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A black supporter of Obama, Ms. Hart, tells him- " I'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration. I've been told that I voted for a man who was going to change things in a meaningful way for the middle class." This encounter happened at an hour long town hall meeting on CNBC, which John Harwood moderated. Harwood asked Obama whether he was having difficulty connecting with average Americans because of attending Ivy League schools and spending part of his youth overseas. The incident reflects the frustration and disappointment felt by average Americans with the Obama administration and with Obama.

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The Economist cites figures showing Canada lost 500,000 manufacturing jobs since 2005, with employment in manufacturing down to 1.7 million by 2013. From 2000 to 2013 manufacturing's share of GDP declined from 18% to 10%. This situation is shown by the decaying manufacturing towns seen in Ontario. About 500,000 manufacturing jobs were lost between 2005 and 2013, as the price of oil increased to the $100-$120 range and the Canadian currency was overvalued, leaving the Canadian economy more dependent on energy exports. Some of the auto manufacturing supplier base has shifted from the midwest to southern U.S. states, reducing the attractiveness of Ontario for manufacturing investment. Overvalued currencies have hurt the manufacturing sector of commodity producing countries dependent on exports of mining products or oil, especially Brazil and Canada. The depreciation of the Canadian currency in 2014-2015 may not help, as many of these jobs are not likely to return.

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Email exchanges between OMB staffers and Obama administration officials, released exclusively to the Washington Post, show the Obama administration urging the OMB to speed up its decision on the half a billion dollar loan to Solyndra. This was part of stimulus funds to the solar industry. Solyndra was a favorite of the Obama administration according to the Washington Post, and aides to Rahm Emmanuel and other officials sent emails urging speeding up approval. OMB officials in their replies stated they were under pressure. One email by a senior OMB staffer sent to McSweeney, Biden's domestic policy advisor, Aug 31, 2009, said: "we have ended up with a situation of having to do rushed approvals on a couple of occasions (and we are worried about Solyndra at the end of the week)... we would prefer to have sufficient time to do our diligence reviews." Other emails referred to "the time pressure we are under to sign-off on Solyndra," and indicated "there isn't time to negotiate." Solyndra had large investments by the funds operated for the family foundation of George Kaiser, an Obama fundraiser....

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Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan, after her first year at the U.S. Supreme Court. Kagan was appointed by President Obama in 2010. Kagan talked about her experience at the Supreme Court at an Aspen Institute event. Kagan replaced Justice John Paul Stevens. Stevens says Kagan has voted very similiar to how he would have voted on most of the cases. And Justice Ginsberg says about Kagan: "she has already shown her talent as an incisive questioner at oral argument and a writer of eminently readable opinions." Kagan takes writing opinions for the Court very seriously. She described her style at the Aspen Institute event as figuring out how to communicate difficult ideas to people who know little about the subject. An additional aspect of Kagan's writing is that she strives to put things using vivid and colorful language that sticks with people. She has used expressions such as "loosey-goosey," for instance. In her dissent on the campaign finance case she described the supposedly smoking gun found by her colleagues, as: "the only smoking gun here is the majority's, and it is the kind that goes with mirrors." The media tends to compare Roberts with Kagan, the two youngest chief justices on the court, both articulate and vigorous in their opinions, with similiar intellectual backgrounds but taking different positions. Kagan says the most valuable experience to prepare for her new position, was the year she spent as Solicitor General, where she was trying to persuade nine chief justices of the court why they should take a particular position. The difference now being that she must persuade eight justices. The most striking aspect of the two appointments by George W. Bush and Obama, with the absence of a retirement age for the U.S. Supreme Court- as in other democracies such as India- is that both Roberts and Kagan may well be on the Court for 25 years or longer. ...

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The growing middle class in Brazil, new aspirations and the demand for better public services in transportation, education and healthcare. Alexandre Peppe, a 29 year old from the outlying parts of Sao Paulo, is a new member of the middle class, being the first to go to college in his family and finding a job in the state government. He was one of the protesters on the streets of Sao Paulo. The growing middle class has new hopes and aspirations that see serious shortcomings in the corruption of political leaders, neglect of public services such as transportation and overspending on the soccer stadiums for the FIFA and World Cup championships. Economic growth is slowing to about 1% in Brazil for 2013, creating new constraints for public spending just as demand for infrastructure and services is growing for the now large middle class.

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This Journal editorial points out the U.S. labor force participation rate for Nov. 2012 declined to 63.6%. This happened even as the Labor Dept. reported a decline in unemployment from 7.9% to 7.7% for Nov. 2012. About three million fewer workers are looking for work now than in 2009- 86.8 million compared to 89.2 million.

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Controversy about whether bringing back a revamped Ford Explorer is a good idea. Ford's Farley thinks Americans might still consider an Explorer with high fuel economy, getting it up to 28 mpg from 15 mpg. But the evidence is that Americans have soured on SUV's. Consider that during the cash-for-clunkers program more Explorers were scrapped, and by a large margin, than any other model. Sales are down from 450,000 at one time to 52,000 today. To get buyers to look at the Explorer Ford is trying to change the looks from boxy to sleeker car-based crossover , and add high tech features. In fact it is going to be built not as an SUV, but on the same architectural base as the Taurus.

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Chinese government data show that inflation was 3.1% in May 2010. The spread of wage increases in manufacturing after a series of strikes at Hon Hai and Honda Motor suggest that price pressures will grow even further. Analysts warn that China's central bank will have to raise interest rates to control the boom in the economy and property markets; that merely reining in credit will not work. They also suggest the need for swifter action in revaluing the yuan. As wage increases spread throughout manufacturing, this will eventually be reflected in higher prices of end products.

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The transformation of Fiat Auto. Marchionne relying on "my kids", getting good people throughout the Fiat global operations and outside of a younger generation, who were open to doing things in a new way. He had the courage to unassumingly go about the business of remaking Fiat, by removing middle and upper managers who produced a kind of paralysis or sclerosis in Fiat, making change impossible after years of a failed culture embedding itself. And in their place he brought in an energetic courageous bunch of younger managers and designers. It would be fair to say that he tore up the old plans, tore up the old organization charts, tore up the car plans and designs in the pipeline, tore up the failed models and put in place new ones- the Bravo for the Stilo, and tore up the old management, put in new people and tasks and wedded them in an informal way, with their own culture developing along the way. The were teams and their tasks, all wedded together in an informal arrangement, in close proximity, with informal communication. Marchionne saw his role as helping people reach decisions, setting stretch goals, and encouraging levels below him to take responsibility and make courageous decisions. He saw the Cinquicento as his version of the Apple iPod, and benchmarked Fiat against Apple, so he was looking outside the auto industry for people to emulate and for new ideas. He himself was from outside the auto industry. ...

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In this interview with Der Spiegel Bernie Sanders reflects on the 2016 election. He says that the Democratic Party missed the fact that many people in the midwest, south and other parts of the country, were worse off after president Obama left than when he came in in 2008. He also says Hillary Clinton relied too heavily on speechwriters and advisers upto the point of  having three speechwriters say why she was running for president. He finds the cuts proposed to healthcare, in the budget, and action on climate change, immoral. He also points out about the investigations that Mr. Mueller is someone everybody respects and that it would be wrong to offer a biased opinion, that Trump supporters would see this in the way that he is picked on when he just came in. He also believes Trump supporters are like other voters and are likely to look at the results, how better off they are under the Trump administration.

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Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, says the electric battery in the newly designed Ford Focus EV electric car costs about $12,000 to $15,000. The car price is $39,200. The similiar gasoline powered car price is about $22,000. This car has a 23 hour kilowatt hour battery pack. Based on this information the cost is $522- $650 per kilwatt hour. The U.S. Department of Energy has set a goal reaching $300 per kilowatt hour by 2013, as it funds new electric car development in the U.S. The Ford Focus EV is directly competing against the Nissan Leaf. The Leaf starts at $35,200, with a range of 73 miles on a full charge compared to 76 for the Focus EV. The Focus can be recharged in three and half hours using a 240 volt charger, compared to 7 hours for the Leaf. What the battery cost tells us is that the electric car development has to bring costs down rapidly for electric cars to become price competitive.

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John Taylor on the dangers of a loose U.S. monetary policy and the effects this had in fueling a housing bubble in Spain, Ireland and other EU countries. Taylor points to the bubble ocurring in emerging market economies from low interest rates. Taylor says the ECB's interest rate moves in 2003-2005 were affected by the Fed's low interest rates. He estimates the ECB set rates about two percentage points too low leading to housing bubbles in EU countries. A similiar process is taking place today with the Fed's near zero interest rate policy. Taylor points to interest rates in a group of 18 emerging market economies- including Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Turkey, which have held interest rates on average about 5 percentage points below widely used benchmarks fueling a doubling of global commodity prices between 2009-2011. The U.S. Fed's policies make it harder for central banks in emerging market economies to take aggresssive action against bubbles developing in these countries. Taylor says his does not mean that the Fed should not pay attention to the U.S. unemployment rate and long term unemployed, but should keep in mind the negative effects of slowing demand in emerging market economies and in the EU as a result of its monetary policy of keeping rates at near zero for long periods of time. This feeds back to the U.S. economy at a critical time....

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Anne Lowrey looks at the situation facing the 7.4 million Americans working parttime in March 2014 because they cannot find full time jobs. She cites Alan Krueger, former chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, for research that shows only 1 of 10 workers who were counted as long-term jobless betwen 2008 and 2012 had a full time job a year later. In Nov 2013 7.2 million worked parttime because they could not find full time work showing an increase of 0.2 million by March 2014.

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Toyota makes a sharp rebound after the recall and the tsunami in Japan. Still Takahiko Ijichi, senior managing officer, strikes a note of caution. He says "the latest numbers are not necessarily reflective of our true strength." Toyota has to contend with the slowdown in China, the problems in Europe, and the strong yen in coming months.