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The ECB is making plans to meet new staffing needs to act as the supervisor of 6000 banks in the 17 country eurozone. As part of its effort to meet its new role as banking supervisor starting in mid-2014 the ECB will hire about 800 new supervisory staff by that date. Additional personnel will be added following this first step, according to ECB officials.

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With a new corporate board in place the government is planning to sell a 51% stake in Satyam to a private bidder. Satyam's capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange is now $600 million down from $7 billion in May 2008. Spice, a tech firm, Larsen and Toubro, Mahindra and others have expressed interest. One estimate of cost to settle lawsuits is $440 to $840 million.

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Saudi Arabia needs current oil price of $60 a barrel to move up to $80 a barrel to balance its national budget. To do this OPEC needs to coordinate its oil production cuts with a group of 10 countries led by Russia that includes Mexico. These countries include countries in the former Soviet Union.  In December cuts of 1.2 million barrels a day were coordinated between the 2 groups to push up oil prices. Now the OPEC cartel plans regular meetings with the Russian led group to push up oil prices. Under a draft document an alliance between the 2 groups would last 3 years and include regular meetings. Earlier Prince Salman led Saudi government proposed replacing OPEC with a new group combining Russia and Saudi Arabia and the other countries in OPEC, yet giving most of the decision making power to Russia and Saudis. This was rejected by Russia and was received poorly by Iraq, Iran  Nigeria, Angola, Algeria. The Iraqis reminded Saudis that OPEC was started in Baghdad. ...

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Of 161 million people employed in 2024 about 40-50 million in vulnerable groups living from paycheck to paycheck and without savings to support them in a medical emergency is a real problem in the US economy. It is why even as unemployment looks good at 4% and inflation down to 3% there is a lot of angst for Americans for cost of living. Fifteen million baby boomers who will turn 65 years for retirement between now 2024 and 2030 face a situation where they have less than 250,000 in savings. Many who were born between 1945 and 1962 called baby boomers are in this group with diminished savings. In the prime of their careers they were hit by the 2009 financial crisis caused by bank speculation risk taking. They also were hit by the pandemic in the peak years of income growth. Other such vulnerable groups are young people with high student who are being helped by president Biden. There are also the low income groups that have been hit by medical costs and a family emergency that were pushed into poverty. Other groups in the millions are the people at the low income levels who are working paycheck to paycheck because of housing costs. About one fourth or 25% of apartment renters are people whose households budget shows 50% or more going to housing costs which have increased 20% in the last 2-3 years, which includes the pandemic years 2022 and 2023. President Biden seeks to limit apartment rent price increases to 5% and Kamala Harris has proposed help for families for the portion above 30% of household income going to rent. The jump in cost of living from automobiles, automobile repair and housing, cost of groceries have affected other groups with large credit card debt. This is a result of the supply chain concentration in China which comes from American business overconcentrating production in China and previous administrations doing little about this. Biden's answer is to bring jobs and manufacturing knowhow and investment back to America. During the pandemic some people resisted getting vaccinated and lost their jobs, a million people lost their lives, others took early retirement seeing the stress ful lives during the pandemic, others including women quit to take care of children. This has reduced the labor supply to business leading to tight supply higher prices.The result is that there are about 5 such vulnerable groups each with about 5-10 million people for a total of about 40-50 million people at risk. For these people the cost of living presents huge challenges, including childcare. It includes young people and retirees, single women and families on low income hourly wages that have not kept up with inflation.  ...

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As 22 million Americans go on unemployment benefits some Americans protest in states such as Michigan and North Carolina, Virginia. Even though Michigan was hard hit the western part of the state is quite different from the south east and Detroit which were hit hard. As the situation is different in each state and also by county president Trump has made it clear that it is the governors of the states who will decide and also the reopening could be varied by county. President Trump is also looking at other countries which are reopening in phases such as Germany where April 20, May 4, are dates for phases of reopening starting April 20 with small shops less than 800 square meters in space. European Union is similar to the U.S. in size. Germany went in front, but France like New York is coming in the back of this. France hit hard, has extended the lockdown till May 11.

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Rachel Ensign's WSJ report shows huge disparity in incomes and spending that has happened in the US even with the best efforts and intentions of the Biden administration in 2020-2024. US cumulative excess savings by income for the bottom 90% are a mere $291 billion compared to $1.2 trillion for the top 10%, 4 times as large. As a result about half of consumer spending comes from the top 10% in incomes says the WSJ. (Moody's Analytics). It provides clues on why Biden and even less so Harris failed to convince Americans, the middle class, blue collar workers, and others that large social gaps, income disparities and wealth disparities gap were being bridged under Democrats. And makes it harder for Republicans and Democrats alike to address such huge gaps built up over time by outshoring jobs and manufacturing, the 2009 financial crisis from banks speculation, the pandemic and supply shock cost of living crisis. As the $2.6 trillion in pandemic assistance from Biden faded people in the bottom 80% dipped into savings to pay for rising cost of living as supply chain bottlenecks and price gouging sent prices of groceries, housing, apartment rentals, cars up significantly. This has'nt happened to the top 10% or even the top 20% who continue to spend in the same way as before prices went up. Something like this is also happening in Europe and in China, India fueling and anti-incumbency mood, and dissatisfaction with governments. The Net Worth of the top 20% has grown by 45% or $35 trillion since 2019 compared to $14 trillion for the bottom 80%. (Moody's Analytics) ...

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GM and Ford US International Trade Commission report in 2024 sees only about a 5% increase in prices for a 25% tariff in car imports into the US from EU, Japan, Canada, Mexico and China. With US production GM at 60% Ford at 80%, both companies are better positioned to shift production to the US following 25% tariff on cars imported into the US. GM also has the financial strength to invest in new auto plants in the US. Given a period of transition US companies are in a position to tap the added demand as more cars are made in the US.  Stellantis Stellantis formed from the merger of Chrysler, Fiat and Peugeot makes many of its cars overseas in Mexico and in the EU, and has considerable exposure. Toyota Toyota sales in 2024 were 2.3 million cars, with about 60% of the production in the US. Hyundai and Kia, Nissan Hyundai makes about 80% of the 840,000 cars it sells in the US in US plants. Hyundai plans to invest $21 billion in the US to make cars in the US including $5.8 billion for a steel plant in Louisiana. Other companies may follow Hyundai to Make in the USA. VW VW had plans for an expansion to make 590,000 cars. It has current  sales of about 400,000 cars in the US. Expansion at the Chattanooga plant or putting in another plant could help it make most of its cars in the US. ...

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The IMF, ECB, and the EU, are requiring Greece to make cuts to private sector salaries by a reported 25% to bring Greece's wages more in line with a country like Portugal, because of the lower productivity of Greek workers and a way to make Greek goods more competitive. This is one way to accomplish what a devaluation of the drachma would have done when Greece was outside the eurozone. Greece's minimum wage is about $1000 a month- officials from the troika want to see this go down about $750 a month. The difficulty is that consumer prices are higher in Greece, with gasoline at $8 a gallon and other prices higher due to cartels that control the distribution of consumer goods in Greece. Other austerity measures required by the troika as a condition for further aid to Greece are pension cuts and higher taxes on businesses. Labor unions and business leaders pointed out other factors affecting Greece's competitiveness in a letter to prime minister Papademos as they opposed drastic wage cuts- the letter said " competitiveness is affected more by factors like bureaucracy- which is fed by complex regulation, state intervention, the tax system, corruption and antibusiness mentality rather than wage costs."...

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This report in the New Yorker provides a good glimpse at the problems of global warming and limiting climate change goal of 1.5 degrees centigrade. Sally Ann Ranney co-founder of the American Renewable Energy Institute answers questions from the New Yorker magazine. Limiting climate change warming of the planet to 1.5 degrees centigrade by 2100 is a goal enshrined in the Paris Agreement. In the absence of this the global warming would be 2.7 degrees centigrade by 2100. For this 1.5 degrees centigrade goal to be reached fossil fuel use and carbon emissions have to be cut by 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050. 

The ice pack in the Arctic is part of a planetary cooling system and its accelerated melting is a good sign of the danger the planet faces. Ranney answers a number of these questions.

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Japan's vice finance minister for international affairs, Mitsuhiro Furusawa, emphasizes that Japan's effort to revive the economy is exactly what the IMF and the international community have been looking for Japan to do. The effort is designed with the primary objective of fighting deflation. The yen has declined by 15% since the new administration of prime minister Abe assumed power Dec. 26, 2012. It now is at 99 yen to the dollar compared to 80 yen to the dollar in 2012. At 80 yen to the dollar the IMF considered the yen "moderately overvalued." Furusawa assumed the new position recently. His previous position was IMF executive director 2010-2012. In that position he assisted IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, in efforts to manage the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone.

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As the trade problems with the U.S. escalate in tit for tat tariffs, China looks back at its history for parallels. The period of the "unequal treaties" imposed by the Western powers on China in the period 1850-1900, the Korean War of the 1950's, and other analogies that come up to people. Yet China's planners and leaders are looking at another situation the Plaza Accord of 1985 in which the western nations pressured Japan into accepting a significantly higher exchange rate to reduce its trade surplus and the Japanese yen appreciated by 50%. Japan cut interest rates from 5% to 2.5%, and introduced huge fiscal stimulus, banks opened up to lend vigorously. The result was a boom by 1990's followed by a bust that led to another decade of lending to loss making firms called "zombie" businesses, that led to a stagnant economy. This has persisted for three decades. This China sees as an unacceptable situation when China has still not achieved developed economy status in terms of per capita incomes. It fears getting into a middle income trap as the economic growth slows and the aging population makes a recovery more difficult.  The difference with Japan in the 1985-1990 period is that Mr. Trump lacks the kind of five nation economic coordination that put pressure on Japan. Today there are differing views on China in Europe and the U.S. and different policies. Mr. Trump is known for his style of deal making and could settle early, as feared by some Republican leaders in Congress who see in China a challenge to America's technological dominance. There are no calls to appreciate China's currency. Only calls for China to change its state subsidies model and put in writing and through laws that change the way of doing business that does not require American companies to hand over advanced technology. This is also a concern for Japan and the European Union countries such as Germany, and is something all nations try to protect in global competition. Japan is still facing the consequences in creating a new competitor in high speed train technology after building the first high speed trains in China and transfer of the high speed train technology by Kawasaki. The Household Survey by the Federal Reserve showing the financial fragility of 40% of American families shown on this page today shows how this situation is likely to evolve as working class families in the U.S. support a trade stance that protects American jobs and technology. Job losses over three decades and a $891 billion trade deficit in 2018 are seen as unacceptable to the U.S. in 2019. A stronger U.S. dollar helped increase the U.S. trade deficit by 10% in 2018, nullifying some benefits of Mr. Trump's trade actions. Mr. Robert Lighthizer was a negotiator in the trade dispute with Japan in 1985, and runs the negotiations with China with support from president Trump. This alone has kept the Japanese situation in 1985 uppermost in the minds of China's leaders as they try to come up with a way to settle the trade dispute with Mr. Trump.     ...

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What better way to sit back and relax this October fall season with an American pasttime. BBC Sports tells you everything you want to know about New York Yankees LA Dodgers baseball including videos. Did you know that- Not since 1981 have the New York Yankees met the LA Dodgers in the World Series baseball. That the Brooklyn Dodgers played the New York Yankees before 1981 in cross city rivalry 7 times. The Brooklyn Dodgers became the Los Angeles Dodgers when the team moved to the opposite coast in 1957. Gerrit Cole of Yankees is Cy Young Award pitcher of the year and the Dodgers pitching staff including Flaherty who dominated the NY Mets have 33 scoreless post season innings. Yankees all star Aaron Judge has equalled he batting record of Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. Japan's Shohei Ohtani of the LA Dodgers holds the 50-50 record of 50 home runs and 50 runs batted in record in American baseball. Yankke hitters Giancarlo Stanton, Juan Soto and Anthony Rizzo are pitted against LA Dodgers  hitter Mookie Betts, Teoscar Fernandez and Freddie Freeman. In Game 1 Giancarlo and Freddie hit home runs with Freddie hitting a walkoff Grand Slam. Schedules of all games are shown here starting in LA, going to NY and ending in LA. ...

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This FR24 article is from November 2, 2022. 

 She calls herself a 4th generation Social Democrat and sees working class families as the worst hit by the politics of the open migration policies of the past. These policies only created the politics that did little for working families struggling to make a living and for an economy that supports working families. She now favors zero immigraton policies. Mette Frederiksen is favored by 58% in a recent poll. She won 50 seats in parliament for the Social Democrats with a majority for her centre left bloc in Denmark elections. In Denmark's fragmented political landscape her party Social Democrats won 28% of the vote.

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This report in the WSj shows the work of 477 on the ground workers and economists at government agency Bureau of Labor Statistics. These workers track changing prices on hundreds of thousands of goods and services every month. This work adds up to form the Consumer Price Index which shapes policy of central banks on inflation and cost of living increases for Social Security, government policy on inflation. Thus report looks at one day in the life of Ms. Mascitis, 50, as a price BLS price checker, visiting an auto mechanic shop for the cost of a rear brake job, full brake replacement, and a visit to grocery stores where she sees problems of shrinkage in packaging that affect price. 

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During the Ukraine war this special feature on the European Council website shows what it is doing to mitigate the impact of the war when it comes to the food supply for the world. 48 million tons of agricultural products were exported by the land routes opened by the EU when sea routes were blocked. $1 billion is allocated by the EU finance for this purpose. Ukraine makes up 50% of the world's food exports- it is a breadbasket to the world. Getting food supplies out is essential to keep down the cost of food. Half a billion euros go to keeping EU food production strong. Nine billion euros support the effort to keep food supplies flowing to poor countries.

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The US reached the moon 50 years earlier in 1972 in the Apollo lunar mission. The new launch was done by a vehicle developed by Houston based Intuitive Machines. It is carrying NASA research devices under a $114 million contract. Lunar landings are difficult because of the thin atmosphere and need to slow down rapidly to land. Intuitive Machines spacecraft was brought down to speed of 3 feet per second before landing. It has one week before lunar night makes it inoperable. A similar landing was accomplished recently by an Indian spacecraft by large drops in speed to achieve a stable landing, after an unsuccessful earlier attempt that did not achieve the drop in speed required for landing.

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The European Union had 1.14 million asylum seekers in 2023. In addition to Syria and Afghanistan, Pakistan, there are asylum seekers from Venezuela and Columbia and Turkey. Compare this with 4.4 million Ukrainians granted temporary protection in the EU and not considered as asylum seekers since the war began. There is a significant increase in asylum seekers in Germany and smaller increases in France and other countries. Germany has labor shortages. About 23% of 1.14 million or 334,000 asylum seekers for Germany. Next is France at 167,000, Spain at 162,000, Italy at 137,000. About 50% of asylum seekers have been allowed and the rest rejected. EU has a new asylum law that processes asylum with faster vetting, more detention centers and quicker deportation.

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Biden as president for 2024 and the matter of age is the subject of this report in WSJ. For too long the press has looked at president Biden's age as drawback ignoring his vast experience, and not Trump's only 3 years younger with poor food and exercise habits and overweight, as pointed out by Duke University Prof. Frank Bruni in the NYT. Here the WSJ at last shows that half of Americans born in 1942 are alive, with many of them about 650,000 working, 18% more than a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau. The saying is that 80 years is the new 60, because of advances in medicine, given healthy habits and exercise. 

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 High school geography teacher Tim Walz says of actions taken such as the universal school meals signed into Minnesota law earlier this year, as simple common sense. “What a monster! Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn and women are making their own healthcare decisions,” Walz says. Walz has the common sense that is lacking  when a failed cultural mindset puts everything into neatly labeled boxes such as "liberal" and "progressive." It took 50 yeas to get to this point after Reagan and four southern politicians two from Texas and two from Georgia and Arkansas left America in this mess where school meals vs going hungry is debated in political terms.

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This issue of the Economist magazine looks at Saudi oil price cuts and the future for shale oil in the world's energy mix. In the short run overleveraged companies in the shale oil business in the U.S. will be affected by oil prices below $50 a barrel. The Economist points out that shale oil deposits are extensive in the U.S. and other parts of the world. The upfront costs are as little as $1.5 million for drilling a well. As a result the economics of shale will depend on new advances in technology and efficiency to bring costs down below existing costs averaging of about $57 a barrel, with some producers at costs of $35 a barrel. Because of technology advances anticipated in the field it points to shale oil as a reliable source of low cost oil supplies in the future, keeping oil prices lower than in the past and much less subject to manipulation by cartel pricing or oil price shocks. The lower volatility and lower level of oil prices will be good for the rapidly growing economies in Asia and the developed economies of Europe and the U.S., and for countries in Latin America such as Argentina with large shale deposits....

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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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Negotiations in the Senate to help the unemployed or the elderly or the poor in the stimulus package and efforts to limit changes and keep the tab at $150 billion by Secretary Paulson.

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Special Counsel Mueller's team says in a court filing that Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump's campaign manager should face a prison term of 19 to 24 years for "serious, longstanding, and bold" financial crimes.  Manafort also faces financial penalties totaling about $50 million, according to the filing. Some of the problems date to years before Manafort joined the Trump campaign as campaign chairman.

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Seattle is now the first U.S. city experiencing what it is like in a lockdown with streets empty. Seattle metro area is a city of 4 million with growing economy - at 6.9% growth, and 50% increase in jobs since 2010. New rules in Washington state are to wash your hands leaving the house and re-entering, no one going to anyone else's house. 

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Just one scheme by a Dallas doctor, Dr. Jacques Roy, cost Medicare $350 million over 5 years. HHS data analysis showed Dr. Roy approved 500 times the number of patients normally approved per physician for home health care services- he approved 5000 instead of 100. A case in 2011 resulted in charges against 115 doctors, nurses and company managers, in 9 cities leading to $240 million in false billings.