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A whole range of issues can be seen in the debt crises in developing countries. The margin for error shrinks with poor governance, lack of honest assessment and transparency for finances, wars and conflicts within or outside the countries, living beyond their means, lack of focus on development, infrastructure that is unproductive or unaffordable including some Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure at higher interest rates. Countries that are dependent on overseas remittances, tourism, that were hit hard by the pandemic have seen their finances further weakened reducing the margin for error even more to the point that the smallest tipping point can lead to huge crises. Once the finances are weak all it takes is an external tipping point that creates serious crisis. The war in Ukraine with shortages of wheat, fertilizer and skyrocketing oil prices acted as that tipping point. Because this was a major blow the crises have a level of magnitude that is more than a payments crisis. One sees this in South Asia in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and in the Middle East for countries such as Egypt and Tunisia shown in this WSJ report. It is now not simply a crisis but a crisis of great magnitude because in the case of Sri Lanka and Pakistan this WSJ report says that both countries foreign exchange reserves have dwindled to the point where they can pay for only one or two months of imports according to central bank data, analysts and IMF. This crisis has affected countries that were seeing steady foreign investment such as Turkey for decades, then a sharp falloff in foreign investment with a change in the climate for foreign investment. The crisis has taken the form of high inflation, significant depreciation of currency that makes imports costlier so that shrinking revenues from loss of remittances, tourism, or other sources will now have less value in supporting import needs. Lack of a credible path can delay setting a path out of the crisis. The $1.5 billion fuel and electricity subsidy made by the prime minister of Pakistan in late February was done without IMF approval leading to the IMF program having to be renegotiated. Lack of national political and cultural consensus on a solution simply makes it that much more difficult to find the way through it. In this regard South Korea was able to tackle the 1997 financial payments crisis effectively because of a national consensus. The situation in Egypt- Egypt has borrowed $20 billion from the IMF since 2016., placing it second to Argentina in aid from IMF since 1980's.  In 2020 and 2021 Egypt' government spent more than 40% of its revenue servicing its debt, and is forecast to do the same in 2022. The situation in Tunisia- A shortage of sugar, flour, and other critical supplies, and government delaying wage payments to civil servants. The government got $400 million in financing last month from the World Bank and hopes to secure a lifeline from the IMF. Compared to the period between the 2 World Wars the two bright spots are China and India where lessons of the past of civil wars, religious or political conflict, and poor governance, lack of knowledge of how the western countries industrialized and modernized, was replaced with the conviction that drives patient effort, courage in the face of adversity, honesty, and humility to learn including from western countries that have forged their own path through the same difficult road. The most difficult experiences have offered lessons which were learned- for South Korea the Korean War and invasion from the north, China the civil war and Japanese invasion, for India the partition of India and million of refugees. Stagnation from stumbled efforts also taught lessons, the Great Leap Forward in China, the License Raj with corruption in India.       ...

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It took a long time for the banks to understand what is in their best interests is in the best interests of the country's economy and homeowners, something Sheila Bair has been saying since the beginning of this year and implementing at IndyMac. Its just too costly for banks to use the foreclosure process to recover their money and it makes much better financial sense on the bottomline of banks and for the economy to make home payments affordable. Because the worse home prices get the worse the economy and banks do and nothing drives home prices down like foreclosures. The Bank of America settlement for Countrywide with state attorney generals to modify loans for 400,000 homeowners because of predatory lending practices also set the direction. Chase Bank is now using the Bair template to get the monthly payments down to an affordable level which is about 40% of the current payment by reducing interest rates and using a smaller loan balance and keep homeowners in their homes. Chase's plan will help 400,000 homeowners and will also help homeowners who are having difficulty making payments. It will put a 90 day hold on foreclosures till the program is put in place. Yet there is one problem. Only $350 billion of the 1.5 trillion in home mortgage it services are owned by Chase, the rest are owned by investors in the form of mortgage securities. It can do little for homeowners covered by these securites that are owned by hedge funds and other funds as a few of these funds oblivious of the overall interest including their own have threated to sue if loans are modified, and it would take some time to figure out who owns each security and what the terms are for modifying loans for that security. Its this part of mortgage securitiization that has slowed down a rational process of unwinding this problem throughout housing by making homeowners monthly payments affordable. And Fed's Bernanke did not come to grips with this point in his talk about mortgage securitization to UC Berkeley on October 31,2008, that mortgage securitization done in a way that make loan modification difficult is dangerous as it is today, and makes a crisis bigger than it otherwise would be, and turn a USA crisis into a global crisis through ricotcheting effects and a series of bad decisons....

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A survey by Bonn based infas Institute of Applied Social Science in 2017 shows Germans are not affected by 2 years of crises in the way they look at the world. Germans are still the same in their international outlook, in tolerance and openness, and liberal outlook. Chancellor Merkel even says today that she would do again what she did during the height of the refugee crisis when refugees gathered at Keleti station in Budapest and began the long march to Austria and Germany. Merkel goes into the 2017 election with the kind of confidence that did not appear likely even at the beginning of 2017. The European Union could even emerge stronger from the crisis. Britain's Conservative government appears isolated after the Brexit vote.

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Snapchat CEO Spiegel's aloof management style leads to him becoming unresponsive to the views of his team. A new design fails to win customer approval and the share price of the company falls 76%. He decided to launch a redesign of the messaging site which sends photos and videos to friends as "snaps" that disappear in a few seconds- was once seen as a competitor to Facebook. He called for a redesign unexpectedly after visiting China in 2017.

Spiegel, 28, a designer, tends to push ahead based on instincts.  He ignored the pleas of his executive team for more time to do the redesign. A gut decision was made and a schedule was set that pushed an aggressive timeline, dismissing concerns of team members.

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d.light design and Cosmos Ignite of India and Philips have all come up with small solar panels to charge compact batteries by day that can be used in poorer regions of Asia and Africa where children lack access to electricity and light to do their homework. Philips' Uday lantern being tested in Ghana would give light for 5 hours with brightness of 25 watt lamp.

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This opinion in DW.com says Donald Trump has done exactly the opposite of what he said during the election campaign when he was severely critical of China on trade issues. This report cites the many statements in some detail made by Trump about China. During a recent visit to China he says president Trump seemed to go out of his way to show agreement with president Jinping, quite the reverse of what he said he would do during the election campaign. U.S. influence and prestige is seen as declining as a result of president Trump's policies.

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South Africa's president Jacob Zuma faces another no-confidence motion in parliament. This time the Speaker of parliament has ruled that the members will vote in a secret ballot, so that members of the ANC do not face reprisals for voting against the government. Corruption scandals in the government and Zuma's association with the Gupta family has led to a loss of confidence in the Zuma government. The economy has suffered since the resignation of the finance minister, and the country's credit rating was changed to junk status.

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This letter in the WSJ praises Chancellor Angela Merkel for her sense of decency and humanitarian sensibility. It asks what else could she have done in the refugee crisis. It says Merkel's "we can do it," is also the same spirit Germany showed for successful reunification of the country.

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This WSJ editorial says that if BNP Paribas wants to do business in the U.S., it has to abide by U.S. laws. U.S. laws and sanctions against Iran were violated in BNP Paribas currency and other dealings with Iranian clients in 2002-2009. Similiar conduct happened for Sudanese clients.

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This article in the Economist magazine points out that official data do not accurately show the health of the banking sector, with large number of bad loans at smaller banks. Bank shares it points out are priced in a way that reflects bad loans at 5-10% of loans.

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Risk taking CEO's steps at Shell appear to be paying off as Shell's share price does better than BP's. Better results in hiring, technology, management streamlining, in sourcing non-conventional output, and Libyan deal coming after restructuring of its Russian exploration project, all show improved prospects at Shell after new CEO took over. Jeroen Van der Veer, who assumed the CEO position in 2004, is interviewed by Chip Cummins and Guy Kazan at it London headquarters. Van der Veer took over after the scandal involving Shell's overstating of its oil and as reserves. His early steps were to centralize decisionmaking, do away with the dual board structure based in the Hague and London, and increase hiring of technology professionals. 4500 midcareer professionals were hired in 2006, a new Chief Technology officer was appointed, and seven "chief scientists," creating a new focus on technology development and research, and making technology leadership a critical part of its strategy. Van der Veer also bet heavily on new projects, including a $20 billion oil and LNG project on the island of Sakhalin in Russian Far East, and a $18 billion gas field plus natural gas to diesel plant in Quatar. Jeroen Van der Veer is described by colleagues as a thoughtful but firm and straight talking, low profile guy who joined Shell in 1971, at age 24. He ran a large Dutch refinery, tackling labor problems and implementing an expansion. He has a passion for long distance skating, having twice finished a 200 kilometer race through 11 cities in the Netherlands....

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A day in 1936, 75 years ago, when New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia opened the city pool in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The pool was the seventh pool built by the parks department with money from the federal Public Works Administration. Admission was ten cents when the pool opened, with children allowed for free in the morning. Robert Moses was the parks commissioner in those years. The pool meant a lot to New Yorkers then, 40,000 people attended its opening. The good thing says the current commissioner Mr Benepe, is that the city continues to invest in its parks and infrastructure.

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The difficulties of acquiring land for industrial development or infrastructure building in India. India's Congress party increasingly supporting farmers who are protesting the acquisition of their land. India's highway commisssioner committed in 2009 to building 12 miles of highways each day, but highway officials say only 5 miles of highways have been built. The Congress party plans to propose legislation that requires farmers to be properly compensated- one proposal is to pay farmers the average recorded price plus 50%, as the recorded price used to compensate farmers does not correctly reflect the entire market price including cash paid unofficially.

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Paul English favors teams of three people to get things done quickly. He gives employees freedom to test ideas, including one intern who was allowed to test an idea on the first day at work by writing the code. He says no innovation happens with too many people in a room, and its easier for two or three people to nurture an idea. A clicker hangs outside the door of the main conference room. It is meant to send the message that for things that one cares about you need about three people smart enough to move forward.

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In a new WSJ/NBC New poll, conducted July 24-27, 2009, 42% called the Obama health plan a bad idea, and 36% called it a good idea. In mid June the poll showed Americans evenly divided on this question. It reflects rising anxiety over the costs of the health plan and what it will do to the deficit, and also shows public anxiety about the ways in which Obama and Congress are reaching compromises to pay for it and to control costs. Added to this are the anxieties raised about government involvement in healthcare and medical decisions about care. Noteworthy are two differing pieces of evidence. In the WSJ/NBC News poll, only two in ten people thought the quality of their own care would improve, only 15% of those with private insurance thought that it would improve the quality of their care. And 4 in ten people thought quality of care would get worse, and 45% of those with private insurance thought quality of care would get worse. By focussing on the cost of health care, the administration seems to have ignored or missed the concerns of people about the quality of care if government focussed on cutting costs. These concerns are real as a vast majority of the public, or about 85% of the people, as Martin Feldstein points out in a recent Washington Post column, are insured. The question is what cost would they be willing to pay for the admittedly worthy cause of insuring the uninsured? And even with the unisured, it seems likely with the current Obama reform plan that immigrants and other people may still remain uninsured, at least for some time. Would a huge burden of $1 trillion make this worthwhile, and is there some better way to do this without the prospect of higher taxes further down the road to pay for this. These are points Feldstein makes. The other piece of evidence is that at the same time that there are reservations about what is coming out of Congress today, there is general support for making constructive changes to healthcare. The WSJ poll showed 56% of respondents favoring the basic ideas in the reforms being considered in Congress, with 38% opposing it....

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The Spanish Supreme Court verdict giving jail sentences to 11 Catalan leaders for the part they played in pushing for independence of the Catalan region in 2017, has resulted in clashes of protesters with police. The socialist government of Pedro Sanchez faces elections on November 10, 2019.  The government faces the option of activating Article 155 of the Constitution suspending the state government for central rule from Madrid.  One of the problems Spain now faces is that there is no clear majority for independence with the region divided between people who prefer to remain in a united Spain and people who prefer Catalan independence. In a recent BBC Hardtalk this was brought up in questions put to the Catalan independent movement spokesperson. The support for independence has actually declined in recent years. The Guardian cites a Catalan government poll in July showing 48% of Catalans oppose independence and 44% support it. Independence is not supported by the EU and it is not clear whether Catalan economy would do better outside Spain, as some of the causes of the economic problems stem from the banking and housing crisis in Spain and overborrowing. Mr Sanchez on the Madrid side and the Republican Left on the Catalan side favor negotiations on economic issues raised by Catalan people. As a result there may be less support than previously for outright independence, particularly when it is realized that the economic issues come from mismanagement and corruption and that the new Spanish constitution was designed to give regions special rights after the Franco years.  ...

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Donald Trump is acquitted in the second impeachment trial with a vote in the Senate of 53 in favor to 47 against. A two thirds majority is required to impeach a president. Senators Burr of North Carolina and Cassidy of Louisiana were Republicans who joined the expected ones to vote for impeachment- the Republicans Mitt Romney of Utah, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The Republican defense lawyer insisted that Trump's speech to his supporters was not an intention to incite them on the day of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021 but an expression of his rights to free speech guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution First Amendment. He made the point that the prosecution lawyers had selectively focused attention on the words "fight like hell" and taken them out of the entire context in which they were made, ignoring key parts of Mr. Trump's speech. The defense argued that the president had already left office and this made an impeachment unconstitutional. Seventy five million voters voted for Mr. Trump and he cited this as the most number of votes won by a sitting president. President Biden is shifting his attention to the president's agenda and needs Republican support to pass key legislation including financial help to households, unemployed, and business to recover from the pandemic. The U.S. health effort behind the vaccination drive and seeing the struggle in Europe to access key medical supplies of vaccine is also leading to new efforts to move beyond the rhetoric to the hard work ahead with support of all parties. As part of this the trial once it reached the Senate was quickly resolved in about 5 days. The defense used only a small fraction of the time allotted with bipartisan effort to not let the trial drag on, bipartisan effort to putting some statements simply on the record and not calling witnesses.   ...

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Musharraf's efforts at economic growth were not broad enough or deep enough to create a measurable difference in the lives of the Pakistani people. And improvements in industry and agriculture may have been shallow compared to the potential. The wars or conflicts one or the other with India and the failure of political leaders may have been too big a distraction to achieve the significant effort needed to make a serious improvement in the lives of ordinary people and grow the middle class. Inflation is up by 24% year to year in July and rising, which is really an intolerable burden in a poor developing country. Now what little progress was made in Pakistan for the lives of ordinary people and the middle class is unraveling in the face of increase in the price of food, and fuel. And the the fall in the value of the Pakistan ruppee to Rs 75 for one American dollar, a 24% decline in value since January 2008 in only 8 months, shows a serious loss of confidence in the economy. The fall in the foreign exchange reserves is striking from $16 billion in November to $9.92 billion at this time. Pakistan appears to be heading in the direction of a serious refocussing of its economy, its politics, its educational institutions, and government and private industry, and its military in the direction of improving the lives of ordinary people, building industry and agriculture and building its infrastructure. If left unattended this crisis can only get worse and none of the past experience the old military approaches, the religious politics, the corruption in politics, the old political slogans, the conflict building with India, is going to be of much help in tackling the real day to day problems of improvement in industry, agriculture, infrastructure, and building better lives....

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Missourians get it they supported raising minimum wage to $15, and said no to Harris. Nebraska approved minimum wage increase and sick leave by 75% , and said no to Harris. Harris did not mention both in her closing messaging or make it a major part of her message. Harris muddled economic message is attributed to influence of Tony West, her brother in law, legal counsel for Uber, and by her efforts to avoid the label placed on her by Wall Street interests that she was "communist" by moving closer to corporate interests. President Biden ran his campaign and presidency entirely with a single theme- against trickle down economics, saying it did not put much on his father's table, and "the middle class built America, not Wall Street, winning 82 million votes more than the 74.3 million for DJT in 2024, 12 million more than Harris, 8 million more than DJT.  This simple Harry Truman like message carried the day in 1948 against Republican Dewey's increasing popularity after weariness over FDR long run in office, and got Biden 12 million more votes than Harris in 2024 or 8 million more than Trump in 2024- 82.3 million votes for Biden 2020. DJT was elected in 2024 with a fewer number of votes than he got in 2020- 74.3 million votes in 2024 and 75 million in 2020. Bernie Sanders, Congressman from Vermont says- "People want to understand what’s going on in their lives. Trump gave them an explanation,” “He attributed all of our problems to undocumented immigrants. What is the Democratic explanation for why the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider and working-class people are struggling? You tell me.”   ...

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Geriatrician Bill Thomas is trying to change attitudes and perceptions in America about aging. He sees this as a special period in life offering many opportunities to be creative, to find new meaning and joy in different activites, and to contribute to society in many ways. He is supported in these efforts by the AARP. With modern medicine baby boomers are expected to live much longer. To make these lives productive and useful society in all countries needs to change its perceptions about aging. Jimmy Carter, a former president, showed this in his attitude to aging, doing many activities he enjoyed and contributing to society in many ways. This has a lot to do with healthy habits, and healthy attitudes to life, which should be cultivated when still young, so that one becomes more resilient as one ages and looks for new things to do.

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This editorial says the climate change accords the U.S. reached with China in 2014 amount to little in the way of what China is required to do. China will be allowed to let its carbon emissions increase till 2030, two decades from now, and have the emissions decline afterward. This says the WSJ is what is expected to happen in China anyway because of demographic and urbanization trends. China will also have 20% of its energy come from non-coal polluting sources by 2030, something China plans to do anyway because of the high costs of pollution from coal plants. The U.S. commits to reducing its carbon emissions by 28% below 2005 levels by 2025, in place of the 17% currently set in 2009. This would increase costs of energy in the U.S., says WSJ, without any serious effort to cut emissions further in the developing countries.

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Because most of the increase in U.S. oil production is in landlocked states in the U.S. midwest without easy access to markets in coastal cities, the lower prices of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude benefit refiners in the midwest but do little to lower pries of gasoline at the pump.

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Tech is not going to fix this, say software experts from tech companies. Google and Apple's efforts in coming up with an app have fizzled out, says this report in thee WSJ. Has the U.S. lost precious time in waiting for an app by tech companies to be developed, instead of doing what India and Britain have done. India introduced its own app Aarogya Setu app from the Indian government. Britain had the National Health Service develop its app. India acted quickly. Is an app needed or essential? Germany decided that contact tracing based on Asian country experience was mainly about human contact tracers with skills to make the phone calls. All they needed was a centralized database on a computer and a phone. Germany set up teams at offices in each district in Germany and quickly plodded ahead even if all the offices were not fully staffed. In fact a third of the offices needed more people and resources. Yet the speed of action is something like 80 to 90% of the contact tracing effort when the team has the skill set to call. This is because clusters of infections do not wait - they spread. There is simply no time to waste. The German effort has produced the best results so far of any country of this size- Germany has 85 million people. The reproduction ratio is at 1.13 and Germany remains vigilant. It is the first country to reopen in Europe, and is methodically doing the right actions, much that the world can and should learn from. Contact tracing teams worked round the clock in the early days, they are still hard at work today, using their human skills to talk to people and find out who they were in contact with, calling the contacts in turn, at each step working to isolate where needed with followup calls from the state health departments. ...

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Michael Barnier leads the negotiating team for the EU as it begins negotiations with Britain on Brexit. He is a former foreign minister of France and former EU commissioner, giving him the necessary skills and experience. Yet as he meets with the Affairs of the European Committee in the German parliament, even Barnier is not clear how the negotiations will be conducted. Only that the issues relating to disentangling the closely interwoven economies of the EU and Britain relate to nationals of the EU and Britain in each others region, the common 20,000 legally binding regulations, and the price tag for Britain to pay of 60 billion euros. The leading German in the negotiating team is Gunther Oettinger, a former EU budget commissioner, and he tells Der Spiegel that the bill may be even higher than that number. The figure will be arrived at by taking into account the obligations of Britain and applying this to assets. The obligations include the money owed to the EU budget, share of medium term budget planning to 2020, share of pension payments to EU civil servants. The British take a different view and do not understand why they have to pay this amount when they are exiting. The British want to see their future relationship on trade and access to the EU markets discussed early, but the EU position is just the opposite, first exit negotiations to be completed by September 2018, then other discussions on trade. March 29, 2019 is the date set for Britain to be no longer a member of the EU. Yet even the sequence of issues has not been set and the sides could not be further apart than they are now. Each side looking at its situation domestically with elections in the EU in 2017, and May facing the added challenge of Scotland threatening to leave the UK. ...

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DW.com has this exceptional story on the elections in France through the pictures drawn by cartoonists in French newspapers. As polls show Macron with over 60% of the vote, cartoonists reflected on the situation of a new president with little experience and his "en marche" movement only one year old, looking at it with skepticism. Cartoonist Antoine Chereau shows a common person reflecting on the situation, with the title Macron leads in the first round, the person says that after being deceived by the right and the left, the French are now choosing to try out deception from the centrist. Loic Secheress shows Macron at the steering wheel of a car, with the title the second round Uberized, two passengers in the back saying they do not want to go right or left, and Macron saying- then alright we are going straight into the wall. On the Socialists splitting the vote between Hamon with 6% and Melenchon with about 20%, instead of putting up one candidate and heading into the runoff,  cartoonist Plantu shows Hamon and Melenchon riding one bike in opposite directions, with the title - the losing machine. Cartoonist Soulcie drawing for Le Monde shows a tour guide in front of the Louvre museum pointing to the pyramid architecture in front of the museum and saying- here are the last remains of the socialist civilization. Allan Barte's drawing looks at the elections as another disappointing experience for voters. He shows two voters in front of posters of Marine Le Pen and Macron, one saying I hadn't realized what the expression really meant until now, and the girl next to him says "election piege a cons," meaning "elections are a trap for idiots" used in the May 1968 street protests in France. ...