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Floods add another layer to the problems created by the pandemic in China, Japan and Bangladesh. Bangladesh is one of the hardest hit countries with Cyclone Amphan affecting 2.4 million people. Here Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of Bangladesh and chairman Climate Vulnerable Forum describes the problem Bangladesh is facing. Rising sea waters could lead to the abandonment of coastal and low lying regions on the coast by mid century, with Bangladesh, India, China and Indonesia being severely affected in Asia.

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Sri Lanka's foreign exchange reserves drop from over $7.5 billion in 2019 to about $2.8 billion in July 2021. The tourism industry on which Sri Lanka depends for foreign exchange and which supports the economy has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. Sri Lanka rupee has depreciated by 8% in 2021 and the country struggles to maintain food imports with declining dollar reserves. Sri Lankan government declared an economic emergency last week with rising food prices.

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Energy subsidies costing billions of dollars are keeping gas prices lower in France than other parts of the EU till December. French president Macron says a series of crises from droughts, the war in Ukraine and energy shortages will lead to an end to the abundance and called for conservation, and restraint in energy use. France uses nuclear energy in much larger proportion than any other country making it dependent on Russian gas imports for only 17% of its consumption. 

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Spending a minimum of 250,000 euros on a house in Greece gets an investor a five year renewable visa. Chinese investors seeking a European base are buying or constructing homes in Athens, and the islands of Santorini and Corfu. This is reviving the residential building market in Greece after years of bailouts by the European Central Bank. Chinese middle class investors see the presence of Chinese companies such as Cosco which owns part of the port of Piraeus as a sign it is safe to invest in Greece. Property prices dropped 40% in 2010. In 2018 prices went up by 2% and building permits by 10%, according to the Bank of Greece. Real estate investment was up 20% in 2018 with Chinese investment companies buying into whole apartment blocks in Athens to draw investors.

Greece had a record 33 million tourists in 2018. A 320 billion euros bailout ended in 2018. 

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New Sony CEO, Kazuo Hirai, plans to cut 10,000 jobs, about 6% of its total employees, over the next 2 fiscal years ending March 2014. Sony's television business has faced 8 years of losses, and the entire electronics business has faced 4 consecutive years of losses. The price competition and the high price of the yen has hurt Sony's sales and margins. This has affected the entire Japanese electronics industry, which has suffered consecutive years of losses, including Toshiba and Panasonic. Hirai is changing Sony's strategy in the television business. Instead of targeting a goal of 40 million in sales for television sets, he is cutting this in half to 20 million and reducing the size of its television sales operations. Sony's plan appears to be to focus on its strengths in new technologies and maufacturing, including the new 4 K technology, which would have to be adapted to mass market from its current specialized application. By doing this Sony would not have to compete on price in the manner it does today with Samsung and other Asian brands which have closed the gap in conventional technologies. Hirai's employee cuts follow the 16,000 job cuts made by Howard Stringer in 2008, during the global financial crisis. During March 2011 Sony had 168,200 employees....

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Fruit and vegetable gardens one can harvest for free in the Rhine River Valley city of Andernach, a medieval city that is one of the oldest settlements in Germany. The city administration launched this project in 2010 to get more local people engaged in the outdoors in their community and raise awareness of how food is grown. The plants cover tomatoes to pomegranates. The mayor hopes other cities around the world will follow this example. The mayor Anneli Karlsson says one does not feel such a relationship to plants as when one goes out and picks out the food, the salad, that one is then going to use for dinner that evening. This is an idea that cities in Europe, the US and other parts of the world can take up in the middle of the current rise in food prices, so that the interest would lead to closer relationship with the food grown around us, and in even growing it oneself in one's own garden. In the first year 100 varieties of tomatoes were planted. Then other edible plants were added. It includes Greek mountain tea leaves as well as the usual pumpkins, potatoes, grapes zucchini, kale, almonds. No pesticides so it is all organic. There aren't any fences one just takes what one needs.  The gardens are good for tourism. They also hire unemployed people to add to the workers in addition to the team of gardeners. Rising food prices are getting people to take interest in how food is grown and urban area food gardens. ...

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U.S. Vice President Biden and Vice President Xi Jinping visited a high school in Dujianyan, in Sichuan province, China. Xi Jinping is expected to be the new President of China in 2013. This is the first time he has spent extensive time with a U.S. leader. Xi Jinping shared his experiences of meeting with ordinary citizens with Joe Biden. Xi's daughter is a student at Harvard University. He showed considerable interest in the political situation and debt ceiling negotiations in the U.S. Li Keqiang, who is close to Premier Wen Biao, is expected to become prime minister of China in 2013. Li gave a speech to students at the University of Hong Kong during the Biden visit with Jinping, and at one point talked to students in English.

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Prices in the eurozone region increased by 0.3% in May from the year earlier, according to Eurostat. Prices in the eurozone were negative in December 2014, and minus 0.6% in Jan. 2015, flat for April 2015. Energy costs declined by 5% from the month year earlier. Excluding energy and food prices, the prices increased by 0.9% from the month year earlier. Because of large scale quantitative easing by the ECB the GDP increased by 1.6% for the 1st quarter of 2015 for the eurozone, just when the U.S. economy suffered a contraction.

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Where oil price will go next, global politics and economics of possible recession will determine in the short run and of course the development of new technologies for alternative fuels and fuel efficient cars in the longer run. Because of the erratic nature of the prices its hard to say.

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After three years o rock star popularity prime minister Trudeau's popularity has dropped so far that his party could lose the October general elections. This is after Canada's Attorney General resisted efforts by Trudeau and senior officials to let a Canadian company SNC-Lavalin avoid trial. Since then recording of a iphone call taken by the Attorney General with a top government official Mr. Wernick has created an uproar on this matter. Ms. Wilson-Raybould, the Attorney General saying in that conversation that this was going to look like nothing but political interference by the prime minister and everybody else involved in this. Nearly two thirds of Canadians now disapprove of the job Trudeau is doing according to a poll by Ipsos Public Affairs and Agnus Reid Institute.  Rock star popularity can fade quickly. In Brazil Ignacio Da Silva was popular till a crisis with state finances and the Car Wash scandal involving illegal payments led to the loss of his Workers Party in the recent elections. Mr. Trudeau had won support by supporting clean governance and giving women a say in governing. Ms. Raybould was transferred to a lower position after her unwillingness to follow government officials on the CNC Lavalin issue. Now the Liberals Party of Trudeau is trailing the rival Conservatives and Ms. Raybauld is a highly respected figure in Canada. ...

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A potato farmer in the Himalyan foothills is able to buy his first refrigerator using his Jio smartphone, even though he lives in a remote part of  India with no paved roads or indoor plumbing. Jio is the company founded by Reliance Industries head Mukesh Ambani, that is changing the way India shops and how it accesses the internet. Jio brings 4G technology to India and dramatically brings down data prices. To do this Reliance used its past success in executing big projects. It was designed to be a network that reached 18,000 cities and towns, and 200,000 villages, some lacking electricity, requiring 200,000 cell towers and 150,000 miles of high tech fiber optic cable. The project is now essentially completed, according to the company. This may be the biggest one it has tackled. Starting in polyester yarn and textile business, and in oil refineries, the company sought to diversify into digital platforms to compete with the likes of Google and Netflix. Ambani sees Jio not as a telecom business but as a digital platform and plans to use it to sell advertising, sell content, and financial services, also selling high speed broadband services. Ambani's project was designed to give India the opportunity to leapfrog into 4G and high speed internet and do this along with expanding the access through lower prices in the market to reach millions of people in remote regions of India including rural areas. Low cost access to data helps level the playing field between the rich and the poor. There are about 390 million internet users in India, penetration of 28%. This is now changing rapidly as prices drop - the potato farmer who bought his first fridge did this on his phone, connecting online with Jio which built a tower nearby that beamed nearly unlimited 4G data for about $2.10 a month. Jio has now signed up 215 million subscribers with its low cost service. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are larger competitors but it is Jio that has revolutionized the market in India, and which now enables companies like Amazon to use the new 4G services to build its retail online business.   ...

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Japanese perception of China as a source for manufacturing low cost goods is being challenged by the Honda strike in 2010. On the other hand increasing incomes in China will be welcomed by Japan as it opens up a larger market within China. For that to happen in the case of Japanese car manufacturers, the prices of Honda automobilies in China, which are high, have to come down.

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A milder than usual winter can reduce consumption by a large enough amount to affect oil prices significantly. The IEA estimates that last years mild winter cut oil consumption by as much as 900,000 barrels a day globally. Something like this could erase expected deficits andpush oil prices lower as they currently reflect lower inventories as winter approaches. UBS expects lower prices whereas Goldman Sachs believes there is lower risk of slowdown in the global economy, that is India, China and Europe will continue to grow even as US growth moderates, and Goldman's estimates shows even higher prices approaching $90 a barrel.

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How Walmart is trying to change its image as a retailer on the low end in terms of fashion and price to compete with Target and other specialized retailers. And how this has not fared well so far.

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Chinese inflation up to about 8.7% in Feb 2008, food prices much higher after storms and global food price increases and also a factor is the large increase in money in circulation with increased money supply as the government continues to buy up dollars from the country's trade surplus and investment inflows.

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Maine is the only state in the US where the median age declined in 2021. More people from other northeastern states migrated to Maine during this pandemic leading to population growth as younger people move in. This puts Maine in the ranks of sunbelt states such as Florida and South Carolina. This has one drawback- the increase in home prices that requires the state to pitch in to make housing more affordable for locals. During the pandemic three years Massachusetts lost 100,000, New York 600,000 to out migration. Maine has some of the most spectacular scenery in the northeast with Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor on the long coastline.

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In Spain it is not the big banks like Banco Santander or BBVA that funneled a lot of the mortgage lending. Its the Cajas or non profit lending instituions that do more than half of all the loans. The Cajas had $330 billion in loans to developers in Sept. 2009, up from $50 billion in 2000. As home prices plunge the 45 Cajas are suffering losses, amounting to estimated $3.4 billion in 2010.

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Bernanke's defense of the action of the Fed's monetary policy making committee, on November 3, 2010, (with a vote of 10-1) to buy an additional $600 billion of Treasury securities over the next 8 months. His defense focusses on the prospects of deflation- how low inflation can morph into deflation (falling prices and wages), that can create a long period of economic stagnation. In addition, with low and falling inflation, Bernanke sees spare capacity in the US that can be utilized to reduce the number of jobless people. He points to the rise in stock prices and fall in long term interest rates in anticipation of the Fed's action, as evidence that this Fed move would improve financial conditions. Lower mortgage rates would make housing more affordable, higher stock prices would increase consumer wealth, confidence and spending. Spending would lead to higher incomes and profits for economic expansion, from this viewpoint. The situation in November 2010, was a deepening housing slump anticipated for 2011, gridlock after the 2010 midterm elections and no agreement on additional stimulus for 2011, the need to rebalance the global economy lacking cooperation from China (with China increasing imports and reducing exports and the US increasing exports and reducing imports). Fed's Bernanke does not mention these factors, and only hints at the gridlock towards the end of the statement. This Fed action will push the dollar lower, just as efforts to improve exports and the trade balance are underway. The Fed's committee sees the risks of commodities inflation as an acceptable risk in the current situation, and the use of a cautious approach assessing the purchase program regularly as sufficient measure of safety. As to difficulties of the unwinding of these policies, the Fed sees present danger outweighing the risks of no action. For emerging markets such as Turkey, India, Australia and other countries seeing even more inflows of capital, the risks are left to these countries to manage. The central banks of India and Australia moved to increase interest rates at the same time that the Fed made its move....

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Prime minister Monti of Italy played a key role in getting Germany to accept short term measures for the eurozone crisis. This includes having the European Financial Stability Facility, the eurozone's bailout fund, buying govenment bonds of Spain and Italy directly in private markets to reduce the unsustainably high yields on these bonds. The plans proposed by the EU include setting up a European banking regulator.

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During the freeze offs when due to winter storms across the northeast and other parts of the US the gas supplies were down by 7% the supplies of natural gas in the US were 5.2% above the usual average. Natural gas prices are 30% below the price in October at the start of the heating season demand in the US. This plentiful supply will help Americans weather this winter so much better than last winter, and reducing the price of a key input for many products in the industrial economy such as cement, plastic and fertilizer to reduce overall inflation. In this way the US is pursuing climate change action under president Biden with policies that take action on the Cost of Living front that affect ordinary Americans at the same time for a two pronged effort.

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Some of the hrdles Blu Ray is facing are the price of Blu-Ray disc players priced by Sony at $399 vs. $60 for a standard machine, and BluRay discs priced at $11 more than regular DVD's. Sony has said that the price of the disc players won't fall below $200 till the end of the year by which time consumers in the USA may further tighten their spending. An April report by Sanford Bernstein & Co. predicts sales of BluRay discs will add only 1% to sales of DVD's this year, so the outlook is very uncertain for BluRay. Part of the problem is that its a discretionary spending item and consumers may ask themselves why spend so much on the discs when there is not a signifcant appreciable difference in performance? Blu Ray discs do not provide that much of a noticeable difference except for action films.

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About 10 million households in the U.S. are underwater in their mortgages, living in homes that are worth less than what they owe on the mortgage. According to Zillow Inc. in the first quarter of 2014, about 9.7 million households or 18.8% of U.S. homeowners are underwater in their mortgage. Another 10 million U.S. households have less than 20% equity in their homes. Underwater homes are concentrated in the bottom third of the price range with 30% in this range, resulting in fewer homes available to new first time buyers entering the market. At the same time the higher mortgage rates and 11% price increases in the last 2 years make homes costlier for first time buyers who face sticker shock, according to Zillow economists.

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Maria Bartiromo talks with President Medvedev of Russia. She asks him about the North Korean's nuclear missiles testing. Medvedev says "what has happened raises great alarm and concern." He says North Korea is close to Japan and S. Korea but is also close to Russia. He has had quite anumber of telephone talks with the Prime Minister of Japan and the President of S. Korea on this subject. He says the world needs to think about what measures can be taken to deter these programs. He is concerned about unemployment. 2.2 million are registered as unemployed but the number is much much higher. Russia he says is a hostage to the structure of the economy, and sees a danger in the overdependence on export of raw materials. He sees the crisis as an opportunity to change the "outdated and obsolete structure of Russia's economy." His idea is to use the extra revenues to support social programs and to radically change the structure of the economy.

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As the price of oil hits $40 a barrel, and with the lack of investor confidence in China's economic policies in relation to the stock market and currency devaluation, global stock markets decline sharply in August 2015.