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Millions of people who are first time users for whom affordability is an issue in countries from Nigeria, Ivory Coast to India, Indonesia, are connecting to the internet. This time not with smartphones made by Samsung or cheaper Chinese smartphones made by Xiaomi or Huawei, but by using a new smart feature phone that cuts down the price such as the Jio phone by Reliance Jio in India. This costs only about $25 compared to $100 to about $300 for lower cost smartphones These phones provide basic features, some apps, messaging, internet access at low cost. About 3.4 billion people without the money to buy costlier smartphones are turning to this just like people did 20 years ago with lowcost Nokia basic phones until smartphones appeared. Monthly cost for mobile data access to internet is $2.50 a month for all the mobile data he needs or Rs. 1750. Batteries last for days in countries where electricity is unreliable. A fruit vendor in New Delhi makes $80 a month or  Rs 5600. A Jio phone fo him costs Rs 1400 compared to paying Rs 7000 or $100 for a Chinese smartphone. Reliance partnered with Hong Kong's KaiOS Technologies Inc. which makes the most widely used operating system powering smart feature phones. Jio sold 60 million Jio phones and 370 million such smart feature basic phones are forecast to be sold in 3 years by 2022. Reliance Jio is being imitated by others. Orange SA of France has launched an inexpensive smart feature phone bundled with inexpensive mobile data plans in Ivory Coast, Burkina Fso and Cameroon and plans to put this in other former French colonies in Africa and Arab countries. WizPhone plans to introduce a $7 phone in Indonesia. KaiOS is working with Brazilian manufacturers to roll out cheap phones there.  In advanced countries Nokia is offering revamped versions of its candy bar shaped phones with added web access to enthusiasts. These cost $100. A whole new group of people who could not afford a smart phone are now being connected after Jio's pioneering effort in India. ...

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The WSJ cites several surveys showing Hillary Clinton's large lead among voters less than 35 years is declining. This is the reason WSJ says that the overall lead of Clinton among all voters has declined to about 2-4 points. In Michigan for example a Detroit Free Press survey showing a 24 point lead for Clinton declines to 7 points among voters under 35 years, and causes a overall 11 point lead to fall to 4 points. Some of the support has gone to third party candidate Gary Johnson. In the 2012 election president Obama won the votes of about 60% of voters under 30 years, an important part of Obama's coalition. Of the 66 million votes cast 22% were from voters under 30 years age. As a result First Lady Michelle Obama will campaign on a college campus in Virgina. Senator Bernie Sanders will also campaign to attract the younger voters that made his campaign so strong, and Elizabeth Warren will speak at two Ohio universities in coming days. Sanders will stress the importance of Clinton's proposal for debt free college and funding more programs with higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and ask young voters to look further than mere personality to what they can expect to improve the lives of students and young people. This is happening 6 weeks before the election. A look back at 2012 about 7 weeks prior to the election in Lyrarc shows Obama with a 6 point lead, but only even with Romney when it came to handling of the economy because of the long recession. This shows how each election presents its own different set of circumstances and challenges. ...

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More buyers pay cash for automobileIt was one third in the 1950's, then one fourth in the 70,s and 80,s. Now its back up to the 70's and 80's level. This means less profits for dealers.. About 75% of a dealers profit is made on the accessories. extended warranties and the cut the dealers get for arranging the loan in some cases.

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Behind H-P's allegation of "serious accounting improprieties" is the misclassifcation of hardware sales as software sales. Hardware sales of 10-15% were unprofitable at Autonomy and helped to inflate margins from 30% to over 40% before the acquisition by H-P. H-P's Apotheker let his views of Autonomy as a growth engine and bonding with Autonomy founder Mike Lynch affect the process of due diligence, which is obvious now was not thorough in all aspects.

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This editorial says that those who argue that the spending in the current $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill in Congress shows restraint by freezing spending for government agencies at 2010 levels, are missing the fact that the 2010 levels are at new highs. The nondefense discretionary spending in 2010 is 24% above that of 2008, and defense spending is 11% higher. This makes it that much harder to bring spending down in the future to 2008 levels.

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How savings habits changed from the last generation to this one. By age 45 savings rate rose sharply to about 30% of disposable income for our parent's generation. For the generation born 1955-64 savings rate remained unchanged at 10%, according to the McKinsey Global Institute. The result of the financial crisis is that credit cards are declining and savings are up. Credit cards shrank by 11% or 32 millon in 2009 according to Nilson Report.

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The manufacturing purchasers index for the eruozone was 45.1, remaining at the same level as May, a three year low, according to survey firm Markit. The figures are based on a survey of purchasing executives. Index figures below 50 indicate contraction in the manufacturing sector. Germany was at a PMI of 45, Spain at 41.1. The PMI reports indicate a contraction of 1% at an annualized rate for the eurozone economies in the 2nd quarter of 2012.

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Bernstein Global Research looked into how long it takes to regain losses if one remained fully invested in the market with a diversified portfolio. For the 12 month period starting July 1, 1931, with 67% decline the research showed it took 39 months to be made whole and recover the losses. For the 12 month period starting March 1, 2008, with a 43% decline the research shows it took 22 months to be made whole and recover the losses.

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Acer President Gianfranco Lani says the company will ship between 10 million and 12 million netbooks in 2009, and 32 million to 35 million laptops including netbooks, which suggests that netbooks which sell for as low as $200 are almost half of its laptop/netbook sales. This shift and the pricing and sales pressures in the global economy resulted in a31% dropin profit, and operating margins dropping to 2.2% in the first quarter 2009, compared to 4th quarter 2008.

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The New York Times has lost half its share value in the last month closing at $5.72 on November 20, 2008. Its down 67% this year and reported a third quarter loss of $100 million. IT has two $400 million revolving credit accounts for short term cash needs one of which expires in May and has $398 million in short term debt on Sept 30, 2008. It is seeing a rapid drop in newspaper advertising revenue.

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The struggle between the Detroit automakers and the states over auto emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gas emissions. California adopted the first state law requiring auto manufacturers to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in 2002 and in 2004 set standards for the emission reductions. Vermont, as well as Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania adopted the same standards. Automakers sued toblock these standars in Vermont and California. While the California case is pending, Judge Sessions issued a ruling on the Vermont case this week against the auto manufacturers. This follows a decision by the US Supreme Court in April 2007 that the Environmental Protection Authority has the right to regulate heat trapping gases like carbon dioxide as air pollutants. This endorses the idea that states can set their own limits. What is needed for a state to do this is to get a waiver from the EPA, as the federal Clean Air Act has a provision that allows California to set ists own standards with a waiver from the EPA, and for other states to follow California's lead. A detailed opinion includes analysis by the Judge in this case stating why the Transportation Department's authority is limited to automobile fuel economy standards and does not carry over into auto emissions as pollutants of the atmosphere, the area of pollutants being reserved for the EPA and the individual states to work out together. Under California law as it is now emissions reductions for cars could be 30% or more below the current levels in the 2016 model year. By 2012 emissions are required to be below 2005 levels by 25% for cars and light trucks, SUV's and larger trucks 18%. Note that what is technologically feasible to accomplish in the area of auto emissions is an unknown. At the same time its a function of determination, R&D investment, collaboration between companies to pool technological and capital resources, development of engineering and manufacturing investment and knowhow to learn mass manufacture at low cost, introduction of the already feasible features quickly such as stop start engines which the Germans have already in the works for mass manufacture across product lines, and so forth. The first comer in these technologies enjoys an advantage as Honda constantly advertises itself, and the the only way to say what is technologically feasible or not is by pointing to these pioneers. In this case because of the stronger environmental movement in Europe especially in Germany, some of this pointing will be done in the direction of the German auto manufacturers progress in this direction to meet the new EU standards of 120 micrograms of CO2 per kilometre. ...

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Why is Microsoft so concerned about Google's dominance in the search ad market? Microsoft could face a shrinking price of its Office suite of products which are installed not downloaded, as the whole industry shifts to downloaded software which is available either free or for a modest price with the software companies making money on advertising. Its entire model of extracting premium price on its software products which are installed on new computers or sold through stores is at risk as customers shift to the easily dowloadable software for things that Microsoft software now performs and as these software get better and more sophisticated. As it sees no way to penetrate search ad markets it is focussing on display ad markets. But experts do not see Microsoft having a good chance in the display market as both Yahoo and Google are also competing in this space vigorously. Meanwhile Microsoft stock which was about $54 in 2000 when Ballmer took charge is now stuck at $29 and has not done well throughout this period....

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Rehabilitating U.S. war veterans and integrating them back into society is a task American now faces afer its two wars in the Middle East. How well it does this is important and requires resources and sustained effort.

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As with so much in life too much of anything is bad. Obsession for dealing with inequality without grasping the potential of new technology and people with skills, has hurt both China and India, with both moving to correct this in the last 20 years. Allowing too much inequality disturbs the balance in society damaging democratic processes and creating new dangers for democratic processes.  Today Piketty, and other Western and Asian leaders are presenting the argument for fairer societies principally because this is the only way to generate the kind of cycle for growth seen after the second  world war in the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's  following FDR and Truman, De Gaulle and Adenauer. At some point the curve for growth simply drops with extreme disparities in society- something that happened with disastrous consequences in the history of China and India in the 1500's and the long descent into colonial or semi-colonial rule. That pattern is documented in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. And it is a drop no nation or society would want to repeat because of the immense suffering, and the decline of Asian societies in a social and cultural sense, leading to a closed outlook to science in general and knowledge accumulation behaviours based on scientific observation of Nature over the course of the 17th to 19th century.  Some traces of this in the early stages are evident in the US and Europe which is why all well meaning people and people of goodwill for their countries seek a way out of this endless fracturing, the rural-urban divide, the society blind and morally neutral views of tech, and the starving of resources which benefit the broad segments of society for infrastructure, health and education through the misallocation of resources to other places. In the long run what is important is not the long theories which can fail, but to "Just Do," follow good common sense, do the right thing as Modi has done for women in essentials such as water, toilets, cooking gas, digital bank accounts, dignity, safety, access to education. And what Xi is attempting to do for Common Prosperity in China. And what Biden and Scholz are setting out to do in the US and Germany. ...

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Summer tourism is helping support a second wave of the pandemic. This report says Croatia is a case study on how the opening of tourism can trigger a second wave. Because Croatia depends on tourism and Croatia had controlled coronavirus cases in May, the government decided to open its coastline areas to tourists from Europe. These tourists returned home with the infection and spread the virus. Clubs and bars were allowed to reopen for the summer season after the lockdown in April along the Adriatic coast attracting visitors. With 500 miles of coastline and Mediterranean climate, ancient towns and affordable stay, Croatia is crowded with tourists. In 2019 21 million visitors came here according to the Croatia Tourist Board. On Italian visitor from Parma cited here says she found crowded parties and bustling bars and restaurants where hardly anybody kept social distancing and wore masks. People in shops and bars she says told people they did not need to wear masks. The governments in Europe were keen on making up for the economic costs of the pandemic and opened the internal borders of the European Union in June. The opening of resorts in the sunbelt of Europe in Spain and Portugal has led to the spike in cases in Madrid and other cities in Spain. The same is happening in France. But vigilance dropped especially in Croatia where little or no restrictions were visible. Not only were bars allowed to open but the social distancing rules and mask rules were never practiced. Some Croatians call it incomprehensible. It has led to the spike in Germany, Czech Republic and Austria. The Koch Institute says 12% of all new German cases are traceable to Croatia. It is now a fact that international travel is a way the coronavirus accelerates. Governments in France, Germany, and the UK which are not especially dependent on tourism have the option to encourage people to stay in their home countries and remove this cause of acceleration while keeping shops and offices open so that business and jobs are preserved. For people hurt by lack of employment in the hospitality industry and others with lost wages from being in an occupation that acts to accelerate the virus it is a better option to offer financial assistance than to end up closing offices and shops in another partial lockdown. Opening bars helped accelerate the pandemic in California after the lockdown with steeply rising numbers of new cases. Educating the public to the extent that it should be about the dangers is also missing.    ...

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Annalena Baerbock is leading the Greens Party in Germany to a new poll high. Almost all parties lost points in the poll for Bild Am Sonntag and the Greeens gained. Coming at a time when the German public is weary after the eurozone financial crisis, the migrant crisis and now the coronavirus pandemic Annalena Baerbock brings a fresh approach to issues in Germany. Her call for a broad tent and the solidarity in the party with co-leader Robert Habeck are getting a good response from the German people.  Greens are ahead by 2 percentage points to 28%, CDU/CSU down by 2 points to 27%, SDU down by 2 points to 13%, AfD and Left Party both down by 1 point, AfD at 10% and Left Party at 7%. Greens present the idea of a new departure for Germany to protect the climate, reduce inequality and start a new Europe. Annalena Baerbock talks about this in her campaign as chancellor candidate for the September 2021 German elections- "we must make changes to create a fair country." The German people are listening after years of disappointment with the SPD under Schroeder, the Merkel years when Germany tackled crises of eurozone and migrants with no new direction for a brighter future,  the AfD creating new divisions and waning in approval, the lockdowns leading to social divisions, rising inequality.  ...

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With better control over the coronavirus than U.S. and Europe, South Korea is not rushing to buy the vaccines developed by Pfizer or Moderna. It is waiting to see how the vaccine rollouts work in other countries before buying the vaccine. South Korea is also looking at getting better price from manufacturers after the rollouts in the U.S. and Europe. South Korea is moving cautiously and has said it wants to get 10 million doses through the Covax initiative the main global effort to provide broad access to vaccines. Another 20 million doses would be secured from private companies. This is in contrast to the approach in Japan where the government has signed deals for purchase of 290 million doses for 145 million people for its population of 126 million. The money allocated is $6.5 billion and the goal is to vaccinate everyone by first half of 2021.  If it works this would prepare Japan for the Tokyo Summer Olympics to open in July, after 1 year delay. South Korea has the freedom to do this and wait to see what vaccine works best with least long term effects because their are relatively fewer cases there. A total of 313 new daily cases on November 18, lower than daily cases in a single county in the state of Michigan in the U.S. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use anew kind of gene based technology that has never been approved to prevent infectious diseases. Other competition is the vaccine from Oxford and Astra Zeneca which uses an existing technology that is used in existing vaccines modified for use in coronavirus. The Oxford vaccine and a vaccine from Johnson and Johnson are expected to have a lower price. Because life is functioning very close to normal South Korea is in the unusual position of saying that its people have no reason to be anxious for vaccine procurement, as indicated by its deputy director of Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. Only three fifths of the population is the target for vaccination by fall of 2021. ...

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Russia stated at a meeting of OPEC oil producers that it would not accept cuts in oil production to stabilize the oil market. The coronavirus effects on the world economy have resulted in a sharp decline in demand for oil. This lack of an agreement among oil producers is leading to a steep drop of 30% in oil prices on March 9, 2020. The Russian position in talks was that it was too early for deep cuts considering that the  true impact of the coronavirus on the world economy was unknown, and that the loss of 1 million bbd from Libya had already reduced production. Experts say the Russians wanted to stabilize oil prices around $50 a barrel and the Saudis a bit higher. Under the OPEC agreement Russia would have to reduce its production by 1.5 million barrels per day (bbd), in addition to 2.1 million bbd from previous cuts that would be extended to March, which it found unacceptable. The impact of the double whammy of continued increase in coronavirus cases around the world and the drop in oil prices as a reflection of business confidence was also felt in world stock markets.  Russia's budget is less sensitive to oil prices than the Saudis. The Saudis need somewhere near $80 per barrel to breakeven. Analysts say Russia does not want to lose market share to American shale oil companies which do not have output cuts and benefit from lower oil prices. Shale oil companies in the U.S. are struggling in the present situation of low prices as many of them need $65 a barrel in price to breakeven. About 208 shale oil companies in the U.S. made bankruptcy filings since 2015.  The oil importing countries with increasing oil imports such as India will benefit from the drop in oil prices. Japan and other oil importing countries in Europe, Africa and Asia will also benefit as Russia and the Saudis go all out to increase production. ...

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The divisive nature of Italian politics was evident in the recent presidential election, says this report in The Times. Prime minister Mario Draghi still has 52% favorable rating in Italy down by 3% since the election, yet far above any other person in Italy by as much as 20 percentage points. The task of investing 191 billion euros in EU funding for infrastructure improvements and economic renewal are crucial for the future of Italy. His leadership remains vital in Italy in 2022 and 2023.

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This report in the DW on Brexit shows Britain deeply divided, with older voters supporting Leave and younger voters coming out for Remain. Most of northern England and Wales coming out for Leave, and London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds  with Scotland and Northern Ireland coming out for Remain. The failure of Labor Party to rally its supporters under Corbyn also rankles with some in the Remain campaign. Corbyn avoided joint appearances with the Remain campaign and said he was 7.5 out of ten in favor of remaining in the EU.

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The 3 week old government in Italy, led by former EU commissioner, Mario Monti, announced a three year plan of 30 billion euros in tax increases, spending cuts, reform of pension plans, and efforts to boost growth. Monti said at a news conference that "Italians are to blame for our public debt, and we risk compormising everything we've accomplished in the past 60 years." Under the new plan retirement age for women in the private sector would be increased from 60 to 66 years by 2018, bringing it in line with retirement ages for men. Italy's Labor minister, Elsa Fornero, broke down in tears as she described the change, saying it was necessary to avoid "collective impoverishment." Italy faces the difficult task of refinancing $400 billion in short term debt coming up for renewal in 2012, just as bond yields for Italy have spiked to over 7%. Because Italy lacks an extensive day care system, women helped raise grandchildren after early retirement at age 60. Other changes were to impose a 1.5% one time tax on money repatriated back to Italy under a tax amnesty scheme setup by former premier Berlusconi. Action was taken against widespread tax evasion by banning cash payments above 1000 euros. Stimulus measures of 10 billion euros are designed to boost small business and reduce high youth unemployment running at 29%. Companies get tax breaks of 2 billion euros if they hire young people....

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The Tour De France cyclists know all about using hand sanitizers all the time, about hand washing, and have worried about infections from bacteria for decades. This is because riders in the Tour are all seen huddled together and very close.The 2020 Tour De France was postponed for 7 weeks and now gets off to a start with a new structure on Saturday August 29. Each team has 8 riders and 22 staffers who stay in that bubble for the whole race not interacting with anyone else. Strict routine means no autographs, no roommates, and no buffets. The Dutch team Jumbo-Visma has taken the advice of Bert Blocken, professor of engineering at Eindhoven University, on how to tackle the particles of virus that travel through the air in the team bus. He recommended using air cleaners in the bus and in the hotel rooms to reduce the density of droplets of saliva particles floating around the riders. Another step is to stop having hundreds of cyclists all huddled together spreading the virus particles. Now the riders will be kept as isolated as possible. On the 2100 mile route people will be restricted especially on narrow passes in the mountains and will be required to wear masks. Not every mile is controlled but most of it is checked, say organizers. If two people in the bubble test positive the whole team is out of the race. There will be no fans at start and finish allowed in for the race. And the feeling that anyone coming close could be a vector of infection is actually being encouraged. This years Tour de France is more about staying safe from the virus than speeding up the roads and mountain passes. This time there is no guarantee that the race will reach the finishing line on September 20 because of the strict sanitary protocols. One team has already been ruled out after 2 infections. ...