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Facebook has invested heavily in proving that digital ads on Facebook are effective. Some of the research was done with Datalogix and other firms. About 60 ad campaigns were carefully tracked to show how consumers seeing ads on Facebook spend their dollars on products in brick and mortar stores. One ad with cuddly bears for Coca-Cola was more effective than ads on television, says CEO Sandberg. In addition to targeting users based on what users share in their Facebook profiles advertisers can now see the effects on sales. Facebook's vice president of measurements and insights, Brad Smallwood, says advertisers were given the first big report on how consumers acted after seeing ads in the real world. The results are most evident in digital advertising for mobile phones. Facebook has 6% of the $118 billion digital advertising global ad market compared to Google's 31%. The share in mobile is 18% in 2013, up from 5% in 2012. Facebook shares were up 14% or $7.55 to $61.08 on Jan. 30, 2014. Facebook's share price increased by 20% in July 2013 after a similiar announcement of improvement in mobile ad revenues. Facebook's IPO price was $38 in 2013....

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Peter Coy, a veteran reporter at BW, who was prescient about the housing crisis, asks if defaltion is a possibility,; something hat happened in Japan in the 1990's and in the US in the 1930's. There is adownward ressure on wages from growing joblessness. With 7.2 million added to the unemployed since December 2008 and 263,000 in September 2009 alone, this pressure for labor to accept lower wages is growing.Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs predicts a drop in average hourly earnings of half a percent from the fourth quarter of 2009 through the fourth quarter of 2010. Hatzius accounts for workers strong aversion for wage cuts, without that the wages go down by 2%. Some experts say someone who lost his job 6 months ago is likely to accept alower wage now. If prices fall faster than salaries are workers better off. Not likely because of the destructive effects of defaltion from unused capacity an underutilized labor.

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Mankiw is asked by astudent, why the banks lost 100% of their money if they invested in housing through mortgage securities investments, and housing prices went down only 20%. His answer was the crazy amount of leveraging the banks took on to make higher profits. He points to other changes in teaching Econ 101. The role of financial institutions, the effects of leveraging, the limits of monetary policy when interest rates are already at zero, and the challenge of forecasting. He says economists can't take the blame for missing the crisis completely. In saying this he is saying that economists have only to use what is taught in the classroom, and not use their thinking skills developed through the course of experience in the real world and their intelligence, curiosity and skepticism, all part of an educated mind. It requires some of these skills to tell a bubble when you see one.

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Arvind Subramanium, outgoing Chief Economic Adviser to the prime minister in an interview with the Hindu newspaper, shares some of the knowledge he gained from failures and successes. The key lesson he gained is that it is important to have independent advisers in government who can speak their mind. Finance minister Jaitley has embraced this point, that such an adviser is not just one more part in the technocratic machinery of government. The success in getting GST he says shows that cooperative federalism is needed going forward as a kind of technology for many changes, including agriculture, DBT.  Subramanium calls the Economic Survey a success with 350,000 unique visitors. He likes the independence and distance of the CEA job to propagate the big ideas combined with closeness to decisionmakers. He counts as a failure not being able to create an office of CEA to the states, a request from 7 chief ministers and state finance ministers. Subramanium sees the need for more people in government with specific expertise in different areas as opposed to generalists as the work of government is becoming much more sophisticated. There is much need for talent and the flow of lateral talent into government.  Responding to economic issues such as the impact of oil prices on the economy Subramanium sees CAD at 2%, inflation at 4.5% much better compared to 2013 levels of double digits and not in unhealthy territory and very manageable. He sees risks in the impact of a combination of oil prices, dollar appreciation, and currency trade wars that are happening. On Iranian oil imports and strict U.S. sanctions on importers Subramanium sees the cost of not complying as stiff once you are in the dollar trading system. On demonetisation he sees there are short term costs and potential long term gains that requires an assessment every 2-3 years provisionally, what happened to tax and formalization, and the costs. Including costs in inconvenience and hardship for informal cash intensive sectors noted in the Economic Survey. For GST he says the revenue growth rate is 16-17% in aggregate for next year, growing 12% in the first year after a difficult implementation. The poorer states have seen an expansion of tax base and revenue performance is unprecedented.    ...

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Amol Sharma and Paul Beckett of the WSJ interview Finance Minister Chidambaram about the Indian government's decisions to open up the insurance, retail and airline sectors to foreign investment, and bring the deficit down to close to 5.3% in 2013. Faced with slowing growth and the risk of credit ratings agencies lowering India's credit ratings the government of prime minister Manmohan Singh has decided to take some decisive steps, including a shift in coalition partners to maintain parliamentary support for these steps. When asked about what influenced the government's resolve to take these decisions, Chidambaram says credit ratings was one factor, another was the difficulty Indian companies were having raising capital inside the Indian market and overseas. In addition he says growth could not be sustained at earlier levels without new capital, and new foreign investment was needed for sustained growth. The Kelkar committee report provided a sense of urgency to the government by providing an independent view and showing the worst case scenario if the government maintained the status quo. Chidambaram says subsidies will now be transferred in the form of cash directly to beneficiaries and reduce costs by cutting leakage in the system.The government will use the list of LPG cooking gas households to transfer the subsidy for 6 gas cylinders directly to beneficiary accounts. The plan is to do the same for the Rural Employment Guarantee Program and subsidized foodgrains to cut the leakage that stems from duplication and falsification. The Indian government's ongoing program to use information technology to have computerized records of the the entire population and linking to the financial system, incuding a large rural population, now makes it possible to take these steps. On the Kelkar committee's recommendation to increase prices of basic commodities cooking gas, kerosene and food to reduce government subsidies, Chidambaram says this is ambitious and the government has to consider the political context even though it agrees that this has to be done over time....

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More proof that China's real estate prices resemble the period of the bubble in real estate prices in Tokyo in the late 1980's. One parking space goes for $760,000 in Hong Kong in a luxury development.

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The print media in western countries is suffering decline in circulation and loss of revenues as more people read the news on the internet. In contrast India with 350 million people who have no access to newspapers, and in a country where newspapers are very reasonably priced and widely read in India's many languages. the print media industry is doing very well. The print media industry is expected to grow from 149 billion rupees ($3.6 billion) in 2007 to 281 billion rupees in 2012, a growth of 89% in 5 years, according to a report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers. With expanding literacy and newspaper reading a popular pastime throughout India, and the many newspapers available in languages like Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, in the north, to Telegu, Malayalam, Tamil, Karnataki in the south, the expanded availability also builds a public that is more informed about issues and the range of choices available to it, making for a vibrant free press and a vibrant democratic process. The low cost of newspapers means more of the revenues come from advertisers and some newspapers like the English language Times of India accept payment in the form of shares in a firm....

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The Oxford vaccine is showing promising results and is expected to be authorized for use by December 2020. The vaccine being developed in partnership with Astra Zeneca PLC for marketing and Serum Institute of India for mass manufacturing is shown to be proven 90% effective in preventing infections in clinical trials. The partners say there were no serous safety events and the vaccine has proven 62% to 90% effective with an average of 70%.  This vaccine is significant because it is being developed with this partnership not seeking profits from this venture, providing it at cost and keeping the price to about $4 a dose compared to competitors Moderna and Pfizer whose vaccine is expected to be at $24 a dose. The Oxford vaccine also uses existing technology for vaccines and manufacturing is being done in India with the world's top manufacturer of vaccines. By using existing technology unlike the Pfizer and Moderna technology Oxford has taken an approach that could prove to be unique by minimizing side effects for vaccines that are being developed with such speed. By not requiring refrigeration at very low temperatures the vaccine makes itself ready for immediate and widespread uses all over the world. By use in its home country India with its large population Oxford vaccine can gain even wider acceptance because of India's long experience in pharmaceutical technology and manufacturing. Of particular interest is the study of 23,000 participants showing that the 90% effective dosage is one that only requires half a dose for the first shot. This say scientists is because the vaccine first dose prepares the body for a more powerful second dose and creates the maximum effect. This means the vaccine can be used for more doses than 2 full doses. It can be stored in a fridge making it easy to use in many countries. The full study will have 60,000 participants spread across U.S. Britain, Brazil South Africa and India. ...

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Krugman questions Bair's idea of the aggregator bank buying up toxic assets of the banks because the government may be assuming these huge liabilities at taxpayer expense to shore up shareholders. He questions whether these banks will not continue to be the zombie banks, that they are today, if the so called toxic asets are priced in today's market. The idea that today's market prevents these assets being priced at fair value may be deceiving he says. As the economy deteriorates, these banks even after the government at great expense buys up "toxic" assets, may still be losing money and remain that way for years, essentially zombie banks. Better he says for the government to face up to reality and nationalize these banks and then do what the Resolution Trust Corporation did with the savings and loans in the 1980's, which is clean up these banks and sell them after fixing them to new owners. The government might end up with amuddle headed approach that looks like the Resolution Trust type of action but without taking over the banks end up with something else. All because nationalization is thought of among Republicans, Democrats and Obama's people as some kind of dreaded word, when these banks are already dependent on the government for survival....

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Gordon Brown, former prime minister of Britain from 2007 to 2010, chaired the April 2009 G-20 meeting that came up with ways to tackle the global financial crisis. Brown also led the way by recapitalizing British banks, a step the U.S. followed. He comments on the volatility in financial markets in August 2007 following the S&P credit downgrade of the U.S.. Brown gives an incomplete grade to the tasks the 2009 G-20 set out to accomplish. He points to three goals the G-20 had set in the middle of the financial crisis in April 2009. The first was to prevent a recession from becoming a depression. The other two were to establish a financial stability regime, and a compact for growth. These two became paper promises says Brown. Brown sees the best approach to prevent a lost decade is for U.S. and Europe trading their way out of a downturn as the Asian market absorbs more industrial goods from Europe and the U.S. This includes policies that would keep commodity prices low and ways of coping with currency shocks. Analysts have pointed to an export led recovery as one of the solutions the U.S. was hoping to achieve with a lower value of the dollar. This has had only limited success because of deep structural problems- high consumer indebtedness, bad debt at the banks, weak housing sector following the mortgage crisis, and a rising U.S. deficit- which will take some time to clear. Brown does not come to grips with these underlying imbalances built up during the boom years of the last decade, both in Britain and in the U.S., during which he was the finance minister of Britain....

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Turkish decision to conduct operations against Iraqi Kurdistan led to fears in the markets that it would cut off supplies of Iraqi oil. However Turkish premier Erdogan says it would limit its operation to PKK guerillas and its not certain whether this was a way to please public opinion in Turkey that the Government was strong enough to respond to attacks on Turkey or Turkish soldiers and not a real decision to go to war and find itself in difficulties with the US and Iraq. This article shows that Turkey is the largest foreign investor in Iraqi Kurdistan with many projects and a thriving foreign trade there with Turkey. Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey in questions and answers at the National Press Club in Washington DC during the week of November 4th broadcast on CSPAN emphasized that its Iraq move was an "operation" only, no desire on Turkey's part for a war. When asked how it would affect Turkey's south east part he emphasized that many members of Parliament from his party were Kurdish Turks and Turkey had helped large numbers of peshmerga Kurds during Saddam's period and could not understand the Kurdish response. He also emphasized Turkey did not want to touch civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan, which is what the Iraqi Kurds say would lead to their involvement. He emphasized also Turkey's desire to seek a "middle road" in all matters which he described as the best. Have oil prices overreacted to the move by Turkey, or since there is always considerable uncertainty about events in that region (and clarifications come much later after some striking announcement that Turkey would make a strong response), are markets already very sensitive to political volatility especially with stocks lower than usual and rising demand for oil, simply responding to the worst possible outcome....

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Questions about the viability of Canadian crude oil production from tar sands and shale as oil prices for Canadian crude are at about $17 in Jan. 2016. Western Canadian Select from Alberta traded at about $14 in Jan 2016. Crude oil NY benchmark is at $31, other crude is priced lower if transportation costs and other factors including quality and grade have to be figured in.

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A 93 year old hero of the French Resistance, Stephane Hessel, publishes a pamphlet called "Indignez-Vous!," released by a small publishing house from the publisher's home. He calls for resisting the "international dictatorship of the financial markets" and "defending the values of modern democracy." He protests France's treatment of illegal immigrants, the influence on the media by the affluent, cuts to the social safety net, French educational reforms. It was first published in October, and now has sold 1.5 million copies, all through word of mouth advertising. It has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Greek. New editions are planned for Slovenian, Korean, Japanese, Swedish and other languages. In Britain, it was published with the title "Time for Outrage." The pamphlet is about 4000 words and only 14 pages of text. Its timing is good, as the French are debating what to do in their politics with an election approaching and Sarkozy's standing at new lows. The short length and low price are a big plus, at $4 it made a convenient Christmas gift. Britain, Spain, Portugal and Greece are going through austerity cuts. Public sentiment has been aroused by the cuts, and by the overarching influence of financial markets on the economies of these countries. Some of these countries referred derisively as piigs- Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain -countries in the financial markets. The economic impact has fallen disproportionately on the young, with high jobless rate for young people from Italy to Spain, and cuts in funding for universities and schools in the UK also fall heavily on young people. A sense that something has gone wrong in the free market system and the western world. Austerity cuts in spending in the U.S. create a similiar feeling and joblessness among young people is also high in the U.S....

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The chip industry is affected by price declines and overcapacity. No. 3 maker Elpida Memory filed for bankruptcy. Samsung has a 45% share of the market and Hynix Semiconductor has a 21.5% share, with Micron at 12.1%. Elpida Memory's CEO, Mr. Sakamoto says: "we never imagined the yen would become this strong." Plans for an alliance with Micron Technology did not materialize. Elpida was the result of merging the operations of NEC and Hitachi in chipmaking in 1999. Japanese chipmakers subsequently focussed on the high end chips for smartphones, moving production of lower margin chips to Taiwanese operations. Ironically Elpida comes from the Greek word "elpis" meaning hope, and the d for dynamic and a for association.

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Carrefour's new CEO in June 2012, Mr. Plassat, describes his plans for reviving the company. This includes giving more autonomy to stores to reduce overhead costs, reducing the number of employees, selling its Greek supermarket business to its local partner and exiting Turkey. Unions estimate job losses at 3000-5000. He says the company is overly centralized at the international level and in the domestic market. He pointed to the 500 million euros of "superficially used money," that was put into marketing in the domestic market and says some of it needs to go into improving stores. Carrefour's share price has fallen by over 50% in 2011-2012. Plassat's plan is for a three year turnaround.

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Strong criticism from Attorney General Luisa Ortega, and dissension inside the government, led to the Supreme Court retracting parts of its decision to nullify the powers of the legislature. Ortega called the move "a rupture of the constitutional order." Most of the judges are appointed on the court by the Maduro government. Strong criticism by the OAS calling it a "self inflicted coup", by other governments in Latin America, also led to retracting parts of the decision by the Supreme Court. Nicholas Maduro succeeded Mr. Chavez who was the democratically elected president of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. Maduro narrowly won the election in 2013 by a margin of about 1.5% over Henrique Capriles. In 2015 in National Assembly elections the opposition parties won a majority in the National Assembly. Protests against the Maduro government were followed by a recall attempt in 2016 which was suppressed. Inflation and economic conditions in Venezuela worsened under Maduro with the collapse of oil prices. The devaluation of the currency, high inflation and shortages of basic goods have led to widespread protests. As the situation worsened the Supreme Court in support of the government gradually chipped away at the powers of the National Assembly since 2016, leading to the situation in April 2016 with  the effort to strip the Assembly of all powers and remove the immunity from prosecution of legislators. Maduro is a former bus driver for the city of Caracas bus system, and a trade unionist. He was part of the movement supporting Chavez release after a coup attempt, foreign minister 2006-2013, and appointed Chavez successor in 2012.  Max Fisher and Amanda Taub of the NYT go on to discuss the writings of political scientists, including Dutch expert Cas Mudde, who pointed out that populism often starts its climb because established institutions and elites have become unresponsive to pubic needs. Yet the replacement is with what starts out as an effort to bring fairness- yet ends up creating another elite, suppressing opposition, and creating a new set of problems, even threatening the institutional framework of democracy such as elected assembly as happened last week in Venezuela.  In Venezuela the Chavez populist movement was initially intended to reduce corruption in the court system, the established parties control over media, and ensure oil revenues were used to provide services to poor regions and neighborhoods.  In the process over two decades it introduced a system that set up a Bolivarist class of its own based on socialist goals, failed to integrate the economy into the global economy for modernization, and created an overdependence on oil revenues that hurt the country when prices dropped sharply. High inflation, corruption, shortages of basic goods, and an economy slipping behind neighboring countries in Latin America, are the result by 2017. Seeing the situation in Venezuela in the context of current populist trends in the U.S. and Europe may be a stretch because the situation in Venezuela is unique to Latin America in some ways and is from an earlier period. High inflation, collapsing economy, debt problems and mismanagement of the economy, devaluation of currency, are problems faced by Brazil, Argentina, and other countries in Latin America, happening under conservative as well as populist governments since the 1960's. It is different in two respects, the disconnect with the global economy that prevents modernization, and the trend towards authoritarianism, as seen in Venezuela.     ...

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There is a mixed picture behind the drop in investment in new oil exploration. The IEA estimates that overall investment will be down 15-20% in 2009. The number of drilling rigs in use globally fell 32% in the year to April 2009, to 2055, according to Baker-Hughes, an oilfield services firm. In America the number of rigs in use is down by 50%, and OPEC countries are cancelling 35 big projects, according to the OPEC secretary general, Salem Al-Badri. Cambridge Energy Associates estimates that 5.5 million barrels a day of capacity additions may not take place in the next couple of years, which is a third of expected net increase by 2014. Examine this a bit more closely and you find that the oil majors despite lack of access to oil in inhospitable terrain or foreign countries, are still holding up well in investment. Exxon increased capital spending by 5% in the 1st quarter 2009, and Shell and Chevron plan to invest the same in 2009 as in 2008, $31 billion and $23 billion. BP plans to go from $21 billion to $20 billion. Canadian Tar Sands investments are being reevaluated in the light of prices, and smaller companies like Devon Energy are cutting back, for Devon from $9 billion in 2008 to $4 billion in 2009. From the national oil companies the investments are holding up in Saudi Arabia, whereas they are faltering in Russia and cash strapped Venezuela. Saudi Aramco recently completed a 5 year project increasing capacity from 10m b/d to 12.5 b/d at cost of $70 billion. And another $60 billion is set aside for more investments which will be less vigorously pursued as Saudis have 4.5m b/d of idle capacity after production cutbacks by OPEC. Petrobras plans to increase its investment by 55% to $174 billion in the next 5 years in offshore discoveries challenged by deep waters and thick layers of salt. The oilfield services companies like Schlumberger are cutting back, with Schlumberger cutting investment in 2009 by 13% to $2.6 billion and shedding 5000 jobs. Baker Hughes shed 3000 jobs. Mature fields are also receiving less investment, so that the drop from mature fields will be 9.4% according to IEA instead of 7.7% projected earlier with larger investments. The picture described above shows investments by the Saudis, the majors, oil field services firms, investments in recovery improvements in mature fields, not in a precipitious decline. The picture is of cautious and careful investment and some pullbacks as the economies of the US suffered decline in GDP of 6% in the 1st quarter 2009 over prior year and the German and Japanese economies suffered decline of 15-16%. Even the most optimistic forecasts for China do not go above 8% for 2009. In the light of these growth estimates the moderate drop in investments in new oil exploration may match the moderation in growth in Asia and the drop in growth in the USA and Europe and Japan. The forecasts of steeply higher oil prices or spikes like those in 2007-2008 are based on the notion of a quick economic recovery. See the links to economic recovery on this. These links suggest that the current surge may not last as the basics for a recovery are weak. In the US foreclosures, toxic assets, housing, consumption and savings, and unemployment all indicate a weak economy for several years down the road. And it is this weakness that the oil investment exploration budgets may be responding to in amoderated manner. The latest sign of this weakness is the spread of foreclosures to prime borrowers with job losses, link NYT May 24, 2009. The Saudi king thinks that $75 is a fair price for oil. Current prices have taken oil to $60 a barrel, even as inventories remain strong with over 60 days of supply. No spikes like those in the past are realistic in this economic environment....

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A new report on American driving habits by Samantha Gross and Aaron Brady of Cambridge Energy Associates shows that finally the gasoline price increases are beginning to bite the consumer and American drivers are changing their habits. After increasing from about2.5 trillion miles of total vehicle miles travelled by Americans in 1998 to about 3.0 trillion miles in 2007 the last 6 months are showing a downward trend for the first time. In the late 1970's and early 1980's something similar happened with a deep recession, rising gasoline prices and improved fuel efficiency standards, during this period gasoline consumption declined by 12 % accordingt o CEA. What is different now? For one thing the environmental issues are a big factor now and they take a new meaning as developing countries like India China Brazil and Rusia as well as other countries with much larger numbers of people than the US and Europe are now part of the car buying and electricity using peoples of the world. Its impossible both for the environment and for resource supplies to meet the needs of billions of new people joining the global economy and western ways of living without doing something radically different. And he problem is immediate as China becomes the second largest car buying country and India is not far behind with an explosion in Nano sales expected in the next few years, and the huge demands on electricity in these countries meaning burning huge amounts of coal to generate this electricity and create global environmental problems. All this makes the 70's and early eighties period remotely relevant. We are looking at something hugely different and 21st century defining now as its clear fuel has to be conserved and resources shared between the western world and the developing world, and technology moved forward quickly to meet the needs of a new world of Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas all bundled into one both by the global ecoomy and the way business operates and by the needs of people everywhere. And the media and public perceptions may be just catching up to these changes which are already taking place on the lands and under the feet of millions of people around the world. Some clues to what might have happened. Americans spent 4.5% of their after tax income on transportation fuels in 1981 according to Global Insight, a forecasting firm, and this went down to 1.9% in 1998, and is back up to 4% now in 2008. In California and more affluent areas of the country where the incomes are higher and gasoline prices are higher over 4% is spent on transportation fuels, whereas in areas of Alabama and Mississippi in the poorest areas where gasoline is less expensive this is over 16% according to the New York Times interactive graphic. During this period 1998 to 2008 demand increased for gasoline, in terms of the number of miles driven went up by 25% from 2.5 trillion miles driven to 3.0 trillion miles driven, and the sales of large pickup trucks and SUV's soared to make them the largest number of vehicles sold each year. At 1.9% of after tax income nationally, transportation fuels were cheap and consumers reacted rationally by splurging on gasoline in the USA. As a sobering note to all this sign of improvement in conservation of fuel the miles driven are still at about 3.0 trillion miles the high reached last year 2007. It will take a lag of a couple of years before a changing fleet to smaller vehicles and more fuel efficient vehicles and better driving habits and conserving fuel habits to make itself felt in transportation fuel usage across the USA and this requires prices at least at these levels to make the change seen as necessary to meet global needs and global environment....

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The U.S. Agriculture Department cuts its estimate of corn crop yield per acre in the U.S. by 15.5%, as a result of the severe drought in 2012. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, says the situation for farmers is better this time than during the last drought in 1988. Now 85% of farmers have crop insurance compared to 25% in 1988. The Agriculture Department estimate is for a 3-4% increase in prices in 2013. Capital Economics says the impact on GDP in the U.S. will be about 0.1%. Because 40% of the corn crop goes into ethanol production there is renewed debate about the 2005/2007 Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires 13.2 billion gallons of corn based biofuel be made in 2012. Worldwide the bad weather conditions in Brazil, India and Russia are worsening the outlook for food supplies. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says global food prices increased by 6% in July 2012, with corn prices up 23%.

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Ewen Macaskill of the Guardian travels on the bus with Jeremy Corbyn through the east Midlands region of the UK. He describes how Corbyn is handling the negative media coverage from the Daily Telegraph and the tabloids. Corbyn's response to the demonization by the tabloids underway for the last two years is that he does not let it get to him. He does not respond to personal attacks, including ones made by Theresa May, because he says it means he would have to descend to that level. "It actually devalues yourself and the process," says Corbyn. He is not stressed, says Corbyn because it would do him no good, and no good to the people around him who are putting in their best to support Labor in this election. Calm, composed, is how this reporter sees Corbyn on the trail. This means not following the latest polls but staying focussed on the goal and the day ahead. As a result the people who had only seen him through the negative image projected in the media are now becoming endeared to him. Little things count, whether the campaign workers are getting their tea and coffee, and looking for a knife to cut a chocolate brownie cake given at a prior event. Calm, composed, not letting comments or the pessimism affect him, as he is in his words "there for the long haul." This is true for the way he is careful not to allow intrusions into his family life, that would affect his wife Laura Alvarez and three sons. This is the way he has come across during his first day as Leader of the Opposition in parliament, and during the event where he launched the Labor manifesto. Preferring simplicity and ordinary life he prefers public transport, simple layout in the campaign bus, and if elected he says he would prefer to remain where he is instead of the house at 10 Downing Street. Corbyn is 68, but after the way he has tackled the challenge facing Labor, the graceful attitude and dignity needed especially today, he is likely to be around for much longer. ...

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Saying that these countries had significantly cut imports from Iran, the U.S. government gave exemptions from the sanctions on Iran to 10 European countries and Japan. Exemptions were given to Belgium, Britain, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. This leaves 11 countries facing possible sanctions including China, India and S. Korea, with negotiations underway with these three major importers. The sanctions law passed by the U.S. Congress gives the government room to avoid damage to global oil markets and U.S. allies.

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Could high oil prices lead to real conservation in the US and lead to the US following Japan's lead in conservation. If this were to happen it would be a good thing. Union pacific is betting on more fuel efficient locomotives and operating trains in ways that conserve fuel. What if this happens everywhere in industry after industry. Would America's wasteful ways become a thing of the past? Some of this is likely to happen if not completely as oil prices have hit already and are likely to go up further. Still this shock may not as bad as previous ones as long asmoney going to Russia and the Middle East is reinvested in the US or Europe or Asia, in the global economy, as it liklely will be, and as long as the rise is gradual which it likely will be as its not a political shock like an embargo, aand as long as the rise is matched by conservation moves by American and European industry following the lead of Japan which also is likely to happen as industry after industry responds to the price increases with conservation and fuel efficiency moves of its own in terms of better technology and equipment and techniques of fuel usage something that extends to airplaners and cars. Also crucial to the reilient response to higher prices is a careful Fed policy that does not hike interest rates in response to the inflation in oil prices and this is also not likely to happen as Bernanke's own research has shown that he will be careful to respond to not adversely affect the global economy. ...

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Former senior directors in the National Security Council in the Bush administration who talk about a a complete change in policy towards Iran- changing policies pursued all the way back to President Carter and Reagan and the Ayatollah Khomeini government. New policy would be implemented through hard work on diplomatic negotiations to bring Iran and the U.S. closer by tackling many of the differences. The U.S. recognizing the Iran government and its interests in the region and Iran cooperating on the nuclear isssue to safeguard against nuclear proliferation. What this means is that the portion of oil price increases that are a result of political volatility, with Iran as one of the sources of the political volatility, will be affected as the political volatility from this source is reduced significantly. Also note recent news about Petrochina signing an agreement with Iran to develop large Iranian oil fields. This was a different aspect of the oil price increase as the lack of modernization and investment to develop oil fields in countries like Iran, Venezuela and Mexico was a problem on the supply side. In the case of Iran there was a squeeze as demand was growing inside these countries at the same time as there wasn't enough investment in the oil fields. Chinese participation means that this problem is being addressed differently from that if the western oil majors were involved, but still being addressed. Over time this should be part of contributing factors that are becoming evident for less price pressures. However it should also be noted that these changes will take some time to work their way. ...