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Feldstein's thoughts in April 2009, on Treasury's Public-Private Investment Plan. First, he says this plan will only remove $500 billion of impaired assets. The banks he says now own $3 billion of residential mortgages, $1.5 trillion of corporate real-estate loans, and $1 trillion of consumer debt. Not all of this is impaired but the banks will have to sell much more than $500 billion to regain confidence in their solvency. And with one third of all residential mortgages exceeding the value of the houses, and thie many homeowners under water, likely to default, the negative feedback loop of foreclosures begetting falling prices begetting foreclosures, threatens the whole effort to shore up the defences. If no workable solution is executed quickly to prevent this then even larger pools of mortgage debt will be impaired irretrievably. Feldstein suggests that the Obama administration seriously look at his plan suggested in March 2008 to provide government loans at low rates of interest like 1- 2% for 20% of the principal amount of the mortgage and then reduce the mortgage principal by 20%, thus keeping millions of homeowners above water. But this needs to be done quickly. All voluntary efforts have failed and have become asmokescreen for banks and lobbying groups with support from Congress to make it appear that this problem is being addressed. Thirdly Feldstein says that if banks sell these impaired mortgage assets at a loss- say 40-60 cents on the dollar on the upside with government and the FDIC picking up alot of the risk and financing for private investors under the new plan- they will now have to show the loss whereas they could have previously shown these assets at unrealistic price levels but still not taking losses. This might push banks into insolvency, so banks will need more injection of capital by the government to make this possible. What are the risks in this situation? Without an effective plan to prevent the negative feedback loop of foreclosure waves and falling houseprices, the quantity of impaired assets will simply grow larger. In effect even if some private investors take out some of the impaired assets from the banking system, it is possible that a new set of assets equal to or larger than these assets that are taken out are added to impaired assets in the banking system as house prices fall steeply from new foreclosures. That only means the economy is in the same hole as before, or in a slightly larger one, even with all the well intentioned steps. At some point the private enterprise argument has to be seen in the correct light. It is not that there is any argument that private enterprise can function better or far superior, it is only that the banks as private enterprises are in such an enormously stressed situation that the bank executive's cannot execute a way out of this mess. ...

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Casey describes the crucial policy errors in Brazil with over spending and lack of transparency in the years leading to the crisis in 2014-2015. Brazil raised interest rates half a percentage point in May 2015 to 13.25%. Inflation was at 8.13% in Brazil in March 2015. Brazilian companies have large dollar denominated debt accumulated during the boom years which needs to be refinanced as its currency the real declines. With current policies economic growth is likely to continue at 0-1%. Russia made policy errors with the departure of Kudrin as finance minister for Putin's second term as president. Policies to attract foreign investment, controlling military expenditures, and continuing growth were reversed as Russia took positions on Ukraine that led to western sanctions, capital outflows, and a sharp decline in the ruble. By May 2015 the ruble and oil prices had recovered from lows, but the ruble was still 35% below the level in June 2014, and the oil prices were still only two thirds of the peak in 2014. Russia sees the decline in the ruble as a way to reduce imports and increase import substitution for many products. The economy is weakened by high inflation- inflation was 6.9% in March 2014, going up to 16.9% in March 2015. In May 2015 Russia lowered the target repo rate by 1.5 percentage points to 12%. Russia faces stagflation- high unemployment with low GDP growth, and high inflation....

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Changes to dividend policies for state owned companies made at the Third Plenum in Beijing in November 2013. Plans were approved for state owned companies in China to increase dividends for the government to get 30% of after tax profit by 2020, up from about 15%. Frangos says it would be difficult for the companies to implement the 30% target without having listed subsidiaries make dividends available to all investors.

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A draft of the "Common Vision of the World Bank Group," posted online by Government Accountability Group provides details on how the World Bank sees its mission in 2013. The question relates to what the World Bank's mission should be in a world where develping countries such as China and India have made signficant progress. The fragile and conflict ridden states in Africa and in parts of Asia and Latin America will be critical parts of this mission. Yet a lot remains to be done in China and India, and the World Bank sees its role as facilitating the development of needed infrastructure in India and efforts to control pollution in China, better manage the growth of cities in both countries, and also work in the poorer parts of Europe such as Greece. World Bank president Kim sees the World Bank working with the private sector to ensure that infrastructure projects have "a transformational outcome" to help improve incomes of people struggling to join the middle class.

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The recent appointment of fast food executive Andrew Puzder as Labor Secretary has caused great concern among union leaders. Puzder supports a $9 minimum wage compared to $15 supported by Democrats. Unions now represent 7% of the labor force, down from a high of 20% during Reagan's time when Reagan appointed a construction company executive as Labor Secretary and cut regulations.  Globalization has thinned the ranks of workers in unions. And the failure of Democratic administrations to stem the shift of factories overseas to China, Mexico and other places, as part of global supply chains focussed on cost, has weakened Democratic support among workers since the period of Bill Clinton. It eroded to the point where Obama won 65% of support among unions and Hillary Clinton won 56% in 2016. Interestingly the Republican Romney gained 33% versus 37% for Trump, showing voters were more inclined to move away from Democrats and only a smaller number willing to support Republicans, but the shift enough to give Republicans a win in 2016 for the presidency. The figures are from a Election Day survey of trade union AFL-CIO, and a larger proportion in midwestern states showed disaffection with policies from Clinton to Obama. In fact Obama spent years promoting another free trade agreement TPP that favored tech more than auto and older industries, just as Bill Clinton had promoted NAFTA, without giving thought to what this was doing to its worker base of support. A similar situation happened with Social Democrats in Germany as a SPD administration moved to the centre and handed Christian Democrats led by Merkel a win in parliamentary elections. As Democrats such as former Labor Secretary Reich, a professor at UC Berkeley who served under Bill Clinton, describe the problems of working class people their is less reflection on the impact of the changes from globalization and how Democrats handled or mishandled it, and more on the politics between the two parties.   ...

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Researchers David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego, and David Dorn of the Center for Monetary and Fiscal Studies in Madrid, in independent research, studied the impact of trade on 722 clusters of interrelated counties in the U.S. They focussed on the surge in Chinese imports and found a pattern. Counties with higher exposure to Chinese import growth showed higher unemployment and higher expenditures by the government for unemployment benefits, food stamps and disability benefits. Their calculations show the increased government payments amount to one to two thirds of the gains from trade with China. This does not include the losses suffered by people losing jobs who deplete savings as they look for new jobs. Hanson studied the effects of trade and Chinese imports in the 1990's and found the effects were relatively small. This time the effects are large and show counties that lacked local investments in industrial machinery and technologies in which China was still playing catchup such as Caterpillar in Peoria, Illinois, and Boeing in Everett, Washington, were most susceptible to higher jobless rates and in need of government support payments. Autor and Hanson found that from 2000-2007, communities in the 75th percentile- ones with greater exposure to Chinese import growth than 75% of all communities- saw a manufacturing jobless rate of about one-third more than communities in the 25th percentile. The government payments mean higher taxes or larger deficits are needed to support these communities, and long periods of unemployment reduce the incentive to work. Michael Spence, a Nobel prize winning economist from New York University, says the world has never seen such a rapid pace of growth as China experienced between 2000-2011, with rates approaching 12% in some years, making past experience and prevailing theories on trade an insufficient guide to what is happening....

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Marie Le Pen and the National Front performed very poorly in French elections. Perceptions of voters are changing. The efforts in tackling the coronavirus, effective vaccination drives, public health protection, and building access to vaccine supplies, have shown the need for good leadership that believes in a science driven direction. Immigration is no longer the issue it once was and in some polls it is seventh on the list after climate change, economy,  education, pensions. The National Front in France and AfD are losing regional elections and popularity is dropping to about 10%. The Greens party in Germany and the Gaullist Republicans in France are being revitalized. Other factors are also present. The search for authenticity and effectiveness. After dismissing a popular prime minister who tackled the health crisis in 2020 France's president Macron fared badly in recent regional elections. His party En Marche was hastily put together in the last year of the administration of Mr. Hollande, the predecessor from the Socialist party. Its initial popularity has not turned into grassroots support. Mr. Hollande, Mr. Macron, are now seen as one term presidents. It is not so much that the centrist parties are gaining as a search for parties that can provide effective alternatives in the face of the challenges placed on the world by the pandemic- renewal of supply chains. climate change, public services, infrastructure, health, education, lives of the elderly. In the US, Europe, and India, countries in Latin America, there is a growing awareness of the need to rebuild with the people in mind, the people who have suffered badly in this health crisis and the financial crisis that preceded it in 2009. ...

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U.S home prices declined by 3.9% for the third quarter compared with the prior year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index of 20 major metropolitan areas. Prices are expected to be affected by an increase in foreclosed properties put by the banks for sale in coming months. Affordability has increased as prices are down by 31% from the 2006 peak and mortgage rates are at 4%. Yet as one appraiser puts it the problem remains one of tight credit and strict mortgage lending standards, and further home price declines could depress the market.

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Australia exceeded China in total revenue for GE by $100 million, with $5.8 billion in revenues. GE now sees resource rich countries providing revenue growth of 25% in the next 2 years compared to 10-15% for China and India. The Ichthys $34 billion LNG project by Total SA and Inpex of Japan alone generated $1.1 billion in contracts for gas turbines, compressors and underwater production systems. The Gorgon project of Chevron on the northwest coast of Australia generated $1.3 billion in revenue.

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In a policy shift the Bank of England's Governor, Mark Carney, announces that the central bank will keep interest rates low and bond purchases at the current level till the unemployment rate drops to 7%. This is similiar to the policy action of the U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, to keep interest rates low till the unemployment rate reaches 6.5%. Carney said conditions under which this could change are if inflation increased or financial stability was affected by the easy monetary policy. He said: "Our biggest concern is the possibility that as the recovery gathers pace, that there is an unwarranted change in expectations about the pace of the withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus." "That is one of the principal points of providing explicit forward guidance." BOE said the official unemployment rate was 7.8% in the three months to May, and it is unlikely to decline to the 7% level till early 2016. The inflation rate for Britain was 2.9% in June. The higher inflation rate is partly due to the higher taxes and large increase in university tution fees which are unlikely to be repeated. The BOE's Monetary Policy Committee sees inflation declining to 2% by 2015....

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The need for private investment to fund infrastructure growth in India.