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Viktor Orban's defeat in the Hungarian election in April 2026 comes after decades of his blocking policies that emerged from the European Union in Brussels and is a relief for the European Union and Germany as it takes on the responsibility of leading continental Europe in its stance of opposition to Russia in the war in Ukraine with help of France and Britain. Peter Magyar who is staunchly pro European Union wins Hungary's 2026 election in a landslide with 137 seats to 57 with 77% of electorate voting as Viktor Orban concedes. Magyar's Tisza party gets 57% of the votes to 40% for Orban. Peter Magyar 45 years was part of the Orban Fidesz party before he formed his own party with dissatisfaction about the extent of corruption under Fidesz. Orban as head of the Fidesz was prime minister 1998-2002 then again in 2010 to 2026 for a period of 20 years spanning the first quarter of the 21st century. Magyar is not a progressive or so called liberal and shares many of the same views on social issues of Orban but he is pro-European Union and reflects the views of the Hungarian nation as independent in Eastern Europe and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in an uprising against Soviet rule. In the period before the two world wars from 1600 Hungary was the place where in addition to Austria and Vienna, the Hapsburgs and other European armies pushed back the Ottoman Empire's expansion into Europe. Hungary was a key part of the Hapsburg Empire which ruled from Vienna, Austria, over most of Eastern Europe for 1600-1918. The Hapsburg Empire collapsed in World War I on the side of the Germans and a new nation Hungary emerged by 1921 but was much smaller than Hungary of the Hapsburg era. Today Hungary is a nation of 10 million with its capital on the Budapest on the Danube river in the heart of Central Europe. ...

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Arne Duncan describes the improvements in K-12 education in two regions of the U.S.- the District of Columbia and Tennessee between 2011 and 2013, shown by the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The hard work of educators, parents and school officials is paying off and offers examples for other parts of the country, says Duncan. Lessons include facing the facts, not dumbing down by setting low standards. With higher standards Tennessee students were only 34% proficient in math and 45% in reading compared to the 91-92% with lower standards. Republicans followed up on the work of Democrats in the state. Soliciting feedback from critics and experts- the feedback was used to improve systems and learning to help teachers and students. Schools chancellor Kaya Henderson says improving teacher quality was critical, and so was academic rigor. Still Duncan says more needs to be done, this only shows the right direction for states lagging behind, and one should not get complacent. The other areas college enrollment and dropout rates need to be followed carefully. International PISA results still show the U.S. at 27th in math and 14th in reading of 65 countries- making this only the beginning in setting the future course for U.S. educational improvements....

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Israel remains a laboratory for the rest of the world in tackling coronavirus. During the beginning of 2021 Israel was the first country to push ahead with Pfizer vaccines for the over 18 population in a country of 10 million people. As winter approaches Israel has given a third booster shot to 50% of the population and is able to conduct normal life with a green pass system and the use of masks indoors. Each time a major surge has been prevented. The green pass in Israel is now for people who have had a third shot or booster shot. By thinking one step ahead, making decisions rapidly, and coordinating action early between the government and other organizations to vaccinate everyone, Israel provides lessons for the rest of the world. Not that there are no unvaccinated -about 700,000 people do not believe in vaccination and are unvaccinated. They are a vocal group but only about 8% of the population, and the vast majority of Israelis are in favor of vaccination and the green pass system. ...

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Over 50% of respondents in the 2012 Gallup poll view Japan as the U.S.'s most important partner in Asia, compared to 39% for China. The shift in how Americans view China is pronounced in the last 3 years. In 2010 the two countries were tied 44%-44%. In 2011 China was 39% to Japan's 31%. In 2011 India, S. Korea and Australia were added to the poll as partners. Among "opinion leaders" such as business executives, government officials, academics and journalists, China gets 54% to Japan's 40%. The poll is conducted by Gallup for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan since the 1960's. The analysis shows that respondents picked China for economic reasons not for political reasons. A survey of the general population shows 84% view Japan as a dependable ally, up 2% froom 2011, with similiar trend for opinion leaders.

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JP Morgan agrees to a legal settlement of $4.5 billion for losses to investors from toxic mortgage securities sold by Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns. JP Morgan acquired the two financial institutions following the 2008 financial crisis. The investor group includes Black Rock Inc, Allianz's PIMCO, MetLife, and Goldman Sachs. The same group of institutional investors settled with Bank of America for $8.5 billion. JP Morgan has set aside $23 billion at the end of the third quarter for legal losses. The settlements now are at about $20 billion. A private suit by Deutsche Bank National Trust Company representing 100 trusts for poorly perfoming bonds sold by Washington Mutual, and seeking $10 billion is still pending. The FDIC is arguing that JP Morgan is liable because it inherited the liabilities when it acquired Washington Mutual. JP Morgan says the acquisition was made as part of a government arranged acquisition at the height of the 2008 financial crisis. It says the FDIC receivership that took Washington Mutual's assets when it failed in September 2008 should pay for any claims related to misrepresentation and false promises for the bonds. ...

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Global smartphone shipment sales are dropping with sticker shock over new smartphone prices, dropping 7% worldwide, and 15% in China in third quarter 2018, according to Canalys. Apple sales have stagnated in China at 8% market share, and shipments volumes have declined by 11% in 2018. Apple gets 20% of its sales revenue from China. Apple is now in fifth place behind Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi in China. Each of the Chinese brands gained from 2 to 5% increase in market share while Apple with its high pricing has stagnated. Apple had high hopes for the Apple XR priced at $945 and ordered large volume of the phone for sale in China. It now has excess unsold inventory of that phone as Chinese competitors with prices at little over half the Apple price the Huawei Mate 20 are proving to be strong competitors. The fact that the Chinese market has declined by 15% in smartphone shipments hurts Apple, even though trade tensions have not created anti-Apple sentiment.   ...

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Le Monde reports from Havana Cuba in 2026- 2 million people have left since 2021, the situation is looking increasingly hopeless. There is the 800,000 called the "walking generation" that walked to th southern border of the US during the Biden administration 2020-2024, How did this happen the country of Cuba losing so many people, a third of its population? In 1960 it was 7.1 million. Taking Mexico as an example Mexico's population was 37 million in 1960, it is now 133 million up threefold. At the same rate Cuba's today would be about 20 million in 2026, today it is about 10 million. Instead of 20 million it is half that. About 3 million left the country and population growth simply stopped as the country went from crisis to crisis. Was the revolution worth it, were people in Europe, the US and Latin America who looked to Cuba as a model completely mistaken and was the story oversold to the point where someone like Chavez would try to bring that revolution to a developed economy such as Venezuela as late as 1998, when Cuba was already without US cooperation a state that had fallen behind, by 2026 it was like going back in time 50 years. Could the US offer something better to these countries in the western hemisphere. Did Kennedy JFK promise so much in 1960 and did later US administrations leave Cuba  in a state where it would not get foreign investment and be sanctioned and blocked from access to new technology in so many ways. There is much to reflect on the failure of Cuba, the story of glorious narrative that was told that overlooks the poor condition of the country and benefitted the people the least.  ...

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How GE stock is picking up in spite of the sub prime losses because of growth in its infrastructure, health care and aviation businesses. Also if the company cannot find good investments it will return it to shareholders with a share buyback of $27 billion estimated by end 2008. What will it do to GE's stock price?

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Chinese inflation up to about 8.7% in Feb 2008, food prices much higher after storms and global food price increases and also a factor is the large increase in money in circulation with increased money supply as the government continues to buy up dollars from the country's trade surplus and investment inflows.

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The vast Permian Shale Basin is becoming more of a factory with disciplined large producers in 2024. More than one third of the production is from three producers Diamondback Energy, Exxon Mobil and Occidental compared to 30 mostly wildcatter companies in 2014. These companies are not likely to increase production in the way smaller companies did over the last decade when they increased production by over 10%. 

Over the period from now 2024 to 2030 production increases will be limited by geologic limits, older shale fields. Most onshore basins outside of Permian in the US are actually declining in production and production there is at about 4 million barrels a day.

Total production is about 13 million barrels of oil a day under president Biden and will only reach 13.5 million barrels a day by 2030. Employment 200,000 at the peak in 2014 is now a little over 100,000.

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U.S. president Trump's executive order reversing parts of the Clean Power Plan of president Obama may extend the life of older coal powered plants, but overall it is unlikely to change the shift away from coal for the U.S. utility industry. It will do little to reverse the market forces that are leading to a shift to natural gas for the utility industry with the increasing availability of natural gas. In this WSJ report Cassandra Sweet cites Duke Energy Corp. CEO Lynn Good, who says natural gas for Duke will be the leading fuel followed by coal by 2026, and natural gas now makes up 28% of its mix with coal at 34%. He says a $11 billion ten year investment in natural gas and renewable energy will go through regardless of what the Trump administration does because of the economics- the declining price of renewables, the competitive price of natural gas. Companies are loath to base their long term plans on changes in administration as they see the economics dictated by advances in technology, and the general sense that cleaner energy is here to stay for the long run. Already in the U.S. 34% of total power supplies are from natural gas and 30% from coal for 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Department. This may change slightly as coal is used where it is economical and makes sense without the carbon rules, yet the long term trend is clearly towards natural gas. ...

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The Labour Party faces a dilemma over the date of a general election because Boris Johnson could change the date later from October 14 to October 31 so that during a campaign period Britain would simply fall out of the European Union. The problem is that Labour MP's do not trust Boris Johnson. So that instead of Labour MP's providing the two thirds majority to call a general election ahead of 5 years under current law, snap elections have to happen some other way. Including through a no confidence motion and Labour trying to form a new government under Corbyn and failing to do so.

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The speed with which GST revenues grow in India will determine the pace of industrial development, infrastructure building, and exports growth in India. It is the main source of government revenues and plays a role similar to what land sales played in China's rapid development over two decades.  States that generate the maximum GST reflect the industrial and commercial activity of the state in the overall context of India's growth. This is why Maharashtra with the commercial capital Mumbai plays an important role with Gujarat and its commercial capital Ahmedabad. Both states formed the industrial core of the country under the British Empire as one state called Bombay state. Maharashtra today makes up 15% of the country's GST revenue with Gujarat coming in close to Karnataka at third. Maharashtra at 2.7 lakh crores for 2022-2023, Gujarat at 1.1 lakh crores and Karnataka at 1.2 lakh crores. Karnataka has the IT capital of India in Bangalore now called Bengaluru. The compound annual growth rate of Maharashtra is 12.3% for the five years to 2022-2023 and for Gujarat 11.8%, Karnataka 11.7%. During the last year Maharashtra GST grew at 24%. National compound annual growth rate for GST tax collections is 11.3%. These states all have state and federal governments aligned for maximum effort in infrastructure and logistics development through allocation of capital, land, human resources, and other inputs. Tamilnadu comes next with 11% growth with the state capital of Madras or Chennai. These were the main commercial centres under the British. Bangalore emerged after independence in 1947 as the center for IT industries. To repeat the kind of development acceleration seen one after another in Japan, South Korea and China, and learning from their experience particularly the climate change and pollution negative aspects of the Chinese experience, India needs the accelerated growth at these rates for GST to finance growth in investments. It also needs to increase the quality of these investments by paying attention to negatives such as pollution and climate change through government regulation of activities that create these negative aspects.  ...

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The NYT editorial says the negative feedback loop of foreclosures begetting falling house prices, which beget more foreclosures, and further weaken banks, is well under way. One way to have broken this, was to enable good types of loan modifications, which reduce the principal for homeowners and reduce payments significantly. Sheila Bair at FDIC says 32% of prior payments is about the right amount. The bad types of loan modifications that lead to no reduction in principal, and put homeowners back in redefault because of large payments that homeowners "under water" or a lost job cannot afford, have so far been the dominant kind of loan modification. At present 14 million homeowners are "under water," in that their homes are worth less than what is owed on the mortgage. One of the crucial measures which would have enabled this, has not been pushed by the Obama administration through Congress. This was to pass an amendment that allowed bankruptcy judges to modify troubled mortgages. Banks which have taken billions of dollars in loans from the federal government were allowed to lobby aggressively to kill this amendment, and the Obama administration did little to push this amendment in Congress. 12 Senate Democrats joined 39 Senate Republicans to block a vote on the amendment. Says the NYT editorial "when the time came to stand up to the banking lobbies and cajole yes votes from reluctant senators-the White House did'nt. When the measure failed there wasn't even a statement of regret." This could turn out to be a major mistake, because as the NYT points out voluntary loan modifications have shown poor results. The administration's plan to provide incentives for loan modification is untried and tested, and may not produce significant results. With 14 million homeowners under water, and spiralling foreclosures, the situation may get out of control and seriously damage the economy. After the moratorium in home foreclosures ended there is expected to be a big surge in foreclosures, with estimates of 290,000 to 341,000 foreclosures in March, 2009. If this is allowed to continue it will undo all the good work in other areas, the stimulus spending, rebuilding the auto industry and other steps. It will also be more difficult to reverse as valuable time passes and the cost of the crisis escalates. A consensus among many experts was that stronger action in connection with the banks was required, and Martin Feldstein has warned about the danger posed by foreclosures since early 2008, see links....

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Indonesia's airport passenger traffic increased to 60 million in 2011, up 15% from 2010, according to the Ministry of Transportation. About 8 million were international passengers, up 23% from 2010. After the Asian financial crisis in 1997 the government relaxed restrictions on setting up an airline to stimulate the economy. There are now 18 airlines offering scheduled flights, up from 13 in 2001. Garuda spun off a low cost carrier, Citilink, and Lion Air is starting premium carrier Batik Air in 2012. The middle class in Indonesia has grown from 80 million to 130 million since 2003 creating more passenger traffic. Existing infrastructure is struggling to cope with the demand for air travel and is falling behind.

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The snap elections called by Macron after National Rally party of Marine Le Pen wins 32 percent of the vote to Macron En Marche at 15% in the EU elections. Marine Le Pen has put Jordan Bardella, 28 years, of St Dennis suburb in Paris as the candidate for prime minister if NR wins the National Assembly election. Macron earlier made Gabriel Attal, 35 years, the En Marche candidate. This is the youngest in a major country for prime minister. This report in WSJ shows how Macron by reducing diesel subsidies for farmers has alienated rural voters at a time when farmers are protesting difficult conditions. Macron also faced union opposition over pension age changes, and before his reelection protests from Yellow Vest protesters on cost of living issues. Macron has survived each challenge, the last in reelection by getting support of voters on the left and right choosing stability over changes that National Rally might bring. The snap election was also intended to take Le Pen and NR by surprise. This has created new uncertainty with elections on June 30, 2024, soon after Biden and Macron met in Normandy for D- Day anniversary, and the upcoming G7 meeting in Italy June 13-15. ...

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During the first days of vaccination drive in India the uptake is lower than expected, below 48% in many states of India. Healthcare workers are coming forward in smaller numbers. The glitches in the app that was used to transmit information is one reason, the other being that not enough information was disclosed about the two vaccines.  On the first day Jan. 16 India vaccinated 200,000 healthcare workers. The target was 300,000. The uptake is lowest in states such as Tamilnadu and Punjab.  One of the reasons for the low uptake is also that India has a lower number of cases, and cases are in decline in India for coronavirus. The first wave peaked on September 13 at over 90,000 and has declined ever since to 13,000 on January 19, 2021. The Indian diet includes vegetables and a large part of the country is vegetarian. Indian diet also includes herbs such as turmeric, ginger and cinnamon, and many others that help build immunity. The lack of cars for large numbers of the population means a lot more exercize walking long distances is essential in daily living. Another factor is that the mandate for masks is strictly followed everywhere. Also helpful is that after independence in 1947 the pharmaceutical industry was built up to serve the large population with prices regulated carefully by the government, enabling steady supply of medicine during the pandemic. ...

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In a television debate Jan 18, 2017, Benoit Hamon, a 39 year old former Education minister is seen as the most effective of the French Socialist presidential candidates. He proposes a universal income that particularly supports and creates work for young people ages 18-25 years.

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Brazil's currency, the Real, lost 5% of its value in the week Aug.12-16, 2013. The real dropped in value to 2.39 reals per dollar on Aug. 16. Brazil had a trade deficit of $5 billion by July 2013. GDP growth is expected to decline to 2% for 2013. The current account deficit is growing with spending growth and declining tax revenues.

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Chris Klomp, 45 years, takes over at 65,000 person $2.6 trillion government agency, Department of Health and Human Services, as Counselor, as Robert Kennedy Jr. heads for the campaign trail in addition to HHS duties March 12 2026. He impressed DJT with his negotiating ability against the drug companies in the government's efforts on Affordability of medicines. DJT calls him "my favorite Mormon." Susie Wiles was looking for a stabilizing force at HHS after vaccine controversies and wants the message to focus on improving health and cutting costs. Robert Kennedy Jr says about Klomp- "He is moving quickly to impose operational discipline, sharpen our strategic direction, and fortify a renewed sense of mission and accountability.” Klomp is pulling together all the agencies under HHS including FDA and others. Klomp takes his role seriously to cut costs and improve Health- .“In health care in particular, I do believe that I’m my brother’s keeper, and our job is to do the very best that we can for the people that we serve — the American people.” ...

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The "cut, cap and balance" pledge of Republican candidates for the presidential election of 2012. The current House version requires capping federal spending at 19.9% of GDP by 2018. This say House leaders is in accordance with the average spending levels for the last 30 years. It would have to come down from 24%. The balanced budget amendment caps spending at 18% of GDP and a balanced budget within a decade. The pledge is written promise to cut spending immediately.

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The Paris climate change agreement involved 195 countries. Agreed to on December 12, 2015 it was seen as a major step forward to limit global warming to 2 degrees celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Progress has been slow in taking action since then. Because of covid 19 the Glasgow conference was cancelled. Hope stems from the goals set for carbon neutral economy of Japan, the EU, UK, China, and the U.S. as it enters the agreement after withdrawing.  Much will depend on action taken as the pandemic has pushed economic goals of recovery to the forefront. As India has shown in renewable energy, particularly in solar energy targets and bold vision, there is a lot that can be done by each country acting on its own without the hype of the agreement. India now sees huge opportunities in solar energy because it is cheaper and pollutes less than coal. This is a game changer that comes from investing in new technologies and taking advantage of India's abundant access to sunny weather and the lower labor and other costs. ...

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The creation of a two tier wage structure in Japan with different pay and benefits for Temporary workers is holding back consumption in Japan as temporaryworkers feel tooo insecure to spend much. And there are a substantial number of temporary workers, from 18% in 1987to 23% in 1997 and now 33% in 2007 about a third of the work force, with some workers as at Hino Motors making a mere $10 an hour.