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Cultural issues for management ranks at Hyundai and Kia Motors and the revolving door for American managers at these Korean companies. There is a cultural gap between American managers and the Korean management because Hyunda and Kia are run in a very regimented militaristic way which may be acceptable in Korea but which makes some American manager uncomfortable, especially the presence of coordinators from Korea who act in a supervisory role with the Americans. Some experts say this has worked for the 2 companies. However they have not been able to penetrate the US market as well as they would like to.

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US Representative Katherine Tai sets out the policy of the Biden administration on trade with China. The policy is simply to keep Trump administration policy on tariffs in place and seek dialogue with China. This report in the WSJ explains what this means.  The Biden administration is preparing a long term policy to restore American leadership in the world in technology, trade and industry. This means as in semiconductors providing $52 billion to assist US firms to make semiconductors at home. The US will build a new supply chain that is resilient and brings more of the critical technologies in manufacturing back to the US. Where Mr. Trump was the initiator of a new policy on trade but lacked a long term vision Mr Biden is giving the Trump policies new vigor and shape and a long term vision of belief in America's role in the world. He is doing this by building on America's key strength - its people. The only way to do this is to invest massively after three decades of disinvestment under previous administrations. This comes in the shape of the $3.5 trillion plan for infrastructure and the Families and Workers Plan. Biden is also building stronger relationships with allies Australia, Britain, Japan, India, and Germany for trade, supply chain, and defense.   ...

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Washington Post calls a Netherlands unrealized capital gains tax of 36% unfair. The legislation was passed in lower house of parliament. Unrealized capital losses could be used to offset gains in future years under this legislation. The US only taxes capital gains after they are realized and at 15% or 20% for long term gains and a 4% added tax for high income persons. The 36% tax would apply to all who own stocks or bonds not just the wealthy.

In Netherlands the average take of the ogvernment is 3%% compared to 30% in US. Healthcare costs are split 65% 45% between the government and average worker, and mostly all (84% of workers) get additional coverage. The value added tax rate VAT is 21% in Netherlands about 3 times the US sales tax of 6-7%. And the Netherlands is in the EU a relatively moderate tax country compared to France and UK.

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David Reilly points out why the Credit Suisse and BNP Paribas legal settlements with the Justice Department do not provide the needed deterrent effect or accountability to protect our financial system.

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Benny Gantz, a former Israeli army chief of staff, failed to take advantage of the situation Mr. Netanyahu finds himself in with corruption charges from the Attorney General and a sense that it was time for Israel to move on beyond the Netanyahu years. In a close election contest Mr. Gantz needs to put forward his own message which he is only now beginning to do. He says Mr. Netanyahu's office leaked news of a hack of his mobile phone by Iran which went on the Israeli television network. Mr. Gantz's view of the election is that a clean campaign would resonate with voters after the rough and tumble politics of the Netanyahu years.

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The Economist argues that a grand coalition in Japan of the Democratic Party of Japan with the old LDP is a bad idea, because it means going back to the old ways. It is these old ways with a collusion between government and the nuclear industry, says the Economist, that led to the nuclear crisis at Fukushima. Better for the DPJ to go to the country and seek a mandate in new elections.

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Jan Corzine will tell the House Agriculture Committee in hearings today in prepared testimony: "I simply don't know where the money is," and that "there were an extraordinary number of transactions during MF Global's last few days." Trustees looking at MF Global liquidation say about $1.2 billion is missing from customer accounts. MF Global made extraordinary bets on European sovereign debt of Italy, Spain and Portugal and other countries of over $6 billion. He says he reduced the leverage of the firm from 37 to 1 in early 2010 to 30 to 1 in late 2011. He says there were discussions where his strategy was debated and that it was prudent strategy to make these investments. He lobbied the CFTC on the issue of whether there should be a ban on futures firms swapping customer funds for higher yielding assets such as government bonds, because these transactions would benefit futures commission merchants. There are questions of conflicts of interest because CFTC head Gary Gensler and Jan Corzine both worked closely at Goldman Sachs....

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Ignazio Angeloni heads the financial supervisory authority setup by EU leaders in 2013 inside the European Central Bank. The NYT's Danny Hakim's interview with Angeloni on the task facing Angeloni and the ECB as it takes on supervision of all EU banks.

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White women have voted for Democrats only twice in 1964 and 1996, both times for southern Democrats, Lyndon Johnson from Texas in 1964 and Bill Clinton from Arkansas. Biden losing margin with white women was 11 percentage points Harris was 5 points. Knowing this it is not clear how the idea of depending on the women's vote was a reliable strategy. Considering that women also vote for the pocketbook, the economy and the cost of living issues were twice as important for Republican/Democrat women than other issues. Latino men margin for Clinton was 31 points, for Biden this dropped to 23 points, for Harris this dropped way down as Latino men swung sharply away from Democrats to give a plus 10 point margin for Trump a swing of 33 percentage points. Harris won Latino women by 22 points compared to 44 points for Clinton. The whole strategy Democrat women candidates trying to appeal to men, or use women as an offset for losses with men has not worked. Part of this is also that the economy is also a factor for women.    ...

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Refugees in Germany are 3.48 million in 2024 at 4 percent of the population, government data shows. This is 60,000 more than in 2023. One third of them are from Ukraine and many of them seek a return to their home country. Clara Bunger a member of the German parliament requested the information from the government. Bunger says- "It's in clear contradiction to the misleading portrayal of an alleged 'national emergency. Such scaremongering deliberately distracts from actual social problems and uses fear to make refugees a scapegoat." This distraction from the problems of cost of living is why immigration hurts workers and families, why PM Mette Frederiksen, Denmark, PM Michel Barnier, France, US president Biden/Harris who negotiated the legislation with Republicans in Congress to close the Border are taking this important step to refocus on the future of America and Europe, and the world at large. ...