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How low interest rates from the banks created 2009 financial crisis were squeezing Americans and most of all seniors
06/05/2024
In 2010 Charles Schwab pointed out that low interest rates were squeezing Americans, most of all seniors on fixed incomes and pensions. In 2024 first quarter the higher interest rates in one quarter alone created an additional $770 billion in interest and dividends for Americans, many of them seniors, according to US Federal Reserve. This is the damage done by the recklessness of the banks and financial sector and seniors have paid heavily for this and for the wars in the Middle East which reduced the growth potential of the US economy that were embraced by Reagan and Bush, Trump and Obama. The war money was not used to build new infrastructure to replace the old as it should have been leading to China having new infrastructure and America's being aging and worn out.
Linked Articles
Low Interest Rates Are Squeezing Seniors
Wall Street Journal 03/30/2010
Americans Have More Investment Income Than Ever BeforeWSJ 06/05/2024
Carlos Tavares and the contrast with Fiat Sergio Marchionne, Tesla Elon Musk- the need today for new role models for health and worklife balance, respect for dignity of workern
02/05/2024
Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis that brings together Fiat, Chrysler and Peugeot, as shown in a WSJ report, respects workers right to have a weekend free of email requests to recharge their batteries for the new week starting Mondays. Tavares sees great value in worklife balance, respect for dignity and health of workers. He believes this delivers productive work better than alternatives such as that under Sergio Marchionne the Fiat leader running Chrysler who worked constantly, with excessively long hours, unending travel and smoking incessantly say reports, that took its toll on health- setting a poor role model for managing business and for the younger generation. A similar situation is presented by Mr. Musk compared to Mr. Tavares. Striking is the respect for the dignity of workers that comes with respecting worklife balance. This was a major issue in this years UAW negotiations. Leaders from Scholz in Germany and Biden in US, Modi in India, have called for respect for dignity of work and workers as the kind of society we want to build and we want to live in. The founder of Silicon Valley Andy Grove who founded Intel that powers the chips on every laptop always reminded his readers this is the kind of society he wanted to live in.
Linked Articles
Elon Musk Says Donald Trump Should ‘Sail Into the Sunset’ in Latest Spat
WSJ 07/12/2022
WSJ News Exclusive | The Money and Drugs That Tie Elon Musk to Some Tesla DirectorsWSJ 02/04/2024
Biden the president who sees the longed for tidal wave of justice rise
04/14/2023
Biden is unique in American history as the president with the most experience. His long experience in the US Congress and his very real belief that there is such a thing as "the longed for tidal wave of justice" that will come up to help America build a new world of "Possibilities." It was this kind of faith in America that was the impression people had of Abraham Lincoln in the 1850's.
Linked Articles
Biden and Irish poets: 'Hope and history,' a lifelong love
AP NEWS 04/14/2023
Poetry-loving Biden heads to Ireland, home of the 'best poets in the world'NPR 04/14/2023
Donald Trump's economic advisory team- executives from the finance industry and the real estate industry with strong connections to Wall Street
08/05/2016
Linked Articles
Trump Announces Economic Policy Advisory Team
WSJ 08/05/2016
Donald Trump’s new team of billionaire advisers could threaten his populist messageWashington Post 08/05/2016
Charles Koch and the New York Times on Trump's statements about Mexicans, and the campaign for presidency of the U.S.
04/24/2016
Linked Articles
Washington Post 04/24/2016
The Donald Trump Pygmalion ProjectNew York Times 04/26/2016
The new Jinping-Keqiang leadership and reducing pharmaceutical and healthcare costs to help consumers in China (1)
10/03/2012
After a decade of decline in consumer spending in favor of infrastructure spending to where it is now only 35% of GDP, or half that in the U.S. as a percentage of GDP, China's leadership realizes the need to help consumers. It is seen as high on the list of priorities for the Party's survival. Ordinary Chinese, rural households and the elderly are seriously affected by the high cost of healthcare and the need to set aside a large portion of savings for medical emergencies (Orlik). This further depresses consumer after the impact of low savings rates. With a bursting of the property bubble the money depositors shifted to real estate is also at risk for middle class investors.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 10/03/2012
Politics Is a Bitter Pill for GlaxoWall Street Journal 07/25/2013
Span's Cajas Savings bank, problems with managment and culture, lack of financial controls, and the large losses from the real estate bubble
05/24/2012
Bankia was the new name for seven troubled cajas savings banks that were merged. The failure of the government's handling of the bad real estate debt, the collapse of the IPO price for bankia's IPO, and the insovency followed by takeover of Bankia by the government, is what led to the $125 recapitalization request by Spain to the EU. The cajas in Galicia give an insight into the operation of these savings banks, in many cases run by leaders who became influential in the political system and expanded healvily int real estate during the bubble years. Management remained in place for decades with authoritarian leaders and there were no financial controls.
Linked Articles
Clash of Cultures Upends Spain's Cajas
New York Times 08/20/2012
Spain to Recapitalize Bankia in Latest BailoutWall Street Journal 05/24/2012
How JP Morgan Chase let its London trading desk operate without risk management controls leading to large losses
05/18/2012
CEO Dimon is described as distracted by other issues. Ina Drew, the seasoned head of the Chief Investment that manages a $300 billionplus portfolio after the merger of other failed banks into JP Morgan Chase in 2008-2009, contracts Lyme disease in 2010 and is no longer the hands on person when she returns in 2011. Ms. Duersten, in charge of the North American trading desk at the New York office leaves in 2011 after 16 years at Chase. The controls over the London trading desk from New York are slipping away and Mr. Iksil and Mr. Macris of the London trading desk take massive trading positions to expose Chase to large losses. CEO Dimon learns about the Chase trading positions and the London Whale (Mr Iksil) from the Wall Street Journal on April 6, 2012, for the first time, astounding the business community and the financial world.
Linked Articles
Discord at JPMorgan Investment Office Blamed in Huge Loss
New York Times 05/19/2012
Inside J.P. Morgan's BlunderWall Street Journal 05/18/2012
Zhou Xiaochuan, head of the People's Bank of China, China's central bank, and the Development Research Center (DRC) think tank
02/23/2012
The road map and priorities of the DRC and the PBOC are now the road map and priorities of the Jinping-Keqiang administration A sense of deepening awareness takes hold on party leaders Jinping and Li Keqiang that the current trajectory of Debt to GDP ratios could lead to the kind of situation before the banking crisis in Japan and S. Korea. The importance of striking a balance with growth of private companies to support future growth and move away from reliance on state owned enterprises is part of the change supported by DRC and PBOC.
Linked Articles
China's Central Banker Leads Push to Overhaul Economy
Wall Street Journal 11/05/2013
New Push for Reform in ChinaWall Street Journal 02/23/2012
The cost to Bank of America of the $2.5 billion acquisition of Angelo Mozilo's Countrywide is estimated at $40 billion in 2012
12/27/2011
In many ways the business practices at Countrywide were at the heart of the mortgage and real estate crisis of 2008. The cost of this for Bank of America is estimated at $40 billion.
Linked Articles
BofA's Blunder: $40 Billion-Plus
Wall Street Journal 06/29/2012
OverheardWall Street Journal 12/27/2011
The health of China's economy June 2011- the opaqueness of the financial system and the risk of China not making a soft landing
05/25/2011
Asset price bubbles, loose monetary policy and inflation in China. Slowing growth and risks of a hard landing. The opaqueness of the financial system with the state, banking, industrial and real estate sectors intertwined making it difficult to get a true measure of risks building up.
Linked Articles
The Great Property Bubble of China May Be Popping
Wall Street Journal 06/09/2011
China's Growth RisksWall Street Journal 05/25/2011
The real estate bubble in Canada in 2012-2013
03/29/2011
Linked Articles
Canada Tightens Mortgage-Financing Rules
Wall Street Journal 06/22/2012
Housing Booms North of the BorderWall Street Journal 03/29/2011
Saudi expert Karen Elliott House's thirty years of experience covering the Middle East tell us that the U.S. policy is sorely out of touch in the Middle East
02/15/2011
Elliott House is a former publisher of the Wall Street Journal and a Pulitzer prize winner for covering the Middle East. She sees the Saudi Arabian princes sorely out of touch with the ordinary Saudis and the young people and U.S. policy at an impasse. Rice says the policy of supporting autocracy only brings a false kind of stability. She sees Egypt, Tunisia and the rest of the Arab world and thinks it did not have to be this way.
Linked Articles
Condoleezza Rice - The future of a democratic Egypt
Washington Post 02/16/2011
From Tunis to Cairo to Riyadh?Wall Street Journal 02/15/2011
"Pay their fair share of taxes" Biden asks of corporations showing 2017 predecessor tax cuts did not increase investment and added $100 billion yearly to the US Deficit
03/08/2024
By paying their fair share of taxes Biden says in State of Union speech to US Congress 2024 one can increase investment in education, affordable childcare and better living for seniors in their homes, and still cut the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. What is fair share? Certainly not zero percent that 55 of the largest corporations paid on $40 billion in profits in 2020, and corporate minimum tax was introduced at levels of 15% for which most ordinary Americans are not eligible for. And certainly not 8.2% that Biden said was being paid by 1000 billionaires in the US. Not a single penny more is being asked of hard working Americans earning less than $400,000 a year. Biden said he wanted to see the corporate minimum tax at 21% not 15%, and the top corporate tax rate set at 28% not the 21% that it was reduced to in 2017 from 35%. In short his predecessor turned to help companies and billionaires profit from the popular distress of the shipping of jobs overseas and the 2009 financial crisis caused by Bank executives without investing the nation's capital resources in manufacturing at home in scale to match and exceed China's. And at the same time neglecting to do anything about the concerns of the people for ease of living- affordable access to childcare, preschool education, education, health care to match Europe/China/India in quality and cost, and aging transportation infrastructure of airports, subways, roads and bridges. The savings when this is done properly go to cut the deficit by over 4 trillion dollars and keep America as the leader of all G-20 economies.
Linked Articles
Biden Draws Sharp Contrast With Trump in State of the Union
WSJ 03/07/2024
Biden Pushes More Corporate-Tax Hikes to Draw Contrast With TrumpWSJ 03/07/2024
Motherhood penalty putting hundreds of thousands of mothers out of work- how childcare is failing America's and Britain's children
11/07/2023
President Biden has asked Congress for $18 billion to stabilize the childcare system in the US- without it more childcare places are closing and women are put out of work in a form of motherhood penalty. The Republican controlled Congress is not responding. This is the kind of infrastructure for children that is crucial for America and America's children, for the beginning years of education that determine its future and for the health wellbeing of mothers.
Linked Articles
Opinion | What happened to this Wisconsin day care should concern us all
Washington Post 11/07/2023
Motherhood penalty ‘has driven 250,000 women out of jobs’The Guardian 11/05/2023
Ashwini Bhide, 1995 IAS batch, tireless worker for the millions of Mumbai residents looking for better modern Rail
07/13/2022
Ashwini Bhide was the head of the Metro Rail project in Mumbai and the first woman to be profiled by WSJ in this way - as a tireless worker for getting modern Rail with the latest technology to Mumbai after decades in which millions of Mumbai residents had to put up with old, dilapidated, incomplete rail subway services. It is work that meets the aspirations of Young India and which would make Mohandas Gandhi proud a century later. It shows that India can deliver on the kind of infrastructure needed for making project Make in India work.
Linked Articles
Newsmaker | Fadnavis ensures pet Metro project on track, puts Ashwini Bhide back in driver’s seat
The Indian Express 07/13/2022
‘You Have to Actually Cut Open Mumbai’s Belly’—Inside One of the World’s Most Audacious Transit ProjectsWSJ 05/08/2023
Peggy Noonan, Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan, on Donald Trump and the Republican Party
07/29/2016
Peggy Noonan gave a poignant, teary, and touching account of the changes in the Republican Party with the Trump movement. Such a massive rejection of the traditional party leaders is unprecedented. The "establishment" in both parties has lost touch with working class voters, yet this has happened in the past and this kind of "one man Show" is unprecedented in American history. In his letters George Washington did not reject criticism and maintained civility and composure in the face of doubters, even when he was chosen to be the first president of the U.S.
Linked Articles
A Disunited Party’s Successful Convention
WSJ 07/29/2016
That Moment When 2016 Hits YouWall Street Journal 04/23/2016
U.S. Fed chairman Bernanke's activist interest rate policies to tackle high unemployment and central bankers from MIT
12/12/2012
A pragmatic activist focus in economic thinking shaped at the MIT economics department in Cambridge, Masachusetts. The ECB's Mario Draghi, Bank of England's Mervyn King, and Bernanke shaped their thinking at MIT. Draghi and Bernanke had the same PhD. advisor- Stanley Fischer. Factors calling for a pragmatic approach include the lack of political agreement on th deficit, the housing and foreclosure crisis effects, higher inequality and unemployment effects on the middle class, the effects of the globalized economy on working class manufacturing jobs, people dropping out of the labor foce, and lower inflation, which called for a larger focus on unemployment. Bernanke emphasized the "enormous waste in human potential and productive resources of the economy" throughout 2009-2012. Draghi emphasized the abnormal nature of excessive borrowing interest rates for Italy and Spain during the ECB's bond buying efforts in 2011-2012. Both efforts had a stabilizing effect on the economies of the U.S. and Europe during a period of political discord about future policy.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 12/13/2012
MIT Forged Activist Views of Central Bank Role and Cinched Central Bankers' TiesWall Street Journal 12/12/2012
Torrelodones, Castilla La Mancha and the effort to clean up accounts in local government in Spain
06/25/2012
Wasteful spending, cronyism, corruption and lack of transparency in local government marked the years of the construction and real estate boom in Spain. Now grassroots efforts are taking place across Spain to clean up accounts, ensure transparency, and divert wasted resources to meet vital needs. Similiar efforts are taking place from Thessaloniki, Greece, to Sicily, Italy, as Europ faced with high unemployment and austerity cuts comes up with its own efforts for renewal from the bottom up setting the political elites aside.
Linked Articles
Europe's Recession Sparks Grass-Roots Political Push
Wall Street Journal 05/21/2013
A Spanish Leader Emerges as a Crusader for AusterityWall Street Journal 06/25/2012
Spain to inject 9 billion euros into Bankia- analysts estimate the capital hole at Bankia at 25 billion euros
05/21/2012
Analysts estimate the capital requirements at Bankia to cope with 12% nonperforming real estate loans on a 190 billon loan portfolio for BFA-Bankia, and to meet other capital requirements, is 25 billion euros. The Spanish government said it would inject 9 billion euros to recapitalize Bankia in May 2012.
Linked Articles
Limbo on Bankia Undermines Confidence in Spain's Handling of Crisis
Wall Street Journal 05/21/2012
Spain to Recapitalize Bankia in Latest BailoutWall Street Journal 05/24/2012
India's import bill for energy supplies and its problem with a rising current account deficit
04/11/2012
A sense that India has not managed globalization as well as it should have, is the view expressed by India's central bank governor, Devi Subbarao, at a IMF discussion with Charlie Rose and central bank governors from Mexico and Sweden, Lagarde and and Christina Romer on April 20, 2012 at IMF headquarters. One facet of this is the rising current account deficit, declining foreign investment, and shortages of coal and other energy supplies.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 04/26/2012
India Grapples With Soaring Energy CostsWall Street Journal 04/11/2012
Two central bank chiefs compared- Shirakawa at the Bank of Japan, Bernanke at the U.S. Federal Reserve and King at the Bank of England
01/30/2012
A cautious Shirakawa compared to a vigorous Bernanke, Draghi and King from the MIT School of Economics.
Linked Articles
Bernanke's Imprint on Fed Not Easily Erased
Wall Street Journal 01/30/2012
Vote Challenges Japan's Central BankWall Street Journal 12/13/2012
Small spurts in U.S. real estate markets from foreign or out of state buyers that fizzle out- S. Florida and Phoenix, Arizona
07/26/2011
Sporadic bursts of activity in real estate markets first in Miami in 2011 and then in Phoenix. The surge in activity is from buyers from Brazil for S. Florida, and buyers from Canada for Phoenix, as well as out of state buyers looking for speculative or rental properties to rent out to homeowners who go into foreclosure. The buyers from Canada and Brazil are in these markets because of a real estate bubble of their own in their home countries and is hardly the basis for a dependable recovery on housing prices, as the IMF has signalled a warning light for economies such as Brazil.
Linked Articles
Rise in Phoenix Housing Shows Path for Other Cities
Wall Street Journal 03/13/2012
Affluent Buyers Reviving Market for Miami HomesNew York Times 07/26/2011
Brazil's uneven economic development with growth focussed on export based mining and agriculture
05/21/2011
As the commodities boom fades Brazil's growth slows to 1% in 2012 after the rapid growth in the years under president Lula. Stiglitz and Sen pointed to this kind of uneven development with the neglect of education, healthcare and other public services. This is true also of economic development in China focussed on export industries, with the added cost of environmental degradation. Street protests in June 2013 in many Brazilian cities from Porto Alegre and Curitiba to Rio and Sao Paulo showed popular discontnet with the situation under president Rouseff.
Linked Articles
Brazil's north-east: Catching up in a hurry
Economist 05/21/2011
Anger Spills Onto Brazil's StreetsWall Street Journal 06/18/2013
The Fall of an American Icon- HP, Lee Apotheker and the Autonomy Acquisition Inc.
02/18/2011
The Autonomy acquisition charge of $8.8 billion announced by CEO Meg Whitman on Nov. 20, 2012, come at a time of declining sales and margins in its printer and PC businesses. The costly charges on bad acquisitions by H-P is likely to hurt investment in R&D for years.
Linked Articles
Hewlett's Loss: A Folly Unfolds By the Numbers
New York Times 11/20/2012
Chief Reboots H-P After ScandalWall Street Journal 02/18/2011
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