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Shiller, Kashyap, Mishkin, Slaughter, Stein, Stulz, Rajan and others are part of a 15 academic economists group called the Squam Lake Group. They first met at a conference in November 2008 at Squam Lake in New Hampshire. The group has come up with a report that they hope gets the prominence of the 9/11 report. It is called the Squam Lake Report. The book will be introduced in a conference at Columbia University by Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. Some of the economists have little faith in regulators and a new Financial Stability oversight Council led by Treasury Secretary Geithner. (Stulz, Kashyap). The group sees need for better disclosure of risks of financial products, especially retirement savings products.The editor Seth Itchik sees the book as today's version of the 1938 book by Harvard and Tufts economists called "An Economic Program for American Democracy." The motivation for this effort in a field where economists have different opinions, is to build a consensus for decisive action by Congress and the government of the U.S. Two new suggestions that are not in the Congressional bills for financial reform. One is issuance of contingent convertible bonds or CoCo bonds. Banks would be encouraged or required to issue such debt which would convert into equity in a crisis. These funds would help recapitalize a bank in a crisis with no taxpayer liability. Another new proposal is to have a fraction of each year's bonus pool for banking executives to be held separately- if the bank ran into trouble, that portion of pay would be withheld from senior managers. And the group sees political aspects and lobbying making sound plans less implementable in Congress. Congress lets regulators curb pay practices and coordinate other actions which has not worked in the past and during the crisis. Congress has even in its best effort acted on only some of the things needed in its bills- this includes higher capital requirements, and compulsory "living wills" for the largest financial institutions, and the Volcker Rule. The rules for derivatives are still being negotiated by Blance Lincoln who introduced this provision, with the result being more transparency. If it is watered down it would not ensure the strict separation of derivatives trading on the capital accounts of banks that Blanche Lincoln envisaged. ...

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Matteo Renzi wins a confidence vote in the Senate by 169 to 139. His economic plan is to give business a boost. He calls on Italians to free themselves from "cultural subalternity" or inferiority to Europe, and "to dream bigger." The plan is for a double digit cut in Italy's payroll taxes, creating guarantee funds for small companies, and paying all of the money the government owes to suppliers estimated at 100 billion euros. Renzi covered the subject of addressing school repairs costing several billion euros. His new cabinet has half of the ministers as women, some under 40, six from the previous Letta government. The Economy minister is Pier Carlo Padoan, chief economist of the OECD.

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The Obama administration's proposed budget for fiscal 2013- for the year beginning Oct. 1, 2012- shows the budget deficit for the year at over $1 trillion. It shows new revenue of $1.7 trillion over 10 years mostly from ending the Bush period tax cuts on families earning more than $250,000 a year, restoring the estate tax to the 2009 level and limiting subsidies for oil and gas companies. It proposes raising the tax rate on dividends from 15% to as much as 39.6%, for households earning more than $250,000 a year. This measure is expected to generate $206 billion over 10 years. The budget also offers "principles" for future tax reform by proposing the Buffett rule replace the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The AMT was not indexed for inflation so it has the weakness of putting more middle class taxpayers into AMT, leading to temporary solutions by Congress. The Buffett rule would have people earning more than $1 million pay a tax rate of at least 30%. Many wealthy Americans like Mitt Romney paid lower taxes using deductions to lower tax rates- Romney's tax disclosures show he paid effective tax rate of 14%. The White House says the budget will reduce the deficit by $3 trillion over 10 years through the new taxes, and small changes to Medicare and Medicaid and other spending cuts. This is in addition to the $1 trillion in spending cuts agreed to in a deficit reduction agreement in 2011 between Democrats and Republicans in Congress. The budget proposal proposes investment in education and transportation projects of $137 billion, and continuing through Dec. 2012, a tax break for businesses to increase investment. It includes mandatory spending of $2.7 billion for new community college programs, $6 billion to modernize schools, and $1.8 billion to make homes more energy efficient. It also increases the resources of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the CFTC (two agencies overseeing the banks), $26 million for a new Interagency Trade Enforcement Center to counter unfair trade practices, and cuts U.S. postal delivery to 5 days a week. The result is a program designed to be balanced in terms of economic fairness, making modest investments in the future for education and energy, continuing policies to stimulate growth, and extending the date for bringing the deficit under control to 2018 instead of 2014 as planned earlier....

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New versions of what key individuals in the Trump campaign and president Trump knew and when about connections with Russia emerge as Special Counsel Mueller pursues an investigation of Michael Cohen, Trump adviser. This relates to plans for a Trump Tower in Moscow.

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Voters overwhelmingly oppose the tax increase in 2015 taking the consumption tax from 8% to 10%. The Abe government plans to postpone the tax increase and call snap elections in December 2014. Two thirds of people surveyed said they did not see why new elections are needed. For prime minister Abe this is an effort to win a vote now rather than later when the opposition is weak. In 2012 elections Abe won 295 of 480 seats in the lower house of parliament. LDP party officials say even if this dropped by 20-30 seats it would be a win for Abe reaffirming that his economic policies are taking Japan in the right direction towards growth, and extending the length of his mandate. They point to growth in tourism, and the addition of 1 million new jobs. Further action to stimulate the economy would reduce unemployment further and end Japan's deflationary tendencies.

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After only 6 months in office as CEO, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is making large chip investments in the US. He has committed to $20.5 billion chip investment in Arizona and $2.5 billion in New Mexico in the first 3 months on the job, to be followed by additional investments in 2021 and 2022. Intel under Gelsinger has made plans for $50 billion in chip making investments, including plans to become a chip maker for others. Intel also plans to acquire Global Foundries.

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Grove's take on what is going on in Silicon Valley, and interviews at startups and Labs like the Almaden Research Center by Steve Hamm. Grove is especially infuriated by the concept of an"exit strategy". Intel never had an exit strategy he says. It takes time to build important companies over along period and a different kind of attitude, and resilience. Steve Hamm visits all parts of the Silicon Valley to understand what is going on. Big companies won't come up with the next big development and startups aren't measuring up to the task. Yes things are happening in the area of electric vehicles, solar energy and green energy. HP sees more productive effort coming from software development than hardware advances. Overall short term thinking and risk aversion dominates, and Grove and Hamm do not see the kind of paranoid attitude and worrying nature and resilience, that got Intel to go back and develop new products and look for new opportunities after taking a beating from the Japanese, who at one time took over Intel's existing markets. ...

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Greg Ip of the WSJ looks at the result of changes in supply chains away from China, and the new trading relationship with China to 2028. He says the shift to a new global supply chain that diversifies it away from concentration in China is taking place. Would taking the tariffs from 30% to 60% under a new Trump administration be a good idea? Greg Ip thinks it is a bad idea as the change is gradual and is actually taking place. It may have the unintended effect of worsening US China relations essential for global stability when it is coupled with erratic or retaliatory rhetoric. Rhetoric that appears to China that it is being singled out in world trade beyond what are changes that have taken place with Japan in the past in trade. The Biden administration is for good reasons working to restore a balanced yet stable relationship with China. Apple is shifting production of 25% of iPhones to India. Samsung is investing more in Vietnam. The trade deficit with Mexico has reached $151 billion twice as large as in 2017. And $100 billion with Vietnam three times as large as 2017. The US trade deficit with China has dropped from $381 billion to $281 billion in the last 12 months, the Commerce Department reports show. And from $1.1 trillion with the whole world from $1.2 trillion for the last 12 months, 4% of US GDP. Overall the Trump era tariffs of 30% have not reduced the US  trade deficit substantially but has shifted American and European foreign investment to India, Vietnam, Mexico and other countries as well as to the home country. Over time the supply chain would become truly diversified as India makes great strides to become the third largest economy with new infrastructure by 2030. The head emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, Joerg Wuttke, says the pressure to export will be high for China as its economy shifts more to manufacturing from construction. Most Chinese companies are producing more than internal demand in China, and most companies in solar are losing money, in wind turbines and solar all are losing money, Wuttke says. This means China will double down and increase its investments in Mexico, Vietnam, Morocco and other countries so that it can send its products to the US through third countries that do the final export. One expert even says removing a few screws here and some there, find a different supplier, and shipping to a third party for final export that makes it not 100% Chinese content, the pressure for that is high. ...

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Health and Education are the best bets for investment to revive the economy. BW's Mandel says the health and education fiscal channel is still functioning, while other ways of stimulating the economy are in breakdown mode. Taxpayer money given to banks, businesses and households will be saved to pay down high levels of debt and because of uncertainty. But funds directed to schools and hospitals will be spent to buy new equipment, modernize and update, put up new buildings, and hire workers. Health care especially is keen on hiring new nurses, medical technicians, home aides, and so on. And over the past year health care and education workers have risen by 500,000. In these hard times the hardest hit areas like Michigan have seen health and education make up 23.7 % of jobs, while manufacturing has dropped to half that, only 12.5%. And in the past decade health and education has had a stabilizing influence already. Nationally these areas have hired steadily, adding 5.3 million jobs since 1999. Meanwhile the rest of the economy has seen booms and busts, and off shoring and outsourcing overseas, with only 400,000 new jobs created in 10 years. Education has suffered neglect for needed infrastructure including broadband and internet capabilities for classrooms, and health care suffers inefficiencies such as computerization of records, and cost inefficiencies. These areas can be modernized and improved, adding to benefits years from now. They are large sectors employing 30 million workers or 22% of the workforce, and now badly needed to stabilize the economy as these employees are well paid and could help keep consumption from falling badly. A Gallup poll taken in February, shows 56% of Americans showed that education investments were "one of the most important items " for stimulus spending, coming out on top, and beating tax cuts....

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Keith Bradsher's NYT interview with Raghuram Rajan, Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, comes when Rajan has come under criticism from the business sector and the small business support base of prime minister Modi's party. The criticism centers on the drop in oil prices since Nov. 2014, and Rajan's failure to drop interest rates at the Dec. 2, 2014 central bank meeting. Rajan says it was not clear whether oil prices would remain low for an extended period at the Dec. 2, 2014 meeting. Since then new inventory data, EIA estimates and OPEC policy guidance have confirmed low prices will remain for an extended period. Rajan lowered interest rates on Jan. 14, 2015, by one quarter of a percentage point. Under India's setup the central bank chief makes decisions on interest rates, compared to the decisions made by the Federal Open Market Committee at the U.S. Federal Reserve. Rajan says there is full understanding between the central bank and the Modi government economic team led by finance minister Arun Jaitley, Jayan Sinha, deputy minister of state for finance, and chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanium. Modi and Jaitley prefer to rely on the advice and policy direction of economic policymakers with long experience in the U.S. and international circles. Both Subramanium and Rajan bring this level of experience and expertise. Subramanium brings experience from his years at the GATT which preceded the WTO, the IMF, and the Peterson Institute of International Economics, and Rajan brings experience at the University of Chicago, and as chief economist of the IMF. Modi is a dilgent listener and policymaker giving careful attention to the best advice, making it unlikely that Rajan would be seen as a holdover from the administration of Manmohan Singh. Other criticism that the business sector has made of Rajan are as financial regulator in asking state banks to increase collateral required from large business firms for large bank loans. Rajan points out the need for business to bear the costs as well as the benefits of taking risks. Under previous governments the state banks allowed large firms to keep their holdings at companies even when the risk taking resulted in losses. Rajan has also not tried to reverse the sharp decline in the rupee, which hurts business firms which took on dollar denominated loans. Rajan has instead followed policy of building up the reserves by buying dollars. The reserves were depleted in 2013 by a policy of currency interventions to reverse that decline. Inflation in India reached 9.9% in Dec. 2013, with policy of the central bank under Rajan set to bring it down to 8% in 2014, and below 6% in 2015, so that India could get out of the trap of persistently high inflation with slow growth. This is critical for a new Indian success story. A goal set by Rajan in Oct. 2012 when he was appointed as central bank chief, was to increase foreign investment and encourage new business so that India was no longer dependent on large companies for growth. This is also critical for a new Indian success story, as the Modi administration and the central bank are both keenly aware. Just as Bernanke and now Yellen at the U.S. Fed face criticism for quantitative easing monetary policy, focus on the high long term unemployed, and not focussing on inflation- with their focus on the long term economic recovery in an environment of low inflation below 2% in the U.S.- India's Reserve Bank faces a different kind of criticism for careful and prudent policies to ensure long term growth....

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All sides had to make concessions to reach a new agreement on a restructuring of Greece's debt, and new terms for loans to Ireland and Portugal. The agreement was reached after negotiations between France, Germany, the ECB, and eurozone countries with a declaration issued on July 21, 2011. The powers and financing of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) were expanded to be the main mechanism for channeling EU funding to reduce the burden of Greece's debt. Germany will provide new funding and be open to additional commitments, something German chancellor Angela Merkel had resisted since the beginning of the crisis in 2010. Earlier funding had come with high interest rates and only when the situation had reached a crisis, with Germany insisting on the punitive rates and conditions as a way to discourage countries from taking advantage of cheap borrowing. In exchange for commitment of German funds Ms Merkel had insisted that banks and private creditors share in the losses. Private bondholders resisted but finally agreed to take a loss of 20% of principal on a small portion of the bonds. Their larger concession was to take lower interest rates and extend the maturities to 15 years and 30 years on new bonds which are guaranteed by the EU. The specific terms of the agreement are as follows: The EFSF and the IMF will lend Greece 109 billion euros over 3 years at 3.5%. Private creditors including German and French banks will "voluntarily" turn in their old bonds for new ones that mature over 15-30 year periods. These new bonds include 15 and 30 year Greek bonds with varying coupons. Some of the bonds would have a 20% discount on principal. EU leaders say the private sector contribution amounts to 37 billion euros through 2014 and 106 billion euros through 2019. Another part of the program is for the EFSF to buy back some of the Greek bonds on the secondary markets, which would mean Greece would now owe a smaller amount to the EFSF on these bonds. The EFSF will now have additional financial support from Germany and other EU countries and be authorized to provide aid to countries before a crisis situation arises. It would also have power to buy Greek bonds at prices on secondary markets to reduce the Greek debt burden. Ireland and Portugal are also assisted in the agreement. The interest rate for EU aid to Ireland and Portugal is taken down to 3.5%. Ireland is paying about 6% on the EU portion of its 67.5 billon euros bailout and efforts to reduce the rate were resisted earlier. The main theme behind these concessions and provisions is to give Greece, (and Ireland and Portugal) a chance to grow. High interest rates came under strong criticism because it only increased the size of the debt burden of these countries with a shrinking economy and high unemployment. The failure to come together behind a broad and sensible agreement with all parties making serious concessions, the EU, the ECB and the political leadership in these countries especially Greece, was undermining confidence in the euro and the eurozone itself. By mid-July Italy and Spain were feeling the effects of contagion in the financial markets, U.S. debt ceiling negotiations were unsettling global financial markets, the pressure was intense to come up with the workable agreement achieved on July 21, 2011. ...

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China's economy expanded at 0.4% growth rate in the second quarter of 2020, according to the Bureau of National Statistics. It is not just the lockdowns that are dampening consumer sentiment.  US and EUropean demand for manufactured goods from Taiwan, South Korea and China is shrinking.

Youth unemployment is high with 20% of people 16 to 24 years without work. Some experts say the youth unemployment is increasing because companies are showing less interest in hiring and training new workers, or in investing in the future.

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10.5 million vehicles is the new number at GM for USA auto sales in 2009. GM has consistently predicted a scenario for auto sales that is much higher than it has turned out to be, leading to a lack of proactive speedy decisionmaking where needed to close plants, get financing and other steps needed to pull the company out of trouble. This new lower number may also turn out to be higher than actual because figures for inventories, unemployment, foreclosures, consumer spending, exports, all are worsening.

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Some Republicans are saying that it is time to give up the conceit that increasing the incomes of the upper classes will bring benefits to all Americans, and whether making individual tax cuts the priority is a policy that no longer works and can even bring disaster as it did for British prime minister Liz Truss recently. In this camp are Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and think tank American Compass. Others including Marc Rubio no longer favor globalization and see it important for the US to bring back American manufacturing at every opportunity with incentives and government action as the Biden administration is currently doing. This is creating new faultlines in the Republican party between the people who support the party of Reagan and its priorities and others who are questioning whether Reagan is relevant anymore. The fight that delayed the election of Speaker McCarthy also brought out some of these fissures as a subsection of the party felt strongly that it was important to go after entitlement programs and other social spending by the Biden administration. This is creating a new situation in American politics and in world trade and economics as the Biden Administration is not meekly accepting the detours of so called Third Way Democratic and Labour politicians of the US and Britain such as Tony Blair, Clinton and Obama who let the traditional backing of the Democratic Party in the working class wither with ties to Big Tech and acceptance of Reagan type free trade policies for manufacturing that ignored American working class communities. Biden's recent success in fighting for railway trade unions in restoring fairness in vacation and sick leave is only one of the battles that Biden has shown he can fight for American workers. Republicans now face the prospect of appearing divided and ambiguous in their support of working class, and overdependent on cultural issues for working class support. A recent British study on Labour's prospects showed that a slight shift on cultural issues can create a strong shift and have a large impact in Labour forming a new government with a secure majority in parliament.   ...

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Elsa Fornero is an economics professor who is Labor Minister in the government of Mario Monti. After several decades Italy has finally tackled the much needed changes to the 1970 Workers' Charter that forms the basis of Italy's labor laws. The Charter protected workers jobs but was designed during a different period and had long since lost its relevance in a modern economy. The laws led to Italy losing its competitiveness and entrenched small family firms in the economy. The new labor law protects the individual instead of jobs, by increasing the safety net to cover unemployed workers for shorter periods and lower benefits, and makes it possible for firms to layoff employees for economic reasons. Fornero says Italians need to recognize that work is not a right to be enshrined in laws but something that is earned through hard work. Article 18 of the Worker's Charter was originally intended to remove discriminatory practices in the workplace, but was enlarged to provide blanket protections to workers so that companies could not fire workers and avoided hiring. Under the new law discrimination is illegal, but now companies can layoff employees for economc reasons and not face long legal disputes and be forced to rehire the workers. The new law will increase productivity says Marcello Giustiniani, a labor specialist at Milan law firm Nonelli, Erede & Pappalardo. Italy's productivity gap with Germany has widened to over 30% since the introduction of the euro. The ASPI, new unemployment insurance plan, goes into effect in 2013, older programs will be phased out by 2017, giving time for the culture change in Italy for workers and business. Another major change is designed to help 2 million workers earning less than 18,000 euros. Businesses will have to give these workers proper contracts. Fornero's effort to tackle the pension system also includes linking retirement checks to how much is contributed over the lifetime- a practice common in other countries- not the final and highest salary. This simple change was not not implemented by 10 governments since a law was passed in 1995, showing why the Monti government was needed to get things done....

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Economy Minister Habeck says- "Our energy system will be structured differently: we will have 80% renewable energies by 2030."  Germany will close its last 3 nuclear plants this week. Germany is shutting down all nuclear energy when other countries are increasing reliance on nuclear energy. Westinghouse is building Poland's first nuclear plant. Britain, France and Finland are increasing nuclear energy with its very low carbon emissions. Biden administration in the US is backing the building of a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors. Mr. Habeck the Economy minister says for the short term Germany has its natural gas storage tanks half full with the winter heating season over. New LNG terminals and imports help replace Russian supplies. In the long term Germany is way ahead in renewable energy than other countries and will craft its own solution in its own way.

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During this pandemic people are rethinking their choices in work and career. Many are saying that what is important is finding purpose and joy in work. The working from home has exposed the barebones of work, eight hours alone without the meetings and the offices. Finding joy and a sense of satisfaction that comes from doing something useful have become more important than ever. One finds gratitude in having work that gives purpose and joy. BBC looks at the issues surrounding worklife choices today. More people in IT and in the finance industry are choosing to opt out for other careers. 

One of the persons interviewed in this report says it is important to consider whether the work brings new energy, new enthusiasm or is it drawing energy and leaving one feeling drained at the end of the day.

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Scientist Kim Mishra at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology has come up with a method to make chocolate not just from the cocoa seeds discarding the pulp, husk and juice as is done today. This is wasteful. The new method uses the cocoa pulp, the husk and the juice as a way to make chocolate without sugar and use the whole fruit. This will reduce the impact on the climate with more chocolate production and less deforestation for new cocoa planted in South American countries as an addition to production in African countries like Ghana. It will also benefit cocoa farmers in Africa and Guatemala by increasing their income. This report looks at the colonial past of chocolate production by companies such as Lindt as Swiss producers worked with French and British colonies to expand production in the late 19th century.

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Rachel Donadio and Liz Alderman of the New York Times interview Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Syriza party that is expected to win the June 2012 elections in Greece. He says his party calls for suspension of payments on loans for 3 years till Greece's economy recovers, and renegotiation of the agreements that require large layoffs in the public sector and other austerity measures.

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From now on the vaccination program in India will be run nationally by the federal government. This will ensure fair access to vaccines to all parts of the Indian population. Earlier vaccine costs were bid up as states and private hospitals bid up prices. Under the new national program 75% of vaccines will be given out by the federal government and 25%  by private hospitals and other private health institutions. The government in New Delhi under prime minister Modi will offer adults free vaccinations. Modi said "We will increase the speed of procuring vaccines and also increase the pace of the vaccination program." Even in private hospitals the cost of vaccine will be kept at Rupees 150 or $2.06. Experts say this is the right policy and the government has learned from errors in letting states and other private institutions run vaccine policy, which made it too fragmented and subject to too many variables, resulting in inequity, and slowing vaccination drives. The Supreme Court stepped in asking for clarity, leading to the clear policy from the federal government announced today.  Advantage of the new policy is that the responsibility lies in one place, and the federal government also has the clout to make things happen, to negotiate with companies and other parties involved effectively. India has vaccinated 222 million people but because of the population being so large at 1.2 billion this comes out to be a small fraction of the population. This puts the task of getting vaccine supplies and getting the vaccination drives to work in the only place that has the determination and the resources to deliver results by vaccinating 1.2 billion people by December 2021. It has never been done before in history says Mr. Modi, and it is a challenge that India is now taking up for itself and for the global community. It also lays the ground for India to help its neighbors in Asia and in Africa, Latin America in 2022.   ...

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Svenja Schulze brings new hope and dynamism to Germany's Development Ministry. As head of the Development Ministry she brings international experience in fighting climate change as SPD minister in the last government heading the climate change related Environment ministry. There she launched the climate protection package measures aimed at making Germany climate neutral by 2045. She now heads a ministry with a budget of $13.5 billion (12 billion euros). She wants to cooperate better with the Global South with an effort to tackle poverty and help developing nations. After the shocks of the pandemic this is an essential and important task. Her predecessor as Development minister Heidemarie Wiezcorek-Zeul, SPD minister 1998-2009 says the ministry needs clout in decisionmaking and for this it is important that the Development ministry is separate and an independent entity not lumped in with the Foreign Office as in Britain. That would be quite disastrous she says.  Climate change issues are also seen as development issues and about poverty reduction. This is a useful point that Mr. Modi was trying to make as he addressed the COP26 Summit- that climate change has to be done in the overall context of mitigation, that climate change control is part of poverty reduction and brings in new opportunities when done this way. Examples are zero budget farming, and solar energy as low cost energy for rural areas in India. Here Schulze talks to employees at the Ministry and tell them "We must all strive to make a good life possible for everyone in the world, That may sound overly emotional, but it is our aspiration."  Martina Schaub, chairwoman for VENRO whivh represents 140 private and church development organizations in Germany sees Schulze as a sign of optimism. The need is great particularly in the weak health systems of many countries. It is a sign of hope, and of the new Germany under Schulz. ...

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It is only 10 days from the Thursday July 4 election night and Keir Starmer went to work immediately Here is what he said today: "My new cabinet hit the ground running. We’ve lifted the ban on onshore wind. We’ve created a national wealth fund to invest in and grow our economy. We’ve met NHS bosses to get the 40,000 extra NHS appointments we need each week and 700,000 urgent dental appointments up and running as quickly as possible. The Department for Education is resuming and expanding its recruitment campaign to kickstart our promise to hire 6,500 new teachers. We’re taking emergency measures to pull the justice system back from the brink of collapse. And, on day one, we scrapped the Rwanda gimmick and began setting up a new Border Security Command to smash the people-smuggling gangs for good. Now is the time for politics as public service. A government committed not to its self-preservation but to uniting the country in the shared mission of national renewal. The start of the road back to restoring people’s hope and faith that politics can be a force for good. No more gimmicks, lies and self-serving self-obsession – this government knows we have a duty to the people we are elected to serve." ...

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Russia invades Ukraine on multiple fronts, across Belarus, across its western border with Ukraine, on the pre dawn hours of February 24, 2022. Russian foreign minister Lavrov says "tense and detailed discussions" with US and NATO are still taking place. In talks with the US, president Putin of Russia had demanded that Ukraine commit to not joining NATO. The US insisted that this was upto Ukraine and that the territorial integrity of Ukraine had to be respected. Interventions by Macron of France and other leaders failed to bring the two sides closer. The US and Europe with a reluctant Germany looked at sanctions as a deterrent. This proved to be wrong. Mr. Putin has a passionate view of Ukraine and Kviv's historical role in the formation of the Russian state, evident in his televised address only 48 hours before the actual invasion. Ukraine has shifted between Poland and the Baltic states, Germany on one side and Russia on the other in its thousand year old history. The shift away from Bolsheviks and Communists under the Soviet Union after 1990 changed the relationship of Ukraine with its neighbors once again as Ukraine became closer to Poland and the Baltics, and Germany. Germany remains reluctant to revert to the relationship with Russia that led to 2 World Wars. During the leadership of Willy Brandt and successive German SPD leaders, as well as with Konrad Adenauer and CDU leaders, the goal was to build a good relationship with Russia. Merkel of the CDU went as far as accepting dependence on Russia for 40% of its gas supplies, after shifted out of nuclear energy and supporting a new Nordstream undersea pipeline for gas supplies.  The early reaction on DW.com and German television was one of shock as no one really expected that this would lead to a full scale invasion. Scholz of the SPD the new chancellor in 2022 was not active in forging anew consensus allowing NATO's Stoltenberg who is a former Norwegian prime minister 2005-2013 to frame the response of Europe. Norway's role in European security was marginal for most of the twentieth century. Other events had detracted from bringing active German and American participation in coming up with a framework of dialogue to address concerns of both sides and still build a common ground for peace- Afghanistan, the pandemic in its third year, China's deteriorating one sided trade relationship with America that hurt American workers and manufacturing. As a result China and Germany were essentially absent in building the framework for peace. Afghanistan hasty withdrawal made it harder for president Biden to come up with new approaches to build a common framework. President Macron made some faltering efforts on the fringes even as president Putin focused on the US response and its intentions with NATO on European soil, and declared that it was directly US Russia negotiations that needed to work. With this the whole framework of relations since the presidency of Reagan and the relations with Russia and China come to a close. And a new framework needs to be constructed that draws in India already or soon to be the most populous nation in the world, in an effort to build an enduring new framework. The voices of Eastern Europe need to be heard, yet balanced with the voices from India, China, Germany, Russia, and other countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa that are affected by world events. ...

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A long transport strike and street protests have not affected the pension overhaul of president Macron in France. The French parliament will review the changes to the pension system that consolidate 42 different pension plans into one universal pension plan that seeks to be fair, reflect current conditions including longer life expectancy, and to make the plan financially viable. Other benefits are that it would be more transparent and enable workers to change jobs or careers, says Health Minister Ms. Buzyn.

Macron's new system for pensions calculates pension payments based on the entire salary history of an employee. Previously pension payments were calculated based on 25 highest paying years for private sector employees, and for civil servants on the last 6 months of salary before retirement.

Parliament will debate the new rules in February and the plan is likely to be passed by this summer because Macron has a large majority.

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China plans to merge te Baosteel Group Corp. with Wuhan Iron and Steel Group Co. or Wisco. The new company will be close to the size of ArcelorMittal SA. The head of Wisco, Ma Guoqiang, says megamergers are not the best way to achieve true restructuring. He says cutting capacity is needed. In the past this was planned but not implemented as steel prices rose. New plans call for cutting capacity by 45 million metric tons in 2016 and 150 million metric tons in next 5 years. Problems are that U.S., Japan and South Korea's steel mills are increasing return on assets and productivity. Nucor in the U.S. for instance has 4.7% return on assets, by comparison at a Wisco subsidiary this was -3.5% in 2015. One of the problems is that local governments continue to keep even highly polluting steel mills in operation to preserve jobs after shutting them down for a while.