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New bicycle lanes in Paris, Milan, to Mexico City are changing the way cities see people getting to work or moving round. New bicycle lanes are popping up in many cities. In Paris the plan by order of the mayor is to provide 400 miles of pop-up bicycle lanes throughout Greater Paris. Car lanes are giving way and being transformed into bicycle lanes. 

Oakland has moved to have 10% of the roads for bicycle lanes. In Montreal extra 70 miles are added. Bogota added 47 miles.

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In April 2010 P&G's Dawn liquid dish detergent was shown in television commercials as the right stuff to clean birds and marine life affected by oil spills. The Gulf Oil Spill that happened afterwards has created a live opportunity for the product to be used to help clean marine life and birds that are stained by the grimy oil in the Gulf waters. P&G will have donated 12,000 bottles of Dawn detergent to help clean up for marine life and birds caught in this spill.

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US housing prices are seeing a decline in 2022 as a result of the Fed's interest rate increases even though there is no extra supply of housing. Renters are staying away from high mortgage payments at the higher rates, and families with a 3% mortgage are staying put rather than risk making larger mortgage payments for a new home. Fed's Jerome Powell has this to say- "You had housing markets go up at very unsustainable levels and overheating. Now the housing market is going through the other side of that and hopefully coming out at abetter place." This is more like the drop in demand for housing in 1979 which revived in 1983 after the Fed eased up on increasing rates, says the WSJ.

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US plans to keep up with Russian advanced artillery and rocket systems in the invasion of Ukraine by sending its shorter range MLRS rocket system to Ukraine. The MLRS has a short range system that extends for over 40 kms. compared to its long range that goes 186 kms. The US sees the sending of the shorter range MLRS as feasible and not the longer range. Denmark is sending its Harpoon system of rockets that would complement Ukraine's own Neptune system to protect a key Black Sea port of Odessa. US policy is designed to keep Russia from making any serious gains in the war which the US and European Union see as a unprovoked invasion. Popular sentiment in US and EU has backed up the Biden administration.

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Failing states pose immigration issues in the US at the border with Mexico. With a collapsing economy there are 7.1 million refugees from Venezuela. Many have settled in Latin America. Others hundreds of thousands want to cross illegally into the US. As the US has no diplomatic relations with the US making harder to deport them. When Ukraine war started Ukrainians were kept from crossing from Mexico by setting up a legal path for them to come. 78000 Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans were crossing in December 2022, this dropped to hundreds by July by setting up a legal path for these people to get a work permit for 2 years legally. Venezuela will require a similar innovative solution at the border.

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Semple, Ahmed and Lipton provide this NYT story on Mossack Fonseca, the secretive Panamanian law firm that set up offshore tax havens for wealthy individuals around the world, the focus of the investigation called the Panama Papers Scandal. It provides an account of the history of Mr. Mossack, whose father was in the Nazi Waffen SS, and immigrated to Panama with his family after 1948. His partner is the Panamanian novelist, and advisor to the Varela government in Panama, Mr. Fonseca.

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401 K catchup contributions for people over 50 years will be put under new restrictions for IRS rules for 2026. Under new rules any catch up contributions for earners above $145,000 will have to be made in an account which pays taxes up front into a Roth Account.

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Dressing up for the office after all the remote work away from the office during the pandemic takes some work. Doing it under 12 minutes- Farna Krentcil in the WSJ shows women how to do it quickly and look good.

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Russia received $62 billion from exports of oil, gas and coal in 2 months, with Germany being the largest importer, says this report in The Guardian. The higher oil prices more than make up for the reduction in oil exports.

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The number of people employed in foreign firms in Hong Kong declined by 25,000 to 468,000 in 2023, according to Deallogic. Foreign advisory firms face crackdowns and are declining rapidly. Yet companies have not yet pulled up stakes in China.

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The EU will put up 50 billion euros for a 200 billion euro planned AI investment by Europe, with the rest coming from providers, investors and industry. This was announced at the AI Action Summit in Paris, Feb 2025.

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Gasoline at $2.71 a gallon in Tijuana, Mexico, while its $5.76 a gallon across the California border.

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Exxon's Darren Woods was shown in WSJ yesterday battling it out with Rockefeller foundation family interests as they fervently opposed his aggressive push for fossil fuel supplies. This WSJ report looks at another side of Darren Woods as he breaks up a potential merger between Hess and Chevron that would give Chevron access to the Stabroek oil block off Guyana's coast for about 1.2 million barrels a day. There is a shrinking pool of investment for fossil fuels during the energy transition away from fossil fuels. There is also a period of 5-10 years that the world economies have to weather through by accessing US+ oil supplies to support easing household spiralling energy costs when Russian oil supplies are no longer accessible. This is leading to a higher value being placed on existing oil blocks such as the Stabroek oil block near the coast of Guyana that Exxon and Hess have developed. Crucial work was done by Hess engineers for the find when Exxon had given up. WSJ looks at the fight between CEO's Wirth of Chevron and Hess of Hess Oil against Darren Woods of Exxon that is shaking up Houston and the banking+ legal advisors involved in the potential merger of Hess and Chevron that Woods has succeeded in ending. ...

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Krugman questions Bair's idea of the aggregator bank buying up toxic assets of the banks because the government may be assuming these huge liabilities at taxpayer expense to shore up shareholders. He questions whether these banks will not continue to be the zombie banks, that they are today, if the so called toxic asets are priced in today's market. The idea that today's market prevents these assets being priced at fair value may be deceiving he says. As the economy deteriorates, these banks even after the government at great expense buys up "toxic" assets, may still be losing money and remain that way for years, essentially zombie banks. Better he says for the government to face up to reality and nationalize these banks and then do what the Resolution Trust Corporation did with the savings and loans in the 1980's, which is clean up these banks and sell them after fixing them to new owners. The government might end up with amuddle headed approach that looks like the Resolution Trust type of action but without taking over the banks end up with something else. All because nationalization is thought of among Republicans, Democrats and Obama's people as some kind of dreaded word, when these banks are already dependent on the government for survival....

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After premium increases in 2023-2024 auto insurance premiums have more than caught up with cost increases during covid years. This WSJ report shows auto insurance companies now have premiums that more than offset what they are paying out for repairs and other expenses. In Florida excess premiums led to $950 million being returned to customers, other states have similar laws. Competition between insurers should lead to lower rates says the WSJ.

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About 25 percent more Hispanics would be eligible to vote in 2016. Hillary Clinton planned early to mobilize the 27 million Hispanic voters in 2016. She had as the person leading her Latino Outreach effort an undocumented woman worker from Peru, who with other women built the organization from the ground up. Often women and their daughters would go from door to door to talk to Hispanic people and could see the anger among Hispanics in states such as Florida about Mr. Trump's statements. Only 48% of Hispanics voted in 2012 compared to 64% for whites, and the campaign was determined to change this and galvanize the Hispanic vote for Hillary in the way this had been done for black people during the Obama campaigns in 2008 and 2012. Hillary Clinton also changed her campaign theme to support immigration and a path to citizenship in a way that even president Obama had not done. Hillary was critical of Mr. Obama's deportation policy and the breaking up of families. She promised to act on immigration in the first 100 days. By building up a grassroots effort for the Hispanic community,  and also talking to Puerto Ricans who now makeup a large part of the changing demographics in Florida, Clinton was able to energize Latinos to vote in large numbers in 2016. In Florida about 1 million votes had been cast by Hispanics by Nov 6, 2016, out of 6.2 million votes, a 75% increase from 2012. Nevada saw a similar pattern of voting. ...

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Priceline.com, the online airline and hotel reservation site, shows growth taking business away from Expedia and Orbitz. Priceline.com's revenues come mainly from hotel bookings. Second quarter 2013 earnings were up 24% to $437 million and revenue was up 27% to $1.68 billion. Its share price has flucuated wildly from $1000 in the dotcom bubble days down to single digits and now back up to $1000 in August 2013. The stock hit $990 in 1999, then fell to $10 after the burst of the dot com bubble. After heavy spending to expand its U.S. presence Priceline.com's share price increased by 50% in the first 8 months of 2013. It recently acquired travel site Kayak to expand its access to customers.

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BMW's first mass production electric car the i3 will go on sale inthe U.S. in the second quarter of 2014, priced at $41,350. It is a city car with a range of 100 miles from one charge. BMW will launch a i8 in 2014. The i8 is a super sports car with high fuel economy. A electric motor drives the front wheels and a 3 cylinder gasoline engine drives rear wheels. BMW's CEO Reithofer has increased spending on R&D so that it can meet the 30% of automobiles that have to be hybrids or electric vehicles by 2025 for BMW to meet higher European auto emissions standards. R&D spending was up 17% in 2012 to 9.2 billion euros, and capital spending up 42%.

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Low interest rates are boosting the U.S. housing market. Lenders made $1.1 trillion in home loans in the second quarter 2020. Mortgage rates fell below 3% in July. About $2.5 trillion in home loans were made in 2019. Refinancings are up 200%.

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The pandemic's effects on children with one in three going hungry and one in five growing up stunted, according to a report by UN agencies- UNICEF, FAO and the World Food Programme, is shown in this report in The Guardian.

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One third of US homeless are in California, 75000 in Los Angles alone. Many live in RV or cars because that is all they can afford, and rents have gone up. Shown in FR24 is the situation for housing in California.

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The 28 year old pilot Andreas Lubitz of Lufthansa Germanwings Flight 9525 was being treated for depression at Dusseldorf University Hospital at the time of the flight. Several torn up doctors notes found in his apartment by investigators, including for the day of the flight by his neuropsychologist, show he did not disclose his condition to his employer. Prosecutors say he had intended to "destroy the aircraft" when he flew the plane into France's southern Alps.

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The Trump administration will use the Defense production Act to procure 60,000 coronavirus test kits. China ramped up its production of test kits to 7000 a day in a few days after the crisis hit Wuhan. The U.S. Government is also using the DPA Act for procuring 500 million masks. FEMA is now coordinating the response to the crisis according to this report,

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Manish Sabharwal writes in the Indian Express that India missed it economic tryst with destiny and economic freedom for its citizens in 1947 and the decades after that. Today with AtmanNirbhar Bharat, he says,  the country is finally making its economic tryst with destiny. It is about self-reliance, yet it is also about opening up to new supply chains set up by allies U.S., France and Japan, South Korea, opening up to trade, investment and technology flows in new and exciting ways. The prime minister's message called for a quantum leap in technology. India was already moving up in GDP terms and set to surpass both Japan and Germany to become the largest after the U.S. and China in GDP. But there was something missing in it for the people. Here he sets out what the huge investment of 10% of GDP and the possible sequel investment to this would mean for people of India, from farmers to workers in different sectors of the economy, including the informal economy. India has fallen behind in per capita GDP and this is now the focus of the people and the government, federal government and the states, to build an economy that provides the best opportunities and growth for all its people. True Gandhian Swa-raj in the best sense of the term.   ...