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President Trump says he is considering restoring funding to the WHO, but reduce the overall funding by 90%. He told Lou Dobbs of Fox News he would reduce the funding to 10% of what the U.S. was paying, to bring it to the level China was paying. China pays only 10% of what the U.S. pays and has a much larger influence on the WHO. In this crisis this has affected the normal WHO response to virus epidemics as much of the pre crisis development was missed by the WHO, and the WHO failed to ensure transparency from all its members so that international cooperation could happen very early to prevent the virus from spreading quickly. 

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Multiplan helps health insurers make billions says this report in NYT.

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Retail sales in China dropped sharply. Retail sales dropped from double digit increases for most of 2014-2017 to single digits in 2018- sales dropping to 8.1%. Government restrictions to prevent a housing bubble restrained housing sales, and policies to control corporate debt limited growth. Higher inflation for food and housing, have led to asharp pullback in growth of consumer spending.  Trade tensions with the U.S. have hurt consumer sentiment. The feeling that China's growth would stabilize because of its connections to the world economy is fading as consumers see persistent trade tensions with the U.S. including tariffs of upto 60% in tit for tat actions as hurting China's prospects.  The GDP growth is expected to be about 6.5% for 2018 according to government estimates, which experts say is actually much less or even half that as exporters retrench in the face of slack demand in China and lower sales to the U.S.  Rail and other infrastructure projects that were considered unsuitable are now being given approval in efforts to boost the economy. More tax cuts and expanded deficit spending are policies likely to be followed.  At foreign companies no overtime, and job cuts are commonplace especially in the auto industry. ...

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Latin America has made a huge turnaround through successful vaccination drives. Today more people are vaccinated as a percentage of the population in Latin America at 62% than in the US at 56% or Europe at 60%, according to Our World in Data project at Oxford University. There is little resistance to vaccines in Latin America after successful vaccine campaigns against yellow fever and other diseases. During the first year of the pandemic Latin America had one third of the deaths in the world with 8% of the population. Deaths after vaccination drives have dropped to 8%.  Brazil with 617,000 deaths from coronavirus was second only to the US with 800,000 deaths. Brazil is now back to normal after a successful vaccination drive that has 66% of the population fully vaccinated, and 80% with one dose, some of the highest rates in the world, according to Our World in Data at Oxford University. In Colombia with 50 million population about 50% of people are fully vaccinated. Cases have dropped from 30,000 in June to 2000 a day and deaths from 700 daily that month to 50 a day in December 2021. In Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital, 83% of three million population are fully vaccinated, 14% have received a booster. Buenos Aires city health minister says Argentine society has an affinity for vaccination campaigns. "They rapidly accepted receiving them," he says. Yet from the point of view of new variants emerging there is a different situation in rural areas. In industrial states such as Sao Paulo 78% are fully vaccinated, yet less than 40% are fully vaccinated in poor Amazon state of Roraima.   We make it a point to honor the brave reporters in these countries who provide the reports in the WSJ, as we did earlier for NYT Stephanie Nolan's reports from South Africa and Zambia about frontline workers against Omicron in Africa.  Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo, Jenny Carolina Gonzalez in Bogota, and Sylvina Frydlewsky in Buenos Aires and Kejal Vyas writing this report from San Salvador. ...

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WSJ looks at how the relationship between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris evolved. From the faltering start when Harris was contesting for the presidential nomination and made sharp debate comments on segregationist senators and Biden, to her entry into the White House as Vice President dissolving her political action committees and not bringing her election people to the White House. The first assignment was on immigration and the White House asking Harris to tell Central Americans not to come to the US border did not exactly work out. Guatemala was in the middle of a drought affecting its agriculture and sending more people from the affected regions to the US Border. That message did not work and Harris came under criticism. There was less contact with Biden during the years 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.   Gradually though the president came to listen to Harris and set up a weekly lunch meeting. When Supreme Court nominations were to be made Biden relied on Harris's advice. Ketanji Jackson nomination to the Supreme Court came out of these talks with Harris. Then came Roe and Wade and the president who was not outspoken on this issue realized that Harris was better at communicating a common vision of what America stood for and the importance of reproductive freedoms. When Hamas attacked Israel, the response of Netanyahu was leading to an humanitarian disaster. President Biden listened to Harris describe the need for a Palestinian state and it building peace with Israel as the only real solution to the crisis. Biden sent Harris three times to the Munich Security Conference, and each year she met Mr. Zelensky and discussed the Ukraine issues with European leaders. Then came the debate performance and Democrats questioning Biden's health. Harris remained steadfast in her support till the end and on July 23 after announcing his withdrawal the previous day Biden told Kamala as he addressed Wilmington headquarters staff- "I'm watching you kid. I love ya." And Harris said "I love you." ...

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Corporate concentration with larger companies, each more dominant in its industry, and fewer companies controlling half of U.S. corporate profits, are trends economists say that hurt wages, create income inequality, shrink the middle class and lead to less consumer welfare. About 30 companies control half of U.S. corporate profits in 2018 compared to 109 in 1975, according to economists at the University of Arizona. Fewer companies in each industry mean less competition for workers, and less leverage for workers in setting wages. Apple Computer just reached the trillion dollar size and Amazon is close to doing this with its dominance in online shopping. Amazon is known for lower wages in its industry. Apple has some of the highest profit margins in  industry, and trends show the margins have risen between cost of making a product and price in an unprecedented way. The result is higher corporate profits and labor commanding a declining share of the nation's wealth. ...

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The figures are staggering. $380 billion of $400 billion in Nigerian oil revenues estimated lost to corruption and waste from 1960 to 1999. This is the estimate given by Nigeria's top anticorruption official and quoted in the NYT. Meanwhile life expectancy in Nigeria is about 47 years and little of the oil revenues goes to infrastructure, health, education and investment to improve the lives of Nigeria's people. The oil companies after years of bad publicity, Shell and Exxon, appear to be shrugging their shoulders that there is little they can do beyond their own small investments, $100 million by Shell and $22 million by Exxon each year on roads and other related infrastructure. The western oil companies typically get 7% of the profits from oil sales, with the government keeping 93%, according to the NYT. Mouwad describes life inside a 50 acre area in Port Harcourt which houses Italians working for oil company Eni. A militant movement MEND is fighting in the Delta region to have more resources devoted to this neglected region of Nigeria. The result is that life is becoming difficult for foreign oil workers in the area. About 13% of oil revenues go to the states but corruption and waste eat up the money at the state level too. The River States budget is an example, of about $1.3 billion budget only $22 million goes to health services, helicopter services and catering for the governor's office alone cost $38 million and $10 million. MEND the delta region organization wants more money for the delta states and is organizing disruption of oil production as a method to make itself heard. This has increased the need for security consultants to protect oil company property and personnel. Already a quarter of Nigerian oil production has been shut down....

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Changes Novartis CEO Daniel Vasella is making in the pharmaceutical business. He has hired Joe Jimenez, who is running Novartis's consumer health care business to be the new pharmaceutical division chief. Jimenez previously worked at packaged goods companies including H.J. Heinz Company. Jimenez is cutting 25% of the jobs at pharmaceutical division's headquarters in Basel to reduce bureaucracy and costs. In March he promoted Trevor Mundel and Andrin Oswald, 2 young executives, to head the drug developmet group which puts drugs through human testing and submits them for regulatory approval. This group had become too bureaucratic and slow to move and take initiative. To improve its functioning Jimenez is organizing it into small teams with each team assigned an experimental drug in Novartis's pipeline. Each team of 8 people including physicians, experts in regulatory affairs and marketing and toxicologists work together to spot potential safety issues early and discuss them with regulators to determine whether to put the drug through expensive clinical trials. Each team takes the responsibility to take its drug to the market. The pharmaceutical unit is also being organized to be more nimble. It solicits health systems early on whether its willing to pay for drugs. And Jimenez has startd 4 pilot projects in tough markets to improve relationships with payers, including the Pacific Northwest where Novartis has offered to train an HMO's nurses in aspects of heart disease. Vasella supports the generics division of Sandoz because the growth is in generics, with generics commanding 60% of the prescription volume in Germany and USA, and sales for generics up 25% this year in the generics division. And Novartis paid $39 billion for Alcon, a eye care company. Its also working aggressively in the vaccines business, which like generics enjoys double digit growth. ...

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There is a difference between the two candidiates. Most of Obama's tax policies are vague or not clear. This risks having higher taxes costing more than $648 billion over 10 years according to the Tax Policy Center. Taxpayers would shrink from 62% to 50% of households and there would be a hodge podge of tax credits. On energy McCain is pushing for nuclear energy and Obama is not giving this option enough importance. Obama would probably give more importance to higher taxes and redistribution of income and building infrastructure but sweeping changes in taxes increasing taxes for the middle class and having many tax credits is something that needs careful thought not to reverse the positive benefits of lower taxes and simpler tax code improvements of recent years. With Obama fuzzy on how much the tax system would be changed and its impact on the middle class and working class it will be a question on voter's minds. Because some way has to be found to pay for increased spending on infrastructure and healthcare. And though its largely accepted that something effective has to be done for health care for middle and working classes in the country its important that it be well thought out and free of special interests on one hand and free of political bias so that creative and useful solutions can be be made to take advantage of the unique situation the United States is in. Its not clear that the junior Senator has the experience and the understanding of this vast subject that would be needed to come up with the right system of health care for this country as any hastily put together solutions would not be likely to be the best ones....

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Peter Bernstein's says it is vital to address the household sector that is the root of the problem. And the only way to do this effectively is to change the terms of the mortgages themselves and stop the flow of foreclosures, with the government taking on some of the losses from these changes in the mortgage terms. First, he says, thats where the crisis has originated. Second, in the previous recessions the household sector was not the problem, in this one it is the problem. Without returning it to better health, America cannot reverse the devastating course of this recession. Households are the primary customers of American business, and the wave of foreclosures, dropping house prices and job losses, destroy the optimism and morale of millions of Amrericans. "The risk here is not just humanitarian. Indeed the risk is also the preservation of the social structure of democracy and the future progress of America, " says Bernstein. Essentially Bernstein is saying that President Obama should put campaign promises for health care reform, and other agenda after addressing this issue. Obama has extended unemployment insurance as afirst step, he has responded to Detroit's auto industry needs, and has set up the stimulus package. But in the household sector and on mortgages the response has ben weak, thus letting this problem grow and leaving the roots of the crisis unattended. "To intervene promptly, directly and powerfully to counter the home price debacle" has not happened. Something that the New York Times has repeatedly stated in its editorials, including one last week. And without this hope and optimism is not likely to be built on firm ground. A sudden recovery in the stock markets, as in the 2nd quarter 2009, cannot substitute. ...

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This story about companies in Australia that have tried a four day week shows employees using two mini weeks working Monday and Tuesday, taking off Wednesday and back to work for Thursday and Friday. It shows employees planning their Mondays and Tuesday miniweek in such a way that they can handle important work and meetings ahead of time. They come back recharged and renewed on Thursday, with Wednesday as the day to break up the work week in two. This has increased productivity at these companies. This is also a useful idea for older employees who work part time and work past usual retirement ages of 60 or 65 years as longevity increases in many countries. This enables retaining the vast experience of older workers in the workplace and promoting the health of older workers by keeping them active. As Japan, the U.S. and Europe and even China become aging societies this is becoming ever more important.  For worker on five day weeks this offers creative ideas to have a four and half day week giving workers a morning off or an afternoon off to recharge with sports or recreation activity or exercize, then coming back to work recharged in the afternoon. Other variations can also be used which promote productivity and employee satisfaction to get more of the most valuable work done more effectively and with enthusiasm, pushing less important work and time wasting out of the way. Employees generally would take charge of their work day and come up with creative and efficient ways of organizing their mini work weeks. ...

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Rishi Sunak, Britain's finance minister, defends the increase in the corporate tax rate to 25%, saying the increased receipts from corporate tax in recent years were because of cyclical recovery of corporate profits which took a hit in the financial crisis. He says that the cuts in the rate by George Osborne, former Tory finance minister, have not led to increased business investment. Osborne cut taxes to 20% from 29%, lowest in G20 countries and Hammond who succeeded Osborne as finance minister cut the rate to 19%. At 25% the corporate tax will still be the lowest in the G7 countries. France, Japan and Germany have corporate tax rate of 30-31%. Higher taxes would help finance needs for government investment in infrastructure and health services, public services, and tackle the financial situation arising out of the pandemic support. The last time taxes were raised was in 1973. This also shows that the UK and the rest of the world is looking at the mixed results shown from cutting taxes. Business investment has not resulted from the business tax cuts in the way that would support creating job growth, some of the investment only supporting automation. The investment in infrastructure is lacking from the business sector leading to the need for government to use taxes for renewal in updating infrastructure. The rise of China with new infrastructure has only shown the problems with simply cutting taxes in the hope that job growth, economic growth, infrastructure growth would happen as hoped. This is why the Tories under Boris Johnson are trying a new approach to get the job done. ...

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The dire situation for basic education in the U.S. states during the pandemic in 2020 and what this means for children growing up is the subject of this WSJ report. Early retirements and quarantines have forced some school administrators to have parents, even bus drivers to conduct classrooms with children. Asymptomatic teachers are allowed in classrooms. Public school employment in U.S. in November was down 9% from February lowest since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics. The shortage is compounded by layoffs of support staff such as teachers' aides and clerical workers, leaving the burden to be taken up by teachers.  More than 40 states in the U.S. report shortfalls in math, science and special education. The worse off states include Arizona, where school districts were not able to hire certified teachers for 78% of 6,145 open positions in August, and one third of the positions are still vacant. This report looks at the situation and the damage as teachers handle larger classes of over 50 children, do online and in person classes simultaneously, deep clean their classrooms, and take turns as crossing guards. The result burnout for teachers, more teachers quit, parents are frustrated and students do not make progress. Much of the capital investment allocation in the U.S. has gone badly wrong with capital chasing a tech industry with the industry reaching saturation and diminishing returns in, in speculative ventures, at the neglect of infrastructure, manufacturing, health and education. A recent WSJ article points to dilapidated or outdated infrastructure as one of the reasons American manufacturing has suffered. ...

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The Labour party's support for not withdrawing from the European Medicines Agency is the subject of an argument after Prime Minister's Questions in the British parliament. Labour leader Keir Starmer confronts prime minister Boris Johnson in parliament after Johnson reminds Labour that it had on repeated occasions called for the UK not to withdraw from the European Medicines Agency.  The UK vaccination drive is far ahead of the vaccination drive in European Union countries including France and Germany, because of British initiative in boldly betting money on vaccine supplies with pharmaceutical companies, and earlier approval by the UK health regulatory authority. Here is the comment in the House of Commons by Boris Johnson- "If we had listened to (Starmer), we would still be at the starting blocks because he wanted to stay in the European Medicines Agency and said so four times from that dispatch box." Starmer disputes the statement. The Times cites Hansard, the official record of the House of Commons. It records that Starmer questioned why Britain would want to withdraw from the Medicines Agency in Jan. 2017. In 2018 Labour party supported an Amendment to the Trade Bill that called for the UK to seek participation in the European Medicines Agency. Germany, Spain and France are hit hard by the second wave of the coronavirus and the lack of adequate vaccine supplies is causing grief in European Union. The EU president Von der Leyen, another European Union style bureaucrat, seen as having bungled the handling of vaccine supply. ...

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AARP shows 29 million Americans working and taking care of older parents. Many work 40 hours a week and work an additional 20 hours helping elderly parents. About six out of ten people of this 29 million work full time. In 2024 a lot more people are living longer and older people prefer staying in their own homes and need help from family members. A simple fall or a cancer diagnosis can lead to long hospital stay, months of treatment, and worrying for family members. Company benefits in 2024 do not include senior or eldercare support or even accomodating employees caring for their parents. In America today federal and state laws do not protect people caring for elderly parents from discrimination in the workplace. Consider how this is affecting companies, as about one third who are caregivers say they are going to leave, and half of the employees leaving are senior manager and executives with much experience. This comes to about 5 million senior managers and executives that American industry can ill afford to lose as it competes with China, India and Europe. About half of all companies are making this a priority in 2024, according to Care.com. Citigroup added 2 weeks of paid leave to care for immediate family member. Companies allow employees to add older parents on their health insurance. These benefits are being added to maternity and paternity leave. The fact that Congress and state legislatures have failed to enact laws protecting caregivers is one more reason for the discontent and unrest in the US after the pandemic. ...

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Olympus kept losses dating back to the bubble in the 1990's off its books for 2 decades. Then covered up the losses by paying inflated fees to advisors for acquisitions unrelated to its core camera and medical equipment business. Three companies in health food, resource recycling and cookware manufacturing were acquired. The coverup of losses was disclosed by the company's first British born CEO, Michael Woodford, who lasted only 2 weeks. He was fired for damaging Olympus's reputation when he made disclosures about the coverups. Olympus paid about $687 million in advisory fees to a firm in the Cayman Islands, for a $2 billion takeover of medical instrument company, Gyros, in 2008. Shares of Olympus have fallen 70% as a result.

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The slow growth on spending in services is affecting economic recovery in the U.S. in 2011-2012. Spending on discretionary services since the second quarter of 2009- other than housing and health care- is up 2.8% according to Wall Street Journal analysis of Commerce Department data. This is affecting gym memberships, eating out, air travel, and other postponable purchases. By comparison spending on consumer goods is holding up better. Spending on goods was up 9.1% in the same period. This shows up in sales of autos, flat screen televisions, and other electronics. Alan Krueger, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, says services account for about half of GDP, and over half of jobs, and points to the lack of growth in discretionary services.

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Ford's North American operations reported a pretax profit of $1.6 billion for the 3rd quarter 2010. Revenue went up to $16.2 billion from $13.4 billion in the prior year. Ford sold 145,534 F-series pickup trucks, a 25% increase from the same quarter prior year. Worldwide Ford Motor reported a profit of $1.7 billion. Ford will pay down its revolving credit line by $2 billion and will make a cash payment of $3.6 billion this week to cover the last of its health-care trust obligations to Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (which covers 195,000 retirees and their spouses). The UAW controls the VEBA trust. These actions will reduce the company's overall debt to $22.8 billon, from $27.3 billion at the end of June 2010.

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The IPO is expected to bring $10 billion and reduce the government's stake to below 50%. The IPO plans for the shares to go for between $26 and $29. For the government to breakeven the shares have to rise to about $50. GM plans to sell 24% of its total shares for $10 billion at the midpoint of the estimated share price. Under the plan, Treasury would sell $7 billion of its shares cutting its stake to 35% from 61%. The UAW trust which pays for retiree health care, would sell $2 billion of its shares. Canada and Ontario would sell about $1 billion of their shares. The government will try to recoup some of the $49.5 billion given to GM.