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Krugman says crypto currency has become a huge, really huge player in campaign finance. He says it accounts for almost half of corporate spending on political action committees PAC's in 2024 election year in the US. He calls it startling that this is happening even though crypto currency destroys value. Krugman says crypto is not like fossil which is doing the same thing getting people to deny climate change yet with benefits from using fossil as a transition fuel, crypto not being a real industry at all.

Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman is clear that it has dangers for the American economy-

He says crypto rests on nothing but a perception that some day there might be a genuine use for these products. That we do not know when the government gets serious about regulating crypto marketing practices and policing its criminal uses. And adds that much of the $2 trillion in crypto may simply evaporate.

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The WSJ's Christopher Emsden and Alessandra Galloni's interview with Italy's Labor Minister, Elsa Fornero, after major changes to Italy's labor laws including Article 18. This is a major change for Italy. She describes the problems she faced and how she has tackled them to get the new labor law passed. Fornero will set up a monitoring system to ensure that the law's imprementation takes place smoothly. To make the change Fornero took apart Article 18 to its constituent elements, preserving the anti discrimination aspect and the right to appeal, but allowing employees to be terminated for economic reasons. This puts Italy on an even footing with its europartners Germany and France, and addresses one of the main reasons Italian businesses are loath to hiring new employees. It also addresses the main reason why foreign investment in the Italian economy is so scarce. In achieving this Fornero faced the lack of support from Confindustria, the business association (which does not cease to amaze her), CGIL, the labor unions, and the political class in Italy, with each side wanting to tweak the system to make gains or get special exemptions. Fornero is a pensions expert and economics professor at the University of Turin. Her ministry covers pensions, labor, welfare and equal opportunity policies....

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Fiat's Marchionne's decision to focus on the Fiat 500 and the Panda city car in the price sensitive European market. Fiat has no success in selling its Bravo larger car. In 2011 sales of the Bravo model were only 32,036 compared to VW Golf model sales of 522,370 in Europe, according to IHS Global Insight. Sales of the Fiat 500 were 119,836 units vs. sales of 83,150 for the BMW Mini in the first half of 2012. Fiat has suffered more than other automakers in the European market with sales decline of 16.7% compared to 7.2% decline for the overall market, for Jan-Sept 2012. Fiat's new plans are for five new Fiat models and three new Fiat light trucks in Europe between 2013-2016. Fiat launched the 500L minivan in Europe in Sept 2012. Fiat's European factories are running at 45% of capacity on average, and the European operations are likely to burn through 700 million euros in 2013, similiar to 2012, unlikely to breakeven before 2015 or 2016. This makes getting the product decisions right critical for Fiat. Fiat's chief in Europe, Gianluca Italia talks of the functional and emotional soul of Fiat cars for Europe in a emphasis on making Fiat's models in the price sensitive segments more distinctive and commanding a premium in the European market. Fiat's 500 has about a 25% premium over a similiar Ford Ka in its segment. The new Fiat 500 models will be exported to Asia and Latin America in an effort to increase capacity utlilization in its Italian factories....

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Pfizer coronavirus vaccine is shown to be 90% effective in results from Phase 3 trials. The findings come from a preliminary look at the first 94 infections in a group of 44,000 people in the trial. The vast majority of the cases received a control instead of vaccine. A vaccine is considered effective if it works on 50% of cases. The Pfizer vaccine is based on an experimental "mRNa" technology.

Britain has ordered 5 million till the end of 2020 and another 20 million for 2021. In total Pfizer plans to make a billion doses of the vaccine by 2021.

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Compared to the Trump Putin meeting in Helsinki when Trump went in casually into the meeting and Putin was late by half an hour, this meeting had a lot of preparation. Jill Biden when asked about it said "Oh my gosh he was overprepared." The meeting with Putin also came after Biden met with the G-7 in Cornwall, UK. He was briefed by EU officials, and had preparation with Blinken and Sullivan  before going into the meeting with Putin.  One result is that the meeting lays the ground for further discussions on many issues. By talking openly and plainly about US expectations from Russia- laying out expectations on cybersecurity and hacking, on arms control, on EU and other issues, the US made it possible to get tangible results. Both sides have an incentive to work for the interests of their countries including preventing another cold war, ensuring cyber security through mutual respect and US response capabilities, and arms control. One of the economic issues related to Nordstream 2 which was settled before the meeting with US respecting the wishes of Germany to go ahead with the project bringing Russian oil and gas through the seas to Germany. ...

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Exchange of remarks between Ben Bernanke of the Fed and James Dimon of JP Morgan Chase Bank on regulation and new capital reserve requirements for large U.S. banks. Fed governor Tarullo has proposed a 14% requirement of capital reserves for banks that are "too big to fail."

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A 1000 mile windswept coastline and 300 days of sunshine make the southern African nation of Namibia an attractive location for green hydrogen projects. Green hydrogen is produced using wind and solar energy. There is a 50 fold increase in green hydrogen projects in just the last 12 months globally. The costly technology needs many projects to get to lower costs through technological advances. Germany is doing a pilot project in Luderitz, Namibia. Luderitz will need a deep water project to ship the fuel out.   Renewable wind and solar energy is used to distil the hydrogen atoms in water, as opposed to the currently used method to maky hydrogen from fossil fuels, known as gray hydrogen, or blue hydrogen if the emissions from fossil fuels are captured. Namibia is chosen as its natural advantages could bring the costs down faster. Other locations being adopted are Morocco, Australia, and Chile. The two sites in Namibia had bids from Africa's Sasol, Australia's Fortescu, Germany's Enertrag and Hyphen Hydrogen.  Hyphen Hydrogen won the bid for the two sites. It says the $9.4 billion project is targeting 300,000 metric tons of green hydrogen production a year from 5 gigawatts of renewable energy generation capacity by 2030. "Now all of a sudden the desert has become valuable," says Namibia's finance minister Mr. Shiimi. Additional asset for Namibia is that it ranks highest after Cape Verde in Africa for transparency, creating ease of doing business. It is ranked 57 in Transparency International rank of transparency for countries in 2020. China is 78, India 86 in rank. Namibia is putting up $45 million for the feasibility study on the project with the sesert scrub land an hour from Luderitz, once a diamond mining town on a rocky Atlantic coastline in 1900. Two sites are located in the area each 675 square miles. South Africa is severely short of energy supplies and a pipeline is being considered to take the Namibian hydrogen to South Africa. The African region is expanding in renewable energy. Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya provides 17% of installed electricity capacity in Kenya with 365 wind turbines.     ...

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Borchers of the Washington Post reflects on why president Trump gave the long rambling interview in July 2017 to the NYT.  President Trump has  called the NYT both "failing" and "a crown jewel." He particularly respects the reporter Maggie Haberman, a reporter with whom Trump has a long relationship and whose reporting he respects. Haberman is seen by Trump as an influential political reporter, whose view counts, and who can be critical but also seeks to be fair in reporting. During the election campaign the NYT carried reporting critical of Trump, yet it also had reporters who were critical of Hillary Clinton. In many ways both the NYT and the WSJ from different points of view seek a place in the middle with fair reporting, needed particularly in today's politics where ideology sometimes trumps common sense and U.S. traditions of fairness.

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Ranil Wickremesinghe of Sri Lanka, both Finance Minister and Prime Minister during this economic crisis, says to The HIndu in this interview- "It's hectic, this is a new experience. I am working eight days a week." He says he will firm up the staff level agreement with the IMF by June. Then he says comes the debt restructuring plan that gives a clear indication of what Sri Lanka has to do. By July there will be also the interim Budget.  He said "I must say that Indian assistance has helped us get through these difficult times." He says in addition to the $3.5 billion he is hoping to get another $500 million assistance for fuel. On austerity path Sri Lanka faces he says we have agreed with the IMF that vulnerable groups will have to be supported. He said if we look at what are called tough conditions, even if the IMF were not there, we would have to do it. The advantage of going with the IMF, you get something or everything. If you were to do it on your own you get nothing. On austerity he said yes there has to be austerity but we want it to be for the short term, so that even if 2023 will be a difficult year, in 2024 we can start moving. On the Adani investment of $500 million and Mr. Modi, he says  that he emphatically welcomes it. We need it at this moment and it is a good sign that investors are coming in, said Wickremesinghe. Look he said if anyone else in India wants to invest another $500 million I am not objecting. He said Sri Lanka needs to use its potential for wind energy which is big. ...

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Shehbaz Sharif 70,  is the younger brother of a three term prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif. He ran Punjab province, the country's largest state when his brother was prime minister. In this way he brings substantial experience to the problems of the economy that now face many developing economies such as Pakistan.  First on the agenda is to normalize relations with the US, rebuild ties with India, and restart negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Pakistan faces severe inflation of 14% and devaluing currency that makes imports costlier as the foreign currency reserves have dropped to alarming levels of $24 billion when annual import needs are at about $56 billion. This has a direct impact on cost of living, standards of living and on industry. Shehbaz Sharif understands the situation and has said restoring the economy "will take effort, effort and more effort." A similar statement has been made by Mr. Modi in Hindi "sab ka viokas, sab ka prayas" which also mean effort, effort and more effort, which all of South Asia and Bay of Bengal, and South East Asian countries needs considering the impact of Covid pandemic, and now inflation from the war in Europe hitting food supplies. The situation is grim in other parts of South Asia- in Myanmar, in Sri Lanka, in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia. The popular sentiment is also shifting as seen in the Indian part of the old British Punjab province. Mostly Sikh this part of old Punjab state in India made a complete change bringing in a new party Aadmi to improve the economy and provide good governance. In this situation all governments are expected to deliver on good governance and the economy.   ...

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The step by step process Mr. Obama used to arrive at his decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The use of charts showing the buildup at one of the last meetings, and how President Obama expressed frustration at the length of time the troops would be there, and then says "I want this curve pushed to the left," pointing to the bell curve showing buildup and withdrawal after some years. This says Baker may be the pivotal moment for the expansion of the war. What he meant was something like a fast buildup and rapid draw down. He asks Petraeus how fast the Iraq buildup for the surge took place, and Petraeus says 6 months. The option being discussed was Option 2A carefully prepared to get a30,000 troop addition approved by Defense Secretary Gates and presented to Mr Obama on November 11, 2009. What Obama said at that point was according to NYT reporter Baker's sources is - "What I'm looking for is a surge, this has to be a surge." Gates was the seasoned person in saying the right things at just the right time and not sooner in these negotiations. The process had seen alot of back and forth swings, leaks including the McChrystal report leak and the Ambassador Eikenberry report leak, and the President preferring to keep his thoughts to himself and using University of Chicago law school style analytical thinking to wade through the swamp of issues in this place called Afghanistan. With that Gates shows how that curve can be moved up and gets the President to allow for conditions at the time to be the factor for withdrawal conditions. In effect the President's analytical thinking an approaches good for a law class in the University of Chicago and potentially very unlikely to allow for agrasp of the muddied details and complexities of social, political and historical type in Afghanistan, were being applied to a crucial mind decision that would have a mind boggling impact. Had Gates served the country well? Had Mr Obama served the country well with these analytics, when a more intuitive decision based on understanding of all the conditions on the ground by talking to different people who had first hand experience in Afghnistan and Pakistan- see the links here to first hand reports- would have accomodated the peculiarities of the Afghan situation better than some charts and numbers? Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Obey had indicated lack of support among Democrats. The Budget Office had provided a cost estimate of 1 trillion dollars for 10 years. None of this appeared to matter in the final decision. NATO would supply the additional troops to get the number closer to 40,000. Gates had been the most seasoned player through years of negotiating with Congress, and he helped formulate Option 2A for 30,000. The President makes one final Professorial comment at the final meeting on November 29, 2009, after announcing his decision to support Option 2A, -"but if you don't agree with me say so now" and repeats saying "tell me now." Gates signals to Vice President Biden who inquires whether this is a Presidential order that it is one. Mullen and Petraeus say "fully support." America had by using charts numbers and law school analytical processes turned the complexities of Afghnistan into something else, but these analytics had still to be played out in the vast mountainous spaces of Afghanistan and in the homes and workplaces of America in 2010 and beyond. It is hard not to sense that something serious was lost that day. ...

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The Times concludes that neither Bolsonaro or Lula have the policies needed to put Brazil on the development and growth track. Both fell short of the 50% needed in the first round of elections. This election has been hotly contested in Minas Gerais and other states with the public evenly divided.

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Hindenburg Research is a short seller who launched an attack on the Adani Group of infrastructure companies in India. Adani Group companies lost about 18.5% of their stock value after the attack. Hindenburg Research is based in New York City and was founded by Nathan Andersen in 2017. It has 5 employees.

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Israel informed the US 6 hours before military target strikes on Iran. This followed 180 ballistic missiles launched by Iran against Israel. This report says Israel has followed president Biden's advice not to strike oil targets. Biden said if I were the Israelis I would not strike oil targets. 

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Bernanke in reflections on his policies for quantitative easing in response to the 2008 financial crisis, says the policies were intended to protect Main Street and the average American, even though this is not readily apparent. He says the policies did not lead to inflation as critics have stated, and one has only to look at today's inflation statistics to know this- referring critics to the government CPI report in Jan 2014 that consumer prices went up by 1.5% in 2013 and less than 2% for 2012. Bernanke says he hopes he took the right actions, and still retains the conviction that the American economy will recover losses from the 2008 financial crisis- even though the answers to this questions won't be seen for some time.

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Streets in Marseille with tons of rubbish piling up as garbage bin workers seeking a 21 hour week go on strike in Marseille, France. Much has changed in European countries as countries such as India work on a Clean India effort to clear up rubbish through Swacch Bharat campaign.

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China's central bank reduces its reserve requirement ratio, required money set aside by commercial banks and not used for lending. It lowered by half percentage point to 13% the amount of reserves Chinese banks are required to set aside. As the economy has cooled recently with trade tensions with the U.S., China's growth has slowed to 6%. The move frees up $126 billion for lending. In a speech this week president Xi used the word "struggle" over a dozen times. The State Council has plans to allocate more money for vocational training, to expand railways construction.  Analysts of S&P recently estimated China's economic growth over the next decade at 4.6% on average if the trade dispute gets to a stalemate, if trade dispute worsens it could drop to 3.7%. The trade dispute has dampened the mood at China Development Forum in Beijing, with attendees saying the distrust between the U.S. and China is based on deep concerns about each other. Besides the lending increase planned, the central government is pushing local governments to find projects to create jobs. Local governments fear this would worsen the already high debt burden they carry. ...

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This report by Goodman in the NYT shows that the ANC has lost most of the moral authority it had under Mandela. After 9 years under president Zuma, and after the term of his predecessor Mr. Mbeki from 1999-2008, South Africa remains stuck with stagnant economy, and about two thirds of young people in the townships being jobless. The challenge is how to change the economy to where growth is generated and benefits go to a broader section of the population. Problems the new president Ramaphosa faces are how to change the protections given to conglomerates that dominated the economy under Apatheid, and the patronage network that evolved with the ANC in the post Apartheid era. Growth performance of the South African economy is dismal. According to the World Bank the South African economy in 2016 was about the size of the economy in 2009. Many warnings about the economy and the operation of the state run electric utility appeared during Mr. Zuma's presidency, including one by former president De Klerk. Growth in 2018 is expected to be only about 1.1%. The economic gains by the largely black population have suffered with lack of growth and mismanagement of the economy. Official unemployment is at 27%, with about two thirds of the young people in the townships being jobless.  ...

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Venetians say their city is being invaded by hordes of tourists who live in hotels on Mestre and cross a causeway to come to Venice. Venice gets an estimated 2 million tourists. A new referendum seeks to separate the city administration of Venice from Mestre giving Venice the autonomy to protect the city against floods and overburdening by tourists. Mestre has 3 times the population of Venice and is on dry land so that decisions made in Mestre are not in the interests of Venice.  The referendum is intended to stop cruise ships from coming to Venice at a time when new hotels are coming up in Mestre. The mayor and city administration oppose the referendum creating a situation after the damage caused by floods on November 12 which show how chaotic it is. Seventy two submersible yellow flood gates designed to prevent the flood were tested and could have been made activated on November 12, but no action was taken, causing about $1 billion in damage. The city is offering $5000 as compensation for businesses, but a bakery that sustained close to $77,000 of damage like other businesses is looking to the referendum to change the way the place is governed.  ...

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A new security law for Hong Kong is passed at the end of a weeklong session of the National People's Congress. This gives China's agencies powers to police activities in Hong Kong and removes Hong Kong's autonomous status established by a treaty with Britain that arranged the handover in 1997. 2878 lawmakers voted with one dissent. China says it is intended to control separatism, terrorism and foreign interference in Hong Kong. It bypasses Hong Kong governing authorites and the effect is that it removes the "one country, two systems" basis of the handover by the British.  This sets the stage for the U.S. to remove Hong Kong special status in trading relations. The U.S. is joined by Canada, Australia and Britain in expression of "deep concern," and Japan has also said it is "seriously concerned" and "will address the situation in an appropriate manner." Under the U.S. Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992 the U.S. treated Hong Kong as autonomous for trade and economic matters. Mr. Pompeo, the Secretary of State for U.S. says this status will no longer continue. As supply chains are being reassessed during the coronavirus, the end of autonomous status for Hong Kong would mean the beginning of a new period in changing economic relations across Asia and the Pacific. ...

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Initially Microsoft will be making a large outlay for TikTok which will affect its margins as TikTok has still to be profitable. The longer the deal is put off the less value for TikTok closer to the September 15 date when the U.S.bans it completely. Tiktok is losing money on about $1 billion in revenues, so is SnapChat with double the revenue base. So that Microsoft under Nadella which is careful to in making investments of this kind needs to consider the impact on Microsoft's profitable business. Only Linked In has been a profitable acquisition for Microsoft, others Nokia, Skype and the possible acquisition of Yahoo have failed badly.

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Rob Copeland describes the comeback of Citadel hedge fund and its founder Ken Griffin. During the 2008 financial crisis the firm almost collapsed with $8 billion in losses. It recovered only by barring clients from withdrawing money for 10 months, and slowly selling distressed assets as the market recovered. It took over 3 years to make up losses. Leverage at the time was high with 3 dollars of borrowed money for $1 in client money. Leverage in 2015 is higher at $7 of borrowed money for $1 of client money. In 2012-2015 three year period, by taking aggressive positions early, Citadel has made $3 billion. It is now engaged in many investments including commodities, buying and selling securities for other investors, trading, fixed income, global equities. To offset the higher risk Citadel bets equally on up and down markets, so that only 52% of stock bets need to work, according to Griffin. Copeland shows the highly intense nature of the business, large turnover of managers, the atmosphere on the 37th floor of the Chicago offices with 500 scenarios being simulated of the hedge fund's investments, and analysts looking at 36 screens of 14,000 investment positions. After the 2008 financial crisis highly leveraged activity continues at Citadel, just as other hedge funds have pulled back and targeted lower returns in mid to high single digits, or to improve their image. Citadel assets increased from $16 billion to $26 billion since the beginning of 2014, with higher returns of over 25% in its main investment funds Kensington and Wellington in 2013. The average hedge fund made returns of 6.2% in 2013, according to analysis by firm Hedge Fund Research. As part of risk mitigation Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has joined the firm as advisor- in 2008 the Fed was questionning this type of highly leveraged activity that led to the collapse of Lehman and Bear Stearns. Of the top ten hedge funds only Millenium Management and Citadel had leverage this high in reports to the SEC under Dodd Frank of regulatory assets that include borrowings for investment, showing systemic risk that remains in the financial system....

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In the year ending March 31 Indians had $14 billion on their cards, 4 times the amount of 2004. According to ratings agency Crisil the amount of unsecured loans and credit card receivables more than 3 months overdue is aabout 7% to 9% of total loans outstanding this year and could go as high as 15%. One of the leading banks ICICI has lifted its provisions for bad loans by more than 43% to 9.24 billion rupees ($185 million). The number of credit cards in India has tripled to 30 million in the past 5 years. Regulations on lending were relaxed leading to car loans and cards being issued to people in rural areas and lower income groups without regular salaries.

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Public opinion in Germany now senses that politicians including Angela Merkel are reluctant to tell Germans that debt reduction has to be part of the solution for Greece, that some of the billions are lost and never coming back. They sense that Merkel and the Christian Democrats are waiting till after the elections in 2013 to bring this up directly. Even people on the street in Berlin know that Greece can never get back on its feet on the basis of spending cuts without debt reduction. The loan instalment approved in Nov. 2012 reflects the new approach of debt reduction but the German government is reluctant to talk about it. Opposition parliamentary leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the Social Democrats told ZDF German television: "The debt cut has not been avoided, it has been postponed to a time after the parliamentary elections. We are realistic and try to tell the people honestly and sincerely whats going on. Schauble and the present government try once more to finagle their way around the truth." Greece's debt has already reached 170% of GDP and can only go up as the economy shrinks further in year after year of recession. Norbert Barthle, a senior Christian Democrat, says if the debt reduction takes place today it sends the wrong signal to all the program countries, reducing the pressure for reforms and changes....

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Prime minister Matteo Renzi focussed on some critical aspects of how other Europeans see the negotiations in the Greece bailout in June 2015. Considering that the EU had relaxed conditions for the surplus, a critical condition for reducing austerity programs in Greece and focussing on reforms, and considering the high unemployment not insisted on further cuts to the public sector employees, the conditions put forward focussing on reforms such as collection of taxes are seen as essental by other eurozone countries, including Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy. Renzi told II Sole 24 Ore- "The point is that Greece may get different conditions, but it has to abide by the rules. It's not the case that we have taken early retiremnt pensions away from the people of Italy just to allow the Greeks to have them! We have brought in labor reform, but it is not the case that, with our money, a number of Greek shipowners can continue not to pay taxes.. I could go on." If he went on he would cite the tax collection laws and methods in Italy which were changed under prime minister Monti to tackle tax evasion in Italy, with no effort to collect the $11 billion in estimated taxes that are not collected in Greece. Italy banned cash payment above 1000 euros and started a cross referencing initiative to tackle tax evasion under premier Monti. Greece took up tax evasion legislation in 2010 in parliament but opposition from many groups led to no action. In 2012 Labor minister Elsa Fornero broke down in tears as she described raising the retirement age for women to 66 in the private sector from 60, saying this was to prevent "collective impoverishment." Italy lacks childcare and older women help with childcare for grandchildren. Renzi was probably thinking of these changes in Italy. He went on to say- " If there is a mass get-out clause over the rules, what will happen in Spain in October? And in France in a year and half? It is one thing to ask for flexibility amid abidance by the rules. It is another thing to think that one is the craftiest of them all, in other words to be the that does not abide by the rules. We want them to save Greece. But the people of Greece also have to want that." On tax evasion and other issues for long term financial health Greece is seen as not following basic financial rules for sustaining the euro....