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With six and a half times the light gathering power of the Hubble telescope the new James Webb telescope will liftoff from the edge of the South American jungle into space. It will be folded into an Ariane 5 rocket and blasted off from French Guiana. The power of the new telescope will help it look deeper into the cosmos and farther in time, to open new windows into how the universe evolved after the Big Bang. John Mather a Nobel prize winning astrophysicist and NASA scientist says "we want to see the first galaxies growing."

The $10 billion truck size telescope will head out on a 29 day voyage to a spot four times as far as the moon, called the second Lagrange point, through 2026, collecting distant starlight and beaming back a stream of images and data. The ultrasensitive infrared sensors are designed to capture light emitted more than 13.6 billion years ago by primordial stars.

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China's food imports have grown from $15 billion to a staggering amount of $200 billion a year in 2023. China bought 90 million tons of soyabeans in 2022 or 60% of world trade, to make tofu and feed pigs, much of it from Russia. Fruit imports have grown after the pandemic with bananas from the Philippines and Cambodia, Durian and tropical fruit from Vietnam, And soy imports from Russia, shrimp from India, avocados from Kenya. Huge warehouses the size of plane hangars are used to store Durian fruit in Vietnam and have made farmers there rich. The problem in central highlands of Vietnam is "singularification," where farmers rip up land used for coffee crops and rice to plant durian whose price has doubled for exports to China. Durian is only in demand in China, coffee prices are stable and can be exported all over the world for Vietnam's Robusta coffee.

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Russian seaborne crude shipments are up 18% as of June 11 over the prior year, Iran's shipments up even more by 45%. The result is increased supplies even though the Saudis tried to increase oil prices by limiting production. China's economy is slowing and faces headwinds that will not go away anytime soon of debt close to 290% of GDP higher than US or Europe. And lower imports by the US and EU as they correct the mistakes of overconcentration in China. The European Union faces high inflation and a mild recession. This is cutting demand as supplies increase. It will help the Biden administration as it seeks to give all Americans a fair chance to improve their standard of living, by reducing the cost of living and investing in the economic potential of the country in a way no other adminstration has done in the last 40 years.

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Bidenomics and how it works for America- you don't have to have a college degree and two thirds of the workforce doesn't have one, you don't have to move and most people can't move to costly housing locations like California or New York. America can build here at home in chips, aviation and advanced technologies in scale and discovery that it has in its heritage. And you don't have to move when factories can go up in all parts of America, rural areas, small towns, and in neglected factory towns from a different era of the 50's and 60's. This is what Biden is doing with trillions of dollars in spending with the help of some Republicans sharing his vision for American Renewal. Not just talk- just substance, results. And cost of living- inflation cut in half from 2022 to 4%.

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The new White House Press Secretary is a decent choice. She is 27 years and yet brings plenty of experience with youthful enthusiasm- graduating from Catholic college St Anselm in New Hampshire, she joined the 2016 White House as an intern. She then worked as a speechwriter and assistant press secretary, preparing high profile briefings for Mary McEnany the last DJT press secretary. In 2022 she ran for Congress from New Hampshire, losing to Chris Pappas. In January 2024  she came back as press secretary for the DJT campaign. 

She has a degree in communications and political science. Before running for Congress in 2022 she served as communications director for Elise Stefanik, another youthful enthusaistic senior Republican Congressmwoman 40 years, who chaired the Repubican Conference and is the new UN ambassador. This gives her insight into international affairs as she draws on working with Elise Stefanik.

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Senator John Thune of South Dakota who had the support of Senators Daines and Mullin, and of retiring Republican Minority Leader won in a 3 way race against John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida. Scott of Florida had support of the MAGA allies of DJT. His liability was the way he had run the party as head of the Congressional campaign of 2022 with poor results. DJT stayed aloof from the race only saying he expected the Senate leader to defer to his policy for Ukraine.

Thune won 29 votes to 24 for Cornyn. His way of running the senate will be more open than Mitch McConnell's, getting more feedback from Senators, and more open to amendments. Priorities are securing the border and reauthorizing the tax cuts.

Thune seems a good choice so that the president gets to hear views of all members in the Senate and is well informed to make decisions.

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By large margins voters have favorable opinions of Harris and Walz. For 52% of the WSJ survey Harris has the right temperament to be president, for Trump this was 42%. 40% of voter sample have unfavorable views of Walz compared to 50% for Vance. 82% of the voter sample say they know enough information about Harris to make a firm opinion. Even though media presents it as people not so familiar with Harris. A big difference is seen in views about Project 2025- only 9% have favorable views of Project 2025 that would terminate civil servants, restrict abortion access, and end the Department of Education. 57% have unfavorable views of Project 2025, 53% very unfavorable views.

These are general trends. Harris is changing perceptions on her handling of the economy and cost of living by outlining her plans for specific action on housing, child care and food costs.

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European has a completely different perception of events in Europe than the US which has distanced itself. EU president Von der Leyen says- “A new era is upon us. Europe faces a clear and present danger on a scale that none of us has seen in our adult lifetime … We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times.” And it is has the room in its budgets and the willpower to back it up without US help. $30-$40 billion in EU aid to Ukraine when US aid to Ukraine ended this week by the DJT Trump administration. Part of the $650 billion in new defense spending found in the space left from lower spending for decades of less than 2%, from an increase of 1.5% in spending on defense. And the $150 in loans from joint EU borrowing on capital markets.

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This is a report on unfair trade with China. China and unfair trade resulting in a $295 billion trade surplus with US. China and unfair trade resulting in a $1 trillion trade deficit with the world. This has devastated manufacturing communities, workers and families, for 1 billion people in the US and Europe, and deprived India of opportunities in manufacturing for 1.4 billion people. Alongside this article we have CPA article showing losses in manufacturing and the cost to the American people using estimates of three types of losses in jobs, other jobs, and taxes that provide public services and infrastructure. The massive blow to America over the last decade of unfair trade and overconcentration of manufacturing in  China was for 25 million in job losses and $250 billion in local infrastructure and public services lost for workers and families in communities and towns across vast parts of America.

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The vast Permian Shale Basin is becoming more of a factory with disciplined large producers in 2024. More than one third of the production is from three producers Diamondback Energy, Exxon Mobil and Occidental compared to 30 mostly wildcatter companies in 2014. These companies are not likely to increase production in the way smaller companies did over the last decade when they increased production by over 10%. 

Over the period from now 2024 to 2030 production increases will be limited by geologic limits, older shale fields. Most onshore basins outside of Permian in the US are actually declining in production and production there is at about 4 million barrels a day.

Total production is about 13 million barrels of oil a day under president Biden and will only reach 13.5 million barrels a day by 2030. Employment 200,000 at the peak in 2014 is now a little over 100,000.

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The growth in U.S. GDP was 1.7 % in 2011, yet unemployment dropped by 0.7% in the last 12 months to 8.3% by Feb. 2012. A pickup in hiring is seen in job figures. Christina Romer gives as an explanation to the rise in unemployment in 2009 to 10%, more than expected, and the drop since then, to the overreaction of companies to the financial crisis by laying off workers and freezing hiring- with hiring picking up as conditions return to normal levels. The unemployment rate as defined is also not an accurate measure of the jobs situation, as it reflects only workers who are looking for work, and many workers drop out of the jobs market when they are discouraged especially the long term unemployed. Taking into account people who have dropped out of the labor markets the unemployment rate was 11% in Nov. 2009, according to Luce in the Financial Times- in Ezra Klein, Washington Post 12/12/2011, Wonkbook: Real unemployment rate 11%. Lawrence Katz, Harvard Labor economist also cites this as one of three jobs crises in unemployment today that need to be addressed, the other two being: foreclosures and debt, and the low number of jobs added because of automated manufacturing- in Friedman, NYT, 12/10/11, The Next First 100 Days. Explanations for the low GDP growth as unemployment declines is a likely productivity slowdown. Prof. Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, sees a slowdown in productivity. Worker output for every hour worked, how productivity is measured, increased only 0.4% in 2011 and 0.9% in the last 7 quarters, and is trending downward in the longer term. A more likely explanation is that unemployment is still at higher levels but is understated in unemployment figures....

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This Economist magazine editorial says the Republican plan for health care with its roll back of Medicaid expansion by limiting funding to states after 2020, and by scaling back subsidies especially for older Americans and not basing them on income levels, is likely to have its own problems just as the Affordable Care Act. One concern is that keeping healthy people in the market with a mandate that everyone have insurance is present but in a milder form with premiums going up by 30% in one year if they change their mind. There is concern that this may not work among insurers leading to an increase in premiums, pricing people out of the market in "a death spiral." This could lead to more people being priced out of the market as premiums rise. About 12 million people were added to Medicaid by increasing eligibility level to $16400, or 138% of poverty line- this reduced the uninsured from 16% in 2010 to 8.8% today. The Economist concludes that the Republican health care bill has its own problems, and that this bill does not clear up the problems in Obamacare by substituting Ryancare as the Republican bill is called. Peggy Noonan writing in the WSJ says this may have negative consequences for the new Republican base shift to populist support. Critics on the right like Rand Paul see even the reduced subsidies as an entitlement program, yet the Republicans can only change parts of the Affordable Care Act as they need 60 votes in the Senate where they only have a small majority.   ...

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A state wide ban on single use plastic bags goes into effect in New York state March 1, 2020. This is part of a global push to get rid of single use plastic bags that pollute the environment, end up in waterways, rivers, on trees and landfills. Some clues are offered here on why store owners still used plastic bags, and why large grocery chains still use plastic. The plastic bags cost much less than paper bags. Here one small store owner says 100,000 plastic bags cost him $2000, the same number of paper bags $15,000. New York state uses 23 million single use plastic bags a year. A public education campaign is underway. New York city requires stores to charge 5 cents per paper bag, with 3 cents going to an environmental fund and 2 cents to a the local government. Astonishingly for a large city in a developed country this report shows a Moroccan immigrant saying that it is already popular in her home country Morocco where the ban on single use plastic bags has reduced litter. Americans are not used to carrying reusable bags to the grocery store in the way Germans or people in other countries are. ...

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Toyota reported a 77% drop in earnings in the first quarter of 2011, with a large loss in the Japanese operations. The strong yen trading at 81 yen to the dollar is a significant factor. And for the first time Toyota's CFO Satoshi Ozawa said "we have reached the limits of profitable Japan based production at 80 yen to the dollar." Japanese operatios lost $2.4 billion. Honda reported a 38% drop in earnings for the 1st quarter.

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DW.com takes a deeper look at the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region of Azerbaijan now populated and controlled by ethnic Armenians. It has grown rapidly in the last decade at around 10% annual growth and 17% in 2017 with an influx of ethnic Armenians who have settled in the region with its higher average incomes. Karabakh has a large mining industry which provides employment for Armenians moving into Karabakh.  During the 1920's Azerbaijan and Armenia were part of the Soviet Republics which lasted till 1991. The Soviets made Karabakh part of Azerbaijan SSR with considerable autonomy. Since 1991 several wars have taken place with the largely Armenian population declaring itself independent of Azerbaijan.  Azerbaijan is three fifths Shiite and one third Sunni with close ties to its southern neighbor Iran, leading to efforts by Iran to mediate the conflict. There are social and political overtones for the conflict. Azerbaijan oil exports have been hit hard by the drop in the oil price and drop in global oil demand. Armenia has seen remittances from its 11 million Armenians living overseas drop by about 40%. Both countries face endemic corruption. Azerbaijan get 90% of export revenues from oil which is 40% of GDP. EBRD estimates exports fell by 25% in the first quarter and GDP will decline by 3% this year. Strict lockdown has also hurt the economy hard. Armenia expects a decline of 3.5% in GDP in 2020. Armenia is trying to tackle corruption with reforms since the Velvet Revolution in 2018. The conflict is a distraction from the economic and political situation, says Caucasus region expert Sylvia Stober. It could be politicians making a point as economic and social conditions deteriorate, with outside influence. Turkey has backed intervention in Libya and now supports Azerbaijan a Muslim neighbor.  Russia has a defense pact with its Orthodox Christian neighbor Armenia. In 2018 a short war lasted only 4 days when Russia intervened. This time Russia which has a defense pact with Armenia is looking to have Armenia join its Eurasia Economic Union. Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan looks to Europe for closer ties. Russia supplies both warring parties in this conflict and acts as a mediator in a ceasefire. Outside influence is aggravating the conflict which has now displaced about half the population in Karabakh.   ...

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Because not much money is being spent the velocity of money as measured by the ratio of GDP to M2 money supply is at a low not seen since 1991, in the 4th quarter 2008. If GDP shrinks in the 1st quarter 2009 at 6% annualized rate as expected, then M2 velocity will be the lowest since 1987, even with the accelerating growth of money supply growth. The M2 money supply, a measure of money in the system including time deposits has grown by $767 billion or 10% in the past year accoding to the Fed. Money that is not being spent is building up in amountain of cash reserves. Banks have about $679 billion in reserves of cash, and this matches the $653 billion by which money supply has increased during that time as aresult of the Fed's repeated infusions. This suggests that inflation is not the risk that it would appear to be, even with the governments huge spending plans and the Fed's efforts to add so much liquidity. Says one economist, the money multiplier is just not working and is broken. Will consumers start borrowing and spending again. Not as long as they are so overstretched and with job losses mounting. And will banks continue to cautious and slow to led? Most likely as long as the bank's balnce sheets are broken, and the bad assets remain on them. This may explain last weeks efforts by the Fed to buy Treasury bonds upto $300 billion and more efforts to get credit flowing again by buying up mortgage securities and raising the ceiling to $1.25 trillion for purchases. cash...

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China's tariff of 25% on cars imported from the U.S. is a  poor target says this report in WSJ, as most of the cars China imports from the U.S. are made by BMW, Mercedes and Tesla. China already has a 25% tariff on U.S. made cars.

The German cars are made at the Spartanburg plant and other plants of BMW and Mercedes in the southern U.S.

Tesla cars would also be hurt yet Tesla has supported the Trump administration tariffs as the existing 25% tariff makes it harder for Tesla to compete in the Chinese market. U.S. and European carmakers cannot hold more than 50% foreign ownership under China's rules in its auto market. As a result U.S. carmakers already have joint ventures in China and make most of the cars they sell inside China.

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The 2 tier wage system is scrapped at U.S. autoworkers Ford, GM and Fiat Chrysler after a vote following the Fiat Chrysler negotiations leads to a rejection of the system. This is a major achievement of UAW president Steve Williams and union members. All autoworkers can now have a path to the top factory wage of $29 per hour.

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In an effort to normalize trade relations Pakistan's government plans to move forward with a step by step approach that will end the restrictions on Indian imports by Jan 1, 2013. The first step is ending a system that allows a list of 2000 import items from India and replacing it with a list of 600 items from India that are banned, allowing the flow of all other goods. This negative list will be eliminated by the end of 2012 leaving in place restrictions on sensitive defense items and some staple goods. Ashfaque Khan, dean of Pakistan's National University of Sciences and Technology Business School advises the government on trade issues. The trade between India and Pakistan stands at $2.7 billion for the year ending March 2011. This is much smaller than the $60 billion in trade between India and China which is growing. The trade between India and Pakistan is likely to grow significantly in the next ten years as trade barriers are removed and normal trade is established.

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American companies, Google, Alcoa, Amazon and others are supporting the European Union's push towards reductions of carbon emissions for combating climate change. They are doing this by buying renewable energy through long term contracts that help reduce costs by about 10%. Google is doing this to support its data centers. Amazon is doing this with investments in wind farms in Ireland, and renewable projects in Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

The European Union plans to increase the proportion of renewable energy to 32% by 2030 at a cost of 260 billion euros.

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China's rapidly aging population is leading to a new problem of rapidly increasing rural suicides. With urbanization about half of the people over 60 have no adult children living with them and 10% live alone. With meagre savings there are more suicides in isolated communities. 

Over two decades the number of people over 65 has risen from 7% of the population to 12%. The one-child policy is only partly to blame. A rapid drop in births as seen in Latin America was also taking place in China with urbanization and modernization.

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The EU negotiator Mr. Barnier makes a concession on the Irish backstop which was already previously rejected by prime minister May. May says Mr. Corbyn of the Labour Party, that he was not really interested in finding a solution, and has given only one hour for talks in five weeks. The Irish prime minister Varadkar says May has not offered any solutions for Brexit. May says she will give parliament the chance to vote  for an extension of the March 29 date under Article 50 or decide if it wants a no-deal Brexit.

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Try these other museums in Paris knowing the Louvre and the Musee de Orsay get 10 million visitors and 4 million a year respectively. Other suggested museums in Paris 2026 are- the Musee de Metiers and the France National Archives. France National Archives will have a special exhibit on the Marquis de Lafayette for Spring and Summer. It comes at the right time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the US. Lafayette was a friend of Jefferson and fought alongside the Americans with George Washington. This should be an interesting exhibit.

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Alan Meltzer would like to see the Fed reverse its quantitative easing, and lower excess reserves gradually starting now. By this he hopes to see the Fed avoid the mistake of making a big shift from excessive ease to severe contraction further down the road. He also warns agains excessive deficit spending. He says a weak economy is not the time to cut spending or raise taxes, and he is not talking of draconian immediate steps. He would like to see a multiyear program to increase fiscal probity and reduce deficits size and frequency. As it stands now he takes both parties to task for lack of fiscal discipline and honest accounting. About $1 trillion in deficits each year on average for next 10 years is in the works, and is an underestimate because the savings of $200-$300 billion in medicare spending have still to be realized, and states do not have funds for increased Medicaid spending, and payments to doctors have still to go down by 25%. Chinese government purchases of half our debt will postpone the day of reckoning says Meltzer, but far better for us to strike at the problem now, before we blow a hole in the dollar and start a downturn. See the separate report on the shrinking UK economy....

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An increasing portion of Spain's 663 billion euros, or $876 billion, in home mortgages is likely to default. As unemployment rises and unemployment benefits run out for the unemployed more people are likely to default under the burden of large debt. Some of the largest Spanish banks are likely to need a bailout. Analysts estimate a bailout of Spain to be at least 200 billion euros or $264 billon. The large increase in the IMF Fund recently completed by IMF head Christine Lagarde may be designed to handle such a crisis.