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Krugman says the the higher population growth in Texas has led to higher job growth there relative to the rest of the country. Other factors mitigating the effects of the recession in Texas- the housing and mortgage lending laws in Texas prevented the building up of home equity debt and foreclosures that hit other states, and the oil industry in Texas helped with higher oil prices. Lower wages in Texas, lower living costs, and lower housing costs have attracted jobs to the state. In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2%, lower than California and close to that of New York.

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High unemployment and sluggish growth in hiring-only 1.1 milllion jobs added in 2010 and only 103,000 in December 2010, according to the Labor Department- will restrict profit growth. Industries such as airlines, food, construction and telecom that lagged the recovery, will continue to face difficulties. Airlines face higher fuel prices and labor wage pressures. Standard and Poor's expects profits for the S&P 500 Index companies to reach a 3 year peak in the ist quarter 2011, then move lower for the next 5 quarters. Earnings reached $22.62 a share for these companies, up 29% from one year ago.

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Most of the $180 billion in infrastructure spending in the stimulus plan will be spent in 2010 and 2011. Only $20 billion was spent in 2009. This includes money for rail lines and water projects. But this will not make adent in the jobless numbers because much of that work is mechanized, and the unemployment rate is expected to continue moving upwards. In all only one third of the $787 billion for the Stimulus that was approved has been spent in 2009. According to IHS Global Insight the ramped up stimulus spending could contribute 1.4 percentage points to GDP in 2010.

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U.S. added 245,000 jobs in November. Unemployment rate drops from 6.9% to 6.7% as some Americans give up looking for work. The concern now is not the rate of job creation which is healthy but the drop outs from the workforce.  Concern arises from the long drawn out effects of the 2009 financial crisis and its effects which were seen over a decade. This report in NYT says the share of prime age Americans who were employed returned to the January 2008 level in 2019. And then the pandemic hits putting everything back again. This time if the lesson is learned about the long term damage to working families it is that this be tackled as a priority for the central bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve, an the Treasury, and Council of Economic Advisors, under the leadership of president Biden. Fortunately both Yellen and the new proposed head of the Council are students of labor markets and have stated this is one of the lessons they have learned and will act on. As this report says the opiate crisis, the risks of addiction increased, and there were links to the long period people were without jobs. The longer a person is without a job the more likely he will become permanently unemployed. The hope now is that the vaccination effort could bring people back to work quickly as business and life resumes in 2021, with workers being hired back. The share of prime age Americans working in November is 76.5% compared to 80.5% in February, which means this has to go up by about 4 percentage points. The people who are not in the labor force today but still want a job are 2.2 million. It is this that needs to be the focus of the new administration, central bank, and Congress. ...

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With the aggressive actions taken along the 1600 kilometre border in eastern Ladakh by China's People's Liberation Army, India needs a younger soldier to protect the border at high altitudes in below freezing temperatures. The entire 3500 kilometre border in the high Himalayan regions from east to west need technology driven surveillance with soldiers fit and ready for such duty. Agnipath's goal is to bring down the average age in the army from 32 years to 26 years to better reflect the youthful population in India. A tighter better disciplined force with high tech is needed. Bringing in more and new recruits is intended. Both the 25% of recruits retained after 4 years benefit and the 75% benefit. The 25% will have opportunities to move up the ranks. The 75% who come back out of the military will have the advanced technical training and courses, certification, that would make them attractive to the public and private sector companies in 2026 and beyond when India's economy will be 50% larger than today at growth rates of 10-12%. This is already seen in the way technologically trained military recruits from World War II in the US Army, Navy and Air Force were quickly absorbed at high salaries in the high growth period of America 1950-1970, with incentives like the GI Bill. Modifications that could be discussed- The 25% retained after 4 years. There is no magic number it could be raised to 30 or 40% during these post pandemic years and then lowered to 25% as the economy grows rapidly by 2025, or kept at 30% without changes, a number of options could be open.The financial aspect of the training can be modified where the 25% retained could have these 4 years added to their years for calculating pensions. The 75% are given 1.2 million rupees and even this can be adjusted upwards so that they could start businesses as entrepreneurs or have the time to pursue higher education before taking up for example with free education to enhance their education in areas of interest as was given by the GI bill to Americans in the armed services after World War II in 1946. Ideas from the GI Bill signed by president Franklin Roosvelt in 1944- Adding one year of unemployment payments, low interest loans to start a farm or business, full tution and living expenses for college. In 2008 the Veterans Act in the US continued support for education of servicement by making eduction free at a public college or university.  The Roosevelt GI bill benefited about 7.8 million servicemen in the US armed services. 2.2 million went to college, 7.6 million took training programs. It was an impressive achievement. No scheme is perfect there are budgetary constraints such as how to manage pensions to give the armed services the best possible funding including the training and course capabilities that also need good financing and the higher pensions for armed services. Every political party  government around the world without exception will have to face these budgetary constraints and the goal is to do right by the armed services providing the income and opportunities they deserve. Was a decent effort made with the right goals set? This is how these matters of national interest for India and the Free World that includes South East Asia, Africa and Latin America, should be discussed.    ...

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Boeing reaches a tentative agreement with the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers in Nov. 2011. Under the agreement Boeing will build the 737 MAX, a retooled version, at a union plant in Renton, Washington. In exchange the union will not oppose Boeing's use of a new nonunion plant in South Carolina for assembling some 787 Dreamliners. The agreement when approved by union vote would extend the contract for 4 years till 2016. Advantages to Boeing lie in labor peace during a period when Boeing plans to increase production by about one third, over 2012-2014, to meet aircraft orders of $332 billion. Existing 737 production has been moved up to 35 a month, going up to 42 a month, accelerating the pace significantly, making it important for both sides to avoid labor discord. The Max first delivery is planned for 2017. In the current unemployment crisis there was considerable incentive on both sides to resolve the issue quickly, after the union had raised the issue with the National Labor Relations Board. It provides Boeing with flexibility in assembling some of the 787's in S. Carolina along with assurance for union commitment to productivity, and gives the union assurances that Boeing will continue to maintain significant maufacturing presence in the Washington area, a win-win for both sides. The NLRB appeal will be dropped by the union....

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Questions about the every 5 years 20th Party Congress of the CCP or Chinese Communist Party, and the 2300 representatives attending from all parts of China are answered in this report in The Guardian.  Xi Jinping is expected to get a third term. To outsiders in US and Europe it is all about power in China, to insiders in China it is about China making it through the 100 years since the 1901 revolution and the tumult, the chaos of the first 100 years, and now a period of modernization and growing incomes,  the need to create jobs, tackle climate change, ensure a good future for the Chinese people. 2300 party members representing millions of party members in China attend the gathering. New appointments and retirements take place at this Congress. Of this there are 200 elite members of the Central Committee with voting rights. This central committee is responsible for electing a 25 member Politburo, of which the seven most senior persons are appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi Jinping is the General Secretary, the most senior position in this hierarchy. Age related retirements are at 68 years and a new Politburo standing committee is announced at each Congress. After the Bo Xilai effort to take power and take China in a new and unknown direction, and the gradual loss of the party's respect from corruption and abuses of power by local officials, Xi Jinping sensed problems in the future and conducted a anti-corruption campaign. Most of the system of government set up during the Deng and Jiang Zemin years after 1980 remains in place with Jinping calling for a revival of China, the next stage of modernization, under the banner of the CCP. The result of the anti-corruption campaign and a third term assumed by Xi including lifting of a term limit for heading the CCP, gives Xi Jinping an opportunity to shape the future for China as Deng did after 1980. Jinping in the manner of Deng sees the CCP as the organization that can continue the modernization and growth of China. The model set by Deng and Zemin of local autonomy for economy and centralized overall direction continues under Jinping who is General Secretary since 2012. China has made rapid growth during the period 2000-2022, but faces challenges of reorienting its economy away from dependence on a tight economic export oriented relationship with the US and EU, as supply chains are being shifted after the pandemic. This means more unemployment and need for careful economic planning and investment to create jobs in other sectors, and to meet the challenges of unequal distribution of wealth in China after hypergrowth that hurt China in some ways, and in the climate change effects of use of coal other fossil fuels. As focus of interest is on Jinping externally, within China it is these three challenges that must be uppermost in the minds of the 20th Congress members. Much of this stems from the tumult of the century that began with the 1901 revolution through Japanese invasion and upheavals in the 60's and 70's, leading to the rare period of stability and growth in the last 20 years. Jinping like Deng and Zemin has personal memories of the anguish of this period and the tumult, the chaos of the 20th century for China, and the yearning for stability with modernization.   ...

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When the president and his administration are investing trillions of dollars in the economy as Biden is doing with support from friends in Congress from both parties and the US economy is growing with Made in America reviving American manufacturing- this changes the way labor and immigration can be viewed. There is an expanding demand for labor in such an economy and this is true today. Paul Krugman in the NYT shows evidence that the native born Americans have not lost jobs to immigrants in 2019-2024. Much of the demand in the restaurant, hotels and health care industries, in construction, agriculture and occupations native born Americans are less interested in filling are filled by entry level workers who are immigrants. The Wall Street Journal showed in a recent report that Topeka, Kansas is trying to recruit new immigrants to come and live in Kansas where the unemployment rate is lower than the national average today under Biden of 3.7%, and there are thousands of jobs to be filled. This is why Senator Graham of South Carolina and Tillis of North Carolina, the senior Republicans in the Senate, were trying to fix asylum and parole policies in immigration with the help of president Biden to close the border and yet allow an organized flow of new immigrants to the US to fill jobs that would otherwise remain unfilled. Not everybody wants to live in Topeka but there are immigrants such as the Venezuelan and Colombian immigrants shown in that report who are happy to live in the Kansas winters in the prairies of the American heartland. Many come from educated backgrounds and are similar to other Americans already in Topeka such as the mayor of the town, and fit in well say officials in Topeka promoting economic development in the state. It is noteworthy that Kansas is a Republican state for decades.  ...

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In December 2023 job gains reported by the Labor Department for the US are 216,000 jobs, higher than November figure of 173,000. Unemployment is steady at 3.7%. In 2023 2.7 million jobs were created after 4.2 million jobs created in 2022. The pace exceeds that in the years before the pandemic and shows that the Biden administration's investments in manufacturing in the US, and in infrastructure, in science and technologies, are working. Of the world's advanced economies in OECD the US now leads, and its strong partnership with the EU, India, Vietnam and Japan, puts the US on a new trajectory of growth and improving the wellbeing of its people and partner nations.

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Most of the reporting on Ukraine follows the war. Questions are asked how will this conflict end? This report in Der Spiegel is one of the rare reports that looks at the Ukrainian economy with images and reporting from the ground that answer that question. If the Ukrainian economy is surviving in 2023 then Ukraine will continue long after a peace settlement is reached. It shows for instance that supermarket shelves are well stocked. It shows energy from half a million generators keeps the lights on and companies working in Ukraine. The steel industry is mostly destroyed yet the software industry continues to grow. Unemployment is 30% even after hundreds of thousands of younger Ukrainians are at the war front. Of about $62 billion promised by US and European countries about $31 billion has actually been transferred to Ukraine. The IMF has created an exception for aid to Ukraine with offices in Kviv and Brussels. All defense needs are covered from the Ukraine budget. Before the invasion in Feb 2021 defense took up 9% of the budget, now it takes up 42% of the budget. Another 16% for public security. For social benefits 16%, and another 26% for other expenditures. By having an economy that is functioning and life even in light from generators and solar energy, with supermarkets well stocked and providing office space for workers, with aid mechanisms working. Ukraine has already emerged as part of Europe, tried, tested and come through adversity of the worst sort. It is supposed to join the European Union, yet Der Spiegel says it is already tightly integrated into the EU. Its power grid was integrated with the EU power grid before the war, and nuclear power was sent to the EU from Ukraine before Russian attacks on the nuclear plant. Then transmission lines brought energy to Ukraine from the EU. The EU takes in 80% of Ukraine agricultural exports compared to 20% before the war. Even at the risk of lower prices and hurting farmers in Poland, the Polish government has allowed large imports of agricultural products into Poland. The close links with countries of the EU that share a border with Russia have increased. The problems now are that Ukraine after this war will have severe shortage of manpower. Already with the fall of the Soviet Union Ukraine lost about 8 million people and population was 44 million before the war. About 8 million people moved to Ukraine in the one year following Russian invasion. Of this 1.5 million stayed in Poland, the rest went on to other countries in the EU or returned. The countries such as Germany, Finland, Czech Republic have labor shortages of their own and encourage refugees to stay. Rebuilding is estimated to cost $131 billion. Yet as is evident in Poland after most of the damage from the second world war in Poland it was rebuilt using modern technology. Ukraine survives, its life goes on, is the message from Der Spiegel. In this way the war's outcome is already evident. Much of it comes from the European Union having sensed that attacks made with impunity would endanger all of the European countries when made by any dominant power. This is also what Cambridge historian Brendan Simms has shown about European history for the past 500 years in History of Europe- The struggle for Supremacy 1452 to the present. No one country says Simms was able to act with impunity and pose athreat to its neighbors as all other countries in Europe rallied to prevent this. This war is no exception.   ...

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Experts say there are only a couple of hundred high-integrity welders in Britain. Many manufacuring jobs go unfilled because of lack of skilled workers. Britain is trying to close this gap and reduce unemployment for young people by increasing apprenticeships in industry and worker training. The UK government allocated 1.57 billion pounds on worker training programs in 2013. Britain had 868,000 people in apprenticeship programs in 2013. EEF, a British trade group, says 80% of manufacturers have difficulty finding skilled workers with technical skills. Britain has done very poorly in the area of worker skills training according to the OECD. About 2.74 million new manufacturing jobs are expected to be created in Britain by 2020, of this 1.86 million will require engineering skills, according to EEF. A lot more needs to be done, as companies need to double the number of apprenticeships to meet expected needs.

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The Obama administration's foreclosure prevention programs were designed for subprime lending situations. They were not designed for the high unemployment experienced in the U.S. A Treasury Department effort allows jobless people to postpone mortgage payments for 3 months, the average length of unemployment however is 9 months. Only 7,397 participants are in this program. As part of the bailouts Treasury had $46 billion to spend to prevent foreclosures, as of May 2011 Treasury has spent only $1.85 billion. Because housing provide so much of the underpinnings for the U.S. economy, it is essential to put housing back on a stable footing for an economic recovery. The lack of a sensible plan in this area is simply incomprehensible. Morris Davis, a former Federal Economist, has estimated that a million more homeowners went into foreclosure because of a lack of help for the unemployed. Davis is an associate real estate professor at the University of Wisconsin. He says its simply outrageous that the Obama administration has done so little. President Obama recently took credit for a recovery and jobs saved in the auto industry in Detroit. The failure to come up with a workable plan and to do so little in the larger area of housing and unemployment, is likely to overshadow everything else. This is especially so with the Fed approaching its limits after QE II, and with the administration and the Congress in a stalemate over further stimulus and the deficit....

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Gerald Seib of the WSJ says president Biden is coming back with new actions to revive the Democratic agenda after a challenging period in the first year. Yesterday's first formal press conference of 2022 gave Biden an opportunity to respond. Why the WSJ, NYT, did not cover on their online edition front pages president Biden's first formal press conference on Jan. 19, after 1 year of the Biden administration, will remain a mystery. With the American press acting this way it did not take much for Germany's DW.com to run the story with the title "Biden's first year weighed down by disappointment," with a thoughtful Biden at the press conference replaced by a picture of Biden staring downwards.  This is only the first year of the Biden administration. Actions are planned to ease the supply chain situation and bottlenecks at ports. Much is made of inflation, Afghanistan, Ukraine, by Republicans assailing the Biden record. President Biden responded to this by asking at the press conference what Republicans are for. On Afghanistan Biden held firm on not investing billions of dollars every week when there is so much need in America and the rest of the world at this time of the pandemic after a failed adventure for 20 years in "a graveyard for empires."  Biden pointed to the bright spots in 2022- vaccination and testing achievements in the face of anti-vax sentiment with 200 million vaccinated, the job creation in the economy with unemployment way down and wage increases by employers, and the $1 trillion in infrastructure spending tackling much needed projects state by state with immediate impact. Rarely has a president faced so many challenges in the first year as Biden pointed out- vaccination drive in the face of the Delta variant and anti-vax sentiment, the Ukraine crisis with a president Truman period like event of the Berlin Wall coming up just potentially around the corner, and efforts to tackle problems left untackled for a generation in infrastructure, for working families and climate change. Scoring on infrastructure spending, one of the three, with the other two for working families and climate change to be tackled in the remaining three years and beyond.  Biden also told the American audience at the press conference that he was reminded of what his father used to tell him- that if all goals are equally important, nothing is important. In saying this he said help for working families through child tax credit, child care assistance, community college education funding, health care costs, climate change investment were priorities for his administration that would be tackled step by step. And he pointed out from the outset of the conference that only one or two senators were blocking the party's plan for children and working families. All 48 other senators were united in the Democratic party behind his plans for workers and families. As were 5 Republican senators who he said he would not disclose because of confidentiality. In that sense president Biden already has the majority he needs in Congress. This is not happening because of the peculiar situation of the 2016 and 2020 elections in the US and also in Europe- the historical problem of administrations of Democrats in US, Social Democrats in Germany, and Labor in Britain having give up on their working class families and middle class roots. Tech revolution and internet has further complicated the situation with economic changes, tech companies not paying taxes normally due, and tech workers shifting to Democrats yet living in a world distant from working class families fracturing social cohesion. This is changing in Germany with Scholz in Germany with the help of the Greens determined to restore the dignity of working class families, for Biden with a similar coalition, and a process underway in Britain as Labor returns to its roots. In essence Biden was saying- the process of unwinding decades of unwise policy that hurt America as a nation and leader of the free world would take time, requiring a patient step by step approach. To bring America closer to its own roots and Jefferson's immortal words of "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Jefferson went on to say in the Declaration that when government becomes destructive of these ends it is the Right of the People to alter it.   ...

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The American consumer is becoming frugal since the crisis hit in 2008. But it will take along time to reduce the debt piled up over the years. By 2008 end American households had $13.8 trillion in debt, which is close to the $14.3 trillion output of the entire US economy, not adjsted for inflation in 2008. American households started 2008 with debt at 133% of disposable income. At the end of 2008 this had only dropped 3 percentage points to 130% of disposable income. With unemployment higher, companies reducing hours, and local governments having a certain number of days of furlough, and wage growth slow or nonexistent, the debt will take longer to reduce. WIth this debt overhang, and the lack of easy credit even though the credit markets are working again, its going to be harder to see a consumer driven V shaped recovery. In the 2001 recession consumers took on more debt to provide aconsumer driven V shaped recovery. At that time the debt to disposable income ratio went above 100%. See graph. And its gone up steadily since, with super low interest rates encouraging borrowing, and then as the Fed raised rates consumers went heavily into mortgages and housing in a speculative bubble. This time not only is the credit not there to finance such a recovery, but a number of conditions such as permanent loss of a large number of manufacturing jobs, rising unemployment and use of parttime workers, the need to payoff debt, create definite constraints to consumer spending....

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Growth of 2.5% for the second quarter in S. Africa, and expected growth of 2% in 2013, down from 2.5% in 2012. High unemployment at 25% and a 23% depreciation of the Rand against the dollar in 2013. The current account deficit is at 5.8% putting pressure on the Rand which is at 10.45 to the dollar in August 2013. Labor unrest at mines which make up about half of exports is hurting the economy. This has spread to other sectors. About 100,000 airport technicians and construction workers were on strike in August 2013 for wage increases at twice the annual inflation rate of 6.3%. Strikes are also taking place at Ford's auo plant.

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The EU has pushed the date for France to reduce its deficit to 3% once before -to 2015 giving France 2 more years. French president Hollande faced with unemployment at 11% in March 2014, has set the task of convincing Brussels to allow more time after losing badly in local elections and facing opposition to continued austerity in his own party. France is expected to come up with a plan to present to the EU for cutting public spending by 50 billion euros over 3 years 2015-2017. In the televised address on March 31, Hollande put the priority on growth, saying "Its not a question of cutting spending for the sake of it." After election in May 2012, Hollande and prime minister Rajoy of Spain went to Brussels together to push for a growth oriented policy in the eurozone. This time he has support from Socialist Party leader in Italy, Matteo Renzi, who is also introducing growth oriented policies to reduce unemployment and boost the economy. The two leaders faceoff with Angela Merkel on the need to relax austerity policies in the eurozone....

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Portugal's finance minister Vitor Gaspar says all taxpayers will pay an additional tax of about 4% on annual income in 2013. The tax brackets will go down from eight to five raising average tax rates. Other measures include a "solidarity tax" on top earners of 2.5%. These tax increases will raise about 2 billion euros. Public workers will forego one paycheck, and there will be a new tax on financial transactions. Portugal's plan is to lower the budget deficit to 4.5% in 2013 from a deficit of 5% in 2012. The economy will contract by 3% in 2012 and 1% in 2013, with unemployment going up to 16.4% in 2013, according to government projections. Gaspar says "the tax rises will divide the effort equitably among the Portuguese population." Earlier tax proposals for raising worker payroll taxes and reducing employer contributions in a questionable effort to promote growth were discarded. This happened after they were seen as a transfer from workers to business and depressing consumer spending resulting in wide scale protests, with opposition also coming from the business community....

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Patricia Kowsmann provides this picture of life in a town on Portugal's northern coast, Viana do Castelo, with a population of 87,000, as Portugal struggles to make a recovery. Viana do Castelo has shipyards and companies making metal bridges for highways. The money losing state owned shipyard was privatized and sold to Martifer SGPS SA to run till 2031. 600 workers at the shipyard were laid off. The new company plans to rehire 400 workers by 2016 but jobs will not be permanent. Companies making the bridges now sell to former Portuguese colonies of Angola, Mozambique, Brazil. 200,000 people have left the country to look for jobs or higer education, including the mayor's daughter in London. Exports are up and now make up 40% of Portugal's GDP, up from 27% in 2009. The economic growth is 0.9% in 2014, after declining 6% 2011-2013. Portugal accepted the last instalment of the bailout loan of 78 billion euros in 2014. It will auction 1.25 billion euros of bonds on July 22, 2015. Unemployment is now declining dropping to 14% from a high of 17%, and higher than the pre crisis level of 11%. Here in this coastal town the mayor Jose Maria Costa cut public employee salaries 15%, and also cut sports and cultural programs. Two food centers provide free lunch and dinner, and half of the 4000 children in school get subsidies for food and transport. A shipyard worker Antonio Gomes Barbosa 64, is one of the laid off workers. His son's architecture company closed and he left Portugal for Angola. Some of his co-workers now work at a shipyard in neighboring Spain....

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The 2014 budget for Spain is free of the strong austerity measures, cuts in spending, and tax increases, of earlier budgets. Growth is expected to be 0.7% in 2014, after 1.3% decline in 2013. The unemployment rate is set to decline from 27% high in first quarter of 2013, to 25.9% in 2014. Savings of $800 million euros will come from changes in the pension system and civil servants face a freeze in salaries for the fourth year. The premium over German government bonds for Spain's government bonds is now less than that of government bonds of Italy. Cost of financing Spain's debt is projected to decline by 5.2% to 36.6 billion euros, according to Treasury minister Montero. The EU with the backing of the IMF has considered the high unemployment in Spain in its decision to relax deficit targets. This has given Spain an opportunity to clean up its accounts without further damage to the economy. Spain's deficit will now decline to 6.5% in 2013 from a deficit of 6.8% in 2012. The target for the deficit is set at 5.8% for 2014. Credit is still tight and consumer spending weak, major concerns for the government- in addition to the need for creating jobs- of prime minister Rajoy....

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Germany's $ 3 billion aid to Ukraine can only go through if it is clear where the money comes from. Scholz and Habeck oppose taking it from pensions, local government spending, or needed transportaton infrastructure spending. Greens see this kind of funding with cuts from domestic needs as a cop out. Scholz opposes cuts in pensions. CDU suggests cuts in unemployment benefits. Scholz opposes this. Germany as a debt clause in its Constitution put in by former CDU chancellor Merkel. It doesn't make sense now with the needs in infrastructure and the extra revenue that could be generated in the economy from an expanding economy that has rebuilt and updated its infrastructure. Yet it is still in place and leaves Germany less able to cope with demands for security, defense, and for infrastructure, modernizing its economy. By contrast the US under Biden and Trump is committed to domestic spending on infrastructure and modernization, leading to faster economic growth than in the European Union in 2025-26. ...

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A worldwide trend to shorter term borrowing means that institutions and sovereign governments will compete in the capital markets, as they try to roll over existing borrowing by 2012. The US has $1.3 trillion to roll over by 2012. Worldwide about $5 trillion has to be rolled over, and of this $2.6 trillion is in Europe. With the European financial crisis which started in Greece it is becoming harder for sovereign governments to borrow in capital markets at favorable rates. A former economist of the Bank of England says this is of the highest importance for lending and for growth. The implications are reduced lending by banks to businesses and consumers, reducing output and growth, and limiting reductions in unemployment. It is a big issue say analysts, as debt needs to be rolled over over shorter periods. Moody's study shows new bond issues by banks during the last 5 years matured at an average 4.7 years. The stress say experts is likely to be on the less healthy banks like the savings banks in Spain, Landesbanks in Germany. Stress tests on European banks will be out July 23, 2010....

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Mexican president Nieto's poll numbers are at all time low of 24%, according to Reforma newspaper. He took office in late 2012 and has been hurt by human rights scandal of the murder of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, corruption issues, and failure to improve the economy. The invitation to Trump to visit Mexico left even people close to the president surprised, and was criticized widely inside Mexico. It is not clear what Trump or Nieto gained from the trip. As Trump continued his talk about building a wall on the Mexican border and having Mexico pay for the estimated $23 billion it would cost. He did this in a speech to supporters in Pheonix on the same day he met Nieto, showing the use of teleprompters and prepared script was not his way of campaigning. Just as the message to black people that Democrats take them for granted cannot resonate without the basic message delivered with compassion and understanding- such as done by the presidents Bush and Reagan- so also the message to Hispanic people is suffering from the same lack of empathy. Recent polls show only 3% of blacks support Trump. McCain and Romney gained only 4-6% in the U.S. presidential elections of 2008 and 2012. The message of the wall is also baffling as an election strategy. A Gallup poll in July 2016 shows only 15% of Americans opposing a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and only 24% of Republicans. There is another problem in the strategy. The rhetoric about walls and mass deportations, and the Trump temperament combined with handling of nuclear weapons is not winning college educated women in the suburbs with polls showing Trump lagging behind Clinton by about 20 points or 4 million voters with this group. It is hard to undo the damage done by this kind of rhetoric used in the primary elections as it gains distrust of voters. It would require a bad economy with illegal immigrants taking local jobs, and handling of immigration seen as weak, for such a message to gain some national traction. Both are absent for the most part with a steadily improving economy since 2012, lower unemployment, a tough enforcement policy on deportatons under Obama that exceeded that under Geoge W. Bush, and the talk of a wall comes with illegal immigration having declined steeply since the 2008 financial crisis. The real culprit appears to be elsewhere, the triple hit taken from hollowing out of the manufacturing economy that hurt the Conservatives in Canada, the insecurity created for older whites from the job losses and hits to net worth from the 2008-2009 financial crisis, and the increasing loss of access to health care and educational opportunities with high  costs. About 62 million households or the bottom half of the distribution in the U.S. have a net worth of about $10,000, a quarter of this group having zero net worth, according to the Federal Reserve's Janet Yellen at an Inequality Conference in Oct 2014. Problems no wall is going to solve, problems that built up over 2 decades, problems that will take a generation to fix.  It shows the tech miracle of the last 2 decades as a mirage for quality of life of the middle and working class. Tech as a tool to a goal, not a goal in itself, is the better way forward. ...

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This report says fewer jobs alone is not going to reduce inflation, US inflation is propelled by factors beyond economic theory. The Phillip's Curve is a inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation that was a convenient tool for the 1960's to get the economy to do well with low unemployment at 4% with moderate inflation. It was torn apart by high inflationary expectations in the 70's. In today's world Robert Gordon of Northwestern University suggests central banks consider inflationary embedded expectations, supply shocks and cost push as in the pandemic 2021-2022, and demand changes. The job that Mr. Powell at the Fed has is lowering inflationary expectations by reducing private sector investment and job creation by raising the cost of capital through interest rate increases. Yet today the government is a huge partner in capital investment for America in clean energy and infrastructure building which means job creation remains strong as it has in America. President Biden's effort to reduce pharmaceutical costs and for inflation reduction by fighting price increases through stealth fees, has at the same time cut into inflation. So as lower demand and increased supply in 2022 as the government better manages the supplies of energy, including release of oil stocks from the national reserves. Explained- The Phillips curve is an inverse relationship between unemployment and inflation observed by a New Zealand economist William Phillips in a paper in 1958 based on British unemployment and inflation data1861-1957. Economist Robert Samuelson turned it into a textbook concept as a simple tradeoff in 1960 more inflation gets you less unemployment- which fit the period of the 60's- but warned that it could change over time. Milton Friedman and others during the 1970's period of high inflationary expectations setting rejected it. In reality Mr. Phillips never meant for economists like Samuelson to generalize from his statistical observation of data on the British economy before 1958 and apply it to the US for the closing decades of the 20th much less the 21st century. ...

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The Center for Economics and Business Research in London estimates GDP growth for the UK of 0.4% in 2012. According to Britain's Office of National Statistics the UK economy contracted by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011 compared to the third quarter.