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Shelley-Ann-Fraser-Pryce the best female sprinter of all time with 10.6 seconds for the 100 metres, wins a parents mums race in Jamaica.

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Analysis of 126 public pension plans by the National Association of State Retirement Administrators shows an average target rate of 7.68%. New York State Common Retirement Fund, third largest by assets, says it plans to drop the assumed rate of return to 7% from 7.5%. A drop of 1% boosts pension liabilities by about 12%, accoridng to the Centre for Retirement Research at Boston College. It means workers are required to contribute more to the pension funds for the same level of benefits, especially as lifespans grow and more Americans retire in an aging population. Other options are for states to cut payrolls and expenses. This is a positive step as it makes the assumptions realistic and improves the fiscal stability of the funds. The largest pension fund, California Public Employees Retirement System is considering dropping its assumption to below the current level of 7.5%. The lower assumed rates of return are not enough say critics, who cite the 3- 3.5% returns assumed in the 1960's for cash and bond based portfolios. The Laura and Arnold Foundation's Josh McGee says it is still not realistic. Retirement systems median actual return was 3.4% for 12 months ending June 30, 2015. Expert panel of actuaries and pension specialists says the right level for assumed returns is about 6.4%. Companies in the Fortune 1000 have already dropped the figure to 7.1%, from 9.2% in 2000, according to Towers Watson survey....

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A small tax on the $800 trillion foreign exchange industry of 0.005%- with the tax on currencies where the leaders of these countries approve like Merkel of Germany and Sarkozy of France- would generate much needed money to help the word's poorest, says Philippe Jouste-Blazy, a former foreign minister of France. For instance he says tuberculosis killed nearly 1.8 million people in 2007, and caused the GNP of some countries to fall as much as 7 %. THis would bring serious gains to economic growth in the poorest countries. Look at the $1 to $5 tax imposed on airline tickets in France and 10 other countries since 2005.It has raised $700 million and financed three quarters of the AIDS treatment now being received by the world's HIV positive children. Unitaid, is an organization Blazy leads. It manages the money from the airline tax, and has negotiated 50 to 60% reductions in the price of pediatric anti-retroviral drugs in low income countries. The reason why the banking community should support this tax. One it is tiny, 0.005% on a foreign exchange transaction, and should not affect the flow of transactions. It is done automatically by computer systems. The currency trading system right now is untaxed. More importantly the bankers says Blazy have been benficiaries of taxpayer money. Isn't it time to give back to those worst affected by the global crisis the bankers helped create? Does'nt it create more credibility for the global financial, monetary and trading systems? He says the tax money could be managed by the Global FUnd to fight AIDs Tuberculosis and Malaria, with upholds programs in 100 countries to high performance standards....

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This report in WSJ shows what offices would look like in a coronavirus economic reopening. Till a vaccine is developed in about one year from now what will the gradual reopening look like?   It shows a cafeteria at a company in Seoul with plastic shields separating each person, the Amsterdam office concept of six foot distancing offices at Cushman & Wakefield. This real estate company manages 800 million square feet in China real estate. It has developed a 300 page manual on safely reopening offices with every detail possible. Toyota plants will run at slower speeds because of large drop in demand, with plants reconfigured to maintain social distancing. Many companies are doing this now when it is easier to do without people. Protocols such as onsite health screenings are being integrated. A Knotel app  will add features for office tenants that gives employers the option to track some employee movements and trace their contacts to prevent illness. For sports and event venues the challenge is sanitation and cleanliness. Adding janitorial cleaning shifts and making food grab and go, cashless transactions and protective shields. Schools and colleges face a challenge of how many students to let in, and how many to seat and how, dorms with one room one student, and so on. One college in Maine is planning for thinning the students on campus, rotating students with shorter term modules, more online instruction.  ...

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The EU moves to support Egypt's precarious economy with 7.4 billion in euros of aid and help for its economy. This comes at a crucial time for a country with 106 million people facing economic difficulties. 5 billion euros of concessional loans, 1.8 billion euros of investment, 600 million euros of grants including 200 million euros to manage migration. This is a positive proactive step taken by Leyen and EU. Leyen visited Cairo. Lessons have been learned. Joining Leyen in Cairo were leaders of Austria, Belgium, Greece and Italy in a new strategic partnership of European Union nations with Egypt. Pandemic and war in Ukraine affecting food supplies, higher energy costs, have hit Egypt hardest . No matter which government was running Egypt the problems simply were too big for a fragile economy in a difficult region. For the first time the EU has learned from the migration crisis and its own eurozone crisis, to work and cooperate with regions outside to ensure a better future for all. And not to be deflected with wars and other crises in making the right decisions ahead of time not reacting to crises but staying ahead of them. How many years have been lost- because the ideas for better lives of all was what president Kennedy's New Frontier was all about when he talked about it in the years 1956-1963. EU needs a new vision for Africa and Arab North Africa. ...

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It depends- only if you look at it in actual millions of people. In percent of people Voice of America and this WSJ report show that US obesity rate is much higher with 22 states above 35% and the rate overall at about 25%, compared to China's at about 14%. The fact that this was reported in this way is happening as this issue is taken far too casually in the US, when the quality of life is largely dependent on health. And such high levels of obesity in the US, catastrophic levels in some southern and midwestern states, means one is not doing things right and heading for a poorer quality of life. This report in the WSJ cites estimates of obesity in China of as high as 200 million and likely to grow by another 100 million by 2034, about 14% of the population being obese today and obesity increasing to about 20%. In China the demand for weight loss drugs is growing. The government has a program to reduce the intake of salt, sugar and oil and increase health foods in the diet. Meat in the diet has tripled and there is a need for more health conscious attitudes in China, even more so and urgently in the US. Both the US and China are too auto centric in their culture, particularly the US where public transportation has not been given high priority leading to a lack of enough exercise getting to work. ...

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This view from the Editorial Board comes as Republicans in Congress geared up for a legislative victory decided to ignore the expert opinion of the Joint Committee on Taxation and polls showing a majority of Americans disapprove of the tax law. It says a "corrosive partisanship" that is affecting the nation has led to this decision. Not an informed consensus necessary to make real and lasting changes to the tax laws that increase growth without disrupting hard won gains in social cohesion after World War II.  Republicans pushed through a trillion and half dollars in tax cuts in the law that reduces the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, and cut taxes in 2019 by 51 times ($51,400) for the top 1% of incomes compared to ($1000) for middle class families earning less than $100,000 (Tax Policy Center). The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates it will add $1 trillion to the U.S. deficit as only $500 billion is expected in increase in government revenues over a decade from additional economic growth. This is supported by evidence from countries such as Britain that implemented this type of corporate tax cut without generating much economic growth, says Greg Ip in the Wall Street Journal. The "victory" then comes at a high cost says the Washington Post- in years to come programs to help the growing lower middle class and working class will be subject to cuts and taxes will have to rise to balance budgets.   ...

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This report in the WSJ by Peterson and Hackman shows how the American Health Care Act proposed by Speaker Paul Ryan provides less financial support and allows premiums to go higher for seniors approaching retirement in the 50-64 year age group. Premiums are allowed to go up 5 times that of premiums of young people in the Ryan House  plan compared to 3 times in the Affordable Care Act. Subsidies in the form of tax incentives provide $2000 to younger people going up by age not income to $4000 in the Ryan House plan. By contrast someone 60 years old making $20,000 a year can get Affordable Care Act credit of $9874, and making $40,000 a credit of $6752, according to analysis by Kaiser Family Foundation. The Ryan plan makes health care costs lower for young people in an effort to bring more young people who use less services into the system to support its overall financial condition. Another feature of the Ryan Plan is that it allows only for CPI index +1% even if health care costs are rising faster. Deep cuts to Medicaid affect lower income seniors on Medicare. As a result the AARP organization representing seniors has come out in opposition to the Ryan bill. The GOP plan wants to reduce premium costs yet in the process it makes vulnerable seniors with lower incomes pay more, which is likely to hurt Republicans who won by winning a large part of the senior vote. ...

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Infratest Dimap polling institute is commissioned by DW.com to find out what Germans think of the refugee policy of chancellor Merkel one year later. In summer 2015 Merkel said on Aug 31, "We can do it." Costs related to the refugees are about $17 billion, do Germans think services are overstretched for education, healthcare housing and other services. On the other side German society is aging and for every 100 unemployed people there are 200 open positions for skilled personnel. But the refugees who are accepted do not have the skills required and have to acquire the skills or given training and education. On this issue DW.com asked the question whether it will strengthen the German economy. About 51% agree and 45% disagree on this question, and about the same number agree and disagree on the question that Germany will be overstretched providing the services for housing, education, healthcare and other services. The higher educated and young are more favorable to accepting refugees, with those over 50 and basic schooling unfavorable. On the AfD side most people are unfavorable, and in the Greens party most are favorable. On terrorist incidents probability, over 58% think this is more likely, 38% disagree. On the question of whether this will make Germany more diverse 56% agree, 40% disagree. Overall the situation appears to be balanced, with a range of views expressed, and the positive and negative sentiment "evenly balanced", says DW.com.  ...

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The FCAS project for next generation fighter jet and air defense system is intended to reduce dependence on US made F-35 jets at a cost of $100 billion euros. It will be built by Dassault and Airbus. Macron and Merz meet in Toulon, France for the project to move forward in August 2025.

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Wal-Mart and five other companies will invest $500 million in Chinese online retailer 360buy.com. Wal-Mart operates more than 200 stores in China. 360buy.com says it is growing fast, with sales in 2010 at $1.5 billon, up from $200 million in 2008. This coincides with rapid growth and the convenience of online retailing in China. Analysts says 360 buy manages its own goods and distribution, which are mostly consumer electronics. 360buy resembles Amazon in the US. i-Research, a firm in Shanghai, says online retail sales in China are taking off with sales growing from $8.5 billion in 2007, to $75 billion in 2010. Before 360buy the other major online retailer was Taobao.com, a subsidiary of Alibaba, which does not resemble Amazon or 360buy, as it is more of an online bazaar that maches buyers and sellers.

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This report in WSJ says China's government faces severely strained government finances. Local government entities sale of land financed 40% of local government revenues in China, and most of these have dried up with the very real loss of confidence in property sector. Government now faces $900 billion in shortfall in revenues says this report. There may be psychological hurdles in China's growth with the effects on mental health from lockdowns in major cities, the revolt in the property sector with home buyers losing confidence in developers, the loss of confidence of foreign investors from US and EU. The dependence on the property sector to carry so large a burden of growth for the last 2 decades in China may now look like an error. The dependence on foreign investment may also be an error as the loss of confidence could mean some withdrawal and a lack of sustained investment.  It could even be said that restraints on both sectors property and foreign investors could have created alternative paths to growth, and reduced the shift of factories from the US and Europe to China that have now caused trade friction and and a reverse shift of investment back to home countries of US and EU. Trade friction has it appears backfired in a way that extends to the overall relationship which could have been prevented by preventing the hyper growth that happened. Greg Ip of the WSJ has argued that compared to Japan's growth in the sixties and seventies from a country of 100 million the hyper growth for a country of 1 billion for 2 decades created a massive impact on communities in US and EU that were dependent on factories that were lost to China. This has alienated large sectors of the public in the US and EU which could have been prevented by restraints on hyper growth in China. Ip says the growth was too large and too fast for the US to cope. It may have permanently damaged the relations between the two countries showing that trade and globalization had unintended effects when left to business which has no comprehension of how the macro developments can affect the relations between the peoples if the other effects in the relationship such as community impacts are ignored which business says is not its role,  and governments staying away from keeping an eye on how it was happening and adjusting for ill effects with restraint and redirection of business policies. ...

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A 850 megawatt solar project, the largest in the US outside of Las Vegas runs into opposition from environmentalists concerned about the effect on views and on tortoises other endangered species. The planned project on top of Mormon Mesa would put over 1 million solar panels 10 to 20 feet tall in the Nevada desert. Across the US 800 utility scale solar projects are under contract for generation of 70,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for 11 million homes, for more than Texas. Over half of this solar capacity is going into the southwestern US, with its sunshine and open land. For the first time the ardent advocates of renewable energy such as the Sierra Club are now opposing such projects. Solar made up one tenth of one percent of US energy in 2010, in 2020 it made up 4.5%. It is growing very rapidly because costs are going way down. Even before government subsidies solar is now below the cost of natural gas. Projects near Martha's Vineyard on the Massachusetts coast took 12 years to get sate and federal approval for wind energy. These battles are similar to ones being fought in Europe. The US is better positioned for solar because of vast desert spaces in the American southwest. President Joe Biden plans to use this advantage of solar and wind to get to 100% renewable energy by 2035. ...

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This NYT editorial brings up the 14-19% tax proposed by U.S. president Obama for overseas profits of U.S. companies. The 5.25% tax in 2005 under the Bush administration for repatriation of about $300 billion did not result in a positive experience says NYT, as most of the money went into dividend payments, share buybacks, and severance for laid off employees. It led to a new surge in unrepatriated profits in the expectation of another tax holiday of this type. A Senate investigation in 2013 showed Apple has $100 billion in Ireland with no tax paid on much of this amount, as cited here. The NYT says Apple shows arrogance in thinking the EU Commission which has taken up cases on tax avoidance of Fiat, Starbucks, Amazon, BASF, would not look at Apple in Ireland. It calls tax deferral on overseas profits as the root of the problem, as it allowed companies initially to look at investment opportunities, but now simply to stash the money abroad till some better tax arrangement can be achieved with U.S. Treasury. The Obama administration proposal was to immediately tax existing profits at 14%, whether repatriated or not, and thereafter at 19% on profits moved offshore. The NYT is in favor of ending corporate tax deferral altogether, and applying taxes on profits in the same year they are made.  ...

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As part of sanctions on Russia the price of diesel will be capped at $100 by the US and the rest of the G-7 countries.

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As both Harris and Trump focus on increasing Border Security and fighting transnational gangs at the Border, Mexico's new president Claudia Sheinbaum has a strategy for the first 100 days to tackle the 10 cities with the highest homicide rates that include Acapulco, Guanajuato.

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Gig workers at LAX airport are typical of workers in general who work for Uber and Lyft. In comparison to the period before the pandemic these workers now barely make a living wage. $3000 a week has fallen to about  $1000 a week as many drivers compete for the same work, and as users cut costs and offer less for a ride. 

Uber says 43% of the cost of a ride goes for liability coverage. At LAX airport drivers are asked to go to a place 20 minutes from the airport, a shuttle carries passengers to that spot. This has reduced demand for Uber.

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Life in Quintero one of Chile's industrial zones only 100 miles from Santiago with thermal power plants, heavy industry and harmful contamination of air and water.

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G-7 leaders meeting in Italy agree on a $50 billion loan to Ukraine using interest on $300 billion of Russian assets that are frozen in the EU.

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On March 20, reports show that the testing facilities in states in the U.S. have had to set priorities on who gets tested first. High risk areas identified by authorites come first. For this reason Corlado health authorites moved a test centrer in Denver to Telluride a ski community that has been hard hit. In Minnesota health department commissioner identified priorities and limited testing to health care workers, inpatients at hospitals and people in group living facilities. A backlog means tests can take 5 days in Colorado, and Colorado has capacity for 250 tests a day (March 20). Testing was centred first by the U.S. government at the Centre for Disease Control. On reconsideration the state and local authorites, private companies, were allowed to conduct the tests, to speed things up. But local areas in many cases lack supplies or enough test kits and protective gear that is needed. This WSJ report says that the Trump administration is also shifting their strategy to social distancing to contain the outbreak. The federal government says it is aware of shortages in chemicals used in the tests. New York City officials say they have testing capacity for 5000 people per day, and New York State Governor Cuomo says the state can test 6000 people per day. (March 20). ...

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American trainers from Special Forces are training Taiwanese troops on the outlying islands including Kinmen 100 miles from Taiwan and just 3 miles from Xiamen on the Chinese coast.

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Salinas Pliego of TV Azteca and Banco Azteca says he opposes the $1 billion in back taxes in Mexico even after a $400 million concession by president Lopez Obrador.