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Mr Mussa's forecast at the peterson Institute of Intenational Economics shows world economic growth moderating from 4.75% this year to 4.25% in 2008 and 5.25% in 2006 with continued global economic expansion. The IMF is expected to forecast USA economic growth slowing to 1.9% in 2008 from 2.8% in an earlier forecast. The IMF global forecast of 4.8% for 2008 is in line with Mr. Mussa's estimate. The IMF trimmed eurozone growth to 2.1% in 2008 from 2.5% . One reason given for the resilience in USA growth is the boost to US exports from the weakening dollar and the increase in worldwide demand, so by these estimates the housing crisis will be offset by general global economic growth and factors such as exports and its impact will be softened. Also eurozone growth will continue especially Germany, France and eastern europe whereas Britain and Spain may see some fallout from housing bubbles. Overall growth in India, China, Middle Eastern countries, and other parts of the world, including Germany, and export led growth in the USA will keep the global economy in decent shape. general increase in exports as world demand contimues to grow....

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The coronavirus pandemic and the disaster in nursing homes, the chaotic conditions in the first wave, the lack of staff and poor attention to residents during the pandemic, has exposed the major weakness of nursing home care in western countries. Much of this sector is in the hands of private operators seeking a profit.  The staff is paid low wages and lacks the experience and empathy needed for care of older people. During a virus all these factors turn deadly. With some staff sick the other staff is overburdened. If the sick turn up for work they are likely to risk the safety of other staff and the residents. With the incubation period lack of testing there is no way to know. When deaths occur and the nursing homes are sealed from the outside world the deaths happen with no goodbyes as happened in U.S., Britain and Sweden. This has exposed the scandalous and shocking way in which the elderly are treated in today's environment where ridiculous amounts of money are being spent on other things and the the most basic "one's parents" are neglected and allowed to die in horrific manner in a pandemic. The new trend for home care for the elderly is a welcome trend and long overdue as one of the worst aspects of the system in the west is the treatment of elderly parents in nursing homes run for profit. The new technology tools available for monitoring a elderly person at home, and the help of stores such as Best Buy which are serving elderly at home, is making this more and more a choice for the elderly. Even older patients and ones needing significant care can recover and spend time at home in a better environment, a less costly one, as hospital managers and families have learned in 2020. Some hospitals in the U.S. say they never want to go back. That the drive to get every patient home who can be home is the right one for patients and families and for the government paying for the care so that dollars are well spent in quality of care. Home health care companies are working on providing new services for sicker patients recovering at home. Technology helps do better monitoring. Medicare now pays for digital doctor visits and intense hospital type care at home after coronavirus showed this as vitally needed.  Both the Biden and Trump administrations are firmly focused on this issue. Seema Verma as head of Medicare is clear about the need for a national conversation on how we take care of the elderly, of our parents. And Mr. Biden wants to spend $450 billon to make certain that people who need long term care can get the support they need in the home and the community. This report looks at the home health care companies and how they are improving their services. This and telemedicine are two of the major constructive changes coming out of the pandemic, clearing out some of the worst aspects of the old system of living the older years in the western world.  Nothing speaks more about humanity and a human world than the story here of Savanna Hollar, 90 years old and almost blind. She broke her shoulder in August, Her sons decided not to send her to a the rehab facility she went to after a broken hip 3 years earlier. The sons brought her home to recover in the farmhouse near Yadkinville, N.C., where she has lived since 1951. One of her sons himself 63 years says that at a nursing home she would be lonely, scared and afraid to move. The sons hired two people to help her during the day and a rotating system was used for having people help her. At home Mrs. Hollar could enjoy her gray cat, Buddy, her favorite recliner and tomato sandwiches made with produce from her garden. Really, if we can't do this much what good is the U.S.A.? or Britain? or Sweden? or India? ...

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The recent appointment of fast food executive Andrew Puzder as Labor Secretary has caused great concern among union leaders. Puzder supports a $9 minimum wage compared to $15 supported by Democrats. Unions now represent 7% of the labor force, down from a high of 20% during Reagan's time when Reagan appointed a construction company executive as Labor Secretary and cut regulations.  Globalization has thinned the ranks of workers in unions. And the failure of Democratic administrations to stem the shift of factories overseas to China, Mexico and other places, as part of global supply chains focussed on cost, has weakened Democratic support among workers since the period of Bill Clinton. It eroded to the point where Obama won 65% of support among unions and Hillary Clinton won 56% in 2016. Interestingly the Republican Romney gained 33% versus 37% for Trump, showing voters were more inclined to move away from Democrats and only a smaller number willing to support Republicans, but the shift enough to give Republicans a win in 2016 for the presidency. The figures are from a Election Day survey of trade union AFL-CIO, and a larger proportion in midwestern states showed disaffection with policies from Clinton to Obama. In fact Obama spent years promoting another free trade agreement TPP that favored tech more than auto and older industries, just as Bill Clinton had promoted NAFTA, without giving thought to what this was doing to its worker base of support. A similar situation happened with Social Democrats in Germany as a SPD administration moved to the centre and handed Christian Democrats led by Merkel a win in parliamentary elections. As Democrats such as former Labor Secretary Reich, a professor at UC Berkeley who served under Bill Clinton, describe the problems of working class people their is less reflection on the impact of the changes from globalization and how Democrats handled or mishandled it, and more on the politics between the two parties.   ...

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The Treasury and Fed's handling of the financial markets crisis on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as it unfolded Sept 17, 18, 19 and 20, the worst since the 1930's. With the credit markets battered, the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank and the rescue of AIG right on the heels of the rescue of Fannie and Freddie the previous week, and all these moves barely improving the general loss of confidence and increasing fragility of the financial markets worldwide. Steps like the ban on short selling by the SEC to stem two 400 point declines in the last few days, and the Fed setting aside $50 billion to shore up money market funds by making them whole where needed, and providing about $200 billion through the European Central Bank and the central banks of Japan, Britain, Canada and Switzerland, were tactical moves so Paulson and Bernanke had to address the real problem of removing the highly illiquid assets of risky mortgages from the financial markets. This would require working with Congress to put together the necessary legislation which is what Congress, Treasury, the Fed, and others will work on this weekend of September 21, 22, so that the legislation could be drawn up the following week and passes into law creaing some Federal agency that will buy up the illliquid mortgage assets owned by banks, investment banks, and other financial institutions before there is another series of collapses in the financial markets necessitating rescues by the Fed. Meantime Treasury has raised another $200 billion last week through sale of Treasurys and provided this money to the Fed to use as needed. The result of the most recent chaos in the financial markets has resulted finally in agreement among all parties about the need for committing taxpayer money in hundreds of billions of dollars to be used to buy up the risky illiquid mortgage assets at steep discounts to be resold later to bargain seeking companies so that the banking sector can repair their balance sheets and recover, as being much safer and less costly route than the cost of rescuing financial firms with systemic risk on an individual basis after a run on these firms or their imminent collapse. Which is why people like Laurence Meyer of Macroeconomic Advisors himself a former senior Fed official believe that this is the first serious effort to tackle the crisis by getting to the root cause of the problem and removing the illiquid mortgage assets and the Government an taxpayers spending the hundreds of billions of dollars but at the same time finally seriously tackling the crisis in a manner that will restore confidence to the markets and to the industrial economy of the USA. His comment, "the markets voted and they liked the proposal", as the Dow Jones went up 610 points at one point and ended up the day Thursday September 19 at 410 points gain for the day....

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In a closely watched election Mr. Wilders of the far Right in Netherlands gains 20 seats, far behind centre right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy of prime minister Rutte who won 33 seats. The Dutch Green party which is strongly pro- Europe went from 4 seats to 14 seats, the Christian Democratic Appeal party gained 19 seats and the pro-European Democrats 66 party also gained 19 seats. In the 150 member parliament Rutte needs 76 seats to form a new coalition government, and he is likely to ally with these other parties to form a new government that supports strongly the European Union. This editorial in the NYT says the people of the Netherlands turned out in large numbers to support pro-European Union parties. Next the focus is on France and Marie Le Pen's challenge from the far Right. Cyber threats from Russia are seen as a way to discredit otherwise strong candidates, and the French government is taking this seriously. Chancellor Merkel said she "was very happy that a high turnout led to a very pro-European result," and president Hollande said this was "a clear victory against extremism."  ...

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This Buttonwood column in the Economist after the British 2015 general election says the election results show serious dissatisfaction with the political class. Labor was never forgiven for the 2007-2009 financial and economic crisis, and the "lost decade" in terms of decline in real wages and no improvements in the standard of living since then. The SNP because it is not tainted by these actions did better as a fresh face and authentic voice in Scotland. The Liberal Democrats suffered from their participation in the coalition government and the austerity years. The Conservatives benefitted from the problems and the crisis of confidence faced by the other major parties. The column asks the question about whether austerity can ever be a vote winning strategy. And it points out that the Conservative party won 37% of the vote compared to 36% in 2010. Labor went from 29% in one of the worst results ever in 2010 to 31%. UK Independence Party gained 13% vote share with increase in English nationalism. Behind all this it says is the general disillusion with the political class in Europe. And the Conservatives should take care lest the dissensions in the party with the EU referendum lead to a divided party. ...

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As the popularity of left party Podemos increases before the upcoming elections in Spain, it comes under increasing attack from the governing party and the Ciudadanos party for advisors from Podemos giving economic advice to the failing Maduro government. Venezuela's economy is in dire straits with high inflation and shortages. Podemos appears to have overtaken the Socialist party in Spain to become the second largest political party. The leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, and other Podemos leaders are cited as having done advisory work for the government in Venezuela.

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The British government's sale of 7.5% of the shares in Lloyd's Bank to institutional investors in March 2014 for $7 billion. This reduces its stake in Lloyds bank to 25%.

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A look at the Basel rules and adequate capital reserves for banks in a crisis.

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Economists are calling this a "wage-less" recovery in the U.S. With unemployment at 8.8%, wage pressures are weak. Average hourly earnings were flat in March 2011. The annualized growth of average hourly earnings for the last 5 months is 1%, according to Gluskin Sheff chief economist Rosenberg. After accounting for higher inflation, real wages are actually falling.

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Pakistan prime minister Nawas Sharif's friendly overtures to India. The need for improved trade and economic relations with India to improve Pakistan's economy and fears that the military and intelligence services or extremist groups could torpedo these efforts.