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The publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Co., is working to overturn a court injunction that prevents the public from seeing the Medicare billing records of individual doctors. Dow Jones & Co., filed court papers in January 2011, to overturn the court injunction. The American Medical Association has fought to keep secret the amounts of money individual doctors get paid by Medicare. The AMA filed a lawsuit against the government to keep secret these Medicare records, on the grounds of privacy rights, and won a court ruling in 1979. This court ruling still stands. The position of Dow Jones in its efforts to change this situation, is that giving the public access to the records is essential to the monitoring of so large a public expense as Medicare. These records would then be available to state medical boards, nonprofit organizations, universities and newspapers who can act as watchdogs over the $500 billion Medicare program. Such transparency and monitoring is an essential feature for the proper functioning of such programs and to prevent misuse of public money. For a program like Medicare, fraud and waste has enormous implications, as it adds to the spiralling cost of healthcare and to the unsustainable budget deficits. In one of the largest cases so far, the FBI, Justice Department, 700 state, federal and local agents, worked together to charge 114 defendents nationwide with Medicare fraud in February 2011. A senior law enforcemet official says Medicare fraud is so rampant, "there's no way in hell you can prosecute your way out of this problem, no way." He says the the answer is more effective monitoring of the money that goes out. And a key part of that is transparency and public access to how the money in Medicare is spent, what individual doctors and healthcare providers are getting paid by Medicare. The lack of this transparency for a program the size of Medicare can only lead to a lack of monitoring as the Dow Jones suit asserts, and make it difficult for the government to check abuses in the way money goes out. At a time when teachers and public workers and seniors are expected to make their share of the sacrifices to fix the budget deficits, it is incomprehensible that money should then be allowed to go out of the Medicare system through fraud and waste, because of a lack of transparency....

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Samuelson discusses the differences between the Bureau of Labor Statistics figures for June 2014 using the Payroll Survey and the Household Survey, each telling a different story. According to the Payroll Survey 288,000 jobs were added. The Payroll Survey is a monthly survey of 554,000 business locations, with firms asked to give the number of people on payrolls, pay and occupations. The Household Survey of the BLS asks households in monthly interviews with 60,000 Americans whether they have a job, is it part time or full time, are they looking for full time work, or jobless and for how long. The Household Survey showed June 2014 job increase at 407,000, using an estimate of 1,115,000 increase in part-time jobs and a loss of 708,000 full time jobs. Of the two the payroll survey is larger and considered by economists to be more representative. Other statistics show the parttime workers at about 3 million higher than 2007 before the 2008 financial crisis, suggesting the shift to part time jobs has been one negative result of the crisis....

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Kyodo News poll shows over half of voters under 40 years voted for Sanseito and Democratic Party of the  People, two nationalist parties started in the last 5 years. These parties base their appeal on "Japan first" and reject the idea that Japan should have to bring in so many foreign workers to run its industry and economy. They also oppose the country's quiet neighborhoods being overrun by the 40 million tourists in 2024 that the government wants to increase to 60 million to support small businesses that depend on tourists. Half of voters over 60 years vote for the LDP, and this is true also for the socialist party the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) which is the opposition party. This makes the nationalist parties a new voice in Japanese politics. Part of the resentment in Japan is that figures like Shigeru Ishiba. the leader of LDP, are from an older generation that has for the 75 years since 1950 excluded others from party politics. The DPJ was around for just 24 months in Japan in 2009-2010 when its young leader prime minister Yukio Hatoyama was ousted. American leaders and it's party politics establishment before 2016 also encouraged this, with Obama making Okinawa an issue over which Hatoyama was ousted rather than work with the young Japanese prime minister. ...

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What was established in Alaska meeting in Anchorage was the necessary rapport between two world powers. During the Bush, Obama, Biden administrations Russia was treated as a secondary economic power on Wall Street, with the focus shifted to China, which damaged relations with Russia which has always seen itself as a Northern European economic power. Some of the roots of the conflict go back to this period. In a nuclear world the size and historical relation in Northern Europe of Russia cannot be ignored purely on economic grounds about the size of it's economy in the way China could not be ignored in the 60's and 70's when it's economy was not what it is today. History and culture are not in Wall Street or Silicon Valley's understanding or grasp of international relations which go beyond economic and business considerations. On DJT and the first term, the survival of the US president- “When I came out of the plane and I said, ‘Good afternoon, dear neighbor. Good to see you in good health and to see you alive. I think that’s very neighborly and I think that’s some kind words that say to each other.” On Ukraine- “We have always considered and continue to consider the Ukrainian people our brothers and sisters. We share the same roots, and everything that is happening is a tragedy and a source of pain for us. Our country is interested in putting an end to this. But at the same time, we are convinced that for the settlement to be long-term, all the causes of the crisis must be eliminated." On DJT's assertion that if he was president there would have been no Ukraine war- Putin says "I can confirm that." “Today, we hear President Trump say that if he had been president, there would have been no war. I think that would have been the case. I can confirm that. Because, overall, President Trump and I had established a very good working relationship based on trust.”     ...

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A striking change is coming over US airlines as they turn their focus from operating costs to taking out unprofitable routes, reducing the size of their plane fleets, and increase the number of seats filled on a flight. The numbers bear this out. According to ATA the airlines reduced fleets from 3469 aircraft to 2747 aircraft from 2000 to 2005. American Airlines is typical in discontinuing 27 MD-80 aircraft which are older and gas guzzling. Delta and Northwest used the bankruptcy period to to get court approval to return many planes to leaseholders by breaking the leases- before breaking the lease parking the planes was more expensive than flying them at a loss. As a result according to ATA US airlines filled an average of 77.6% up from 75.4% in 2004. With this strategy airlines recovered some of their pricing power. US Dept of Transportation statistics show prices are higher than at any time since Sept 11, 2001 and the Air Travel Price Index, increased by 9.1% in 4th quarter 2005 over 4th quarter 2004. And airlines are being more restrained in getting into new routes just because some other airline has eliminated that route. Airlines however have to be careful to increase prices just enough but not too much that demand starts falling, and this is possible with fewer seats on more popular routes. Other methods the airlines are using are sophisticated O&D origin and destination revenue management systems which reduce the number of inexpensive, and unprofitable seats available on the internet. Larger airlines have tried to get back corporate customers by reducing the extremely high fares they used to charge and instead raising last minute fares because corporate customers see this as a price burden they are willing to shoulder. Larger airlines are doing better in relation to the price discounters like Southwest and JetBlue. With Southwest's hedging strategy against fuel price increases not as useful as in prior years it too faces need to raise fares....

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Simon Nixon points to two large capital gaps Spain's government faces for Bankia. Spain was not prepared for the events of the last month as it took control of Bankia. The agreement to convert 4.5 billion of preference shares into equity gives it 100% of Bankia parent, Banco Financiero y de Ahorros, and 45% of Bankia. The capital gaps Spain faces for Bankia comes from expected loan losses which it has been slow to deal with. BFA-Bankia's real estate loan losses are estimated at 52 billion euros. Capital provisions for this are only 11%. J.P. Morgan estimates another 4.9 billion euros will be needed under new government rules. But these rules do not reflect all the losses if real estate loans are written off and and other loans are correctly shown as nonperforming, and other corporate loan provisions are increased. When this is done total losses would in reality be about 12% of the 190 billion euro loans at BFA-Bankia or 22.8 billion euros, according to experts. To correctly deal with this would require $15 billion euros, in addition to the 4.9 billion euros, for a total of 19.9 billion euros. The other capital gap comes from BFA's capital carried on books at 12 billion euros, the pre-IPO value. This has been shrinking rapidly to 5.5 billion euros at 2011 end, and is now down to 2.8 billion euros. This could mean another capital gap of 5 billion euros, depending on to whether shareholders are wiped out. Bankia has 350,000 private shareholders and it will be important to maintain depositor confidence. The total is close to 25 billion euros in capital gap for BFA-Bankia that the Spanish government must face up to quickly. It does not stop there because there are other cajas savings banks and other banks that will have to be taken into account- too large a loss would mean losing market confidence and poorer access to financial markets. ...

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Lawyers Buchheit and and Gulati help Greece design a legal agreement that writes in a new collective action clause. The collective action clause ensures a 95% participation for the bond restructuring deal Greece is doing in March 2012 to cut its debt to sustainable levels. A similiar deal could be designed for Portugal says Mitu Gulati, a law professor at Duke University. Because Greece's bonds are written under Greek law, writing in a new collective action clause is a legal mechanism for achieving a meaningful debt reduction and bond restructuring deal- this is something Gulati and Buchheit figured out because of their expertise in this field. A joint paper by Buchheit and Gulati in 2010, first explored the way in which private bondholders of Greek bonds who reject a bond debt restructuring could be forced to accept the same losses as other investors who accepted the deal. They are now advisors to the government of Greece. In early 2011 there was serious discussion that the Brady Bonds debt restructuring for Latin American debt of Argentina, Mexico and Brazil of the 1980's, under which private investors traded in their old bonds for new bonds with longer duration at reduced interest rates and lower value- reflecting voluntary losses accepted by bondholders- was the approach needed for Greece, Portugal, Ireland and other eurozone countries. Then U.S. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady took the lead- in Landon Thomas Jr., NYT, 11/30/2010. Bondholders held out throughout this period, with Charles Dallara, one of the architects of the Brady bonds restructuring, hired by European banks to negotiate on their behalf. It was only when German Chancellor Merkel delivered an ultimatum by telling Dallara "this is the last offer," during a late night meeting on Oct. 27, 2011, at EU headquarters in Brussels, was an agreement reached on serious debt reduction- in Walker, Forelle, Meichtry, WSJ, 12/30/2011. The long delay meant a worsening crisis in Greece and the rest of the eurozone. ...

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Research shows that when a home's value falls below 75% of the amount owed on the mortgage, the homeowner thinks hard about walking away even if he has the money to keep paying, as it does not make economic sense to keep paying. By 3rd quarter 2009 4.5 million Americans reached this point and by June 2010 it is estimated by Corel Logic, a real estate firm, that 5.1 million will reach the 75% point- or 10% of all mortgages. Homeowners who made the mistake of buying as the market was cresting are seriously considering walking away and bank's reluctance to reduce the payments is for them the last straw. The Obama administration hasn't helped as this comment by assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions, Michael Barr, shows. He discounts the idea that many people will walk away from their homes, saying that the overwhelming number will stay in their homes. Consultants at Oliver Wyman show from their research that at least 17% walked away from their homes even though they could make payments in 2008, or 588,000 people, and this was before the full impact of the global financial crisis. These numbers could be much higher in today's depressed market....

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With Whitacre in charge at GM there is a change of style and substance that just flows from who the man is. He is a no-nonsense guy, who once told a colleague from his days at Southwestern Bell, that God gave us two eyes and one mouth for the right reason so we should use it in that proportion. He is quite matter of fact about approaching the probems at GM right from the beginning. From those early meetings at the Westin airport hotel in Detroit, where he would tell GM executives and Henderson that if things did not happen the way they should and quickly he would find the right people. After there was a lot of soul searching about Henderson's decision to sell Opel- and three directors with private equity background decided it was bad for GM, that GM needed Opel for its compact and midsize car engineering and sales volume- Henderson was replaced as CEO. The decision was reversed. Within 3 months of Henderson's departure four other executives were let go, 20 more were reassigned and seven outsiders were brought in to fill top jobs. Lutz was marginalized. Reuss in his forties was placed in charge of N. America. The metrics were simplified from Wagoner's days to six: market share, revenue, operating profit, cash flow, quality, and customer satisfaction. His approach to get managers who make decisions fast and correct mistakes speedily. Vice chairman and CFO, Christopher Liddell, is from Microsoft and joined in January. Liddell points out that 12 of the 13 person GM executive committee are either new to the auto industry or outsiders. And the seniormost Whitacre and Liddell, are new to the auto industry and outsiders, so Whitacre can point out that GM has run the business in a more complicated way than it needs to be. The big changes are cultural. And making these changes for a company the size of GM and with the trauma that happened at GM with the speedy decline, required someone with the experience Whitacre gained in tackling the problems he faced at Southwesten Bell and the new AT&T, with its changing culture. The tough down-to-earth nature of the guy, with no affectations or layers to his personality whatsoever, proved an asset at the new AT&T and now at GM. Other decisions he has made at GM, are some strategic ones like bringing down incentives to sell cars, the latest being letting market share drop in March in the face of Toyota's heavy use of incentives to recover from the recall crisis, but sticking to reducing the incentive dollars by $1200 to $3500 per car. This made it possible to achieve sales goals. And some tactical but of great significance, from a common sense approach to GM advertising with his remark "I'm sick of Howie Long." Pitchman Long was a football player, and what Whitacre insisted on was showing off GM's best models and features to blow the competition, like the "May the Best Car Win," campaign. That many of GM's ads didn't focus on the cars and didn't make any sense, like little Cadillacs flying out of a birdhouse, makes this truly incredible to an outsider. Other things Whitacre brings are a change in his expectations, and his overall demeanor. This impatience may be a good thing for GM especially with the capital investment in new models, plant investment and better decisionmaking, and commonsense approach, to back it up. In the car industry it can't hurt for the top guy to look at the car clay models and ask why they can't be brought to market in 12 months. It gets people thinking differently. Asking a Cadillac dealer he knows in San Antonio why they should'nt be selling twice as many Cadillacs if the marketing was better. It helps when the top guy can visit a plant and have "diagonal slice meetigs" with plant staff, workers and UAW people, to talk about things in sweat shirt and jeans with no airs about yourself whatsoever, and to follow this up with a repeat meeting some months later and announce a $136 million investment, as he did with the Fairfax plant in Kansas....

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Matteo Renzi, recently elected chief of Italy's ruling Democratic party, is likely to be the next prime minister as current prime minister Letta resigns. Letta's administration had come under increasing criticism from business and public opinion about the slow pace of economic changes in Italy. Italy's 2 trillion debt, or about $2.7 trillion, at 130% of GDP, and the declining GDP with little or no economic growth, is a problem for the eurozone. At the current pace of economic change the IMF forecast estimates only 0.5% annual growth in GDP till 2018. Foreign direct investment 2005-2011 is about one third of the eurozone average, according to the IMF, and Italy has failed to attract foreign investment for the last two decades with its weak political system and lack of competitiveness. By comparison Spain has seen an increase in exports and increasing foreign investment as it positions itself for a recovery. The austerity measures adopted by the Monti and Letta adminstrations in 2011-2013 helped to improve confidence in capital markets and lower borrowing rates, however this is clearly not the answer to Italy's problems of slow or no growth in the economy for the last decade. This is the problem Matteo Renzi, the 39 year old Mayor of Florence, is pushing to tackle as the mood in the country calls for aggressive action. Renzi's economic advisor is Filippo Taddei, who has a doctorate from Columbia University. He says at the core the issues are about what kind of "productive identity" Italy should have. Taxation that promotes higher rates of business investment is needed to promote growth, and creating a business climate that encourages investment in human capital and new technology. Payroll and business taxes take up about two thirds of a company's earnings leaving less for investment. Renzi is planning to take the centre left Democratic party in a new direction, "the road less travelled," as he put it in a televised speech, with innovative solutions including pro-market approach. As a first step he negotiated a deal with former premier Berlusconi for electoral reforms that would give a party or coalition winning electoral support a strong mandate to make and execute policy, without being hobbled in the way previous administrations were in the post war period. Lucrezia Reichlin, former head of research at the ECB, and Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, a former member of the ECB executive council, are candidates to be the economics minister in the Renzi administration....

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The transformation of towns in Iowa like Newton, once the place where Maytag and washing machine plants were located, and now with many of these plants closed the shift to making parts like blades for wind energy. The transformation of Toledo, a location for the auto industry factories, and now with the closing down of these plants the shift to manufacturing solar panels for solar energy. In all a transformation that is expected to generate 3 or 4 million jobs in the midwest in energy related products, to replace the jobs lost in the auto industry and in industries like appliances, like the Maytag plant in Newton that closed. Along the way there is hope and optimism and awe at the new product being built for wind and solar energy, which is cutting edge and not easily outsourced because of the size of the blades and the structures in wind energy generation. The struggles are chronicled of the people in Newton, Iowa and a whole generation of workers who even without a college education were able to live middle class lives because of Maytag plants in the area. And the distress caused as these plants cut employees and let the plants get antiquated, and finally the distress with the shutting down of the plants....

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The western pharmaceutical companies see the potential for a big increase in sales in developing countries with better pricing to reach a larger number of people. Earlier this year Glaxo said it planned to reduce prices to two thirds of the levels in western countries, and charge 25% of prices in western nations to people in the 50 poorest countries. As a result Glaxo now forecasts a 10% increase in sales in 2010 in the Asia-Pacific area, after a 9% increase in 2009. The overall impact on public health will however be limited as even with this price reduction these medicines will benefit a fraction of the people. Today the combined pharmaceutical sales in Asia, Africa and Australia are $90.8 billon. According to IMS seventeen economies including China, India, Russia and Brazil will see pharma spending grow by $90 billion in a five year period 2009-2014. Of this China's demand will grow by $40 billion in this IMS Report on "phamemerging" economies. The upshot: phamemerging will account for 20% of global sales by 2013, up from 16% in 2008....

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Berlin's Neues Museum destroyed during the war, is painstakingly built using the bricks and stone from the ruins, by the London architect David Chipperfield. As for many public buildings in Germany the past is opportunity, and the scraps of the old building were used, with "millions of decisions" technical, aesthetic and political in a vast jigsaw puzzle handed down by Stuler the original architect of the building- which opened in 1855 to promote "the elevated interests of the people." Chipperfield built a new building using the remains of the old. And based on the long lines in Berlin, waiting for hours in the cold March weekend and stretching for half amile, the building works for the people of Berlin. Of the grand central stairway that edges on upward through the old brick and into the new structure, upward to more light, the NYT writer Kimmelman says that this space is a metaphor for Germany today. In their response to its history Berliners are keeping the history as part of the large jigsaw puzzle of human experience and response....

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This article in the Economist provides a detailed account on women in the U.S. armed forces. France, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada exceed the U.S. in the percentage of women in the armed forces. The U.S. is at about 15%. This is a good time for women to join the armed forces as rules are being put in place to protect women from sexual assault, women are increasingly accepted in combat units and are accepted for training in the U.S. Army's elite ranger school. Women are in senior positions in the Navy and Air Force. Getting the best people, intellectually capable as well as pysically capable is a challenge for the new forces. Technology has changed the nature of war, and intelligence, preparation, strategy are critical elements for success. Much needs to be done, as the article at about the same time in the NYT about Lieutenant Courtney shows to get intellectually capable women to stay and invigorate the forces. As this article does to some degree the emphasis on physical prowess, and the lack of enough women in the forces to create pressure to create a better environment for women, act as inhibiting factors. The rules are still set in a way that provides less psychic support for women than they do for men. Some of the psychic stress shows up in the higher rate of single parents for female service members, with 12% of active duty women bringing up children on their own compared to 4% for men, and the failure of marraiges of female service members 3 times the rate for male service members....

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As China's food retail stores landscape has changed with more and better options offered to consumers, they have shifted upscale, especially with the rapid growth of incomes in China in the last decade. With a decline in growth for Yum Brands in China the company has decided to spin off its operations in China into a separate company, in the hope of giving the local company more room to respond to competitive changes in the food retail store business. As Chinese consumers urban disposable income showed rapid growth from 7700 yuan in 2002 to 23,700 in 2015, the market for food retail chains has changed. With this growth came other competitors such as Pizza Express, a UK chain at the higher end with local Chinese partners, and at the lower end Taiwanese competitors Ting Hsin International Group with its Discos fried chicken chain competing with KFC Yum Brands stores. Local Chinese competitors also moved upscale with Xiabuxiabu Catering serving hot pot, for consumers to cook meat and vegetable in broth doing it themselves. Other factors hurt Yum Brands growth and brand respect with the media reporting use of growth hormones and antibiotics by Kentucy fried chicken suppliers in 2012. And a local media report in 2014 saying that a KFC supplier supplied expired meat hurt sales with adecline of 14% in the fiscal 3rd quarter 2015. The opinion for Pizza Hut, a Yum brand has changed from as recently as 2012, with one survey showing a drop from 39% to 25% for consumers who see it as a desirable brand. A Beijing teacher for example now sees Pizza Hut as a cheap option compared to spending 128 yuan or $20 on a better quality pancetta and sun dried tomato pizza. More discriminating Chinese consumers means this trend will continue, and the media constantly looking for flaws in quality standards. As many companies are finding out the Chinese market is not going to be easy for the complacent....

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According to preliminary estimates of the UK Office for National Statistics, gross domestic product fell 0.5% in October through December 2010, after expanding 0.7% in the third quarter of 2010. The UK inflation rate increased to 3.7%. At the same time the money the UK needed to borrow in December 2010 came in at 16.8 billion pounds, down from the 21 billion pounds in December 2009, showing an improvement in public finances. The two main drivers of UK growth are now set to slow down. Consumption spending down because of higher unemployment and inflation, and tax increases equivalent to 8% of GDP over 4 years. And government spending cuts leading to a reduction in spending for the 2011 fiscal year of 23 billion pounds. UK economic growth is 2010 is 1.4%, after contractions of 4.9% in 2009 and 0.1% in 2008. The UK Treasury chief George Osborne said the government will "not be blown off course by bad weather." Central bank governor Mervyn King pointed to the choppy recovery. Referring to the austerity policies King said, "the right course has been set and it is important to maintain it."...

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The youth wing of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, the Young Socialists, have collected 100,000 signatures for getting a referendum to limit executive salaries to 12 times the pay of the lowest paid company employee. The initiative is based on the idea that the highest paid person should not earn more in one month than an employee at the lowest level earns in 12 months. The initiative is called the "1:12 Initiative for Fair Pay." At the large Swiss companies top salaries are at 93 times that of the lowest paid workers for 2011, according to the Swiss Federation of Trade Unions. This ratio has gone up from 14 times in 1998, showing the sharp increase in the last 15 years leading to greater inequality in society. By comparison the situation has been stable in smaller and midsize companies, where the ratio of the median wages of highest earning employees to lowest paid increased slightly from 7.6 times to 8.5 times between 1996 and 2010. A poll in early March 2013 showed 49.5% of those polled in favor of the 1:12 iniitiative, 40.5% opposed, and 10% undecided....

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Porsche is opting for hybrid engine over diesel as a choice for fuel efficienct vehicles. Its designing a hybrid engine for its Cayenne SUV that will give 25 mpg and reduce gasoline consumption by about a third. The hybrid Cayenne will make it to showrooms by the end of 2010. The German market is increasingly moving towards fuel efficient vehicles and interest in climate change and reducing the impact of emissions is strong. Emissions taxes (tying vehicle taxes to emissions) are being considered in Germany and carmakers are seeing a slide in sales in the first half 2007 of 9% compared to 2006 as customers are waiting to see which vehicles will get taxed the most.

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Japanese companies are focussing on emerging markets.

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There are differences between the governors of 10 worst hit states and the president of the U.S. on when to reopen the economy. The seven on the East Coast including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and three on the West Coast including California and Washington, all but one have Democrat governors and want to wait beyond May 1, till it is believed to be safe to reopen.190,000 of the 592,000 infected cases and over 10,000 of 25,000 cases of deaths are from New York alone. This is as though a third of the problem is in one state. The feeling in New York is that it should be the last to reopen, other states can go first in the middle of the country. The position in the U.S. Constitution is for states to maintain public order and safety. This was the basis of the president's position to work with the governors and continues to be the case, though there is pressure from economic advisers to the president to reopen earlier balanced by the opinion of health experts around the president.  Some states are taking action to reopen because the virus has not severely affected these states. President Trump says it is for governors to decide what is best for each state in consultation with the federal government. The U.S. government would step in if a state is taking risky action with the coronavirus. On the issue of whether the president could have acted quickly in February following his decision to stop flights from China and set up quarantines in January, the BBC has this to say. Dr. Fauci, the president's respected health expert was one of many public officials who did not see the magnitude of the crisis evolving with lack of good information from China. BBC North America Editor Jon Sopel cites Dr. Fauci's comments on February 13- that the coronavirus danger is "just miniscule" compared with the "real and present danger" of flu. As it happened the president acted alone in his sense of the danger from the outbreak in China through incoming flights and not relying on others. Here is what the situation of each country on reopening is- India -  has extended the lockdown to May 3. France - has extended the lockdown till May 11. U.S. - has extended the lockdown to May 1. States are taking the responsibility. UK - continues lockdown restrictions till May. The French president Macron had a simple answer to the question " when will we be able to get back to a normal, prior life?" Macron said "Quite frankly, humbly, I have no definitive answer to that." Some nurseries and schools will reopen May 11. Not restaurants, hotels, museums and theaters. By May 11 France will be able to test and quarantine anyone with symptoms and general public masks will be available to all. This is what Dr. Fauci in the U.S. also wants to see before being able to reopen, that testing and tracing, isolating, procedures be efficient and reliable. ...

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Kerala state of 35 million people who speak the language Malayalam, is one of the rare places today that has only 4 deaths from coronavirus, 524 cases confirmed and no community transmission. Here the Guardian looks at the reasons why. The Health minister KK Shailaja started very early on January 23, with a meeting of her rapid response team when the virus was still in China.  She setup a control room and instructed Kerala's 14 districts to do this on Jan. 24. When the first case arrived on Jan. 27 on a plane from Wuhan, Kerala had already adopted the WHO  protocol of test, trace, isolate and support. These passengers were checked for temperature, tested and quarantined. With some at a nearby hospital and others in home isolation. This is all the more amazing considering that Kerala is a state in southern India on the west coast that has a large number of people living and working overseas. Many are in the Gulf countries and the arrival of these refugees could have triggered a second outbreak. This was prevented by careful testing, and contact tracing of clusters.  When one group was evasive and concealed information from an airport surveillance team -arriving from Venice, Italy,  in late Feb- a case was detected back to them.  Contact tracers tracked down all of the hundreds whom they had been in contact with and quarantined them.  By 23 March all flights to 4 Kerala airports from overseas were stopped, including Cochin and Trivandrum. On March 25 India went into lockdown.  Some of the achievements in Kerala include quarantining 170,000 people early. with strict surveillance, which is now down to 21,000. Accomodating and feeding 150,000 migrant workers from other states, before returning them on charter trains to their home areas. A big reason for the success is the high literacy rate in the state. A big emphasis on education and healthcare is a part of the Kerala model. Shailaja is a secondary school teacher, and Health minister. From the days since independence of India in 1947 the state has a strong socialist tradition of taking care of the basics- health, education and public services. It also generates a part of its GDP with income from workers who are overseas.  Another reason for the success in dealing with coronavirus is experience. The state had a virus epidemic called Nipah in 2018 which has become the story for a movie called Virus in Malayalam. There is decentralized public health system in the state and people value their health care facilities, understand and trust the health care authorites. There are hospitals at every level of administration and 10 medical colleges. But trust and education, experience tackling the virus before, are key. Kerala is showing that poor countries can deal effectively with the virus, and create a better life by adopting the right model of creating good societies that value education, healthcare services, better economic structures and distribution of wealth, and  a degree of trust and responsibility found in a state that values public spiritedness. ...

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Indian finance minister Sitharaman announces a new stimulus package "Atman Nirbhar Bharat." This includes an effort to incentivize creation of employment opportunities for people making less than Rs. 15,000 a month ($215 a month), called "Atman Nirbhar Rozghar Yojana, for a period of 2 years. Sitharaman cited stock market rebound and foreign reserves reaching $560 billion to show that along with the government efforts and planned infrastructure the economy would make a robust recovery. Because of India's large informal economy help to street vendors and other small retail is critical in the Indian economy. The finance minister cited the "One Nation, One Ration Card" which allows street vendors and other retail merchants to access foodgrains from FPS of choice in 28 states and union territories in India. This is part of the effort to build demand and upward mobility in the economy. The names given for these efforts or yojanas are unique- PM SVANidhi stands for PM's Street Vendors Atmannirbhar Nidhi. Atmannirbhar is the overall plan for self reliance in the economy and the prime minister Modi has pushed for buying Made in India, to promote jobs and technology + capital accumulation in Indian manufacturing. India took a blow from the coronavirus with close to 9 million infected by the virus and lockdown in March. By September 20 the daily cases reached 100,000, and by November 10 the daily cases have dropped to 44,000. Social distancing and mask wearing are widely accepted in India. India has other advantages in the large pharmaceutical industry and access to drugs at government regulated and low prices as part of the planned effort after independence in 1947. Other aspects of Indian life are cultural preference for vegetables and fruits in the diet, and spices, herbs in cooking, yoga practice, which are anti-inflammatory and promote healthy living.  With the largest population in the world the region in the Indian ocean comprising the countries of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma and Indonesia, former parts of the British and Dutch empires, is a region where the coronavirus posed a great threat to human life. An early carefully orchestrated lockdown by prime minister Modi  helped with the message in March that India faced a singular choice - between going back 21 years in development or controlling the coronavirus in 21 crucial days. The setting up of the direct transfer of money to bank accounts  of farmers, urban street vendors and lower income people in rural areas by giving everyone a bank account under a government plan early in the first term of the current administration enabled it to send aid directly when coronavirus hit the country. Other schemes included cooking gas for women in rural areas who depended on firewood for cooking. These schemes and sanitation infrastructure setup under the Clean India campaign, helped India build an element of resilience when coronavirus hit.  The government plan to remove interstate barriers to commerce and integrate tax system collection at the federal level, bringing parts of the informal economy into the formal economy, have increased revenues that now finance an infrastructure plan that hopes to match the one in China over the next decade.   ...