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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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An exceptional journalism story of what happened on Sept 16 and September 17, 2008, and the aftermath, by Pulliam, Rappaport, Lucchetti, Strasburg and McGinty, when Morgan Stanley stock lost more than half its value and was at risk of collapsing. What caused the collapse in price? This article shows how the biggest names in financial institutions were buying protection with credit default swaps, and as the price of these swaps skyrocketed on Sept 16 and Sept 17, the shortselling in Morgan Stanley's shares also skyrocketed. Shortselling on Sept 17 reaching nine times the normal, with 39 million shares sold short adding to the 31 million shares sold short in the prior two days, according to trading records examined by WSJ. It was at this point, on the pleas of John Mack CEO of Morgan Stanley, the SEC stepped in to temporarily suspend short selling. It is hard to clearly isolate the shortselling that went on for protection, from the shortselling for speculation, but hedge funds were involved and some of the shortselling was done to make a quick profit. Citigroup has faced the problem of losing half the share's value in a couple of days in the week of November 17, and shortselling in Citigroup's shares contributed to the collapsing stock. See the 3 graphs setup to show the influence of credit default swaps on short selling, and the on share price for Morgan Stanley. On Monday November 24, the government announced a rescue plan for Citigroup. That the uptick rule has not been reinstated as yet, means that when one looks back at this period a few years from now it will show errors in handling this economic and financial markets crisis were made, different from that in the 1930's, but with serious consequences. ...

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Countries dependent on remittances of workers overseas are hit hard by the coronavirus. This WSJ report shows the situation in Central America which gets $24 billion in remittances form its workers in the U.S. E Salvador gets $5.6 billion in remittances. This is down by 40% in April central bank numbers show, because of jobs lost in the U.S. by workers from El Salvador who migrated to the U.S.  Unemployment rate for Hispanics in April was 20%. El Salvador depends on remittances more than any other Latin American country as remittances are higher than exports. In some rural areas this means older residents have no money to buy food and depend on charities for food supplies.

Today the situation in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and other countries in Asia which depend on remittances of overseas workers is also leading to a difficult time for families dependent for such support.

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Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka resigned saying he was responding to criticism which he called "a continuous drumbeat of distractions and negativity." The company's founders including Narayana Murthy had serious differences with the new CEO. Vishal Sikka was hired by the founders in 2014, bringing in an outsider for the first time in the company's history. Sikka worked for SAP before joining Infosys, and was in charge of innovation and development at SAP. Issues of concern to the founders including Murthy were the size of executive pay and the culture changes at the company under Sikka. A similar situation happened at the Tata Group when long time CEO Ratan Tata selected Cyrus Mistry to succeed him. Serious differences about the culture and the changes made by Mistry led to Ratan Tata moving to oust Mr. Mistry from the Tata Group. Narayana Murthy's response to Sikka's statement was that he was concerned "by the deteriorating standard of corporate governance at Infosys." Having an element of public service is part of the tradition at Infosys, and a focus simply on executive pay and shareholder returns to the exclusion of other values may have troubled the founders. In 2009 co-founder Nandan Nilekhani left Infosys to lead the Unique Identification Authority of India at the request of prime minister Manmohan Singh.  Both Ratan Tata and Narayana Murthy are leaders in the business community in India and may have misjudged in their selection of a successor, putting other factors ahead of tradition, governance and culture, leading to this separation in a short time of 2-3 years. This may become part of the broader debate about culture in Indian companies as the country modernizes and moves forward, what aspects from outside to adopt and what aspects of the culture of the founders that are valued to retain and preserve. In the case of Tata the culture goes back from Ratan Tata to legendary figures JRD Tata during the post independence period, and Jamshedji Tata under the British, and is taken seriously. Ratan Tata even considered joining the Quit India Movement during the British Raj , according to biographer R. M. Lala. ...

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Several factors make it likely that oil prices will remain low for an extended period of time into 2016 and beyond. As Ailworth points out nobody is blinking. The Saudis plan no change to their high production. U.S. oil producers in the Gulf of Mexico have already made investments for deep sea drilling wells following the end of the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf. Many of these wells are producing at very low marginal cost as most of the investments have already been made. It makes economic sense to produce even in a low price environment, according to Andarko. Shell continues to invest in the deep waters of the Gulf. Its production is up 10% to 250,000 barrels a day. American shale oil drillers have not cut back as much as expected, partly because many companies with large debts need the cash flow to pay interest on debt. And some of the 1200 wells that were drilled but left untapped may also be brought on stream to slow production declines. As a result the overall production of American crude, according to monthly federal information, has declined by about 3% to 9.3 million barrels from the peak reached in April 2015. This helps the U.S., Europe, China and India, at a time when their economies are experiencing different problems. It hurts Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Iran. Russia is coping as its exporters convert dollars into rubles after the sharp depreciation in the ruble, and helps local industry including steel producers, as well as wheat exports. Venezuela's economy is the worst hit. And Iran now has to produce at high levels in 2016 to improve its economy following the lifting of sanctions....

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PM Modi inaugurates India's first Vande Bharat Express in Ahmedabad. New Metro in Ahmedabad and the Express trains increase multi-modal connectivity in Gujarat. Modi says the Vande Bharat train operates quietly with sound that is one hundredth of the sound that is heard on modern aircraft. A new rail station is planned for Ahmedabad and twin city arrangement with Gandhinagar. Modi says the transport infrastructure in Ahmedabad would be taken to the whole nation. He says Ahmedabadis have calculated the cost of travel by other transport including buses, and found the value that is in travel by Metro with ease, speed and time saved. And found that this beats transport by any other way for seamless connectivity and ease of use. Modi says he had a vision of such service when a global connectivity committee visited Ahmedabad when he was chief minister. Yet it was only in the last 8 years that he having moved to the federal government was able to get both federal and state funding to develop the new rail and Metro services in Gujarat using new technologies and experience. ...

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Putting 300,000 children in poverty, affecting 1.6 million families, that is the cost of the two child benefits cap of Tory finance minister under Cameron, Osborne. The cost 1.7 billion pounds when 18 billion pounds of debt was added to the debt of company running the British water utility Thames Water, with a chunk of it to to pay dividends, that was privatized in 1989, as shown in the Guardian. Leading to its inability to make the investment needed and to the water quality issues in the Thames river. Thames Water is near financial collapse with parent company defaulting on its debt in April, according to the Guardian. The misallocation of funds under the Tories is a warning about what happens under Reagan/Friedman economic theory that has become part of the existing culture and damaged the economy in the US and Europe. These are what the King's Speech called "the scars of 14 years where politics (and economic theory) was put above the national interest, and decline deep in the marrow of our institutions." It is a time for deep reflection on what has happened. ...

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Contact tracing being setup using iphones and android phones with bluetooth technology by Apple and Google. The idea is being studied for adoption by the U.S. government. The problem is that this kind of contact tracing is not as effective as the kind used by South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore with information from cellphone carriers. Contact tracing apps would be written by developers for each country and chosen by Apple and Google one for each country. How it works- When a person comes down with symptoms he can upload the information about who he has been close to stored on the phone. This information would then be used to contact the person who was exposed to the person with symptoms but unaware of this. A message would tell that person he was exposed to someone who now has symptoms and to contact public health authorites and take effective steps. When the person with symptoms gets tested if he was positive that would also appear on a exposed person's phone without name or other information.  The normal contact tracing is time intensive requiring many phone calls and using data from cellphone carriers. This is done in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. It is considered to be more effective. The approach of these Asian countries is more thorough and allows effective tracing and isolation, quarantining of persons having coronavirus or having exposure in countries with rampant coronavirus. The U.S. needs to move quickly to adopt the methods used in these Asian countries. The loss of hundreds of thousands of lives should be weighed against privacy concerns and clearly there should be a way to allow one time use of personal information for coronavirus, so that this kind of information is used only in public emergency situations. All three Asian countries are democracies. Putting health care workers at great risk including working pregnant doctors, as in the story in WSJ about a hospital in Maryland, should make it clear that everything including privacy concern should be placed in context, and use of personal information be permitted in a public emergency such as a contagious virus- with information protections removal for the period of the crisis. ...

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The rapidly changing demographics as the U.S. becomes more of a multicultural society. For the first time minority babies formed a majority in 2011 with 50.4% of new babies, according to the Census Bureau. The median age of the non-Hispanic White population is 42 compared to 28 for Hispanics. Hispanics are right at the child bearing age. This also raises the issue of how the U.S. will educate the minority population. Today 13% of Hispanics have college degrees, 18% of Blacks and 31% of Whites. High school graduation rates in places like New York City for Hispanics are lagging far behind other groups. The economic downturn after the 2008 financial crisis has worsened the educational prospects for Hispanics and other minorities. The education of minority children is essential to improve the competitiveness of the U.S. in a global economy, as the educational levels in emerging markets accelerates with more opportunities.

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These amazing BBC Science pictures of a distant galaxy show a black hole measuring 40 billion km across- a staggering 3 million times the earth's size. More amazing 8 telescopes located in places such as the South Pole and the Atacama desert in Chile were put together to get pictures of a galaxy 500 million trillion km away. Prof. Halcke of Radboud University, Netherlands, proposed the experiment. He says the galaxy called M87 is larger than the entire Solar System, and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun. The images show an intensely bright ring of fire surrounding a circular dark hole. The superheated gas falling into the hole gives out more light than all the billions of other stars in the galaxy combined. The gravitational pull near the edges is so great that nothing comes out. Falcke had the idea from a PhD. projec in1993. No one thought it was possible to take an image until Falcke realized that a certain type of radio emission would be generated close to and around the black hole, strong enough to be detected by telescopes around the earth. After struggling for 20 years Falcke got the European Research Council to fund the project. Others including NSF joined to fund it for 40 million pounds. ...

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Though tens of thousands of workers in the French rail network are protesting in the streets about changes in the labor laws, the atmosphere in the National Assembly where president Macron has an absolute majority is different. In the National Assembly most of the legislators are young, inexperienced and there for the first time after the recent elections. Most owe allegiance to president Macron and his party En Marche. The labor code changes were passed without much discussion and on a thumbs up or down vote.  Legislators from Mr. Macron's party are seen by older surviving legislators from an earlier period in French politics as arrogant and do not consult with older legislators. The entire sociology of the National Assembly is overturned and presents a complete culture shock, says a leader of Macron's party who selected members for seats in parliament. Three fourths of members are here for the first time, 60% in Macron's party En Marche. About one third never held public office before. These members spend a whole week in parliament instead of the few days during the earlier Assembly. Yet for all the work and enthusiasm these members act as more of a rubber stamp for Macron's policies instead of offering healthy discussion so that policies can be modified where needed to better accomplish the goal of changing the French system where it can be improved. The result is a form of government that critics increasingly see as autocratic. For Macron this means the lack of a process of consultation that could improve legislation and increase consensus, creating larger support for the changes to the labor laws and the pension system. ...

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Germany's biggest bank Deutsche Bank is described here in WSJ as one of the banking industry's biggest basket cases, having suffered legal investigations, management turnover and legal fines over many years. This time the German government is working on merging the bank with Commerzbank AG in a last effort to straighten out the huge mess and losses at the bank, says WSJ. A former JP Morgan manager, Mr. Zames, 48 years old, who joined the bank at the time of the London whale scandal is now working for Cerberus Capital which is acting in a multilayered relationship with Deutsche Bank  as adviser to management as well as having complex financial dealings with Deutsche Bank. In the process says WSJ he would be rescuing a soured bet on Deutsche Bank by Cerberus which owns 3% of Deutsche Bank as well as 5% fo Commerzbank. The investment made in 2017 was shown as $1.1 billion but is worth half that today. The arrangement is unusual for Deutsche Bank and shows how far the bank has changed from its early years as Germany's leading bank. It was founded in 1870 and in 1998 acquired Bankers Trust for a presence on Wall Street. This turned out to be a bad investment as $4 billion premium paid for Bankers Trust was later written off. Deutsche Bank never really recovered from these moves into Wall Street banking. The SDP in the German coalition government sees the merger with Commerzbank as one more move to get out of the mess, though no one really knows considering the complex dealings of the bank and its problems with legal authorites in Germany. ...

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Mr Obama's vision of a nuclear weapons free world going back to his days at Columbia University. There as a senior he took Prof. Michael Baron's seminar on international politics and American policy. In a paper for that course Mr Obama analyzed how a President might go about negotiating nuclear arms reductions with Russia. Baron says Obama has been thinking about these issues for a long time. About this time Obama wrote an essay in the Columbia Sundial student newspaper. This was the time when the Greens movement for a nuclear weapons free world was strong in Germany, and Reagan was pushing for a nuclear arms development race with Russia. The article was titled "Breaking the War Mentality." As a senator Obama joined Senator Dick Lugar -who has worked hard for non-proliferation- on a trip to Russia to monitor efforts by Ruusia to scrap nuclear arms and secure atomic materials from theft or diversion. He allied himself with four Reagan period veterans Kissinger, Shultz, Perry and Sam Nunn, who in a 2007 WSJ op-ed article, argued that it was time- as the headline for the article said -to work for "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons." The steps in practice Obama plans to take are the following. A Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, which would bar all nations signing it from making fuel for their atomic bombs. Rewriting crucial provisions of the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, strengthening inspection provisions and closing loopholes that let N. Korea drop out in 2003. Countries would have to give up the freedom to make fuel for reactors and instead buy it from an international fuel bank. Global consensus and prevention when it comes to deviant states hoping to enhance their own security, or regimes or terrorist groups, will be crucial in setting up a new system for a nuclear weapons free world....

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Obesity is a problem today of global dimensions. In the U.S. this problem has reached a new high and increased U.S. risks in the face of the coronavirus. This author and her nutrition organization say the U.S. dietary guidelines put out by a government agency have failed over decades to do what they were supposed to do - guide people in the right direction to make good food choices. People at this time of the coronavirus need to make their own choices, independent of these guidelines that have failed. Intuitive choices for healthy eating by increasing vegetables and fruits in the diet, increasing use of healthy herbs such as turmeric, basil and ginger, eating carbohydrates and fat in a sensible way, increasing ancient whole grains in the diet, reducing meat in the diet in favor of plant based foods such as lentils and a large variety of whole grains. 

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This analysis in the NYT about U.S. action in Venezuela supporting the Guiado interim government, says this is the first intervention for a president who is against intervention. The head of the Inter American Dialogue, Mr. Shifter, says Senator Rubio and Florida senators who are close to Latin America played a role in bringing to Mr. Trump's attention the problems and refugees leaving Venezuela.

As the government shutdown continues over a wall with Mexico, president Trump has taken a different tone in his support of new and credible elections in Venezuela for a way out of the economic collapse in Venezuela. In this situation most of the nations of Latin America have come out in support of Mr. Trump, including Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Peru, and Canada has taken a lead along with the U.S. for the first time. The EU has also supported the move for credible and new elections set up by an interim government.

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U.S. household net worth has surged a Fed quarterly report shows. But the winners are not the same people who lost out in the Great Recession. Home prices in Las Vegas, Pheonix and Miami are still well below - over 25%- than when they were at their peak before the recession, according to Case-Shiller price index. It is in cities such as San Francisco, Dallas, Denver and Charlotte that prices have surged. As for stock investments this is concentrated among the higher income and wealthier households. Core Logic shows the number of people underwater of 12 million at the peak, and this has declined to 3 million. Overall the trend is positive when combined with the Census report showing strong gain of median income of 5.2% in 2015, and shows Obama policies working in the right direction. Though it has taken time, still leaves many people behind in parts of the country, and for demographic groups such as older people who lost jobs in the recession.

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Changing the way health care operates in the country, federal and state government agencies and the commercial insurers are looking at paying primary care physicians and family practice physicians more than the average $60 a visit that is paid out so that these physicians spend more time understanding their patients. At the present time the smaller payment per patient results in doctors only spending a few minutes with each patien. In the long run by diagnosing and treating diseases early through a better understanding of patients this upfront increase in payments should result in lower costs resulting from late diagnosis and treatment, and the problems that occur when the patient is not treated early on. It should also result in better and fewer errors in diagnosis.

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There was some question about the accelerated depreciation tax break for new investment that is part of the business side to the stimulus package. It lets business take 50% of the depreciation upfront and the 10% thats allowed for a straight 10 year depreciation. A study at the University of Michigan and other expert opinion showed that this tax break had minimal effect when it was introduced in 2002. But other experts say that it was because there was not much taxable income after the meltdown and the bursting of the tech bubble at that time. This time there is a good deal of taxable income and it might have some effect.

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The ECB's second phase of the Long Term Financing Operation provides 800 European banks with 529 billion euros in 3 year loans at 1%. The impact of the first phase in Dec. 2011 with 489 billion euros in loans was greater on borrowing rates for Italy and Spain than it was this time. The larger number of banks participating in Feb, 2012- 800 banks compared to 523 banks- with many smaller banks included, is expected to provide a boost for lending to small and midsize businesses in Europe. The total net amount of liquidity added as a result of the operation in the two phases is expected to be 520 billion euros, as some of the loans were a transfer of existing loans to the longer term 3 year loans provided under the Long Term Financing Operation. The operation has helped bring confidence to the European banking system and will help the recapitalization of European banks.

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The market for oil field equipment is tight with 90% utilization, making it harder for larger oil producers to drill more oil wells for shale oil in the US. Large US shale oil producers reduced production when oil prices plunged and did not come back leaving smaller oil producers to increase production as prices went back up in 2021. Oil prices are now expected to reach $100 per barrel for the first time since 2014.  Saudis and Russia are not expected to increase production say experts. The possible Russian invasion of Ukraine and shortage of energy supplies is also a factor. Oil demand in the US and Europe has rebounded with milder covid-19 from Omicron variant and fewer lockdowns. Automobile use is also up in the US with November showing 12% increase in miles driven over the prior year, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Low inventories and resilient demand, and low spare capacity will keep prices surging to $100 from today's price of Brent crude oil at $89 in January 2022.   ...

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Cable television's decline as seen from the experience of CNN. This report in the WSJ says not only is cable television declining in viewers, CNN is falling behind MSNBC and Fox which are also declining. The 24 hour cable news network format is seeing rapid shift to streaming services that generate little profit. Monthly prime time viewers for CNN cable television is down to 568,000 compared to one estimate of 166 million for its website and app streaming services. The result is a search by Warner Discovery, new owner of CNN, for a way to reverse the slide in people watching by showing both sides instead of skewing to one side, which is also not working. 68 million Americans subscribe to cable television packages including CNN down from 72 million in 2022 for which CNN gets $1.25 per subscriber. Advertising produces most of the revenue- $600 million in 2022 down from 900 million in 2020. Smaller audiences and poorer ratings with so many choices for viewers from CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox, etc mean less advertising revenues.   ...

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A growing consensus among experts that it is not so much surface contamination as the air we breathe in that is the problem. The longer you spend time with people talking in face to face interactions, or inhaling air aerosolized in the air from small droplets, the easier it is to get the virus. This means social distancing matters in a big way. Masks are a big way to cut the risk. The worst you can do then is to be in a crowded event, ot have closeup face to face interactions for long periods. Being where there is loud talking or singing is a bad idea. This is why actions such as plexiglass installed as barrier, requiring masks in stores, using good ventilations systems and keeping windows has an enormous impact. This means that people can do a lot of work, exercize and other activities outside if one takes the basic precautions to heart and practices seriously. Contact tracing and testing, and other measures can be targeted to keep the spots that have a surge under control. ...

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There are four pillars to this fight Biden and Harris are now waging. Biden tackled infrastructure by getting the Congress to pass the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS and Science Act to put trillions of dollars into rebuilding aging and dilapidated American roads, bridges, airports, ports, rural internet. This also tackled Manufacturing and factory jobs in the US neglected for 3 decades, the second pillar. The third pillar for Biden was getting American wages that had fallen behind to catch up by supporting labor in wage negotiations.  Something was missing as Cost of Living for housing, childcare, remained. This is where Harris has stepped in with Jerome Powell of the Fed. Powell cutting interest rates to make housing more accessible and Harris putting in $25,000 for first time homeowners for a down payment, build 3 million new homes, $6000 for childcare for parents, and $50,000 for small businesses to start. Specific programs at specific targets in FDR type "bold, persistent experimentation" activity. Put together the four pillars mean giving strength to the US economy which Powell says is "in solid shape." ...

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Honda is confident that it can sell 3% more cars in 2008 in the US market at a time when the US auto market is declining which tells you something about the high regard for Honda cars.

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With more vaccines available from Pfizer and Moderna, and the poor SinoVac Chinese vaccine effectiveness against the Delta variant, Brazil and other countries in Latin America and Asia are shifting away from Chinese vaccines. Brazil's federal government has halted negotiations for additional doses of Chinese vaccines. In the early stages in 2020 Chinese vaccines helped Brazil cope with the devastating rise in cases. The slow pace of vaccinations in US and Europe has freed up more vaccine doses of Pfizer for other countries including Brazil. From accounting for 80% of vaccines in Brazil early in 2020, SinoVac vaccines now make up only 35% of Brazil's vaccine doses. At that time Brazil bought 100 million doses of SinoVac vaccine which were delivered. The local producer of SinoVac vaccine, the Butantan Institute will no longer make Chinese vaccines. While Sinovac vaccines are effective at preventing deaths, the vaccines have a low effectiveness rate for symptomatic infections. ...