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How the supply and demand for oil is changing according to updated forecasts by the International Energy Agency. Demand is expected to be 500,000 barrels a day less than originally forecast for the fourth quarter by IEA. Also Iraq's northern fields produced 600,000 barrels a day and Angolan production also went up to increase supply by 1.4 million barrels a day. This provides some slack in the supply-demand situation to ease price pressures. Examples of energy conservation are given one of a refrigerated truck firm, Willis Shaw Express in Arkansas which runs a fleet of 725 refrigerated trucks and has installed "governors" on its truck engines to max speed at 65 miles per hour and thus get more fuel economy per gallon used. The full impact of recent price increases has not been felt at the pumps till noand this should also encourage further conservation. The slowing down of the U.S. economy should help reduce demand in 2008 as the full impact of the mortgage crisis is felt (see the OECD report of further losses ahead estimated at $300 billion by 2008-2009) this should lead to slowing demand. At this time demand in the US is rising by 1% down from 3-4% in the 1990's. This could be be part of a trend that could lead to actual decline in consumption in the industrialized countries. The impact of a US slowdown could impact less industrialized countries and moderate demand there. Slower growth is reported for Eastern European countries. Meantime Saudi Arabia states its on schedule to increase production from 11.3 million barrels a day to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009. ...

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By July 2013 only about 40% of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation rules were completed, 60% of deadlines were missed, according to law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. A singular aspect of the Dodd-Frank legislation was that rule making was left to regulators in different agencies and open to lobbying by the financial industry. This has the effect of delaying the rule making until a consensus is reached, diluting some of the original intent as financial firms jockey for advantage, and making it voluminous in many cases because of the wording designed to achieve consensus and account for objections by various interests. Reform legislators such as Barney Frank openly said they had no interest in learning enough about the financial industry to do the rule making, and may have left an excessive amount of the rule making to regulators in the future. A consumer protection agency was established under the new law and derivatives are required to be traded on exchanges. The Volcker Rule to separate investment banking from deposit taking and a requirement that banks hold onto a portion of mortgage securities marketed are not completed. The S.E.C. has to write the rule on how much money brokerages must set aside for losses on swap trades. Another bubble in financial markets would leave the U.S. and European economies vulnerable to problems similiar to the global financial crisis of 2008, which is why the U.S. Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European regulatory authorites are requiring large banks to set aside more capital reserves. The S.E.C. under its new chief is also taking a more active role in overseeing the banks for violations of securities laws, including a series of actions taken against JP Morgan Chase bank in 2013. This has a deterrent effect as the huge monetary easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve to reduce unemployment also creates bubble conditions in financial markets, according to Fed governor, Jeremy Stein. Former FDIC chief, Sheila Bair, says the lack of leadership in this area is simply astonishing....

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The appreciation of the U.S. dollar and depreciating currencies in Africa in 2015 makes it costlier to import manufactured goods to African countries. Quality Supermarkets in Kampala, Uganda, struggles to fill its shelves with imported packaged foods and manufactured goods. The lack of financing for $30 million in crude supplies leads to the closure of a refinery in Lusaka, Zambia, and long lines at gas stations. The Zambian currency kwacha has depreciated by 17% against the U.S. dollar in 2015. Uganda's currency the shilling, Angola's currency the kwanza, and Nigeria's currency the Naira, all depreciated in 2015. This means larger trade deficits to finance consumer imports or upgrade infrastructure. In Uganda this means delays in upgrades to power lines and transformers. In oil producing countries such as Angola and Nigeria, and oil producers at the early stage such as Uganda and Ghana, there is a double whammy with lower oil prices leading to lower revenues to finance costlier imports. This is likely to slow growth in Africa from about 5% in recent years to 3.7%, according to Capital Economics forecast. Countries in Africa that import oil will see lower import bill for oil, but that benefit eroded by a depreciating currency. South Africa sees benefit of lower oil prices offset by lower revenues from commodity exports of iron ore, and the higher cost of imports with a depreciating currency. ...

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Already Japan, Vietnam and Taiwan are negotiating. India will join South Korea. Britain will follow. Only Canada and China are holding back because of the imbalance in trade heavily in their favor and a failure to see that it is about fairness. In the EU only Germany has a surplus many nations have a deficit, it seeks to start negotiating at the first opportunity. Contrary to what most of the American and British media says Lighhizer and Jamieson have thought this thing through for many years before arriving at the Tariffs advice they gave the US president as his 2 USTR. It is these two not the president acting on his own whim as the media like to show. And Lighthizer has done this before- as Deputy USTR in the 1980 with Japan on the opposite side and come out of it with winning solutions for the US and for the world.

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Jose de Cordoba of the WSJ provides this excellent story on the nature of the migration crisis in the U.S. that is creating political divisions in the U.S. What is causing this surge in migration to the U.S.? Cordoba provides some useful insights to understand the nature of this problem. Nine out of ten migrants in Guatemala which sends most of the migrants from Central America are moving north from Guatemala through Mexico to the U.S. for financial reasons, it points out. Only 10% are because of violence in the region, the rest for financial reasons according to the United Nations International Organization for Migration The jump in apprehension of Guatemalans at the American border shows a surge from 15,000 in 2007 to 236,000 in 9 months of 2019, according to U.S. government data. The surge began in 2008 and jumped in 2014 after U.S. court rulings that first required migrant children to be allowed to join relatives in the U.S. followed by a ruling in 2015 that allowed a parent to join the children and allowed court proceedings to take place that takes years. The result was that smugglers advertised on radio and families sold small plots of land to join relatives in the U.S. who had gone before them. The migration is also specific to certain areas hit by damage to crops, including coffee crop from drought, or certain towns that simply sent more people simply for financial reasons advertised openly.  For 8 hours of work a migrant could make at $12 per hour amount of $96 per day, in Guatemala the daily wage would be about $5.  Overwhelmingly it is financial reasons or economic opportunity that sends migrants north. After it became known that kids could help migration the people in family groups apprehended at the border jumped from about 40,000 in 2015 to 390,000 in fiscal 2019. Smugglers charge $8600 per adult and half that for a child and an adult that can be dropped off at a checkpoint. The efforts of president Trump to close the border to this migration include having Mexico sign an agreement to police its southern border with Guatemala using its newly setup National Guard. As a result the migration has actually surged in 2019 with migrants seeing this as their one last opportunity to join relatives in the U.S. or to migrate to the U.S. The Trump administration tried separating families because of the loophole in the law that allows children to be not deported and parents to join their children. But this created a public outcry and the effort now is to close the loophole in the law. It is also strange that as many migrants are coming from one town Joyabaj  with population 100,000 as from Guatemala City the capital population 2.5 million. In fact the economy has grown by 3.4 % a year in Guatemala and efforts have been made to improve conditions with the help of donor countries in the West for several years, though the drought conditions exist. The situation is similar to that in Europe. If one looks at the violence by gangs in central American region after the end of the guerilla wars and compares it to the wars in Syria and Iraq, one can see how humanitarian concerns preceded what eventually turned out tobe a full blown migration for economic reasons. Initially chancellor Merkel adopted a humanitarian stance but failed to recognize that there was another side to his situation that would attract a wave of economic migrants from places as far apart as North Africa to Afghanistan. Poverty has existed in these regions for many many years before the current migration, with drought and lack of economic opportunity going far back in time. Merkel only recently recognized this problem and the new CDU leader Kambrauer has clearly recognized this. CDU policy shifted in 2018-2019 with curbs on economic migration that has reduced it to a trickle. This process is underway in the U.S. at its border with Mexico and for Mexico with its border with Guatemala. In the short run Europe and the U.S. are paying a price. Not just in the way it has divided each country with a far left and a far right eroding the centrist parties that existed before. In some cases centrist parties that were popular on the right and the left now hve leaders from a far right or a far left faction within the centrist ruling parties. Boris Johnson in Britain, Trump in the U.S., leaders in Italy, Austria and Hungary. Or as in Germany and Spain new far left or far right parties causing the centrist parties to dwindle in influence or as in Germany this combined with a shift to the Green Party in Germany and Liberals Party in Britain as a show of disapproval for how the migration issue has been tackled.  The Economist in a July 2019 issue also points out that the country's own citizens have fared worse with migration. It shows how the Conservative Party's austerity cuts for welfare budgets was popular in Britain as long as eastern European migration at high levels in Britain were allowed starting with the Labour party under Blair. This disproportionately hurt the middle class and the poor after the hit already taken from the faulty banking caused recession. With the drop in migration it is now felt by a majority in Britain that the austerity cuts have just gone too far and a mood is set in to restore many of the cuts and fund public services. Meantime some of the damage has been done and will take a decade to correct as the issues that mangled the centrist parties and led to fragmentation on views of what society should look like have taken place with Brexit and high levels of poverty, income inequality in Britain, lack of investment in infrastructure with overallocation to tech with declining productive benefit for every additional dollar spent. ...

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On Canada's Justin Trudeau- looking back at his 10 years 2015-2025 mostly inherited the work of his father. He tackled Covid, improved childcare, tackled the renegotiation of trade with Republicans in the US, but lacked the major achievement of the 1970's of Pierre Trudeau setting up Canada as an independent state. The Washington Post looks at the political career of Justin Trudeau. He is the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, a politician from Quebec, who was prime minister from 1968 to 1984 except for one year in 1979-1980. During that period Pierre Trudeau a lawyer practicing labour law in Montreal and educated at the University of Montreal had three significant accomplishments. Canada Act of 1982 passed into law by Queen Elizabeth and the British Parliament, set up Canada as a sovereign state. Prior to this only the British Parliament could amend the Canadian Constitution under the Dominion Act of 1867 under Queen Victoria. As a Quebeker Pierre Trudeau succeeded highly respected Lester Pearson as head of the Liberal Party, and held off the Party Quebecois's effort for separatism in the early 1980's. By 1981 the Canadian Supreme Court 9-0 rejected the Party Quebecois bills that conflicted with the Charter of Rights set up under the Canada Act which protected minorities in Quebec having education in English.   ...

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Cutter and Adams of the WSJ show the inner workings of a large consulting firm, McKinsey & Company. A University of Chicago professor started the firm in 1926. By the 1960's the firm would hire new graduates and train them in its consulting culture to do studies and make recommendations on issues facing client companies. Consultants are not hired for long  experience in each field, they are hired from top business schools and universities upon graduation and trained in the company culture. Work involves extensive travel from different offices, with long hours typical also of the financial firms, with little acknowledgement of worklife balance for productive effort even after the pandemic. Cutter and Adams do not cover an earlier period of McKinsey during the financial crisis of 2008 with a controversy around insider trading information about Goldman Sachs which hurt the reputation of McKinsey.  The WSJ investigation into 1MDB Malaysia fund scandal showed Goldman Sachs involvement leading to less confidence in large financial firms as well as consulting companies. This consulting business is growing after the pandemic with about half of it related to companies seeking to prepare and set up AI. This report looks at the new setup in McKinsey where hundreds of senior partners now elect the head of the firm for two 3 year terms. The head of AI at McKinsey is challenging the the current head of the firm in an upcoming election. It cannot be said that consulting firms are improving the management of companies, as more companies today use it sparingly and mostly for special needs or studies including AI. As a result these consulting companies are using the same branding mechanisms, and as Cutter and Adams point out, these professional service firms are run by partners through a system of extensive wining and dining, talking and communicating, so that people who can set an internal consensus do well. The process of development of management skills in the US dating back to Alfred Sloan at General Motors when Mr. Mckinsey started his firm at University of Chicago in 1926, and to Andy Grove founder of Silicon Valley in the 1970's, with their  emphasis on constructive confrontation and skills Grove later outlined in his book "High Output Management" has little to do with such consultancy firm services. Even less can it be said about these consultany services that they have anything to do with the management intuition, vision, wisdom and skills of Matsushita in his book "Not for Bread Alone, Akio Morita in "Made in Japan," or for Grove's unique perspective in "Only the Paranoid Survive."  ...

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Ashraf Khalil describes the history of relations between the Muslim Brotherhood leadership and the leaders of secular parties with prescient remarks on how this creates problems in Egypt's transition to democratic government. The mistake made by the Muslim Brotherhood leaders, says Khalil, is to insist on a quick move to elections in November 2011, with the Brotherhood hoping to gain advantage in seats with its organization already in place compared to the secular parties which need more time to stage an organized effort. If this results in a lopsided result with the Muslim Brotherhood gaining more seats than its real strength, and the secular parties feeling left out in a revolution to set up democratic government that they led, Egypt's transition to democracy will remain flawed. This is now the stuation as the military which sets the rules and the Muslim Brotherhood have agreed on immediate elections. The Muslim Brotherhood's leaders have spent years being suppressed by the Mubarak regime, and lack the experience needed for such a difficult transition as Egypt faces, even with the best of intentions. Compressing the transition into a short time frame makes it even more difficult. Errors of judgement by Muslim Brotherhood leaders in not developing a consensus, and the uncertain role of the post-Mubarak military and police, compound the difficulties and risks....

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The response of Ronald Reagan and George Bush in a Republican presidential primary debate to the question: Do you think the children of illegal aliens be allowed should be able to attend Texas public schools free, or do you think that their parents should pay for their education? Bush's response: "I would reluctantly say I think they would get whatever it is that society is giving to their neighbors... If they're living here I don't want to see a whole thing of 6-8- year old kids being made totally uneducated and made to feel they're living outside the law. Lets address ourselves to the fundamentals. These are good people, strong people. Part of my family is Mexican." Ronald Reagan's response was: "Rather than talk about putting a fence, why don't we work out some recognition of our mutual problems with Mexico? Make it possible for them to come here legally and with a work permit- and then while working and earning here, they pay taxes here. And when they want to go back, they can go back. And open the border both ways by understanding their problems."...

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The New York Times reports from the comments of current and former members of the Chase Chief Investment Office (CIO), that risk officers at Chase were ignored when they raised issues about the complex trades made by trader Iksil. Iksil's trades had the support of his manager Mr. Macris, and Ms. Drew who was in charge of CIO. The comments also indicate that at one point Mr. Macris brought in a Risk Officer with whom he had worked closely for many years. Risk Officers are supposed to be independent and their concerns seriously heard, with the authority to halt trades that pose excessive risks. Which made this kind of cozy behaviour in the CIO trading offices in London cause for alarm. These reports also say Mr. Braunstein, the new CFO at JP Morgan Chase, did not strengthen controls after he assumed office in 2010. Bank officials disputed this. The New York offices did not fully grasp the complex trades being made in the CIO London offices, and upper management let the CIO operate pretty much on its own, especially with CEO Jamie Dimon's confidence in Ms. Drew's management of the CIO. This led to another gap in the process of risk management. Dimon had other priorities and distractions, from problem mortgages coming with the acquisition of Washington Mutual, pushing back aginst financial regulation after the 2008 crisis, stress tests and others. At the same time the U.S. Federal Reserve, regulators, and Treasury's coordinated effort to merge failing banks with other larger banks- because of the lack of the process of unwinding failed banks provided later under Dodd-Frank legislation- created mega financial banks. Unlike what the U.S. under Treasury Secretary Rubin pushed for in the case of S. Korea during a banking crisis in 1997, Treasury under Geithner and Fed officials did not push for unwinding of failed financial institutions such as Countrywide and Washington Mutual in 2008-2009 Chase's own portfolio of assets under the CIO, increased by an astounding amount from $76 billion in 2007 to $356 billion in 2011. Even if Ms Drew had managed CIO well before, managing a portfolio of this size is most likely to have presented a whole set of new challenges and problems for which the CIO office was not prepared. Similiar concerns were raised by other Fed officials such as Fed governors, Hoenig and Fisher, who raised the issue that such mega-banks posed unacceptable risks and were too big to manage. Pressures to increase investing profits, growing complacency, relaxing risk management controls, led to the situation where a single trader Mr. Iksil, who had only joined the bank in 2007 according to other reports, could create large losses. This follows a situation at UBSin 2011, where a novice trader made bets that resulted in large losses....

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This report in the WSJ provides details on the groundwork that was laid by the Trump administration as it worked to find a solution to the problems facing Venezuela with refugees and economic crisis, and months of protests. The plans were set in the days before Nicholas Maduro took office for the second term as president. The night before Juan Guaido, head of the National Assembly, declared himself president, U.S. vice president Mike Pence stated that the U.S. would support him if he took the reins of government from Maduro by invoking a clause in the Venezuelan Constitution that makes the head of the National Assembly take the office of president if the existing president is declared illegitimate taking office unlawfully. About 60 nations did not recognize the elections that gave Maduro a second term. On Jan 2 Mr Trump who feels deeply about the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and rising poverty, the suffering of the Venezuelan people, met with presidents of Brazil and Colombia. Colombian president Ivan Duque and Trump hinted at a plan to cooperate to help people fleeing Venezuela and respecting its democratic heritage. Mr Pompeo spoke to allies of the U.S. The National Assembly laid out its plans on Jan 15, for using a constitutional mechanism that allows the head of the Assembly to lead an interim government till new elections are held if the existing president is declared illegitimate. A leading Republican senator of Cuban origin Mr. Rubio supported the move. On the eve of protests in Venezuela Rubio and two other senators from Florida met Mr. Trump and Pence at the White House. Also present were Bolton, Pompeo, Ross and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. Mr. Trump then decided to do it. He placed a call to Mr. Guiado  to tell him that if the National Assembly invoked Article 233 the U.S. president would back him.  The U.S. believes the rank and file in the military are with the opposition even though its leaders back Maduro. After the U.S. action, the governments of Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, backed the move for an interim government. The European Union called for free and credible elections. Russia and Mexico supported Maduro.  The State Department instructed the U.S. Federal Reserve about Guiado government as the sole representative for Venezuelan assets in banks. Sanctions could be placed on Venezuelan oil exports as backup efforts proceed to support the interim government. ...

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Clint Eastwood talks about stuff in politics, real people, in a way that is humorous, and is asked about his various roles in movies he has made that show relations between countries and races. He recalls the time playing golf with the president and another real estate billionaire, when both told him within earshot of the other that all the real estate deals that the other was making would go bad. This he says was funny. In all this he was always the lone guy, as in the movies. This guy is 89 and he has still got stuff for some interesting movies, and he has ideas about the country and what it needs.  Mr Eastwood was mayor of a little town in coastal California in 1986 for 2 years. And yes he did not like all the regulation in the state. He tells about his removing one in the city that banned the public sale of ice cream, besides drinking a lot of tea and chatting with everyday folks. Most have forgotten and others simply from a new generation. The 2008 movie Gran Torino is one in which a Korean War veteran faces up to immigrants from Laos in an inner Detroit suburb. And what happens? Eastwood says people liked this one that grossed $270 million because it showed how someone with views at one extreme could learn more and shift to the other extreme just from seeing and talking to different people who you have not encountered before. Eastwood portrayed the American male when it was a kind of manliness unabashed. The thing about Eastwood is  that he he is sensitive to all that this meant in an intelligent thoughtful way that takes us by surprise. Some of these characters he played did not have the niceties, abrupt he calls it or that gruffness of masculineness, even a bit dumb. Talking about relations between countries and of race Eastwood had some ideas to make the Japanese language "Letters from Iwo Jima" - to give the view of what it was like for a Japanese soldier sent out from the islands to Iwo Jima. The famous battle was one he did from the American point of view in "Flags of Our Fathers." About that Japanese soldier he is sent out and told that he wasn't ever coming back. It won Japan's equivalent of an Academy Award. The interview in the WSJ with Varadarajan closes with Eastwood feeling  for the genteel ways, not calling names out loud, of an older time, without the masculinity that he himself portrayed, or only appeared to be that way when in reality he was intelligent and sensitive to other people and their ways. Perhaps that former mayor of New York, says Eastwood, offering his own idea of a switch back to older genteel ways for the country.   ...

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Alexandra Stevenson provides this exceptional account of how the debt deal between Argentina and the hedge funds was negotiated. A decade long deadlock was broken for the first time when Argentina's finance secretary in the newly elected government of Mauricio Macri met Jonathan Pollock and Jay Newman of Elliott Management on Dec. 7, 2015, at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. It is based on 8 intervews with the participants in the negotiations, court filings and emails. Critical to the settlement was the work of Dan Pollack, a trial lawyer with the McCarter & English law firm who acted as the mediator and made some rules including no pen and paper allowed, building trust through open discussion. Back channels helped including one setup through Marcos Mindlin of energy firm Pampa Energia in Argentina, who helped the hedge funds communicate with the Argentine negotiators. Mindlin met the hedge fund representatives at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Argentine president Macri insisted on making the terms he offered public on Feb. 1, 2016 of $6.5 billion because this is a sensitive issue in Argentina. Pollack pushed for a simple business transaction to close the issue and not the complex debt structuring the hedge funds favored. On Feb. 19, Judge Griesa of Federal District Court in Manhattan, who presided over the legal settlement, agreed to lift an injunction that would prevent Argentina from making bond payments and raising new money, and set a deadline of Feb. 29 for the settlement. On Feb. 28 the deal was signed by all the hedge funds. Argentina paid all holdout hedgefunds $9.3 billion, according to the Economy ministry, Elliott getting $2.4 billion....

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France's Foreign Minister Ayrault says of Boris Johnson: "He lied a lot to the British. Now, he is the one with his back against the wall." He sees missing in Johnson the "clear, credible and reliable" person with whom he can negotiate. Ray Stegner, deputy chairman of Germay's Social Democrat Party says "May looks weaker after such a choice of personnel. Now he is negotiating Brexit. Enjoy the trip." In China he is seen as a celebrity not a serious person. Bildt, ZDF, see in this a part of British humor. Jurgen Hardt, foreign policy spokesman for Christian Democrats Party in Germany had a different take on Johnson- seeing this as an astute move because if the government one day comes to conclude that Brexit should not be completed then having Johnson on board to explain it to the people would guarantee support in her party and with the people of England. In her first speech May emphasized that she was a "Unionist." Her first important meeting was with Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland and made Scotland's agreement necessary before invoking Article 50. Her talk of "burning injustices" for the poor and the underprivileged also goes to address the root of the problems behind the Leave vote. By having Johnson on board she can focus on the issues that really matter and which were on the minds of people in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland- to ensure that the economic system works for all.   ...

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Adam Nagourney is Los Angeles Bureau chief of the New York Times. Here he follows California Governor Jerry Brown's efforts to tackle the state's fiscal problems, and talks about his many conversations with Brown. He describes Jerry Brown the man, how he and the state he governed years ago have changed, and the challenges he faces in finding solutions to the state's financial problems. Nagourney and Brown talk about the problems with the political culture in the state, how things have changed- Brown was 36 when he bacame governor in his previous term and is now 73 in this term- how term limits have created their own set of problems with the lack of experienced legislators who can push bills through.

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Street protests in Brazilian cities with economic growth slowing to about 1% in 2012 and inflation at about 6%. Street protests in Brazil reflect public disconten over corruption, overspending on the World Cup and Olympics, and lack of good education, health and other public services. Increase in bus fare and police response against small protests using tear gas set off the large scale protests of tens of thousands in Brazilian cities. President Rousseff's sees her popularity ratings drop 8% percentage points from the March level to 57% in June 2013, according to polling firm Datafolha. Ths includes high popularity in poor northern states. Rousseff's popularity in more industrialized southern states declined by 13%, and by 16% among college educated youth.

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Economists at Goldman and Citigroup see a loss of another 2 million jobs, with job losses into 2010, for total job losses of about 4 million jobs, even after the jobs saved or created of 2.5 million jobs from the large stimulus of $700 billion that the Obama administration is said to be planning. A lot depends on smart policy from the new Obama administration because it will require enough stimulus and public investment to break the loop of falling unemployment, and at the same time allow private investment and business to get back to work with new investments in plant and equipment without getting bogged down in industrial policy with the government trying to do alot more than it is capable of.

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The Labor Department's rate of labor underutilization is 14.8% of thepotential workforce, much higher than the 8.1% unemployment rate. Which means that a lot of workers are not able to make the fullest use of their skills. If unemployment stays high for a very long period some workers lose their skills and become less employable. THat could leave the floor for unemployment at amuch higher level. Something like this is happening now and stay with us as the unemployment rate grows and the underutilization of labor rate with it. Physiscists call it "hysteresis"., a kind of laggard impact of some sustained force. An example is if you squeeze a nerf ball for so long that it doesn't bounce back when you release it. Higher underutilization of labor which could hit 20% by 2010 at the rate at which job losses are ocurring of half a million a month, would mean pressure on wages and fears of deflation, lower tax revenues and fears of persistent deficits, less cash to invest and companies having less capital to invest leading to lower earnings. And falling behind the curve is what Krugman fears could be happening now, even with the large stimulus and budget of the new President, because of a series of problems ocurring at the same time and reinforcing each other. And the efforts of the government still not large or effective to meet the scale of the challenge. See the link to this. ...

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This report in the WSJ shows American households are acting prudently by building up savings of $1.6 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As much of these savings are not distributed evenly across the population, and coming back from a period after the 2009 financial crisis when savings in the lower classes had dropped to alarming levels, this saving is good for the future of the American people by building a path to sustained growth for the long term. Readers responses to this report show their dismay at calling savings hoarding, dismay at the idea that saving 3-6 months of expenses would be considered prudent when 1-2 years would be a minimum  and 2-3 years desirable would be considered decent protection in times like the last 2 decades of manmade disasters (shipping out American manufacturing, 2009 financial crisis) or nature driven disasters (the pandemic). For the Biden administration the saving also provides hope that the mistakes of the last two decades and the 2009 period can be avoided. By targeting the $1 trillion in infrastructure spending plan to projects that build synergy throughout the economy and generate more growth for every dollar spent in a long term Renewal America project. Recent WSJ reports show this is happening. The $2 trillion Families and Workers Plan works in a similar way to bring hope in improving the quality of life in America through children's education, childcare, paid leave, health care, affordable housing, climate change investments. The public in America is showing equal prudence by aligning the savings to this approach to set America on a path of long term renewal and development that could be sustained to 2030 or 2035. This will also enable the investments needed to build America's role in the world and help its partners in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa take the same approach for sustained and balanced growth into the next decade.  ...

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Nathaniel Taplin of the WSJ says the tariffs put on $50 billion high tech products by the U.S. and retaliatory tariffs on $50 billion products are not about a trade war but a way both countries will negotiate setting out their two positions.  A look at the role of foreign firms in China shows China has access to new technology using these firms as a conduit and these firms are also generating more jobs, being highly productive. These firms Taplin says will set back their investments if no agreement is reached or if it is harder to bring Chinese made products into the U.S. At this time China badly needs this investment and technology access because of their dynamism compared to inefficient state run firms as it struggles under a massive debt load with very high debt to GDP ratio.  A major issue is job growth as companies getting foreign investment are much more effective in jobs generation, delivering 10% of all urban job growth from 2007 to 2016, using just 5.5% of total investment. Return on assets at 9% compares to 4% at state run firms. If this dynamism is reduced or affected in some way China could have to provide more unproductive debt buildup stimulus.  For these reasons China has good reason to make concessions, says Taplin. Trump administration will ask for greater semiconductor purchases, much looser joint venture or foreign ownership requirements, higher Chinese payment for U.S. intellectual property. For all these reasons this is not about a trade war but about serious negotiations taking place so that there is a level playing field in the next phase of competition in high tech between the U.S., China and the E.U. changing the dynamics of the trade relationship in ways that reverse the trends of the past. ...

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France was exceptionally well prepared says France 24, citing a report in Le Monde, for the SARS crisis in 2002 and the H1N1 influenza in 2009. A billion masks were stockpiled by 2009. Following the H1N1 influenza not appearing in any significant way the media, political parties and the public shifted their attention away from public health crises preparation. For H1N1 the government spent 1 billion dollars some of it going to pharmaceutical labs. The eurozone financial crisis that followed the global financial crisis shifted policy to austerity measures. The entire preparation effort for influenza type health crises was abandoned as too costly.  The same pattern repeated in Britain which was also well prepared before 2010. Austerity budgets after 2010 had little room for public health investment.  One could say a similar pattern was seen in the U.S. Today the worst hit countries are U.S., Britain, France and other European countries. France which had 1 billion masks in 2009 to tackle a possible H1N1 epidemic finds itself with 150 million masks in March 2020 and scrambling to find masks. Some masks which were usable were even destroyed as expired, ministers and experts who had built up the prevention effort in 2009 were even demoted and forgotten, as was much of the preparation in these years. It wasn't just medical supplies pubic awareness had practically disappeared. In the U.S., in Europe, the same situation of a lack of public awareness so that experts, government, and the public could work together quickly, was clear to see. In countries such as Taiwan the preparation led to speedy response at all levels, making contact tracing, isolation of clusters effective. In the U.S. and Europe this early, early, period was lost leading to makeup mitigation measures and the growing sense of a loss of control over the virus. ...

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Some useful comments from this discussion of Reti Samadhi by the author, the translator and the interviewer in BBC Sounds. Daisy Rockwell's translation- Reading a translation is like eavesdropping on conversations happening. On the topic of partition and how the book has no heaviness because it comes from the buried memory of the older woman, and her effort to visit the terrain she has gone through a second time. Now with some playfulness as she is trying to come out a different person with a positive frame of mind from having gone through it again differently. Sort of reinventing herself. The experience is universal though the culture and specifics are unique to where it happened.  For India and the regions of US and Europe eavesdropping on India and an Indian author in Hindi with stories to tell, the experience is a universal one of coming back a new person after getting tired of life. As Geetanjali Shree asks is the older woman in the novel tired of life and the past seen as a burden of some sort, or tired of the life she is living now so that reinventing herself is possible. It comes as India itself is looking at buried memories in new ways and nowhere more than today in Uttar Pradesh, where Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a poet and leader, set a new tone in his poetry and in "Kadam Milake Chalna Hoga." For the British, or American reader it is way to look at the language and culture of India in a new way that buries the distance the British kept from the local language and culture during the days of the Empire. Humanity and the stream of consciousness in Reti Samadhi provides a way of doing this. ...

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Judge Engoron of the New York State Supreme Court is the rarest of judges in his style, demeanor and use of everyday expressions. He was a cabdriver and a music teacher and more like everyday people in America.  NYT shows the 92 page legal decision in which Judge Engoron sets a fine of $355 million in the civil fraud trial of Donald Trump. Engoron cites a poet and uses rare language in his everyman style, saying: "The English poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744) first declared, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” Defendants apparently are of a different mind. After some four years of investigation and litigation, the only error (“inadvertent,” of course) that they acknowledge is the tripling of the size of the Trump Tower Penthouse, which cannot be gainsaid. Their complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological. They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin. Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways. Instead, they adopt a “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” posture that the evidence belies." And calling it "this is not the defendent's first rodeo"- "In considering the need for ongoing injunctive relief, this court is mindful that this action is not the first time the Trump Organization or its related entities has been found to have engaged in corporate malfeasance. Of course, the more evidence there is of defendants’ ongoing propensity to engage in fraud, the more need there is for the court to impose stricter injunctive relief. This is not defendants’ first rodeo."     ...

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After winning the Nation's League final over Netherlands next we will see her playing soccer in the Olympics. Aitana Bonmati talks about her life and experiences. Bonmati has given a boost to women's soccer with her talents, hard work and resilience, and by reaching out to fans all over Europe and the world. Alex Ibaceta interviews Spain's Bonmati in The Guardian. She started out playing with the boys because there were no girls to play with. She signs up for the town's football team Club Depotiu Ribes and Club de Football Cubelles playing with boys. As a cadete (14-15 years) she had to switch to playing on women's teams. This was a change at first as she had to learn to interact with girls. She says we had worse general conditions in life simply for being girls and even more in football. These were years when there was no professional women's soccer. She thought she wold play for a few years and then go to the US for studies, considering the University of Oregon. This is when she gets called to the women's first team. Bonmati talks about her mentality, not just the talent and hard work, but the mentality of sacrifice, resilience, fight and want to be better every day. To every young girl trying out a new sport, she describes this- it is a journey that is not pretty at times, there are bad moments, but these bad moments are what make you better as you learn to keep improving and know how to keep getting better. And to take on difficulties as opportunities. When she was goinghome from training with her father, they would use public transport and get home at 1 am. Looking back to where she is now idolized by young girls , what she has been able to accomplish she says it was not down to luck but all the hard work throughout the years. ...