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U.S. gasoline prices at the retail level have come down only marginally with lower Nymex crude prices. The reason is the large difference between world crude oil prices and the prices for Nymex crude. Oil demand is expected to go up by 6.1% in China and 3.6% in India according to the International Energy Agency. J.P. Morgan Chase expects oil demand to grow by 1.2 million barrels a day in 2011. The IEA estimate is for 600,000 barrels a day increase for 2011.

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This opinion in DW.com says the refugee camp in Calais, France, called the "Jungle" was ignored by the British who transferred border control to France and did nothing. The French government of Hollande also ignored the problem and the deteriorating conditions at the camp. Media attention and the election led to effort to disband the camp and find spots around France for about 7000 people. Because of the radical right in France the French government has not considered humanitarian help and providing certainty of status for the refugees.

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Boris Johnson, UK prime minister, visits Mohandas Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad on his visit to India in April 2022. After returning from South Africa and following writing Hind Swaraj in 1910, Mohandas Gandhi set up the Ashram during the period after 1915 as the place where he lived and worked in organizing the struggle for Indian independence. This is where he started a campaign of spinning and weaving homespun cloth so that Indians would not buy British textiles in a form of non-cooperation with British rule. By 1930 this evolved into the Salt Satyagraha and noncooperation with British laws in making of salt. The British approved provincial assemblies as a limited self rule concept in 1936-37. In 1942 Mohandas Gandhi launched the Quit India movement leading to arrest and jail for Gandhi and his followers. After the war ended in 1945 Labour party's Clement Attlee was elected British prime minister. In 1946 Mountbatten began the final negotiations that led to independence and Hind Swaraj in 1947, 37 years after Gandhi first wrote Hind Swaraj. ...

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Results at Midland Memorial Hospital in Texas, show that a low cost conversion to electronic medical records by using the VA system's open software and having computer software companies adapt it to Midland's needs. This cost Midland $7 million and has resulted in many benefits. Senator Rockefeller is introducing legislation to promote the use of this open software for conversion to electronic medical records. Medsphere chairman Kenneth Kizer, former undersecretary ohealth care at the VA oversaw the development of VIstA software. He says its enhanced version called Open Vist A, "can be installed in one third the timeand for about one thrid the cost of the big-name proprietary systems." There is alot to be said for open software as this would enable hospitals and clinics acoross the country talk to each other and pull up records and sen them electronically, wich is hard to do when different systems of differnt commerical vendors interact. If Midland Memorial is any guide there are huge savings in the conversion. By enabling access instantly of patient records, lab results and Xray images, there are a huge array of benefits. It helped Midland catch up with a$16.7 million coding and billing backlog for 4,500 patient records in 4 weeks instead of 5-6 months. In the 18 months since the system was made hospital wideinfection rates dropped 88%, because of guidelines in the record system that prompted nurses to follow infection control procedures, such as changing dressing or following procedures when inserting a new IV. That is huge. Bed sores were reduced from electronic prompting to nurses to turn patients.And Midland increased by 77%in staff compliancewith guidelinesfor care for patientson ventilators, which if not followed could lead to pheumonia....

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The Sri Lankan economy, jobs and growth are affected by economic relations with India, loans and assistance from India, and from investment from India in the 2025 period. USAID plays very little part in jobs and growth. This is true of other countries.  In the past the USAID was seen as part of the activity of the State Department overseas yet kept separate so that aid would not be based on US diplomatic activity. Over time it became a place which supported what critics call bureaucrats pet projects in developing countries. Many developing nations have advanced in their development and no longer need USAID projects, this includes India, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Brazil, Chile, and parts of Africa. Because development aid was at one time critical as in the period when John Kennedy came to office in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, many nations in Asia and Africa were just becoming independent there was a sense from that time that its acitvity and budget was somehow both independent of the State Department and sacrosanct. As a result it became a target of critics and did not advance the US interests overseas as the US Information Service, the VOA Voice Of America and other agencies have done. A country's development no longer depended on USAID. Why does it need to be separate when it should advance US goals and interests around the world which are benevolent- consider that it is the US that helped build up the Chinese economy and still provides it with a large market. ...

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General Electric, GE, experienced a steep decline in the last decade. The worst news came in 2018 with the loss of half its share price and market value. One story tells about an employee who was forced out of retirement back to work seeing the loss of value in GE shares in 2018. Rarely has a company of this size seen a fall in stock price this steep, for a stock that was once seen as safe for widows. About 60% of GE business comes from jet engines, electric power generators and wind turbines. GE now plans to sell its health care business and other business that do not relate to core infrastructure in energy, aerospace, and other markets. Under Jack Welch a faulty model of adding diverse businesses that had nothing to do with its core business and expertise in infrastructure were added. A home mortgage lending business was added and GE Capital expanded. NBC Universal was added with little justification in a period when CEO's acted without much consultation. The home mortgage lending unit collapsed with large losses during the 2008 financial crisis and GE's share price dropped drastically to $6.00. Under Welch's successor Mr. Immelt the GE Capital unit was shrunk in size, but losses continued to mount. An oil field service unit was added which also sustained losses.  Immelt's successor Flannery faced a loss of $15 billion from the financial lending unit. Sale of some businesses was not sufficient to meet the loss. Flannery is now taking GE out of all the businesses which were not core business. The NBC Universal television business was sold to Comcast in 2013. GE Healthcare is next. This closes a bad chapter in GE's story under Welch and Immelt. GE's dividend was cut for the second time since the Great Depression. The story of GE is also the story of American business during the last two decades, with icons such as GM, Ford and GE suffering decline, businesses that operated like little fiefdoms of old nobility in Europe, with CEO's operating in a CEO centric culture, not tolerating contrary opinion for informed debate on issues facing the business. Alfred Sloan founder of Genral Motors called constructive debate central to good management. Later Intel CEO Andy Grove coined the phrase constructive confrontation as a way of constructive debate, and the CEO was shown as the first of equals. The CEO centric management ignored these warnings and admonitions in running their fiefdoms.   ...

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P&G CEO Lafley achieved cost reduction and reducing product lines during his return as CEO, but failed to increase growth which is at about 2% as he hands the CEO position to David Taylor.

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Chancellor Scholz of Germany holds talks with PM Narendra Modi on growing ties between Germany and India in trade, clean energy and new technologies. Scholz is on a two day trip to New Delhi and Bengaluru. The trip takes place in the backdrop of G-20 talks in India.

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Jack Tramiel set of the computer revolution since 1977 with his Commodore personal computers targeted at lower price points than the competition. This included the Apple II which was outsold by the Commodore PC's in the early 1980's. He described this as going for "the masses, not the classes." He was a Holocaust survivor from Poland who made his way to the U.S. in 1947, launched a typewriter business, then a calculator business in Toronto, and thereafter moved to Palo Alto, California. A visit to Japan in the 1960's resulted in him launching a calculator business. An acquisition of a chip supplier brought him into contact with one of the employees who had developed a new microprocessor. This led to the beginnings of the Commodore line of PC's.

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"Kurzarbeit" job preservation programs incorporate an idea that workers make up for less pay when a company is doing well by being paid and on the job when a company is doing poorly, leading to job preservation benefitting the employee and skills preservation benefitting the company. In 2013 in the throes of the eurozone crisis France passed a labor reform law and committed to improving competitiveness by adopting some ideas from its close neighbor and partner in the eurozone experiment, Germany. But experts say little has changed. France's unemployment is at a high of 10.4% in the third quarter 2014, according to the French statistics office Insee, with little prospect of economic growth in 2015. What happened? A report commissioned by the French and German governments from economists Jean Pisani-Ferry and Henrik Enderlein, says job preservation agreements in France are too strict and ineffective. Half a million more people are without jobs in Dec. 2014 compared to May 2012 when president Hollande took office. Insolvencies in France are 35% higher in 2014 than the average between 2003-2007, for Germany 31% lower, according to credit insurer Euler Hermes. Just in the 12 months to Sept 30, 63,000 companies in France were declared insolvent. Job preservation agreements have failed because other changes in the legal system are needed. Currently a company must prove to an employee council why it is reducing wages in a downturn. A small group of employees can still reject the agreement and ask for severance packages, leading to layoffs. The reforms were done in piecemeal fashion, say economists Jean Pisani-Ferry and Henrik Enderlein....

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This Washington Post editorial says the Obama administration is complicit in the military attack on Morsi protester camps and civilians in Cairo on August 14, 2013, because of its failure to follow through on its warning that U.S. aid would be cut of in the event of the military taking a leading role in the overthrow of an elected government. U.S. legislation requires this action. By failing to call it a military takeover and by the administration's failure to strongly condemn the massive violation of human rights in the military attack on protesters and civilians, the Post says the Obama administration becomes complicit in the action. It sees this as self-defeating for the U.S., and unconscionable.

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A centrist 73 years, and mentor of Macron, the head of the Movement Democrate allied to Macron's Renaissance party is appointed to succceed Banrnier as PM of France. Macron hit a new low of public approval rating of 23% by Ipsos. Scholz of Germany is at 18% following reaching 65% in Jan 2022. Bayrou says-“I am fully aware of the Himalaya of difficulties that lie before us,” Bayrou says he would strive for a “necessary reconciliation” with Melenchon of France Unbowed party and Marie Le Pen of National Rally on the left and right of the centrist Macron. These are mere labels- both Melenchon and Marie Le Pen want to see higher public spending and no cuts in the Budget for 2025, Macron is not eager for cuts, Barnier wanted to cut the budget to cut the growing deficit but this is not a time to cut spending as investment is needed to grow the economy and meet needs for public services and cost of living assistance. Macron was taken by surprise by Barnier's approach leading to a no confidence vote and Barnier resigning.  ...

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Modi recalls the words of Jawaharlal Nehru in parliament "at the stroke of the midnight hour when the world sleeps India awakes to life and freedom," an emotional moment for him and all 1400 million Indians in the world. India moves to a new parliament building where flag hoisting took place yesterday.

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Raghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance at the Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, was appointed chief economist at the IMF in 2003. He presented a paper, titled "Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier," at the annual Jackson Hole meeting of economists and central bankers for 2005. Rajan says he had planned to write about how financial developments during Greenspan's 18 year old tenure had made things safer, but the more he looked the more evidence came up that the risk reward relationships in a normal functioning financial market had been terribly distorted. Market participants were being rewarded for wins but were not being asked to take on commensurate risks and impacts on their bonuses and rewards. He also cautioned about the use of credit default swaps which acted as insurance against bond defaults, and said insurers were generating big returns on this but with the appearance of little risk- even though the pain could be immense in a default. Banks were carrying credit securties on their books that posed risks to the whole financial system if things went wrong with the credit securities. Reaction from the gathering was unfavorable. Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury Secretary said, "the basic, slightly lead eyed premise of the paper was misguided."...

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Shift of business underway from Hong Kong to places such as Sydney, Taipei, Tokyo and Sydney, including capital and assets, is the topic of this video report in the WSJ. This follows the passage of national security law in Hong Kong.

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The dangerous conditions and exposure to high levels of radiation faced by temporary workers at nuclear plants in Japan. Of the 83,000 workers at 18 Japanese nuclear plants, 88% are temp or contract workers, according to the nuclear agency. An account of the conditions faced by these workers, in what Keio University professor, Yukio Fujita, calls the hidden world of nuclear power.

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Questions raised in this Hindustan Times report about whether India's participation in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization makes sense now after the pandemic and the new arrangement in global affairs. New supply chains and trade alliances formed after the pandemic are likely to be very different after the pandemic and formed with dominant consideration of each nation's economic interests including manufacturing in the home country.  India joined the SCO to forge ties with the central Asian countries. But this no longer makes sense as India's manufacturing ties with individual nations such as Britain, Japan, Taiwan and the U.S., European Union may make more sense and build on "Made in India" initiatives than older thinking and approaches. Britain after Brexit, Japan and Taiwan after a realignment of trade relations, are keen on expanding business and trade, investment ties with India. India has many opportunities to pursue for mutual economic benefit with these countries. Germany, France and other EU countries, the U.S. are also keen on expanding trade and investment with India to boost their economies after the pandemic. This is a crucial juncture for India to plan for the next 10 years for a changing world in which India becomes a dominant story in manufacturing. Australia's participation in the RCEP may also not be long term under the prevailing climate of trade relations with China. Australia India trade can be expanded with new efforts.  ...

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The efforts of Syrian fighters to prevent the Assad regime from using the Abu ad Duhur base for airstrikes around Aleppo. At least 3 MIG aircraft were destroyed. The Syria Free Army fighters are young, lack training, and poorly armed compared to the artillery, tanks and aircraft used by the Assad regime. With sheer determination and using groundcover Jamal Marouf and other men of the Free Syria Army have cut the road from Aleppo to Damascus. Before the war Marouf, 37, from the village of Deir Sonbul, near Jebel al Zawiya, was a construction contractor in Lebanon. The Assad regime responds with artillery attacks on the civilian population in neighboring towns. The Lakhdar Brahimi UN-Arab League mission seems remote to these people on the ground and has made no difference to the scale and violence on civilian populations in Syria. Without the leadership provided by France and Britain in a similar struggle in Libya, and the Obama administration on the sidelines, the young people of Syria are left to fight on their own....

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Xi tells Senate majority leader Schumer on a visit to Beijing that China has every reason to want stable relations with the US. Xi meets Biden at a November Summit meeting in the US.

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The market for copper experienced a global oversupply in the last 4 years with a sharp decline in prices. The Sierra Gorda mine in Chile and the Constancia mine in Peru will add more supply of copper. Prices of iron ore dropped 50% in 2014, and copper 14%. The CEO of Glencore PLC, Ivan Glasenberg, says the problem is a huge misallocation of capital, as companies in the mining business continued to invest heavily with supplies outstripping demand.

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The author Li Congjun, is head of the Xinhua News agency, official press agency of the People's Republic of China. He calls for rebalancing the global economy with China depending more on domestic consumption, efforts to restrain the excesses of property and asset price bubbles, and renewed focus on technology and investment.

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Stephen Miran is chosen as head of the DJT Council of Economic Advisers. He was senior adviser on economic policy at Treasury during the DJT first term, including economic policy during the Covid pandemic.

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Bundesbank President Axel Weber told German lawmakers that Greece may need as much as 80 billon euros to avoid default. He said Greece's situation is deteriorating and "the numbers are changing all the time." Weber is a member of the ECB's governing council and a leading candidate to succeed Trichet as ECB President. So far Greece has 30 billion euros approved by the eurozone countries and 15 billion euros expected from the IMF.

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Worsenign outbreaks of coronavirus in the midwest U.S. comes with resumption of sports games on Oct. 23. Campuses at Michigan State, Minnesota and Nebraska see infection rates in the general population of over 5%. Rates are also high at the University of Michigan  in Ann Arbor. Community viral spread factor is missing in the effort to restart sports games, and has drawn criticism from local governments.

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In May Dallas Fort Worth Airport edged out Los Angeles LAX, Chicago's O'Hare, and Atlanta's airport to become the busiest in the world with 12,000 flights. About 90% of gates are in operation for 7 runways and 5 terminals. American Airlines is making intensive use of DFW airport as a midcontinent hub as airlines change the way they operate following the pandemic.