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Hope and reality in Nigeria (3)- President Jonathan Goodluck 2011-2015, and President Muhammadu Buhari 2015-2019
02/24/2011
Too many young people in Africa are seeing their hopes dashed, and their dreams vanish. After 4 years of the Jonathan administration, young people in Kano and other cities place their hopes on Muhammadu Buhari. The demographic dividend is in danger of being wasted in Africa's most populous country.
Linked Articles
Nigerian Central Bank Governor Ousted
Wall Street Journal 02/21/2014
Nigeria Details Oil Windfall SpendingWall Street Journal 02/24/2011
Reviving American Manufacturing- What a declining manufacturing base does to America's productive base and capacity for innovation
02/12/2011
Linked Articles
U.S. Manufacturing Decline Raises Concern About Innovation
New York Times 02/12/2011
We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not MakersWall Street Journal 04/01/2011
Nathan Sharansky says there are limits to how much you can control people through the use of fear and all people everywhere want freedom
02/05/2011
Nathan Sharansky makes the case for democracy. Rice talks about the long arc of history and trusting America's best idea and the principles of 1776, as a guide that will serve us well. Sharansky is a former human rights activist from the former Soviet Union, who worked with Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov for human rights and democracy before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Linked Articles
Condoleezza Rice - The future of a democratic Egypt
Washington Post 02/16/2011
Democracy's Tribune on the Arab AwakeningWall Street Journal 02/05/2011
Angela Merkel's experience with the reunification of East and West Germany and her views of the eurozone crisis
01/30/2011
The perceptions of the eurozone crisis of ordinary Germans and of former East German Angela Merkel are colored by the period of reunification of the two Germany's. This was paid for with a"solidarity surcharge" tax paid by Germans amounting to $1.7 trillion and led in its early stages to 4 million unemployed in the eastern part and 20% unemployment. It took over a decade for East Germany to build new modernized industries in the larger cities of the east, but still leaves the rural parts of former East Germany in a neglected state as young peoplemoved out. During this period industry in the west also regained lost global competitiveness, especially in industries such as automobiles and advanced machinery, using wage restraint agreements with unions and increases in productivity. Germans see the need for eurozone countries in the southern part of Europe needing to make similiar sacrifices and see the tax evasion in Italy and Greece as unacceptable. The real estate bubble, the lack of transparency for banks bad loans, and out of control regional spending in Spain is also seen in a similiar light. Greece is seen as the most egregious offendor because of the bad financial accounting that grossly understated the extent of the bad loans. Less publicized in Germany is the role played in the bad loans through poor lending practices of German and French banks and that as experts have pointed out Germany was to some extent bailing out German banks when it was bailing out Greece- till German banks reduced their exposure to Greece in 2011.
Linked Articles
In former East Germany, anxious residents resent paying for Europe’s problems - The Washington Post
Washington Post 06/21/2012
Merkel's Defense of Euro Forged in East GermanyNew York Times 01/30/2011
Contrasts in the approaches of S. Korea in 1997 and the U.S. in 2008 to banking crises, and the hobbled U.S. economic recovery
01/06/2011
S. Korea in 1997 at the urging of Treasury Secretary Rubin took decisive step to unwind failed financial institutions. This in stark contrast to Treasury Secretary Geither, regulators and U.S. Fed officials actions in 2008 to merge troubled mortgage institutions such as Countrywide and Washington Mutual with Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. In the process creating mega banks that are hard to manage and hard to run, and "too big to fail," according to former and current Fed governors Hoenig and Fisher. Prof. Cochrane of the University of Chicago says the U.S. Federal Reserve's new job as financial regulator after the 2008 financial crisis, is an impossible one.
Linked Articles
Red Flags said to Go Unheeded at Chase
New York Times 05/14/2012
South Korea Makes a Quick Economic RecoveryNew York Times 01/06/2011
Failures in China's financial system as seen by two bankers
12/11/2010
Failures in China's banking system as seen by two bankers Walter and Howie. The risks to the Chinese economy of real debt to GDP ratios that are upwards of 80% of GDP when local government and other debt that would end up as sovereign debt is taken into account. The inability of the system in China to control lending to state enterprises and local government.
Linked Articles
China's financial system: Look again
Economist 12/11/2010
Beijing's Financial Day of Reckoning Is NearWall Street Journal 06/21/2011
China Investment Corporation (CIC) and the funds needed to recapitalize China's state owned banks
08/21/2010
Linked Articles
China's CIC Works on Funding Mechanism
Wall Street Journal 03/07/2012
Chinese banks: Circular logicEconomist 08/21/2010
David Stockman says Republicans have given up their role in doing financially responsible budgeting for decades.
07/11/2010
The budget deficits, Reagan's Budget director says, developed to this point after decades of irresponsivble budget behaviour that has lasted gone on for four decades. He says the Greece style deficit of 120% of GDP for the USA by 2015 calls for austerity.
Linked Articles
Four Deformations of the Apocalypse
New York Times 07/31/2010
Crisis Awaits Worldâs Banks as Trillions Come DueNew York Times 07/11/2010
Tan Guocheng and Yuan Yandong- migrant workers on production lines in China and change in 2010-2013
06/13/2010
David Barboza's exceptional journalism talking to production workers on assembly lines in China. Here he tells the story of Tan Guocheng and Yuan Yandong, young migrant workers on assembly lines at Honda and Foxconn in the middle of major changes in China after the first wave of urbanization.
Linked Articles
In China, Unlikely Labor Leader Just Wanted a Middle-Class Life
New York Times 06/13/2010
A Night at the Electronics FactoryNew York Times 06/18/2010
Japan's view of China as a low cost manufacturing base is challenged.
05/29/2010
The Honda strike for higher wages upsets this perception.
Linked Articles
Chinese Honda Strike a Wake-Up Call for Japan
New York Times 06/01/2010
Unrest May Signal New Phase in China EconomyNew York Times 05/29/2010
Germany's rescue plan for Greece.
05/03/2010
Germany finally cleared a plan to aid Greece after weeks of delay that created tension in global financial markets with Greece being shut out of capital markets.
Linked Articles
Germany Clears Rescue for Greece
New York Times 05/03/2010
The Greek Economy ExplainedWall Street Journal 05/07/2010
The problems facing Sony after developing the first e-reader in 2004 and the first OLED set in 2007- lack of a consumer mindset
04/22/2010
Competition from lower cost manufacturers adds to earlier problems of not keeping a consumer point of view for new products. A problem common to many of Japan's electronics companies.
Linked Articles
How Japan Lost Its Electronics Crown
Wall Street Journal 08/15/2012
How Vizio Beat Sony in High-Def TVBusinessWeek 04/22/2010
Campbell Soup's acquisition of Bolthouse Farms as it diversifies away from canned soup
02/22/2010
The high end juice maker provides Campbell with products in a growing market. Store brands have eroded sales of Campbell brand canned soups. Campbell also hopes to tackle a younger demographic.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 07/10/2012
Headwinds Threaten Campbell's ChargeWall Street Journal 02/22/2010
Saudi expert Karen Elliott House's thirty years of experience covering the Middle East tell us that the U.S. policy is sorely out of touch in the Middle East
02/15/2011
Elliott House is a former publisher of the Wall Street Journal and a Pulitzer prize winner for covering the Middle East. She sees the Saudi Arabian princes sorely out of touch with the ordinary Saudis and the young people and U.S. policy at an impasse. Rice says the policy of supporting autocracy only brings a false kind of stability. She sees Egypt, Tunisia and the rest of the Arab world and thinks it did not have to be this way.
Linked Articles
Condoleezza Rice - The future of a democratic Egypt
Washington Post 02/16/2011
From Tunis to Cairo to Riyadh?Wall Street Journal 02/15/2011
Meredith Whitney's forecast of hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. muni-bond defaults
02/07/2011
A more moderate estimate by Roubini of $100 billion. The serious problems in state and local governmet finances in the U.S.
Linked Articles
Muni Default Estimate: $100 Billion
Wall Street Journal 03/02/2011
Meredith Whitneyâs Muni Bond Prediction Draws ScrutinyNew York Times 02/07/2011
Sobhi Saleh, member of parliament from Alexandria, Egypt, and Egypt's path to democratic processes.
02/04/2011
Sobhi Saleh represented Alexandria in parliament from 2005 to 2010, for the Muslim Brotherhood. Nicholas Kulish provides an heart rending account of how Saleh makes his way out of a prison set on fire after his arrest during the Egyptian protests. He was selected by the Egyptian military as a member of the eight member panel asked to rewrite key articles of the constitution.
Linked Articles
Egypt's Military Names Constitutional Panel
Wall Street Journal 02/15/2011
Why a Member of the Muslim Brotherhood Was Late to the RevolutionNew York Times 02/04/2011
How a services-led consumption based economy has failed America through a loss of jobs, prosperity and prestige.
01/21/2011
Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, says the concept that the US could transition from a technology based export-oriented economic powerhouse to a services-led consumption based economy was fundamentally wrong. Mathew Slaughter of the Tuck School, Dartmouth, in a WSJ op-ed piece argues for a textbook principle of comparitive advantage, without considering the way it operates in a real the real world situation facing America as it struggles for economic renewal.
Linked Articles
Comparative Advantage and American Jobs
Wall Street Journal 01/26/2011
Jeffrey R. Immelt - A blueprint for keeping America competitiveWashington Post 01/21/2011
New York Mayor Bloomberg calls for letting the Bush tax cuts expire for all income groups to address the U.S. deficit
12/16/2010
Bloomberg tells Republicans and Democrats that promoting the idea of a free lunch or getting something for nothing is delusional. He points to the road for U.S. economic recovery based on this step combined with an up or down vote on the Simpson Bowles plan in Congress.
Linked Articles
Federal Budgets and Class Warfare
Wall Street Journal 03/29/2012
Washington Taxes Own CredibilityWall Street Journal 12/16/2010
Erfurt, Thuringia, Germany- (1) in 2010 20 years after reunification of Germany, and Erfurt in 2015 as it copes with a wave of refugees in 2015
09/30/2010
Linked Articles
Empathy and Angst in a German City Transformed by Refugees
New York Times 09/11/2015
For Some Germans, Unity Is Still Work in ProgressNew York Times 09/30/2010
Local governments and state-owned companies are fueling a real estate bubble in China in 2009-2010.
07/29/2010
Northwestern University Prof. Shih estimates that state banks in China hold $1.68 trillion in debt of local investment companies which invest for local governments. In many cases the banks have little collateral. The central government in China aggressively supported this lending to quickly get money to projects in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, but this may have backfired with money going into speculation and building a bubble.
Linked Articles
Chinaâs Real Estate Boom and Conflicting Policy
New York Times 08/01/2010
Where China Hides Its DebtBusinessWeek 07/29/2010
The recovery of Japan Airlines after bankruptcy with the initial public offering of $8 billion planned for Serptember 2012
06/21/2010
Linked Articles
JAL, a Bailout Beneficiary, Heads for a Public Offering
New York Times 07/02/2012
JAL May Need $1.1 Billion More in AidWall Street Journal 06/21/2010
How America's need for low wage manufactured products is colliding with worker demands inside China.
06/03/2010
The beginnings of a Chinese workers movement for higher wages and better working conditions that has support within the universities, state run media and the government. The government sees the need to build up domestic consumption as austerity measures in western countries threaten the sustainability of the old export model; and sees higher worker wages make sense in this context.
Linked Articles
The Rise of a Chinese Worker's Movement
BusinessWeek 06/10/2010
Why Apple and Others Are Nervous About FoxconnBusinessWeek 06/03/2010
Apple products at manufacturing plants in China and at retail stores in the U.S.- low worker pay and lack of future prospects
05/29/2010
The high margins for Apple achieved through a combination of keeping costs low- even at the risk of providing poor wage and working conditions for the majority of employees employed in the retail stores in the U.S. and in supplier Foxconn plants in China- and by a grasp for innovation and technology. The paradox of a well deserved image for pioneering in technological innovation and the indifference to working conditions and prospects for employees who add value in manufacturing and customer interface. This model of growth is a recent development, put in place after 1997. In 1995-1997 Apple was nearing collapse under Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio, as documented by WSJ technology reporter Jim Carlton in his book- "Apple- The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania, and Business Blunders." Steve Jobs returned as CEO in 1997 and set the future course and this model in place emphasizing design, his ability to grasp technologies that would appeal to customers, and hired Tim Cook to set up the manufacturing which had high rate of defects and higher costs. The model was as full of paradoxes, of genius combined with mediocre behavioursas the man Steve Jobs. Tim Cook has responded to criticism in 2012 by having the Fair Labor association audit Foxconn plants in China. Foxconn increased wages in 2012, shifted plants to the interior of China, and increased use of robotics.
Linked Articles
Wall Street Journal 05/29/2010
Apple Stores Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on PayNew York Times 06/23/2012
Lack of credible progress in Afghanistan in 2010.
04/29/2010
A Defense Department biennial report and an independent report by Ann Marlowe after her sixth embed with American forces on the ground both confirm the lack of credible progress and attribute it to the lack of credible governance in Afghnistan. Failure of the current US administration to take good governance seriously.
Linked Articles
Strategy vs. Tactics in Afghanistan
Wall Street Journal 06/02/2010
U.S. Report on Afghan War Finds Few Gains in 6 MonthsNew York Times 04/29/2010
George Papandreou's quiet demeanor, decisive steps for Greece in 2010
03/11/2010
George Papandreou, Greece's prime minister has provided quiet but strong leadership in the Greece crisis; even though action needed is the gradual unwinding of the welfare state that his father setup.
Linked Articles
George Papandreou Finds Balm for Greece Deficit
New York Times 06/15/2010
The Papandreou OffensiveBusinessWeek 03/11/2010
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