economic Experts points to the needs for beeter incentives for regulators to ensure their is no local regulatory capture and to ensure that regulators are doing their job well. One is to increase the pay of central bankers and bank supervisors and to make the job nearly as attractive as working in the private sector. The other is to give more authority to supranational institutions to regulate. She points out that competition has been kept in the Eu's domain and this has helped ensure consistency in the way bank bail outs are being handled in the European countries. The same needs to happen in Europe for banking reguolation and oversight. She points out the flaw in the argument for national regulators on the basis that the money to bailouts comes locally. a substantial part of the bailouts come in the form of regulatory forbearance, enabling banks to make higher profits because of reduced competition, and implicit support from central banks. And she adds that the temptation to solve the future crises by these "off balance sheet methods" is greater now because no one wants to go to parliament or congress to get bail out money for banking instituitons....

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Somini Sengupta and Brian Frank provide this award winning quality of coverage in text and pictures of life in California's San Joaquin Valley, hit by wildfires and scorching heat in the middle of the pandemic. Shown are workers in the fields of one of America's largest agricultural regions fighting heat and the pandemic, struggling to survive on a precarious hourly wage in these conditions. During earlier periods from 1970 this was an almost picturebook place particularly in the cool and foggy winters, which stretched for miles with apricot, grape, almond and other fruit and vegetable fields. A dry valley using irrigation of fields with water from the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains. Most affected are millions of workers of Hispanic origin originally from Mexico, who provide most of the labor for harvesting of crops. California with a good educational system and without the drought that hit the region, without the effects of Silicon Valley splitting the people of the state in opposite directions most on minimum wage with a concentration of wealth around major cities and spiralling property values, was a very different place in the 1960's and 1970's from what it is today. Increasing wealth concentrated in pockets and not spread out as it was in the early post war period after Truman and Eisenhower has impoverished large areas and segments of the population, creating what Dickens called in his day- "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times," depending on who and where you were. ...

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This editorial in the NYT says the Roberts U.S. Supreme Court is setting its own course compared to the earlier courts. It is not supporting precedent in the manner of the 1930's court or giving credence to social consensus as the 1960's court did.

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This televised debate of Republican presidential candidates focussed on Iran's development of a nuclear weapon. Rick Perry said he would impose sanctions on Iran's central bank, something the Obama administration is reluctant to do because it might disrupt international oil markets. Romney and Gingrich said they would use military action if other measures failed. Huntsman called for a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, saying: "This nation's future is not in Afghanistan. this nation's future is not in Iraq." Ron Paul said hw opposed military interventions in conflicts overseas. Perry and Gingrich said U.S. aid to Pakistan should be suspended because Pakistan was not a reliable partner.

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China's economy expanded at 0.4% growth rate in the second quarter of 2020, according to the Bureau of National Statistics. It is not just the lockdowns that are dampening consumer sentiment.  US and EUropean demand for manufactured goods from Taiwan, South Korea and China is shrinking.

Youth unemployment is high with 20% of people 16 to 24 years without work. Some experts say the youth unemployment is increasing because companies are showing less interest in hiring and training new workers, or in investing in the future.

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What would making a new vaccine for the Omicron South African variant look like? How long will it take and how does it happen? Adam Whipple, Science Editor of The Times, looks at the process in the 100 days it would take Pfizer to do this in this excellent article that anticipates and answers readers questions. New mutations are shown to be taking place in the virus, it is shown here that UK and world capabilities have also increased to tackle the problem in the last 18 months.

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This analysis in The Times looks at the latest information on the omicron variant gathered in the UK and what it means for the capital London and the UK. It looks at the hospital admissions in January 2021 that could be expected in the UK compared to  January 2020. A big spike infections with a sharp fall is the scenario seen as expected based on experience in South Africa, with 2% of cases as hospital admissions as in the prior January, or in a "milder" scenario somewhat smaller percentage.

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How Integrative Medicine, changes in lifestyle and diet, yoga and exercize, meditation, no smoking habits, can add up to changes in the nation's health that work more effectively than new drugs to prevent or delay the onset and progression of chronic diseases like diabetes, asthma, heart disease and of obesity, etc that consume 75% of the costs in the $2.1 trillion spent on medical care in the USA. Shockingly 95% of these costs are incurred after the onset of the disease, proving that prevention is simply not an important part of the equation.

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WSJ's Clare Ansberry looks closely at life in St Paul's Lutheran Church in Doyleston, Pennsylvania, what congregations are thinking and pastors are thinking. Only 20% of 450 pastors in Barna Group Survey feel confident that they are equipped to lead on politics and civic engagement. At Holy Trinity Catholic Newman Center in Flagstaff, Arizona, parishioners are college students or local residents. Rev. Matt Lowry of the Center says most congregants want nothing to be said about politics, just that God is in control.

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Trump takes action against Mexico, China and Canada for illegal flows of fentanyl and migrants across US borders. It is specific targeted and excludes EU, India, Japan, South Korea trading partners. For a decade some countries acted with impunity and American leaders did not respond to protect the people from illegal flows across borders. This action did not come in the first DJT term in 2016-2020 though tariffs were placed. Free trade has to be clean trade where such illegal flows are not in the picture or acceptable.

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This article clearly shows that Russia is turning the corner for full scale use of western technology to tap oil and gas fields in the North. Note the efforts to bring in western expertise include- 1. Efforts to hire Donald Evans, former U.S. Commerce Secretary, to be Chairman of Rosneft. Evans turned down the offer. The hiring of Peter O'Brien a former Morgan Stanley investment banker as chief financial advser.2. With China National Petroleum as a strategic partner. 2. The financial backing and expertise of state run oil companies around the world now give them the ability to contract directly with Schlumberger or Baker Hughes or other oil field technology suppliers. This changes the whole playing field with less need to negotiate with the major oil companies and the ability to do it themselves at their own pace and strategic advantage and execute their own oil policy. Previously negotiating with the oil companies meant giving up some of the ownership of the oil fields to the oil companies in return for the technology. The oil services companies sell the technologies on a fee basis. 3. The pressure to move ahead aggressively with new technology. Estimates from IEA in Paris by Chief Economist Fatih Birol, show that increasing oil production by one and half million barrels a day to level of ten and half million barrels a a day requires Russia to invest $900 billion dollars by 2030 or about 40 billion a year. The only way to generate this kind of investment is to grow its oil development capabilities, keep prices high but stable, invest in the latest technology and bring some of it inhouse....

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An audit of Spain's banking system by the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, shows that Spanish banks would need 53.745 billion euros to be cleaned up if mergers and acquisitions underway are completed.The amount goes up to 59.3 billion euros if this does not happen. Bankia bank will need 24.7 billion euros to meet capital requirements. Three other nationalized banks need 21.5 billion euros, including 3.2 billion euros for Banco Popular. Of the 14 audited banks only 7 need capital infusions. The other banks considered healthy include BBVA, Santander and La Caixa. These findings are similiar to a preliminary finding by Oliver Wyman and estimates provided by Luis de Guindos, Spain's economy minister, that Spanish banks will need 51 billion to 62 billion euros of capital infusion. Spain's secretary of state for the economy, Fernando Jimenez Latorre, says Spain will soon request about 40 billion euros of the 100 billion euro bailout offer for banks negotiated by Spain in June with the EU. It is not clear whether the capital infusion will go directly to Spain's banks as Spain has argued, or go through the Spanish government. The audits were important to provide credibility through independent assessment of losses in Spain's banking system, and remove the fog of uncertainty that is pushing up Spain's borrowing rate in capital markets....

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Weigel of the Washington Post compares how the Affordable Care Act was passed in Congress in 2012 with the push by Speaker Ryan and the Trump administration for the American Health Care Act in 2017. Republicans he says are making the same mistake as Democrats by rushing this through Congress. There is no broad consensus on whether all Americans should be entitled to health care as in Europe and Japan for their citizens, and health care is priced in a way to make it expensive for the state to provide- until the twin problems are solved by creating a new culture in the U.S. that sees things differently, politicians will come up with their own plans based on their interests and which groups they serve.

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The top five foods for children and good for packing lunches, or at home, are egg yolk, oily fish, oats cereal and whole grain breads, beans, yogurt cheese and milk. This article by dietitian Emer Delaney, who has worked at many teaching hospitals in Britain, also provides the family-friendly recipes you need.

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MaC Group, a risk advisor to Spanish banks, says Spanish banks hold about 30 billion pounds of distressed real estate and unsellable land. Prices are down 28% from the peak in 2007, according to a report by the IESE Business School, and are expected to fall a further 15-20 percent in the next 2-3 years by some experts. Much of the bank owned land is far from city centers and there is no demand for this. One Madrid based consultant R.R. de Acuna Asociados, says 43% of bank owned land is poorly located and there may be no demand for unfinished residential units for decades. The new government of Mariano Rajoy plans to take action to cleanup the banking system. Louis de Guindos, director of PricewaterhouseCoopers and IE Business School Center of Finance is expected to become the new finance minister. Guindos says strict rules need to be implemented, with some banks able to handle this and others that won't. MaC Group's Cantos, a managing partner, says the gap is huge between prices offered by banks and what investors will pay- as much as 70%. Prime assets can be sold for 30% discount but the land, residential and commercial real estate will require discounts of 70%. Banks have made provisions for losses of 30%, and are now facing the prospect of another 40% in losses. As a result many of the medium and small sized banks which operate only inside Spain may have to be shut down or consolidated by the government of Mariano Rajoy. Only the larger banks like Banco Santander, Banco Bilbao, La Caxia, and Bankia are likely to surivive....

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Issues of work-life balance are growing for doctors as more doctors ages 40-54 years face burnout or negative effects on health. Nearly half of doctors in the U.S. 40-54 years of age in a survey of 15,000 physicians report feeling burned out from work hours and administrative tasks. Younger doctors 25-39 years, and older ones 55-73 years also reported high rate of burnout at 38% and 39%. Overall for all physicians about half of all physicians said they would take a substantial pay cut to get a better work-life balance. What this survey and report by Medscape shows is that no age group, career stage, gender or specialty is immune to this problem, says Colin West, professor of Medicine and researcher on physician well being at the Mayo Clinic.

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An India like surge is feared for Indonesia with the spread of the Delta variant and rising cases. Sudden spikes in Jakarta, central Java, and Bangkalan on the Java coast are straining hospitals. A nation of 270 million Indonesia has only a small vaccination program dependent on Sinovac vaccine from China, and only 5% are vaccinated.

Doctors say whether you are young or old have co-morbidities or not you can catch the coronavirus delta variant. Several members of a household can catch it and the deterioration happens quickly. Doctors in India made similar comments during the surge there in May 2021. Kudus region in central Java is typical. At first cases were declining from a January peak by May. Then cases jumped in June. A third of cases turned up positive for PCR tests.

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Nature Conservancy reports that trees planted in cities reduce particulate matter by between 7% and 24%.  Particulate matter are microscopic particles we breathe in when there is polluted air from automobiles, factories, or smoking. The cooling effect is about 2 degrees centigrade or 3.6 degrees fahrenheit. Outdoor air pollution causes asthma and other lung diseases, and led to premature deaths of about 3 million people in 2012, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Hospitalization from high pollution levels is another major problem, especially in poor and middle income nations, such as Brazil, Mexico, India, China and Indonesia. Air Flow should be considered when planting trees in congested urban areas. Cities in the west also benefit from tree planting, and London has benefitted from the park spaces and tree planting.