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Simon Nixon points out that most of the 490 billion in euros borrowed by European banks under the Long Term Refinancing Operation of the ECB in Dec. 2011 is for rolling over maturing debt, rather than buying of government bonds. European banks financing needs based on figures from Barclay's Capital are over 300 billion euros for the 1st quarter of 2012. This suggests huge demand for the Long Term Financing Operation in the next quarter. For Spain and Italy the newly created lending facility should lead to higher bond buying by small and midsized Spanish banks and Italian banks, as this will boost their profitability. Spanish bonds yield 5% and Italian bonds yield 6.5% and loans from the ECB using the bonds as collateral are available at 1% for three years, which makes this an opportunity for these banks to boost profitability. The proportion of government bonds of Spain of Spanish banks bank assets is 7% and the figure for Italian banks is 9%. Nixon says an increase of this ratio by three percentage points by Spanish banks would created additional demand for Spanish government bonds of 45 billion euros, which is a third of the issuance for 2012....

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Closer scrutiny shows that tech companies that have gradually bought into or expanded into new technologies have market power that works to the detriment of democracy in the US. It also fuels a race of other companies with opposing views such as News Corp to use its market power resulting in rival groups not the people of the US able to form their own judgements about the best policies for the American people and the world. NY Times says of Google's Class B voting shares that have 10 votes per share giving founders Larry page and Sergey Brin control of the company that it is OK given their motto "don't be evil." Yet this advertisement of benevolence may just be a way of preventing close scrutiny of the company. Google through You Tube and Podcasts controls huge parts of the media space in 2024 in streaming services that are replacing cable television in 2024. What effect it is it having on public discourse in the US and is a separate class of voting shares a detriment to democracy? This report says NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange oppose this and this type of Class B is because it was set up before Google went public. NYTimes takes a casual approach to all this by saying it is Google followers, people who come after Brin and Page, or someone who buys the company,  who might be sloppy or greedy.  Closer scrutiny shows that tech companies that have gradually bought into or expanded into new technologies have market power that works to the detriment of democracy in the US. It also fuels a race of other companies with opposing views such as News Corp to use its market power resulting in rival groups not the people of the US able to form their own judgements about the best policies for the American people and the world. ...

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After all the media talk about tariffs inflation- inflation is at 2.4% in May 2025. Tariffs was part of the toolbox of strategies under Lighthizer and Jamieson on getting fair world trade, and not like Congressman Hawley in the 1920's who understood little about the workings of the US economy. This fact the official media such as the WSJ and NYT, Wash Post, BBC need to get it right about the Hawley Tariffs. Hawley was born in rural Oregon in 1864 went to country schools, and was president of Willamette University in Salem, when it's population was 4258. As House Ways and Means Committee chairman he wrote the failed tariffs bill Hoover signed in 1930. DJT's US Trade Representative Lighthizer in 2016 led the successful negotiations with Japan under Reagan, Scott Bessent who leads negotiations on tariffs with China with USTR Jamieson, has a deep understanding and grasp of today's financial markets. Tariffs is one of the tools in the US toolbox to get Japan, China, South Korea to even the playing field for US companies and bring back manufacturing to the US. Without it China would not budge from its unfair advantage and would not negotiate in fairness. This is proven in the way Japan in the 1980s and China today are responding to the US position preparing their economies for not relying on sudden surges in exports putting whole industries and workers in America and Europe out of work and out of jobs. DJT says- "No we are not going to accept that," the EU is catching on and adopting a similar position, China knows that.  The media is irresponsible in presenting tariffs in a negative way, irresponsible to American workers the 10 million put out of work since 2000, and to American families and the Nation.   ...

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China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, countries that are part of the G-20 are not part of the G-8. Without the developing countries no real progress can be made on climate change or on emissions control. Climate change was a key focus of this summit in Itlay for the G-8 but with India and China only on the sidelines and acting more as an opposition excluded from the main deliberations the whole climate change agenda had to be shelved. The European countries lose influence in an enlarged summit so the G-8 keeps going along. Sweden holds the rotating Presidency of the EU, so the Swedes are there also. And so is Portugal in away with Manuel Barroso representing the European Commisssion. Except Japan, Asia is not represented, and no country from Africa or Latin America is represented. The European club looks like an anachronism and it is. Merkel and Sarkozy say they know this, but there is too much resistance in Europe to giving up this privilege. When the Guardian reported that Italy may be left out in future meetings of an expanded summit. the Italian press and the Italian prime minister Berlusconi denounced the report. Other countries that lose influence in an expanded arrangement are Canada and Japan. ...

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Wal-Mart is expected to announce a five year plan to meet specific targets for lowering sodium, trans fats and aded sugars in a whole range of foods- including rice, soups, canned beans, salad dressings and snacks foods- in packaged foods sold under its house brand, Great Value. Other moves towards healthy foods are to move to eliminate the extra cost to consumers for healthy foods made with whole grains. It will also lower prices on fresh fruits and vegetables. This plan is similiar to other plans announced by companies such as Con Agra Foods which set a target of reducing sodium content in foods by 20% by 2015. New York City also has a public health initiative for healthy foods. another move by Wal-Mart is to get major food suppliers like Kraft, to follow the example set by Wal-Mart. Kraft sells 16% of its global sales through Wal-Mart. The move will be gradually introduced over five years which makes for slow progress, and the targets set for sugar reductions are much less than they should be, says Michael Jacobson, executive director of Center for Science in the Public Interest. Another serious drawback is that Wal-mart has not proposed to tackle the major cause of childhood obesity, which is the added sugars in soft drinks....

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Energy Conversion Devices, a Michigan company, is providing the solar electric system for the largest rooftop array, 12 megawatts, to a General Motors assembly plant in Zaragoza, Spain. This project uses solar devices manufactured in rolls like carpet runners. Veolia Environment and Clairvoyant Energy will lease the rooftop space from GM and operate the installation. Spain has become a center for solar installations as it offers large subsidies, 0.42 euros or 66 cents for each kilowatt hour, this is about 5 times the average cost of a kilowatt hour in the USA. Energy Conversion plans to produce 150 megawatts of cell this year and recently raised $400 million an dannounced plans to build cells for 1 gigawatt or 1000 megawatts. Solar arrays on houses are only a few kilowatts and 1 megawatt can run about 1000 window airconditioners simultaneously while the sun is shining.

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The German government has taken notice of hate speech on social media and social bots. The Justice Ministry convened a task force on hate speech on internet. Justice Minister Heiko Maas promised legal action against social media like facebook and twitter if it violated laws of libel and inciting to violence. Chancellor Merkel is bringing in a data science expert Professor Simon Hegelich of the Technical University of Berlin for consultations in Dec. 2016. Only AfD of the main parties, with its anti-immigration stance, has not come out in favor of not using social bots or paid trolls in the 2017 elections. Hegelich in talk with DW.com says it is hard to legislate on this because the whole phenomenon has not been fully understood. Article 5 of the Constitution provides for free speech. Hegelich also says the state of technology moves faster than legislation, and being international sites like facebook, twitter and others pose additional issues. He does not say laws cannot be helpful but that its not clear how best to do this. Thomas Jarzombek is a CDU member of parliament and digital media expert. He says social bots are more likely controlled by foreign countries, and fake news sites are more of a domestic problem. Making this worse is the incentive for unemployed journalists to do blogging of the crude and aggressive type to make more money. Jarzombek sees the need for the press to do more in its role for the democratic process to function properly, by functioning in the role of "enlightenment" and "awareness."  Jenna Behrends, a law student and CDU local politician for Berlin-Mitte, says it is necessary for good bots to be used to fight bad bots, in an article in Der Spiegel. Major mainstream media would then have to launch social bots themselves to fulfill their role of providing the public with correct and fair information free of excessive bias and distortion of the bad bots. One example of this is shown explicitly here of German chancellor Merkel's picture with the words " Guilty of betraying the people," with links to "Drain the swamp," and "Brexit." A more complex question is one of how to let people vent out frustration about the mainstream media itself being biased in favor of the established views and not doing enough or giving enough space to reflect alternative views, so that these can be debated without inflammatory language and deliberate distortion. A whole range of tools and modifications of behaviour may be necessary ahead of next years elections in France and Germany, now that the phenomenon is better understood following a vote in the Anglo-Saxon countries.   ...

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This WSJ editorial board opinion lists all the reasons for continuing the war in Ukraine without answering the question raised by Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg about- what US interest calls for losing an entire generation of Ukrainians and Russians young men to war? The US as a beacon of hope in the world requires asking this question. Kellogg is a 80 year old veteran who has seen hand to hand combat in Vietnam and survived, attended the US Army College in Kansas, and has decades of experience in the Army, and was National Security Adviser. The US should ask questions about what is its right role? NATO was started in 1949 against the wall coming up in Eastern Europe under Communism, the Warsaw Pact was formed to oppose NATO in 1955. Yet after the Warsaw Pact was  disbanded by July 1991 after the fall of Communism there was no effort to reassess forming a new architecture that is based on the new situation. Shouldn't NATO have been replaced after Warsaw Pact was no longer in existence? Russia was too weak in the 1990's and till 2010 and there was no one to make the case for a new defense architecture. And no effort to reconsider and see that there is no fallback to positions from the Cold War and before that to British Empire positions about protecting its dominions in India and Asia from Russia. Considering that Russia is the only major nuclear power other than US in 2025, and within the years of a pandemic that destroyed an entire generation of older people- American, Russian, Chinese and Indian.   ...

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IDC and Gartner reports show PC shipments in the third quarter 2012 declined by 8% from the prior year. This creates an uncertain outlook for sales of PC's powered by Windows 8 operating system enabling touchscreen technology.

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Samuelson looks at patterns of investing in stocks in the U.S. since 1982. He cites S&P's Howard Silverblatt that the P/E for the S&P 500 averaged 16.9 since 1935 and the current P/E for the U.S. is at 17.6.

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Jerome Fons rates the credit rating agencies F for failure, and says its time to leave out ratings language from financial contracts. Its time to rely on good judgement. He is former managing director of Moody's. The system is rife he says with conflicts of interest and the whole system has failed and is still in failing mode. The finacial system he says can function without letter ratings, regulators and investors should consider all the relevant information about an investment including market prices. And he says lets return to the tool we all used before we delegated responsibility to ratings agencis, and this tool is our better judgement of things.

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Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda, assumes new role just as net revenue is down 38% for the second quarter 2009, and a loss of $819 million. Akio says he is extremely frustrated with the situtaion and wants to start again from the ground up. With the restructurings at GM and Chrysler and focussed effort at Ford, efforts of Korean carmakers, and new competition from China and India looming, Toyota expects severe competition in the American and global markets. About 40% of Toyota's senior management has been retired or reassigned.Four of five executive vice presidents are new to their jobs, and only one Takeshi Uchiyamada, the product development chief is left from former CEO Watanabe's team. The outward looking Akio, whose background includes an MBA from Babson college in Massachusetts, and overseas experience including America, is likely to give the relatively insular culture at Toyota, a jolt. Under the new arrangement each of the executive vice presidents has been put in charge of a global region. One of the biggest problems Toyota will face say experts is the mundane looking lineup of vehicles bought mainly for reliability, just as competitors are making big strides in quality and new design, with new technology reshaping what the automobile might look like. The focus on the Tundra truck and SUV's like FJ Cruiser now looks misplaced. Yoshimi Inaba, a Toyota executive with experience overseas, will take charge of the American operations. Inaba says that without N. America, Toyota is unlikely to come back to global proficiency....

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Panasonic forecast a loss of $10 billion or 780 billon yen for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. This is the second largest loss for a Japanese manufacturing company. Hitachi lost 787 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 2009 after the financial crisis of 2008. In the prior fiscal year Panasonic showed net profit of 74 billion yen. Panasonic posted restructuring costs of 191 billion yen for the television business and 49 billion yen for the chip business for the first three quarters of the current fiscal year. For the fourth quarter it will take a 250 billion yen writedown of goodwill for the Sanyo acquisition. Panasonic acquired Sanyo based on the potential for growth in its lithium ion battery and solar panel business. But the Sanyo unit is facing stiff competition from manufacturers in South Korea and China, with Samsung Electronics as a major competitor. The strength of the Japanese yen is affecting all Japanese manufacturers. The price competition is severe in the television business and this is also affecting Sony. Since the acquisition Sanyo's earning prospects have significantly worsened says Panasonic CFO, Makoto Uenoyama. Panasonic CEO Ohtsubo defends the acquisition saying that without the rechargeable battery business and its potential in hybrid/electric cars Panasonic's growth potential would not be the same as it is now. Panasonic plans to stop production at two plants making plasma and LCD panels this fiscal year. The job cuts planned will bring the number of employees down from 367,000 in the prior fiscal year to below 350,000....

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John Cochrane of the University of Chicago points out that slight deflation of 1-2% may not be pernicious in 2014-2015.

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Ideas for a national "bad bank" to assign bad assets and help improve the rate of bank lending in the economy from Bank of Italy head, Ignazio Visco. There is a sense that the undercapitalization of business is holding back Italy's economy, and problems are not only the high government debt level of 2.1 trillion euros. Italy's business investment per worker has declined 9% since 2009, Germany's increased by 8%, France's 2% in the same period, Mr Visco said at a banking conference in Rome in Jan 2014. Visco said the idea of a bad bank similiar to that setup in Spain would at a moderate cost free up resources to be used to finance the economy. In the current situation of weak bank balance sheets and borrowers weakened by the long austerity period, banks are not able to pass on the eurozone's low interest rates for businesses to pursue growth opportunities.

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Even after receiving 5000 complaints over ayear and half about aggressive short selling that amounted to market manipulation, the SEC did not bring any enforcement cases, according to areport by the SEC's inspector general. Of the 5000 complaints between Jan 2007 and Jne 2008 only 123 were investigated, and no cases were brought.12.5% of emails alleging insider trading prompted an investigation. About 1.38 million emails were handled by 4 staffers, showing horrendous understaffing. In a written response SEC enforcement staff played down the likelihood of naked short selling abuses. It noted that alarge number of cases settle over time. The SEC staff said that the agency needed to "intelligently leverage" its resources and alarge number of complaints provide "no support for the allegations". Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and other frims came under extreme pressure from short selling, and short selling has led to near collapse of many firms during the crisis since the middle of 2008, so its strange that the SEC takes this position. But it is not surprising as in recent years enfocement has been lax, regulation has been neglected almost by design, and resources and staffing are severely short of needs for the SEC's mission to be performed with some degree of confidence....

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American corporations lost faith in the American worker with a series of missteps by labor in the US by 1999 which were also failures of top management and engineering for quality on the assembly line and wages to compete with low cost outshoring. In losing this faith in the American worker America's corporations lost faith in their own country, in their own people- the people of America. Larry Summers was mentored by Treasury Secretary Rubin from Goldman Sachs. Deputy Treasury Secretary under Rubin, president Clinton. Following Rubin in 1999 as Treasury Secretary. Several key events happened that damaged America and the working people of the Nation -and each time Rubin and Summers are seen as giving wrong advice. The first deregulation of financial markets setup by Clinton-Rubin-Summers in 1999 led to financial crisis of 2009. The second setting up China's entry into the World Trade Organization without safeguards that caused China to use unfair practices to destroy much of America's manufacturing base. The 2009 financial crisis-  The support for repealing the Glass Steagall Act in 1999 and for deregulation of financial markets by Rubin and by Summers led to deregulation that caused the financial crisis of 2009 with overleveraging of US banks and faulty mortgages. This was the first blow to the social and economic fabric of America, to America's workers and families. The second body blow came from decisions made by president Clinton with advice of Larry Summers as Deputy Treasury Secretary and Treasury Secretary in 1999.  Advice that Clinton regrets  and sees as wrong and which have shaken American workers faith in the traditional Republican and Democratic parties of Bush, and of Clinton-Obama 1992-2016, a 20 year period which saw almost the entire industrial base of the US shipped to China  by American corporations working with China. American corporations lost faith in the American worker with a series of missteps by labor in the US by 1999 which were also failures of top management and engineering for quality on the assembly line and wages to compete with low cost outshoring. In losing this faith in the American worker America's corporations lost faith in their own country, in their own people- the people of America.     ...

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A significant part of the haze and air pollution in New Delhi, India, comes from crop burning in the neighboring Punjab and Haryana region. Here the Hindu newspaper looks at the practice that has not changed even after a 2015 government and NGT order banning the practice. This report cites data from the state of Punjab showing 65% of the 1.85 million farming families in the Punjab are small and marginal farmers. The problem is that the rice paddy harvest leaves 19.7 million tons of paddy straw in the fields and the farmers see burning this as a quick way to avoid incurring the cost of machinery and labor. The Punjab government is required to provide machinery to farmers for preventing the burning. Farmers say it has not provided this. Punjab government seeks funding from the central government in Delhi for meeting the cost. Till then marginal farmers continue their old ways creating a thick haze over New Delhi. Solutions proposed are having more biomass plants to generate energy and use the paddy straw, a Happy Seeder variety that takes works with the straw, and shifting to Basmati rice instead of the common rice crop. The way Indian democracy works political parties have remained wary of collectively working out solutions, letting the problem continue.  ...

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See the president address the nation on his 50 years in office, and handing the torch to a new generation, to younger voices.

"Benjamin Franklin was asked whether America will be a monarchy or a Republic he said ; 'A Republic if you can keep it. If you can keep it.' "

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History is in your hands,” Mr. Biden tells the nation on July 24, 2024. “The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. We just have to keep faith, keep the faith, and remember who we are.”