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The Gallois Report commissioned by the new government in France to restore France's manufacturing competitiveness. Louis Gallois is the former head of aerospace firm EADS. It calls for a 30 billion euro cut in payroll taxes to help French companies compete in global markets. Gallois proposes 22 main measures to "stop the slide and support the economy." He called this a "competitiveness shock." Gallois points to France's 70 billion euro trade deficit in contrast to booming German exports. The cost to the economy was 2 million French jobs over 3 decades, says the report. Unemployment today is around 10%. Measures suggested include the payroll tax cuts of 1.5% of GDP for salaries upto 4900 euros a month, and employee representatives to sit on board of directors of French companies similiar to Germany.

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About 30% of German bank debt will mature in less than a year, according to the German central bank, well above the long term average of 22%. In its annual financial stability report, the Bundesbank provided a warning that German banks have increased their dependence on short term financing. This is a risky practice if a bank is caught short when interest rates rise. Hypo Real estate, a German property lender had to be taken over by the German government, because it could no longer borrow at short term rates below what it was receiving in interest for its long term loans. Andreas Dombret, a member of the central bank executive board, said that new bubbles could form in certain securities markets as banks make "a renewed increase in the search for yield."

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This WSJ editorial after the riots in Baltimore, points out that the "blue city model" is not working. Baltimore has 8.4% unemployment compared to the 5.4% unemployment in the state, and 21% unemployment in the neighborhood of African- American Freddie Gray in Baltimore. It says failing public schools, economic decline with people leaving the city, and a general lack of opportunity, are causes for the breakdown in the city leading to the call of the National Guard by the governor to maintain law and order. The editorial emphasizes the need for private economic development, "broken windows" policing of the type encouraged under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg in New York City, a culture of personal responsibility, and school choice, as a way out of the crisis in American cities such as Baltimore that are failing.

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Jacob Lew, U.S. Budget Director under president Clinton and under president Obama, is Obama's chief of staff. He guides the negotiating team for the Democrats in the "fiscal cliff" negotiations with Republicans. Colleagues describe him as thorough and meticulous. He negotiated with Republicans in 2011, running into problems with Republicans and Speaker Boehner, who saw him as inflexible in the negotiations. Lew is a son of Polish immigrants living in Queens, New York, and participated actively in Democratic causes from his student days. This time the lead negotiator is Treasury Secretary Geithner. Lew was an aide to Democratic Speaker Tip O'Neill. In 1983 he helped O'Neill in negotiations for Social Security legislation when Reagan was president. In 1997 he helped negotiate an agreement with Republicans to balance the budget under president Clinton.

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Studies by Professors who are co-directors of immgration studies at NYU show that the 16 million children of immigrant families are having hard times because of difficulties faced by their families including long periods of separation leading to depression, poverty, isolation. The absent parent being commonly the father. Most of these children are from Hispanic families. Immigrant children were crowded in the lower ranks for English language skills. The professors Marcelo and Carola Suarez-Orozco have studied immigrant children for over 20 years. This NYT editorial says the children are going to be part of a new generation of Americans and are th human capital of the future even as they are tangled up in the messy immigration debate that ends up treating many of these families poorly.

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How the Drug Industry and Drug Companies will go through a complete change and look nowhere near what it looks like today. Huge changes are overtaking the Drug industry and old ways of doing things will go out the window. Patent expirations for blockbuster drugs, safety issues, increased regulation, rise of generics drugs, cost issues, outsourcing of manufacture and testing and some R&D, changes in marketing practices, slimming down of marketing and sales force personnel, new approaches to R&D- Novartis emphasizing science, Glaxo breaking up into smaller teams, and the growth of emerging markets. All this happens as the public in the USA looks at healthcare in anew way and the demand for healthcare expands quickly in growing developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America and Eastern Europe.

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Jean-Marie Le Clezio is hailed as "author of new departures, explorer of humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization," by the Swedish Academy. This Frenchman loved to explore foreign cultures from North African immigrants in France to native Indians in Mexico and islanders in the Indian ocean. He wins the Nobel Prize for Literature for 2008. His novels include "Desert," about a Sahara woman and her encounters with European civilization, the "Prospector," and others. Le Clezio's novel "Onitsha," is based in Nigeria during the British colonial period. His father was a British doctor with connections to Mauritius where he also lived. He was born in Nice and studied at Bristol university in the UK and spent a year in Nigeria. He now spends time between Nice, Mauritius, and Albuquerque.

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"Defend blue sky and breathe together" says a painting on a brick wall in the coal producing region of Shanxi, northern China. China is finally acting seriously to impose strict environmental rules from the top. Old coal stoves are thrown into a dump as China shifts away from coal stoves to heat homes. So many new homes shifted to natural gas in Shanxi province. population 37 million, that demand overwhelmed natural gas supplies. Results are to be seen in cleaner air in Taiyuan, capital of the province and in Beijing itself.  President Xi's commitment to climate change accord reached in Paris is seen as firm in this report in the NYT. The head of the gas, coal and power markets division of the International Energy Agency, Mr. Peter Fraser, says that even though homes use only 6% of total coal used in China, the effects are disproportionately high because homes do not have any emission reduction mechanisms. Natural gas demand has increased by 16% in 2017 as provincial officials eager to meet the demands issued in Beijing to cut coal emissions even let some homes and schools go without heat in an early winter spell. This extraordinary report shows how in cities in northeastern China the people welcome the change to natural gas and cleaner air. Even in coal country, in cities like Linfen population 4.4 million, the change is seen as people welcome the clean air and officials build natural gas connections to execute the plans issued in Beijing. In Beijing itself Greenpeace estimates show 54% reduction in PM 2.5, harmful particulate matter for breathing by 54%, a startling fact showing Beijing's determination and effectiveness of its actions. Natural gas is more expensive and citizens do not complain in neighboring provinces near Beijing because the state provides adequate subsidies to compensate people. Decrees are being enforced to avoid coal stove use with people knowing they could see action by authorites if reported. Compare this to the problems of crop burning around New Delhi, in Haryana and Punjab provinces, and one can see that centralized control and direction has advantages when used in the right way for a good purpose and supported by people who want to breathe clean air. ...

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Anthony Faiola provides this exceptional look at the thinking of Chancellor Merkel and German experts, about the refugees creating more opportunities than risks for Germany. Germany is an aging society, with low birth rates. How to reverse this, so that there will be more young workers to meet future needs long term ten or twenty years from now, is a problem facing Japan and Germany. Germany is also fortunate with the timing, with Germany's unemployment rate at a low of 6.2%, and years of growth ahead from a eurozone recovery. A fortunate circumstance in the nature of refugees from Syria, is that many of them are young, well educated, skilled workers, doctors, engineers and architects, from a relatively moderate Arab country. This is a better immigrant pool than the one Germany took in from Turkey in early postwar years, in terms of education, youthfulness and skills, and one in which the lessons learned from that pool's inadequate integration could be applied here. This is why Germany is not only willing to take in 800,000, but German leaders are saying they could take in 500,000 a year for several years. Just as Germany has taken a long term view, and has the strength to execute it in its shift to renewable energy, Germany's centre right Christian Democrats and centre left Social Democrats in the coalition government see the issue long term around which they can bring a cohesive understanding and consensus in their country. Merkel addressing parliament said on September 9, 2015- "The refugees need help to learn German, and they should find a job quickly. Many of them will become new citizens of our country. If we do it well, this will bring more opportunities than risks." The decision to shift to renewable required a whole new mindset and leadership, in the same way German leaders are articulating the position based on a careful understanding of the situation and Germany's long term interests in reversing Germany's population decline and lower working age people. There are about 3 million Turkish people in the country, adding about 1.8 million Syrian and other refugees would still bring the percentage of people of foreign origin to less than 6% of the 81 million population, just a little bit less Christian and just a little bit less German in origin, which is in keeping with changes in a globalized world and no different than its neigbor France. What looked like a problem, if handled and managed well could be an opportunity knocking at Germany's door. Merkel's genuine convictions about universal civil rights make the "wilkommen refugees" very real in other ways....

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GDP growth for the 17 eurozone countries showed a 0.2% decline in the second quarter of 2012, according to Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency. The German econonomy showed GDP growth in the second quarter 2012 of 0.3%, France showed zero growth for the third consecutive quarter. Italy and Spain showed negative 0.7% and negative 0.4% growth during the quarter. The ZEW indicator of sentiment in Germany fell to its lowest level reflecting German manufacturers reluctance to invest in new equipment. As the eurozone economic growth remains flat and declining for longer period, German business sees this affecting German exports. Analysts at Commerzbank and Dutch Bank ING see a further slowdown in the German economy in the second half 2012. The German economy showed GDP growth of 0.5% in the first quarter 2012, compared to the prior quarter, before declining to 0.3% in the second quarter. Further decline is now expected.

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Vice President Biden says "I would not refer to Mubarak as a dictator," showing a lack of sensitivity and understanding of the Egyptian people's demands for freedom of expression, human rights, and democracy. Harshaw says that its clear the Mubarak regime has been wounded at the core. In the light of this the Obama administration's hesitant and timid response to the protests against 30 years of one party rule under Mubarak is baffling. It means the US will have to bear the costs of being on the wrong side of public opinion in the Arab world says Harshaw. And President Obama has failed to bring the much needed change that he promised for US relations with Africa, the Arab world, and the developing world. Apart from improvement of relations with Turkey, the failure of the Obama administration to grasp opportunities for forging a new era of relations with the Muslim world.

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A big problem Spain is facing is that the room for spending cuts is shrinking and new taxes are not generating higher tax revenues for the government. Tax receipts declined by 1.5% in the Jan-May 2012 period even with the higher taxes on income, electricity and tobacco. The revenues from VAT, value added tax, declined by 10%. Spending to aid regional governments increased by 12% and interest payments increased by 32%. Under the government of prime minister Zapatero tax income declined by 19% in 2007-2011, even after adding higher taxes on the wealthy, increasing the VAT tax and scrapping of a tax rebate. The government predicts domestic demand will decline by 3.1% in 2012. Ms Cospedal who is cutting spending in the Castilla region near Madrid, a deputy leader of the ruling Partido Popular, says in some regions the margin for additional savings is "becoming small."

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The first year of the Modi administration in India brings a sense of moderation to high expectations following the election, considering the many problems that need to be tackled. It also brings some help in the form of lower oil prices coming at a critical time for the Indian economy, which is overly dependent on oil imports. This enabled the government to cut fuel subsidies and control its budget deficit. By April 2015 inflation declined to 4.87%. Foreign direct investment increased by 25% to $28.8 billion in 2014-2015 fiscal year. Major steps include deregulating prices of diesel, petroleum and cooking gas, increasing foreign ownership limits for defense and insurance sectors to 47%, and opening 125 million new bank accounts for poor households. Coalfield leases and telecom spectrum allocations which suffered from lack of transparency and sold at low prices under the previous administration were reallocated in a transparent process.

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The U.S. birthrate edged up slightly for the first time since the recession of 2008 led American families of childbearing age to defer having children. There were 62.9 births for every 1000 women of childbearing age in 2014, increasing from 62.5 in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The total fertility rate also increased slightly to 1.862 children in 2014 from 1.858 in 2013. This is below the rate of 2.1 children a woman would have over her lifetime to keep population at the same level, without immigration. Kenneth Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire, estimates about 2.3 million more births if the 2008 recession had not led women to defer having babies. In 2014 U.S. births increased 1.4% to 3.99 million children from 3.93 million in 2013. Women over 30 and better educated are showing a larger increase in births.

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In its performance review for Pakistan the IMF says growth estimate is 2.8% for 2014. The IMF sees a poor outlook for the balance of payments situaion, and has raised the issue of critically low foreign exchange reserves. Inflation is increasing and is at about 11%. Foreign currency reserves have declined from over $6 billion in 2013 to less than $4 billion. Yaseen Anwar resigned as head of Pakistan's central bank in Jan 2014, as Pakistan begins its second quarterly review with the IMF representatives in Dubai. The IMF has only released $1.1 billion from a $6.7 billion bailout in Sept. 2013. The quarterly reviews are designed to see that Pakistan meets the bailout conditions. The new administration of prime minister Nawaz Sharif is making an effort to bring the security situation under control in Karachi and other cities to generate business confidence and expansion.

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Greece shows the first sign of returning to positive economic growth after years of decline leading to a drop in GDP of about 25% since 2008. The Greek economy contracted by 2.6% in the 4th quarter of 2013 compared to the 3rd quarter, according to Hellenic Statistical Authority. For 2013 the economy contraced by 3.7% instead of an estimated 4%. Growth is expected to be flat in 2014 or growth of 0.6%. For the first time manufacturing and retail sales are showing signs of growing and new car registrations increased in Jan. 2014. Finance ministry data show Greece's budget with a surplus of 691 million euros in 2013, compared with a deficit of 3.46 billion euros in 2012, before debt payments. The figure is higher at 812 million euros when money from the EU coming in for public works is added. Unemployment remains high at 28%.

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The University of Wisconsin increased tution by 5.5% for a number of years. University officials say a reserve fund of $650 million of the University of Wisconsin was built up with most of the funds coming from the tution increases. The reason university officials give for this is the $5 billion university budget, with only 20% provided by the state of Wisconsin. Shrinking support from the state led to the effort to build a reserve fund. The size of the fund and the lack of disclosure by university officials that tution increases were being used to build up the fund has led to strong criticism. Reports about the spending at the University of Minnesota and other universities show the lack of spending restraint at large universities in the U.S. Bureaucratic layers and debt servicing for new buildings take up large portions of the universiy budgets.

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Panoramic windshields on the Jeep Liberty, the Lincoln MKX and the Ford Edge, Cadillac SRX crossover and 2008 CTS, and on the Opel Astra GTC in Europe, are a new selling point for vehicles. This option can run from $1200 on the Jeep and $1400 on the Ford Edge. For some reason the Opel Astra when brought to the US as the Astra will not have panoramic windshield, one wonders if this is not a mistake by GM when it can use all the buzz and excitement that these kinds of features can bring to get Americans into dealer showrooms. Would Americans pay for these features on a lower priced car. There appears to be a noticeable shift towards buying smaller but more expensive and loaded with features cars among the car buying middle to upper classes which use this as an additional third or fourth car.

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Contrasting Gurgaon in the capital region near New Delhi, with Bihar state in the northeast where much of the region is without electricity, as more Indians look for electricity and lighting in rural areas and the trend towards quadrupling of electricity demand in the next 25 years. Half of India's people have no access to the electricity grid and the government plans to extend electricity to rural India in the next 5 years. Transportation will add to energy demand as will construction. Per capita emissions for this reason, the large part of unlighted rural India, is low at 2 tons per capita compared to 20 tons in the USA, and yet India is already the fourth larges emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. With increasing use of abundant coal reserves for electricity production there will be more emissions in the years to come.

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Argentina's president Macri's party alliance Cambiemos, or Let's Change, wins in 5 of Argentina's largest electoral districts, becoming the first to do so since 1985. The opposition under former president Christina Kirchner remains divided. Though Macri's bloc in parliament is still a minority bloc, it gained a significant number of seats in the midterm elections, increasing the prospects for reforms in labor, tax, and pensions proposed by Cambiemos. Though Chrisitna Kirchner won a seat in parliament in the election the Peronist Party she leads remains a much weaker force today. For a decade after the Argentine financial crisis the Kirchners remained popular following a rejection of international creditors,  now the opinion has shifted about the Peronist party, and the direction of the country has shifted towards integration in the world economy. Under Macri a settlement was reached with international creditors so that Argentina can get new international financing. ...

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The suicide of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain who had a popular television program, brings new attention to the increase in middle age suicides ages 45 to 64 in the U.S.  The CDC figures show a 60% increase for women and 37% for men between 2000 and 2016. A clinical instructor in psychiatry and medicine at Cornell, Ms. Boardman says life satisfaction is low at this age,a dip in satisfaction called the U curve. A 2016 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine  shows stress factors as problems with intimate partners job/finances, health, family, and criminal/legal problems.  The demographic group driving suicide rates up is mainly white people without a 4 year college degree, who have done poorly compared to that group in a previous generation, say experts at Columbia University. 

Generally isolation and loneliness is also a factor, and social connections a big antidote to depression type stress.

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This report in the NYT says Hillary Clinton has studied policy briefings, academic papers and taken advice from 200 policy experts, including experts from Bill Clinton's administration such as Alan Blinder, all in an effort to define her own policy positions on issues facing the U.S. This happens at a time different from the period of slow growth when Bill Clinton ran against George H.W. Bush. Since then middle class families face the added problems of not being able to keep up with the rising cost of college education, health care, child care, low interest rates on savings and volatile markets dampening savings growth. For working class Americans in the middle class during Bill Clinton's time in office the problems take the shape of a sharp decline in the manufacturing wages that once supported a middle class life in industrial states of the midwestern U.S., with global competition doing the damage, and few solutions available except improving technology and technical skill of the workforce to compete in higher end products. Consider the points made by Janet Yellen, the Fed chairwoman at a Boston Fed conference in Oct. 2014- Fed information for 2013 showing the average net worth of the lower half of American families representing 62 million households is $11,000. Only this conceals the situation facing one fourth of these families who have zero wealth or negative net worth, and a significant fraction owing more on their homes than they are worth. Hillary Clinton told a audience at the New School in Greenwich Village in New York, this is the defining economic challenge of our time. " We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans so they can afford a middle class life. This will be my mission from the first day I'm president to the last."...

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Lee Cheuk-yan, chairman of the pro-democracy Labor Party, describes the 17 year old Wong and young people in high schools to a crowd in Hong Kong in this way- these are very young faces, the old men in Hong Kong including many in the elite who dared not to speak up for Hong Kong's cherished traditions and rights out of caution will die, but these young people will carry on. Wong started the group Scholarism as an internet based movement to fight the 2012 "patriotic classes" plan of the Communist Party and Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. That movement took hold in Hong Kong and the government had to shelve the plan. This time he is fighting for universal suffrage in Hong Kong in 2017 with the right to elect its own leaders without prescreening by the Communist Party. This is in the spirit of the Basic Law, former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten tells the BBC. Patten helped negotiate the transfer agreement for Hong Kong and handled the transfer in 1997. In August 2014 China changed this intent leading to protest demonstrations. Wong is of Protestant parents who helped stir in him a sense of opposing social injustice. Beyond Hong Kong there is something else at work- a sense that the new leaders in Beijing are choosing the Putin Way that sees these demonstrations as inspired by foreign forces and treating all NGO's as foreign agents. In a larger sense the old leaders are living in a past world of territorial gains and keeping tight grip on power, when the world is now interdependent economically and politically, with change requiring new approaches to problems. The presence of 15 year old high school students and very young generation suggests no such foreign interference, as most of these students are very young....

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Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe brought Nigeria to life in American schools and colleges and in schools and colleges throughout the world. He started as an obscure writer from Nigeria's rural southeast. His early novels were written in the fifties and sixties an embodied a perod of great expectations in Africa after independence. "Things Fall Apart," wa published in 1958, and sold 10 million copies in 50 languages. Other books reflected the troubles in Nigeria as things fell apart with dictatorships and wars- "Man of the People," "There Was A Country." In the seventies Achebe was editor of British publishing house Heinemann's African writer series and was instrumental in bringing a whole new set of African writers to readers around the world- Kenya's Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Ghana's Ayi Kwei Armah, Cameroon's Mongo Beti. In 1982 he campaigned briefly for a political party and wrote the 68 page "The Trouble With Nigeria." After a car accident in Lagos, Achebe was paralyzed waist down and had to be in a wheelchair. During this period he went to Bard Colege in New York, and in 2009 joined Brown University in Rhode Island, and lectured extensively. He was revered in Nigeria but remained critical of Nigeria's political leaders, telling them they were "turning my homeland into a bankrupt and lawless fiefdom." The gradual emergence of Nigeria and the rest of Africa from decades of strife and corruption, following the great hopes of the early post colonial era, owes much to the work of writers and other individuals like Achebe. Achebe has some important advice for writers, for business, and life in general, "if you don't like the story write your own." Another writer who writes about Nigeria and Africa was honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature....