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Missteps by the Detroit automakers include fighting fuel efficiency legislation in 2005, even when the USA faced higher gas prices, and diluting the fuel efficiency legislation with a target of 35mpg for 2020 at a time when Europeans were taking up more aggressive challenges as public opinion there moved in that direction. They also spent heavily in lobbying spending, about $175 million for GM and Ford in the last 10 years, and some would say lobbying against the national interest and the national security interest of the USA, because failure to reduce consumption of oil through fuel efficient cars weakens the economy by sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas to mideast countries. The closing of plants in states like Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Delaware and consolidating their operations closer to home weakened Congressional support, And the foreign auto makers built plants in places in the south like Alabama resulting in Senator Shelby of Alabama becoming allied with them. Rick Wagoner failed to show the vision and leadership needed, and Detroit failed to realize that vision and leadership were required to run these companies. not coming up through the large bureaucracies of these companies. And people associate him with declining market share and a company in decline and asky why. The whole mood of the country is reflected in newspaper columns across the country, in reader comments that run into the hundreds for each article overwhelmingly negative for taxpayer money going to Detroit automakers. This is the situation today and catches the Detroit automakers management, union, dealers, suppliers, by surprise as they have become so used to the status quo and know nothing different....

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Andrew Ross Sorkin points out that investors are sitting on their hands and money is moving out of the stock market. About $171 billion has moved out of mutual funds over the last year, according to the Investment Company Institute. About $208 billion has gone into the bond market in the same period. There are now fewer long term investors and the market is dominated by professionals which increases the volatility. There is a lack of confidence in the economy, the same reason that businesses in the U.S. are sitting on $2 trillion in cash that could be invested, and for investors the feeling that the market is rigged to favor insiders. The Financial Literacy Group surveyed 878 students at 18 high schools in 11 states in the U.S. It found that three fourths of the students agreed with the statement: "The stock market is rigged mostly to benefit greedy Wall Street bankers."

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Muhammad Azhar Ali, factory manager for National Foods plant near Karanchi, Pakistan, describes what it is like running a manufacturing operation in Pakistan. National Foods is the largest manufacturer of pickles and other spice products in Pakistan. A big problem is the lack of security and terrorism. This remains a constant cause of anxiety for business people in Pakistan. Its like being in a war zone says the National Foods chairman Abdul Majeed. Another major problem is lack of reliable electricity supplies. Supply of electricity is only one third of national demand in Pakistan. Larger companies such as Lucky Cement generate their own electricity, with Lucky Cement producing 150 megawatts from its plants. Smaller companies like National Foods rely on diesel generators. To conserve electricity many factory, floor office and bathroom lights are turned off. For workers the lack of electric supplies and high inflation affect lives in many ways. National Foods has a weighing department and assesses workers picked up from many parts of Karanchi to see if they are fit for work or are unduly stressed from poor living conditions. This is a side of Pakistani life that is rarely touched on-the daily lives of workers and managers. Ali works harder than other production managers in other countries because of the power shortages and lack of security. He would like to devote time to increase productivity and be more like other production managers. The war with the Taliban has cost Pakistan $68 billion in destroyed infrastructure, security costs, lost foreign investment according to one estimate. ...

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Pearlstein lists the names of insider investors for Facebook- Peter Theiel and Founders Fund, Jim Breyer and Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Microsoft, Li-Ka-shing, Bono and Elevation Partners, Alisher Usmanov and DSL. For full disclosure he states Washington Post Co. chairman, Donald Graham, is on the board of Directors of Facebook. Venture capitalists are leveraging their position in Facebook to get new investors, share prices of companies involved are up. Goldman benefits by the $60 millon for placing client money in Facebook, a cut of 5% from any profit they earn, and the hundreds of millions of dollars from being a lead underwriter for Facebook's IPO. What all this does is create the conditions for a bubble for internet stocks similiar to the bubble in late 1990's, with insiders reaping most of the benefits and the public taking on most of the risk as the internet stock loses its dominant position with the entry of new technologies and competitors in the market or a change in consumer preferences. As was evident in the earlier bubble this is not hard to create. Some of these bubbles are in fact already taking place for Chinese internet stocks on US stock exchanges, with investigation staking place into accounting practices of some of these companies. With the financial electronic media and analysts doing their part in the hype and sell such a bubble is underway, just when the debt burdened US middle class can ill-afford any losses that may take place. ...

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As it grows into a significant player in mobile advertising with about 35% of all mobile advertising, Facebook is looking for ways to put news content on its site. Earlier efforts were less successful. The Ice Bucket Challenge showed some publishers the risks of using a social media platform for news content. With Facebook users spending most of the summer posting videos of people getting water poured on them to raise funds to fight ALS, less links to news sites were shared with users. An initiative called Social Reader in 2011 with the Washington Post was designed to create a sort of newspaper for Facebook, but fizzled out in 1 year after readers found any post opened going to all friends creating a spam effect. Another problem is that news stories are slow to appear on mobile phones. Instant Articles is the latest effort by Facebook to publish news content on its site. Users would not link back to the news website but stay on Facebook. It makes news websites dependent on Facebook in the long run, say news publishers. They are wary of this because economic arrangements such as Facebook giving 100% of the money from ads posted against an article, can change over time. As of March 2015, according to Parse.ly analytics firm, Facebook was the source of 27% news traffic to all news sites, Google 22.7%. Editors of news sites now write headlines in a way that are optimized to appear higher up in search results....

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Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's PML-N party wins 125 of 269 seats in Pakistan's parliament. The Tehreek-e-Insaf party of Imran Khan won 31 seats and the PML-N party of the current president Asif Zardari won 32 seats mostly in Sindh province. Independents won 31 seats and some of these independents are likely to support Sharif in forming a new government. Election turnout of 60% showed a large degree of enthusiasm in this election and hopes for economic revival in Pakistan. The focus of Sharif will be on improving the economy, tackling electricity shortages, and building infrastructure. Sharif promised to pursue peaceful relations with India and Afghanistan, and keep the focus on the economy. Sharif and his advisers are bringing a new deftness in the dealings with the Army, the Pakistan Taliban, saying he would call for a halting of drone strikes, limiting the role the U.S. plays in the region, both positions popular in Pakistan, separating differences with former president Musharraf from the institutional role of the military. Small business owners and large business support Sharif's efforts to tackle electricity shortages, with an estimated loss of $12 billion in idled factories alone. The long period of political conflicts between the military, the judiciary and the political parties have led to neglect of Pakistan's economy, as neighboring countries in Asia surged ahead. The realization that popular pressure for improving standards of living and the economic opportunities are both huge has led to an extraordinary election, and put Sharif at the centre of an important new beginning for Pakistan. ...

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China plans $29 billion of local bond sales (200 billion yuan) through the central government, to meet the needs of cash strapped local governments. Its proceeds would go to projects approved by Beijing, for airports, power plants and railroads. In earlier year local governments depended on land sales as abig source of money. China's tax system sends most revenue to the central government, while provincial and municpal governments are left to handle most of the spending on education and healtcare, which is why these needs may not be getting the funding they need. Land sales are now drying up as asource of money as the property market declines. This does not mean that the local governments are not indirectly taking on debt. Chinese law prohibits cities and provinces from taking on debt without Beijing's approval, but companies owned by local governments have borrowed heavily to fund public works projects. Shanghai Chengtou Corporation, a municipal government company that builds infrastructure has taken on 200 billion yuan in debt in 15 years. Economists say this kind of debt may be 20% of annual GDP, which added to the central government debt of 20% of GDP, would bring the combined debt to 40% of GDP. What this new effort does is make the taking on of new debt official and more transparent. The principle behind the earlier tight control of debt issued by local governments was to prevent local governments going overboard and the central government having to take responsibility, as happened in the 1990's in India, Mexico, Russia and in the USA....

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In this audio BBC Witness History talks with Shuji Nakamura, the inventor of the LED lightbulb in 1992.  Nakamura shows the resilience and stubborn persistence against the odds that has given the world an extraordinary invention. The LED bulb does great things for climate change action because for example Califonria uses 35% of its electricity for lighting. The LED bulb cuts this in half and this means many coal fired power plants are not needed. In India, Indonesia and China this means lighting for about 3 billion people, with lighting for children studying in remote parts of India and China, and in Africa and Latin America. Nakamura took an unconventional route. He did his PhD in Japan not by going to school which is allowed in Japan, but by writing a paper on White LED development. He made a single minded focus on this goal. Nakamura says it made him angry that no one wanted to try new ideas and he persisted for years of research. At the time GaN research was done by less than one percent of researchers. Nakamura decided to try the path less trodden and by 1992 developed a blue light emitting LED bulb. Add phospor particles and blue becomes bright white LED. ...

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Scholz loses a no confidence vote in parliament that he called so that new elections are held in 60 days according to federal German law.  He says it is a fundamental choice that German people need to make between pensions and investments for the future with support for the armed forces vs the policy that doe not plan to invest in the future with a debt brake limiting investment. The Free Democrats opposed SPD and Greens efforts to invest for 4 years. Why did Scholz continue. in this way with FDP CDU's Merz asks directly, was Scholz on another planet.  This has happened three times before- in 1972 when Wily Brandt got support for his Ostpolitik policy of better relations with Soviet Union and GDR and new mandate after planning a no confidence vote for a new election. He won with 46% of the vote and 91% of eligible voters voted. In 2005 Kohl was reelected after a no confidence vote he planned on his government to get a new mandate. Kohl of CDU won. In 2005 Gerhard Schroeder's social and economic reforms affected working class Germans- he called a no confidence vote to get a new mandate. This one Schroeder of SPD lost and it started Angela Merkel of CDU's 16 years in office. ...

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This WSJ editorial is pessimistic about the prospects for Abenomics without the actions needed for structural economic reform. Japan is in a recession after two successive quarters of declining growth by the end of 2015. It gives credit to prime minister Abe for encouraging companies to add more independent directors to the boards and pushing for improving corporate governance, but finds other actions lacking. The low unemployment rate is seen as concealing the problem of two tier labor market with most of the recent job growth coming from temporary workers, and the total number of worked hours actually declining. The 30% decline in the yen has not boosted the economy as much as expected because it also means decline in consumer spending power, and Japanese companies continue to move jobs overseas. It cites a Nikkei poll showing only 25% of the Japanese public now see Abenomics as improving the condition of the economy. The declining growth in China is also playing a part in slowing growth in Japan, adding more headwinds for Abenomics in 2016....

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Six former clerks, many of them now professors at well known law schools, Georgetown, Cornell, Yale, share their memories of Chief Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in 2010 as the longest serving Supreme Court justice on the bench. One of the clerks remembers Stevens for his courteousness, which started with "May I ask you a question?," and did not attach importance to formal titles. Stevens showed remarkable empathy in talking to the clerks about legal cases. Another clerk remembers the time when Stevens pulled up the plaque on his wall "Small Town Lawyer of the Year: Associate Justice John Paul Stevens," as he talked about small hometowns with the clerk. It was given by the bar association of Poulsbo, Washington, and Stevens took pride in his modest beginnings. Some are amazed by his energy, he played a good game of tennis at 85, hired only 2 clerks instead of four to do a lot of the work, and would join the clerks for discussion on different aspects of the law.

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Justice Kennedy in a prevailing opinion that seeks to let a cross stand in the Mojave National Preserve says- " the cross evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies would be compounded if the fallen are forgotten." In 1934 private citizens put a cross on federally owned land in the desert preserve. This remains there till a park visitor sues in 2001, 67 years later. Just to keep the cross the government has to transfer the land to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, till the same park visitor challenges the transfer. Frank Buono is an Oregon resident and an assistant superintendent in the park who is the vistor who challenged the presence of the cross in 2001. Since a lower court ruled it unconstitutional a plywood box was placed atop of the cross which lies on Sunrise Rock in San Bernardino county. The Interior Department and its Secretary Salazar have argued that the cross should remain where it lies in the case Salazar vs. Buono....

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The western pharmaceutical companies see the potential for a big increase in sales in developing countries with better pricing to reach a larger number of people. Earlier this year Glaxo said it planned to reduce prices to two thirds of the levels in western countries, and charge 25% of prices in western nations to people in the 50 poorest countries. As a result Glaxo now forecasts a 10% increase in sales in 2010 in the Asia-Pacific area, after a 9% increase in 2009. The overall impact on public health will however be limited as even with this price reduction these medicines will benefit a fraction of the people. Today the combined pharmaceutical sales in Asia, Africa and Australia are $90.8 billon. According to IMS seventeen economies including China, India, Russia and Brazil will see pharma spending grow by $90 billion in a five year period 2009-2014. Of this China's demand will grow by $40 billion in this IMS Report on "phamemerging" economies. The upshot: phamemerging will account for 20% of global sales by 2013, up from 16% in 2008....

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Europe's 750 billon euros plan to defend the euro currency, including 60 billion of EU backed bonds, a $440 billion euro fund guaranteed by euro-zone countries, and upto 250 billion euros of IMF money. The plan buys time for the troubled economies of Portugal, Spain and other EU countries, but does not address the fiscal and structural flaws that are endangering the European single currency experiment. The "no bail-out" clause and the stability and growth pact proved worthless in implementation. Sanctions for a country with growing problem of deficits did not work and had soon lost credibility, with the financial markets themselves recognizing the serious problems of some deficit countries only when things had spun out of control. Some other forms of sanctions will have to be figured out and mechanisms of dealing with financial panic such as sovereign debt restructuring need to be put in place. The German emphasis on too sharp budget cuts may have the danger of pushing deficit countries into deflation as well as creating strong popular unrest. ...

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On average about 90,000 jobs were added by the private sector by July 2010. 125,000 jobs have to be created on average each month for the job numbers to keep up with growth in population. And most of these jobs were created in March and April of 2010 when the economy was doing better. The 8 million jobs lost in the recession still remain to be recovered. And employers who have raised funds at low interest rates -companies like IBM paying 1% for $1.5 billion in bonds issued- are holding off on hiring in the current economic uncertainty. Worsening the situation is the cutbacks in state and local governments with layoffs of 48,000 workers. Even the $26 billion aid package passed in Congress for state governments will not help make a serious impact, considering the budget problems facing state governments. An example is Seattle, which has used its rainy day fund to bridge a $40 million gap in its 2010 budget. It faces a $56 million gap in 2011.

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Tesla Motors delivers 10,350 vehicles in the 1st quarter 2015. This is a 55% increase over the same quarter in 2014. The target set by CEO Elon Musk of Tesla Motors is for deliveries of 55,000 in 2015, and reaching 500,000 by 2020. The new model Tesla Model X sport utility vehicle comes out in the second half of 2015. Tesla's expenses are going up rapidly with the higher sales, especially for a global supercharger network in North America, Europe and Asia, to meet new buyer concerns about the infrastructure. Capital expenditures budget for 2015 is $1.5 billion. Future expenditures include a $4-5 billion plant to make electric batteries. Tesla says it will not be profitable till 2020. Tesla is using attractive lease deals to overcome buyer resistance at a time of low gas prices. It is cutting back on plans for China. Tesla share price on April 2, 2015 was $191. This gives it a dizzy $24 billion capitalization, about half of the capitalization of GM at $58.8 billion in stock market capitalization, and Ford Motor at $63.4 billion. ...

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With inflation running at 6.7% in Russia, the central bank has decided not to increase interest rates following the U.S. Fed's bond purchase tapering decision in Jan 2014. The ruble declined by 6% in Jan 2014 and 15% for the last year. With the economy slowing the central bank finds it difficult to raise interest rates, and with inflation the bank has less flexibility to lower rates and increase credit availability. The ruble's lower value is a result of a shrinking current account surplus, with the added effect of capital flight from markets seen as riskier by investors. Currency collapse is a sensitive issue for many Russians after the 1997 crisis and collapse of the ruble. Central bank chief Ms. Nabiullina was on television explaining the decline to ordinary Russians, saying- " It's not that the ruble is weakening but the dollar and the euro are rising in price." Economists say the ruble's weakening won't add as much to inflation as slowing demand will make it harder for retail chains to raise prices....

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Cold weather dampened U.S. economic growth in the 4th quarter, with the initial reading of 3.2% seasonally adjusted annual growth in GDP revised to a reading of 2.4% by the Commerce Department. Projections by economists are for even lower growth of 2% in the 1st quarter from the cold weather, which was the worst in 35 years for some parts of the north and midwestern U.S. Consumer spending adjusted for inflation increased by 2.6%, and the savings rate dropped by one percentage point from the average of the last 3 years to 4.5%. Government spending and investment declined by 12.8%, as efforts to reduce the deficit continued. Offsetting this, and the bright spot here was more business investment on equipment, software and buldings of 7.3%, and exports up by 9.4%. GDP in the 4th quarter was up 2.5% from the prior year and unemployment rate was 6.6% in Jan 2014. Overall assessment was cautiously optimistic for the U.S. economy at the beginning of the sixth year following the global financial crisis of 2008....

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Prime minister Passos Coelho of Portugal makes the decision not to ask for a precautionary credit line from lenders, as Portugal exits the EU bailout program in April 2014. Portugal received bailout funds of $78 billion euros from the EU, IMF and the ECB in 2011. Portugal's economy is expected to see growth of 1% in the next 2 years. Unemployment declined from 17.7% in the beginning of 2013 to 15.2% in 1st quarter of 2014. Portugal returned to bond markets in April 2014 with 750 million euros of 10 year government bonds at 3.575%. Still Portugal will take a long time to fully recover and the EU will continue to monitor its financial position. The last loan to the IMF is scheduled for repayment in 2024 and to the EU in 2042. Exports and a return to bond markets are the two bright areas, but the government debt continued to climb from 94% in 2010 to 129% in 2014. A 15% unemployment rate and mere 1% growth through 2015 suggests a slow recovery similiar to Spain.

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Lydia Polgreen and Marcus Mabry talk to black and white South Africans in Bloemfontein, the capital of the Afrikaaner Orange Free State. The National Party which started Apartheid as state policy in 1948 and the African National Congress were both founded in Bloemfontein. The accounts provide insights into race relations in South Africa and the growing gap between the economic condition of black and white people. After free elections and about 20 years of ANC governments under Mandela, Mbeki, and Zuma, progress has been made in primary and secondary schooling but most blacks are falling behind in the skills needed in a modern economy as shown by the widening income gap from $17,000 in 2001 to $30,000 in 2011. Less than 40% of South Africans socialize with other races, according to SA Reconciliation Barometer. 22% of whites and 20% of blacks live in racially integrated neighborhoods. 11% of white children and 15% of black children attend integrated schools. The result is a South Africa where a lot remains to be done after Mandela....

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Japan's new LDP government will follow France and the U.S. by increasing the tax rate on top income tax brackets from 40% to 45%. Currently the top rate applies to those making above $200,00. The U.S. top rate of 40% applies at $450,000. It is hoped that this will make the increase in the sales tax to 10% more acceptable to the public and keep a sense of fairness in tax policies. Tax exemptions on estates will also be reduced with the figure at 30 million yen ($340,000) instead of 50 million yen. The U.S. has a figure of $5 million per individual. Tax increases on the wealthy will bring in about $2.3 billion a year. Japan is a more egalitarian society than the U.S. and is closer to Europe in this respect. Higher taxes are supported by the conservative LDP party compared to the Republican party's strong opposition to tax increases in the U.S. It is also a more homogenous society with fewer immigrants and closer to Europe in this respect than the U.S.

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In April 2013 an estimated 11% of Japan's financial assets were invested in the stock market and mutual funds. This compares with 45% in the U.S. and 22% in Europe, according to data from U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan. Mom and pop retail investors are beginning to come back to Japan's stock market after 2 decades, making up 20% of trading value in October 2012, and up to 31% of trading value by April 2013. Japanese households have a larger amount of holdings of cash and bank deposits than U.S. households after the two decade stock market plunge in Japan and higher savings rate- about $8.9 trillion compared to $7.7 trillion. Japanese households had 6.8% of their financial assets in shares and equities in 2012, compared to 14% for Europe and 33% for the U.S., according to the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the Bank of Japan, showing the room for households to increase share and equity investments as confidence returns to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

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Mercedes sales have seen asharp decline. May 2009 sales were down 33.4%% from May 2008 for the US region. Steve Cannon who heads Mercedes' marketing effort continues to believe that its performance, innovation and technology that will bring buyers back to Mercedes. The company's $75 million ad campaign in the USA for its updated E-Class Series cars, show tv ad spots with scenes of families admiring classic Mercedes cars at the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart, Germany, and scenes of the car down a forested road. The car then bursts through the wall of the museum, and takes its place alongside other Mercedes cars. In contrast other manufacturers, GM, Hyundai, Honda and others are taking account of the economic downturn and lower consumer spending. Hyundai offers to help customers pay for the cars if they lose their jobs, which GM and Ford has matched. Honda is also keeping pricing emphasis. Mercedes only brings up the price at the end of its ad with the number $48,600 shown, a 9% drop in price for the updated E Class Series....

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Analysts at Citigroup predict that Bank of America might record a$3.6 billion loss for fourth quarter 2008. It appears that Bank of America may have overreached in acquiring 2 troubled firms Countrywide and Merrill. WIth $25 billion in TARP funds already given to Bank of America, Bank of America has informed Treasury that without additional funding it may not be able to complete the acquisition of Merrill. Treasury and Bank of America are negotiating these additional funds. Meanwhile Goldman Sachs analysts estimate worsening losses from the credit and financial crisis. Losses says Goldman economists could reach $1.1 trillion from residential mortgages alone up from $780 billion earlier estimate. Adding in losses from commercial real estate, credit cards, auto and business debt could send this figure up to $ 2.1 trillion. And bad overseas loans of US institutions would be additional to this. Not surprisingly Fed Chairman Bernanker would like to see much of the second half tranche of $350 billion in TARP funds ging to stabilize the financial system....