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After a second round of price increases P&G's last price increase of 10% leads to first quarter revenues up 4% on sales volume declines of 3% for the first quarter of 2023. The company making Gillette razors, Charmin toilet paper and Tide detergent for household supplies has shown the persistence of inflation as companies increase prices to pass on the increase in price of raw materials. Some of this money will go to buy back stock- P&G plans to buy back $8 billion of its own stock. Companies such as P&G are countering criticism of price increases by saying they offer premium products or use the term "irresistable superiority" says this report in NYT. This leads to "profit price spiral" and adds to "wage price spiral" effects. A executive board member in eurozone says half of the price increases in EU can be attributed for the last quarter of 2023 to company profits.

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As long as free and fair presidential elections do not happen migration from Venezuela will continue said this report from CSIS in 2023. a clear warning to the US, to Latin America and the world. This is relevant to the actions taken by the Republican party and by DJT to make the immigration an issue in 2024 elections and as shown alongside in the action by DJT to revoke the Chevron license because of Venezuela's failure to take in deportees quickly and the failure of the Maduro regime to allow free and fair elections to let Venezuelans decide their future.  Eight million Venezuelans have left the country because of mismanaging the economy, runaway inflation, repression, and failure to honor free and fair elections. Taking the 2015 population of 30 million this is about 25% of the population with millions fleeing to Colombia, Peru and the US. "If no indication of regime change seems in sight and the 2024 presidential elections are not free or fair, upticks in migration should be expected, as Venezuelans will continue to leave the country in search of better opportunities. Therefore, it is critical not to overlook this migrant crisis nor normalize it, as it is evidence of the persistence of the democratic and economic breakdown in this country, which continues to be a threat to the stability of the region and the world." (CSIS, Nov. 27, 2023) ...

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President Biden removes one of the costly boondoggles thrust on the American people with Bush's Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003, which was anything but an improvement. .The following are the 10 pharmaceutical drugs that will be negotiated for Medicare prices under the Inflation Reduction Act- Eliquis and Jardiance (strokes), Jardiance, Xarelto (diabetes), Entresto (heart failure), Enbrel (arthritis). Laws passed under Republican president younger Bush incomprehensibly took away the right of the government to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies in one of the most egregious and costly decisions in postwar history by the government of the United States. It has only aggravated the problems and cots of healthcare for the American people. President Biden reversed this with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act during the pandemic. Strangely it is part of the real culture war in America in which about 80% of both Republicans and Democrats support this but the media allowed the Bush legislation to be passed without saying it made no sense to say this negotiation was a form of price controls by the US government. This is how low the US policymaking had fallen by 2003 with legislators and press unable to make a simple point. Bush's legislation was called even more incomprehensibly the Medicare Drug Improvement and Modernization Act, when it was one of the biggest financial disasters for the American people costing them hundreds of billions of dollars in their savings and incomes to pay inflated prices of pharmaceuticals that people in Europe and Asia (India and China) were not paying.  ...

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Oil prices are at $73 a barrel in Jan 2025. DJT's goal for 2025 is for oil prices to drop to $45 to bring inflation down. To do this requires shale oil producers and Saudi Arabia to increase production. This report in WSJ says Saudis will have a hard time managing budget needs at this price and have indicated they will not increase production. Shale oil producers are also reluctant saying they are in a different phase in the production cycle and are not looking to expand production. 

Prices at the pump have dropped from $5.00 a gallon to $3.10. In 2024 per barrel prices were at $90. 

The new administration hopes that reducing regulations and speeding up the approval process, and new incentives would help increase production.

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Higher inflation and interest rates at 2.2% are having a profound effect on the Japanese economy. Japan is starting a new era of positive interest rates with the first interest rate increase in 17 years this week. Pay raises reached an average of 5.28% in 2023, according to the Japan Trade Union Confederation where the highest for the previous decade was 2.4%. PM Kishida has pursued a course that encourages workers to get needed pay raises. It will affect everything from US mortgages to how much money stays at home and is invested in Japan. Japan holds $4.2 trillion in foreign investment holdings of which $1.1 trillion is in US Treasury bonds. As the differential with US interest rates decreases - varying from 1.5% to 3%- it will increase investment in the Japanese economy and in manufacturing at home. Japan has seen low wages and a hollowing out of its manufacturing sector similar to the US creating a sense of less hope for the future. This shift to investing in Japan is a change for reasons of supply chain reliability and increasing confidence of workers and worker's families in Japan. ...

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Turkey's elections for parliament and for president are on May 14, 2023. President Erdogan is running again after two decades in power. Turkey faces high inflation of over 57% which has created a serious cost of living crisis in Turkey. Erdogan has issued a wide range of stimulus measures- energy subsidies, a doubling of the minimum wage, pension increases, and a chance for 2 million retirees to retire immediately. A kilogram of tomatoes used to cost 8-10 liras and now costs 25 liras. Rents are going up with steep increases. Turkey has been hit hard by the war in Ukraine as it depends on Ukraine for grain supplies. A popular mayor of Istabul Ekrem Imamoglu from the Opposition is shown here as an alternative for president. Erdogan started his political career as Mayor of Istanbul with the military opposing him. His management of the economy helped him win two terms as president, which is now in a severe crisis.

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After all the media talk about tariffs inflation- inflation is at 2.4% in May 2025. Tariffs was part of the toolbox of strategies under Lighthizer and Jamieson on getting fair world trade, and not like Congressman Hawley in the 1920's who understood little about the workings of the US economy. This fact the official media such as the WSJ and NYT, Wash Post, BBC need to get it right about the Hawley Tariffs. Hawley was born in rural Oregon in 1864 went to country schools, and was president of Willamette University in Salem, when it's population was 4258. As House Ways and Means Committee chairman he wrote the failed tariffs bill Hoover signed in 1930. DJT's US Trade Representative Lighthizer in 2016 led the successful negotiations with Japan under Reagan, Scott Bessent who leads negotiations on tariffs with China with USTR Jamieson, has a deep understanding and grasp of today's financial markets. Tariffs is one of the tools in the US toolbox to get Japan, China, South Korea to even the playing field for US companies and bring back manufacturing to the US. Without it China would not budge from its unfair advantage and would not negotiate in fairness. This is proven in the way Japan in the 1980s and China today are responding to the US position preparing their economies for not relying on sudden surges in exports putting whole industries and workers in America and Europe out of work and out of jobs. DJT says- "No we are not going to accept that," the EU is catching on and adopting a similar position, China knows that.  The media is irresponsible in presenting tariffs in a negative way, irresponsible to American workers the 10 million put out of work since 2000, and to American families and the Nation.   ...

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Inflation in the US went down slightly from annual rate of 8.5% in March to 8.3% in April 2022. Inflation was highest for gasoline, energy, automobiles and food. Supply chain bottlenecks have accelerated inflation in 2021-2022. The war in Ukraine has pushed up energy and food prices. Inflation is likely to ease in coming months. Wage gains are being eroded by higher inflation in 2021-2022.

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Pocketbook issues are taking increasing importance in the French election on April 24. Greg Ip of the WSJ says inflation has risen in importance more than immigration, the war in Ukraine, and other issues related to Islamist separatism. About 45% cited purchasing power as the main issue in a BVA poll, and this is even higher for people who voted for Jean-Luc Melenchon who came within 1% percentage point of Ms. Le Pen in the first round. Greg Ip says that in economic issues France has done better than Germany, Italy or the UK. Unemployment is at 7.4% the lowest since 2008. Economic output has risen more than in Germany, Italy or the the UK since Mr. Macron took office. And one study shows disposable income has risen higher under Macron than under predecessors Hollande and Sarkozy. France also spent heavily to tackle the Covid pandemic's effect on workers and companies. Ip says Macron's efforts to liberalize labor markets, simplify taxes and wage bargaining and make training programs more effective could be the reason. Youth unemployment is the lowest in nearly 40 years, and the number of apprenticeships doubled from 2019 to 2021, according to BNP Paribas. Pisani-Ferry, economist at Sciences Po says compared to past performance the French economy did much better. Le Pen has promised to cut the value added tax to tackle inflation's effect on voters. Macron has said he will be flexible when it comes to raising the age for retirement and pensions and calls Le Pen's lowering the retirement age creating problems for the solvency of the pension system and highly unrealistic.   ...

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Who will take up the difficult work in American childcare centers at $10-$15 per hour when retailers such as Amazon and Target are paying $20-$25 an hour during labor shortages in the US in 2021. As a result thousands of childcare centers in the US are closing and others are operating at a fourth or fifth part of their capacity. The result- less childcare and fewer women able to return to the workforce. Fewer men who can go back to work if caring for a child. This leads to further labor shortages. For a long time retailers like Amazon and Target were faulted for paying wages that made it difficult for workers to support their families. With the increase in inflation of about 5% in 2020-2021 it is even more difficult to pay for essential food and clothing. Another problem that America and Europe have lived through under different administrations in the last 2 decades is now getting even worse. Left to markets alone the whole system breaks down when one by one essential services such as healthcare, sanitation, childcare, transportation, cannot be provided. The US is facing an existential crisis not just in climate change but also in childcare, healthcare services. Both are caused by same source, a lack of emphasis on the right and essential national priorities. The causes go back to faulty capital allocation in America and Europe. $390 billion is allocated for childcare in Biden's plan in October, yet the Biden Families and Workers plan faces resistance. Gradually many of president Biden's programs for women including paid leave, child care and others are being shriveled into smaller and smaller amounts and the $3.9 trillion in spending for the workers and families plan is down now to $2 trillion.  The US and Europe face splits in society with one more urban and from the professional classes and the other more rural and in smaller urban communities and from the less educated classes each having different priorities. Only a clear resolution in the proper direction can bring relief for women, children and all segments of society, needed for a good society. ...

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Food costs for eating at home have actually come down by half since 1960. Charts on the US Department of Agriculture site (USDA) show US food costs for family budgets at 13% of personal disposable income for eating at home in the Kennedy years the 1960's. This has come down by half to 5.7% in 2024. In that period eating at restaurants and outside has doubled to 5.7% of personal disposable income. When people complain about food inflation this is an important factor, eating outside also leads to less control of intake and right nutrition, consequently leads to poorer health outcomes, and a growing share of health expenditures in America's national budget. It hits both the family budget and the national budget and then comes back to hit health outcomes.

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With inflation cooling to 3.3% in May report the US Fed sees only one rate cut for 2024. The Labor Department report on inflation consumer price index showed it was essentially flat from last month at 3.3% over the month prior year.

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About 14 million people are in poverty or slipping below the poverty line according to Paritatische Wohlfahrtsverband, umbrella organization for welfare organizations. German per capita wealth is about 52,000 euros but there is growing inequality in wealth and incomes.  A household with 2 parents and 2 children is at the poverty line at 2410 euros a month or about 29000 euros a year. Social safety net under Hartz IV does little to help because it is set at 449 euros a month with 285 to 376 euros for each child. This is expected to go up to 503 euros a month per person in 2023. Even though experts say at least 650 euros are needed per month to live  with dignity. Under this system only 5 euros per day is set by Hartz IV for food, says DW.com, which is shocking. It means food of lesser quality or less food goes to the less well off. About 2 million people use food banks. Prices are up 12% in 2022 for basics such as bread, vegetables, milk and cheese. One study shows old age poverty is likely to affect 20% of Germans by 2036. The situation is bad for elderly, students and women. Women have worked part time reducing their income.  A student with federal funding gets 934 euros a month which is well below the poverty line. A new program for 200 billion euros is planned by German government to protect against inflation for households. Minimum wage is 12 euros per hour so that someone who works 40 hours a week makes 1480 per month in net income. After inflation this is close to the poverty line. Such is the situation for Germans today even after decades of growth and being seen as an export powerhouse. Compare this to the situation in India where the food program of the Modi administration continues to support food supplies that are adequate for feeding a family right through the pandemic for 800 million people and one sees that the idea of what is a rich or poor country is turned on its head. It is simply the will of the culture of a people and a country and its leadership that makes its limited or larger national wealth available to all its citizens, for the basics to fulfill the idea that "all men are created equal and they are endowed by their Creator with some inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," enshrined in the minds of Asia borrowed from America. ...

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This self portrait by Vladimir Putin about his growing up years in Leningrad and the life of his father and mother during the siege of Leningrad by Germans may offer a better sense of the mind and thinking of the Russian president than the Dresden years when he was a junior Russian official in Communist East Germany (the GDR). It is an interview of the Russian president in 2000 by Nataliya Gevorkyan, Natalya Timakova, and Andrei Kolesnikov over twenty years back. Putin's father suffered severe injuries during the war in the fighting around Leningrad, twice being given up for dead and being dragged wounded across the frozen Neva river to a hospital by a neighbor. His mother was half dead from starvation and his father passed on his food given to him at the hospital. Having gone through the memories of this period affected Vladimir Putin's view of the world and no amount of US or German assurance about NATO's intentions may have erased these memories from childhood. The long period in power and the Covid isolation may have led to  perceptions that were less likely to change so that Putin did his own research and wrote a long paper on Ukraine in 2021 that reflected Russia and Ukraine's long history but did not reflect the changing national aspirations of Ukraine's people in 2022. This may have led to the miscalculation and the errors by both Putin and the leaders Merkel-Bush-Obama that the detailed WSJ report of 20 years of events show to have happened. The WSJ report of April 1, 2022, was titled "Vladimir Putin's 20 Year March to War in Ukraine and How the West Mishandled It." The Social Democrats in Germany under Schroeder and Steinmeier mishandled it by deepening economic integration with Russia as a way to make up for what had happened in the German invasion of Russia, and the Christian Democrats under Merkel with business interests never really grasped the different thinking of the Russian president relying solely on deep economic integration of the EU and Germany with Russia as well as China as an answer. Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama from a distance even less so.  This has led to the miscalculation by Russia under Putin leading to invasion of Ukraine, and the US and Germany being unprepared about taking action to prevent it.  Beyond the key participants and the war damage, there is the enormous damage that is taking place in the mental health around the world after Covid with constant barrage of images of war and refugees streaming into Poland. There is the problem of food imports, of food scarcity in the Middle East, and inflation in food prices for Africa and the Middle East. As Brendan Simms, a Cambridge historian has shown in his book "Europe The Struggle of Supremacy 1453 to the Present," which is now being read by German chancellor Scholz, this has happened before with the UK, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Russia engaging in these conflicts that led to prolonged wars and eventually to only small shifts in power. Yet with huge effects for ordinary people caught in the wars such as today's refugees and people struggling to feed their families in Africa and Asia after the effects of Covid on income. Food prices have gone up by 50% to almost double in these countries.   ...

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People at street protests in France are increasingly asking whether the pension reform from 62 to 64 years is that much of a priority in 2023 when people are just recovering from the pandemic and a cost of living crisis with high inflation and high energy costs stemming from the Ukraine conflict. The independent Pension Advisory Council stated "pension spending is not out of control, it is relatively contained." More people turned out than before in a second round of street protests by over half a million people in Paris. The reforms come down harder on women who worked part time to raise children. Age discrimination for jobs in France is widespread. The pandemic has created additional stress and burnout at work leading to early retirement in the US and other countries. Some of the pension changes are being used to finance an expansion of the military budget. Social justice is seen as at risk in France in a society that is socially fragmented.

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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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Bank of Japan negative interest policies for two decades was a kind of experiment and a failed one, says this report in WSJ. It caused a form of financial repression where households were made to subsidize companies. Households lost net interest income in the period 2000-2020 in the amount of trillions of yen, says Deputy Governor Himino of BOJ, as interest on household savings was so low or negligible. A similar situation hurt savers and retired people in the US. With inflation at 2% Japan is ending its period of negative interest rates, a welcome change that will benefit tens of millions of people with household savings giving a return, including the 45 million retired people one third of the population who depend on savings income.

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Rising home prices are leading to higher property taxes in Colorado. A surge of new people coming to Colorado has meant higher property taxes of much as 40% for those already living in the state. David Chen talked to residents in the state and found a retiree, a former X-Ray technician retired for 20 years, facing a 20% rise in property taxes in Littleton, Colorado, and having to sell some of her stuff to meet the higher cost. For retirees in Colorado and across the Rocky mountain states- where people have moved to from California and the Northeast  paying higher prices for homes- living on Social Security checks is particularly hard these days. In Montana property taxes went up by 40-50% in some counties in 2023. Democrat Governor Polis says just because your home price goes up by 40% does't mean you have 40% more cash to pay taxes, your income may be up 10-12%. For retirees on Social Security checks alone it is only the inflation coverage in those checks. The situation is also true for Arizona and Utah with many newcomers and the trend for hybrid work adding to it. ...

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Tether is a cryptocurrency based out of the Virgin Islands that is pegged to the dollar 1:1. It has $120 billion in assets mostly safe US Treasury bills, and gold, bitcoin. It made $6.2 billion in profit for its owners more than Black Rock largest American asset manager fund. What does this mean? It offers an outlet for trade in oil for Russia and other countries such as Venezuela. At the same time it is useful to people in countries with high inflation such as Argentina and Turkey  where people use it to protect their assets from inflation erosion. When its use is widespread this also results in diversion of funds away from the Treasury as in Venezuela where an oil minister was toppled, says this WSJ report. And at the same time it gives protection to Venezuelans from extreme inflation. How it works- Tether Holdings issues virtual coins to a select number of direct customers, mostly trading firms, who wire real world dollars in exchange for Tether.  Tether buys US Treasury bills with these dollars to back Tether's value. Who runs Tether? Tether's cofounders included a plastic surgeon Giancarlo Devasini. All co-founders sold out to Devasini, who runs it from an enclave in southern coast of France. The company was founded in 2014. Interest was slim in a stable token backed by US Treasury bills. Then in 2020-21 bull run in the stock market traders started using it to buy and sell out of risky bets. It's market capitalization exploded from $4 billion to about $80 billion.  Tether says it avoids illicit transactions. WSJ report says 2713 wallets or about $1.2 billion were blacklisted, this out of $153 billion provided by Tether to its 2 popular blockchains. Rest of the funds already sent on, says WSJ. ...

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Like the rest of the restaurant industry British pubs are affected by staffing shortages, inflation, higher energy bills, and supply chain problems. The UK lost around 3250 pubs and bars between March 2020 and September of this year. During lockdowns most were closed, as they reopen they face higher costs and are struggling to survive. New hires that earned 27,000 pounds now are offered 32,000 pounds, with few applications as people look for better work and working conditions than offered in the restaurant industry.

Fewer people are going to pubs for lunch as they work from home more. Older people are staying at home from virus related hesitancy. Pubs are passing on price increases of food of 20%. Once seen as part of Britain's cultural fabric this also is changing as people look for other sensible options.

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As inflation is down by half to 4% in the US in May compared to 2022, and down to 6.1% in the European Union, inflation in the UK is stuck close to 9% in May 2023. Changes in government, with three prime ministers in three years and lack of policies that will adequately protect workers and families under the Conservatives, leave the British people facing a cost of living crisis.

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Electric vehicles (EV's) get a tax credit under the Biden Climate Bill also called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. To qualify for the tax credit of upto $7500 buyers of EV's have to meet income and other requirements. Only cars with final assembly in the US qualify for the tax credit which should help boost American EV manufacturing capabilities and technology. This removes the problem of automobile job losses for factories shipped overseas.  EV's must not be priced above $25,000 for 2 year used cars, and $55,000 for new cars. SUV's can go upto $80,000. Income limits (as AGI) are $300,000 for joint filers, 150,000 for single filers for new cars. For old cars it is $150,000 for joint filers and $75,000 for single filers.

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The behavior of the US stock market is examined in this analysis in the WSJ. It shows that tech stocks that comprise a major part of the S&P 500 made a big surge in 2020 and 2021, dropping by 30% in 2022. Consumer discretionary stocks which also experienced an upsurge in 2020 and 2021 are facing headwinds from higher inflation and decline in demand. Retailers such as Target and Walmart are reducing inventories as demand shifts. 

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The BBC Fact check for crime, cost of living, immigration, world affairs is shown next to this transcript of the former president's speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 2024. The biggest issue is cost of living, for housing, food and groceries, gas and automobiles new and repairs. "I will end the devastating inflation crisis immediately, bring down interest rates and lower the cost of energy . We will drill, baby, drill. Prices will start to come down." Fact: Gas prices may come down a bit, but it will do little or nothing for the other major components of cost of living - for housing and mortgage rates of 6-7%, for automobile prices and auto repairs, for food and groceries.The problem of job creation will come to the fore because of an inherent contradiction of trying to commit to Republican old platform of tax cuts for the wealthy and efforts to take cost of living action for the now larger lower and middle classes. Without this money that goes to tax cuts for wealthy there is not much to invest in Make at Home, in manufacturing in US the way Biden is doing and plans for next 4 years creating hundreds of thousands of jobs every month and still keeping inflation low at 3% through an investment driven economy. ...

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The US Senate races in 2024. See if you can connect the names to the state in US where the contest is being decided November 5. Bob Casey Jon Tester Tammy Baldwin Angela Alsobrooks Jacky Rosen Ruben Gallego Colin Allred Which is the big upset race? Who are the Independent Senators who retired? Answers- Casey- Pennsylvania, Tester- Montana, Baldwin- Wisconsin, Alsobrooks-Maryland,  Rosen- Nevada, Gallego- Arizona Colin Allred- Texas The big upset US Senate race in Texas, Colin Allred to unseat Republican Ted Cruz. Independent Senators retiring Joe Manchin- West Virginia, Krysten Sinema-Arizona. With their support Biden passed the Inflation Reduction Act, other major legislation to invest in the renewal of America's infrastructure, American manufacturing,  CHIPS and Science.   ...