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Muhammad Azhar Ali, factory manager for National Foods plant near Karanchi, Pakistan, describes what it is like running a manufacturing operation in Pakistan. National Foods is the largest manufacturer of pickles and other spice products in Pakistan. A big problem is the lack of security and terrorism. This remains a constant cause of anxiety for business people in Pakistan. Its like being in a war zone says the National Foods chairman Abdul Majeed. Another major problem is lack of reliable electricity supplies. Supply of electricity is only one third of national demand in Pakistan. Larger companies such as Lucky Cement generate their own electricity, with Lucky Cement producing 150 megawatts from its plants. Smaller companies like National Foods rely on diesel generators. To conserve electricity many factory, floor office and bathroom lights are turned off. For workers the lack of electric supplies and high inflation affect lives in many ways. National Foods has a weighing department and assesses workers picked up from many parts of Karanchi to see if they are fit for work or are unduly stressed from poor living conditions. This is a side of Pakistani life that is rarely touched on-the daily lives of workers and managers. Ali works harder than other production managers in other countries because of the power shortages and lack of security. He would like to devote time to increase productivity and be more like other production managers. The war with the Taliban has cost Pakistan $68 billion in destroyed infrastructure, security costs, lost foreign investment according to one estimate. ...

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There is strong cirticism from many quarters about low interest rates as a prime culprit in causing the bubble in housing prices. In comments before the American Economic Association, America's Fed Chairman Bernanke defended his role as Fed governor in 2003 when he along with Greenspan was an advocate of the decision to cut the Fed's target interest rate to 1%, and to leave it here for a year and raise it only slowly. Bernanke says countries like Britain, New Zealand, and Sweden had tighter monetary policy but there home prices rose more, and monetary policy explains only 5% of the variation in home prices. Analysis has shown he says that capital inflows such as those the U.S. received from China and other Asian countries explains 31% of the variation in home prices, supporting a contrasting theory that that its these global imbalances that drove the crisis. He also placed the primary fault for the housing bubble on relaxed lending standards and views that housing prices would rise forever. Alongside these comments Fed chairman Bernanke also said that bank supervisors and other financial regulators of which the Fed was one, has a better ability to contain the excesses that led to the economic crisis including housing bubble and other excesses, than the Fed as a monetary policy maker. By saying this Bernanke is acknowledging that the failure of regulation was a key part of what happened in the economic crisis. The failure to fix the regulatory system even now leads Bernanke to say that he is open to using monetary policy as a supplementary tool for addressing risks should another bubble develop, if the regulatory system isn't reformed. Still Bernanke and Greenspan were quite complacent at the time of the low interest rates and did not point out the dangers of global capital imbalances which were evident at the time, preferring to say that the United States could benefit from the inflows of capital from overseas without serious risks. And the Fed did not exercize its role of vigilance in alerting the country to excesses in the way the housing industry operated and in exercizing its own powers to that effect. Instead the Fed as regulator and in role as asafeguard for serious risks let itself become part of the cheering section as the worst excesses in housing were being exposed....

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Different estimates on how quickly and how much additional oil would come into world oil markets if sanctions are lifted. The time estimates range from quickly to 6 months for additional new supplies into world oil markets. Estimates of how much production can be added range from 500,000-800,000 barrels a day from private estimates to 1 million additional barrels a day from Iran's oil company, if sanctions are lifted. UK foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, says "there is still a long way to go if we are going to get there." He told a parliamentary committee that the nonnegotiable part is a window of one year advance notice if Iran were to break out and go for a nuclear weapon, which would be based on technical expert opinion of how long it would take Iran to build a nuclear weapon using its knowhow and materials at that Mr Zanganeh took over as oil minister after the election of Rouhani as president 18 months ago. Zanganeh calls the effect of sanctions and the mismanagement of the previous government as "a catastrophe," and he has tried to instill anew discipline in the oil sector. Iran currently produces about 1-1.2 million barrels a day under sanctions, half of earlier levels before sanctions were tightened in 2012 because of the nuclear weapons development issues....

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Prof. Scott Kennedy of the Research center for Chinese Politics and Business, voices concerns of experts who think that the $585 billion stimulus and the doubling of lending this year, increase in exports by a third last month, all point to an economy that is expanding too quickly. Kennedy says that no one defies economic laws, that eventually endless growth can get get you in trouble. The concern is whether the overexpansion of credit and the size of the stimulus may have led to overreaction in stimulus spending. People's Daily newspaper of China said that China's leaders are moving much faster than leaders of developed nations. But the flip side of this is that in the rush to increase spending there may be a lot of wasteful spending resulting in many bad loans a few years from now.

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Unemployment in the eurozone drops to 7.7% in 2017. Unemployment in Spain drops to 17%.

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Norris provides an insightful account into the research and thinking of Janet Yellen, the new chairwoman of the U.S. Federal Reserve. In her research work Fed chairwoman Yellen has placed importance on the long term unemployment rate and the difficulties workers unemployed for long period have in finding work. This is likely to determine Fed policy on interest rates as the unemployment rate inches closer to the Fed target of 6.5% set by Bernanke in Dec. 2012. Norris points out the emphasis Yelen has placed on this in speeches since being nominated to succeed Ben Bernanke at the Fed. In a recent speech Yellen emphasized that in the recession of the early 1980's median time unemployed people said they were unemployed was 12 weeks, which jumped to 25 weeks for about 6 months in 2010 and is at 17 weeks in the most recent jobs report. Another indicator Yellen has emphasized is labor's share of income in the nonfinancial corporate sector which remained between 66% and 61% from 1950 to early 2000's. This fell below 60% in 2005 and is at 57.1% barely budging from the 2011 figure. In papers written with George Ackerloff, Yellen has advanced the "fair-wage hypothesis," that workers do not do as good a job when wages are held down. Their research also shows its normal for workers in periods of recession to hold out against the lower salaries offered during recession periods, because these workers tend to fall behind newer workers hired with better wages later when the economy recovers. At the confirmation hearing Yellen made it clear that the Fed would do all it can to help the long term unemployed by creating a stronger job market, a job market where these workers would be drawn into work and employers provide job training as well as opportunities for advancement....

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A look at two crises in 1918 and 1957 of virus pandemics shows early and decisive action to prevent public from gathering and intermingling, are critical. In today's densely populated urban environments this translates into lockdowns and quarantines that are strictly enforced. The 1918 pandemic took 50 million lives worldwide, the 1957 pandemic took 1 million lives worldwide, says this report based on some estimates. MIstakes were made then and science was not as developed for vaccines and new drugs. Which is why health authorites are taking this very seriously. Greg Ip of the WSJ looks at coronavirus health crisis in relation to earlier disasters- SARS 2003 originating in China, 1957 flu epidemic, 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, to draw insights on what measures have worked best. Previous epidemics and crises provide clues on what makes things worse or better and the long term consequences of actions. The more health and safety are prioritized there is some impact on the economy. But crises have proven that the economic impact is temporary and short lived with the economy and jobs bouncing right back once the crisis has passed. The second insight is that early on in the crisis there is a great deal of uncertainty, leading to fumbled or delayed, or timid response. Sort of like lets wait for more information coming out of China, or now Italy, which happened first in February, and then again in March. Tim Adams who worked in the U.S. Treasury Department during 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, and is now the president of the Institute of International Finance, says if you look to plan a perfect response you lose valuable time. Time is of the essence. Learning to make speed the priority, to think in tranches, be visible, and worrying about how to pay for it later, is what he says he has learned from these crises response efforts. In the case of the coronavirus, some valuable time was lost becausee of the uncertainty and lack of early information, making speed and rapid comprehensive action very critical. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 infected over 500 million people worldwide and killed 50 million or more, including 675,000 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During this epidemic the Chicago public health commissioner flatly opposed closing businesses, saying worry kills people more than the epidemic. A 2007 study shows cities that took that attitude saw higher death tolls in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. Philadelphia waited 16 days before restricting social gatherings, St Louis took just 2 days. The result: the daily death rate from the epidemic peaked at level five or more times higher in Philadelphia than in St. Louis. Social distancing was not much of an issue then as people worked in jobs that required less contact, such as farming, fishing and forestry, as well as other jobs that did not require that contact in large offices.   ...

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China's GDP growth for the second quarter of 2012 was 7.6% from the prior year. China set a target of 7.5% GDP growth in March 2012. About half of the GDP growth in 2011 was generated from investment spending. As part of a new Stimulus China is increasing bank lending and moving forward development projects in energy and infrastructure. Bank loans showed an increase from 793 billion yuan ($124 billion) in May 2012 to 920 billion yuan ($144 billion) in June 2012.

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The increasing competitiveness of Mexico compared to China and India as an investment destination in 2013. Foreign companies are investing heavily in Mexico because of investment advantages in labor cost, supply of engineering and management talent, and proximity to the U.S.

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Enrique Pena Nieto of the PRI party wins the presidential election in Mexico with 38% of the vote. Lopez Manuel Obrador came second with 31% of the vote, and the candidate of the ruling PAN party, Ms. Vazquez Mota came in third with 26% of the vote. Voters were eager for change afer 12 years of rule by the PAN party under Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon. Mexico averaged growth of 2% during these years, though growth has increased since the financial crisis. But the benefits of globalization, foreign investment, and trade reached the better educated and skilled workers leaving many behind. This period included negative growth during the 2008 financial crisis. .

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France's finance minister says the government will focus on growth and set deficit targets that will support growth. There is a feeling in the business community that France has reached the limit for tax increases. The government has given up the goal of reducing the deficit to 3% of GDP in 2013. The government says the deficit will be about 4.1% in 2013 and 3.6% in 2014. Economic growth is expected to be only about 0.1% for 2013, and 0.9% for 2014, lower than earlier forecasts. Muscovici has said the French are fed up with higher taxes, and he is looking for savings in spending. About 15 billion euros of savings are planned in the 2014 budget from ministry expenses and healthcare spending. Extra taxes of 6 billion euros planned for the 2014 budget will now be cut to 3 billion euros. To increase growth it is necessary to stabilize taxation and give business a clear picture for 2014-2015.

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With Obama's popularity rating in 2016 similar to Reagan's in his last year in office at 51%, he announced his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president. Obama is likely to campaign in 2016 for Hillary to reunite the Democratic Party, bring Bernie Sanders and Sander's supporters behind the Democratic nominee, including younger women.

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Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News and World Report, looks behind the unemployment numbers and points to U-6 the real measure of under utilized labor and of workers working part time because of a lack of full time work, and says this is at about 15%. Add the eight million who quit looking and it is 19%, says Zuckerman The unemployment rate of 8.1% does not reflect the eight million workers who have quit looking. The long term unemployed, workers unemployed for more than 27 weeks is at 40.7%, or 5.2 million workers. Fewer Americans work today than in 2000, even though the population has increased by 31 million. Only 96,000 jobs were generated in August 2012. Something is seriously wrong and the right steps have not been taken.

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The U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to extend Operation Twist beyond June to the rest of the year after the June 2012 FOMC meeting. By extending Operation Twist the Fed will buy $267 billion in long-term Treasury bonds and notes and sell short term Treasurys.