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Indecision and policy missteps by the government of prime minister Manmohan Singh of India. Divisions within the Congress political party and its allies in parliament stalls moves to attract foreign investment in the retail sector and leads to a general paralysis in the government in 2011-2012.

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China generates 53% of its emissions from coal in May 2024. All the remaining from non fossil sources. Two factors are evident, yet both do not indicate a big fall off in fossil emissions from this point just a plateauing effect with it flattening out. The first is that China is putting in solar and wind at 8 times the level of the US, taking up two thirds of world solar and wind installations. The second is that the one third of emissions from construction and real estate is falling off because that industrial sector has collapsed. Overall the future points to slowing of emissions as China comes only gradually down from that 53%. What happens in China makes a huge impact on climate change. India has also committed to climate change action and meeting targets early under PM Modi so that India as it industrializes will not follow the path of jumping fossil emissions China had. This is useful to know as the US and EU, UK, expand solar and wind. It is important that the US stay committed to climate change action something missing from the Republican platform for 2024. Delaying climate change action will impose huge costs on the US that could be about 1 trillion dollars if it is stalled now and is taken up in 2028. ...

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Murphy and Sanders on the 12 million Missing Votes in 2024. Where did they go? Two US Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders answer questions about the 12 million Missing Votes - the difference between Biden's 81.2 million votes in 2020 and Harris's 71.5 million in 2024 plus about 2 million from the population growth over 4 years of that group. Does any one position on guns, climate,  culture or gender, immigration, make it right? What about common sense, the facts on the ground, people's unease about some things going too far in one direction. Murphy- “We don’t listen enough; we tell people what’s good for them. “When progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base.” Working class voters are conservative when it comes to cultural issues. Should any party belong to one position on cultural issues- as some people have unease about going too far on cultural issues such as transgender, that things are changing too fast.   ...

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New car registrations dropped 18% in December 2011 compared to the same month in 2010. Part of the reason is a government bonus for scrapping older cars offered in 2010. French car registrations for 2011 were down 2.1% over 2010. French car sales have averaged 2 million in the last few years and France's car manufacturers association expects sales at that level for 2012, which is a contraction of 8-10%. Renault will be affected by lower sales. In the first 3 weeks of Dec. 2011 Renault's direct orders declined by 60% compared to the same period in 2010.

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Mexico's GDP increases at 3.9% compared to 2.7% for Brazil in 2011. Foreign investment is increasing in Mexico especially in the automobile industry and in industries where Mexico is favored over China as a production location. The G-20 meets in Los Cabos, Mexico in June 2012.

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Experts view the behaviour of 10 year Treasury yields at different periods following the 2008 financial crisis. Twice in early 2010 and early 2011 there were signals that the economy was not so weak before faltering, each time 10 year Treasury yields went up to 3.75-4% before going down to the 2.24% level. This situation appears to be happening again in 2012 with rates dropping in the first quarter to between 1.82%- 2.11%. The yields on 10 year Treasury jumped again, this time to 2.39% on March 19, 2012, as the eurozone crisis fears and U.S. economic growth fears subsided for the time being.

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The WSJ Editorial Board speaking for the business community traditional Republican groups finally takes up the election on issues of policy difference between Trump run Republican party and Harris run Democratic Party which it should have from Day One. The former president says something that has never happened in the last hundred years- policy will be decided after the election depending on what he decides to do. Cost of Living action is No 1 on voter priorities. "Drill, Baby Drill," is the whole Republican party platform for cost of living action. What is the Harris Democrats policy plan for cost of living action? WSJ says it is spending blowouts that caused inflation, the Green New Deal, entitlement expansions and student loan forgiveness.The real reason for the increase in cost of living comes from the overconcentration of supply chain by American business in China, on which every president Bush, Obama, Trump, did little or nothing. The lack of an effective vaccination program and ineffective vaccines in China by 2021 and 2022 led to the loss of the supplies from China leading to shortages for automobiles parts and other supplies and surge in prices in 2021-2023. Powell and the US central bank correctly raised rates but cautiously and waited for this to correct, president Biden brought manufacturing home through huge investments called the "spending blowout" that brought down the inflation from 9% to 3%. Some of that "spending blowout" went to chips and science to correct the errors of American Business and Reagan-Friedman theory of the Republican party that created this problem with a culture of utter  indifference to the ultimate costs of who makes what and where. The Inflation Reduction Act also tackled higher health and other costs paid by American workers and families, and invested in public services and in repairing the dilapidated crumbling American infrastructure. Are Republicans saying let the roads, bridges, airports, built in the 1940-1960's heyday of American industrialization as China and India's is now, let them crumble? What do the educated minds of the WSJ Board say about coal in China and India and their effects on their massive use multiple times that of US and EU in history, is it not damaging to the environment and why the Chinese realized the health in North China with coal winter use was worse than in South China cut their coal use. Are they saying lets burn fossil fuels and ignore, and if investment has to be made in solar who is going to do it? Is it Ok for Republicans thet we just import from China all our solar panels indefinitely into the future. "Green New Deal" is just a perjorative term, policy has to be made thoughtfully and without prejudice or bias of any sort for the best that we can do for the American people, ignoring so called "right" or "left." Doing what is right, what makes sense, is a lot harder.     ...

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Of the 45 million US student loan borrowers in 2025- only 11 million are on time with payments. The rest seeing sharp credit score declines that limit their access to home loans, other credit, or increase the costs of access to credit. This limits access to housing, and other needs for this group, it also affects demand in the economy. A recent WSJ report showed Moody Analytics research that 80% of US consumer spending is now done by 20% of the top income earners in the US. Decline in demand from this group will affect the economic growth in the US and how well the stock markets do. This will affect the job growth in the economy month to month.  This means with inaction from the DJT administration and the SCOTUS lack of comprehension of the economic aspects of this issue in ruling out action taken by the Biden administration- that this failure to take action on relief poses added risks to the US economy in 2025. It also means uneven and unbalanced growth where some groups upper income are favored by the virtue of the way the economy operates leaving many young people out of the benefits of growth. This adds to the general feeling of frustration and discontent after the pandemic and after cost of living surges in 2022-2024. It also means university education is no longer affordable or accessible to young people. Other issues play into this such as the surging cost of university education and action needs to be taken to bring this into line with earlier post 1945 patterns where university education was affordable and taken up. The increase in apprenticeship programs is a good thing, yet the gradual turning away of young men from college education is a serious danger to the cultural literacy in the US in 2020-2030. Leaving aside Ivy leagues making state college and universities affordable is one of the big problems needing to be solved as a priority in the US.  ...

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California extends its moratorium on retail rent payments for businesses to February 2021. New York's moratorium was extended by 1 month to September.

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Used car prices went up by 40% in 2021, according to the Labor Department, contributing to the increase in inflation in the US by 7.5%.

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Moody's downgrades the credit ratings of 26 Italian banks in May 2012. Italy's largest retail bank Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, showed net profit of 804 million euros, up 22% from the prior year. Of this 183 million euros was from capital gains made using the ECB low cost loans under special ECB financing to buy government debt. The ECB financing was through the Long Term Refinancing Operation launched by the ECB in December 2011, which benefitted Italian and Spanish banks.

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Prodigous investments in AI data centers is crowding out investment in essential infrastructure that would cut the cost of living in the US. Such as investment in pharmaceuticals in the US, investment in automobiles and rare earth processing, in housing and schools would reduce cost of living by bringing down prices and provide huge human returns for every dollar spent in addition to larger profits over a long period. Shown here is the AI data center for Microsoft in Atlanta. Microsoft has invested $34 billion the first fiscal quarter of 2025 alone, with similar investments by Amazon, Tesla, Google, and others for $400 billion capital allocation in 2026. Investments are also being crowded out in the replacing of the aging infrastructure of the US  of roads, rail, subways systems, transport systems, bridges, airports and ports. Some of these investments such as in ports and logistics are needed to make America a manufacturing and exporting nation. Economists loved to talk about crowding out of investment by the private sector when the government spending was significantly higher as during and after World War II. Today there is little talk about the massive misallocation of capital in the US economy. Where public infrastructure is ravaged by time and mismanagement as in New York political trends are calling for free public transport  and supported grocery stores in NYC, when the root cause the overall picture of the Nation's spending in rebuilding America is ignored or unaddressed, which would get to the root cause of the cost of living and quality of life issues that concern all the people of this Nation. ...

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China's GDP growth for the 4th quarter of 2012 was 7.9% over prior year, increasing from 7.4% in the third quarter of 2012, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. GDP growth for 2012 was 7.8%, down from 9.3% in 2011. Growth is stabilizing at 8% which shows China is managing the economy, slowing the growth rate with a smaller stimulus planned in 2013, and working on sustainable growth for the longer term. This is a significant positive as a new leadership takes over in China and sets priorities for stable growth, and improvements in housing and health care.

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A study by Blanchard and Bernanke shows energy prices and supply chain constraints were key factors in creating the surge in inflation that happened in 2022. The Ukraine war played apart in raising energy prices . How much effect did president Biden's $1.6 trillion American Rescue Plan have on inflation? Bernanke and Blanchard say not what critics had suggested. Once energy prices were brought under control through the president's policies to $75 energy prices played less of a role in inflation. Supply chain effects also eased throughout 2022. The persistent effect remained the mismatch between supply and demand that is called The Great Resignation that came as a response from teachers, nurses, hospitality sector workers with low minimum wage on which it was hard to make a living. President Biden's payments to these workers gave them enough room to make a definite choice that they would not take the risks during the pandemic and the stress and opted for shifting to other jobs. Employers struggled to fill vacancies and raised wages in response. To reduce inflation the Fed opted to raise rates to slow the demand for goods and services in the economy which has led to a moderating of inflation from the high of 7% in 2022 to falling below 5% by April 2023. Fed chairman Powell's aggressive attitude to inflation was based on not letting an inflationary psychology set in, that could damage the interests of workers and families who had already suffered from the pandemic's effects. This is where we are today as the economy adjusts to the fight against climate change, investments in renewable energy and infrastructure, and efforts to reduce the deficit by president Biden in a way that reduces the widening gaps and social divisions in society.   ...

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Musk DOGE 2025 and the 1941 Truman Committee- cutting waste in $4 trillion in spending.  With the Biden Infrastructure Act and other infrastructure, science and chips spending of $4 trillion the US needs to act to have oversight on waste and overspending in 2025. We just want to show that it is in the American tradition of democratic government, that an obscure Senator from Missouri, Democrat Harry Truman initiated such an effort called the Truman Committee when he addressed the Senate on Feb 10, 1941. The US Senate site describes this Special committee to Investigate the National Defense Program adjacent to this article. As the US prepared to enter World War II in Feb. 1941 an obscure Senator from Missouri rose up in the Senate to call for oversight over the $10.1 billion Roosevelt had got approval from the US Congress to spend on war efforts. The oversight was to fight overspending, waste and fraud in spending the huge amounts dedicated to the war effort. The result was the Truman Committee in the US Senate with as chairman of the committee Harry Truman 1941-1944, James Mead (NY) 1944-46, Harley Kilgore (Wisconsin) 1946-47, Ralph Brewster a Republican from Maine in 1947-48. These were the years when the US spent on the war effort- $330 billion in 1945 dollars, $4 trillion in 2024 dollars $212 in US government borrowings, $136 billion in war bonds With the Biden Infrastructure Act and other infrastructure, science and chips spending of $4 trillion the US needs to act to have oversight on waste and overspending in 2025. ...

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Nuclear arms control SALT treaties expire Feb 2026 - need for new negotiations as the treaties were obsolete, did not include China, smaller nuclear weapons, and weapons from space. The SALT arms limitation treaty was first signed in 1972 by Brezhnev with Nixon. These treaties went through a second version and were renewed. The US no longer thinks this is relevant as China is not included, and smaller nuclear weapons, ones from space are not included and new negotiations are the best way to conduct true arms limitation. An accompanying video in NYT by David Sanger goes into these aspects of talks. Rafael Gross, head of IEA International Atomic Agency, says- You wouldn’t negotiate the same treaty again. There are new technologies that are not covered by the treaty — hypersonic missiles, undersea nuclear weapons, space weapons. And there are many other countries that, for one reason or another, feel now as if they may need a nuclear arsenal of their own.” This is the reason. It also happens that in 2026 US and Russia could coordinate their efforts, so that new US weapons may be needed as other risks could emerge from other places. There are smaller nuclear powers and new nations that might develop nuclear weapons as the US nuclear umbrella may be seen as not fully dependable. This new thinking would be that US and Russia may not see themselves as adversaries but work together to prevent nuclear risks from other sources. This is also why the US (and Russia) may want to wind down smaller regional conflicts, reduce their reliance on their own alliances, so that nuclear cooperation between nuclear powers US, Russia, China, and India may lead to control of nuclear weapons in a larger sense from space and from smaller countries that might develop nuclear weapons as has happened in Iran, which might create new risks that cannot be managed. A belligerent North Korea could lead to South Korea and Japan developing a nuclear weapon. This is also why the Ukraine conflict has run its course and it is in no one's interest to let the Nordics or Britain continue the conflict. The US, Russia, China, India, Brazil should not let middle or smaller powers continue regional or historical conflicts, and promote settlement through peace talks of such conflicts, as it inevitably leads to damaging the interests of billions of people around the world in peaceful cooperation and tackling challenges that affect the quality of life. ...

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The number of specialist referrals for NHS mental healthcare reached a record of 4.3 million in the UK in 2021, according to this report in the BBC.

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Complicity of elites is a key question in the Epstein scandal. Even when some of this was known the seriousness of it was ignored by elites. About the Mandelson scandal that is rocking Britain in the beginning of February 2026 with questions for Keir Starmer, it can be said that elites just had too much awe and respect for the major centers in the world of finance or sought ot be part of that world when these centers of finance had themselves lost their sense of purpose in the Nation, as Labour's Mandelson did. In the larger sense of the influence of the financial industry on elites in the events leading to the 2009 financial crisis where the name Bear Stearns comes up repeatedly, of the pharmaceutical industry on elites in 2026, it could be said that the influence on policymaking elites is a pernicious one. As Teddy Roosevelt points out in Chapter 5 of his Autobiography titled Applied Idealism, some elites had too much respect and awe for big financial interests. TR wrote of these elites in his time- "Some of the men foremost in the struggle for Civil Service Reform have taken a position of honorable leadership in the battle for those other and more vital reforms. But many of them promptly abandoned the field of effort for decency when the battle took the form, not of a fight agains the petty grafting of small bosses and small politicians- a vitally necessary battle, be it remembered- but of a fight against the great entrenched powers of privilege, a fight to secure justice through the law for ordinary men and women, instead of leaving them to suffer cruel injustice either because the law failed to protect them  or because it was twisted from its legitimate purpose into a means for oppressing them." ...

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New York City faces a $2 billion deficit in current fiscal year in 2026 and $10 billion the following year. This means there is less funding for new Mayor Mamdani's programs for groceries/transport for New Yorkers. Mamdani was elected by people in the hope that he could find ways for struggling New Yorkers to handle the cost of living crisis in 2026. New programs Mamdani promised were free bus service with costs annually (cost 0.8 billion), new rent stabilized units (annual cost $7 billion),  universal child care (annual cost $ 6 billion). A state corporate tax hike could generate $5 billion and a millionaires tax $4 billion, not enough for $13.8 billion cost for these services. The other problem is the way the city has handled its finances- this report shows declining projections for expenditures under former mayor Adams for public assistance, rental assistance, and MTA subsidies items which one would expect to go up in a large city the size of New York with new immigrants.The report says the shortfalls were met by using funds meant for the next year. Already Mamdani is not able to expand the state voucher program for residents facing eviction because of these budget constraints. This is the pattern in New York of making new promises not funded on the revenue side. Mamdani promised smaller class sizes but did not show where the funding for extra teachers would come from. For New Yorkers this adds a bit of realism to the idea that a new Mayor and new promises is the answer to its problems. Only about two thirds of its budget comes from its revenues the rest from federal and state funding which means an overall solution firing on all fronts, with federal and local cooperation, private investment, good governance, foreign investment, is needed to tackle the problems of major cities like New York. ...

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Justin Lahart points out that concealed in the good profit performance of Ford Motor for the third quarter 2012 is a cause for concern. Ford market share of light vehicle sales in the U.S. market declined to 15.3% in the first 9 months of 2012 from 16.6% in 2011, according to WardsAuto. Ford's quality in the Consumer Reports' annual reliability survey shows Ford ranking 27th of 28 brands.

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After stalling in summer 2021 US vaccination picks up in August to 865,000 on August 4, 2021. At one point vaccinations reached 3 million a day and stalled with younger people hesitating to get vaccinated. Some southern states Tennessee, Oklahoma and Georgia see a surge in vaccinations. This happens as US daily cases exceed 100,000 for the first time on August 4. Of this 50% are in 8 southern states including Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. Florida is the worst affected state. Hospitals are again being overwhelmed with new cases of delta variant among the unvaccinated in August. Southern states have lagged behind in vaccination.

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There were 2.5 million encounters at the US Border in Trump's first term says the BBC, under Biden's first term this number quadrupled to 10 million. Had the Biden administration done what it did for China policy and tariffs, quietly leaving them in place and tried sincerely to listen and work with Republicans, replaced Mayorkas in 2021 June when the migrant numbers reached 200,000 far surpassing the 150,000 high under DJT, and negotiated a new law by the end of 2021, this would have stopped asylum, added resources and closed the border in a timely delivery of needed action.

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Unemployment in France for the 1st quarter of 2012 increased to 9.6%, an increase from 9.3% in the last quarter of 2011, according to Insee, France's statistics agency.

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The UK Energy Minister, Anne-Marie Trevelyan talks about her plans as the UK takes on the COP26 presidency and plans its own Green Industrial Revolution in 2021.