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In a speech at the Conservative Party Fall conference British prime minister Theresa May positions her party as an advocate for the working class against establishment views. She was critical of smug views that the current situation was acceptable for working class families concerned about immigration and jobs. She also pointed out that the policies of central banks including the Bank of England hurt working class families and savers." She pointed out the development that has also happened in the U.S. economy and other European countries as the Federal Reserve and the ECB cut rates to near zero. "People with assets have got richer. People without them have suffered. People with mortgages have found their debts cheaper. People with savings have found themselves poorer." Her response she said would be to "put the government at the service of those who found themselves poorer as a result of monetary policy." This follows May's first speech at 10 Downing Street where she referred to "the burning injustice."  ...

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Krueger and Posner, eminent economists, say the reason wages have stagnated in the U.S. with wages not having budged much over a decade 2008-2018, is not only because of globalization and automation as long term trends. They attribute this stagnation in wages to "monopsony power," or power American corporations have over workers because of their stronger bargaining position and because workers have few alternatives.  For most of this period 2008-2018 high unemployment as reflected by the people out of work and taking part time jobs or having stopped looking for work, shifted bargaining power to companies. The Economist magazine pointed out that workers have not shared in the profit and gains corporations made during this period. Here Krueger and Posner show additional factors such as non compete clauses in worker agreements that have depressed wages. Half of franchise agreements prohibit competition for labor. Outsourcing work to other companies that hire workers means these outsourcing companies have more power over workers than the original companies using the labor. Unions represent only 7 percent of private sector workers by 2017, compared to 35 percent in the 1950's, so that there are no mechanisms to counteract the greater bargaining power gained by companies vs. workers. The way workers have roots in the communities they live and the consolidation of employers into a few companies in a particular area, mean fewer options exist for workers.  Senators Warren and Booker and the anti-trust division of the U.S. Justice Department are in agreement on this issue of widespread use of noncompete agreements that is considered unlawful, says this report in the NYT, offering hope for a solution to bring a better balance between the rights of workers to fair wages and companies seeking profit for stakeholders. Issues about workers, lack of gains for workers, prevalent outsourcing, and the frustrations of labor with parties that had lost touch with their worker base- such as Labor in Britain, SPD in Germany, Socialist Party in France and the Democratic Party in the U.S. - have led to political upsets with support shifting to other parties. This has not led to significant change to improve bargaining power of workers to correct the imbalance that now exists between labor and companies, leading to calls for change. Eric Posner is a law professor at the University of Chicago law school and co-author of a new book "Radical Markets: uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society." This book turns the popular notion on its head that free markets have produced the imbalances that hurt social cohesion and democracy, by saying it is precisely the suppression of free competition such as for labor that have created this unhealthy situation. This is true in other areas where monopoly power has developed in other parts of the U.S and European economies in 2008-2018, as also for distortions in capital allocation that hurt infrastructure and other public investment. Krueger is a professor of public affairs at Princeton University and former head of the President's Council of Economic Advisors in 2011 under Obama, showing that Democrats themselves failed to correct this imbalance leading to a shift to other parties and Mr. Trump, who also appear to lack ideas or solutions to this problem that affects social cohesion and democracy. This is contrary to the vision of American or European society of better opportunity for all shared by all Americans and Europeans for most of the twentieth century. ...

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Xi Jinping visited Hong Kong in 2017 and again this year. Jinping wanted to see Hong Kong integrated with mainland China after years of British rule and a transition period in which control remained with Beijing. This has happened after protests that sought to maintain Hong Kong's special status collapsed with huge differences on both sides. Jinping says "no country on earth would allow unpatriotic and even treasonous or traitorous people to take power." He stated his view on this trip that "political power must be in the hands of patriots." 2022 marks 25 years since the handover to China of Hong Kong by Britain in 1997. The period of transition set was 50 years. It could be said that the speed of China's integration with the economies of the US and Germany allowed by Clinton, Bush, Obama, Schroeder  and Merkel may have unwittingly determined the duration of the transition to integration with China from 50 to 25 years. In 1997 China was just beginning the transition to a market economy- 50 year seemed a long distance away.  The Clinton, Bush, Obama and Merkel years accelerated China's integration into the ports of Los Angeles and Hamburg for manufactured imports at a breathtaking pace eventually leading to the collapse of the relationship as American and European workers were ignored and communities depending on factories in parts of US and Europe were thrown out of work. With it collapsed the arrangements of Hong Kong as China by 2022 was economically already where it thought it would be in 2047. Shenzen region's economy's size exceeded the Hong Kong economy. China no longer needed Hong Kong as a entry point for foreign technology and capital. Hong Kong had lost relevance as a city state from the British period with British values for sons of the veterans of the Communist revolution of the nineteen thirties and forties, one of whom was Xi Jinping. ...

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Defense experts in Britain say the part of the Russian army that is modern is not large, and the part that is large is not modern. The Russian advance attack in Ukraine has floundered, says this report in the WSJ. About 25% of the Russian army is made up of conscripts. The hundreds of billions of dollars spent on modernization of the Russian armed forces have been spread thinly, and dissipated also because of corruption and poor management.  The Russian encrypted communications did not work as expected leading to relying on open communications that could be intercepted or jammed. The Russian government and president Putin were still stuck on 2014 and did not realize the determined resistance and the desire for independence of the Ukrainian people. Ukraine is a technologically advanced European country the size of Germany with a population of 40 million, and Russia has an economy the size of Italy, factors that also played a part. The corruption and poor economic conditions in the border Ukrainian republics setup by Russia led many Ukrainians in the eastern border region to question any advantages from Russian rule. The user of poorly motivated conscript soldiers led to many generals and other officers to have to be present on the front lines leading to Russian officer level casualties. The use of antitank weapons supplied quickly from the European Union and the US, and use of small mobile units of Ukrainian volunteer and army forces to tactically destroy the front and rear of miles long convoys of tanks and armored vehicles - leaving the rest of the convoys trapped in between. Logistics also failed to resupply deep inside Ukraine as Russian forces depend on rail based resupply which could not happen without control of cities on the rail lines. The volunteer forces in Ukraine after 8 years of war since 2014 and the immediate assistance with antitank and other military assistance from US, and EU, played a part in the western response to the Ukraine crisis and president Putin's actions.   ...

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How to build a global port network with less cash- China's state owned Cosco and it's European ports network is an example of savy buying during financial crises, and when companies in Europe and the US were keen to make sales of ports. China simply integrated it into a vast exports network, using containerized terminal expansion modernization to build its manufacturing for export model. This was an extension of its domestic network where it added new port infrastructure to newly built rail and road connections.  India today is learning from this example. By 2000 the Chinese global export model was entrenched. It was also the year when the junior Bush president extended the wars of Reagan/Bush in Iraq of the 1980's to Afghanistan. China had a clear road ahead to build state of the art infrastructure of ports, logistics and exports over the next 10-15 years without any defense costs.  Piraeus in Greece south of Athens, a port concession acquired in 2004 Antwerp in Belgium (Austrian Netherlands), a minority stake in a container port acquired in 2008. In 2013 with sale of Terminal Link ports in a 49% stake deal by CMA of France holding 51%, China has stakes in Zeerbrugge and Antwerp, Busan South Korea, and Le Havre, Montoir and Fos in France, Xiamen in China, Miami and Houston in US. Rotterdam, Netherlands- Cosco acquired in 20126 a 35% stake in Euromax Terminal in Rotterdam from Hong Kong's Hutchison's Holdings for $125 million. Valencia and Bilbao majority  51% stake for $270 million, when JP Morgan paid as much as $950 million to ACS of Spain for these ports after the 2009 crisis led to Spanish divestments. Today in TEU's shipping containers China sends goods to Europe 10 times what it takes in through Spanish ports. Hamburg-In May 2023 Germany's Scholz overruled Habeck to let sale of 24.9% of Hamburg port to COSCO go through ...

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German plan takes shape Saturday as Finance Ministers of the 14 eurozone countries meet in Paris after the G7 meeting in Washington. It will include capital injection into banks in exchange for equity stakes, but further details are being worked out including the size of the plan.

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Sweden's new government elected in 2006 after years of Social Democratic governments, is not in favor of state involvement in industry. The enterprise minister Oloffson says, the Swedish government is not prepared to own car factories. Southwest Sweden where Saab in located, in the town of Trollhattan, will be hard hit if Saab closes. It has 54,000 people, with 4000 employed at Saab. Saab turnedout its first car here in 1947. But its not the same Saab that became known for its engineering. Under General Motors Saab lost its edge as a car with advanced engineering. And last year Saab sold 93,295 cars, 21,383 in the USA, and this year demand will drop steeply. Already losses for 2008 are $343 million. No matter what the label meant in the past, the hard facts are that here is a neglected car company, which may sell only sixty or seventy thousand cars in the years ahead and keep going down in numbers, with no money for investment in new technology in these credit markets for declining numbers, and offering huge losses that may approach half a billion dollars in 2009. Even a Social Democratic government might think to pause. Given Sweden's generous employee retraining, would the money for rescue be better spent in some new field with better prospects....

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The unemployment rate drops to 7.8% from 8.1% in September according to the Labor Dept. The decline partly comes from people taking part time jobs because they are unable to find full time work. The establishment survey shows 104,000 jobs added in the private sector in September, and revises the figures for July and August to show 86,000 additional jobs created. Of the 104,000 jobs added, jobs increased in health care and transportation. Government added 10,000 jobs. Manufacturing jobs declined by 16,000, a cause for concern. A more accurate measure of unemployment is the underutilization of labor called U-6 by experts, this includes part time workers who would prefer to work full time- this has remained at 14.7% for Sept. 2012. The overall picture is that the job market remains sluggish. Because Labor Department numbers are prone to revision this could change in coming months. The slowing economy in China with the new stimulus in China coming in at one eighth the size of the old stimulus (1 trillion yuan over 4 years compared to 4 trillion yuan over 2 years 2009-2010) because of inflation concerns and risks of aggravating a property bubble, and the declining growth in the eurozone- France with zero growth in 2013 and Germany at 0.9%, Italy and Spain declining growth- means the prospects for U.S. economic growth will be lower in 2013. U.S. GDP growth was 1.3% in the second quarter according to the Commerce Department, and Macroeconomic Advisors predicts GDP growth of 1.5% in the third quarter in downward revisions. ...

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The Ethics Commission appointed by Chancellor Merkel following the nuclear disaster in Japan has recommended that the German government close all of its nuclear plants by 2021. Merkel said that Germany will end its dependence on nuclear energy and use nuclear as a bridge technology till other sorces are developed. Germany gets 22.6% of its electricity from nuclear energy, according to the Energy Ministry. It has 17 reactors, six of the boiling water type, a design used at Fukushima, and 11 using pressurized water. A former Environment minister, Klaus Topfer, heads the panel, with the other 22 panel members draw from the energy industry and nongovernmental organizations. While recommending closing the plants "to eliminate risks," the panel said it would also boost the German economy. It said "a withdrawal from nuclear power will spur growth, offer enormous technical, economic and social opportunities to position Germany even further as an exporter of sustainable products and services." Germany has already moved ahead in developing wind and solar energy sources, and is developing leading edge technologies and capabilities in the area of environment friendly alternative energies. Wind and solar energy and renewable sources already meet 16.5% of Germany's needs. Italy and Switzerland said they would not develop new reactors after the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown. Only Germany with its strong environmental consciousness across all parties is making a decisive break with nuclear energy. ...

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Indian foreign minister Jaishankar describes the highly eccentric situation of lack of US India close economic and defense cooperation for over 50 years, when the natural flow of cooperation one would expect between the land of Washington and Lincoln and the land of Vivekananda and Gandhi was interrupted. The current form of cooperation has existed for about 14 years and accelerated after prime minister Modi was elected in 2016. This was a turning point in the US India relationship and in India US economic partnership. After president Trump was elected Mr. Modi and Mr. Trump held a huge public gathering in stadiums at Houston and Ahmedabad, in a way that was never seen before between an Asian country and America. What changed? For one thing India had a great weight lifted from its shoulders with the removal of the erratic Nehru policies of post independence India of forming a non aligned bloc with countries like Egypt and Yugoslavia. These were policies that had no connection to India and its history as the civilization where the East has its roots in Vedanta and Buddhism. It also resulted in alienating the Dwight Eisenhower administration and administrations that followed after John F. Kennedy, as the Cold War intensified and most of Eastern Europe came under Soviet domination. India never gauged the effect this had on America after the Berlin crisis in 1948, the Hungarian revolution of 1956 and similar uprisings in East Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Britain was no help even with the British Commonwealth, as the British perpetuated the idea that India was too divided to make up one country, having failed to grasp India's ancient civilization and  culture, and having built the Empire in India by using the division in the country. Mohandas Gandhi described this in Hind Swaraj in 1910 and told Indians that it was they who had invited the British into India, with rulers using military garrisons of the British commercial East India Company for help in their internal wars. Americans still unfamiliar with India till after 2000 simply accepted British colonial ideas about India. The new administrations in the US, the Trump and Biden administration, and the Modi administration in India have shaken this up and changed perceptions all around. Biden recently during the Modi visit to Washington DC said India US relations as he sees it would be "the closest on earth." So that today we have an ancient civilization roused to its depths in its youth for modernization, that extends from India to Indonesia all the way to Japan rooted in India's ancient civilization of Vedanta and Buddhism, with a population of about 2 billion people. That faces the US on its Pacific coast, united in its determination to build a new and common future with ideas of parliamentary democracy, participation of the people, and of modernization with science and technology, contributing to the betterment of all peoples. ...

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This Weekend Essay in The Times by Tom McTague looks at the European Union skepticism about the US after the failure of three administrations under Bush, Obama and Trump to extricate America from wars,  concentrate on building its infrastructure and manufacturing, renewing the lives of workers and families that were neglected. That skepticism came from administrations in Europe that also failed the Europeans in much the same way with the neglect of infrastructure, manufacturing, and little done for climate change under Schroeder and Merkel, Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron. The dependence on China for manufacturing and on Russia for energy for the EU and Britain made the situation even worse than in the US.  Al this has changed with the election of president Biden in the US, and Scholz with Habeck- Baerbock in Germany and with the recent elections in France upholding workers and families, acting on climate change. A false idea is presented about the Europe vs US and dominance as each is part of the free world alongside India, Australia, Japan, South east Asia, Latin America, French and English language Africa. This is why one has the G7 and G20 with countries like Argentina, Brazil and Indonesia critical parts of the free world. It is the ignorance of many officials in the EU more than the sentiments of the people of the free world in all these countries that leads to these false ideas about which country is dominant and skepticism - none are dominant it is through the unity of all and a shared vision in international rule of law, fairness, humility, respect for poorer nations. It is this that Kipling talked about in his poem "Intercessional," the lines repeatedly calling for the Lord's grace and for man to merit that grace with "a humble and contrite heart." It is also the spirit that so recently Mohandas Gandhi grasped and put forward for India and the world. Europeans talk about dominance- think about this for a moment, Gandhi merely asked for the right to move freely for Indians and Asians including Chinese at a meeting in 1908 where he gave a speech. The speech was on May 18, 1908, at the YMCA in Johannesburg and it debated the question "Are Asiatic and colored Races a Menace to the British Empire."  Not a word of ill will was uttered by Mohandas Gandhi even when talking about segregation in the speech. It is a humble and contrite heart that the Lord listens to. Both India and South Africa found a way out in a different way with faith in a higher authority, that even the British had not failed to address as Kipling clearly shows. ...

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Ms. Lopez from Guatemala and her three children living in Brooklyn, New York.

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The problem of poor competitiveness in Greece which is stifling the economy. A recent analysis by research firm Variant Perception based in London, shows severe pricing distortions in the Greek economy. The cost of labor in Greece from 2005-2010 was, on average, 25% higher than in Germany. And small business is muffled by the bureaucracy and old rules and restrictions. Compared to Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain have lower labor costs. This increases the trade deficit for Greece. Greece has one of the highest number of lawyers per capita in the world, one lawyer for every 250 people compared to 272 in the US.

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Ford Motor Company will be a much smaller company and this looks like a structural change not a cyclical one as more automobiles are made in the developing world and fewer automobiles and smaller automobiles are made in the mature US market and like Germany and Japan the market here may have peaked. This would be seen in the employee numbers also. Ford had 34500, salaried workers in 2005, now its down to 23,700, with another cut in salaried workforce cuts by 15% by August 1, 2008, recently announced and even more cuts in 2009 if the market numbers fall further, the salaried workforce may be below 20,000.

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Examination report of Deutsche Bank's regulatory reporting by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2014 shows serious regulatory reporting problems.

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Exceptional reporting in the Washington Post on the meddling in the U.S. election by Russia and president Putin. This report provides some inside details on how the issue was handled by Trump during the period before and after the election based on 50 interviews with Trump connected officials. According to the report Trump treated any thought that he was elected by factors other than his charisma and personality as an affront. When confronted with evidence from intelligence reports by U.S. spy chiefs on Jan. 6 at Trump Tower, Trump railed at the idea that he could not have won the election without outside help. Trump's larger than life personality made him take on the challenge of winning the president from outside with unconventional tactics. Here the same larger than life personality and ego conflicts with the effort of Republican advisers who sought to put the Russian issue behind them by accepting the findings of the intelligence community.

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Simon Johnson reminds readers that in October 2008, Johnson, Peter Boone, and James Kwak, suggested that some European countries had given taxpayer-backed pledges to banks that had liabilities larger than their own gross domestic products. Their proposal included creation of a European Stability Fund with at least 2 trillion euros of credit lines guaranteed by all member nations, as well as Switzerland, Sweden, and the U.K., to buy time dealing with underlying insolvency in Ireland and other countries. Simon Johnson, is former chief economist of the IMF. He says the euro-zone only belatedly acted on this advice and the politicians never took responsibility for what they allowed to happen. The runaway financial globalization he says, was allowed to happen by US Treasury officials, but European banks were seriously involved in similar behaviour. These banks became too large relative to their economies, captured their regulators and acted recklessly. Europe's leaders haven't fully faced up to this and keep telling their voters that the problem is entirely because of US banks irresponsible behaviour. Ireland was the extreme example of this. And Johnson provides readers with the names of two books on the subject. David Lynch has "When the Luck of the Irish Ran Out," Fintan O'Toole has "Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Killed the Celtic Tiger." Both laying out the intermingling of politicians, bankers and real-estate developers that resulted in the reckless growth and collapse of Ireland. In his own account in Atlantic magazine, May 2009, Johnson compared the US economc boom-bust-bailout cycle to what happened to Argentina, Russia and Indonesia. These were emerging middle class countries with crony capitalism, unsustainable debt and other problems. Johnson says, don't think these problems are limited to emerging markets. Its a global or general occurrence in which powerful people get together to build an economic model that brings growth based on debt. Under public pressure the German government keeps saying there must be burden sharing, that creditors must take losses also. Johnson says Angela Merkel and her colleagues have not thought through what signal this sends to the markets- which is to tell people to get out of Irish banks now. And the big German banks are telling the government they face big losses if Ireland or other European countries default. If the ECB can't pay, and the German taxpayer won't pay, Johnson asks, does the IMF have the resources to tackle Spain? If China offers to recapitalize the IMF with some of its $2.6 trillon in reserves, and becomes the largest shareholder, would the IMF headquarters be moved to Beijing as the Articles of Agreement require for the largest shareholder. ...

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Deutsche Bank has lost two thirds of its share value and its leverage is extraordinarily high with total assets at 56 times tangible equity acccording to Morgan Stanley. Progress is being made but not enough say analysts, and raising capital now is better than waiting longer and doing that with a downward spiral in its shares. The loss announced January 14, 2009, of $ 4.8 billion euros for 4th quarter 2009, reflects a loss across all of the bank's businesses, and is a warning sign of the need to raise capital with greater urgency.

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In a new twist drugmaker AbbieVie will bring out less costly versions of Humira in Europe where its patents have expired and still keep the U.S. market at higher Humira prices using a thicket of patents. Reports show pharmaceutical drug pricing as a major issue in U.S. midterm elections. Biologic drugs are costly. In this case Humira will sell at a 10-20% discount in Europe. Abbie Vie countered by getting hundreds of new patents in the U.S. to continue selling at high prices.