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Extreme mismanagement of the economy led to the situation of currency notes of 100 trillion in Zimbabwe being issued by the central bank of this African country, unbelievable as it may sound. The situation has deteriorated over two decades. Before independence this country was called Southern Rhodesia run by a small community of white British settlers from the nineteenth century. After a independence war by a liberation front organization this country entered a new phase in which the mismanagement of the country's economy became a serious problem for all communities, in a nation of 15 million people which could attract tourists with diverse African habitats and Victoria Falls. It is an example of how the hopes of a generation  that experienced independence in 1980 in these parts of British East Africa have been waylaid by autocratic leaders and mismanagement. This region includes Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Kenya. 

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One more instance of capital misallocation as $75 billion is diverted by Microsoft into gaming with violent videogames taking priority over investments in education and healthcare. Advances in education have been neglected by all the so-called technology companies at a time when online education can use a boost as students are in the third academic year when school attendance is disrupted. Instead taking gaming to the cloud is seen as the next frontier by companies from Sony and Tencent to Microsoft. Microsoft sees this as a consumer facing business when it is mostly in enterprise software, yet education and related lifestyle branches in music, sports, and others are by far the largest businesses directly interacting with users. Apple has done this with music, Disney with sports through ESPN, and education advances at a time of growing demand and use in the pandemic have not been answered.

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Russian seaborne crude shipments are up 18% as of June 11 over the prior year, Iran's shipments up even more by 45%. The result is increased supplies even though the Saudis tried to increase oil prices by limiting production. China's economy is slowing and faces headwinds that will not go away anytime soon of debt close to 290% of GDP higher than US or Europe. And lower imports by the US and EU as they correct the mistakes of overconcentration in China. The European Union faces high inflation and a mild recession. This is cutting demand as supplies increase. It will help the Biden administration as it seeks to give all Americans a fair chance to improve their standard of living, by reducing the cost of living and investing in the economic potential of the country in a way no other adminstration has done in the last 40 years.

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This article is from The Guardian, September 6, 2019. Kevin Rudd, former Australian Prime minister on Murdoch's News Corp. and antagonism towards Australia's Labour party and towards climate change action, and to Australian broadband speed. Some creators of content are also unwittingly adopting strategies that pose other dangers to society, to competition, to an educated public, including News Corp. News Corp. (owner Fox News) strategy is to create affinity, to create communities for content. When actively done and pursued in excess by powerful creators of content such as News Corp. this leads to the fragmentation of civic society into groups not generated by honest discussion among civic minded people, but by revenue generating artificially created groups where the affinity is exploited by the creator of content as an outsider. This is inimical to society, education, honest discussion of civic minded people, and of democracy itself. ...

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DW.com sees the choice of Timothy Kaine for Democratic vice presidential nominee as a safe choice, with no effort to mobilize the base activated by Bernie Sanders using a choice from that segment of the party. Both Hillary Clinton and Timothy Kaine come from the moderate wing of the party. This is likely to help Hillary Clinton in the swing state of Virginia. Kaine's choice may also be a way to balance the more serious Clinton with the sunnier disposition and campaigning energy of Kaine. To bring a different set of campaigning skills from Kaine- conveying a positive message for Democrats on how they could help the middle and working class, and appeal to independent undecided voters.

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The S&P 500 has changed since 1998 for top 10 companies. Phillip Morris and Coca Cola are gone from the top 10. Apple at 256th is now the biggest by far exceeding Exxon by $200 billion in market value. J&J, Chevron are in, General Electric and Microsoft stay in. Added are Google and Wal-Mart in the top 10. Better management and vision played a role.

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Joe Nocera compares the German insistence for tough austerity measures in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, to the insistence ofthe Allies for large reparations from Germany after the First World War, which Germany was not able to pay and left it bankrupt by the late 1920's. He cites the failure of orthodox positions on financial and monetary policy to tackle complex issues such as the overvalued currencies of southern Europe, as productivity moved in opposite directions between Southern Europe and Germany. Austin Goolsbee, a former chairman of Council of Economic Advisors, makes the same point in an op-ed piece in the Journal, 11/29/2011. Nocera says this position is simiiar to the position on debt reduction for homeowners facing U.S. foreclosures with government intervention, where little action has been taken worsening the housing crisis and derailing the U.S. economy.

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Krugman makes these comments after a visit to Athens, Greece, in 2015. He sees discouragement in Greece with the negotiations between the Syriza government in Greece and the EU. Years of austerity and high unemployment are leading to fraying tempers in Greece, and impatience from Germany and the EU. Krugman says the irony is that the Syriza government was elected at a time when a settlement is possible. Greece has a small budget surplus and this should make it possible for a settlement to be reached, without a bad outcome for Greece and the EU of Greece's exit from the eurozone. The lack of experience of the new government leaders makes the situation more difficult, but Krugman says patience is needed on all sides because there is hope in the midst of pessimism for a way out of the crisis.

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Proposals by economists Rajan, Stein and Kashyap on financial catastrophe insurance, and bonuses held in escrow, as corrective measures after learning from the 2008 global financial crisis.

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Toutiao and the growing mobile segment for news aggregated from thousands of sources for tech, politics, and other local news. Toutiao and Tencent QQ are taking advantage of the growing need for news in China. Toutiao's algorithm targets new internet users in rural areas and small towns who are looking for news and do not need the use of global news sites as is done by Google and Apple. The deep learning of computers is used to study user habits such as learning about the main soccer teams, watching funny videos,as habits of users. Beijing Bytedance Technology has come up with the new site. The highest growth rate is now for news on mobile, growth is 73% year over year far surpassing travel and mobile video, according to QuestMobile.

China restricts use of Google and Facebook News and other sites and favors local content and news sites to give international news, and news about China.

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PC shipments worldwide declined by 14% in the first quarter of 2013, compared to the prior year quarter, according to IDC. Gartner Research's estimate for the first quarter PC shipments shows a decline of 11.2%. IDC analysts say the introduction of Windows 8 with touch screen capabilities has not reversed this trend. It may have exacerbated the trend because Windows 8 made changes that reduced the PC experience to bring in touch screen and other features available on tablets, and made the product more confusing to use. This view of IDC is confirmed by some companies which say the incremental value of Windows 8 is not worth the cost of training employees to use the new PC's with Windows 8.

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Manufacturing in the US is adding jobs for the first time since 1997, according to government data. Job growth in 2010 was 1.2%, or 136,000 jobs. IHS Global Insight expects total manufacturing jobs in the US to increase in 2011 to 12 million. Manufacturing will be a modest contributor to job growth according to economists. Economists projections show a gain of 2.5% or 330,000 manufacturing jobs in 2011. Moody's Analytics estimates job growth of 2% a year through 2015. Government incentives, need to replace aging equipment and rehiring in the automobile industry will help manufacturing. At the same time manufacturers are cautious about hiring and increases in automation reduce the need for workers compared to earlier periods. Overall the loss of about 6 million manufacturing jobs since 1997 will not be made up. Yet the improvement is a positive sign as the US faces high unemployment and companies make investment in new factories overseas to meet growth in emerging markets.

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Derivatives were touted as ways to manage risk and to help grow amodern economy. But compensation of 370 derivative traders who are the few who know what they put into these complex contracts, so they are the ones who know how t best unwind them, raises anumber of questions. Are derivatives pushed because its highly lucrative for the few traders who write them? Haven't derivatives proved that they can be highly dangerous instruments on the downside, with unlimited risks that are ultimately borne by the taxpayers? Consider that the $165 million is only part of the $450 million in bonuses to 370 employees in the FInancial Products unit at AIG. Of this $55million has already been paid out. And there is an additional $230 million still to be paid out. One of the things that stands out most is how everyone involved with these financial innovations for a modern economy, and the pushing of different financial products, makes a lot of money with risks that are passed on down the line and end up in the taxpayers lap. It has proven that transparency, prudence and safety are tests for financial innovation just as they are for financial markets in general, and that excessive compensation leads to distorted self-interested presentation of the facts of the matter, and ultimately perversion of stable processes in the financial system....

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Romney picks seven term Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate for the 2012 U.S. presidential election. It is a daring pick because Ryan has clear ideas about reducing the U.S. deficit which are in sharp contrast to the approach taken by Obama and Biden, offering American voters a clear choice. This is similiar to the contrasting choices between Reagan-Bush and Carter-Mondale during a period of high unemployment and inflation in the 1980 presidential election. The contrast was also made clear by the release of the Shultz memo to President Reagan and the comparisons with the Reagan election by Romney economic advisor Glenn Hubbard, both recently published in WSJ.

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New figures on campaign financing show the that from Oct 15 onwards the Obama campaign spent $161.5 million, the McCain campaign spent $75 million. Obama outspending McCain 2 to 1. By the end of the campaign Obama had raised $750 million. To get a sense of these numbers. This was three times what President Bush had raised, the previous record. Obama would have received $84 million in public financing after the Democratic party's national convention, and had to stop raising money at that point. This is what McCain did. Starting in September Obama spent $380 million and McCain $195 million. By mid October 2008, the Obama campaign raised $300 million in contributions of $200 or less -at which point donor identity's need not be revealed- from 4 million donors, according to Campaign Finance Institute. It also raised $300 million in contributions of $1000 or more for the period before mid-October. What this means is the figures have far outstripped what was set aside by campaign finance laws and the party with the bigger fundraising machine has little incentive to work for updating the laws. It also means good candidates who do not want to do this much fund raising or who are not good fund raisers will not participate in elections that determint the direction of the country, depriving the country of such service. It also means government policy is likely to be distorted sometimes with serious consequences by donors, bundlers and lobbyists. ...

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Unstable politics and government in Japan as three prime ministers from the DPJ party are followed by Shinzo Abe of the LDP party.

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About half of Conservative voters voted for Reform UK in 2024 election says this Ipsos report in 2024 showing how Britain voted by ethnic, gender and education. This brought Reform UK to 17-19% of voters over the age of 45. More recently reports show three in ten voters saying there are too many asylum seekers in their neighborhood and this makes up 70% of Reform UK supporters as reported by Ipsos. This has brought the UK Reform vote from about 17-19% to double to 34% in 2025 polls. Labour is only at 25% and Liberals at 11% and Conservatives doing poorly.

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The vehicle scrapping policy gets more financing in the 2023 Indian budget. This will have the effect of increasing car sales and jobs as newer cars, buses and other vehicles are put on the road. By increasing electric vehicles it is a fight for climate change prevention. The simple act of removing fossil fuel guzzling older vehicles with newer fuel efficient vehicles cuts oil use and cuts oil import costs. Doing this on scale is what will help in the fight for climate change. In just one move India will remove about 1 million buses, trucks and transport vehicles used by federal and state governments by April 1, 2023.

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French plans to cut energy use by 10% from 2019 levels in 2 year are announced by prime minister Elisabeth Borne. The target is 40% reduction in energy use by 2050. The key is to make energy use more efficient says president Macron. The efforts include turning down thermostats in buildings to 66 degrees Fahrenheit. Households are asked to start heating 2 weeks later than usual and end heating 2 weeks earlier than usual this winter. Civil servants will get about 3 euros a day for working from home. Remote work for some days a week is encouraged and carpooling is expected.

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The US Justice Department imposes a $225 million fine on Teva Pharmaceutical and requires it to sell its Pravastatin drug line as part of a deferred prosecution settlement on price fixing charges. The  public was overcharged by $350 million according to a 2020 indictment. Collective fines on price fixing charges in the generic rugs industry amount to $680 million reports WSJ. Teva will also have to donate $50 million to needy patients. This is another way the Biden Justice Department is bringing down the cost of living by keeping a close eye on drug costs pushed up by illegal price fixing. 

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This  article by the WSJ Editorial Board says Mr. Trump acted in a way that was reckless and arrogant in responding to the subpoena by the government. It calls it narcissism and poor judgement not to cooperate in a matter related to documents of national security implications. It says the manner of treatment of these highly sensitive documents showed complete disregard of expected behaviour in such situations. It calls "owning the libs" discourse pursued by some in the Republican party, of waging culture wars, a dead end that serves no purpose and does little to build a better stronger America.

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The dollar remains the dominant force in capital markets. It is strengthening after US central bank raised interest rates 8 times in 2021-2022 to about 5.25%. China is cutting interest rates as its economy with debt at about 290% of GDP is slowing, the EU increasing rates as it faces inflation fueled by price increases and some price gouging. In the US inflation is cut in half by Fed policy to 4% in May 2023, Biden's policies to help with the cost of living and restrain price gouging, and by supply chains working better than in 2021. The US looks the strongest of the lot.

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A year after taking office Argentine president Milei cuts spending by 30% bringing inflation down from 25% to 2.4% in November 2024. All sorts of programs are cut that had proliferated over the years. The resut is that the economy shrinks by 3.5% in 2024, only to grow rapidly by 5% in 2025 restoring a more stable pattern of growth and moderate inflation. Throughout it's history Argentina has faced high inflation and economic crises.A similar pattern in Brazil was broken in 1998 after two decades of inflation. It reached 56% in January 1990 dropping to about 2% in 1998.

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Chrysler's plans to quickly build a presence in the Chinese market. It will have 116 Chrysler-jeep dealerships by yaearend from the current 81, and have 81 Dodge dealerships compared to zero today.