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The last days of the pro-Russian Donetsk People's Republic in eastern Ukraine, as Ukrainian government forces under the government of prime minister Poroshenko defeat separatists by July 2014. Russia decides not to intervene further. Opinion polls show a majority of Ukrainians in Donetsk do not favor separatism, and opposition is based on alienation from the poor quality of governance in Kiev. With the Poroshenko government committed to respecting the rights of Russian speaking Ukrainians, Tymoshenko soundly defeated in elections, and Russia's economy at risk in the adverse impact on foreign investor sentiment, Russia's sees little to be gained from supporting the separatists.

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Not much in any meaningful way is being done so far for homeowners facing loss of their homes. The bailout plan has wording that encourages the government to help but no concrete measures beyond that. At this point loan modifications by banks are doing little meaningful to help homeowners. Some critical measures of what is happening. According to Sheila Barr of FDIC troubled loan portfolios have yielded about 32% of book value compared with 87% for loans in which the borrower is current, in her statement in Congress. But with fear gripping the credit markets the banks are reluctant to take any immediate losses by writing down principal balances unless the government steps in, because their capital is under huge strain and some banks are going under. Deutsche Bank estimates 40% of homeowners or about 20 million households will owe more than their home is worth by the time the housing market stabilizes. This suggests he scale of the problem as Martin Ferldstein pointed out in the WSJ someof these homeowners may simply walk away from their home as a rational decision. It also suggests how this combined with rising unemployment could lead to significant drops in consumption spending making the situation in the economy much worse, and allowing rising unemployment to play an additional role in increasing home foreclosures for the first time....

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A report from central Yokohama in The Times on Typhoon Hagibis. Yokohama was not hit badly, as the storm shifted its direction to the Tokyo region. This report shows how Japan prepared for a typhoon that was expected to be the worst in 60 years.

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France's presidential candidate Marie Le Pen, who received about 20% of the vote in the first round of elections in 2012, says she will cast a blank vote in the runoff. This shows her disdain for Sarkozy and Hollande, particularly Sarkozy's policies in his first term in office.

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The Swiss National Bank spent $63 billion in May 2012 to prevent the Swiss Franc from appreciating beyond 1.20 per euro. The Swiss Bank is printing francs and buying up euros to keep its peg set in September 2011. The peg is intended to preserve Swiss export competitiveness.

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Netflix's conversion to a internet video company wih streaming video services similiar to HBO. The effort to attract subscribers. Netflix gained about 2 million subscribers in the 1st quarter 2013, reaching 29.2 million including free subscribers. Netflix charges $7.99 per month and this gives two simultaneous video streams.

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Meltzer a Professor at Carnegie Mellon on the dangers of 1970's style stagflation and why the Fed shold resist pressures to reduce rates. He did not like the Congressional testimony of Ben Bernanke who appeared too keen on offering to lower rates if the economy slowed down further.

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Jack Hough points to other important factors that affect the Dow Jones Industrial Averages and the S&P 500 Index. The quality of earnings, the relationship between wages and corporate earnings, and macroeconomic factors, all affect the level of the indexes. The historical average of wages relative to earnings would leave shares at 24 times earnings says Hough. This would mean a further decline of 40%. As U.S. companies earn more of these profits overseas compared to the past, they could sustain a higher level of earnings relative to wages says Hough, but this may not be the level at which they are today. In Hough's view the earnings numbers are made to look better than they actually are, which should be taken into account. He does not mention macroeconomic factors which add to the volatility, and policy decisions which create higher levels of uncertainty affecting decisions on consumption and investment in the economy.

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Lehman and Mr Fuld, a year after the collapse. Fuld now runs Matrix Advisors LLC in New York.

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The 2009 budget of the Obama government has some optimistic assumptions built into it for the deficits in future years. For 2009 the GDP declines by 1.2%, for 2010 the GDP growth is 3.2%. With these assumptions its possible to bring the $1.75 trillion deficit in 2009 to less than $600 billion by 2012, and getting to that point requires GDP to rise by 4% a year by then. This is assuming the growth quickly returns to the growth rates of the 1990's. In one area the administrations' forecasts are more optimistic than the Fed's and may turn out to be too optimistic. The administration's assumption is for unemployment to average 7.9% in 2010 when it may be close to 9% or higher. For example Goldman Sachs economists expect the unemployment rate to be at 9.5% by late 2010. And Goldm,an's growth rate for 2010 is just 1.3%, and that also may prove to be optimistic whereas the budget assumes 3.2%. What all this means that money has to be spent on the priorities outlined by the President, but the most buck for the money has to be obtained because further outlays will be needed in future years. This is a very important point, and a lot of checks and transparency and careful monitoring of projects has to be put in place throughout 2009....

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This is a big desicion by the Obama administration, and has global implications for the amount of oil consumed and the emissions discharged. The Obama administration will introduce one national standard for automile emissions and mileage standards, replacing the patchwork of standards and skipping over the challenges to the California standards by using those standards to set the national rules. The rules take effect in 2012. It will create a new national standard for a car and light truck fleet in the USA, that is 40% cleaner and more fuel efficient by 2016 than it is now, with a new average of 35.5 miles per gallon. The current national standard is 25 miles per gallon, and this standard has fallen way behind the Japanese and the Europeans. The Europeans went through their battles for fuel efficiency a few years ago with auto industry resistance, and this was finally settled with tougher standards, giving the European industry advantages in technology over the Americans. The American car industry stalled higher standards, and what standards were passed were whittled down by heavy lobbying in Congress. As a result a battle raged between those interested in conservation and the environment and the Detroit car industry, especially in a deteriorating global environment for this type of prolific oil consumption on American highways. This lack of foresight on the part of Detroit carmakers, and their management, accelerated their financial collapse in 2008 and 2009, as large car and truck sales collapsed. That this tough new standard of 40% improvement in 2016, would in fact not have been possible without this fiinancial collapse and turning to the government for a bailout - with the entire board of General Motors being replaced- is one of the ironies of this situation. This decision will almost certainly accelerate the development of smaller models, and bring the kind of attention to them that will give them the quality and features and comfort to make them command higher prices and become profitable, as is the case in Europe. For too long the American small car became synonymous with being a lesser car in many dimensions of design, quality, comfort and performance, so that it became a cheap car that you upgraded from to a larger car as you became affluent. It had been that way, but did not have to be that way after the world had changed. And the larger models like the pickup trucks and large cars are more likely to be phased out with the new regulations. This will also bring a `new sanity to oil prices, as the reduced consumption in the US will accomodate the increased consumption in India from the small cars like the Tata Nano which look set to sell in the millions, and still keep oil affordable for tight budgets worldwide. In this sense it is a victory for global good sense. For President Obama this is a personal quest, as he co-sponsored 2 bills in 2006, during this second year in the US Senate, one to raise fuel economy standards, and the other to encourage the use of alternative fuels....

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The president of the Pew Research Center, Andrew Kohut, says Romney was an especially weak candidate for Republicans and this has to be taken into account in understanding the results of the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Romney failed when it came to establishing empathy with voters compared with Obama and this was a significant factor- 53% to 43% for Romney in exit polls. Even on the economy which should have been a Republican strong point Romney failed to get an advantage over the president with both tied at 48% to 49% for Romney. Republicans were favored in their approach to government- only 43% favored activist government in 2012 compared to 52% in 2008, and 49% disapproved of the Obama health care law and only 44% approving in 2012. On social issues exit polls showed 59% believe abortion should be made legal, and on immigration 65% support a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. Early in the primaries some commentators said the Republicans were not fielding strong candidates for president who could relate to voters and this has turned out to be true. This also explains the Republicans retaining a majority in the House of Representatives and continuing the hold on governorships. ...

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U.S. president Obama invited NYT's columnist Thomas Friedman to the White House for an interview on Saturday afternoon April 4, 2015. Here Friedman gives president Obama's response to his questions, and Obama's concerns about the heated rhetoric in the U.S. and Israel on the negotiations with Iran detracting and distracting from his key goals of protecting U.S. interests and Israel. On the Sunni states, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Obama points out that there are some tough conversations needed about changes inside their societies which pose a greater threat to the governments than Iran. Obama says he understands perfectly that Israel and the Jewish people after their experience of the last hundred years are determined to not let Iran develop a nuclear weapon, and their right to be concerned that the agreement could let Iran clandestinely develop one. Obama says the verification is extensive and covers any facility in Iran, any suspicion about secret facilities, yet it leaves the subsequent decisions if Iran created difficulties, to a international body over which the U.S., UK, France, have no control. This is a principal issue for critics of the negotiated agreement. No mention is made of why Iran simply discarded the option of sending the atomic material to Russia to be processed into nuclear rods for the Bushehr nuclear plant built by Russia only a few days before the final outline was developed. And why the U.S., with allies Germany, France, UK and Japan, did not offer the Iranians an economic aid package if needed in return for the billions Iranians invested for that atomic material, to ensure that the atomic materials are shipped out of the country- to create a nuclear agreement that would be credible to all parties. The economic aid would benefit Iran modernize its oil industry, including refining operations, meet basic import needs, and provide tangible proof to the Iranian people of our best intentions for the future, that president Obama strongly espouses in the interview. The interview does show the quandary president Obama faces in Iran for strong action, that is a result of failed policies with Iran since the Eisenhower administration's intervention 1953 during the Cold War that displaced the elected government of Mosaddegh in Iran and setup the Shah's regime in 1956, the support of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in the war against Iran, which Obama mentions in this intervew. In the light of the repeated failures of the U.S. policies a Democratic party leader faces increasing reservations for taking strong action against Iran's development of nuclear weapons capabilities, preferring to exhaust every diplomatic channel, and take risks in the hope that time will give the Iranian people an opportunity to to reintegrate in the global community and pursue the peaceful development of nuclear energy. This strain in president Obama's thinking is evident throughout the interview with Friedman. Other aspects of president Obama's policy in the Middle East shared in the interview are about supporting the Sunni states in some areas, and Iran in some areas, at the same time as the nuclear issue is "put in a box" and separated from the regional conflicts. Friedman presents this as the Obama doctrine, yet it appears to be coming after a series of improvisations in foreign policy following a failure to act in 2011-2013, when the "once in a lifetime" opportunities presented by the Arab Spring were not taken up by the Obama administration, leading to the region's current disintegration....

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There is increasing migration to the south in the US because of young people moving to the south to be clsoe to their parents and for less costly housing, cheaper childcare because  grandparents do the child care. Texas has the largest domestic migration by age group 25-44 years of young people who want to be close to their parents who have moved to the southern states for weather and other reasons. The grandparents help raise he children at a time when cost of child care can be $1500 a month. Georgetown is a suburb of Austin, Texas, that has a  large community of older people, and is the fastest growing city in the country. When children in their thirties and forties move south to be close to their parents they have less costly housing, more space, than in northeastern states. It does not always work out because the joke is that grandparents need PTO for a vacation. Also moving from Detroit to a northeastern state makes no sense financially because of high housing costs. ...

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The minimum non-negotiable "breakout window" for 2015 nuclear negotiations of the EU, the U.S. and other nations with Iran, is a period of 12 months. The term "breakout window" refers to the period in which Iran decides to breakout of a signed nuclear agreement and rushes to develop nuclear weapons. It should take at least 12 months for Iran to be able to develop a weapon so that there is time to develop an effective response to the threat to world peace.

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Germany's central bank, the Bundesbank, has 495 billion euros in claims on the European Central Bank through the interbank payment system known as Target2. Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute in Munich, says the breakup of the Euro zone would mean that this claim would be put at risk. Data compiled by Tornel of the University of California, Los Angeles, and Westermann of the University of Osnabruck, Germany, show Target claims going from 7% of Bundesbank assets in the beginning of 2006 to 64% by October 2011. Collateral on these loans held by the ECB is mainly sovereign debt of the financially weakest ECB countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. Losses on these loans are to be distributed among 17 eurozone central banks according to the proportion of their share in ECB capital, with Germany's being 28%. However with dire finances in some countries Germany could end up with a much larger share of losses. This gives Germany one more reason for the statement that the breakup of the eurozone is unthinkable....

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Mogan McSweeney of Cork Ireland, son of an IRA courier with a politics and marketing degree from Middlesex University, joined the Labour Party in London fighting off Corbyn supporters during the Corbyn leadership till 2019. The Guardian says McSweeney settled on Keir Starmer as the candidate to replace Corbyn as a centrist on the right. It was says the Guardian McSweeney as an organizer against the Corbyn left that installed Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street. And then by getting Starmer to appoint his mentor Mandelson led to Starmer becoming "the most unpopular prime minister in history." It says May local elections may sound the end of Starmer. McSweeney is blamed for some of Starmer's failure to project a image of firmness as he backtracked on issues on the advice of McSweeney, to the point that many in Labour party thought McSweeney made Labour driverless. As McSweeney ejected all Corbynites from the Labour Party he weakened the party and led to Labour bleeding its vote to the Greens and the Liberals. Labour's got a landslide with many Labour MP's winning by thin margins- its vote was slim only 34% of the vote, itself a warning that something was not right. On immigration the root causes were not addressed till early 2026- the ECHR human rights that needed to be put aside as written with serious flaws and which allowed asylum hotels. This led to a shift to Nigel Farage, called back from retirement to lead Reform UK in 2026 and way ahead of Labour and Conservatives in the polls. Worse 50% of Labour's vote disappeared in 2026 polls by February hardly 2 years after the win in 2024, as the support McSweeney helped organize had no depth of conviction- most of it to Liberals and Greens under Polanski. The result is that even the Guardian is disappointed and says McSweeney installed Starmer as PM and then made him "the most unpopular PM in history." Net favorability in Feb 2026 -57 similar to Sunak of Conservatives in June 2024. A 75% unfavorable rating in Jan 2026. And 14 points below the Labour party in "like" ratings. Only 18% are favorable for Starmer. It shows how a series of British prime ministers with mediocre backgrounds have failed in the country. ...

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One commentator in Norway says "an entire state apparatus has played bankrupt" with Norway's international reputation. British and Norwegian Royals Sarah Ferguson divorced wife of Prince Andrew,  Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, and the Epstein Files showing messages exchanged with Epstein even after much of his history was known, show a lack of judgement that reflects badly on Britain's establishment, on Norway's establishment. There are media reports of Mandelson, Starmer's UK ambassador to US of having sent messages to Epstein on matters relating to confidential plans of the government to sell state assets and about policy influence under a previous Labour administration.This suggests to people in Britain that Labour has failed to appoint people of integrity to important positions. Before Rutte of the Netherlands took over as head of NATO, the head of NATO Stoltenberg for 10 years was from Norway. The total population of Norway of 5.5 million is less than the population of the Houston region. Should it exercise such an important role in the affairs of Europe much less of the world? It was under Stoltenberg's appointment in 2014 as head of NATO after losing an election in Norway, with Merkel and Obama's support, that gradually changed the perception of NATO as too close to Russia's borders so that by 2019 when Covid took place the situation deteriorated in Europe beyond recognition. Russia and China joined together and Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 with Stoltenberg in a role in NATO that reflected more the British view of NATO than how DJT and other Republican leaders perceived NATO. As America turns this chapter of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama years of failed politics in which US lost control in its own backyard to drug trafficking gangs in Mexico and Venezuela, conducted wars in remote deserts and mountains in the Middle East, and lost its economic position to China, turned over NATO to  politicians who followed a British view of hostility to Russia that did not reflect the American view of working in cooperation with Russia, China and other major powers, this appointment of Stoltenberg a figure in the Norway establishment may be seen as another failure of the Merkel/Obama years. ...

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Much of the reward for Labour goes to Health, Nutrition (food choices), and Education (schooling choices for children). This is the backbone for any Nation that is going to be strong and have a good future. Yet economic structures in 2026 and for decades has swung too far in one direction away from Labour and more and more for Capital, creating grave risks for the Nation, and setting the US as the wrong role model. Labour and Capital in 1980 vs 2026- increasing reward for Capital from 7% to 12% of GDI decreasing for Labour 58% to 52% in same period. In some areas this is not so because other regions have set their own priorities and this is a good thing Europe has a strong and fair access healthcare system, India has a strong and fair access pharmaceuticals healthcare system, which act as role models for the US. In 2026 RFK Jr, Dr. Oz at HHS and DJT are focused on getting US pharmaceuticals prices down to levels in the European Union. The real dangers of the skewing in the direction of Capital of rewards is creating a class that is not sensitive to the lives of ordinary people resulting in fracturing of society. Something like that happened in 1600-1800 in India and China leading to the disintegration of society and becoming overcome by foreign European powers which had more dynamic societies from the bottom up that led to discoveries in science leading to the industrial revolution. One detects something like this happening by accident by poor governance and bad decisions for wars (Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama), and the same administrations pushed by bad advice from economists to ship the productive manufacturing resources of the Nation to China. If not reversed it would lead to the kind of decline Asia witnessed after 1600- hitting all classes of society and destroying the economic structures as foreign powers get the upper hand. The surrendering of research labs and higher education in advanced science fields to foreigners at US and European universities poses similar risks as fractured society with Capital dominant and unaware of the risks. Such societies have less perception of such risk than a bottom up built social, economic and political framework with large numbers of aspiring local citizens seeking these positions in science and technology in the Nation. ...

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US $1.5 trillion budget request for 2027 fiscal year by the president for military and defense spending is about 4.7% of US GDP forecast of $31.8 trillion in 2026. In 1960 it was 9% following the Korean War. It dropped to 3.1% of GDP by 2000 and stayed around 3.4% till the current effort to modernization of the US military is thought to require about 5% of GDP.  (World Bank charts). The US spent far higher during an earlier period reaching 14% of GDP in 1953 during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. This report shows WSJ Analysis of where the $1.5 trillion request for Defense is going-  $1.1 trillion for War Department and $350 billion for critical munitions. The munitions are in short supply and war in Iran shows that it plays a critical part in defensive systems such as intercepting of missiles as missiles in short supply affect overall capabilities. An additional $200 billion for Iran War. Pay raises for Defense personnel. $66 billion for shipbuilding- 34 ships to put the US back in the lead for shipbuilding it has lost to China, with the help of Japan which is also ramping up the shipbuilding it has lost to China. US and Japan were leading shipbuilders in the  1930's and in the 1960's, then lost it to South Korea and China. About a 12% decrease in other Department's budgets including Health and Human Services, Treasury, Commerce, Interior, Housing and Agriculture.  These cost reductions some of it coming from more efficient functioning and from concepts such as zero based budgeting where every line item in the budget gets reviewed every year for how much is needed for the purpose, is the purpose still valid, and can it be done more efficiently costing less. $660 billion is coming from the savings. The Nation's capital will also get a facelift, a major renovation, after being ignored for years. In the new Budget is $10 billion for the Presidential Capital Stewardship Program within the National Park Service for beautification projects in Washington D.C., which will give the National Capital a much needed new look for millions of visitors from the 51 states in the Union.    ...

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The problem of information providers is linked to the problem of the recipient of the information- the common man in America. For the common man in America these are distant places with strange cultures and manners of living, remote from his everyday existence in an industrialized country. Why should the common man in America care if a small fraction of GNP and a trained military with advanced equipment will be sufficient to deal with situations in remote places. A fast growing economy between 1950- 2000 could also absorb the costs of local conflicts. The reason the common man in America should care is that the economy is expected to grow slowly, so that poor information leading to poor decisions on allocating limited and declining resources for different local conflicts- a war in Iraq costing 1 trillion dollars, and a war in Afghanistan 1 trillion dollars- can compromise future economic security, investment in America and overall defense needs. Especially when money wasted with poor decisions cannot be retrieved or put back in the Treasury, and creates future problems....

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Peter Baker of the New York Times takes a detailed look at Obama and the Presidency in October 2010. He has a long informal interview with President Obama, and uses his knowledge of prior Presidents, to provide a revealing look at Obama's first term in office upto this point. It provides an exceptionally insightful look at the man and his administration, in all its facets, facets that have create both hope and disillusionment. Obama comes across as the cerebral person even in his musings about popular disappointment with the administration, and does not seem connected with the gut-wrenching issues of jobs, foreclosures, the economy, and the economic future as a President needs to be. After all the inspirational rhetoric, Obama, says Baker, did not stay connected to the people who put him in office in the first place. And revealingly Baker shows that even today Obama talks only to a few insiders, compared to Clinton's wider circle, to understand what is happening in the country.

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President Sarkozy on what the euro means for France. Sarkozy told employees of the Airbus plant in Toulouse, France, that the euro was good for France. The single currency had protected France during the economic crisis. "Alone, France cannot resist outside pressures. France is going to borrow 180 billion euros in the financial markets this year to finance 35 years of accumulated budget deficits. Thanks to the euro we can borrow at 3% or a bit more; at the beginning of the 1990's we were paying 10%," he said. He added that "dismantling the euro zone would be like dismantling Europe... I will do everything I can to preserve the euro. He also emphasized that "we can't share the same currency and have different economic strategies," and called for macroeconomic and structural convergence in economic policies.

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The Times looks at local elections in Britain this week, and a swing to the Labor party of 700 seats given Labor's 15 point lead over the Conservatives. This is a dry run for the general elections that Keir Starmer is preparing for, as Britain ripped by crises like the rest of Europe and the US, faces another once in a generation period to decide what kind of a society to create for the future. The blue wall refers to former Labor party supporting constituencies that voted for Boris Johnson in the mistaken assumption that the  Conservatives could deliver for British workers and families. A similar situation exists in the US as president Biden seeks to gain traditional Democratic states such as Pennsylvania and the midwestern states such as Wisconsin, southern states such as Georgia, and western states such as Arizona.

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The 2016 election will be decided by changing demographics and shifting coalitions between Democrats and Republicans. The changing demographics mean that a higher Latino vote in states such as Nevada, Colorado and Florida could bring these states to Democrats. And the working class vote in the industrial midwest in Ohio and the vote in some farm rural states such as Iowa could bring these states to Republicans. Michigan is another industrial midwest state which is uncertain as the older industrial centres such as Youngstown, Ohio, Scranton, Pennsylvania, and parts of Michigan- a big change from when unionized workers voted Democratic. The millenials, college educated women, and suburban voters in cities such as Denver, Miami, Las Vegas and Washington are now part of a new Democratic coalition. Most striking is the way the electorate is divided between better educated and less educated, between men and women, and between young and older voters. In fact with the conservative cultural emphasis in the Republican platform older voters are looking back to bringing back the 50's, while Democrats and the younger generation are looking forward to the future in this election. This is not an accurate characterization though because in 1948 with Harry Truman and in 1952 and 1956 with Dwight Eisenhower America was changing rapidly and looking to the future, so that by 1960 the civil rights movement was already established, and women were making the transition to being college educated and working in business and government.   ...