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US president Biden feels the tax system is not fair for most Americans and the Trump tax cuts favored the wealthiest Americans. Detailed studies from universities Chicago, Harvard, Princeton and Treasury Department on 2017 Trump tax cuts lowering taxes for corporations from 35% to 21% for top corporate tax rate, and accelerated investment spending deductions, show much of the investment that took place after tax cuts in 2017 would have taken place anyway. And that the tax cut did not pay for itself, adding $100 billion to the national debt of $34 trillion each year. Striking was the point in the studies that said that instead of $4000 the average American only benefitted by $750 per year, most of the benefits going to the wealthiest and corporations. Many of the largest corporations tech and oil companies pay less in taxes than any notion of fairness would call for sometimes much less than ordinary workers.  Biden now proposes the tax increases for corporations to go up to 28%, higher taxes on foreign profits, and the corporate minimum tax increased from 15% to 21%. And for employees paid more than $1 million corporations not to be able to take deductions. ...

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Airlines are using the savings from lower oil prices to do do much neded upgrading and improvements on planes, for improving airport facilities and to reward employees. Airlines are investing at the best rate in 13 years. Much of the investment goes to upgrade service for business class travel. As planes are full airlines have little incentive to reduce fares. American Airlines says it wil invest $2 billion to improve service inside planes. Air France-KLM says it is spending $1.2 billion to refurbish planes and modenize airport lounges, ground services. IATA estimate is for airline industry profits to go up from $11 billion in 2013 to $19.9 billion, increasing to $25 billion in 2015, almost doubling in 2 years.

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Saying that these countries had significantly cut imports from Iran, the U.S. government gave exemptions from the sanctions on Iran to 10 European countries and Japan. Exemptions were given to Belgium, Britain, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. This leaves 11 countries facing possible sanctions including China, India and S. Korea, with negotiations underway with these three major importers. The sanctions law passed by the U.S. Congress gives the government room to avoid damage to global oil markets and U.S. allies.

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The Turkish example is proving how difficult it is to get effective international sanctions against the development of nuclear weapons without the cooperation of the international community. A recent surge in gold exports from Turkey to Iran, or to Iran through the U.A.E., is the result of Turkey using a loophole in sanctions against Iran to pay for natural gas and oil imports from Iran with Turkish lira. The lira is is then converted to gold to be sent to Iran. Under sanctions Iran is frozen out of the international SWIFT banking transactions system. Turkey imports 51% of its oil and 18% of its natural gas from Iran.Turkey's deputy prime minister tells a parliamentary budget commttee- "in essence gold exports to Iran end up like payments for our natural gas purchases. Turkey is depositing the payment for the gas we purchase from Iran to Iran's account in Turkey. I don't know exactly how they then transfer it." Turkish state run bank, Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS, is in charge of processing payments. Halkbank raised 4.5 billion lira ($2.5 billion)in Nov. 2012 in a secondary share sale of a 2.8% stake, according to the Istanbul Stock Exchange. Turkey's gold exports to Iran in the first 9 months of 2012 increased from $54 millon in 2011 to $6.4 billion. This is helping Turkey's problems with its high current account deficit from an unsustainable 10% at the end of 2011 to 7% 0f GDP. This helped Turkey with short term external financing needs by getting Turkey its first investment grade credit rating in twenty years. Two way trade with Iran for the first 9 months is at $18.8 billion, up from $16 billion in 2011, the $16 billion was an increase of 50% over 2010....

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Pete Seeger used a sloop to take people down the Hudson River to educate them about the river and how it could come back to life if cleaned up. Today the river once polluted with sewage and oil pollution is clean enough to provide recreational opportunities. It also provides drinking water for the town of Poughkeepsie in New York. Hudson River Sloop Clearwater environmental organization which headed this effort is now the Riverkeeper which advocates environmental policies for the Hudson River. Seeger lived close to the outdoors in a log cabin on 17 acres near the Hudson River. He cut wood on this land since the 1960's and he says he loved the exercize and sound of cutting wood every day.

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A plan appears to have been put in place by the U.S. and the European Union countries to strengthen the American position in negotiations with Iran underway in Istanbul. The impact on oil prices and on U.S. and E.U. growth as a consequence of higher oil prices, especially when the eurozone countries faced lowed growth, was one of the ways Iran hope to blunt the tightening of sanctions against Iran's nuclear program. It now appears from information released by the International Energy Agency that a plan was implemented by the Saudis in recent months to build up reserve supplies. At the same time a similiar effort was being implemented to increase production in Iraq and Libya so that it would add to reserves added by the Saudis. Daily output from OPEC countries increased by about 1.4 millon barrels in the Sept 2011- March 2012 period, as the confrontation with Iran took shape with increasing pressure using sanctions on Iranian oil, according to the IEA. Of this 1.4 million barrels a day increase, one third is from the Saudis and the rest from Iraq and Libya, according to IEA. In March 2012, OPEC oil production increased by 135,000 barrels a day to 31.4 million barrels, mostly from higher output in Iraq. The Saudis have filled up domestic oil inventories and placed an additional 10 million barrels of oil in storage close to markets in Europe and Japan. This suggests that this was part of a quietly implemented plan in cooperation with the U.S. and the EU countries to increase the effectiveness of sanctions and protect global oil supplies from disruptions; even as the U.S. pressured Japan, S. Korea, India and other countries to reduce purchases of Iranian oil. The economies of India, the EU and other countries were already beginning to feel the impact of higher oil prices in the 1st quarter of 2012....

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The new EPA rules for auto emission standards were setup under the Obama administration in 2012. The rules are a major part of the effort to meet the challenge of pollution and clean air. The Trump administration and EPA chief Scott Pruitt plan to reverse the higher standards. The new standards which had the support of automakers when enacted require that average fuel economy be doubled to about 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This would cut oil use by 12 billion barrels over the lifetime of the cars and reduce carbon dioxide pollution by about 6 billion tons.  The EPA under president Trump does not say how much the standards will be rolled back. This also leads to one more tension between California and the Trump administration. California plans to vigorously oppose the rollback. Under the Clean Air Act of 1970 California has historically made its own rules and was followed by 12 other states making up one third of the car market in the U.S. If the Trump administration is able to to this it would create two markets for automobiles in the U.S. which is not in the interest of automakers who are having second thoughts about the change. Amazingly a suburban Virginia Chevy dealership has vigorously opposed being used as the location for the EPA under the Trump administration making an announcement on this issue. Chevy dealerships are saying the Trump administration does not have the facts, that the auto industry has done very well in the last 4-5 years. Chevrolet and GM do not want to be associated with the politics on this issue. California has historically acted as a pioneer in automobile standards with the rest of the nation following. The Trump administration move would be an effort to break this precedent.  ...

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See the piece on GE's Energy Gusher in Ahead of the Tape. As GE's financial services business led to earnings shortfall and 13% drop in its share price on April 11, investors may be overlooking the strong position of GE in energy businesses like turbines, nuclear energy, and in oil and gas. GE's overeseas sales went up by 23% in 2007 driven by 23% gain in its energy centric infrastructure business. Additional note is that GE is in the healthcare business and in green environmental business which should see growth even in a recession. And the financial services business may see further trimming after the earnings shortfall, so that GE is well positioned for the future.

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U.S. president Obama visits Saudi Arabia in April 2016. President Obama presents arguments for forging "a cold peace" between Iran and Saudi Arabia after proxy conflicts in the Middle East. During the visit president Obama will encourage dialogue between Iran and Saudi Arabia, at a time when Saudis are skeptical about U.S. policies in the region. Saudi Arabia has reduced the economic gains to Iran from lifting of sanctions and entering the oil market by ramping up Saudi production to bring down prices. The situation also affects Russia and Venezuela.

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Automakers have huge problems servicing debt, with GM servicing $45 billion debt. Also all that inventory in trucks but also cars weighs heavily as cost for automakers, cars 28% overstocked, trucks 13% overstocked, as sales fall according to Credit Suisse analysts. And overseas bright spots are gone with global financial crisis. And Goldman estimates GM will use up $9 billion in 2009, and working capital cash balances need to be $11 to $14 billion. So do lower oil prices matter, not so much for automakers. And Chrysler is a bad choice for merger partner says a Merrill Lynch analyst because of its product and overexposure to the US market.

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Russia's Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev, says Russia's economy contracted in the first of 2014 compared with the prior quarter. Intensifed capital flows and lack of new investment could lead to the economy and GDP declining by 1.8% in 2014, according to the ministry forecast. Russia experienced capital outflows of $60 billion in the 2014 1st quarter, almost as much as for all of 2013. Russian law caps spending not covered by direct revenue at 1% of GDP. He called for tapping the rainy day fund for spending on infrastructure and investment to revive growth. Currently much of the revenue from high oil prices goes into building up the rainy day fund, used to cushion the impact of financial crises, after learning from the disaster of the 1998 financial crisis when the ruble collapsed.

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Prospects for the global economy in 2016- debt to GDP ratios high in Turkey, Brazil and China lead to problems and slowing growth. India an exception in emerging markets with growth rate above 7%, benefitting from increasing foreign investment and halving of oil prices. U.S. recovers slowly, and the eurozone emerges from the debt crisis with need for further quantitative easing by the European Central Bank. Russia recovers gradually after a steep devaluation of the ruble. Ironically just when a slow recovery is taking place in 2015-2016, the private sector governance improvements, and serious tackling of debt problems, lead one to conclude that prospects for the long term are better today than in 2005 when the optimism was not well grounded because of weak governance and debt buildup.

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A snap election following criticism of the Conservative government's budget plans to increase taxes leads to a win for the NDP in Alberta, Canada.

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Higher oil production in Saudi Arabia in 2012 as the Saudis support U.S. sanctions against Iran.

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The impact on stock markets around the world of the protests in Egypt. The Nikkei fell 1.5%, the Kospi index fell 1.5%, on Jan 31, and the Dow Jones average fell 166 points on Friday Jan 28, 2011. Oil prices increased by 3.7% to $89.34 during the week of protests in Egypt. The Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington estimates a 5% increase in the price of oil takes away $5 billion dollars from the US economy. Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor's Equity Research, says that a boxer rarely gets knocked out by a punch he is expecting, and this could be what starts a decline after the market fought off fears from sovereign debt crises in Europe and interest rate increases in China. What makes Egypt significant? The Suez Canal is ony a 1000 feet wide at the narrowest point. Supertankers carrying oil do not pass through the canal but rely on smaller vessels and on the Sumed pipeline. About 2.9 million barrels of oil a day, 2.6% of global oil production passed though the Suez Canal and the pipeline according to the US Energy Department. Because prices are determined at the margin this is a lot of oil, especially considering the global spare production capacity is only 2.5 millon barrels a day. The immediate impact would be on Europe which gets much of the oil refined in the Middle East and shipped using the canal and pipeline. Egypt is also a major importer of wheat, importing more wheat than any other country. Any increase in imports to placate consumers would increase wheat prices. Already wheat prices are impacted by floods in Australia, a long drought in Argentina, and forest fires in Russia. Inflationary impact of rising food prices has been felt in China, India and other countries....