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New rules for euro currency nations in Sept. 2011. The rules provide for sanctions against countries with budget deficits exceeding 3% of GDP, and national debt exceeding 60% of GDP. Countries that break the rules will be required to make a cash deposit in a non-interest bearing account for an amount that is 0.2% of GDP. If the situation continues the deposit becomes a fine. The European Commission will still require finance ministers permission to impose sanctions, but the voting system makes this harder to block. The European Parliament will consider 6 pieces of legislation to make these changes.

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Former finance minister, Rodrigo Rato, resigns as executive chairman of Spain's Bankia bank. Spain's Bankia bank is believed to be one of the banks mentioned by the IMF that will need government help to address 32 billion euros in bad loans. Bankia bank is the result of consolidation in 2010 of seven of Spain's Cajas savings banks in a government led restructuring. Bankia is expected to get 7-10 billion euros from the government in the form of convertible bonds. The government gave $4.5 billion to Bankia to absorb some of the losses in 2010. Bankia made an IPO offering in 2011 in 3.3 billion euro listing. Since then the shares have lost one third of the value. Experts are uncertain about the extent to which this will restore confidence.

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Sebarros of the WSJ takes a closer look at the key words used by U.S. president Trump in rallies in city after city during the 2016 election campaign and in the months before the Congressional elections in 2018. Analysis by the WSJ counted the unique two word phrases, how often Trump highlighted topics, the content of audience respones in 48 post election rally speeches through Oct 27.  In 2018 the words "tax cuts,"fake news," and "health care," appeared more often than in 2017 after the Republican party's win in passing a tax cut. Other phrases used frequently were "law enforcement," "North Korea," and "Supreme Court" after the win in nominating Judge Kavanaugh. The use of the 2 word phrases are carefully done. The words "fake news" were not used during sensitive periods such as when pipe bombs were mailed to government offices, yet resumed few weeks later. His own name is the seventh most used word, even for someone such as Mr. Trump, showing that behind the impromptu remarks there is a carefully worded effort to steer voters in a particular direction with carefully developed appeals. Another example is when the Dow Jones averages were reaching new highs in September and October Mr. Trump highlighted the stock market growth, and then when volatility increased by November said much less on this topic. Graphs by Jessica Wang provide a good look at how frequently and in what manner Mr. Trump has continued his unique campaigning style before the 2018 Congressional elections, with two word appeals to already receptive audiences. The audience participation is a singular feature and the words "U.S.A." were used in 85% of the rallies with "Build that Wall" at 65% as the next most frequent.  Much of it is repetitive in city after city and the WSJ analysis shows that the major television networks including Fox News are not covering the speeches from beginning to end as they did before, only C-Span public network does. To receptive audiences in carefully scripted surroundings, including larger ones such as the Toyota Center Houston, where larger numbers of supporters worried about immigration, health care, trade, and other issues can come together, president Trump has rallied core supporters with this kind of appeal. ...

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Hospitals across Paris are stockpiling drugs and protective equipment to tackle a second wave of coronavirus. About 163 deaths were reported in France on October 20, up 50% from the 100 deaths average the previous week. During early April the deaths in France were about 400 to 600 a day.  Spain is drawing "elasticity plans" to add more beds for coronavirus. In Lombardy region of Italy hit for the second time similar plans are being made as Italy records 70 deaths a day. 

The head of the Delafontaine hospital ICU unit in Saint Denis suburb of Paris says the first wave left the staff exhausted and he finds it hard to imagine having to go through it all once again. ICU beds in Liverpool England are 95% occupied, in Madrid 39%, in Paris about 50%. Poland and Czech Republic are being hit hard in the second wave after avoiding the worst of the first wave.

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Coronavirus cases on a daily basis exceed 70,000 in one day in Brazil with 26,000 in Sao Paulo alone. Brazil's cases now exceed 2.5 million, the worst hit after the U.S. followed by India. President Bolsonaro has failed to provide leadership in the pandemic, himself contracting the virus and not following social distancing, mask covering till recently.

President Macron of France gains in popularity with over 50% satisfied with his performance after his hard fought gains in getting the 390 billion euros nonrepayable common debt funds for the European Recovery Fund for hard hit pandemic countries. Macron was able to get the full support of Merkel of Germany to get this approved after Dutch premier Rutte's effort to stall the aid effort in weeks of long negotiations. It is a show of European solidarity and brings Europe together, giving much needed aid to Spain and Italy.

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The borrowing costs of Italy declined sharply as 9 billion euros of Italy's government bonds were auctioned at a yield of 3.25 percent on Dec. 28, 2011, compared to 6.50 percent at a prior auction in November 2011. The rate on 1.7 billion euros of two year bonds auctioned declined to 4.85 percent from 7.81 percent in November. This follows action by the ECB providing a large infusion of low cost funds to European banks charging only 1 percent on three year loans.

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The Markit eurozone purchasing managers index comes in at 52.8 for June 2014. France's PMI declined to 48, showing contraction in manufacturing. Germany was at 54.2. The rest of the eurozone showed improvement. Average eurozone PMI for the second quarter 2014 was 53.5, up from 53.1 in the first quarter 2014.

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The agreement reached Dec. 12, 2012 to setup a single supervisory authority for large banks in the eurozone is a major and historic step. The ECB takes up this role after parliaments in the eurozone countries ratify the agreement by March 2013.

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Susan Jaccoby brings up a major issue facing healthcare in America from personal experience. A third of the Medicare budget, she says, goes to the last year of life, and a third of this goes to the care in the last month. At the same time public opinion polls show Americans see the problem being too much medical intervention rather than too little. Especially when there is no hope except to prolong life for the patient with an highly deteriorated qulaity of life for a few months or a year, doing no service to the patient or future generations who may see their basic services cut when they most need it as a result of the unaffordable spiralling cost of Medicare. A Pew Research Center poll in 2006, shows 22 percent say a doctor should not always make efforts to save a sick person's life, and 70 percent believe that patients should be allowed to die in some situations, when it only prolongs life for a few months for instance and patients live in pain. The problem only gets worse in future years as an estimated 8.5 million Americans are expected to be over 85 years in 2030 with these same choices facing patients, their families, Medicare and the country....

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Jonathan Rockoff interviews Pfizer CEO, Ian Read. Read says Pfizer will make up for the loss of patent protection on Lipitor sales of $10.7 billion. He plans to cut Pfizer's $8.1 billion research budget to $6.5 billion. Pfizer sold one unit that makes drugs in capsule form for $2.4 billion. He looks to growth in Lyrica for fibromyalgia, and Prevnar for pneumococcal vaccine. And sees growth in China and emerging markets. Even with government ordered price reductions in China, increase in volume sales make up for the price reductions. Asked about the closing of the Pfizer labs in Sandwich, England, Read says the competitors were ahead of Pfizer in areas of research at Sandwich such as allergy, respiratory and urology. Pfizer will move scientists from Groton, Connecticut, to Cambridge, Mass, to bring scientists together in hubs of innovation such as La Jolla, Boston, and Cambridge, England. In the old days Groton served as a location because it was near a river, fermentation was needed and water access had to be provided. Read says Pfizer will focus on the core- neuroscience, cardiovascular medicine, oncology, inflammation, immunology and vaccines, specialized units for pain, sensory disorders and biosimiliars- and make sure this is producing results....

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A study done by the Hudson Institute shows an increase in sales of 5.5% on average in same store sales of restaurants which increased lower calorie items on the menu. The reverse is taking place for restaurants that have neglected to do this, with these restaurants experiencing a decline in sales. This was based on research firm NPD and restaurant data at 21 fast-food and sit-down restaurant chains between 2006 and 2011. Chains that include lower calorie counts on menus include Panera, McDonalds, Denny's and Au Bon Pain chain. Federal regulations will require restaurants with 20 or more outlets to post the calorie counts in early 2014. The process of moving Americans away from eating habits that lead to obesity is moving at a slow pace. Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center of Science in the Public Interest, says large serving sizes at restaurants lead to overeating and obesity. Frequency of eating at restaurants is another problem, with studies showing women who eat out more than 5 times a week take in about 290 calories each day compared to women who do not eat out that often. The healthy options at restaurants are still restricted to a small portion of menus and healthy choices are limited....

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Le Monde publishes the speech JD Vance gave at the Munich Security Conference with it says added context and explanation. It is useful because it is easy to make hasty judgements in one direction or another. The focus here is on immigration to EU and to the US, a sore point. Vance does not mention a bigger sore point - the lack of recognition worldwide to the 490,000 American lives lost in the illegal flow of fentanyl into the US without needed action from CMC Canada, Mexico and China. And business as usual carried on by these countries and the European Union, and a failure to act by the US.  JD Vance said- "And of all the pressings—challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all-time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States—also an all-time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And, of course, it’s gotten much higher since.And we know the situation, it didn’t materialize in a vacuum. It’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade." Fact Check- About 14 million of Germany's 84.5 million people are foreign nationals according to Destatis. This is 16.6% of Germany's population. Vance rounds it off to 20% not 17%. In the US there are 47.8 million people who are foreign born or 14.3% of the population in 2023. It increased by 1.6 million from 2022 to 2023, much of it coming from Venezuela and Central American failed states from left parties mismanaging the economy for hyperinflation and from gang violence. In 2022 EU member states welcomed 1.8 million Ukrainian nationals that was only 100,000 in 2021, which is two thirds of the increase. The reason for Vance's doubling. A similar situation happened in the US with Venezuela as a failed state with hyper inflation into 1000 percent inflation leading to migration to other Latin American countries and into the US during the Biden administration. Some of this happened because sanctions made things worse, mismanagement of the economy. A similar migration happened from Syria into the EU member states as a result of the civil war.     ...

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With 57% of Italy's sovereign debt owned by Italians, a lot depends on Italians continuing to invest in Italian government bonds. With the higher interest rates on the bonds Italians have one more reason to continue to do so.

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The yield on Italy's two year bonds reached 7.269% on November 9, 2011. Italy needs to rollover $300 billion in debt over the next 12 months. And liquidity is becoming a serious problem as investors become cautious about buying Italian bonds. Investors who were attracted to the higher yields on Italian bonds now see the market as too unstable to make purchases. Peter Schaffrik, head of European rates strategy at RBC Capital Markets in London, says that the Italian bond market, the third largest in the world, was quite liquid, with investors buying or selling 500 millon euros of Italian bonds at a clip. Now, he says, its hard to trade more than 50 million euros. The only hope is to get enough stability and confidence back into the market, as Italy is too large for any rescue effort by the ECB, IMF or the EFSF. With some stability Black Rock's Fundamental Fixed Income portfolio's chief investment officer, Rick Rieder, says Italian bonds are something he would buy.

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Proposals for using a plan in the euro-zone, such as the Brady Plan. The Brady plan arranged for bondholders for Latin American debt to take losses of 30% in return for longer term debt instruments with lower rates, and backed by 30 year US zero coupon bonds. This helped restructure Latin American debt in the late 80's and early 90's, and helped countries in Latin America forge an economic recovery. At this time Angela Merkel from the German side is pushing for bondholders to take losses for having made risky loans, which was made part of the EU bailout plan in late November 2010. However investors in financial markets continued to push up bond yields for Belgium, Portugal, and also for Germany. There is the sense that something is needed that would require bondholders to take losses, with some compensating mechanism such as the Brady bonds. Also needed is a restructuring of debt without which euro-zone countries cannot stage an economic recovery. Ireland, Portugal and Spain can no longer devalue their national currencies as a way out of the financial crisis. This increases the urgency for coming up with a solution. Mr. Brady was asked about this at a financial markets conference recently. He said what is needed for such a plan to work, is to have a unified decision. In the Brady plan the US took the lead and agreement was arranged bringing together the bondholders and the sovereign countries. Nicholas Brady was Treasury Secretary of the US in the 1980's. Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and other countries restructured their debt, and commercal banks were able to reduce their exposure at a discount. The principal benefit to the lending banks was that they were able to exchange their claims on developing countries into tradeable instruments, and were able to get this debt off their balance sheets. The negotiations for the Brady bonds involved some form of "haircut" - meaning that the value of the bonds resulting from the restructurings was less than the face value of the bonds. All of the Brady bonds were eventually retired. By Mexico in 2003, and also by Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela....