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The perception of Chrysler's travails from Detroit. "Like a resourceful alley cat, disrespected, starving, kicked around, but tenacious," so begins Detroiter Tom Walsh's colum on June 11, 2009, in the Detroit Free Press. Disrespected by Ford and former Chrysler manager who left at the time Daimler took over Chrysler. Its a skinnier more haggard looking Chrysler, and Fiat may do a complete makeover starting with the product line, a Fiat small car line unlike the guzzzlers Chrysler was known for like the Dodge Ram pickup.

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The long awaited renewal of America's National parks may finally be arriving with massive funding of the National Park Service by president Trump in 2020. Billions of dollars of undone maintenance from washrooms, to restaurants, to camping facilities for people, and maintenance work in the parks is finally being tackled in 2020. A new law called the Great American Outdoors Act will put $9.5 billion towards this which now has a bill the size of $12 billion for undone maintenance since 1990's.  Everything from water pumps, to camping facilities, remodeled buildings, employee facilities and housing, adding staff, will now be tackled. At the Rose Garden signing Mr. Trump said of teh National Parks what Teddy Roosevelt has always said- "This is truly God's creation. President Theodore Roosevelt was right when he called these exquisite resources." Mr Daines  Senator from Montana who with another Republican Mr. Cory Gardener of Colorado got enough Republicans to support the bill to get it passed 73 to 25 in the Senate. This is a great achievement for the American people particularly at a time like this with the pandemic taking over 150,000 American lives and so many recovering from the coronavirus. There ia new appreciation of the outdoors, of trees, gardens and of parks. The national parks show the beauty of America and every child sees America differently once he has experienced a stay in one of the many parks from Yosemite in California to Acadia National Park in Maine. It is a gift to the generations made possible today by spending money first in America, and regaining the national spirit. ...

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The U.S. central bank, Federal Reserve, is grappling with the problem of low inflation. Inflation reached around 2% by December 2018 but has slowed to 1.5% in the second quarter of 2019. The cuts in interest rates to keep the U.S. and European stock markets from declining sharply and affecting business confidence and investment were part of the response from central banks following the blunders by banks in the years preceding 2008. This has hurt savers and savings accounts of ordinary Americans over a decade with rates as low as below 1%, creating a sense of inequity/fairness. Now the Federal Reserve is back to reducing rates by a quarter point from its current level of between 2.25 and 2.5%. Rates rose for a while as confidence returned to markets to the current level. The reason for reversing the increases and a cut in rates is that the U.S. central bank sees the need to set rates looking at the rates in Europe and other countries where the economic conditions and confidence is lacking and rates are kept lower than in the U.S. The Federal Reserve sees it as unhealthy to let the gap between the U.S. and rates in Japan and Europe to grow too large because of the global interlinkages. Earlier models of the tradeoff between unemployment and inflation are also seen as unreliable in today's conditions of irresponsible behaviour in banking and other sectors, and unfair trade advantages gained by nations in Asia that are now leading to trade wars. ...

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A review of the aid program for Greece done for European leaders meeting in Brussels on October 23, 2011, shows that most of the money sent to Greece has gone to pay off bondholders (mostly European banks that lent to Greece). For the initial bailout program of the European Union and the IMF in May 2010, international loans amount to $91 billion. Of this $52 billion has gone to repay bonds that came due between May 2010 and September 2011, according to this review. The report was prepared by the European Commission in coordination with the IMF and the ECB. Greece owes over $300 billion dollars and Greece's borrowing extends far beyond the country's size and ability to repay, creating extraordinary risks to the financial system in Europe. The initial bailout program based its lending on little or no haircuts for the bondholders, who are mainly the European banks (mostly French and German banks) that loaned the money, which creates another set of risks, and a logjam, because taxpayers in the stronger financial countries such as Germany are equally adamant on not paying for the excess lending of the French and German banks. The financial leaders in Germany, Finance Minister Schauble, Axel Weber, the former head of the Bundesbank, and other prominent financial experts have also adamantly insisted on following prudent financial practices, and are opposed to using the European Central Bank to buy the sovereign bonds of France, Italy and Spain....

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In an earlier interview with the Sun newspaper, Mr. Trump said he disagreed with Theresa May's approach to Brexit and called it "turmoil" that Boris Johnson had resigned as Foreign Secretary. He went on to say that Boris Johnson would make a great prime minister, that May's handling could "kill" a trade deal with the U.S. At the meetings and press conference Trump reversed this and called it "fake news" as it did not tell the whole story and his positive comments. Trump said at the joint press conference with May that he was open to a trade deal and that how May handled Brexit was upto the prime minister- "Whatever you do is OK with me."

Protests took place in London for Trump's visit including a Blimp over London during the rally.

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Portugal's parliament gave preliminary approval to a new budget bill with 4.3 billion euros in tax increases on income, captal gains, property and car ownership, and 1 billion euros in spending cuts compared to the 2012 budget. Banco Espirito Santo was able to sell 750 million euros in 3 year bonds with an interest rate of 5.875%. Over 200 investors from France, UK, Germany made buying offers of more than 2.7 billion euros. The rate is lower than expected and reflects ECB policy support for bond markets of countries requesting aid.

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The effects of the eurozone crisis on the everyday lives of ordinary Hungarians in Budapest. The impact is particularly severe on retirees and other people with home loans that were taken out in swiss francs or euros because of the depreciation of the Hungarian currency, the forint. There is a loss of confidence in politicians, and the government of prime minister Orban is seen as having worsened the crisis by losing international credibility and confidence . Hungary's debt is denominated mostly in euros which make repayment difficult. Yields on its bonds are over 10%.

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Fadjroel Rachman, a student at the Bandung Institute of Technology was kidnapped in August 1989 and spend three years in jails for protesting corruption and human rights violations of the Suharto military regime in Indonesia. He is a political economist at the Research Institute of Democracy and Welfare State in Jakarta, Indonesia. He first heard of Mandela's 1990 release from a tiny cell in a military prison in Bandung, West Java, as the news came over a radio sitting on a shelf in the canteen for prison guards in front of his cell.

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Philip Clarke has spent his whole working life at Tesco from stocking shelves when in school to other assignments. He takes over as CEO from Terry Leahy. He was store manager, product buyer, marketer and then joined the upper management ranks. Tesco is now one of the top retail chains worldwide, with 472,000 employees, and revenues of 56.9 billon pounds. As head of international operations he started Tesco in S. Korea by acquiring the 38 discount stores under the Homever name. And also made the move into India.

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The FDIC report in Feb. 2012 shows improvement in bank lending to $130 billion, for the 4th quarter of 2012. This is an increase of 1.8% over the previous quarter. Lending to commercial and industrial borrowers increased by $62.8 billion, or 4.9%. Smaller commercial and industrial loans of less than $1 million increased for the first time since 2010. Banking profits for 2011 were up to $119 billion, up 40% from the prior year. Banking revenues for 2011 declinedby 4.5% from 2010, as a result of low rates and slower loan demand.

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With no clear strategy to pursue vaccines or generics like its competitors, and no promising new drugs in the pipeline, Astra Zeneca faces an uncertain future. Acquisitions are costly with a high premium in 2012. Nestle paid about 20 times earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes for Pfizer's baby food nutrition business. Astra Zeneca's first quarter earnings in 2012 declined by 44%. Government price reductions and competition from generics led to first quarter 2012 sales decline by 11%. New management takes over in June from the current CEO.

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The automobile market in Europe declined by 1.3% to 11.9 million units in 2013 over the prior year. In January 2014 the car market showed the fifth consecutive month of gains in the car market. New car registrations increased by 5.5% in Europe for Jan 2013, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. Spain and Britain's automobile market increased by 7.6% in Jan 2014, the German market was up by 7.2%, Italy by 3.2% and France by 0.5%. VW sales in Jan 2014 were up 8.9%, and Peugeot Citroen sales up 7.4%.

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One sees the "quintessential IBM-er", close confidant of Sam Palmisano, and the involvement with Ms Chiesi, where insider information is excahnged over dinners. Questions arise about the ethics prevailing at the country's supposedly high standard maintaining firms such as IBM and McKinsey where another high ranking executive Anil Kumar faces similiar charges. Did these senior managers not ask themselves what was the right thing to do or was the dividing line between ethical and unethical simply blurred. Top ranking executives at Siemens were also found making decisions where they could not see the difference.

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Poland says its President Lech Kaczynski, is not hit as hard as other countries in Eastern Europe, by which he may be referring to Hungary, and may achieve 2% growth in 2009, if things do not worsen considerably. The prime minister of Hungary had warned of a new Iron Curtain coming down over Europe, as a result of the economic downturn. Unemployment is rising, but nowhere near the high double digits of the 1990's, and exports are still holding up, and Polish banking sector is relatively healthy not having made the risky investments.

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Compensation at Ivy league schools and other private schools for presidents of these schools exceeded 500,000 for 89 presidents. 59 public school presidents made over 500,000. And for 2007-08 the presidents pay at public universities went up by 7.6% for amedian pay of $427,400. Pay at Ohio State 1,346,000. And pay for presidents of University of Washington, University of Virginia, University of Texas system, University of Colorado-Denver, University of Minnesota- Twin cities, University of Michigan system, University of Florida, Georgia State, Arizona State, all exceed 700,000 according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Teva Pharmaceutical plans to acquire the generic drug business of Allergan in 2015. Teva's sales of generics were $9.1 billion in 2014, according to EvaluatePharma, over 50% of its total sales, and 12% of global market. Alergan had $6.6 billion in generic sales in 2014. Allergan's strategy is to move up the market to branded drugs because of price competition from India in generic drugs. Teva's strategy is to increase the size of its generic business to better tackle pricing issues.

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One more area where the Obama administration has not acted decisively is the building of high seed rail networks. Spain has plans to invest $140 billion over next 10 years to develop a network of 6200 miles of high speed rail lines.So far the Obama administration has allocated $8 billion, and the whole issue is being put off for another 18 months. Department of Transportation has already received proposals for $100 billion of new high speed rail lines from 40 states.

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Apple released a report on working conditions at factories used by suppliers in China. Of these factories 108 facilities did not pay overtime wages. In 93 of the facilities records show over half of the workers worked for more than 60 hours per week. In 5 facilities there was use of underage workers. 112 facilities were not following proper practice in storing, moving and handling of hazardous chemicals. Apple CEO Cook says he will need to monitor these factories very, very carefully.

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The U.S. Agency of International Development's road building program shows how a lot of the money was misspent in Afghanistan. $400 million was assigned for 1200 miles of roads to be built in remote parts of Afghanistan over a 3 year period. Now after the three years, $270 million was spent, yet only 100 miles of gravel road have been built. 125 people were killed and 250 injured by insurgent attacks on the project. The project was closed in December 2011.

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About 680,000 homeowners applied for the Home Affordability Modification Program, or HAMP, and had their loans modified so that their mortgage payments are reduced. This is only one in four of the 2.7 millon homeowners who tried to to join the program. This according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data released by the Treasury Department. In 2009 the Obama administration launched the program to reverse the rising home foreclosures in the U.S., by reducing the monthly mortgage payments through lower interest rates and extending the term of loans. About $75 billion was estimated as the cost of the program at the time. Only $1 billion of this has been spent by the Obama administration. The program offered payments to 100 mortgage servicers as inducement to complete loan modifications. About half the applicants or 1.3 million were declared ineligible from the beginning, and the program used stricter qualification criteria than loan modification programs offered by individual banks. Applicants were rejected because the necessary paperwork was not submitted or it was lost by the mortgage company- 266,000 falling in this category. An additional 770,000 homeowners who started the program were later disqualified mostly for the paperwork and eligibility problems, with only a small number rejected for failing to make trial payments. Mortgages less than 31% of pretax income were considered affordable and considered ineligible-255,000 were in this category. Over 80% of homeowners in the southern states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee, received no loan modification....

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Here are some ways to make for a better day at work.  1. Have what is called a "monk-mode" morning when you just keep out all phone calls and focus on "deep work," without distractions. Every little distraction in the form of a call or some other interruption has its costs in terms of having to refocus and not being able to concentrate on the task at hand as it deserves. 2. Have "meeting-free" days. These are days that you can focus, concentrate on tasks without distraction of meetings. Have walking meetings and meetings where you can walk out in the open for fresh air and some exercize. And no phones at meetings. 3. Replace reading with presenting powerpoint presentations. Have people write out their ideas for others to read so that discussion can be engaged and effective. Amazon CEO Bezos never believed in powerpoint presentations and required staff to write so that they could in the process improve on the clarity of their thinking. 4.  Have weekends free of email. This reduces the stress of workers under a manager who spend time writing and answering emails over weekends when they could replenish their energies and come back charged up on Monday morning for a fresh start on a new week. 55. Grab a coffee with a colleague and do some one on ones talking as one walks around the offices. This was done by Intel's Andy Grove as an effective way to get things done eliminating some of the need for formal meetings. This also provides an opportunity for casual conversation Also laugh and socialize in different ways.       ...

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Is the jobless rate in Liverpool, in the one time industrial heartland of Britain about 6% or counting the hidden jobless close to 13%. Is the unemployment rate much higher than the 3% in official statistics for Britain because official statistics do not include the hidden jobless. Learn more about this astonishing quirk in the statistics that distorts reality about social conditions. None less than the OECD, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and the Center for cities thinkt tank is of the view that 3 million people are missing from the official jobless figures. The OECD report says that when these 3 million people are counted the UK's unemployment or jobless rate is about 13.2% or abut 4.3 million people. This report shows that the austerity policies of the last ten years in Britain have bit by bit hurt people's chances of finding work.  The OECD/Centre for Cities study shows something else that is striking- it says Liverpool has the highest rate of hidden jobless in its study, with about 20% of working age adults out of work compared to an official rate of 5.8%. The mayor of the Liverpool region, Steve Rotheram, sitting in his office overlooking the Albert Dock on the banks of the Mersey river, where Britain's mighty shipbuilding industry once dominated and now in decay, says sanctioning people does not work,  a decade of cuts have done damage, and that his authority runs Households into Work, in an attempt to treat people as human beings first to get a better response. The government job centres tend to focus on people 25-35, says food bank and job support charity at the Anglican Cathedral on a ridge overlooking the Mersey. That means a lot of people in their forties and fifties are left out. ...

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Ben Rooney of the Wall Street Journal interviews Mike Lynch of Autonomy. He tells Rooney that the main reason he sold his company to H-P was that H-P had no legacy database business, and this made it possible for H-P to take a new look at how to make data human friendly and to do new things with data that haven't been done before. He describes this as the 85% of what data is about that none of the legacy database companies have shown interest in doing. H-P's size means that it can bring more resources to this effort. He calls this an alignment of values that was the main attraction of H-P to Autonomy. The canny Lynch also says H-P's price, an 80% premium over the share price, was not a blow-out or over-paying by H-P. The London listed technology firms are about 25% undervalued. The acquisition by H-P of Vertica, an advanced database company, also converged in the same direction, says Lynch. And the potential for H-P is to use these resources as a major advatage in developing new products. On the UK technology scene, Lynch says the access to high quality graduates from Cambridge, Imperial, Herriot Watt, and Warwick is an advantage. He worries more about problems lower down with standards of math failing in high schools. ...