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Pope Francis spoke against the effort by the European Union bureaucracy to limit the use of "Happy Christmas" and called it a form of "ideological colonization." He told reporters "many, many dictatorships" had tried this and all had failed on a trip back from Greece and Cyprus. The European Union bureaucracy then withdrew the 32 page guide on use of sensitive language.  Francis said European Union was "necessary" but warned against the EU bureaucracy trying to iron out the differences of culture and religion around the EU bloc countries. "This could end up dividing the countries and causing it to fail. The EU must respect each country as it is structured and not make them uniform." One of the main influences for the European identity, of western civilization, is Christianity. Less known is that King Alfred in his reign 871-899 AD, in one of the most stirring periods of British history, relied on Christianity as a civilizing influence on tribes of the Nordic countries that were invading Britain. The same process of bringing a civilizing influence on heathen tribes happened in mainland Europe. And a similar process took place in India with Vedanta and Buddhism as it spread to China, Japan, Sri Lanka and the rest of Asia. Civilization meant education, learning, wisdom, and came at this time through the ideas of the Bible or the Upanishads, or the Buddhist ideas.  Alfred struggles with how that wisdom once lost, may be retrieved by being written in the English language from Latin. He writes during this period of tumult and invasions- Learning had declined so thoroughly in England, that there were very few people on this side of the Humber who could understand their divine services in English. There were so few of them that I cannot recall a single one south of the Thames when I succeeded to the kingdom. Thanks be to God Almighty that we have any supply of teachers at all! Therefore I beseech you to do as I believe you are willing to do, as often as you can, free yourself from worldly affairs so that you can apply that wisdom that God gave you where ever you can. Remember what punishments befell us in this world when we ourselves did not cherish learning nor transmit it to other men. We were Christians in name only and very few of us possessed Christian virtues." What a contrast from the time of Alfred when Christian thought was identified with learning and wisdom, and the loss of learning and wisdom felt so deeply in this way. In the 12th century Dogen brought Buddhist thought and learning from China to Japan, before that Bodhidharma from India to China in the sixth century AD, and Buddhist thought evolved out of the Upanishads in the 6th century BC, in the same spirit of reflection.   ...

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Greg Ip cites the case of Texas, where businesses helped defeat anti-transgender  legislation, as an example of how businesses have decided it is best to cut reputational risk. Business now generally supports being friendly to gay, transgender, and domestic partners in their policies. This is because business generally favors stability and the status quo, says Ip. Business is known for staying away from extreme positions, being more open and tolerant as a way of doing business.   Where large business is located in big cities, gay and transgender, climate change, are seen as accepted changes, not as liberal causes. For this reason most of the CEO's on Trump advisory councils resigned after the president's controversial remarks critical of both sides in the Charlotte car attack. Ip cites the situation businesses in the South faced in the 1960's when their stores were boycotted after they opposed desegregation- most lost sales and customers with the negative publicity. The situation today is that business is now moving away from reflexive support of Trump or Republicans, says Ip. Mainstream Republicans are also distancing the party from the fringe elements in the party.  ...

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The Caryle great man theory painted on a corporate canvass is how Collingwood sees the American obsession with all powerful CEO's, with excessive pay packages, surrounded by all powerful top managers selected by them who also have excessive pay packages. The role of middle management, the importance of middle management and the role of younger entrants to the corporation who bring fresh ideas and thinking to revitalize the company is vastly understated and vastly under recognized. Its importance at  a time like this when fresh thinking is needed on a number of dimensions- vision, energy, fresh thinking, dynamism- is growing and a pressing need for corporations. Some corporations and industries would have benefitted vastly from these younger people into the upper ranks of management. Compare the way the new leadership at Fiat and GM, old Chrysler ran their companies and one sees this striking difference of younger managers taking on large responsibilities at Fiat and older management cliques at GM and Chrysler letting the companies suffocate as their adaptability to the new environments was poor. ...

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One reason why outside of the midwest there is not as much concern for Ford, and GM, is the entry of foreign automanufacturers. Good jobs are being created in the south by foreign auto companies, even as Ford and GM close plants there. And the appreciating won makes it more attractive for South Korean companies to build plants in the U.S. Kia Motors Corp. said it has chosen West Point, Ga., as the site for its first U.S. factory. The investment provides good news for a state that has heard both Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. say they will close plants there as they restructure to cut costs. Also note the forecast of sales at 800,000 in 2010 for Kia, up from 275,00 in 2005, moving market share from 1.6% in 2005 to almost triple that. Where will it come from?

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Talks about the 3 Scion models now in their third year, with 150,000 Scions sold. The xA delivers gas mileage of 32 city and 37 highway and has sales growing at 20% over the previous year 1st quarter( 2006 over 2005). Prices are in $17,000 range for tC sporty 160 hp Scion and $15,000 range for the xA. Two new marketing approaches to create the Scion experience. First, Pure Price, meaning price posted on the website is what you get no hidden stuff. Second, after market accesssories to customize the scion can be purchased inhouse from Toyota. Note the marketing is for a carefully planned rollout the west coast with details to create the buzz and excitement for a young crowd. See the link to Honda's Hit marketing plans which have been meticulously laid out, (Marty Bernstein, April 27, 2006).

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Lee Kuan Yew, passes away at the age of 91. He led Singapore for 31 years after becoming prime minister in 1959. During this period he helped transform Singapore's economy into a centre for international trade and finance by attracting foreign investment. To do this he developed infrastructure, setup training colleges for the workforce, and provided tax breaks for investors, using Singapore's strategic location on the sea lanes in Asia to best advantage. Singapore became a export hub for Japanese electronics companies, and U.S. companies such as HP and General Electric established regional headquarters there. Strategic investments were made in high tech industries and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund took stakes in companies overseas. He retired in 2011 after opposition parties won 40% of the vote in general elections. His son is now the new prime minister.

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Thomas Sargent of New York University and Christopher Sims win the Nobel Prize in Economics for 2011. Sargent, a professor at New York University, is best known for his work on "rational expectations theory, " which points out that people base their actions on their expectations about the impact of government policies in the future. The implications for today are that monetary policy by lowering rates cannnot permanently lower unemployment, as people will expect higher future inflation and insist on higher wages for labor and higher interest rates for capital. Sargent did most of the signifcant work on the theory of rational expectations at the University of Minnesota from 1971 to 1987. Sims work is in statistical relationships and use of vector autoregressions to study the economy. He taught at the University of Minnesota from 1974 to 1990.

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President Obama is acutely aware of Republican concerns of waste as the government increases spending to support the economy. He told the US Conference of Mayors, that "if there are wasteful projects" he would "call them out on it." He also said the preceding administration had paid too little attention to urban problems. His years as a community organizer in the urban environment of Chicago gives him aunique perspective of waht is happening on the ground level in cities across the country. Mayors spoke with Cabinet secretaries during their visit to the White House, and had avariety of projects in mind from new community health centers, new water towers, sewage treatment plants. Republican Mayors are also responding positively to the stimulus, now that the money is there, Mayors like Patrick McCrory of Charlotte, N.C., support finding the best way to use the money.

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Britian's Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, on the economic recovery in Britain. He points to total public spending under control, with it dropping from 45% when the Tories entered government to 36.4% in 2015. He also points to the drop in the unemployment rate and the economic plan to cut the remaining budget deficit and show a surplus. This puts Britain in the best position to spend more on defense, says Osborne. Osborne makes a commitment to spend 2% of national income on defense, and raise Britain's defensive and offensive capabilities. This includes buying 138 F35 aircraft from the U.S. manufactured in the U.S. and Britain, and a fleet of maritime patrol aircraft, increasing cybercapabilities by over 75%. It would be backed up by spending 0.7% of national income on overseas development to back hard power with soft power.

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In China since 1981 the poorest people making below $1.25 a day fell to 207 million in 2005 from 835 million in 1981. In India the number of people below $1.25 a day increased to 455 million in 2005 from 420 million people in 1981. The share of the people in poverty fell to 42 percent from 60 percent during the same period. Corresponding figures for East Asia including China show a drop from 80% of the people in poverty in 1981 dropping to 18% in 2005. The proportion of people living below the $1.25 a day poverty line worldwide fell over the nerarly 25 year period from 1981 to 2005 from 52% in 1981 to 26% in 2005. In subSaharan Africa, now the poorest region half or 50% of the people live under the poverty line of $1.25 a day in 2005 almost where it was in 1981. In absolute numbers the region had 380 million people living below the poverty line in 2005 compared to 200 million people in 1981. Note that the World Bank this year changed the poverty line from $1 to $1.25 a day, to make allowance for the inflation that is hitting the poorer countries. Is China a rich nation after the Olympics? Some parts of China, the coastal regions and the regions around big cities like Shanghai and Beijing are relatively affluent with pockets of poorer people but in the rest of the country there is poverty as defined perhaps in terms of deep poverty, poverty, poor middle class without health insurance or any kind of savings for emergencies. With 200 million people in 2005 below the poverty line a question could be asked how many people in China below say $2.00 a day which could be seen as being poor at a time when inflation in food and fuel costs has been significant in developing countries. If its somewhere in the range of 300 and 400 million people in China this explains why in relative terms China would identify with India and the rest of the developing countries and it also explains its stand in the WTO trade talks acting as a developing country protecting the rights of agriculture and farmers within China. And it also explains the reasons why China sees a long transition before it ceases to be a poor developing country and why there is real concern that these 300-400 million people as well as others adversely affected by the rapid industrialization and exercize of state authority, corruption and increasing gaps between rich and poor, adverse effects on environment, that these people adversely affected are listened to and accomodated in the interests of stable progress and fairness. Much of recent history has shown that countries open to foreign trade have done better given the right conditions and careful policy measures. China opened up around 1981, and India around 1991. Also progress and gains are more significant in infrastructure building and in poverty reduction in the latter phases of development as the synergies increase, capital pool increases, and the development accelerates, this shows why China's gains look significant compared to India's at this point in time. In ten years or fifteen years a better assessment could be made and then some points may favor China and some India, and the results will be a result of different history, experiences and problems faced and routes taken because of prior developments in each region and varying complexity. ...

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What Mullaly of Ford said at arecent ECO:nomics conference of the WSJ in Santa Barbara. Mullaly said that the US needed an integrated energy policy. We are selling a lot of small cars in Europe, where gasoline is between $7 and $9 dollars a gallon. The CEO of AutoNation puts it directly. He says I have fuel efficient vehicles on my parking lots as far as the eye can see. Whats needed he says is a tax that sets a gas price floor of $4 a gallon. "We need more expensive gasoline", Michael Jackson of AutoNation said, and he said he wanted to say it in a straightforward way. The WSJ editorial says let consumers decide. However this is what has happened before. Not having an integrated energy policy means just that, letting distorted consumption levels in the US and in China with complete disregard for fuel efficiency allowed prices of gasoline reach to $150 a barrel. And in the process hit the American carmakers the hardest as they are caught with the larger cars and SUV's which consumers once wanted, but now shifted away from in droves. So difficult as it is, especially in a downturn, its necessary to provide incentives or some form of price floor to keep oil prices at economical levels, as this make it possible to sustain cars as the most widespread mode of transportation not only here but for the roads not built and the consumers who have never driven cars in the millions in India and China, and the rest of the developing world. ...

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Bear Stearns is taken over by JP Morgan Chase at $2 a share, a year ago it was trading at $170 a share. This was arranged with the Federal Reserve agreeing to protect JP Morgan from liabilities on Bear Stearns balance sheet and was done overnight in an emergency basis by the Fed and Treasury to protect the rest of the financial system from scares originating from a collapse of Bear Stearns.

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Nasdaq OMX Group CEO, Robert Greifeld, says Janet Yellen and the U.S. Fed Open Market Committee should exercize caution in increasing interest rates in 2014. He cites the heavy risk for long term investor outlook and psychology of the Fed moving too quickly in increasing interest rates, because of the steep drop in oil prices, the crash of the ruble, slowdown in Europe, deflationary trends in the eurozone and Japan, and slow growth in China. The Fed now has more room for taking a cautious approach says Greifeld, as wage growth is tepid, the dollar is strong, and oil prices are down significantly.

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William Booth provides a must read insight into why poorly educated young people attempt to cross the border into the U.S. looking for work and opportunity, and why Mexico fails to provide the elementary and high school educational system it needs to increase growth to create opportunity. Mexico's education system is failing when compared with other countries in the Group of 20. Sixth graders get 562 hours of instructional learning compared to 1,195 in S. Korea, according to Mexicans First, a group working to change the way the educational system works. In recent international exams half of Mexican 15 year old students scores ranked them at lower levels in math and only a little better in reading and reasoning. "De Panzazo" is a popular documentary prepared by Mexicanos Primero on the dire situation in the school system. One of the most striking measures of this failure is that only a quarter of the children graduate from high school. This only pushes more poorly educated people to attempt to cross the border into the U.S. looking for work. It means the Mexican economy is deprived of a highly educated workforce to increase productivity and growth. The middle class tries to get their children educated in private academies. And the nation's employers use special training to improve skills for workers to be able to compete in a global economy. Part of the reason rests, say experts, on the ability of the powerful teachers union with 1.4 million members to block change for teacher selection based on merits and competency, and exams for teachers. Instead teacher positions are sold, with an elementary school position tenured for life selling for $20,000 in Cancun, and a rural village position for $2000, according to Mexicanos Primeros. Even president Calderon owed his election to the support of the teachers union. And the current PAN presidential candidate Vazquez Mota, who was Education Secretary for two and half years could only go part of the way. She got the union to agree to have new teachers selected by having them take exams, made public standardized test scores, and pushed state governors to show employment rolls and whether teachers actually taught in classrooms or worked at union offices. Calderon failed to make changes because he agreed with the union that the union would take the lead on changes not the education ministry, and had the union president's son-in-law, Fernando Gonzalez, as deputy secretary of education. Jorge Castenada, a former foreign minister, says Mota was fired because of union demands. In July 250,000 teachers are required to take competency exams, but the union has asked its members to ignore the exams, and the education ministry will not do much beyond using the exam for diagnostic purposes for teachers who take the exam. The problems at the elementary and high school levels are evident also in other countries such as India and Brazil leaving the real potential of the labor force untapped....

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Stanley Fischer author of 1978 textbook on Macroeconomics with Dornbusch was vice chair of the Fed under Janet Yellen after the financial criis of 2009, and was governor of the Bank of Israel. Both are from the Department of Economics of MIT.  What makes the book and Fischer interesting and unique is that they "do not emphasize the debate but go into more substantive matters," looking at points where the different schools of thought have agreement and at economic matters on an individual basis. Another unique aspect is that it uses lots of graphs but very little math, and focuses on reasoning as the way to tackle economic issues of inflation and unemployment. This is the approach one sees from men in finance and industry who are not economists, including Fed chair Powell who have taken this reasoning approach with no preconceived idea, to get the best results in each individual economic situation such as the one the US faced with the covid pandemic and now faces with resetting world trade for equal opportunities to all nations in manufacturing. ...

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European leaders knowing Putin and Russia were not ready for a ceasefire opted for a strategy to get Ukraine to offer an unconditional ceasefire to see if there was any change. Trump who had earlier called for an unconditional ceasefire by both sides, initially felt Ukraine was not moving ahead to support a deal. During May 2025 the EU leaders following Merz forming a coalition government in Germany joined together (Starmer, Macron and Merz) to make one more effort. Trump offered to call Putin. Yet this has not worked, except that now Trump is coming around to the view of the EU leaders that Russia is not joining the peace initiative as it sees that Russia is winning the war. Meantime two new developments took place. Germany's coalition government under Merz passed legislation so that it could build the German defense forces. Merz openly talks about making the Budeswehr the best defense force in Europe in contrast to Scholz who had resisted German involvement. Trump says it is not his war and it would not have happened under his presidency. ...

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Strong deman in the first quarter 2008 for cars in China 2 VW models the Santana and the Jetta are in the top 5 bestsellers along with Honda Accord and Buick Excelle but Buick Excelle is 5 years old and is slipping. Cherry is no 5 in best selling models. @.58 million cars sold in China in 1st quarter up 21 % from last year. Hond gained as no2 to the Santana because its a global new generation release of this model. The Chinese market is quite perceptive and demanding and GM may hav become complacent with the Excelle 5 years old.

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This commentary in the WSJ says it is essential that the U.S. get back manufacturing of all technological goods back to the U.S. or its allies. The dangers of depending on China or other countries not clearly allied with the U.S. is quite clear especially after the pandemic. The U.S. and European supply chains need to be completely remade, restructured, to avoid dependence on China or countries that are not allies. This is what supply chain renewal is about. Yet initiatives alone with hundreds of billions of dollars price tag re not the answer to the problem. What is needed are specific targeted actions such government direct assistance to key sectors to ensure U.S. technological advantages in worldwide competition. Giving a hole range of incentives and direct financial support to industries making everything from electronic and computer components to high tech parts that go to defense and civilian production.   The U.S educational component in this puzzle is university students in all high tech courses which should be kept for U.S. citizens or from key allied nations at American universities. The manufacturing base would mean securing incentives and aid to manufacturing industries, component by component, part by part, to secure American leadership and distinct advantage.  Job losses have to be reversed and industries relocated back to the U.S. And only in cases where it is advantageous to manufacture overseas to relocate in allied countries India, Japan or South Korea. U.S. labor has to be brought into the picture as a key participant in the national interest and given an important role. R& D efforts have to be developed component by component, technological part by part, and technology by technology, so that a systematic plan can be followed to secure American leadership for the rest of this century, is what experts including this one say is required today. ...