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A 35 year old Engineering professor from Texas who studies how transportation systems propagate infectious diseases and her 2 graduate students from China started and since January maintain the database of coronavirus confirmed cases and deaths. This is one of the widely used databases, also used by public health officials in the U.S. The database was started with a hunch from one of Lauren Gardner's students from China Ensheng Dong who comes from Shanxi province, north of Wuhan. A geography and mapping specialist he had studied in the U.S. since 2012, and spent many hours inputting data by hand following his classes. This WSJ report says the website was built in 1 day and was launched on January 22, when the coronavirus cases were practically nonexistent in the rest of the world and were concentrated in the Wuhan area. This report says behind the data reported in the media everyday is a complicated supply chain filled with challenges that come with data, what is reported, underreported and with what assumptions it is reported. Dr. Gardner says she is dealing with so much data on her dashboard, 4000 points of data, that its hard enough to pull all the data scraped together from different sources, its impossible for her to check the assumptions behind the data for consistency and trying to figure out facts underlying the data.  One of the ways the virus developed in the rest of the world is the surprise with which it caught western countries and then the rest of the world. As a result something that the government authorites would do such as the Centres of Disease Control is being done in a totally ad hoc manner. The U.S. government uses the University of Washington Health Metrics database, and in turn the University of Washington Health Metrics database takes some of the data from the John Hopkins database. Because a complacent population in the western countries were relying on numbers counted as cases to know how serious this epidemic was or whether there was an epidemic, the significance of data count from China assumed a signifcance far out of proportion to what it might normally be. This was because the western countries in Europe and America never encountered an epidemic of this kind in living memory, the last one forgotten from 1917 hundred years ago. Researchers in Gottingen University study in Germany conducted analysis of data in studies of cases published in Lancet Journal and found that only 6% of cases were being shown- that a much larger part of the population was infected. A researcher at Princeton University Ramanan Laxminarayan says countries tend to delay reporting until a problem becomes certain, because telling others comes with economic costs such as a rapid drop in trade and travel. Yet he says early warning systems are key to prevention. Early warning from the different publicly available data bases was not possible for many reasons. Relying on such ad hoc data was hazardous considering that as the NYT reported recently when there was the first confirmed detected case reported in New York there were already 10,000 persons estimated to be undetected. James Glanz and Benedict Carey, say in the NYT.com on May 7, that hidden outbreaks spread through U.S. cities far earlier than Americans knew, estimates show, which makes the publicly available databases giving a false sense of security, and not acting as an early warning because of the inadequacy of the resources for this task for individual researchers to handle. Not depending on  hurriedly put together databases with inadequate resources and having an independent sense of what the danger was as German chancellor Merkel described it in her first coronavirus address in March, was a better early warning signal than the databases in retrospect. And this too had come late. The reason is that the response had to be fast, very fast, and public perceptions had to be shaped quickly about the magnitude and speed of enormous proportions of the coronavirus, so that actions could be shaped quickly and executed quickly to stop it in its tracks.    ...

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Strikers at a Honda transmission factory in Hoshan, 100 miles northwest of Hong Kong are asking for raises of $117 or 800 renminbi in cash above the $132 a month or 900 renminbi that they are now paid. About 950 of 1900 workers at the plant are trainees, young people from vocational schools or high schools earn $132 a month. Older employees earn upto 1500 renminbi or $220 a month. The significance of this strike is that the Chinese government is tacitly encouraging the strike as it begins making moves to increase domestic consumption and make the economy less dependent on exports. This requires consumer's having larger purchasing power and higher wages. It also means that China will not remain the low cost manufacturer for manufacture goods makers around the world for very long. Consider the size of the increase and the policy change of the government and this implies a significant shift by China.

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The weaker dollar has given a boost to U.S. exports. The dollar has dropped by 9.1% compared to the prior year against a broad basket of currencies. U.S. exports have provided 1.4 percentage points of the 3.0% annualized growth since the 3rd quarter of 2009. The U.S. dollar is now 5% away from its all time low in March 2008, when tracked using the dollar index. Before the 2008 crisis the dollar had over a six year period lost about 40% of its value. Low interest rates in the U.S. and concerns about the deficit have contributed to the dollar's decline in value. While the decline helps boost exports, it also increases the price of oil in dollar terms and increases inflation. A Gallup poll in April showed 42% of Americans had no confidence in the Fed's policies for the economy, and 43% had no faith in Treasury Secretary Geithner. The decline is taking place even as Japan is recovering from the earthquake, and Greece is likely to have to restructure its debt obligations with European banks taking losses....

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On Facebook "Back the Badge" targeted at wives of police officers remembering killed police officers was seen 1.3 million times. Another ad "Woke Blacks" for Afro-American culture targeted at the civil rights movement was seen 750,000 times.These and other ads on Twitter were cited in Congressional investigations in the U.S., as ads paid for in rubles and conducted by Russian internet agencies. Facebook, Google, Instagram and Twitter managers answered questions in Congress about the ads during the U.S. presidential election of 2016.

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Petrobras and the discovery 200 miles offfshore of the Tupi field with estimated reserves of 5-8 billion barrels of light crude oil. As Brazil is self sufficient in energy with its own ethanol industry helping substitute ethanol for oil at the pump, it can become a major exporter with this find. However even with Petrobras technology and expertise in offshore drilling its a challenge as the oil is 4.5 miles below the oceans surface, and involves drilling through 7000 feet of water and 17000 feet of sand rock and massive salt layer. Cost could approach $20 billion according to analysts with current inflation in oil drilling rig costs. It involves challenges like building floating liquefied natural gas plants. Gabrielli, the Petrobras CEO thinks Petrobras has the expertise to develop it on its own. If oil majors are given the chance to join in the development the investment terms will be ones that favor Brazil. Gabrielli pointed this out saying that Brazil had already incurred most of the risk in exploration offshore so the oil majors have far less risk and Brazil should invite them only on its own terms if needed. The Tupi field puts Brazil ahead of Canada in oil reserves and in the leagues of China and Nigeria, with new Brazilian reserves at 17.2 billion from the 12.2 billion barrels currently. Brazil has invested in refineries with 2 new refineries coming up in 2010 and 2014 to increase refining capacity by 40%. It is also investing to convert heavy crude oil into diesel and $8.6 billion to reduce sulfur at 11 refineries. The Tupi field will take about 7 years to develop. Similiarly the Kashgan field in the Caspian in Kazakhstan is also in difficult in this case icy and gases filled environment that will take years for a Eni led consortium to develop. When oil does come will the demand situation have changed with new conservation taking hold in the developed world and the cars in developing countries more like the Tata Nano at 54 miles per gallon consuming less gasoline? Even with increase in energy needs of developing countries, improved efficiency and new technology for conservation brought into developing countries could if not significantly reduce, at least moderate demand. To the point where prices drop from $100 a barrel to something more affordable to developing countries....

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A large increase in fuel efficiency as planned by new EPA rules creates a different environment for electric cars. Current average fuel economy is 26. New rules that raise the average fuel economy to higher than 47 mpg will result in cars that conserve gasoline, reduce emissions, and make these vehicles more attractive to operate than electric cars on a cost basis, without sacrificing too much in conservation and emissions. A new study shows that achieving the increase to 47 mpg with new technologies will cost automakers about $2000 per vehicle. At $4.50 a gallon for gasoline it takes six years for a hybrid to be more cost effective than a 47 mpg car, according to this study. For a plug-in it would take 7 years and a pure electric vehicle 8 years. This suggests gasoline would have to cost more than $4.50 for electric cars to get an economic advantage. Technological breakthroughs and new technologies in electric cars which are a nascent industry at this time are not worked into these calculations. This could result in a different situation and favor the companies doing the pioneering effort to learn these technologies and develop cost effective solutions....

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Barry Posen, Director of M.I.T.'s Security Studies Program looks at U.S. options as it confronts North Korea over missile tests. He says a conventional attack with bombers could invite a conventional attack from North Korea. A nuclear attack by the U.S. is seen only in the context of an impending attack from North Korea. Very little warning would be given to South Korea resulting in large casualties, says Posen.

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The Vice Chairman of the NITI Aayog, which replaced the Planning Commission, says his work in the government led to significant progress with the Indian economy reaching nearly 8% growth.

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Fears that another crisis like that of 2008 could emerge with asset bubbles in China and other countries. Also fears that policies of austerity in southern Europe and the UK, combined with Germany's tight control on spending, could lead Europe to years of slow growth or stagnation. It is a tricky situation especially in Europe, trying to avoid a Greece type situation, and at the same time not cutting spending to the point where it would lead to stagnation. Criticism of the German government's policy to cut spending and fears that the European Central Bank might follow Germany's policy to focus purely on the deficit. Lower US bond yields give the US some room for dealing with the deficit. The need for swift action in China to move the economy towards domestic consumption, and let the yuan strengthen so that China can absorb more of the world's exports.