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Analysts see the likelihood of Greece exiting the eurozone at over 50%. The actions of the ECB under Mario Draghi to provide funding to weak banks through the Long Term Financing Operation have reduced the effect the effects of contagion from a Greek default spreading to banks in other EU countries. The fiscal pact signed in Jan 2012 at the EU summit with automatic penalties for countries lacking budget discipline provides Angela Merkel more room with her domestic political base to support the EFSF's capacity to help other eurozone countries. Greece with its deteriorating economic situation would then be considered a special case.

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With the drop in Brent crude to $67.53 on Nov. 28, 2014, for a drop of 13% for the week, the ruble takes a further hit. The ruble declined to 52.67 to the dollar.

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Efforts to impeach two previous presidents including Democrat Clinton failed in the Senate where the vote requires a two thirds majority. The first impeachment vote against Mr. Trump failed in the Senate. In the House of Representatives only a simple majority is required. Majority Leader McConnell says he will not reconvene the Senate before president Biden takes office. Vice President Pence has refused to invoke the 25th Amendment. House Democrats have moved ahead to vote for impeachment of president Trump for the storming of the Capitol offices in Washington D.C. Their impeachment statement says president Trump's remarks that his supporters had to fight like hell or they would not have a country, constituted incitement of supporters. President Trump won 74 million votes in the last election more than in the 2016 election and lost with Mr. Biden winning 81 million votes after polarization of the country. With such a large portion of the country voting for Mr. Trump Mr. Biden risks his agenda of fighting the pandemic, and other parts of his program, becoming immersed in partisan infighting. This would also result in continuing the division of the country, and continue polarization.  About 5 House Republicans are expected to support impeachment. In the Senate some Republicans say there are impeachable offenses yet only Mr. McConnell and the senator from Utah, Mr. Mitt Romney, favor impeachment.  Mr. Trump's style of governing was controversial from the beginning of his campaign in 2016, strident and taking on critics. He governed through relative moderation compared to his aggressive posture towards critics. For instance on Mexico his remarks offended critics, yet he negotiated a new trade agreement with Mexico replacing NAFTA to ensure worker protections in Mexico, and worker jobs and wages in the U.S. Negotiations with China on trade were conducted by a seasoned veteran, Mr Lighthizer,  who was deputy Trade Representative under Reagan, and negotiated the trade agreement with Japan that worked to reduce Japanese trade surplus in the eighties. On the economy before the pandemic hit in March president Trump made significant progress reducing unemployment.      ...

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Christina Zander provides an exceptionally good report on what holds women back in work and managing positions in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Even in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, with a more enlightened outlook in gender relations, the number of women who are CEO's for 145 Nordic companies is only 3%. For the U.S. Fortune 500 this is about 5%. Good child care benefits and parental leave laws that promote a fair distribution of child raising responsibilities between men and women are part of the enlightened outlook in Nordic countries. Yet the number of women being promoted to senior positions is limited. Interestingly rules requiring quota for women on Boards of Directors have led to a different situation on Boards- in 2013 41% of the boards at Norway's public companies were women compared to 18% at private limited companies. About 5.8% of general managers at publicly listed companies were women in 2013, 15.1% in private companies. Sandvik's Ms. Einarsson was promoted to a senior position recently. She says the opposite is true, one needs to start not at the top but at the entry level to ensure women are fairly represented. Culture is part of the problem as even in companies with equal male and female employees, the managers are mostly men. Men are seen as more eager to take responsibilities and risks, and are more integrated into networks. Even childcare and paid parental leave can be deceptive. One researcher shows that Swedish women still take the major part of responsibility for children, with 75% of the 480 available days. Women managers and researchers point to the difficulties women face with a full time career or working over 60 hours a week in a management position, and combining this with picking up children from daycare. Sofia Falk is the founder of Wiminvest, which helps companies invest in geting talented women. Her suggestions are that companies offer other incentives instead of more money- an assistant, private child care, grocery shopping, shared management positions, technical solutions to be able to work at home. The CEO of Sandvik, Olof Faxander, is persistent in changing company attitudes- he has raised the proportion of women in management positions to 21% from 9% in 3 years, eventually hoping to reach 33%....

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Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post describes U.S. president Obama's mishandling of Syria during his second term as president leading to the situation today.

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Canada's 2015 budget provides an extension till 2025 for a tax break to write off capital investment at an accelerated pace that was first introduced in 2007. Business investment in Canada is slowing to growth of 1% since mid-2012. The tax rate for small business over four years starting in 2016 will be cut from 11% to 9%.

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Christopher Eubanks of the US wins over Britain's No. 1 Cameron Norrie at Wimbledon. After some doubts about a tennis career during a period when he did not make it to the top 100 Eubanks wins the Mallorca Open, and wins a place in the quarter finals at Wimbledon after a 5 set win over Stefanos Tsitsipas. He finds surprising help from the grass surface at Wimbledon that fits his game.

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The arithmetic doesn't seem right. I tried 2 gallons a day for a user who commutes to work, for 20 days a month. Thats 480 gallons tack on 1.5 times that for leisure driving and out of town trips and yoy have 720 gallons. If the mpg is up from 25 to 50 then you save the cost of 360 gallons. At $4.00 a gallon this is $1440 for savings per year. At this date June 2007 the price of gasoline at the pumps is $3.75, so $4 is not unreasonable. And improving mpg from 25 to 50 is not unrealistic if you include improvements that should occur if car companies continue to develop this technology. At $1440 you would recover the cost in over 2 years. And its a smart bet for car drivers and car companies, and a smart bet for the US and the global economy to keep gasoline prices in check as China, India, Brazi,l and Russia, and the rest of Asia and the world increase their oil consumption.

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Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, on the flaws in the No Child Left Behind Act that need to be corrected.

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A new CBS-New York Times opinion poll in June 2012 shows 44% of those polled approve the job the Supreme Court is performing and about three fourths say the decisions of justices of the court are influenced by their political and personal views. By comparison only 15% approve of the job done by the U.S. Congress in the most recent poll. Only one in eight say the justices make decisions based solely on legal analysis. About 60% say they agree that life tenure for justices is bad because it gives too much power to justices. On the health care law two thirds of those polled say they hope some or all of the 2010 Obama health care law is overturned.

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US foreign direct investment to China goes down 40% in 2020 to 2022 compared to the period 2015 to 2020, for India this was up by 20%, according to IMF. India was the only G-20 country that received this level of foreign direct investment. Prashant Jha of the Hindustan Times correctly points out that the IMF paper and the model on which this paper is based are flawed. The paper sees countries based on alignment and India as a so called non aligned country not part of friendshoring, even though Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has openly called for friendshoring in India alongside finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. IMF experts have not caught up to Mr. Biden's remarks about the US- India relationship that it would be "the closest on earth." Closer even than America's relationship with Britain or Europe. On oil imports Biden and Jake Sullivan believe that after the pandemic India should import oil at the lowest possible cost to meet the long time denied aspirations of 1.2 billion people, and build the infrastructure that will make it a critical part of America's new supply chain. Every time there are military drills and blockade of Taiwan by China the people of America are moving a step further away from American companies that have overconcentration of manufacturing in China and closer to calling for a new supply chain that reduces concentration in China and builds new manufacturing in India.  ...

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in Areddy's piece yesterday the 24th in the WSJ he cites 100,000 accounts opening on average this month. NYT here cites 300,000 accounts opening each day. At 300,000, there would be about 50 ,illion new accounts in 6 months and 100 million new accounts in 12 months. Using the 100 million accounts currently open in the Areddy peice we have adoubling to 200 millon accounts in 12 months. What is the right number, and does anybody really know for sure. Anderson of UBS is quoted as saying only 10% of household wealth is tied up in the market, but at something like 200 million accounts, and speculative fever for another 12 months, this could end up with a big chunk of urbanized Chinese the ones most likely to be in the market. If we double the figure of $50 billon in daily stock trading we could see $100 billion in daily stock trading a year from now. The hidden part of the picture is whether Chinese banks have lent heavily to stock market speculators who would be unable to repay the loans in an adverse event and leave the banking sector in worse shape than it is now. Shang, and Guo at the Chinese Securities Regulatory commission and the China Construction Bank are likely to follow Zhou as Governor at the Central Bank. ...

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On Gandhi Jayanti remembering American president FDR's contribution to Hind Swaraj. FDR rejected Churchill's ideas of retaining the British Empire's colonies while fighting the German Nazis in the name of freedom. FDR said- " India should be made a commonwealth at once. After a certain number of years- 5 perhaps or 10- she should be able to choose whether she wants to remain in the Empire or have complete independence." 

FDR (US president Franklin Roosevelt) said -"I can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy."

 

 

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BP posts a replacement cost loss of $969 million for the 4th quarter of 2014, and says it will cut its drilling and exploration budget for 2015 by 20% lowering it to $20 billion.

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As Indian pharmaceutical industry sees drug testing in India as an opportunity, conditions for obtaining the best results are being established by taking necessary steps. With ashortage of experienced people to run drug trials, Indian government has stepped up training, setting up partnerships with the U.S. FDA, Health Canada, the World Health Organization, and other similiar organizations, The emphasis should be on credible dat and the safety of subjects says A.K. Pradhan, India's Assistant Drug Controller. After the death of an infant in a Wyeth Pharmaceuticals drug testing effort, the Drug Controller of India though supportive of Wyeth has raised certain issues that Wyeth is addressing.

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China's exports were able to show year over year growth of 7.6% in the first quarter of 2012, a sharp decline from 20.3% in 2011. As a result IMF estimates of China's long term current account surplus which were about 7% of GDP in the World Economic Outlook in Sept. 2011 may now be lowered to about 5%. This would reduce the strength of arguments that the yen is undervalued. The IMF is now engaged in making estimates for current account balances till 2017. China's current account surplus peaked at 10.1% of GDP in 2007 and the IMF forecasts in 2008 were for this to remain at 10% for the long term. The situation is rapidly changing because the most recent estimates from China's State Administration for Foreign Exchange show the actual current account surplus for 2011 at 2.8% of GDP. Since the 2010 Group of 20 nations summit meeting when China was pressured to reduce its trade surplus and let the yuan appreciate, the yuan has appreciated by 8.3%.

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Walgreens is changing its growth model to add the business of Health and Wellness buying two companies I-trax Inc. and Whole Health Management which run 350 health centres at corporate offices. Pharmacies will be added to these centres. Its targeting 7600 office sites with 1000 or more employees that could use a health-care center. Its competitors CVS and Walmart are going into managing employer drug benefit programs, with Walmart's selling point being reducing costs of paying for prescriptions for employers.

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In 2024 one third of the mortgage payment is the average cost of insurance and taxes. Insurance went up with natural disasters fires and floods, taxes go up as home prices surge as they have in 10 years without enough new housing being built.

 For half of people in 5 major Metro areas, Rochester and Syracuse in NY, Omaha in Nebraska, New Orleans, and Miami, at least a quarter of borrowers spend more than half of their mortgage payment in insurance and taxes. Nationwide in US 9%, up from 4% in 2014 spend more than half of their mortgage payment on insurance and taxes.