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Peggy Noonan looks at Woodrow Wilson in 1919 when Mrs. Edith Boling Wilson assumed a key role for the president following Wilson's illness. She compares this to the last year of Reagan in office and the poor debate performance of president Biden. This is in sharp contrast to president Biden's active participation in political life and decisions he has made to protect Democrats work in office.  Biden saying that if he had to do this again he would have continued his run for the presidency in 2024 following the poor debate performance as he could have won the election. Biden also continues to lead the Democratic party as a former president who is actively involved in shaping the future.

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The title is misleading as the US president DJT has said on Air Force One on Tuesday -"I don't care what she (Tulsi Gabbard) said, I think they were very close to having them." Most administration officials including the head of Central Command see the risks growing by the week. Here is what Gen. Erik Kurilla told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week- Iran is merely "steps away" from uranium enriched to weapons grade level of 90%. He said if Iran decided to build a nuclear weapon it could have the first 55 pounds of weapons-grade material “in roughly one week and enough for up to 10 nuclear weapons in three weeks.” 

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Economic forecasts expect economic growth to slow to 7%. Inflation has reched a high of 11% in India. With rising interest rates and large government deficits India's economic growth is slowing.

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The global impact of the credit and housing crisis as it extends from USA to the rest of the world. Heavy machinery makers such as Japan and Germany are doing better than consumer goods exporters like China, and Asian countries like Thailand and Malaysia. And countries that borrowed heavily like Hungary are being watched by lending institutions. Commodities producers like Australia and Russia and Brazil are continuing to do well. For Middle Eastern countries the bigger danger is overheating in their economies as inflation soars. But while the crisis spreads the forecasts have only been taken down a notch displaying the conservative wait and see instincts of forecasters so that China and India still continue to grown near double digits which is not likely to hold up as one goes into 2008 and 2009 and actually might slip considerably from the high growth rates of the past as a number of factors converge especially in the case of China but also for India.

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Troubles at UBS including $18 billion in writeoffs and $80 billion exposure in risky securities on its books.

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BMW's CEO Reithofer says in a conference call that the company will redirect cars from the USA to China and Russia and other countries because of the currency exchange rates and unfavorable market conditions in the US. These market conditions caused a236 million euros charge to compensate for the falling value of second hand vehicles and potential payment defaults on loans for leased vehicles in the USA. At Daimler you see a 491 million euro fall in the value of Daimler's remaining 19.9% stake in Chrysler LLC showing up in 1st quarter results but also similiar to BMW one sees a 151 million euro writedown to cover the falling value of cars that were leased to customers. This is from earnings announcements by Daimler and BMW.

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Goldman Sachs sees the unemployment rate peaking at 6.4% in late 2009.

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A bailout of Ireland with $136 billion bailout planned by the European Union. Fear of contagion effects on Greece, Portugal and Spain. Pressure on Ireland to accept the bailout for its banks.

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Spain released reports by audit firms that showed 62 billion euros would be needed to recapitalize the affected parts of its banking system. This is below the 100 billion euros in rescue funds offered by the EFSF, the eurozone rescue fund, in loans to the Spanish government. The Spanish government is pushing for direct aid to the banks to cut the knot between the banking risk and sovereign risk that is pushing up the yields on Spanish bonds to 7% in June 2012. Spain's 3 largest banks will not be accepting aid funds- Banco Santander, BBVA, and La Caixa.

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Following the defeat of chancellor Merkel's CDU party in the 2016 Berlin state election, getting just 17.6% of the vote, chancellor Merkel looked reflective and a bit emotional about the result. She urged Germans to understand that this decision on refugees will benefit Germany in the long run. She said she would work to regain the people's trust. Looking back she said-"If I could, I would turn back time by many, many years to better prepare myself and the whole German government for the situation that reached us unprepared in late summer 2015." She says the decision was "absolutely right" to admit the refugees from war torn Syria, but accepted that "it led to a time when we did not have enough control over the situation." Both the CDU and the SPD, the main parties, lost about 6-7 percentage points each in votes cast. Gainers were the Free Democratic Party with 6.7% of the vote, who gained votes from the CDU. For the SPD votes were lost to the Greens and the left party Die Linke each party winning over 15% of votes.  Both the CDU and the SPD had candidates who did not attract voter interest. A popular former Mayor of Berlin from the SPD did not run in this election. The anti-immigrant AfD party gained  about 14% of votes.  ...

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This Economist magazine editorial says two actions need to be taken after the Panama Papers scandal. Registers showing real beneficiaries not just "nominees" used to obscure the real owners, should be made for people using these tax havens. The second action is to make it a criminal offense to enable tax evasion. If banks are being policed for money laundering, why should these tax haven law firms and other firms not also be policed for money laundering or tax evasion activities, asks the Economist.

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The shadow economy is about 24% of Greece's economy, according to a study at the University of Chicago. Unreported income is $28 billion or 15% of GDP. The Greek government of Antonis Samaras is taking new steps to tackle this problem. New regulations allow customers to go without paying if service providers refuse to give a receipt for the transaction. Restaurants will be required to post the regulation in their menus. Doctors, lawyers and other service providers will have to follow the new rules.

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The Georgetwon University Center on Education and the Workforce 2015 report shows the different college majors, annual wages and lifetime earnings based on Census Bureau data. Engineering comes first, followed by computers. Advanced graduate degrees make a large difference in earnings in health sciences. A lot depends on the standing in the class with top 25% of the class in finance having much higher earnings. A lot also depends on the individual. Employment opportunities may be lacking even if annual wages are high, as in architecture.

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Tokyo Stock Exchange president, Akira Kiyota, says the TSE is hoping for 70 IPO's in 2013 if all goes well. The TSE and the Osaka Securities Exchange merged in Jan 2013, forming the Tokyo Exchange Group, the third largest exchange in market capitalization. TSE president is from Daiwa Securities and the OSE president is from Nomura Securities. The TSE hope to attract more overseas companies to list, developing into a market that is open 24 hours. Other strategies include developing securities markets in emerging market countries.

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Washington Post journalist, Abigail Hauslohner, and two young Egyptian journalists, Sharaf al-Hourani and Mansour Mohammed, in the Post's Cairo bureau, cover the police and military attack on Morsi protest camps near Cairo university. Police open fire with live ammunition on protesters and spectators on the streets of Cairo. Snipers with binoculars follow the movements of the Post reporters, as two helicopters circle overhead. Two other journalists are shot. Police officers tell the Post journalists: "If I see you again, I''ll shoot you in the leg."

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Simon Nixon of WSJ says even if the government took the estimated $120 billion in losses estimated by Goldman for the UK banking system. it would change public sector debt to GDP ratio for the UK from 60% to 73%, which is still better compared to other countries and does not trigger a credit downgrading. The UK has received a huge monetary stimulus and the lower value of the pound helps exports, so the situation is a mess but far from being a disaster.

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Finance Minister Merz says if the Swiss changed their secrecy laws all the $2 trillion in foreign money in Swiss banks would fly away. The Swiss don't consider tax evasion a criminal offense. The same is true of Austria and Luxembourg. It is only under intense international pressure from the US and the OECD including listing the Swiss in a list of uncooperative tax havens for presentation to the G20 countries April 2, summit, with the view to possible sanctions, that progress can be made.

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3.4 trillion USA dollars and growing at 8% in 2008 over 2007 according to research firm Gartner shows companies will continue to invest in software and services and in upgrades because to stay ahead in business is hard to do if one falls behind in technology. Gartner expects it to slow but only by a bit to 6%. And software and services part of technology spending is growing at 10% currently so companies continue to make the choices to stay ahead in this area.

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Unbranded drug advertising is becoming popular as it takes advantage of a loophole in the FDA rules, that if an ad doesn't directly name the drug, it doesn't have to include areading of the possible side effects. Pfizer used this method in an ad for antismoking drug Chantix during NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics. The 60 second commercial instead of naming the drug says go to site Mytimetoqyit.com to find ways to kick ahabit a woman is shown to have on the tV screen.

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Recognizing and being aware of the changes in our minds and thinking  with new waves of coronavirus actually helps us deal with it. This report says that fear or anxiety even if it is pushed to the periphery of consciousness produces a whole range of behavioural, emotional and physiological weirdness that most people have experienced themselves or noticed in others since March of 2020. Even if one gets used to the additional load one carries it still can weigh one down. We all have only this much mental energy, so that the effort required to ignore, repress, or shoulder this load of fear or anxiety reduces one's ability to be creative, connected or productive. By dealing with it constructively one can diminish the impact it has on us. This means being aware of it, acknowledging it and managing it in useful ways.  Experts cited here show that fear masquerades as other emotions including sadness, anger, irritation, or even excessive feel good behaviour. It can also be expressed in intolerant behaviours or hypersensitive. On the other side it could even be expressed in aloofness and being distant, or unfriendly. Fear can also show up in ways that reduce our ability to read social and emotional cues leading to improper or inept exchanges. Physiological changes can include muscle tension and fatigue, headaches, heart irregularities, dry mouth, hair loss, skin problems, and gastrointestinal symptoms. These symptoms are unrelated to pathology say health experts and are normal reactions to feeling threatened over a long period. Different people experience anxiety differently, and most people don't even know that this is what is making you feel this way. Instead of having unproductive exchanges with fear going back and forth one can have calmer, more useful exchanges. One should always ask say health experts- "So how are you and your family coping up in these weird times?" Mindfulness and spiritual ways of dealing with this are very useful. People slow down, calm their minds, and ask "what is going on in my head right now? Where in my body am I putting my tension?" Health experts say neurobiology supports this way of tackling it. Other useful ways are to set some predictable routine in your daily life- helps you think you are still in control of the parts of your life you can control. Thinking of others and helping others is a good way of keeping ourselves sane and healthy. Fear and anxiety may also serve some purpose- the negative emotion can be harnessed to do something positive and meaningful in our life, make changes in our lives for the better by helping others in society who are less fortunate or in difficulty. Just being larger than ourselves makes us feel a lot better day after day, till it becomes a part of us. ...

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Senators Grassley, Graham, Risch, Blount, are some of the senators on the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees of the U.S. Senate who believe that Special Counsel Mueller's investigation should stay on track and complete its job, even though texts showing bias between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page led to their removal from the investigation. The senators say Mueller is a very capable guy and he has fired the officials expressing the bias against president Trump. The mood in the House is different where Republican Congressmen have called for Mueller to be removed.