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How Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal was able to reduce his heart rate to 100 bpm as he prepared to take the first shot in a penalty shootout in Euro Cup soccer against Slovenia.  It was 170 bpm at the end of extra time. This was after he missed a penalty shot during the game. Ronaldo uses breathing in and breathing out as a way to control his heart rate. Visualization is another technique he uses to be in the best state of mind. Along with hydration, healthy diet and good sleep patterns breathing exercise is a way to reduce the heart rate in moments of stress. Why is it effective? Ronaldo says "It's because it makes you calm." The tracking was recorded by a fitness device called WHOOPS. This breathing in and breathing out is part of the Buddhist practice and an ancient way of maintaining the four forms of mindfulness involving contemplation of the body, of feeling, of mind, and of mind object.

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"It's an immense pleaure, a dream come true, a lot of emotions" says Mbappe of his joining Real Madrid on July 1, 2024 after 7 years at PSG. Kylian Mbappe will captain the French team at Euro 24. He was the all time lead scorer for PSG with 256 goals, scored 44 goals in 48  games this season winning the French League- yet after faltering in the Champions League games with Dortmund he was not satisfied with his performance. It shows the constant stress players and coaches in soccer face. After differences with PSG president Nasser Al-Khalaifi when he did not agree to a 1 year extension he transfers to Real Madrid. He says some people made him feel unhappy and someone who is happy has more chances of playing well. Mbappe posted on X in February that he would not play another season at PSG, the club left him out of a preseason tour of Japan.

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Presenting the ReARM package in Brussels the European Union president Von der Leyen says- “This is a moment for Europe and we are ready to step up.” The proposals Leyen said “could mobilise close to €800bn of defence expenditures for a safe and resilient Europe." About $650 billion comes from increasing the European spending on defense by 1.5% of GDP from numbers below 2% that reflected underspending on defense. The EU will loosen strict deficit rules. The CDU coalition government in Germany with SPD under Merz that is being setup will remove the debt brake in the German Constitution that limits defense spending to 1%.  Another $150 billion in loans can be generated from joint EU borrowing that could be given to countries. That will Leyen says- “It will help member states to pool demand and to buy together. This will reduce costs, reduce fragmentation, increase interoperability and strengthen our defence industrial base.” The European Investment Bank will participate in the lending. ...

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The facts that guide one's understanding of what is happening in Greece relate to the size of the public sector for a small country like Greece, and the failure of people from all classes of society from cab drivers and civil servants to small business and the shipping industry, to pay taxes. These two twin facts and a splurge of spending during and after the 2004 Olympics without proper and correct account keeping, has brought Greece to its present situation. One estimate is that every Greek person would owe 27,000 dollars, that is how much the national debt has swollen to- a massive 300 billion euros debt for a small country. This is 115% of its GDP. And the public sector spending simply went unchecked by different governments trying to win votes. Estimates are that the public sector makes up 40% of Greece's GDP, and government workers are 15% of the active workforce. Not paying taxes has become a societal trait in Greece, as a result the government does not collect an estimated 25 billion euros a year in taxes each year. And this does not include the taxes that would be paid if owners in the Greek shipping industry were to not take advantage of an exemption from paying taxes granted by the government. The result- Greece's socialist government of Prime Minister Papandreou has accepted a $110 billion euro bailout from the European Union and the IMF which comes with cuts in public spending and austerity measures designed to reduce the deficit form 13.6% of GDP to 3% in 3 years. Its important to understand what is happening in Greece, because from Prime Minister Cameron in Britain (with his cuts in government department spending of 25% over 5 years), to Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan (with a planned doubling of the sales tax), the mood in Europe and Japan is shifting to austerity measures that would correct excessive government spending. In Greece Papandreou and his ministers are making serious efforts to change a culture of not paying taxes. See the groups and links for Papandreou and Greece....

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ECB study put out in April 2013 shows household wealth and income in eurozone countries based on 2009-2010 data for 60,000 households throughout the eurozone. The household wealth in southern European countries is higher than that in Germany. The study shows why ordinary Germans oppose bailouts for banks, Greece, and eurozone countries that experienced a boom in the 2000-2010 period, a period in which German workers took small pay raises to improve German competitiveness. Germans also see Portugal and Ireland in a different light compared to Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Spain where real estate speculation, lax accounting, tax evasion and favored treatment of certain groups, has created or aggravated the debt problems. Wealth is defined as total assets, including real estate, vehicles, bank deposits, investments and pensions, minus liabilities for mortgages, credit card debt and loans. By this measure German households had an average of 200,000 euros in wealth, and lower than this in Finland and Netherlands. At the median or midpoint German households had 50,000 euros, the lowest in the eurozone, for Greece the median was 102,000 euros. The impact of home ownership is significant in the report, as home ownership is lower in Germany than in Southern European countries, and mortgage interest is not considered favorably in German tax laws. The decline in value of homes after 2010 is also not reflected. Another indicator for comparitive wellbeing is income, and this is shown in figures released in March 2013 from the European Statistics Agency for GDP per capita. For Germany per capita GDP was 29,000 euros in 2010. The average GDP per capita for the eurozone is about 24,000 euros. By this measure Greece is at 21,000 euros, 24,000 euros for Italy and for Spain. Germany being 18-19% above Spain and Italy. If Germans, Dutch, Finns and Austrians are less well off then the argument favors having the banks, creditors, and including depositors, in a burdensharing arrangement for bailout of troubled eurozone economies. ...

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Providing an insight for the auto industry and other industries, Nokia has managed its own downturn from a few years ago. Nokia has taken a strong position in emerging markets without letting profit margins sink and keeping the average price of a Nokia cellphone from dropping much. See the groups and links to Motorola's situation. Continued dominance in India and China helped Nokia achieve mobile phone shipments growth of 27%in 2007 over 2006 to reach 133.5 million units. Nokia is also gaining market share increasing it to 40% in the 4th quarter 2007 from 39% in the 3rd quarter. And Nokia is now poised to gain back the market share it lost in the USA in the last few years. It sees the market for mobile phones growing by 10% a year wordwide with strong growth in Asia balancing slower growth in developed countries. Nokia follows the average selling price of mobile phones which suggest the direction the market is taking in price and higher end lower end sales distribution, especially at a time when Nokia competes in price sensitive Asian markets with higher lower end sales distribution. Here the average selling price of Nokia phones dropped from euro 89 in the fourth quarter 2006 to euro 83 in 4th quarter 2007. Nokia is careful to keep introducing new feature laden phones that customers want to keep this average price up. In the 4th quarter 2007 the average price was up from euro 82 in the 3rd quarter to euro 83. Nokia's operating margins in the mobile phone business reflect a surprising result, actually increasing from 17.8% to 25% even as average price is dropping from euro 89 to euro 83? How was this achieved? Some of this is probably from better manufacturing in better locations without compromising quality, moving factories to eastern europe and other places. Nokia plans to close a factory in Germany with 2300 workers and move this to Romania by mid-2008. The increased sale of higher margin multi media phones also helped. Another aspect of Nokia's approach- grasping the fact that extremely high sales were needed to do well in in the lower end of the market at the euro 30 price level. This means that competing in India and China with the high sales volume helps it stay ahead in this lower end. These markets are also interesting in another way, they are fast changing markets with a lot of things happening. Because they are price sensitive there is a lot of competition including from lower end makers in China. Asian markets also have young users who have different usage, lifestyle and trends and Nokia can learn a lot on how to stay abreast of these demographics and other changes. And competing at this level helps you develop the manufacturing knowhow to bring down the cost of the higher end phones with more features. There are crisscross benefits to competing at every price range in different demographics and in different regions, and continually learning and building the people and structures to compete effectively. . Nokia's successful strategies in 2008. ...

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Germany's main industry association says Brexit would be a disaster for Germany as well as Britain. WIth 3 billion euros in tariffs German exports to Britain could drop by 57%.

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European Central Bank executive board member Benoit Coeure, says the ECB will act quickly on a program to buy government bonds, so as not to fall behind the curve in taking action. He said the ECB had a moral and legal responsibility to act, considering the low annualized inflation of 0.3% in November 2014. Analysts say this could come as early as Jan 22, at the next ECB meeting, because the meeting in March may be too late. Coeure pointed out that the design of the program will be made in the manner similiar to that of the Outright Monetary Transactions Program of 2012, so that broad consensus is achieved. The ECB's staff is currently working on this. The U.S. and Japan have implemented monetary easing programs with quantitative easing, and the ECB is now moving in this direction to increase growth and bring inflation to about 2%. The ECB also now plans to put out detailed policy minutes after each meeting. The euro is expected to weaken further below $1.24 with the announcement of the program....

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Greek unemployment is up to 11% and this does not reflect the women who are not registering as unemployed. About 100,000 public sector workers will be let go by 2013 as the austeity plan takes effect. The three year reform programme from the IMF, the European Commission and the ECB tries to cut the budget deficit from 13.6% to 2.7% of GDP in a quick three years even as the econmy is shrinking. The criticism of Germany is relatively less, but there is strong resentment in Greece for the IMF program with 60% of Greeks opposing it. And in Germany Merkel faces voter resentment of having to pay for other EU member countries mistakes in the election in North Rhine-Westphalia, where her CDU and FDP coalition faces a tough challenge. Intenationally Merkel is facing tough criticism for waffling as the euro currency faced a serious threat. The whole European Union plan was being put to the test resulting in the size of the bailout growing from $60 billon to $160 billion in a few weeks, many experts calling it ineptitude....

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Germany's Economic Affairs Ministry and Economy Minister Habeck have called for blocking of the sale of a Dortmund chip production company Elmos to Sweden based Silex, a unit of Sai Microelectronics of China, for 85 million euros. There is now significant debate within the German ministries about the degree of dependence on China. Habeck's move seeks to prohibit the acquisition of Germany technology companies by Chinese competitors on grounds of protecting public order and security.

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Siemens says it will build the new high speed rail system for Egypt for 2000 kilometres for 8.1 billion euros. The contract includes rail lines, 41 high speed trains 94 regional trains, 41 freight trains, 8 depots and freight stations, using the latest technology. Trains at speeds of 230 kms per hour will reach cities and towns with 90% of the population. About 48,000 jobs will be created.

This project provides the critical infrastructure that Egypt needs.

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France is tightening up on vaccine passes making them mandatory and imposing bigger penalties for fake passes. Fine of 5 years in jail or 75,000 euros for use of fake vaccine passes and stricter penalties for stores not checking the pass. Vaccine passes are mandatory in stores, public transport and venues in France. The goal is to get the remaining unvaccinated to get vaccines as omicron variant of the virus reaches 200,000 new cases a day in France. 

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French prime minister Edouard Philippe says that France will meet the 3% of GDP deficit target in 2017 and this will require restraint in spending. Over the 5 year term of president Macron France will cut spending by 3% of GDP. The new government still plans to meet investment and tax cuts that were planned, including a $50 billion euro investment program. Over the 5 year term taxes will decline by 1% of GDP, said Philippe. 

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Denmark's central bank cuts its main interest rate twice in Jan. 2016 as the ECB announces its $1 trillion euro bond purchasing program for 2015-2016. The action is intended to reduce the impact of the ECB program as its currency, the krona, strengthens against the euro. The action is to maintain export competitiveness.

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Germany's kurzabeit or short work system avoids layoffs in a crisis. The Bundestag parliament in Germany quickly reintroduced it following the coronavirus. It provides subsidy to employers so that wages of upto 2500 euros can be paid to employees. The German parliament changed the requirement that makes it law fro a 30% of workers of a company being impacted by a crisis to 10%. About 2.3 million workers will benefit at a cost of 10 billion euros says this report in The Financial Times. The Federal labor office has a fund of $26 billion to which workers and employers contributed just for this purpose of safety net.  Workers get about 60% of their wages under this scheme while the crisis lasts. The last time it was used during the financial crisis of 2008-2009 1.3 million workers benefited from this scheme to prevent layoffs.  Germany with its strong vocational training system invests in worker training. The logical next step was to preserve this knowledge component of workers and avoid its loss through layoffs due to some crisis that is temporary and beyond the control of the company. Britain is adopting this idea this time with the British Treasury supporting  80% of lost wages upto 2500 pounds a month in the new economic aid package announced by the British government. Spain has a scheme under ERTE for 70% of wages to be paid as safety net. France has set aside 8.5 billion euros aid for assistance to workers in a similar scheme as safety net. ...

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Spain opened the books for regional governments to reassure investors. The figures show the average deficit across 17 regions at 1.24% of GDP at the end of the third quarter, according to the Finance Ministry. Risks include additional spending items in the final quarter and a further drop in tax revenues. Fore several years before the current crisis even when the central government was running a surplus, Spain's local and regional governments ran deficits. Regional governments account for about half of all public spending in Spain, compared to 20% for the central government, with social security accounting for the rest. Catalonia was forced to raise money through patriotic bonds, and Valencia is also following this, as Spain's regional governments have been shut out of international credit markets. Moody's Investor's Service provides a different perspective, as it said in November 2010 that Spain's regions will find it "very challenging" to meet their budget targets for this year and next. Moody's view is that the central government has strong incentives to come to the aid of regional governments should they be shut out of credit markets for an extended period. The Zapatero administration lacks a majority in Congress and depends on regional parties for support. Madrid's municipal government has requested funds to refinance its 7.2 billion euros debt. About 4 billion euros went into putting the capital city's ring road underground. Regional government's will need to refinance 30 billion euros in debt in 2011....

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The Journal profiles the small company of Dell'Orco & Villani in Prato, in the Tuscany region of Italy, in the context of the eurozone financial crisis in Greece, Italy and Spain. The Italian economy is dominated by such companies that have remained small and decided not to grow because of the difficulties facing them in the form of red tape, the slowness of courts in enforcing contracts, and labor laws that make it harder to hire employees and retrench in a recession. Today Italy's economy is only 3% larger than 10 years ago. Companies with less than 20 workers dominate the economies of southern European countries, employing 60% of the workforce in Italy and Greece, and half the workforce in Spain and Portugal. This compares with 30% in Germany and 20% in the U.S., according to the O.E.C.D. Businesses face an average of 258 days to get permits to open a new warehouse in Italy, compared to 26 in the U.S., according to the World Bank. Enforcing a contract in court could take as long as 1210 days in Italy compared to 300 days in France and the U.S. Italy's postwar economic recovery was based on these small firms around cities like Turin, or textile locations such as Prato. But building economies of scale has eluded these firms, and businessman from that period such as the elder Dell'Orco are content with remaining small. The Dell'Orco family firm makes machines that recycle plastics, rubber and other junk into fibers that can be used for carpets or clothing. The firm has trouble making a decision to hire a new younger worker to do work after four older workers retired. The company makes the machine that only does the first stage of the processing, referring customers to another firm in Prato for the second machine. Most decisions including a tiny showroom are made in excruciatingly slow fashion because they go through the family patriarch, the 91 year old founder. The son and granddaughter defer to him in all decisions. An unsold machine costing 400,000 euros sits in the factory after one buyer decided to delay the purchase, making it risky to grow. During the pre-euro period of the last two decades Italian businesses could take advantage of the regular devaluations of the lira to price below their competitors in Germany and other countries. During the last two decades competition from emerging market economies S.Korea, China and India have added to problems competing in global markets, without the advantages of scale. The inability to hire younger workers hurts unemployment for the young- youth unemployment in Italy is 29% in 2011....

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Schneider points out that the IMF opposed the original deal in Greece rejected by the Cyprus parliament that taxed small depositors. The IMF rejected that deal on the grounds that small depositors should be protected and this would set the wrong precedent for eurozone countries. Other reports in the WSJ show Germany chancellor Angela Merkel also opposed taxing small depositors. It could very well be that after agreeing to the Cyprus demands for reducing the losses for larger depositors- including large deposits of Russian investors using Cyprus a an offshore tax haven- by taxing small depositors at 6.875% of their accounts, the patience of the IMF, ECB, and Germany with the Cyprus government was waxing thin. In the final deal the IMF, ECB and Germany insisted that only deposits larger than 100,000 euros should take losses, and that the economy based on offshore tax haven and lax banking laws had to go.

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The bulk of this or 7.5 billion euros goes to increase monthly pay by 183 euros for nurses and healthcare workers in France, long overdue.

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 DJT calls the 155 billion euro deficit the US has with the European Union "an atrocity," saying they treated us badly. 

DJT says-

"It might happen with that, but it will definitely happen with the European Union. I can tell you that, because they've really taken advantage, you know, we have over $300 billion deficit.”

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This report in WSJ shows how European countries are maintaining salaries of employees who would otherwise be laid off. Governments have setup programs in France, Britain, Germany and other countries to provide employers with the money for 80-84% of salaries up to 2500 pounds ($3165) in Britain and 5330 euros a month in France. As a result 1 worker out of three in the private sector in France for subsidy applications for 6.9 million workers are already received. For the German program 2.4 million workers will get this benefit. About 1 million companies in Europe retain employees with this program of governments simply sending out the salaries with funds directly to households. This helps to keep out the stress for families, particularly families with children. It is as if the employees are not really laid off but asked to stay at home for manufacturing facilities and work from home in shorter hours where work can be done remotely.  Money is quickly deposited into the bank account of employees in these countries, though it is slower in Italy and Spain. It is as if the European approach is put the whole economy on pause for 2 months and restart it almost like before with only a small dent in employment once the coronavirus is pushed out with lockdowns and strict control actions. This will cap German unemployment at 5.9% compared with 5% last year, only a modest increase. The cost is not that much considering what it accomplishes. 10 billion euros is the cost in Germany where the state fund for this has 26 billion euros. 10 billion pounds in Britain. And 20 billion euros in France.  The U.S. adopts a similar approach also through its $349 billion program which provides loans to companies with less than 500 employees to meet payroll for 8 weeks and pay some overhead. Loans are forgiven based on job retention and employees on the payroll and only if the employees are retained. Another program is for companies larger than this. And a third program targets entire industries such as airlines, aerospace, and companies in other industries so that they do not have to layoff employees. U.S. unemployment insurance is modified to work along similar lines maintaining incomes of employees laid off because of the pandemic. Another program sends checks directly of $1200 to households with lower incomes to help them and to help people at poverty level or without jobs. The thrust of both the European and American efforts is the same, lose as few jobs as possible, keep people's incomes steady, and do this in a way that the economy can pick up quickly to the former level in as short a time as possible. Compared to Europe U.S. unemployment will be higher predicted at 9.8% with the expected rebound lowering the unemployment in 2021. ...

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Stress test performed by the consulting firms of Oliver Wyman and Roland Berger used data as of Dec 31, 2011, and a scenario of a 6.5% decline in GDP and a 26.4% fall in housing prices by 2014. An international panel of experts from the Bank of Spain, the Spanish government, the ECB, the IMF, the European Banking Authority and the EC was formed to oversee the consultancies report. A separate more detailed audit of 14 individual banks will be made by Deloitte Touche, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG International with results by the end of July. The four banks that need capital injections are Bankia, CatalunyaCaixa, NovaCaixaGalicia and Banco de Valencia. The consultancies estimate was for 51-62 billion euros needed according to Oliver Wyman, and 51.8 billion euros needed according to Roland Berger, for recapitalization of Spanish banks by 2014. The issue now is about any remaining questions about additional losses, and whether rescue funds from the EU fund the EFSF should go directly to the banks as favored by the IMF and the government of Spain. This is because of the stress on yields of Spain's 10 year bonds with rescue money going to the Spanish government at the insistence of German chancellor Merkel....

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The 2014 budget for Spain is free of the strong austerity measures, cuts in spending, and tax increases, of earlier budgets. Growth is expected to be 0.7% in 2014, after 1.3% decline in 2013. The unemployment rate is set to decline from 27% high in first quarter of 2013, to 25.9% in 2014. Savings of $800 million euros will come from changes in the pension system and civil servants face a freeze in salaries for the fourth year. The premium over German government bonds for Spain's government bonds is now less than that of government bonds of Italy. Cost of financing Spain's debt is projected to decline by 5.2% to 36.6 billion euros, according to Treasury minister Montero. The EU with the backing of the IMF has considered the high unemployment in Spain in its decision to relax deficit targets. This has given Spain an opportunity to clean up its accounts without further damage to the economy. Spain's deficit will now decline to 6.5% in 2013 from a deficit of 6.8% in 2012. The target for the deficit is set at 5.8% for 2014. Credit is still tight and consumer spending weak, major concerns for the government- in addition to the need for creating jobs- of prime minister Rajoy....

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Deutsche Bank has legal risks of over $3 billion euros according to analysts. 1 billion euros have been set aside as required by Germany's financial regulator BaFin to cover potential legal settlement losses. This is separate from 822 million euros in other provisions. At the same time Deutsche Bank has to raise 10-15 billion euros to meet regulatory reserve capital requirements.

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Italy's borrowing costs increased by one percentage point one week after the July 22, 2011 eurozone debt deal for Greece. The Italian Treasury sold 2.7 billon euros of 10 year bonds with a yield of 5.77%. The yield in late June for a similiar bond issue was 4.94%. Yields on Spain's 10 year bonds increased to 6%. German bonds are getting investors with a 10 year bond yield that has decreased to 2.62%, which means the gap between the German bonds and the bonds of southern European countries is widening.