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The 140 billion in stock market losses in GE stock in just the last 12 months (2017-2018) ranks as the worst in history in the corporate world. In this report a retired GE worker at 61 years is shown looking for a second job after the losses wiped out a substantial part of his retirement savings in the form of company stock. This is the worst in history and is about twice that in market losses for Enron, and more than the losses in bankruptcies of GM and Lehman Bros. As a result GE is one of the worst funded pension programs in the corporate world. About $100 billion in pension obligations for 600,000 people who get GE pensions is underfunded by $30 billion. GE will need to borrow $6 billion in 2018 to contribute to the pension plan.

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In depth interview with Kyohei Morita, chief economist of Barclays Capital, Finance Asia explores different aspects of the Japanese economy and developments after 1987 and under Koizumi, the role of exports and how ordinary households are affected. He points out a few important things about the Japanese economy that are not generally recognized. One is that Japanese banks are vulnerable in the way the subprime crisis has exposed banks in the USA. Their vulnerability comes from owning 15% of the shares on the stock market which came down from a higher number after years of reducing stock holdings. When the Nikkei drops below 9000 this reduces the bank's capital and leads to credit tightening. Morita points out the risk of turning a moderate slowdown from lower exports into a severe slowdown if banks are reluctant to lend. The other point he makes is that small nonmanufacturing companies in Japan have to thrive for Japan to thrive, but he is bearish about private consumption. In a revealing statement he says that in his research he has found that the path connecting corporate profitability to households is seriously eroding. This is due to globalization as Japanese companies are offshoring aggressively, and 30% of the Japanese market capitalization in held by foreigners. His point is that Japanese managers now tend to see wages as costs just like American managers do and not the way they did in the past, so salary costs are suppressed in favor of shareholder dividends which flow out of Japan. Finance Asia referred to an OECD study that shows Japan's ranking in terms of per capita income fell from fifth highest in the OECD in 1992 to 19th in 2002, a fact that Morita recognizes as strange as western economies have tended to follow relatively stable long term income growth, and which he attributes to Japan's terrible demographics with population shrinking since 2006 and more elderly and retired supported by a smaller percentage of working age people. In an exceptionally revealing statement Morita points out that Japan has globalized from the outside but not from the inside. Japan he says needs more foreign direct investment and ideas, and more immigrants, fresh labour and fresh taxpayers. Which is remarkably true as Japan tends to be rather insular as a country and tends to keep out immigrants. The influx of Polish and Eastern European immigrants to the UK under the Blair-Brown Labor government years would be unimaginable in Japan. In the meantime Japan's estimated $15.7 trillion in financial assets held by households or three time national GDP is something that makes it possible for now for Japan to sustain the upward trend in the debt to GDP ratio....

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The BBC looks at burnout for service workers in the US and Europe leading to the great resignation. Most service workers are quitting their jobs as the level of burnout has increased in the last few months compared to the early days of the pandemic in 2020. One owner of a restaurant in Britain says she closed it not because there were not enough customers, not because it was losing money. She closed it because workers were not showing up for work. She says whether they say it or not workers at her restaurant were experiencing a lot of anxiety. This meant her carrying a heavy load till she decided it was better to close  when she was on top than be carried out on a stretcher. Another manager of a variety store in South Carolina says after working 60-70 hours a week for months the only way he could get a day off was to ask another manager to do a 16 hour shift. Long work days in the US, low pay, and disrespect for their work, was common for service workers in the US. They now face verbal abuse of customers feeling the accumulated stress of the pandemic and taking it out on service workers. Higher wages are not inducing workers to come back. Service workers are choosing to retrain for other careers with better pay, better hours, or going back to study. ...

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Biden's hard work and going into details and seeing that projects are delivered on time and in quality for the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law will make him an enduring president in the 21st century. Tyler Pager gives this report on the Biden style of making decisions and of getting things done on time that are making a big difference for the ease of living for all Americans.  Of Biden using his 36 years of negotiating in the Senate more than any Congressman including LBJ who only had 12 years, and the hard work from someone who commuted by Amtrak for all those years and attended to every detail. For the president who started out as county councilman in Delaware details matter, he looks into the details of rebuilding infrastructure by delivering projects on time and on scale. In late 2022 Tyler says Biden checked into the details of delays and wanted specifics which projects were not delivered on time for the $1.2 trillion infrastructure law passed a year earlier. Seeing this only one leader comes to mind prime minister Modi of India who is faced with a huge task of infrastructure projects and investments that are intended to make India the third largest economy in the world. Modi like Biden uses his experience of getting into details and checking that work is delivered on time, putting in the hard work in earnest, from Modi's work with state projects in Gujarat when he led the state for 15 years as chief minister. ...

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Labour will introduce 40 bills in parliament to make changes in renewable energy, the environment, transport railways, and for cost of living action. Great Britain Railways and Great Britain Energy are two public companies to be set up to reach goals in public transport modernization and in getting a five fold increase in solar needed to meet 68% cut in emissions by 2030 (Paris Accords commitment). Great Britain Energy will be capitalized with 8.3 billon pounds. (Labour scaled down its 28 billion pounds Green Energy Plan because of Tory mismanagement of finances but will continue to invest in vital projects). The answer is to take a creative approach. More money will be released through the Crown estate bill that will have the crown estate use its auctions of offshore land for wind energy and make investments in green energy. National Wealth Fund will invest in low carbon projects.  Fro water Labour will hold the water bosses to account and put companies such as Thames Water in special measures. Renationalisation was considered but was considered costly at this time, other action is being taken.  Nine bills are part of the 40– the planning and infrastructure bill; the better buses bill; the three rail bills, which are the passenger railway services (public ownership) bill, rail reform bill and high speed rail (Crewe to Manchester) bill; the Great British Energy bill and crown estate bill; the sustainable aviation fuels bill; and the water (special measures bill) – that all focus on protecting the environment. ...

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Chozick and Parker of the NYT show how Donald Trump's frequent sexist comments on women and references to Hillary Clinton in similiar terms are likely to influence the outcome of the general election of 2016. The women's vote has played a significant part in the recent elections of 2008 and 2012 helping Democratic candidate Obama. Trump has a astonishingly high disapproval rating with women, unprecedented in U.S. election history, cited by the WSJ as 75%. Cruz's choice of Carly Fiorina as a running mate shows an awareness of the importance of the women's vote. Some of the comments cited here include the Trump comment that "if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she would get 5% of the vote." It is not clear if this will help the Republican party, as such comments could alienate the mass base of women voters, including the base of young women voters who supported Sanders, women who are independents and moderate Republican women. Hillary Clinton is carefully planning a fall campaign in which such Trump attacks are expected, and the response will be handled not directly by Hillary but by Super PAC's, as Hillary sticks to calling them sexist and energizing her base from the attacks. CBS polls show Trump has the support of 39 percent of white women, compared to 50% for Hillary Clinton. Trump's attacks on women are strangely enough targeted at getting the support of white women- and men - in another wild twist of the 2016 campaign....

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Can Britain take it, more Tory austerity cuts? Mark Landler in the NYT calls it one of the most austere budgets ever imposed on Britain, a country already in recession. Prime minister Sunak and finance minister Jeremy Hunt introduce a budget that will cut government programs saving 30 billion pounds and higher taxes of 25 billion pounds or $29.7 billion. This will mean a drop of 7% in disposable incomes of people in Britain over 2 years. After a series of missteps first under Boris Johnson and then briefly under Liz Truss, the Tory government of Rishi Sunak concentrates on budgetary constraints ignoring the promises made for growth and improving infrastructure, leveling up of regions, that were made by a series of Conservative governments. It lacks broad support as this government was not elected with this mandate. Boris Johnson won the election with traditional Labour support for leveling up, growth and infrastructure. None of this is happening. Also cut are budgets for the defense ministry, foreign aid and aid to cultural institutions in London. ...

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Egypt's new capital city 40 miles from Cairo is shown here in the WSJ. The cost is about $45 billion. The Egyptian government will move ministries and public sector employees to the new city in 2023. Local developers are helping build the city and the Egyptian military is running the project. Cairo is overcrowded and densely packed with old buildings, with traffic congestion in the inner city. The capital is only part of a project that could cost 1 trillion dollars with help from oil rich Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and involves modernization of the Arab world's largest country- rail lines with fast rail in collaboration with German companies, and building new highways, airports, other infrastructure projects. 

The shift in building new infrastructure comes as India is building new cities including its own new smart city in Gujarat called Dholera in the Gulf of Kambhat (Cambay). Dholera is also a city built from scratch from the sand. 

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PM Modi describes situation of Indian Rail from Himalayas to Ceylon after 1947. The budget is now six times that in 2014. Action was taken to include Rail India under government of India's budget so that the government could directly invest in modernization of Indian Rail as top priority. Parts of northeast were not included in Indian Rail. Today the entire country is integrated in a modern network for the 21st century with Vande Bharat high speed trains. It opens possibilities of setting up these rail networks in other parts of Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe with new technology trains at a fraction of the cost. This was the vision of John F. Kennedy in his New Frontier of the vast potential of India when he told the US Senate on March 25, 1958- "India today represents as great a hope, as commanding a challenge as Western Europe did in 1947- and our people are still, I am confident equal to the effort."   ...

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A states attorney generals lawsuit filed against Google states Google operates a monopoly that harms advertisers and publishers by lowering sales of publishers and charging inflated prices to ad buyers. Cases will go on trial in 2023. The Justice Department and 35 states attorney generals have a separate antitrust lawsuit against Google's search services. Democrats and Republicans in the Senate are pushing forward a bill that would treat Google search engine like a railroad operator making it illegal for it to give an unfair advantage to Google products and charge inflated prices by distorting the markets. This report in WSJ shows the way Google ran a series of programs named Project Bernanke, Reserve Price Optimization and Dynamic Revenue Share, to distort the normal operation of markets so that Google obtained an unfair price advantage. Bernanke program was operated between 2010 and 2019. In some cases the lawsuit says publisher revenue was reduced by 40%, according to internal company communications quoted in the complaint, as shown in this WSJ report. ...

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On the first days of her campaign Kamala Harris addresses the American Federation of Teachers. One of the big issues is learning loss for children during the pandemic. How to address reading loss, learning loss of children who are falling behind? Harris supports teachers in many ways. She wants to see the hard work of teachers respected and compensated by increasing teacher pay. Lyrarc's Movement for Global Literacy is focused on this same issue how to address reading comprehension loss among children in the US, that was weak to begin with and is now in trouble with the pandemic learning loss. Lyrarc is a useful tool and essential tool following serious learning loss from the pandemic, for increasing literacy and reading comprehension of children and young people in the US, UK, India and other countries. With NAEP test scores showing two thirds of children in 8th grade failing Reading Comprehension, and 75% failing Civics comprehension Lyrarc is an essential tool for addressing this problem. ...

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HBO may be capitalizing on cultural portrayals of unethical world of finance for successful television shows that do little to change the culture in America. During the 2009 financial crisis decade many such shows were seen, yet after Big Pharma and Finance, a new player Tech monopolies joined the list of unethical behavior, new technologies continue to operate without government setting the rules for fair play and level playing field essential for capital and labor to function in a modern economy- rules for capital and rules for labor set by "serious" public servants not revolving door public servants who finish their careers in the same banks, pharma or tech company monopolies. Bothe houses of Congress are then captured by the Big Pharma, Finance, and Tech monopolies, resulting in "Capture Capitalism" that has existed in different forms and yet cleaned up every 50-75 years since 1750, Adam Smith's fight against the monopolies of the East India Companies of Britain, Holland and Denmark. ...

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Cheap fixed rate mortgages make up two thirds of home mortgages in the US. Most are at 4% or lower interest rate. A new 30 year home mortgage in 2024 would be about 7%. About 660,000 job offers that required moving and selling the home were turned down. This means fewer homes left for people to buy leading to higher home prices. The additional equity people have in their home on average is $119,000 over 4 years and this means consumer spending is resilient in the face of higher interest rates and keeps inflation at 3%. How does this affect the economy? Fewer homes on the market means there is a loss to the economy of 3% to 5% of output, according to NAHB. The smaller supply of homes means there is less home inventory to search from- instead of 62% in more normal times affordability for someone with a $100,000 in income is now 37% of the listings. This is not expected to change in the next 2 years.

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California has lots of water after record breaking rains in 2024 but this is not the situation in the Central Valley leading agricultural region of California and the nation. Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley in California say they are getting a reduced allottment of water because of concern about endangered fish species. Farmers in the Central Valley the fruit and vegetable basket of California will get just 40% of their usual alottment of water this year and will plant less crops. Some ranches planting only 60% instead of 80% of their land. In 2014, 2015 and 2022 droughts the farmers lost about $7 billion and it cost 40,000 jobs, say University of California researchers. This area is a top producer of almonds, pistachios, and tomatoes. Westland Water District, which covers this area and is largest irrigator in the US, has a study that shows correlation between water and poverty in this part of California. Just when it is recovering the water supply is being cut. ...

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Drugs affecting Montevideo capital of the small country of 3.3 million people in the Rio de la Plata estuary in southern Uruguay. Container traffic has increased by 62% since 2019 Le Monde reports, coupled with Bolivia becoming a new area for drugs, has disturbed the relative tranquillity of this region near Argentina that existed for most of the 20th century. The dire need for a comprehensive solution. Cali, Columbia is now the place for the Biodiversity Climate Change COP29, and this shows how the problem keeps shifting from country to country- that it is beyond the scope of one party, and requires an all party solution in the US, 100% bipartisan, as Mexico was also a place of relative tranquillity for most of the 20th century. The Biden Lankford legislation was a huge path making move with Republican Lankford and Biden-Harris together on one page on the issue. Harris has promised she will get this legislation to her desk again and sign it into law.    ...

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Presenting the ReARM package in Brussels the European Union president Von der Leyen says- “This is a moment for Europe and we are ready to step up.” The proposals Leyen said “could mobilise close to €800bn of defence expenditures for a safe and resilient Europe." About $650 billion comes from increasing the European spending on defense by 1.5% of GDP from numbers below 2% that reflected underspending on defense. The EU will loosen strict deficit rules. The CDU coalition government in Germany with SPD under Merz that is being setup will remove the debt brake in the German Constitution that limits defense spending to 1%.  Another $150 billion in loans can be generated from joint EU borrowing that could be given to countries. That will Leyen says- “It will help member states to pool demand and to buy together. This will reduce costs, reduce fragmentation, increase interoperability and strengthen our defence industrial base.” The European Investment Bank will participate in the lending. ...

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Analysis by Sentier Research of U.S. census data shows U.S. median household income declined from $54,983 in Jan. 2009 to $50,964 in June 2012, adjusted for inflation. This is $4019 in lost real income. The decline is 8% from $55,470 in 2000 before the burst of the dot come bubble. Some of this is because of trends of smaller family, lower fertility rates and more Americans living alone. But as a look at the figures in this research by Catherine Rampell of the NYT, 8/23/2012 shows, the losses in income affects all demographics, hit blacks and people with some education like a high school diploma but no degree the hardest, and also reflects the persistence of long tem unemployment which lowers income.

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Samuelson looks at patterns of investing in stocks in the U.S. since 1982. He cites S&P's Howard Silverblatt that the P/E for the S&P 500 averaged 16.9 since 1935 and the current P/E for the U.S. is at 17.6.

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A Wall Street Journal Survey of how the credit ratings firms have performed in prediciting looming defaults. The Journal's Matt Wirz looked at 35 years of data. He found the ratings firms did not do an effective job with predicting defaults in the 12 month period before an actual default. Of the 15 government defaults since 1975 tracked by S&P, S&P's sovereign ratings division rated 12 of the countries single B or higher in the 12 months preceding the default. S&P says a single-B rating on sovereign debt signifies that the government has only a 2% average default rate in the next 12 months. For Moody's Investors Service the figures show that of the 13 governments rated by Moody's, 11 were rated B or higher one year before an actual default. By contrast the investment grade ratings of the credit ratings firms have worked better- as no government defaulted within 15 years of having a tripe-A, double-A, or a single-A rating. Ratings firms say that the ratings indicate a relative default risk for countries and not an actual default probability, a rank ordering for different countries and their relative risk. Research chiefs at investment management firms point out that once a crisis develops the ratings firms are not much help. They also say the ratings firms use static indicators like current account balances and other critical indicators for countries in emerging markets such as political sentiment and bank deposit flows get less attention. Historically bond yields have priced in higher risk premiums into government bonds before a default and investors look at the bond yields in assessing risk conditions, and not at the ratings which change only slowly. Brazil and Argentina both had a double B-minus rating in Jan. 2001. A year later Argentina had defaulted....

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President Biden tells an audience of workers that he sees the world through the eyes of Scranton and the working people he grew up with, and through the eyes of workers like those in the audience. He tells a audience of union workers that he is bringing manufacturing back, and doing this with investments of billions of dollars that never happened under previous administrations for a generation of Americans. Some highlights from his speech- Biden is investing trillions of dollars in American infrastructure, manufacturing and advanced technology and at the same time cutting the deficit by 1.4 trillion dollars The Republican plan of spending cuts being voted in by the House of Representatives will according to Moody's lead to a loss of 780,000 jobs in the US. Forty of the 500 largest corporations in the US paid zero taxes. About $200 billion dollars in profits of corporations are to be taxed at just 15%- lower than what working families pay- to fund much needed investment in America. There are 1000 billionaires in America compared to 700 before the pandemic, and they pay 8% in taxes. President Biden says under his watch no corporation or billionaire should pay less in percentage of income taxes than union workers in the audience.    ...

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A Kyodo News poll shows about 60% of Japanese want the Olympic games cancelled. Japan faces another wave of the pandemic with a surge in Osaka and other cities. The government's handling of the pandemic is disapproved by 71% of Japanese in a Kyodo News poll. Over 80% are unhappy with the slow vaccine rollout.   India faces a surge in cases public dissatisfaction that is similar to Japan and other countries in Europe. France and Germany have a slow vaccine rollout. In India vaccination drive is affected by a lack of supplies as in France and Germany with shortages of vaccine. The European Union in April signed contracts for over a billion doses with Pfizer and India has plans for ramped up supply of its Covishield and Covaxin vaccines to 2 billion doses by December 2021. This shows how difficult it is for advanced countries and major pharmaceutical producing countries such as as India to vaccinate their populations quickly in the initial stages of the vaccination effort. In July the vaccine effort would be in its 7th month and vaccine supply constraints are expected to ease as a result of aggressive action by governments in EU, France, Germany and India. This will also enable addressing needs in Latin America, Africa and South East Asia. ...

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Any idea that herd immunity is the way out is dispelled by a simple look at these pictures from the NYT showing what the level of infections are today and what they would have to be for "herd immunity." No Asian nation has even mentioned the word. Most Asian nations have the most experience with virus of all sorts. The only government that supported the idea without saying so openly is Sweden as indicated in a report in FR24 on the amplification of coronavirus in Sweden compared to neighboring Denmark, Norway, Finland. Imagine with a threshhold of 60% of people having antibodies provided by experts for herd immunity, the current New York level of about 20% would have to triple, and Sweden's 7% would have to grow seven fold. It is hard to imagine New York going through something of these proportions. Looking at what works now that other countries handling it have set examples of what works provides a better way- low tech contract tracing the German way, and one used in Asian countries, and the cluster isolation through testing and contact tracing adopted in many Asian countries as well as Germany. Strengthening public health systems, and working one's way out of the crisis where there are no easy answers offers real and realistic hope. ...

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Total sales of Truth Social are $5 million over 3 years, it cost $40 million raised through convertible notes to finance losses, says this WSJ report. By using financial dealmaking methods this could create $300 million for Truth Social and $6 billion for Trump Media, says WSJ in the report. DWAC shares were set at $10 and are now at $144 with its connections to Trump Media & Technology Group, going up 150% in the last year. Digital World Acquisition is a SPAC meaning that it is a shell company- or special purpose acquisition company in financial jargon- that lists shares on an exchange with the sole purpose of buying a private company and taking it public. Investors buy and shell shares on the expectation of which company it buys and how that company will perform. Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent of Mr. Trump's Truth Social social media company will merge with Digital World Acquisition SPAC and the new company will replace the old with the sticker changing DWAC to DJT. This could happen next week if the majority of DWAC shareholders approve it. This could get Truth Social $300 million says WSJ and Trump Media main shareholder with 60% holding about $3.5 billion in this deal making, says WSJ. ...