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Till 1997 there was a limit on how many and what drug ads could be placed on television. During the year Bill Clinton was president  the US Food and Drug Administration under Acting Commissioner Michael Friedman is reported by the WSJ as opening up American television for a flood of drug advertising that is damaging for the Nation's health leading to overuse of drugs in the US for three decades. 31% of ads on US evening television news programs are from drug brands in 2024. DJT said while appointing RFK Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services- Drugmakers and  big food companies, “have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation.” RFK Jr. says- "We are one of only two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical companies to advertise directly to consumers on television. US and New Zealand. Everybody agrees it is a bad idea. Not surprisingly, Americans consume more pharmaceutical products than anyone else on the planet. As I said earlier on my first day in office I will issue an executive order banning pharmaceutical advertising on television." ...

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A fact check on Alice Weidel Musk interview on X. The current polls show the leading candidate for chancellor is Habeck of the Greens at 28%. Habeck is known for the work he did to get Germany through a difficult period of cutoff of energy supplies from Russia. He was Deputy Chancellor and Economy Minister in the Scholz government. Scholz is at 20% so is Weidel of AfD. Others are Merz of the Christian Democrats at 25%. Sarah Wagenknecht leads a Socialist party BSW that opposes migrants given asylum similar to the Socialist party in Denmark under PM Mette Frederiksen with 21%. The AfD has 20% support, Christian Democrats have 30%. Social Democrats 20% and Greens about 20%. 7 million immigrants entered Germany since the Merkel years in 2015. The situation in 2015 when Merkel allowed migrants to enter Germany from Austria and Hungary is remembered as a controversial decision. Merkel reversed this decision during the last years of her government. Of the 7 million only 3 million are asylum seekers applications of which some were rejected. The rest were legally allowed into the country. This included Ukrainian refugees from the war with Russia.   ...

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Seantor Dan Sullivan and the WSJ say Alaska's economic potential and its standard of living was ignored with blanket blocking of any development of its resources. WSJ says under the Biden administration the state was turned into a nature museum.  WSJ says the state's leaders know that spoiling the environment would be mistake. Yet developing some of the state's resources would help the US in sourcing natural gas and rare earth minerals for renewable energy products. This would achieve a policy balance. One of the arguments North Dakota Governor Borghum and new US Interior Secretary makes is that China is building a coal plant every 2 weeks with 12 built in the first 6 months of 2024. As of July 2024 Statista shows China with 1161 coal plants operational, 6 times the 204 US coal plants and 4 times the 295 coal plants in India, 89 in Japan- and 90% of new coal power capacity added. This means climate change issues remain no matter what the US does. By using natural gas fired electricity the US gets transition time for the shift to renewables and can attack the cost of living, export to the EU.  ...

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A centrist 73 years, and mentor of Macron, the head of the Movement Democrate allied to Macron's Renaissance party is appointed to succceed Banrnier as PM of France. Macron hit a new low of public approval rating of 23% by Ipsos. Scholz of Germany is at 18% following reaching 65% in Jan 2022. Bayrou says-“I am fully aware of the Himalaya of difficulties that lie before us,” Bayrou says he would strive for a “necessary reconciliation” with Melenchon of France Unbowed party and Marie Le Pen of National Rally on the left and right of the centrist Macron. These are mere labels- both Melenchon and Marie Le Pen want to see higher public spending and no cuts in the Budget for 2025, Macron is not eager for cuts, Barnier wanted to cut the budget to cut the growing deficit but this is not a time to cut spending as investment is needed to grow the economy and meet needs for public services and cost of living assistance. Macron was taken by surprise by Barnier's approach leading to a no confidence vote and Barnier resigning.  ...

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Matthew Kaminski's interview with Marco Rubio, Republican Senator from Florida. Rubio outlines his proposal for immigration reform in the U.S.

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The story of a Russian startup company MeshNetics, that had a research project called Golden Box with a team of software programmers. It succumbed to the global financial crisis as it hit Russia and with it dreams of a new wireless technology that would help utilities keep track of energy conservation and other uses. No new investors could be found and the Russian investors cut the funding. Even western investors could not make the investments. Programmers like Bagrak, 27, from Berkeley, California, who worked at Google on an internship and came back to Russia to build its high tech sector. Luzhetsky, 26, from Obninsk, a city built by the Soviets for nuclear and military scientists, which fell into decay and poverty in the post soviet period, this was his first programming job after being educated in the Soviet Union. Mr Grinkug, 57, from a generation of the Soviet period that considered science a religion, he headed the 12 programmer team working on the Golden Box project. The project three ers in the making was expected to release in early 2010. Suvorov who headed MesNetics, who saw his work as part of the move by President Medvedev who came into power in the spring of 2008 to take Russia away from dependence on oil, with investment of $5 billion in a state corporation for nanotechnology. Anatoly Karachinsky, President of the Russian internet technology company IBS Group, who spun off MeshNetics using the brightest talent from his software development team and financed it with his venture fund Oradell Capital. First the optimism in the face of difficulty in the fall of 2008, as the global crisis began to hit Russia, then in October the message to Suvorov that he had to look for a new investor. Then the cuts, first 10% of jobs gone, nine days late a dozen more fired, then the shutdown phase. One person fired after coffee with Suvurov, as things moved quickly. Alexei Rybakov, director of the division that makes the ZigBit, calls 50 investors aday, makiung every kind of pitch, practical, global, patriotic. Grinkug packs up his things, 40 years of codes fit into a few CD's , a few programmers are retained if things change, but for Grinkug the Golden Project he says, will probably die in his head. Its mind boggling how mistakes and unethical behaviour in the banking systems in the west can wash ashore in emerging countries like Russia, and wash away what little stability to build anew life has been achieved in a few years after the 1998 collapse of the ruble and the Russian economy. Its also a contrast between the dreams, hopes and aspirations and the innocence of ordinary young Russian tech engineers and the swings of reality that surround them, of poverty and collapse in early post soviet Russia, then optimism , and now a new kind of reality trying to salvage what has been achieved, and the difficulties in forging a new future that goes beyond 120 million people collecting around a oil wellhead....

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Divisions in the European Union between Germany and Italy over the Nord Stream 2 project, and use of Ukraine as the transit country for Ukraine to earn budgetary revenues. The South Stream project which included Italian companies Eni and Saipem through Bulgaria was cancelled by Russia in 2014. As a result of differences Italy called for more discussion on a 6 month extension to sanctions against Russia over its intervention in Ukraine and for failure to comply with the Minsk agreement calling for restoring Ukrainian sovereignty over its eastern border. The 6 month extension was finally approved in Brussels.

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German and Japanese auto exports to the U.S. are likely to surge in 2015 with a weaker euro and weaker yen.

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Prime minister Theresa May of Britain announces her plan to spend an additional 20 billion pounds a year on the National Health Service. Over five years the commitment is for an additional 70 billion pounds. By 2023 this will bring the UK to the point where it is spending the same proportion on health care as France. This also fulfills a promise made by the pro Brexit campaign. May says some of this would come from higher taxes, and 9 billion pounds that the UK contributes to the European Union each year would go to pay for the additional funds to the NHS. The 2017 British election with Labor winning 40% of the vote has affirmed the shift in public sentiment to greater commitment of funds for health and education. Poorer communities in Britain that were left behind tended to vote for Brexit, with a large gap widening between London and the rest of the country. Higher commitment to NHS is part of the shift in perception that the needs of health, education and underserved communities are the new priorities. ...

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US president Biden joins a UAW picket line in Detroit. Biden says he supports the UAW in its wage negotiations for 40% increase in wages. Workers wages are depressed because of concessions made a decade ago to ensure the survival of the US auto companies. UAW leader Shain Fawn was elected directly by the rank and file members for the first time. He has gone back to the UAW's roots for strike action, as it seeks to reverse concessions on tiered wages and address the cost of living crisis. 

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Retired General James Mattis tells officers at the Marines' Club in San Francisco to remember the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a former infantry officer in the Civil War: "As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived." He points to the need to integrate into civilian life without cynicism, exceeding expectations in civilian and business life like service men and women before them, and remembering to have an impact on other people's lives.

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New information from the Mueller Report as it is revealed to the public on April 18, 2019, after a short report and defense from Attorney General Barr. Barr faces heavy criticism for his handling of the Mueller Report.

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Frederick Harris of Columbia University says there is a price to be paid for a black president and it may just be too much for the average black person. There is a difference betwen symbols and substance, betwen a role model and accountability in a representative democracy, which is sadly lacking when the black elites, clergy and politicians fail to debate the issues about the problems facing the black community. Problems related to the increasing poverty among black Americans, and the 14% unemployment for black people. There is he says a strange reticience among the black elite to hold the president accountable on these issues just as they would have done for any Democratic president, even one who was as popular with blacks as Mr. Clinton. He says the experience with Obama is not even remotely comparable to the transformative nature of the work of Rev. Martin Luther King in the black community. It may stem from Obama's multiracial background, growing up in many countries, his elite education and being part of a liberal elite more than of the black community. The price is too high in economic and social terms for the poor or average black person and it has created a divide between the average black person and the black elite, with different concerns and different priorities. Harris points out that poor and poverty are words not mentioned often by Obama. Related to this is the foreclosure crisis in which ordinary black people were hardest hit with no effective help from the president to homeowners badly needing relief. Sheila Bair of the FDIC and Martin Feldstein advocated aggressive help for homeowners under water which did not come from the president. Showing not just the limits of a black presidency, but false hopes, inexperience and lack of leadership in issues that mattered to all Americans in the housing and foreclosure crisis. A populist from Kansas, as Sheila Bair describes herself, had the right instincts and courage of convictions which the president lacked and the entire country needed....

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Melissa Eddy gives an exceptionally vivid account of how life in a smaller city is changed by the arrival of immigrants. She describes the emotions of Christa Menden, owner of a flower shop in Bonn, who had to face stone throwing demonstrators on the street, and how this is changing the tranquil nature of Bonn, Solingen and other smaller cities in Germany. Muslims who have integrated into German life and the city authorites see years of integration efforts being setback by the activities of a few extremists. Hans Peter Weisz is one resident of Bonn who sees the unhealthy nature of the resulting wariness to foreigners in an open, outward looking Germany

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Leonhardt says that there is little reason to think that the flatter rates are better always. With the need to finance Medicare and health care for all, the government can use the extra dollars from taxing the very wealthy, the very rich in different tax brackets. The top bracket in 2008 started at 357,000, and you paid 35% whether you made 400,000, or $4 million, or $40 million. So basically the upper middle class was lumped in with the extremely wealthy. And considering the cost of college tutions for 2 or 3 kids, the upper middle class is only middle class. It makes sense not to lump the two together. Considering that there has been a lot of wealth accumulated at the the very high end, it would also reduce inequality, generate tax revenues for health care, and not have much effect in the incentives for generating economic growth. It is something he says the Obama adminisstration may and should consider.

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Jennifer Steinhauer of the NYT says the U.S. Congress is acting as a counter balance to  president Trump to maintain America's postwar policies common to both Republican and Democratic presidents and seen as part of core values- support for NATO and the mutual defense enshrined in Article 5 of NATO, support for the trans-Atlantic alliance. Senators in Congress are now voting overwhelmingly to support these values. This is seen in the manner the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sees his job- to retake the important role Congress and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has historically played in making foreign policy. His view is that the committee he chairs had become a kind of debating society. It is also seen in the way Corker handled a Russia sanctions bill giving Secretary of State Tillerson time to seek improvement of relations, and when time had run out pulling together all members of the Senate to pass the Russia sanctions bill. That bill passed the Senate by 97 for and 2 against in an overwhelming show of support for Congress to make its own foreign policy moves.  ...

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Another useful piece giving insights to the way China has approached the economic development tasks and what this means for the future. China's development is very capital intensive because the cost of capital is really low. Inputs like land and energy costs are also kept low by the government. Cost of labor is low and this has resulted in the share of wages as a percentage of GDP to drop from 53% in 1998 to 41% in 2005 and it is dropping further. In America wages to GDP is 56% and includes investment income which in China is lessthan 2% but much larger in the USA. The pool of surplus labor in China does work to depress wages. The percentage of consumption to GDP in China has fallen from 47% in early 1990's to 36% in 2006, the lowest of the large economies. But this does not reflect a higher savings rate. In fact the household savings rate also has fallen as a percentage of GDP. According to World Bank's Beijing office this has fallen from 21% in mid 1990's to 15% in 2006, relative to personal disposable income it has fallen from 30% to 25%. This is lower than India's household savings rate. So what is going on. The Economist points to the lower share of wages as a percentage of GDP because the large pool of surplus labor has depressed wages from where they might otherwise be so that consumption is not where it could or should be for China to move away from manufacturing led export driven economy to one that depends on the domestic market for growth. Higher consumption and a bigger domestic market would make it easier to sustain strengthening of its currency, a key demand of western countries. This would also provide a fair deal to millions of migrant workers and reduce labor unrest. It would also reduce pollution as the economy would not be focussed on production at all costs. It appears that the existing model has worked well for China in bringing millions of people from the villages into cities and growing manufacturing industries, and in urbanizing China. But China is so large that there are millions another 200 million who would migrate from villages and rural areas into cities as migrant labor to 2020 according to what the Government envisions ( see article in this issue of the Economist "Barefoot Doctors"). But this model needs fixing or changing as the pollution costs are already severe and can prove catastrophic if continued, and the western countries are demanding strengthening of the yuan to correct imbalances in the trade deficits as a result of this model of development focussed on manufacturing and export industries and short on consumption in the domestic market enough to drive the economy. ...

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Long flights of over 15 hours without a stop are becoming niche business with selective routes with strong traffic at both ends and some special characteristics needed to make the profitable. Such is the Continental flights from Newark to Mumbai and Delhi and the Singapore Airlines flights from newark to Singapore. Routes like those to places like Australia of Quanta and Guangzhou of Northwest and United are not looking to be profitable. The reason for the higher fuel cost of long haul flights is that the plane essentially becomes a fuel tanker carrying a lot of fuel and a few people and it takes a lot of fuel to transport all that fuel long distances.

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Information provided by experts suggest that the government plans including the public-private partnership with $1 trillion committment to absorb the bad assets in financial institutions, offered as a general solution without specifics by Treasury Secretary Geithner, will be inadequate to cope with the growing bad debt. Nouriel Roubini at New York University says his analysis suggests that the USA financial institutions are already insolvent. The bad debts of banks he says now surpass bank assets. Roubini has been ahead of the curve in his estimates in 2008, and is respected for his prescient remarks about growing credit problems. In his latest report he says that total losses by American financial institutions and the fall in market value of the assets they hold will reach $3.6 trillion , up from his previous estimate of $2 trillion. Of the total he says American banks face half of this or $1.8 trillion, with the rest borne by other financial institutions in the United States and abroad. Mr Posen an economist at the Peterson Institute agrees. He says the liabilities of of American financial institutions far exceed their assets. The only qualification of this says Posen is whether this should be seen as a temporary panic, or whether the economic climate will improve and the value of bank assets recover from depressed values. Raghuram Rajan, of the University of Chicago graduate business school, agrees that if the banks had to sell these assets today at distressed prices then they are insolvent, but if there are calmer times say in ayear or so and values recover then banks may get anew lease on life. So much of this depends on market psychology, market confidence and the economic climate improving. The only problem here is that as happened in 2007 and 2008, the recognition, awareness and action has fallen behind the speed and accelerating manner of the downturn. The Bush administration, Congress, and the American public support, have all been lacking in providing the vigorous action needed, compared to the speed with which the crisis hit in the October 2008 to January 2009 period. The transition between administrations added to this effect. The total lack of any Republican support for the Obama administration's effort continues this effect. Now the Geithner plan with few specifics for a public private partnership for tackling the bad debt, and the lack of action on a bad bank solution with government takeover of certain banks as needed, continues this pattern. The constricted credit meanwhile continues to hit business with an additional hit from dropping sales, leading to layoffs across all industries, which simply worsens the housing crisis and growing foreclosures. So all across the spectrum government action is at worst very late as in the slow response to foreclosures, where the $50 billion proposed now should have come in early 2008, and the banks halting foreclosures and modification efforts proposed now should have come in early 2008 as proposed by Bair and Feldstein. And at best government is just catching up to the credit crisis as with the Fed and FDIC efforts to contain and stabilize it, with inconsistent results and the collapse of some financial institutions like Lehman Brothers. The lack of consensus in Congress and the inexperience of the new administration, means more valuable time will be lost in crafting an effective response in the manner of the bad bank solution. What all this means is that the overall response in 2009 as in 2008 will also lag behind, and the opportunity for a decisive solution is slipping away even as the cost of that solution is climbing, putting it further and further beyond reach. See the link to Hiroko Tabuchi's article titled In Japan's stagnant decade, Cautuonary Tale for America, February 12, 2009, NYT. Tabuchi touches on just this point, that the American experience in 2007-2009 is just like that in Japan where the response lagged the problem in strength and effectiveness till 2003, after years of wasted effort....