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Germany's Bundestag parliament vote eases constitutional "debt brake" March 2025. CDU's Merz and the SPD join with Greens to provide the two thirds majority to remove a constitutional debt brake put in in the Merkel years. Germany's dilapidated infrastructure from rail to other transport and public facilities, to poor childcare are a sign of how the Merkel debt brake has hurt the German economy. Four years of the Greens SPD coalition government of Scholz were wasted when the SPD and Greens wanted investment in infrastructure starting in 2021 but included Lindner of the super cautious Free Democrats as Finance Minister who opposed spending and vetoed it every step of the way. The results can be seen in Frankfurt and other cities and in the underinvestment in Deutsche Bahn rail and all over the country. Merz of the CDU and the SPD and Greens finally fix this problem starting with removing the debt brake.  What happened to Lindner and Free Democrats? They did not make the threshold of 5% for representation in the German parliament, the Bundestag in Berlin. Lindner resigned for his failure. ...

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Calmcations, off the track and cooler Travel- travel are trends in 2025. Calmcations as people look for less noise and more quiet. Cooler destinations are ones in northern Europe, in Scandinavia and Finland where summer temperatures are in the 20's compared to the heat in southern European locations.

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NYT's Futterman looks at Spain's Carlos Alcaraz's rise from being in the top 100 players in 2021 to winning the US Open in 2022 and expected to win the French Open in 2023 on clay courts. His father is a nationally ranked tennis player from Spain. Looking at the calm attitude and confidence shown this relates to being surrounded by tennis enthusiasts including a local sponsor at company Postres Reina and its owner Lopez Rueda. Alcaraz's grandfather setup red clay courts in La Palmar, a private club in the Murcia region of Spain. This provided a setting in which this family thrived in developing the game to a higher level.

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OPEC and Russian oil producers are planning to increase oil production by 400,000 barrels a day for each month through 2022. Demand is increasing with economic recovery and this will lead to higher oil prices. Oil prices are now $80 a barrel in October 2021. Shortages of natural gas and high prices are leading power generation companies to use oil in place of natural gas. This will increase demand for oil by 500,000 barrels a day. Oil export revenue was cut in half to $119 billion for Saudi Arabia in 2020 and Saudis want to see higher prices to make up for lost revenue. OPEC + that includes Russia decided to end a price war during the Trump administration and this time have designed a strategy that will gradually push up prices. In recent years shale oil producers in the US quickly responded to higher prices of oil and increased production. After the pandemic in March 2020 American shale oil producers in 2021 are not increasing production. This gives OPEC+ better ability to set oil prices at higher levels. ...

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Higher savings, covid assistance checks, and cheap credit led to higher consumer spending in the second half of 2020. This lasted through the higher inflation in 2022 when consumer spending outpaced inflation by two percentage points. The share of monthly income set aside for savings dropped from a high in April 2020, to 7.5% in December 2021, to 3.4% in December 2022. This is rapidly reversing with increase in mortgage rates and interest rates by the Fed to 4.75%, home and car sales the lowest in a decade. Inflation is at 5% year over year and wages up 4.6% in December year over year. The labor market is tight with about 10 million unfilled jobs and unemployment at 3.4%. Tech and other companies that overly expanded during the pandemic and are under antitrust oversight are laying off some employees. A recession is possible but this depends on how Jay Powell at the Fed reads the employment situation so that it brings down inflation but not so much that it hurts American workers. ...

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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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Starmer in Britain, Macron in France and Merz in Germany all have low poll ratings in 2026.

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Much of the growth in 2022-2024 was a result of Biden administration government spending on infrastructure supported by private sector spending. With efforts to cut waste and set new priorities in government spending, growth in 2025-2026 has to come from private sector spending with the DJT administration. The tariffs in the first 100 days are seen by business as a bargaining chip. Scott Bessent has described the tariffs as domestic policy, and president DJT has stated clearly that the tariffs against CMC countries, Canada, Mexico and China, is intended to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US. The scale of the fentanyl issue can be seen from the 490,000 American deaths over 12 years from fentanyl.  It is incumbent on CMC countries to take action on fentanyl. It is also incumbent on the CMC countries and on the EU, on opinion in business and the Silicon Valley in the US, to grasp the real dimensions of this crisis destroying so many lives, that is so unprecedented in the history of the US.   ...

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First month of 2026 shows upturn for Britain's economy and $31 billion monthly budget surplus at Treasury. This is good news for Reeves and Keir Starmer as they face Manchester by election on Feb 24, 2026, first of local elections after the Mandelson episode. Unemployment is at 5.3% and inflation has fallen to 3% for the British economy in January 2026.

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India Canada nuclear deal 2026. India to build portable nuclear reactors. India Canada trade to double to $50 billion by 2030. Canada's leader Carney visit to India 2026 results in new agreements on trade and cooperation. This follows India's trade deals with Germany, and with the European Union. It is a rapidly evolving trade landscape in 2026.

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Twenty years after Japanese prime minister Koizumi visited Pyongyang in 2004, Japan's PM Kishida plans to talk to North Korean leader Kim. Koizumi had talks with Kim's father in 2004. The effort is to reduce tensions in the region with elections approaching in Japan, India, and the US in 2024, and to bolster the sense that Japan can manage its role in the region. The Europeans are doing the same as the French and the British are taking a bigger role in Europe during Ukraine conflict. After the Gaza conflict, the Houthis in Red Sea maritime channels, there is a sense that reducing tensions proactively is a better approach rather than wait for things to take their own course in directions that are not good for the world, or taking rigid ideological or other motivated positions that serve no constructive purpose and exacerbate tensions. Gandhiji used to say "tit for tat makes the whole world blind." It is not idealistic to say that but very practical and useful because if you do that you end up with situations where you lose leverage and ability to take positive action and come up with better outcomes, than if you let some unforeseen event or some events by other actors without proper motives to intervene to your serious and the world's detriment. ...

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Consumer prices in Brazil went up by 5.91% in 2013 compared to the 5.84% increase in 2012.

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T20 World Cup 2026 Player of the World Cup 2026 Sanju Samson with 2 89 run scores in quarterfinals against West Indies and Final against New Zealand.

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The difficult task facing Wang Yi, former foreign minister of China, of maintaining relations with the European Union in the middle of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on which China has not supported the EU. Some changes have taken place in the EU in 2022 that affect EU relations with China. Italy and Czech Republic have new governments that are critical of China. The Ukraine war after one year is taking its toll on EU relations with China, as trade between Russia and China is expected to grow to $200 billion in 2023 from $140 billion in 2021.

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The Biden $1.9 trillion aid package that cleared the US Congress on March 10, 2021 sets the stage for an economic rebound by 2022. OECD forecasts now show the US economy by the end of 2022 to be larger than forecast before the pandemic. In trade and other business policy the Biden administration is quietly following the changes made under the Trump administration to make the US position stronger in international trade and manufacturing, and remaking supply chains to meet US interests.

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Ford profit for 2025 expected at $7- 8.5 billion. Ford estimate for Tariffs cost in 2025 on profit before interest and taxes is about $1.5 billion. As Ford makes most of its cars and trucks in the US it is less impacted by the Tariffs on foreign cars entering the US. GM estimate of cost of Tariffs is at $4 -5 billion.

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US sending signals of 'very strong talks'  with Iran delaying attack for 5 days March 23 2026.

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India reaches $400 billion in exports for 2021-2022. This is a significant increase from the pre covid export figure of $330 billion in 2018-2019 which slipped to $313 billion in 2019-2020. Frequent lockdowns marked the period of the pandemic.

India's industrial sectors play a large role, including cotton yarn and the apparel industry. With the global supply chains being restructured and shifted away from China, India is gaining a more significant role. Australian exports are up 94% and US exports up 47%. India is making an effort to become a key part of the new supply chain arrangements of US and Europe, along with Vietnam and Japan. As part of the supply chain India is increasing imports from other countries with imports reaching about $600 billion, up about one third in 2021-2022.

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India celebrates its 74th Republic Day with its achievements in upward mobility, respecting diversity, inclusiveness for women, and promotion of millets, drug free India goals, renewable energy, all on display. It also showed the achievements in saving funds for investment in essential infrastructure by developing its own defense capabilities in manufacturing. The Nari Shakti or women in the armed forces was also on display integrating women into leadership roles in the Navy, Air Force and the Army. 

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Germany is building the new pipeline that connects the Wilhelmshaven LNG Terminal to its natural gas storage tank in record time in the midst of an energy crisis in Europe. The new 26 kilometer pipeline for  the LNG Terminal is being built in a few months when it would have otherwise taken 8 years. See Rani Bhandari, Managing Director of Open Grid Europe talk about the project in this video from DW.com to get a sense of how Germany is moving quickly to address natural gas needs for the winter. Click on Original article to see it.