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Argentina faces severe inflation of over 70%. The central bank raised its main interest rate to 75% to rein in inflation. In December 2022 the International Monetary Fund approved $6 billion, in a 30 month program that is expected to reach a total of $44 billion. The government of Pedro Sanchez has announced additional $10 billion in cost of living aid to take the total to $45 billion. It comes through reduced VAT and $200 one off payments to households making less than 27,000 euros a year.

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This WSJ Editorial Board view of the situation in eastern Ukraine in the Donbas region is that Russian forces aim to secure the whole southern region including port of Odessa and its link with global commerce. It says Russia seeks to also control Moldova, close to Romania, and would then be a threat to other NATO countries with significant Russian population. It calls for a vigorous program of military aid to Ukraine to prevent such a situation from happening before some sort of ceasefire takes place.

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Fumio Kishida leads the LDP party in Japan to an absolute majority in parliament in the recent election. The LDP with its partner Komeito won 293 seats in the 465 member parliament. He called for reducing inequality, following a similar effort by president Biden in the US. A supplement to the budget will provide aid to families with children and small businesses suffering from the effects of the pandemic. Kishida will double defense spending to 2% of GDP following tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. 

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The cooperation between France and Italy helped persuade Germany to move forward with massive aid to the EU countries during the pandemic. Scholz, the new SPD chancellor of Germany sees the European Union with more voices from southern Europe, from France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece as a good thing. Northern European countries are also moving in a different direction with Social Democrats governments elected in Denmark and Sweden, working on policies to reduce inequality, bring together different sections of society in a shared future, and the dignity of human beings.

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German chancellor Scholz announces $65 billion in aid to households to help meet the higher energy prices and higher price of food and groceries. About $1.5 billion will go to cheaper transport tickets such as the 9 euro monthly fare for use on rail all over Germany. Windfall taxes on energy companies to lower the price of gas, oil and coal for households. By contrast the Tory government in Britain has failed to come up with plans similar to that in France and Germany to shield households from sharp price increases.

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By letting Evergrande be dismantled without government aid, the Jinping government is signalling an end to construction anfd housing as the engine of the economy. The shift is to electric cars, renewable energy, and advanced technology industries to support growth after decades of construction based growth. This is good for climate change action and for UN sustainable development growth targets which include assistance to rural and other neglected regions. A similar process is taking place in the US as large economies realign their economies after the pandemic showed weaknesses in the frameworks.

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France and Germany are standing together on the European Union Recovery Fund with $500 billion in direct nonrepayable aid to needy countries hit by the pandemic. Netherlands is the lone holdout and it is coming under heavy criticism for being "misers", not showing any solidarity. Macron and Merkel walked out together at the end of a late night session. At one point Macron banged his hand on the table saying "sterile blockages" were being made by Netherlands. Italy accused Rutte of the Netherlands of blackmail.

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Individual tax collections in the US have reached $2.6 trillion or 10.6% of the economy, the highest in its 109 year history. The surge is particularly strong in taxes outside paycheck withholding, with higher capital gains and business income tax. Short term capital gains are taxed at 41% up from 24%. Yet the huge increase is still a mystery. Higher inflation, government aid in the economy, and bringing forward income because of expectation of higher tax rates later are other factors cited in this report.

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Lax supervision by Italy's central bank of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Italian regional bank based in Siena. Aid from the Italian government becomes an issue in Italy's 2013 elections. The Siena based bank took excessive risks before the financial crisis of 2008.

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This WSJ report looks at the staggering waste that come from expiration dates on food. A 2019 Harvard-Hopkins study shows over 80% of people occasionally throw out food with expired date and close to 40% do so usually. About 54% think it is unsafe if expired. Where do these dates come from? Contrary to first impressions it is not mandated and it does not mean unsafe if expired. It matters because it means waste, and also adds to climate change and disposal. Over 6 billion pounds are wasted each year from expiration and another 6 billion from leaving it out too long out of about 80 billion pounds wasted each year. Keep the refrigerator at 37  degrees and store food in the refrigerator, suggests WSJ.

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A conservative Catholic farmer becomes prime minister of New Zealand in 2016. Bill English grew up on his family's 125 year old farm, and says it was not about politics for politics sake in his family, but about education for their kids, farming and such things. He says it is very helpful for someone in public life to sit down and hear for an hour in mass about forgiveness, sinfulness, mercy, worship, and lives of people in a  thousand years, which are absent in daily discourse.

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The debt ceiling agreement between Biden and McCarthy has made it out of the committee stage and now heads to the House floor. Both Biden and McCarty are confident it will pass quickly before June 5. There are some surprises as the the impact of the debt ceiling agreement is better understood. 78,000 additional people will get food aid costing an additional $2 billion as a result of the tighter work requirements for the food aid program. The program will make it easier for veterans and homeless people to get benefits.  The cuts to the IRS funding by about $21 billion will be used by the Biden adminstration to reduce the effects of other cuts in programs that help people struggling with the cost of living.  On defense spending Biden says "obviously if there is an existential need for additional spending I have no doubt we will be able to get it." Both sides say this agreement is the best that could be done for either side. "With divided government they get to have an opinion, and we get to have an opinion, and all things equal, I think a compromise agreement is reasonable for both sides," says Shalanda Young, Mr. Biden's negotiator and Budget Office Director. Congressional Budget Office estimate is for $1.5 trillion in debt reduction over a decade.   ...

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German chancellor Merkel imposes a partial lockdown in Germany starting November 2. This is followed by an announcement of a lockdown across France by president Macron. On October 28 German daily cases went above 14,000. Only 25% of intensive care beds are now available, creating a very serious situation. Meetings in public will be restricted to just two households of up to 10 people total. No crowds at sports events. Restaurants and bars will close except for take away. Schools and kindergartens will remain open. Church services and protests will be allowed to continue. Shops will remain open with one customer for every 10 square meters or 108 square feet. Merkel called it a "very serious situation," and said "we must act now to avoid an acute national health emergency." She told Germans the number of people in intensive care units has doubled in last 10 days, and in many areas it was no longer possible to track and trace infection chains. In 75% of the cases the source of infection is unknown. People are encouraged to work from home and companies encouraged to make this happen. Companies with less than 50 employees and self-employed will get support from the government with  about 75%% of the income. Companies, institutions and clubs will also get federal aid. About $10 billion euros are set aside for this aid. ...

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The former interim Speaker Rep. Patrick McHenry, Republican North Carolina, tells a University of Chicago student audience that one can hold off a majority Congressmen only for so long, that there could be a two third majority in the House favoring the Ukraine aid. That bill for $61 billion in Ukraine aid passed the US Senate 70-30 with 22 Republican Senators supporting it but is blocked for 2 weeks by Speaker Mike Johnson for a House vote. Former Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin tell a Washington Post event that House Speaker Mike Johnson has to make up his mind to be decisive and take action that get things done. Ryan served as vice presidential nominee and became Speaker in October 2015 eight years before Mike Johnson in a similar situation where his job depended on different factions. Mike Johnson's view is that he wants to be seen as listening to all members to kind of decentralizing things. Yet as more experienced members of Congress say the only way to get things done is for the Speaker to take action on his own accord and let the situation rest there having done his best. This situation is happening today in the House as about half of all Congressmen in the House of Representatives have not served in Congress before January 2019, says The Washington Post. ...

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When Daniel Henninger of WSJ Editorial Board says in the adjoining article/video that to get anything done with something like the current split Congress a newly elected Republican president would have to operate by executive orders and could get little done, he is referring to the stalled Ukraine aid legislation in the US Congress after passage 70-20 by bipartisan vote in the US Senate. Legislation is stalled in the 2022 newly elected US House of Representatives with a group of Republican Congressmen called the Freedom Caucus seeking to block all legislation if it does not get its way. The now famous line "dead on arrival" line of Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana for legislation passed in the Senate for Ukraine aid. Pew Research looks at the change in the House and explains. It says about 49 members of Congress are part of or aligned to this group. About 71% or 35 of 49 members have less than six years of experience which includes 9 freshmen, compared to 58% or 100 of 173 Congressmen of all other Republican members of Congress. And two thirds of Freedom Caucus are from the South compared to 46% of all other Republicans in Congress. It is striking that only three are from states such as Wisconsin, Illinois and Pennsylvania or a mere 6% for Northeast and Midwest.  ...

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About 105,000 airings of ads on immigration making up 42% of all Republican ads in battleground states are on the Immigration issue since Harris became candidate July 22, according to WSJ analysis. WSJ polling shows 59% of respondents favored the bipartisan Senate deal negotiated by Republican Senator Lankford with Biden which Trump rejected in February. This deal would have effectively closed the Border, added Border Patrol resources, and would have passed says Lankford in NYT if it came only 3 months earlier in December 2024 before Mr. Trump won the primaries. Mr. Trump rejected the deal preferring to run on it, leading to action by Biden to do this with executive orders and cut illegal entry. This means less advertising for discussing the Economy and less for Inflation, which is the top issue says WSJ polling, immigration coming in second.   WSJ cites the Congressional Budget Office on the number of legal migration in the Biden term as 4.5 million, and illegal entry at 4.5 million. Instead the Trump-Vance Republican campaign is using the figure over 4 times that for illegal migration of 20 million without saying why and makes less distinction between legal and illegal entry, says WSJ. And makes statements that economists say is not the case that this will solve the housing supply and cost crisis, and other cost of living pressures. ...

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More answers on more questions by readers, this time from the Guardian.

How does Britain get out of this mess- finding a deal acceptable to all, the Tories right wing, Labour party, and the EU, which isn't likely any time soon. Extending Article 50 beyond March 29, only adds a few months.

Is the UK going insane asked one reader. The answer from the Guardian- yes.

 

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This DW.com report on General Cavoli and Headquarters of US Forces Europe, EUCOM command center near Stuttgart, shows how it is changing the war in Ukraine so that there is no more the kind of carpet bombing of Ukraine. That incessant bombing had caused a stream of millions of refugees of women and children across Ukraine and into Poland and Romania. The shelling of Ukraine is down in the east and the south by a factor of six in recent weeks say experts. This may be the biggest change from western aid to Ukraine at this time.

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A look back at the Merkel 16 years in Germany and the European Union, the compromises to keep the Social Democrats out and her party the CDU in power, the failures in preserving social mobility in German society, immigration that led to divisions in German society, and climate change where she took some faltering steps. Only in the end did Merkel put all her convictions behind Scholz and the effort to bring trillions of euros of aid to Germany and the European Union devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. This may be her singular achievement.

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The poor kid from Sao Jose Dos Campos 150 miles northeast of Sao Paulo makes it against all odds to play soccer in Sao Paulo. Steve Lowe of the Guardian does this wonderful interview for soccer fans with Casemiro the defensive midfielder for Real Madrid.  Casemiro is all humility, hard work down to the kind of details soccer coach Jurgen Klopp loves to pay attention to in practice, and never forgets the values his mom taught him about not being too loud. And to remember where he came from, to always look for ways to help other kids like him aspiring for a better life. Casemiro says he plays strong and even aggressive, but it is always about using your head in the game, the key was thinking ahead, being better positioned, seeing the move before it takes place. It cost 3 euros per week to practice at a club 6 mile walk away which he could not afford once he came to Sao Paulo. Mr. Moreira who ran the club paid for his boots, food and the fees. When he says he gives 200% Casemiro is speaking with authenticity because it was hard in Brazil for kids from poor families aspiring to make it in club football. He loves to learn, listens well, and he says he watches the errors, thinks like a coach, always trying to read the game, the other team's mind, their coach, what they were trying to get get done. He sees it as his work and does this in a disciplined manner. Casemiro may now be the top player in world soccer today as Real Madrid head to Manchester City under coach Zinedin Zidane. Zidane meant a lot to Casemiro as inspiration in the early days he played in Brazil.   ...

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Canadian steel and lumber industries get government aid, as talks to end US tariffs are halted over an ad on Reagan misrepresenting him on tariffs by Ontario state.  Canada's steel and lumber industries will get the aid in the form of railway costs cut in half with rail subsidies, and tariffs on US steel imports into Canada to reduce domestic steel costs for other industries. Stellantis shifts car production for a new Jeep from suburban Toronto to Illinois, GM cut a shift at a pickup plant and closed a electric van plant in Ontario. Not all imports to the US from Canada face tariffs. Other products enter the US from Canada under a free trade agreement USMCA that went into effect July 1 2020. Canada is also shifting policy under Carney's Liberals on climate change, as it seeks to reorient its economy to export oil to China and India- a new pipeline is now approved for oil and gas to be shipped across the country from Alberta. Since it's independence with Dominion status in 1867 Canada's economy has struggled with the idea of building a economy separate from the US so that trade between the northeastern Canada and Northeastern US which is next to each other is foregone for trade with distant provinces in the western states such as Alberta and British Columbia. In Brazil Lula's Worker's Party is also slowing efforts on climate change for the economy as it approves oil and gas projects in the Amazon, at the same time as it holds COP30 at Belem port in the Amazon. Even Biden had shown flexibility on the economy to support cost of living measures that are in conflict with climate change action. In DJT's second term climate change action has taken a back seat to cost of living concerns when a large majority of people are living paycheck to paycheck. ...

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The real reason for the high valuation of $41 billion for Sky Broadcasting by Comcast as it bids for Sky is the need to compete with Netflix, says this piece in the WSJ. Sky has 23 million customers and a strong position in the UK, making it attractive to Comcast. Yet it says this could be a problem for Disney or Comcast as Sky could end up being simply an incumbent TV provider and not the solution they need.