i, as he will judge us, even if the government's persuaded to make substantial revisions to his angio law. it's likely to be keeping a much closer eye on organizations such as this. tony chang al jazeera, bangkok, flooding and landside and peru have cut off access to the ancient city of much peach. mud and flood water have submerge roads and rail tracks in and around the unesco world. heritage site tours stranded in the area are being moved out. ah, is out there and these are the top stories, more than 70 people have been killed by a saudi coalition. air strike in yemen, as according to doctors without borders and who the officials. mohammed, our pop has the reaction from the who these in santa the condemned, at such a tag on prisoners on, on mates while still waiting for the sentences the condenser tag,

and also have called on the interracial community to abdulla tube to blame saudi arabia for such and especially be the qualston for such attacks. the say that this is not the 1st attack on sibling gatherings of the the say that the all over the 7 years, many civilians have lost their lives. and indiscriminate attacks on civilians are the, the situation of the era. the people there are still digging under the debris for or survivals and ukraine. hundreds of people have formed a chain along the banks of the capitals in pro river. it's a show of solidarity against the escalating tensions between moscow and kiev, including a russian troop builder on the ukrainian border of canada stands. interior minister says employees of the previous government and not being targeted by the taliban said aged in her cardi has told the al jazeera that the new administration is keeping its word on the issue. 250000 leaders of drinking water delivered by the

new zealand navy is being distributed across the toner. it's the largest delivery of fresh water to the islands a week after volcanic eruption and soon ami. a building fire him by has killed at least 7 people and injured more than 15 others, hundreds were rescued. his fire trucks rushed in to dance the flames. and the 20 story apartment, more than 300 migrants had refugees, have been rescued from the mediterranean near the southern italian island of land producer. he telling goes cod says they were on an overcrowded wooden boat, which was at risk of capitalizing, says, i have, i'm one use here on al jazeera one off the counting the cost also you say, but i for now, americans are increasingly saying authoritarianism might not be so bad, there were several steps along the way where the chain of command, it seemed like tried to convert up. what's your take on why they've gotten this so wrong that to me as political mouth for the bottom line on us politics and policies

and the impact on the world on al jazeera with hello, i'm kim all santa maria. this is counting to call stone al jazeera, your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week, a year of the biden presidency. he took over a lockdown economy a result of the 1st year of the pandemic. now the u. s. is seen something of an economic recovery, but to every day americans see the bird. and in running the economy, hot people are also feeling the pinch inflations, hit an almost 40 year high. can jo vine and bring down the rising cost of living in his 2nd year as presidents? while in turkey, the president's going on all thoughts? project typo on has cut interest rates despite spiraling inflation. went the

opposite to what mainstream economist suggest. wise, the currency crash, not worrying him to how do you define a successful 1st year in charge of a country? there are so many metrics, and when you add in a pandemic while is a lot to sort out asked joe biden and his team. and i'd say it's been a success. the economy recovered foster from the pandemic than most others. and based on some of the 10 main market indicate as the economy is improved, more in biden's 1st term than any of his predecessors in the past. 50 years. here the numbers to back it all up strong, consume demanded helps. the economy grow in estimated 7 percent in the final quarter of last year. that may well slow down as the context effect. but the stock market's been thriving, the s and p 500 index, for example, had a great run in 2021 rising more than 25 percent. unemployment such an important indicator. it fails from 6.3 percent to 3.9 percent employees added 6400000 jobs.

the most of any 1st year president and jobless claims had a 50 year. lo, although the u. s. is still around 3600000 jobs, short of pre pandemic levels. but interestingly, wages have gone up. the average hourly pay jumped 4.7 percent in december. part of that is the scramble to find and hold onto work is after a record number of people actually quit fed jobs, it's phenomenon known as the great resignation. now, all of that is quite remarkable, but not necessarily in the view of many american voters to separate polls show a majority, describe me economy as poor or fair and disapproving of biden's handling of the situation. and then there are the everyday problems supply chain problems, leaving supermarket shelves bear groceries and petro costing much more inflation, climbing to 7 percent the biggest 12 month gain for 40 years. let's start things off with this report from mike hannah in washington,

dc. price is for groceries rent another, neither the items continue to saw. the owners, the small shops are particularly hard hit as they see their customers beginning to treat what were every day purchases as luxuries you can see had the money flows you can see. and when people are not getting the extras when they're getting copy trip coffee instead of capital, no, you can see it. you can see how they pay it, but they're paying in coins, be increased in prices. is now being felt at every gas station and in every grocery store. i just think we're a little more careful. i notice it in almost every product. fruits vegetables, which we buy a lot of deli products. i can't really see anywhere that the prices have gone down, but they've gone up bottlenecks in the supply chains of distributors or the primary

reason. and these and turn on the direct result of staffing shortages as a pandemic continues to rage world wide. at the stage, though, the head of the federal reserve insists there's no need for panic. that this is a temporary situation. we will use our tools to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched. it's a similar message coming from the white house, which points to a dropping unemployment rate as evidence that economic recovery is underway and is adamant that the supply chain issue will be resolved. we are well positioned to attack the challenges or pricing cos had on, and that's exactly what the president and this administration are doing. but republicans continue to blame stimulus measures for overheating the economy. one thing is clear, it's impossible to predict the ongoing economic impact of the on the crone varian

surge, which the nation continues to face. i don't believe we've seen that peak yet here in the united states. the rise in price increases reflect a harsh reality. that in the pandemic, it's not just people who get sick, but the economy as well. well, let's get into it all now with james nightly, who is the chief international economist with i and j. he's with us from new york to the james. thanks so much for your time. i'm inheriting a lockdown economy is how i've described what, what joe biden got. i'm not an easy position to be and not dissimilar to barack obama many years ago. and he inherited a, a faltering economy as well, using that as a baseline. has he done? well? yeah, i mean, you would look at an economy today that high is, is actually substantially larger than it was before the pandemic struck in the economy us. now, $1.00 percentage points bigger than it was so on the face of it. well, because of me and the global economy is going through. that is

a remarkable achievement. however, you look at other aspects of the u. s. economy, and you can see that there are 3600000 people, fewer in work than the pandemic. strokes are still clearly caught a lot of healing today in cordele of action that your soul source is still need to do to get the, the becoming, becoming fully back on it season. ok, let's go with jobs and things have mentioned at 3600000 fewer but unemployment is down. jobless claims are down as well. does it feel like a mixed bag? but generally it's a, it's a good story. the employment side of things. yes, i mean, the thing is, there's something for everyone. it within the u. s. states on the job market, unemployment has broken below $0.04, which on the face of it is a fantastic care outcome. however, you look at the other aspects of what's going on in the job market and why is that unemployment has fallen so sharply without the jobs being created. and that's because workers have just vanished at the labor force participation rates, as is well below where it was pre pandemic. can we have below with century about 62

percent that substantially below where we were 20 years ago when we're up. it's sort of 6768 percent. so there has been a vanishing of people. and why is this? well, partly it is suggested that there has been a lot of early retirements, but also at the lower end of the income distribution. we're seeing a lot of their people missing from people who work in retail people to work in leisure and hospitality. and this is a bit of a conundrum for the u. s. authorities because it's also meaning that companies want to expand and take advantage of bigger us growth in the u. s. economy costs because they haven't got the workforce to do that. and that's putting up with pressure on wages, and that in turn is going to put up with pressure on it on inflation, which in turn is putting up the pressure on interest rates in the us. yeah. talk me through inflation if you would please james. well, when a president in his 1st year is happy to come out and say, yes, this is bad at that a 40 i'm. we need to do something. but then he's clearly acknowledging that there is something at play here in basic terms. what is it play for it to have reached

such high levels? you, i say it's a combination of factors. one is on the demand side, when you throw 5 trillion dollars stimulus that an economy, some of that he's going to stick and actually work in that. and that is why we have got an economy that is larger than it was before the pandemic. so the demand side is very vigorous. but at the same time supply side capacity of the if the u. s. economy to meet that demand hasn't grown, in fact is probably shrunk, as we can tell with a loss of workers in u. s. economy, the supply chain strains that we're all well aware of the chip shortages. so those that sort of demands supply mismatch and means that there's a lot of money chasing. not as many good something you look at it in the car market . in particular, where used car prices have risen the best part of 40 percent in the last year because he just can't get hold of a brand new car. so these sorts of dislocation, so bottlenecks in amidst good demand is, is really what's driving the inflation story. james,

i want to drill down into something a bit more policy related in some detail. so just bear with me a 2nd while i sort of go through this with our viewers, build back bear satcher 3 words which are at the core of jo biden's, economic plans and act which includes social policy, hundreds of billions of dollars for climate change programs. and increase in taxes on corporations and the richest individuals. although put in doubt because of senators from joe biden's own parties that they wouldn't support it. the president, however, did sign into law a one trillion dollar infrastructure bill aiming to protect communities against climate fuel disasters. and among some other projects, now i do want to get james into too much of the politics of dimension and chris and cinema and the lights. that's a whole other story. but you know everything and bill back then, it sounded like it was positive and strong. why couldn't get the support? yes, it's interesting. we've seen this basically being sliced and sliced and sliced and smaller and smaller each time it initially started out as a $2.00 trillion dollar plan. then it became

a $1.00 trillion plan and he's now down towards closer towards one trillion in terms of the additions in into the infrastructure bill. this already passed as a physical infrastructure bill of one trillion that has got 3. but as you say, this sort of bill by better social policy, green climates related aspects is struggling and it's largely centers on again, this inflationary aspect that some people within his own kasey are anxious that we've got a highly inflationary economy. that's very, very strong as well. and this is just going to add more fuel to the fire, and people are very nervous about inflation. people can feel it in their pockets, the value of their dollars doesn't go as far as it used to. and that has led to consumer confidence falling away quite sharply. so there is this sort of anxiety, not just amongst his own republicans, but as i say, even amongst his own part about what this means for household finance is over the medium to long term. so it's all about this concern that inflation could really

take cold, and we might end up seeing the federal so taking more aggressive action. and so the economy so good in some people's minds actually be counter productive. ready and that's why i think there is some hesitancy amongst some members, nissan parts to back it. i wonder if that will lead to hesitancy or change, at least in, in jo biden's part. this is perhaps a more political question. but when you've put everything into this idea of building back an infrastructure and it hasn't really worked in the 1st term and you want to get reelected, not just in 3 years time, but you want to win the midterms in his time as well. and the people aren't responding to it that well, maybe there's a change in tac needed. that's quite possibly true. we had j biden's big speech was hoping to be a big resets of his policies. you know, we'd find out what he plans to. and in the end, he kind of got sort of stuck down into russian politics and you know, the politics, ukraine. and so we haven't got a clear vision really. and this is a challenge because domestic, political fact is really drive. you are selections,

we have, we have to admit that. and those domestic political considerations are very tough. joe biden is the least popular presidents of all time. if you exclude donald trump's, that just shows you how, you know, political politically fraught it is all in us, right. now, and as you say, the mid term elections are just in november and it looks as though the democrats could lose control of the house and possibly also lose control of the senate. and if you haven't got control congress, you can get your legislation. so this is a real issue for biden, and the democrats, unless we can send things around, get the popularity, get a poll ratings rising. the 2nd term will, the 2nd half of his term is going to be really stuck in terms of domestic agenda. he's going to end up being forced down what donald trump had to do and used and focus on areas of political or presidential executive authority. which basically like this means he's sort of the sole to international relations and trade. and

that's is not what really sort of floats, people's excitements in u. s. domestic policy. so it's going to be a very, very challenging environment for him if he can't send things around very, very quickly. just one against what has joe biden got left to fire as it were, you know, it as economic towards the minis tapped strategic or reserves. as you said, there's been individual payouts. now is there, is there anything left in your opinion that could work? yeah, we'll build that better, isn't debt yet, we have to say, and it does look as though what they're going to try and do is break this up into little hearts and put it under the umbrella of bill by better because it's clear that you know, some of his own party won't back the full package of everything, you know, this extra significant source of money thrown at the economy. but if he breaks it down into little carts that even some republicans may back, they can get lots and lots of little quick wins that could build up to a bigger win in the election in november. so it's not all completely lost. turns on

a pleasure talking to you. thanks for breaking it all down for us and exciting. so clearly really appreciate it. now, here's a slightly different approach to inflation was, in fact, it's more than slightly different. it goes against what many mainstream economists think. but that is not stopping the turkish president, reject type of one. he's repeatedly describe himself as an enemy of interest rates, believing high borrowing costs is what increases inflation. so he's cutting interest rates are the ones goal is to boost growth into free the economy from the burden of higher interest rates, which he says are imposed on turkey by and these are his woods, the global barons of finance. the president is targeting a new economic model in which chief credit would help attract investments, raise employment, and export, and boost turkey's independence from other countries. but turks, well, they've been queueing up to buy cheap bread of inflation is sold to more than 36 percent last month compared to a year ago. that was the sharpest rise in almost 20 years. the cost of electricity,

natural gas fuel level jumped as well. and of course, there's been a dramatic fall in the value of the turkish deer, a lost 44 percent of its value against the us dollar last year. now where do i have introduced a mechanism if you like, the promises to compensate, hold as of the lira when the currency weakens to a certain level, the measure had reversed the lira slide and triggered a big surge in its value. in late december, minimum wage was also raised by 50 percent, and the government boosted its match on private contributions to public pensions. and now that of course, has all been costly. turkey central bank has had to sell from its foreign exchange reserves to shore up the lira, but it's not all. blake, the country showed positive figures for industrial production and retail sales that was in november. the government has exports in the 1st half of last year, hit a $100000000000.00, which is the highest 6 month figured ever. the world bank estimated turkey's economy to have grown 9 and a half percent in 2021. and president says he is determined to put turkey into the

world's top 10 economies as a lot to unpack there. and we're going to do that with carlos just through the joining us and zurich. here is the emerging markets strategist and portfolio manager at the zurich base asset management, fin vancho. and it's great to have you with us carlos as i read through all of those things. it's a bit of a rollercoaster, isn't it? and i'm starting to wonder what 1st of all your views on, on this sort of reverse thinking which president early one is employ. yeah, thank you very much for the introduction and thank you for having me. yeah, i mean are the views on the interest rates and inflation are quite unconventional, as you have mentioned, is not quite clear why he believes that higher interest rates actually higher. you have mentioned the opposite of what we economists believe. and one explanation potentially in the short term at least, is that last year he gave the chance the center bank to raise interest rate divide

inflation and inflation actually accelerate. it was kind of prove him, right, at least in the short term. now i'm not saying hiring, i'm not saying his right, but there were other costs of inflation increasing in turkey last year and all over the world. there was the reopening of the economies where supply side constraints, there was more and monetary expansion in 2020. so lots of reasons for inflation to go up and just interest rates don't have an effect on inflation. that is immediate . it just takes a while for interest rates to transmit into the economy and really lower inflation . so now he thinks he's had enough of high interest rates and he's trying his way with i'm skeptical work but, but let's see. well, it's like he wants to be the guy who is the low interest rights man, because that's going to appeal, obviously, to people. plus he talks about foreign financial tools and global barons of,

of finance. what's he talking about there? i mean, it's funny that he's blaming for investors right now because the currency of turkey experienced the 2021 is very different from the one that took experience in 2018 in 2021. it was actually domestic favor. so basically turkey citizens who were driving the weakness of the turkish, nero's not for an investors like in 2018 when turkey had a very large current account and for the investors were building out of turkey. so those portfolio out those were costing or where the trigger of dileo depreciation in 2018 in 2021. it's just that turkey citizens want to protect themselves from inflation. as you mentioned is ridge 36 percent in december. so they're all dollar i for your birthday, they're holding some of those savings into us dollars and other parents use to protect their purchasing power, which makes sense. so i think it's more of just

a rhetoric to blame for players that we have left turkey quite a while ago. most of our investors were not in the layout. here it is actually, it's our citizen for don't trust their own currents. right. so let's expand on that with this sort of this mechanism that i put in place. you know, 10, what was that $10000000000.00 worth of leer. i think and 300000 citizens participated in it. i mean, again it's so it's almost like a populace move, it's a good idea and it shows people that he's doing something, but you can't maintain that. that's right. the short term seems to be working in the short term and then make the currency appreciate regain part of the losses of the biggest 2 months. but in the medium term, i very much doubt it can work. why? because it is the government and the central bank who will compensate circus favors for the turkish layer of this means that as the turkish eventually depreciates any

will have to negotiate. when you have more than 30 percent inflation, the currency cannot be stable, is just not possible, because it will just make imports much cheaper. and this will make the grand account why then in the sustainable way. so there is just no way that any country in the world, just 30 any country in the world can have high inflation and a stable, of course, low kara, where the low currency likes that as well doesn't. he says that's actually a good factor. it's good for exports and for placing the economy that way. it is good for exports is good for tourism. of course it, that's both the economy to some extent. but it just means that the currency is cheap right now, and it's really competitive right now. in one year's time, if you accumulate, say 40 percent inflation quite likely. then in real terms, the currency, it would be 40 percent more expense today. so in one year, if the currency remained stable, it will not be competitive anymore. which is why it has to depreciate and was the

ratio it then the government, the treasury will have to pay all of this deposit, just 10000000000 that you mentioned. there will have to compensate them partly, but threatening and partly a center back. so that's more of that, that's more money, and that means more inflation in the medium. and so it's a bit of vicious circle in the medium term right now. it has worked, we have changed expectations of the people. people are no longer afraid of holding us because they will be compensated, which is all that they want. they want their purchasing power to be maintained like wheeled medium term. i don't do this work in you refer to quite rightly the medium term shot him long term. have you got any thoughts on what that time scale actually is? because as we said, he can't keep popping up the currency like this all the time. and there's gotta be some long term plan here. it all just seems to be it. all thing feels very short term this? yes, i think for the next 6 months it will probably work. i don't see this that's

a major problem in the next 6 months because there is so competitive right now. it can withstand some appreciation in real term. but if this is maintain true, the next 2 years, it will become extremely costly for the government, it will become quite costly in terms of money for the central bank as well. so i have to, i want to highlight that one of the strengths of the turkish economy is the levels of public that are really quite low there. where around 40 percent of the back in november, the latest figures are not published. i will be a little bit higher with the still really quite low compared to most emerging markets. and what's going to happen with this game is, is that if it is maintained for, say, 2 years, at least, then that's assets will accumulate. and it will accumulate why some public debt, so the main strength of the current economy will be weakened. it will no longer be such a strength as it is today. and that will tell us,

let's move away from sort of the, the numbers in the policy and actually talk about turkeys economy fail 8th president, early on, wants to get turkey into the world's top 10 economies, which is a very ambitious what's going to take it in to tell you is about what turkey has to offer the rest of the world. i guess that's a bit of more abstract question. i think growth is never been or rarely been a problem in turkey. it's hypertension, economy, because they have relatively high population growth. they have quite a, quite a relative to diversified economies of growth is really not a problem to become the top 10. i think that will take a very long time. i don't think it will. you know, it is not a matter of just a few years. you know, this is getting can take several decades, and i think a very high inflation like they want for the past. right now, it's a big problem. it's a challenge to achieve some visions because typically countries that have 304050

percent inflation, they're not stable. and turkey, even though it has had time cation for the last 4 years, double digit inflation since 2017 notify us today, but high inflation. and that has been a source of repair and crises, and turkey. so we have a high potential growth, but they have very frequent crisis. at the end, they accumulated growth over the non term. it's not as high as a country that maybe has a little bit less growth, but it's much more more stable that it doesn't have such frequent crisis. so if they want to achieve some business, they have to tackle a patient. really, i think this is very important and i don't see the current policies as been their way to success. call us to serve talking turkey with us this week on counting the cost. thank you for your time. we do appreciate it. my pleasure. thank you. and that's our show for this week, but to let me know what you're thinking,

what you would like to see on the show. and so you can tweak d and me a, j. e, please, is the hash tag i, j 3. when you do or females more, you thing company costs about the dot net, it's our trade and there's plenty more as well online. and i'll just, or dot com slash seeking takes you straight to our home page with individual report links and entire episodes for you to catch up on when, if you. but that is this for this edition of counting the cost on come all santa maria. and the whole team, thanks for joining us. the news on alton the rest, the frank assessments this crisis is continued to weaken luca shenker, even though perhaps he believed in the beginning that it. what's that? i prefer informed opinions. i think politicians will now be under incredible pressure from the young people. that is one of the most hopeful things to come out of this critical debate. do you think it should be facilitated? not sure. okay, it's a gray. it's a really simple question. let's give samuel

a child swans that inside story on al jazeera. ah, close your eyes. ah, listen, news wasn't one of the thought i'd be singing in parliament with the foyer. i never dreamt of it. when the words fail, music speaks to short films about how music knocked down and inspire hope for a better life. ha, selects on al jazeera with ah ah,

ah, this is al jazeera ah, it's 10100 hours it g m t here on al jazeera hello. i'm come all santa maria. welcome to the news. our fare is outrage after a saudi coalition asked. right hit the detention center in yemen, at least 70 people killed, according to doctors without borders. also in the news ukrainians worrying about their future while the u. s. and russia failed to break a deadlock on the military build up the border a race to help tom is recover.