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A Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile attack on Kviv is repelled with all missiles shot down on May 16, 2023. For the first time in the war the missile attacks are causing far less damage than in the early days of the war. A DW.com German reporter in Kviv on German television says the whole attack lasted only 15 minutes before things were back to quiet over Kviv with missiles exploding in the sky not on the ground.

This week Mr. Zelensky visited Berlin, then Aachen for the Charlemagne Prize as a symbolic acceptance of the Ukrainian people into the European community of nations with Zelensky speaking in Aachen in Ukrainian. He then went to Paris and London. Next week the G7 meet in Hiroshima, Japan. The war that followed a pandemic enters its 64th week in 2023.

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German statistics agency Destatis recent figures show "people with a migrant backgorund" make up 27.2% of Germany's population. Of 82 million people about 22.3 million are foreign born or have foreign roots. Foreign nationals make up half of the group. Of this 7.5 million have links to other EU nations, 3.5 million to Middle East, and 1.1 million to Africa. Turkey, Poland and Russia make up 28% of this group with Turkey at 12%. of the people wioth a foreign background speal 

About 46% of these people speak mostly German. Turkish 8% and Arabic 5%. There are 308,000 Ukrainians living in Germany. After the Ukraine war 335,000 refugees have arrived in Germany and many more are arriving daily. Ukrainians do not need a visa to come to Germany,

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A second survey by the Indian Council of Medical Research shows an increase in the number of people estimated to be affected. The survey sampled people from 70 districts in 21 States in India. Overall prevalence using this method is high at about 21.5%. India has confirmed 10 million cases. Children and young are also affected.

Dr. Balaram Bhargava, Director General of ICMR, says "The message is that large proportion of the population remains vulnerable, Vaccines are necessary, and there can be no complacency with regards masks, social distancing and hand hygiene." India has so far not seen the kind of second wave happening in Europe and the US, yet the risks remain, showing the need for rapid implementation of the vaccine program for 300 million in the first part of the vaccination drive.

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The Seagreen wind farm in the windy North Sea waters off Scotland begins production this week. It is a 3 billion pound project of SSE Renewables and TotalEnergies of France located 17 miles off the Angus Coast of eastern Scotland. Production is 1.1 gigawatts of electricity in the first phase enough to power 1 million homes. It is the world's deepest fixed bottom windfarm- the deepest foundation to be installed in December will be 59 metres below sea level. 

Its location near the old oil and gas capital of Aberdeen, Scotland, shows how the renewable energies acceleration is giving a new life to the region. Seagreen uses new renewables technology because of the rocky difficult conditions in the North Sea. SSE Renewables is a London based company that has $12.5 billion in investments in renewable energy.

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Chile's new constitution that replaces one written in 1980 under military rule, is likely to be rejected in a vote on September 4. It puts every conceivable right into the constitution beyond the basic rights of fairness in the economic, in incomes, in health and education services access, and pensions the original reasons for the two years of protests. About 80% of the Chileans voted in members of the constitution drafting boy the Convention. About 47% say reject and 38 say accept, 17% undecided at this time in a poll cited by DW.com. Controversial are judicial setup for indigenous groups (13% of Chileans), abortion in a predominantly Catholic country, and women holding 50% of positions in all public positions as mandatory, and the environment in a predominantly copper export based economy.

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This time there is less exposure for foreign investors as the Turkish lira drops because Turkish holdings were reduced. Turkey bondholdings have come down by half and holding of Turkey stocks down by 40%. The decline of the lira also reduced Turkish assets in benchmark emerging market indexes - in MSCI to 0.2%, and in JPMorgan's bond index to 1.1% from 5%. 

So far the situation in Turkey has not spread to other emerging markets such as Russia, Mexico and Brazil. With the Fed looking at raising interest rates earlier than planned, slower growth in China that takes in developing country commodity exports, emerging market assets are under some pressure. The WSJ Dollar Index was at a 15 month high on Nov. 24 and continues to be close to this.

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Instead of killing the NAFTA trade agreement Trump and his advisors prefer renegotiating the treaty. Priorities for the Trump administration are reducing the U.S. deficit with Mexico of $61 billion. Trade with Mexico and Canada is worth $1.1 trillion and the complex supply chains works such that product components cross borders more than once to become finished products. Mexico promotes its auto and other industries as duty free access to the U.S. for foreign investment. Special tariffs would reduce the trade deficit with Mexico and firms that moved production to Mexico would pay additional taxes. A provision that allows Mexican and Canadian companies to challenge U.S. regulations would also be removed. Rep. Brad Sherman (Democrat) says he supports the renegotiation so that duties of 4% are imposed to reduce the deficit to $25 billion.

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Mortgages Ltd a company in Arizona which makes loans to commercial developers at rates of 12% with other fees that bring it up to 19% with no red tape, higher rates which serve about 5% of that market, went bankrupt with only 27 of 71 commercial borrowers making their loan payments. It used doctors and dentists money to loan out usually for smaller projects of $20 million under the CEO Coles' father who founded the firm, but in the last few years of the booming real estate market the younger Coles who was running the company overreached and went into larger projects in Tempe, Arizona and other places which ran into more than $100 million. These docotrs and dentists would get 9% to 18% returns on their money but as the company overextended and loaned out $928 million ten times what it had previously lent out it ran into trouble and as real estate went sour it has failed to make the interest payments to these doctors dentists and others. Mr. Coles then commited suicide recently. It gives some insight into the nature of events in the commercial real estate markets of places like Arizona....

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China surpassed Germany as the world's No. 1 exporter in the first 10 months of 2009, with $957 billion in exports compared to Germany's $917 billion, according to customs data compiled by Global Trade Information Services, a Geneva based firm. With the global financial crisis China's exports fell 20.4% in the first 10 months of 2009 compared to 27.4% for Germany and 21% for the USA. Global consumer spending has fallen more than the capital goods and machinery exported by Germany. Yet these numbers suggest that there has been no significant change to the export models of the two countries even after the global economc crisis revealed cracks in the export model.

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Paletta, Hilsenrath and Solomon give an exceptional journalism report on the silence and tension in the room at the meeting on Monday, October 13, 2008, at 3.00 pm in the Treasury building. It was an historic meeting between Treasury Secretary Paulson, Fed chairman Bernanke, and FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair on one side, and the head of America's leading banks on the other side. The situation was explained, the bankers asked questions, bankers were not allowed to negotiate, and at one point Bernanke had to intervene saying there was no need for this meeting to have a confrontational tone. Wells Fargo's Kovacevich asked why banks had to accept a capital injection. Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America softened the tone of the meeting by saying that "any one of us who doesn't have a healthy fear of the unknown isn't paying attention." Even before the meeting an anxious John Mack of Morgan Stanley asked Paulson for the reason for the meeting and Paulson told him, "come on down, you will be pleased." John Mack who had fought so many rumors of the firm's demise, was surely pleased with the $10 billon injection of capital in Morgan Stanley by the government in return for preferred share and a dividend of 5%, which helped assure markets about Morgan Stanley's future. Goldman Sach's also received $10 billion. The meeting was ended at 4.30pm. Before this Timothy Geithner, head of the New York Fed, acting as the point man went around handing each CEO a term sheet with a place to sign. Another meeting was setup for 6.30 pm and at that time all the term sheets were returned - and all were signed. There was no meeting. Treasury officials and Fed officials and others had hoped that the intervening time would give CEO's a time to talk to their boards, to think things over, and clear their heads. In a few hours the government took preferred shares in the nation's leading banks and injected $125 billion into the largest banks. Treasury injected $25 billlion in Bank of America, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase, And between $20 and $25 billion in Wells Fargo, and $3 billion in Bank of New York Mellon, and $3 billion in State Street. Another $125 billon would be injected into other smaller banks in coming days. Officials at Treasury, Fed and FDIC and other government officials hoped this would give a "confidence shock" to the nation's banking system. ...

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Problems with the old 4% rule for withdrawal from savings for retirees in 2013 include- the decreasing income from bonds, the high P/E 10 ratio of 23 for the stock market in the U.S. in 2013, the timing of entry into retirement and the economic conditions, inflation and unforeseen expenses. The 4% rule needs to be modified in today's conditions.

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Ethiopia has about 1.1 million internally displaced people, with only Syria and DRC Congo having more displaced people from conflict. The country of 110 million people has about 80 ethnic groups spread out over 9 provinces with regional nationalism. Drought, corruption, and regional nationalism are major problems.  The Tigray region is showing some unrest as reported in The Times. This comes after peace with Eritrea was made by president Abiy Ahmed for which he was given the Nobel Peace Prize. Many of the changes made by Mr. Ahmed after becoming prime minister in 2019 are being done in solo fashion say critics without being institutionalized or consultative, say critics. As a result the situation in Ethiopia where the EPRDF coalition has ruled since 1991 is still precarious. Under Ahmed EPRDF is making efforts at reform and elections for next year.  

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IHS Global Insight estimates that output in the US for the auto industry for 2009 will be 9.5 million vehicles, with capacity of 16.9 milllion vehicles this amounts to 56% capacity utilization number which is very low. Center for Automotive Research estimates that the sales began moving ahead of trend in 1996 and really accelerated after 1998. The easy financing fueled the boom. Now the 16-17 million sales years that were considered normal are seen as inflated and way above the trend. All this suggests that there is a lot of restructuring ahead for the auto industry.

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US naval blockade of Iran in Arabian Sea starts April 13 2026. US destroyed Iran's larger ships 158 of them, yet Iran also has a fleet of smaller attack boats which it plans to use in Hormuz. These are harder to detect and can be hidden in coves along the Iranian coast and used against ships. The US with its naval blockade is now prepared to do what it has done also in Venezuela, stop and interdict fast drug boats on the Venezuelan side in the Atlantic ocean. By blockading Venezuela in the ocean US is using its strengths, and stopping drug boats its ability to pinpoint traffic on the ocean. Similar capabilities are well suited to Arabian Sea and Red Sea on the open oceans and away from narrow Hormuz playing to US strengths and capabilities. Aircraft carriers and destroyers and the US Air Force is in a position to do what it does best control open seas like the British did in their heyday of the Royal Navy for most of 1750-1920. This avoids options of Hormuz itself with its narrow 15 mile gap of water between Oman and Iran too close to mountainous terrain on either side, and of the Kharg Island option which would require special forces to be backed up with more ground forces. This is the most viable option and the interlude of couple of weeks has given the president an opportunity to make a better choice for positioning the US forces where the US has its strongest points. What is lacking is the individual powers of Britain and France whose leaders Starmer and Macron have popularity below 20%. Yet the US is better off making good choices and not having these nations alongside. The posturing by European nations is limited to France and UK, as Germany and Italy are in sync with the US position. Much of the media operates as if the goal of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to the Middle East is not important for long term peace for nations such as China and India with about 3 billion people and the billions of people of Asia, Latin America and Africa. For the first time in 400 years since 1600 as Asian civilizations began a long decline China and India have emerged in 2000-2030 into the kind of modern economies and societies that exist in Europe and the US. The last thing they need is the risk of destroying the Modern World with nuclear proliferation when it took centuries to get to the right opportunity after 1950 to modernize China and India. Xi's and Modi's generation are the first to experience modernization in Asia after Japan's experience. ...

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What is behind Pew Research Report finding showing an unacceptable concentration of wealth that endangers democracy. Higher income groups making $244,000 a year in 2024 gained 19 percentage points of the total US Household Income moving from 29% in 1970 to 48% in 2024. About 50% of the nation's income going to 20% of its people and most of that to 2%-5% of the people of the US. The gains meant loss of 17 of these percentage points for middle income households making $106,000 a year that went from 62% in 1970 to 43% in 2024. Another 2 percentage points was suffered by vulnerable Lower Income groups making $35,000 a year who owned 10% of US wealth in 1970 went down to 8%.  The problems of divisiveness in the Nation come from three distinct areas. First money for state financed education for all being put into wars in the Middle East from Reagan through Obama and Trump and some wasted through capital misallocation to low priority investment by faulty capital market allocation. Second the high cost of pharmaceuticals and healthcare putting a heavy burden on low income and middle income households making $35,000 or 106,000 a year. Third the neglect of manufacturing that cutoff the opportunities for middle and lower income households and their one chance to move up the ladder. And the parallel shift of resources to technology and financial sectors that created opportunities for a smaller group of immigrant and higher middle income households with these skills.  These are the sources of America's distress and each problem is being attacked at its source by president Biden- exit from Afghanistan, canceling student loans that are egregious and prevent the investment in education America needs, large sustained investment in manufacturing and new supply chains, antitrust action on tech monopolistic behaviour, redrawing the shape of America's pharmaceutical sector to provide access to medicine to all parts of the population.    ...

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America had forgotten it's workers built America in a Clinton-Trump world. The Federal Poverty Level is $35000 - $40000 when entry younger UAW workers at lower tiers make $34000 a year during wage negotiations and a UAW strike in 2023. The contrast from 2016 could not be greater- no president in history except Biden on a worker strike picket line yesterday, Mrs Clinton oblivious about unions in the midwest in 2016. Mr. Trump saying wage negotiations not important as he visits Drake Enterprises, automobile parts supplier, in Clinton Township, Macomb County, Michigan. The Guardian reports most were small business owners, with  few autoworkers. Enthusiasm of small business owners high for Trump in this swing county in Michigan. In stark contrast to the 2016 campaign president Biden was seen the previous day with a bull horn at a UAW auto workers strike picket line, becoming the first US president in history to do this. Biden said "workers built the middle class." Trump said China was the enemy not low wages or incompetent bosses, saying "the current wage negotiations are not as important as you think," when workers had tiered wages from previous concessions on wages, with entry level wages starting at about $17 an hour. That is only slightly above the $16 minimum wage in California. America in the Clinton-Trump world had truly forgotten that workers in its factories built America, and workers families made America what it was for most of the century since Lincoln and the Industrial Revolution. ...

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About what sort of a leader Liz Truss will be the BBC's Nicholas Watt says it will be someone who cares, and will find a way to support the public with the cost of living crisis. Reports in the Guardian show she is likely to set up the freezing of energy bills at the current level of 1975 pounds with a 100 billion pound plan. That plan would involve commercial banks depositing cash in a state backed fund that would be repaid over 10-15 years. Of all the qualities seen in Truss the most is her adaptability and a sense of going with the groups that cares deeply about things. This is one reason why she supported the Brexiteers. A quality she shares with Boris Johnson is her affability, a sense of genuine concern for people, that has helped someone who was a Liberal Democrat, and had parents who were pro-Labor, and who was in Remain, easily act as someone who was always a Tory Brexiteer. One thing she brings from her father who is a Math professor is her passion for math says Watt, saying also that anyone going to 10 Downing Street to interview her needs to be ready for a tricky maths challenge. ...

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Old deteriorating obsolete power grid infrastructure and inadequate fuel are leading to blackouts in Cuba in 2024. Much of the population of 11 million residents in Havana and across the island are affected including schools with blackouts lasting several hours.

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U.S. Federal Reserve minutes for Sept. 16-17, 2014 released October 8, show the mood shifting away from raising interest rates, as a stronger dollar and weak overseas growth are likely to lower U.S. economic growth, A stronger dollar is likely to keep inflation down. Fed officals showed serious concern about slowing economies of Europe, Japan and China lower U.S. exports. A former Fed adviser Jon Faust, director of the Center for Financial Economics at John Hopkins University, says even with no action from the Fed on interest rates, the stronger dollar makes financial conditions more restrictive, and acts as a tightening. The Fed minutes are before the crisis in Hong Kong which created geopolitical tensions and affects foreign investment climate for China, reducing Chinese growth even further.

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Prime minister Johnson of Britain is calling for a general election on December 12. This will be debated in parliament on October 28, and is expected to be rejected a third time. Mr. Johnson faces opposition from the Labour Party which wants to delay the election till it is certain that there is no Brexit without an acceptable deal with the European Union. Mr. Johnson heads a minority government that depends on the support of the Democratic Unionist party, the DUP, of Ireland. He also dismissed 23 Conservative rebel MP's from the Conservative Party headed by Mr. Hammond, a former finance minister under Theresa May who are leery of Mr. Johnson's willingness to go with a no-deal Brexit, if parliament does not back him. This puts Mr. Johnson 45 votes short of a majority in parliament. The new deal Mr. Johnson negotiated with the EU was done with concessions on Ireland and an open border, which was rejected by the Unionist party of Ireland. This deal passed in parliament but was rejected on its short timetable of less than a week giving MP's little time to look at the details.  The Labour party is also divided on going into an election before it is ready because it is behind by 10 points in the polls.  The reason the Johnson deal was initially passed in parliament was because 18 Labour MP's decided to support it pursuing a strategy of getting it rejected by passing amendments during final passage.    ...

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Apple's new privacy rules are reducing the extensive tracking of internet users that took place in an unregulated industry for the last decade. Apple has introduced a long overdue privacy change that restricts how users can be tracked on apps such as Facebook, Instagram and other apps. Users are now asked if they want to be tracked and can opt out. US users opt to allow tracking only 16% of the time they see the Apple privacy prompt. This will be one more needed step to protect the privacy of users that had suffered  in the last 10 years from rampant and unrestricted tracking of users.

 

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Only 6% of Chileans support president Pinera of Chile and 81% call management of the pandemic a failure. Parliament adopted reform that allows citizens to have 10% of pension savings paid out as emergency coronavirus aid. Latin America has no aid funds in the way aid is given in the U.S. and in the European Union, and in Britain, leaving people dangerously exposed during the pandemic. Chile was presented as a much more affluent country but this no longer holds true. This DW.com report says the government remains overwhelmed and helpless in the face of the pandemic and internal protests that started over pension inadequacies and subway price hikes, lack of healthcare services.

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How do schools reopen during the pandemic. This report shows how schools and students struggle with reopening. The first part of the report looks at how one family in Wisconsin is coping with 3 children  2, 4 and 11 years old, from kindergarten to middle school. Only the middle school child is going back to school. Both parents work from home, have struggled to cope with kids at home. Lack of enough computer equipment restricts kids learning long distance, and concentration is also an issue. 

The rest of the report covers how schools are reopening in cities- Bangkok, Jerusalem, Tunis, Stockholm, Dortmund, Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro.

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Rachel Ensign's WSJ report shows huge disparity in incomes and spending that has happened in the US even with the best efforts and intentions of the Biden administration in 2020-2024. US cumulative excess savings by income for the bottom 90% are a mere $291 billion compared to $1.2 trillion for the top 10%, 4 times as large. As a result about half of consumer spending comes from the top 10% in incomes says the WSJ. (Moody's Analytics). It provides clues on why Biden and even less so Harris failed to convince Americans, the middle class, blue collar workers, and others that large social gaps, income disparities and wealth disparities gap were being bridged under Democrats. And makes it harder for Republicans and Democrats alike to address such huge gaps built up over time by outshoring jobs and manufacturing, the 2009 financial crisis from banks speculation, the pandemic and supply shock cost of living crisis. As the $2.6 trillion in pandemic assistance from Biden faded people in the bottom 80% dipped into savings to pay for rising cost of living as supply chain bottlenecks and price gouging sent prices of groceries, housing, apartment rentals, cars up significantly. This has'nt happened to the top 10% or even the top 20% who continue to spend in the same way as before prices went up. Something like this is also happening in Europe and in China, India fueling and anti-incumbency mood, and dissatisfaction with governments. The Net Worth of the top 20% has grown by 45% or $35 trillion since 2019 compared to $14 trillion for the bottom 80%. (Moody's Analytics) ...

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The truth is very different from the rhetoric coming from the Obama administration about helping Main Street America and ordinary workers against "fat-cat bankers," says Goldfarb. Under the Obama administration banks have grown larger and gained more influence over administration decisions. No conditions were made part of the agreement that would require banks to lend a portion of the money handed out to the banks to ordinary borrowers. And not much of significance was done to help homeowners under water, which would enable a faster recovery. In this respect the policies slanted in favor of banks of the Obama administration worsened the prospects of an economic recovery. Experts from Reagan advisor Martin Feldstein- who as early as 2008 advocated serious help to homeowners under water to reduce principal and interest- to the FDIC's Sheila Bair and Princeton Prof. Krugman, across the ideological spectrum, perceived this being in the national interest. Feldstein's first op-ed on his plan appeared in the Wall Street Journal on 3/7/2008, followed by ones on 4/15/2008, 10/4/2008, 1/20/2010/ 10/12/2011 in WSJ, and a oped on 10/30/2008 in the Washington Post, repeating the call for siginificant debt reduction to homeowners. Banks had extraordinary influence on successive administrations in the U.S., both Republican and Democratic- the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations- so that policy actions could be distorted from what would otherwise take place. A study by two University of Michigan professors shows that banks did not increase lending after receiving government money. Instead taxpayer money was used to invest in risky securities for profits from short term price movements, resulting in gains of about 10% in investment returns. Ran Duchin, one of the two professors, says helping ordinary borrowers was not the most profitable use of capital for banks. Without the necessary conditions from the Obama administration, the banks depolyed capital in ways that did not help the economy. Similiarly when banks needed to be restructured no preparatory action was taken because of resistance within the administration- a request by President Obama to Treasury Secretary Geithner for preparing a plan for the restructuring of Citigroup was ignored, according to a report by Goldfarb and Wallsten on 9/17/2011 in the Washington Post....