China moved a tad toward higher interest rates last week and the US too is showing signs of stirring but there is pindrop silence in EU and Japan. More important is the new high speed trading system in Tokyo, which confirms that policy-makers have no intention of letting the aging save enough to live in peace, refusing to recognize that when disparities expand beyond a threshold, growth must turn negative.

US figures have almost stopped making sense. Outstandings against credit cards are declining steadily, manufacturing hasn’t grown, imports are down, and rail freight traffic plunged 16% in 2009 and yet retail sales have remained almost unaffected.

Surveys say more than half of all Americans are spending less money and more time with their families, and even New York received 4% fewer visitors last year, forcing hoteliers to drop rates 29%, but retail sales declined only nominally. If everybody is exporting less to US and the US isn’t producing more, what are the retailers selling?

Crisis like situations are now being predicted in US commercial mortgages, where delinquencies rose 500% last year, and in prime mortgages, where defaults have started growing perceptibly. Krugman says there is a one-third chance of the US economy sliding into a recession in the second half of 2010.

“Ultimately, the buck stops with me,” said Obama last week. The problem is after it lands in the Oval office, it still remains a buck; nothing happens. Geithner keeps chanting all is well.

China’s boom continues to evoke different reactions. James Chanos, who predicted Enron, calls it “Dubai times 1,000 or worse,” while Mark Mobius insists there is going to be no bust. Well, $400-500 a sq ft apartments may not be exactly sustainable in a country where an average office goer probably earns no more than USD15K a year but then the world’s largest exporter having govt revenue of $1 tn and reserves of $2.5 tn (including Hong Kong) has something the US didn’t – a billion hard working disciplined people.

The dollar’s share in global currency reserves has probably declined to below 60% now, eurozone manufacturing has started showing signs of some revival of sorts, though unemployment is now almost 10%, and rich Germans say there is no need to cut taxes, though even doctors are earning less than in 1990.

Japan’s new govt keeps declaring its resolve to prevent further recession and has quietly switched from strong yen to weak yen policy. Dubai opened the world’s tallest building (200 storeys, 828 meters) last week, hoping it would help refurbish its image.

Notwithstanding the stubborn stance of the US at Copenhagen, many US states and cities are moving to clean up their environs by requiring buildings and households to improve energy efficiency. Europe has started building a huge electricity network for pooling renewable energy to address production uncertainties.

The world corporate pecking order is changing rapidly. In 2009, US still accounted for 38 of the world’s top 100 companies (market value) while China, UK, France and Japan had 11, 8, 7 and 5, respectively. Petrochina was the top, followed by ExxonMobil.

Google launched its Nexus One smartphone last week, to be sold by Verizon and T-Mobile. Carriers are frantically erecting new towers and strengthening infras but most expect demand to stay ahead of capacity in the immediate term and spectrum wars just may break out in the near future.

Twitter is trying to convert traffic into revenue, Microsoft has sought review of the $290 mn fine for patent infringement, and Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz has given herself a B-minus for her performance in 2009, saying she was slow to firm up its deal with Microsoft.

Toshiba will outsource more to compete with Samsung and LG, Wal-Mart has stopped buying sugar from Cosan of Brazil because the latter has been charged of using slave labor, and Novartis has decided to exercise its option to raise its stake in eyecare firm Alcon to 77%; it will buy a further 52% from Nestle for $39.3 bn and is reportedly looking at babyfood producer Mead Johnson, which may cost $9 bn. Nestle, in turn, is buying Kraft Food pizza unit for $3.7 bn and is considering buying Kit Kat from Hershey, while it seems to have lost interest in Cadbury.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is planning to raise $8.7 bn by expanding equity, while News Corp has inked a deal with Time Warner Cable under which the latter would pay $12 per year per subscriber for the right to air Fox TV programs.

Money is flowing out of ears, eyes and noses of most giants, who together borrowed $1.2 tn last year, in addition to $1.4 tn raised from bonds. Most analysts expect the scene to hot up further over the next few weeks.

What remains to be seen is how it impacts new technologies, energies and real lives. One area is the growing trend towards corporate farming in Africa, where land is still available for almost nothing and labour costs about the same as the sandwiches developed world companies provide their employees in offices.

In Korea a firm is offering ‘death experience’ for $25, which enables one to stay inside a casket for a few hours, a millionaire was fined $290,000 for speeding by the Swiss, China has threatened to evict from govt housing those spitting in public, book stores in Australia have started selling wine also, and auto firms are planning to put Internet on the dashboards. When the world was swathed in snow last week, Britons hunted for extra-marital dating opportunities, and a pickpocket managed to steal $5,000 from handbags of business class passengers (Tokyo-Paris).

Stop worrying what will happen to you and your future. All you can do is use underwear a little longer so you can fund those wholebody scanners at airports. Life depends on which percentile you belong to. Nearly a fourth of global wealth is now owned by the top one percent and the remaining 99% have to make do with 75%.

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