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After delaying taking a loan from the IMF, a multilateral lender known for setting austerity conditions for its loans, Pakistan finally accepts a IMF loan of $6 billion over 3 years. In August 2018 Pakistan turned to Saudi Arabia for $3 billion loan and deferring oil payments of a similar amount, UAE for $3 billion, and China adding another $2.2 billion. A sharp drop in the country's currency reserves left Pakistan little choice. Other problems were a overvalued exchange rate that hurt exporters under the previous government and fiscal spending on needed infrastructure that could not be matched with changes in tax collection. Pakistan has some of the poorest tax collection in Asia, depriving the government of the funds needed to finance infrastructure.  The IMF loan is a smaller loan so that Pakistan would feel less compelled to comply with the difficult conditions often imposed by the IMF that has made it unpopular in developing countries, particularly in Latin America. This is the 21st IMF loan to Pakistan. Only Argentina has had to turn to the IMF for 21 loans. For example the IMF conditions to Pakistan require increasing the electricity and gas prices. Under the IMF plan Pakistan must cut its budget deficit before debt service to 0.6% of GDP next fiscal year starting in July 2019 from the deficit of 1.7% expected this year.  To do this tax breaks of 350 billion rupees or $2.5 billion next year have to be removed. The central bank autonomy was also promised and with this 2 former Pakistani IMF officials now head the central bank. Because widening the tax collection base and better tax collection are promises made in the past to IMF which have not happened, this report in the Economist magazine says implementation in this IMF plan will also be lax, more so as the IMF loan is small and supplemented with funds from other countries. A cartoon in one magazine critical of the IMF shows the IMF officials from Pakistan negotiating for the Pakistan central bank with the IMF head Christine Lagarde. Increasing the Pakistan tax base is essential for Pakistan's development to invest in infrastructure similar to what is happening in India. Releasing funds for infrastructure, roads and railways, hospitals and education, requires a larger tax base in all South Asian countries. Without this internal capital and showing results of spending -with successful infrastructure implementation with least or no corruption or overspending- countries risk falling behind.  ...

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Experts say the election of Manuel Lopez Obrador as president of Mexico in June 2018 makes it easier to renegotiate the NAFTA treaty because Mr. Obrador's centre left positions to improve factory conditions and with it factory wages in Mexico, align better with Mr. Trump's goal of raising labor standards in Mexico. Robert Lightnizer, U.S. Trade Representative who leads the U.S. in talks wants to see 40% of the content of auto vehicles that trade duty free within the North American trading bloc of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. to be made at a particular wage level. The wage level the U.S. discussed is $16 an hour. The wage in Mexico is about $8 an hour on average in 2017, with parts plants at $4 an hour, according to the Centre fro Automotive Research. Mr. Obrador is more likely to favor the higher wages for Mexican workers because of his close relationship with the unions in Mexico. Mr. Obrador takes office Dec. 1, 2019, yet a leading member of Mr. Obrador's team will now join in the negotiations as soon as Mr. Obrador is declared president elect by end of June.   ...

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Tim Lee has predicted the collapse of the Turkish currency Lira for 7 years in his investment newsletter. Like other economists who saw warning signs in Turkey's overdependence on foreign capital to finance credit and growth, Lee found himself ignored and lost clients as the Turkey boom that benefited Mr. Erdogan party continued.  The doubling of tariffs on Turkey's steel has finally focused investors minds on the situation in Turkey. These figures are sobering- about 70% of Turkey's economy is dependent on foreign loans denominated in U.S. dollars, according to the IIF, the Institute of International Finance. The loss of the currency Lira's value by 70% in 2018 means that the dollar denominated loans made by Turkish banks to businesses in Turkey will be harder to pay with revenue made in Lira. Another startling statistic is that American investors own 25% of outstanding Turkey's bonds, and about 50% of publicly traded Turkey stocks. The deterioration of relations with the U.S. is more likely to lead to investors focusing on this aspect of the Turkish situation and pulling back.     ...

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China's farms are becoming larger as more farmers rent out their land and live on the resulting income. This shift is leading to the development of larger firms that use modern equipment requiring less labor. Typical is a farmer who decided to live in retirement after renting out his land for about $500, income on which he lives comfortably in a well manicured courtyard home in the village.  These farmers do not want to join their children who now live in the cities. As one farmer says "fallen leaves go back to their roots."  China's agriculture is not dominated by large commercial farms as it is in the U.S. This process is now beginning in China as more farmers prefer to rent out their land and live off the resulting income, resulting in larger farms and automated operations as in the U.S.  and Europe. Farmers now feel more confident about land rights to rent out their land. China first went through the communes under Mao, followed by return of land in small plots to farmers in the 90's. The changes today start a new phase which will change the look of Chinese agriculture. ...

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In Nevada sell federal land to cut housing costs in 2025. Some estimates show that 1.5 million homes can be built on Bureau of Land Management land within 2 miles of Las Vegas city limits. In Nevada 80% of the land is owned by federal government. After the Mexican American War in 1846 Nevada was transferred to control of US government from Mexico to end the war and it stayed that way.

Us president DJT supports using federal land and so does his Interior Secretary Don Borghum.

DJT says he will “open up new tracts of federal land for large-scale housing construction, and you’ll get it for a much lower price.” He would “create special new zones with ultralow taxes and ultralow regulations,” to create jobs.

“We’re going to open it up. We’ll start with a small portion. You’ll get it going, and then we’re going to open up large portions of land.”

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Talks at the White House between Macron of France and DJT on Feb 24, 2025. DJT says Russian president Putin will accept European and American troops in Ukraine to monitor a peace settlement as a peace keeping force. French troops were offered for such aforce by Macron. DJT says he asked Putin directly this question and the answer was yes for a peacekeeping force to end the war. Analysis by The Times shows Britain and the EU are coming to terms with DJT policy to end the war and Europe shouldering its defense  responsibilities and costs because America has challenges in the Asia Pacific with the rise of China. 

To get an idea of China's resources and capacity it now has over 50% of ship building capacity in the world. The US is only now ramping up its efforts to build ships and increase the effectiveness and size of the US Navy, and a major defense effort is underway.

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Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party suffered a major defeat in North Rhine-Westphalia. Exit polls show the SPD Social Democrats party winning 38.9% of the vote, increasing its vote by 4.4%. The CDU won only 26.3% of the vote, dropping 8.3% from the last election. The SPD state premier, Hannelore Kraft, proved to be a popular campaigner. Her opponent Mr Rottgen made debt-financed spending an issue and told voters this was a referendum on Merkel's policies for Europe. Ms. Kraft said after the win: "We made people the central focus again." This has overtones of the victory of Francois Hollande in France, a few days ago, and shows a fundamental shift in Europe. German media described it as debacle for the conservatives considering the size of the margin between SPD and CDU. The Greens secured 11.6% of the votes and this will enable Ms. Kraft to govern easily compared to an earlier minority government she led. This state is the largest in Germany, with one of every five Germans living here, with the capital in Dusseldorf. The Pirates party secured 7.8% of the vote, and the Free Democrats staging a recovery with 8.3% of the vote under a popular young leader Christian Lindner. Upto this point the SPD lacked an effective leader to challenge Merkel. The sense now is that Ms. Kraft will emerge as the SPD's challenger to Merkel in elections in 2013, or earlier. French president Hollande goes to Berlin on May 16, 2012, and the SPD win is expected to strengthen his position in negotiations....

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Allan Blinder gives a spirited account of what he sees in the Paul Ryan Republican deficit reduction plan. He says that with the voucher plan retirees would fall further and further behind the increasing cost of health insurance. With no explicit cost containment proposals it assumes that some kind of miracle will occur for costs to be kept in check- especially as Republicans want to repeal the cost containment proposals in the President's healthcare plan. He asks whether someone is saying, that we have to destroy Medicare so it can be saved. Ryan woulld also turn Medicaid into a block grant, then underfund it and let the states figure it out when they are in a budget squeeze. Blinder points to the estimates of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, that show about two-thirds of Ryan's budget cuts would come from programs that serve low and moderate income Americans. And to make matters worse the steep spending cuts go to finance tax cuts that largely benefit the wealthy. He calls this Robin Hood operating in reverse, and coming on top of 30 plus years of rising inequality. David Stockman makes a similiar point on the editorial pages of the New York Times, April 24, 2011; also adding the point that the middle class will have to pay higher taxes for the deficit to be addressed, something President Obama's plan fails to do. Blinder says that the Bowles-Simpson and Rivlin -Domenici proposals attack the deficit reduction problem in a better way, that asks something from all classes and interests. ...

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In extensive ranging comments Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg describes her positions on Supreme Court cases to Adam Liptak of the NYT. She hopes the next president after this one will be a fine one and is not perturbed by liberals who would like to see her leave so that another liberal could be appointed in her place. Ginsberg is 80 years, but says she works with her trainer twice a week, and works just as hard as in previous terms. She loves her work and will go on as long as she is able to do it. Her work leading the liberal opinion of Justices on the bench shows a senior justice in command of the issues. She has a framed copy of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 on a wall and sees it as a response by Congress to her dissent in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire Rubber Company. That 2007 ruling said Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 imposes strict limits for workplace discrimination suits. She sees the present Congress as too timid to take up more issues related to affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act. On the court's decision for the Voting Rights Act Ginsberg said in her dissent "It is like throwing away your umbrella after a rainstorm because you don't need it." Her views on Roe vs. Wade are that the law was too sweeping in making abortion rights constitutional and could have taken a different approach of striking down the law in Texas....

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A young CEO, Andriy Kobolev, only 35 years of age, takes on the leadership role at Ukraine's gas company Naftogaz in March 2014.

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This report in NYT suggests that coronavirus in New York is becoming endemic. Endemic means chronic instead of the acute crisis situation in 2020. This is because hospitalizations are not filling up ICU's the way they did in 2020. The burden of the coronavirus pandemic is now on people who are unvaccinated and people under 45 years.  New York has a higher rate of vaccination than the rest of the country. About 76% of people ages 12 and over in New York are vaccinated. Yet the 24% of younger people who remain unvaccinated is a part of the population that has fears about getting vaccinated which are harder to overcome. As many of these younger people also spend more time outdoors, and are part of the community, more likely to be in contact with families, relatives and friends indoors in winter, and less likely to wear masks and follow social distancing the pandemic, one could see another surge in the winter of 2021.  Another problem could be that some portion of the population of vaccinated has not taken booster shots by the middle of winter which would create a population of a third of the people even in cities such as New York that remain unprotected. The emergence of another difficult variant could also be a complicating factor. In this way chronic or endemic may still be elusive where masking, social distancing and other preventive actions are not taken. For the community as a whole there will be the risk to upward mobility from the people who risk losing jobs because of fears of the vaccine.     ...

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Paul Krugman reviews a book by Robert Gordon, a distinguished American economist and historian, on the improving standard of living for Americans after the war in the period 1940 to 1970. This period brought some of the major changes in the standard of living which have since stalled. Gordon points to the developments in science and technology between 1870 and 1940 providing the largest boost to standards of living as the quality of life improved- especially the conditions in which people lived using modern sanitation, electricity, automobiles, and work saving appliances. The period 1940 to 1970 enabled the spread of this to the country as a whole. The IT revolution's developments occuring between 1990 and 2005 are also behind us. This process between 1870 and 1970, with the followup period to 2000, is seen by Gordon as a one time development in the scale of change and the improvement of quality of life. The future does not hold a similar level of progress in standards of living, says Gordon. Set against the current stagnation in incomes, widening inequality of opportunity, and the political discourse, this review raises important questions about the future. Quality of life potential now rests in improvements through personal involvement in health improvement, improved education, renewable sources of energy, and other ways, which are more soft knowledge improvements than the hard improvements of the past- which may require more personal involvement than in the developments of the last century of progress, with some improvement coming from renewal of the old physical infrastucture using the new technologies available. Just as the developments of the last century required dogged persisitence and effort, these developments will require dogged persistence and effort, with some of the easy stuff currently posing as technological development not qualifying....

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At its core what Peter Baker of the NYT calls a question that settles the future of American democracy-Mr. Trump's indictment for efforts to reverse 2020 election result- is a question of culture, of American culture and education having deteriorated in profound and unthinkable ways. Peter Baker who has covered 5 American presidents writes in the NYT that the fourth indictment gets to the heart of the matter, which will define the future of American democracy. This indictment asks whether a sitting president can spread lies to hold on to power when the election shows voters have rejected him. The indictment says that Mr. Trump "knew that his claims were false," yet he "made them anyway to create an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger and erode public faith in the administration of the election."  Baker also points out that one third of the electorate still believes this to be true as a result of the claims Trump made. And 75% of the Republicans in NYT-Siena poll think Mr. Trump was simply acting in good faith to question election results in some states and it was nothing more than pursuing his legitimate legal options. This is about 40% of the American electorate. How is this possible unless the education and culture of the country has been allowed by successive failed administrations to deteriorate to an extent never before seen in this way since the country's independence in 1776. Even recent reports that two thirds of America's fourth graders fail basic reading comprehension tests have not jolted the nation out of its tech based glorification of a failing culture and education. ...

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Hillary Clinton responds to a question from a 15 year old school girl in a Pennsylvania suburb of Haverford, who spoke about the damage done by Trump's crude comments about women. The girl Brennan Leach, asked Hillary Clinton, how Mrs. Clinton could help girls understand that they are much more than their looks. Clinton told the girl that "many women online were being bullied," and that this had to stop. She told the largely female crowd in Haverford gym that "Lets be the best we can be. Lets be proud of who we are."  The girl Brennan had lost a friend to suicide last year, and was especially concerned about the effect on girls of bullying at a period of middle and high school, which is a sensitive time for girls growing up. Trump had made many disparaging comments about women during the entire election campaign in 2016, without the kind of media sense of shock that one would have expected for such comments during previous moments in American history. ...

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Mira Patel provides this report in great detail on how Indians living in the UK have grown from a tiny minority of 30,000 before independence in 1947 with little recognition in the UK to a population of 250,000 by 1961. In the years after 1945 many of the Sikhs and Punjabis in the British Army stayed in the UK. Two more waves of migration followed one with the East African Indians coming to the UK and one with Sikhs going to the UK. Race Relations Act of 1968 and a bill in 1961 changed the nature of immigrants to more professional people and students to maintain racial balance. By 1971 there were 483,000 Indians in the UK. Even today with 1.4 million Indians in the UK this forms only 2.5% of the UK population. Rishi Sunak and Priti Patel have important positions in the 2 year old Boris Johnson government yet too much can be read into this. Both are not deeply popular among the British public. Penny Mordaunt is the favorite at the grassroots of the Conservative Party. When one looks at the immigrant communities of Indians in the UK at one time in the 1880's only one MP Dadabhai Naoroji was in the British parliament. Today there are several ministers but mostly in a collapsing Conservative party administration of Boris Johnson. By comparison most of the Indian community migration in America has developed deeper roots and merged with the consciousness of the American society and public. Sunak and Patel are seen by most of the Labour grassroots as elitist, a kind of Macaulay class that Mira Patel describes. Macaulay a Britisher of the period of the British East India Company described the need in 1800's for a class of Indians "Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinion, in morals, and in intellect." This Indian diaspora is a distinct Indian entity which is why it is a class of Indians that Macaulay coveted says Mira Patel, but one that she says forms leaders in Britain not leaders in India. In some ways the US is different with less of the class society that the Empire and the Tory party represent. And in this way formed under a country that fought this very same Empire the Indian community in the US seems to have integrated into the vision of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln in ways that cannot be imagined in Britain or in Europe. ...

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IMV architecture for rugged vehicles and the Hilux brand of vehicles for emerging markets, are two favorable factors that Toyota hopes will generate half a million more sales than the old Hilux line. Toyota has spent $1.4 billion on building plants in India, Indonesia, Argentina and S. Africa and other countries to develop the new vehicles with new chassis, engines and other parts made in developing countries. These plants say chief engineer Hoskawa help reduce costs by 20-25% for the Hilux line of rugged vehicles with new chassis. But a port strike in India which makes the manual transmitssions, and a problem at the plant in Indonesia which makes gasoline engines- which are then shipped to plants for assembly in South Africa and Argentina- could cause problems. To cushion against such events Toyota keeps 2 weeks supply of engines and other parts in Thailand.

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Southwest prepared for jet fuel at $3.30 a gallon by passing on cost increases to passengers. Now it is preparing for jet fuel at $3.50 a gallon, CEO Gary Kelly said in an interview. The acquisition of AirTran in 2011, increased the size of Southwest by 20%, and is expected to generate additional revenue synergies of $400 million to $500 million. It also gives Southwest access to Atlanta and increases the number of cities served from 72 to 94. Kelly sees additional opportunities for growth in the lower 48 U.S. states before looking at markets in overseas destinations close to the U.S. Southwest has an order of 100 bigger and more fuel efficient 737-800s from Boeing. Boeing's Max jets are expected to be delivered in 2017. Other opportunities for growth will be expansion from Dallas Love Field to more destinations beginning in 2014.

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China's state owned China National Nuclear Power is planning a Shanghai IPO that will help finance $27 billion in investments for 5 nuclear power projects. Chinese law states that only 20% of equity needs to be raised for power projects, which means China National Nuclear needs to raise $5.4 billion for the projects in Fujian, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Jiangsu provinces. China's State Council, the country's cabinet, has approved the 2020 nuclear-safety strategy and inspections have been completed on existing nuclear reactors. This gives the go ahead for the reactivation of nuclear power development after the Fukushima accident in Japan. With the move away from coal in China's electricity supplies, nuclear power is expected to play a bigger role. It has 14 nuclear power plants in operation, producing 11.8 gigawatts, with plans to expand this to 40 gigawatts by 2015 and 60-70 gigawatts by 2020.

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China Central Television (CCTV) in August 2013 cited the high prices charged for luxury car models in China. One report on CCTV gives the price of a luxury sport utility vehicle such as a Land Rover as 1.89 million yuan or $305,000 in China, while the same model could be purchased for $87,000 in the U.S. Land Rover agreed to a price reduction after investigation by the pricing and antimonopoly division of NDRC. Range Rover 5.0 V8 with a price tag of 2.89 million yuan will now sell for 2.65 million yuan. Considering the prices currently charged the price reductions of upto $32,000 still means prices are extremely high. Consultancy Automotive Foresight analysts say market forces have a bigger impact and the models chosen for the price reduction are not high volume models. A bigger impact it says would come on car models where the demand is high.

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Obama would change the personal bankruptcy laws to protect homeowners and enable them to keep their homes during insolvency. Those who have suffered from catastrophic illness and medical bills, the elderly would benefit, which essentially would waive onerous bureaucratic steps required to file personal bankruptcy and establish a financial floor, aminimum national homestead level for homeowners, pegged to the region's median value, which would prevent creditors from attaching assets for non-payment. Under his proposal there would be a 120 day moratorium on bad credit reporting and waive requirements such as mandatory credit counseling for people who filed for bankruptcy as a result of a catastrophic illness. About half of the roughly 500,000 personal bankruptcies filed last year were the result of an uninsured, catastrophic illness. Obama opposed the last revamp of bankruptcy laws in 2005 which favored the credit card industry and the banking industry.

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Italy's Five Star Movement is gaining in popularity before national elections in March 2018, because voters are fed up with the old political parties and the old political system. A Five Star Movement member Virginia Raggi is Mayor of Rome. Even though this has not led to improvements in tackling Rome's problems such as urban decay, garbage collection, and weak transportation, this is acceptable with angry voters who want to send a message to the traditional political parties that ran the government for 50 years. About a third of these voters who support the Five Star Movement are from the right, a third from the left and a third young people who never voted before, according to Italian pollster Pregliasco of You Trend. Recent polls show the Five Star support at 28% and the leading party. The anti-politician message really resonates in Italy with its lack of growth, and a sense that things will not change under politicians of the old system, right or left. As in France with the En Marche movement bringing in younger and new faces in parliament and in government, Five Star Movement is bringing younger faces to the forefront. As young as 31 years for the party's candidate for prime minister, Mr. Di Maio. As a result older politicians in their fifties from the established parties are running against younger people in their twenties and thirties, a situation seen in France in recent elections that brought new faces to parliament and new ways of governing.   ...