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A Nikkei poll shows only 36% of people in Japan support a reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to allow "collective self defense," and 51% disapprove. Prime minister Abe cites the need for "thorough debate," and legislative moves in this area will be held back, to gain support for reforms in the agriculture and other sectors. Abe appears to have lost some goodwill for reform measures to launch the Third Arrow. In an address to the Australian parliament in English Abe made a committment to the principle underlying Article 9 by saying- "This vow that Japan made after the war is still fully alive today." He also stated that Japan woud never let the horrors of World War II be repeated. Japan and Australia have agreed to share military equipment, and Japan has a role in developing a submarine fleet for the Australian navy of 30 billion Australian dollars (US $28.1 billion). At about this time in Beijing U.S. leaders for the foreign and finance ministries, Lew and Kerry, met for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue sixth round in Beijing's Diaoyutai State guest house. China's president Jinping, probably aware of the waves created by its own assertive stance in the region and the response of neighbors and Japan, said that the Pacific was large enough to accomodate both the U.S. and China....

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There is a sharp decline in investor confidence in Greece as the Syriza Party leads in polls in Dec. 2014, with a 3-6 point lead over New Democracy Party of prime minister Samaras. There was a sharp selloff on the Athens stock exchange and yields on Greece's 10 year government bonds went up to 8.5% by Dec. 11, 2014. The government needs 180 votes for a presidential election vote in parliament. The outcome is uncertain and could lead to early parliamentary elections on Jan 25, 2015, with Syriza a potential winner. Syriza had taken a strong line on Greece's debt in 2012 elections, including a possible debt default. It now says it is willing to renegotiate and maintain relations with IMF, EU and the ECB creditors to Greece. In fact, Syriza leader Tsipras has met with ECB chief Draghi, former ECB official Joerg Asmussen of Germany, and Greece's central bank chief. Syriza has changed its party promises to reflect its move to the mainstream- such as not offering to hire back workers or make tax relief measures apart from specific ones, only insisting on freezing public sector layoffs and reversing minimum wage cuts. The EU programs for Greece lapse on 28, Feb. 2015, and an EU official say it is important that Syriza agree to a program following that date to reassure financial markets....

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Andrew Kramer reports from the front near the city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine with signs of a breakdown in the second Minsk accord. Following the breakdown of the Minsk agreement of September 2014 by February 2015, with fighting around the town of Debaltseve, leaders of Russia, Germany, France and the separatist eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk met again in Minsk, Belarus, on Feb 11, 2015. This led to the second Minsk Agreement and a ceasefire. This agreement called for release of prisoners, a zone to separate the soldiers on each side, constitutional reforms for decentralization in Ukraine giving autonomy to the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, and monitoring by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Minsk II agreement is under strain as the economic blockade by Kiev, and separatist violations of the ceasefire, have created a tense situation by June 2015. The second Minsk agreement was reached under pressure from the U.S. saying it would send arms to the government in Kiev if Russia continued to send troops into Ukraine, and Germany seeking to avoid a further escalation of the conflict. In the background the U.S. and the EU continued economic sanctions on Russia, and the Russian economy suffered from a decline in oil prices as a result of Saudi pricing decisions....

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A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows that 58% of people polled want the President to worry more about keeping the budget deficit down even though this may mean alonger recession and asloer recovery. Only 35% say they favoring boosting the economy. What may be vague here is what a longer recession here means, its length from 1 to 2 years or 3-4 years, and what boosting the economy means; when the stimulus package has already been passed and its impact has still to be felt as a lot of the money is not yet spent. Democrats are evenly split with 50% favoring boosting the economy, and 42% urging a deficit focus. Republicans overwhelmingly are worried about the budget deficit. Independents by 2 to 1 also are worried about the deficit. Overall 31% of those polled say job creation and economic growth should be the highest priority for the government. And 19% say deficit and government spending should be the highest priority. About 16% say they see health care as the biggest priority, and 14% said national security and terrorism should be the highest priority. This means that the Obama administration will have two conflicting concerns throughout the early years in keeping the stimulus measures in place, and at the same time paying attention to the budget deficit....

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The company that only a couple of years ago was coming up with new models and among the top names in the cell phone business, is now gasping for air as it struggles to keep its cellphone business alive. It is an example of how vigilant and on ones toes (how paranoid in Andy Grove's words), one has to be in the fast moving tech businesses. Losing its leadership position to Nokia and other rivals like Samsung and LG from South Korea, who had better strategies and newer models, Motorola has never recovered, and the way down has been steep and precipitious. Motorola's cellphone sales fell a huge 51% in the fourth quarter, matching in its magnitude the kind of breathtaking sales drops that have hit GM and Chrysler for January 2009. And things cannot get better when the loss of $595 million for the cellphone division (or $31 for each cellphone shipped), mean cuts in design and other needed staff. Motorola has been closing design centers and has laid off 25% of design staff. In total Motorola posted a loss of $3.58 billion for the 4th quarter 2008. The rest of the losses include writedowns and charges for layoffs of 7000 workers announced since October 2008. Motorola shares trade at $4.04 on the NYSE and Moody's has downgraded it to Baa3, the lowest investment grade rating. ...

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China has seen novel uses of the internet. Pinduoduo is one of them. It brings people together on the internet to socialize and shop together. Purchases are small compared to Alibaba- $324 a year on average. By  bringing people in large numbers it has brought in about 788 million users in 2020.  One of the attractions is an orchard game where people tend to their digital orchards to earn shopping vouchers and prizes such as boxes of mangoes.The founder Mr. Huang studied computer science at the University of Wisconsin- Madison where he met Chen who now runs the company. Huang's first effort as recently as 2015 was to sell lychees and fruit from their sole warehouse in Shanghai on WeChat platform. This failed when the computer systems of the website could not handle the large number of orders. Lychees then rotted at the warehouse. From that first effort he realized the way social and browsing platforms could work with shopping. To build up large number of buyers who could be served advertising he came up with subsidies to buyers that are financed from the advertising. Money from advertising is put back into the subsidies. The buyers get discount on purchases and the browsing social platform builds large number of users in a short time. In this way it has as many users as Alibaba but purchases are small.  As in these types of startups with huge valuations and fast growth no profits were made in 2020. The loss is $1.1 billion in 2020. It has put $13 billion of the ad revenues into subsidizing the products on the site. Investors have given the company $6 billion for an agriculture program to sell fresh food and produce.  The Chinese government sees the company subsidies as having an effect of distorting the market prices. Regulators have fined the company for its practices. The company's working culture has some aspects that come under criticism with deaths of two employees.  This offers a glimpse of China's internet culture. How much of it is real constructive development of the internet is always a question. Is investor capital productively invested is also a question. Like Japan in the late 1980's few questions are asked by investors about productive uses of capital. As growth slows as it did in Japan by 2000 a lot of these questions are likely to come back.   ...

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Boris Johnson, who heads a minority government in Britain following resignation of Theresa May, will do just about anything to push Britain out of the European Union by October 31st. He has said he would "rather be dead in a ditch" than ask for an extension of the October 31st deadline. The British parliament is dead set on preventing that and has passed legislation requiring a extension of the October 31st deadline to January 2020. Johnson is even willing to go to jail for breaking the law, on the grounds that he is simply supporting the people's referendum choice over an elected parliament. This is itself a strange situation because the elected representatives in parliament decide for the people, and views in a referendum can change over time. Johnson says the reports of Britain's economy taking a blow from simply falling out of the European Union without a negotiated deal are exaggerated. He even once said all it means is that there might be "a shortage of Mars chocolate bars." Before becoming prime minister with a one vote majority in parliament which he promptly lost on the first day parliament met, Boris was a journalist who was elected Mayor of London. His only other position was for a brief period with controversy as Foreign Secretary in Theresa May's government. By taking in as chief adviser the head of the Brexit referendum Leave campaign Mr. Cummings, Mr. Johnson shows he believes he could win a general election with a carefully orchestrated campaign like that of Leave that blames the Labour Party, and the Scottish National party for stopping Brexit and halting the people's mandate.  The question is whether Cummings has gone too far or Boris Johnson has gone too far using Cumming's methods and views. Many Conservative moderates were expelled from the Conservative Party by Johnson and Cummings leaving the Conservative Party in self-destructive mode and the worst shape it has been in its history. It is not clear that after 10 years of austerity and rule by the Conservative party, and the mess from the single minded pursuit of Brexit that has overshadowed Britain's other priorities, that the British public would simply give a broken Conservative Party another mandate without thinking carefully about all the consequences. More so amid the lack of trust that is a feature of the Boris Johnson minority government.  ...

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Only 12% of Americans take the minimum daily recommended fruit for healthy living, and only 9% of Americans take the minimum daily recommended vegetables, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The minimum for fruit is daily taking one and half cups fruit. For vegetables it is daily taking two to three cups of vegetables. Women consume a bit more at 15% for fruit. An interesting finding in this study that explains the widespread obesity in the U.S. regardless of incomes is that of affluent and wealthy Americans only about 12% consume enough vegetables. This is very close to the percentage of poor people eating the recommended 2-3 cups of vegetables a day, which is at 7%. This is an alarming fact in that all sections of society are doing very badly, creating acatastrophic effect for healthcare. A diet without fruits and vegetable brings higher rates of obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes. If rich and poor upper middle class and lower middle class are all sharing the same lack of awareness it points to the lack of education in eating right as the big culprit. This is one area where government, universities, and the informed private sector, can change things if they wanted to. A challenge as big as that in literacy and education for the U.S. Alarmingly even though it is in the top ten read articles in the Guardian newspaper online edition on November 16, 2017, we checked the other sites. We could not find it under Health in CNN, where other topics such as sexual harrassment, and sugar cravings, were covered. NBC covered a different CDC report showing 71% of Americans are overweight or obese with BMI over 25, but made no mention of this report by CDC. Equally alarming is the statistic cited in the Guardian from the Union of Concerned Scientists that shows only 2% of American farmland is used to cultivate fruits and vegetables. That this would have to go up at least to 4% if all Americans are to get their daily required fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile little change is to be seen, and no alarm bells are ringing in the U.S.. These facts are hardly mentioned in any healthcare discussion in media, as if they can be ignored or shoved under the carpet. This is the kind of thing that will never go viral, as a discussion on sexual harrassment or some other topic would, yet deserves just as much attention and education. ...

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This editorial Board opinion piece in the WSJ gives exceptional insights into major issues facing Germany, the cost of electricity generated from renewables, failure to meet climate change emissions targets set by the government, and the difficulty of forming a new coalition government with conflicting goals of the Greens vs the CDU and the FDP.  By one estimate it cost households and business about $125 billion extra in higher electricity bills for 2000-2015 to subsidize renewable energy from solar and wind. Utilities are required to buy renewable at above market rates, especially since the energy revolution called Energiewende was launched by chancellor Merkel in 2010. German electricity prices are about 36 cents per kilowatt hour compared to 13 cents in America. The 2011 decision following the Fukushima disaster to phase out nuclear power by 2022 made the effort to meet renewables targets of 40% by 2020 compared to 1990 -exceeding the 20% for the EU- even harder. Germany sees a 30% target for 2020 as reachable.   Even though renewables can generate 50% of required energy supplies, only 30% of the supplies are utilized as the renewables are generated mostly in the north of the country and there is a lack of transmission lines to bring it to the industrial south. The dirty secret says the WSJ editorial board for the renewable story in Germany is that a lot of coal is used in dirty coal plants to meet electricity needs when wind and solar energy are not available. Cheaper coal not natural gas is preferred for such generation as daytime peak use that recoups more expensive gas cost is managed with renewables. Leading to the situation that Germany generates only 9% of energy from natural gas compared to 30% in the U.S.. The further Germany has gone in renewables has also led to the paradox of increased dependence on coal. Getting to the new Jamaica coalition being planned between the CDU and the FDP and the Greens. The problem is that the Greens want to see the 20 most polluting coal plants closed, the CDU and the FDP are willing to close only ten coal polluting plants. The WSJ's opinion is that voters chose the AfD right wing party with 13% of the vote because of the platform promise to shut down Merkel's Energiewende policy.   ...

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Declan Walsh's article published on May 19, 2013 in the NYT, was written and reported before his expulsion by the Interior Ministry of Pakistan. It surely must rank as an exceptional piece of journalism and possibly the best that has been done on Pakistan in the U.S. media for decades. Walsh focusses on the Pakistan Railways once part of the British Indian Railways which pulled together all of South Asia from Burma and the Afghan border to Ceylon, an engineering feat accomplished by the British which integrated India (and Pakistan) into nation states. He takes a cue from the India patriot Gokhale's advice to the the young Mohandas Gandhi to travel by rail to see India, its agricultural interior and small towns. Walsh rides the Awami Express from Peshawar near the Afghan border to Karachi, in Sindh province. Along the way the train passes Sukkur, crosses the Indus river, reaches Lahore in the Punjab province, and makes its way to Hyderabad in Sindh province near the Thar desert and India. Walsh stops at each point to talk with railway personnel, describes passengers, and the changing terrain. The strains on the society from extremist violence, the lack of investment in the railways, corruption, and railway ministry officials who diverted resources away from the railways, are described in detail, showing how conditions have deteriorated in the railways to this point. It also focusses attention on the need to modernize and rebuild Pakistan's railways. In China and in India railways play a huge role in the life of the common man, providing the major means of transportation and freight links for these large developing countries. By pulling freight business away from the railways and shifting it to businesses outside railways, a critical source of revenue was take away by a rail minister in the Musharraf government, which needs to be reversed. In the U.S., China and India rail freight business is a key part of the railway companies. There is a sense of despair in the railway people Walsh talks to, but his account also spells hope by bringing this to the attention of the outside world, to the public in the U.S. and Europe, even Japan, that what Pakistan needs is new investment, help with infrastructure. It sends a message to the new government to gird itself for the difficult tasks ahead to win the confidence of the people of Pakistan in a way that has not been done in the past. Falling behind is then both problem and opportunity in a modernizing world with new technologies that can transform the landscape....

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This report in the NYT shows that Mr. Trump thought his forceful personality and going for the big deal would work where a quarter century of diplomacy had failed- to get North Korea to completely give up its nuclear materials and facilities in exchange for complete lifting of sanctions.  The meeting at a French era colonial building in Hanoi was the result of Mr. Trump's sense that he had developed a special relationship with Kim Jong-Un, the North Korean leader, so that he could suggest a grand bargain to Kim. Meanwhile North Korean negotiators had put forward plans for lifting of the most recent Trump sanctions that were affecting the economy and ordinary people severely in exchange for closing down of the Yongbyon nuclear complex but kept details vague. When Mr. Trump met Kim at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi he gave Kim a detailed list of the nuclear facilities including one that developed uranium near Pyongyang for complete denuclearization, the U.S. goal.  The North Koreans were simply not ready to give up all facilities at once as they said the trust had to be built up before such a move. This report shows the nature of the wild swings from the early efforts to tighten sanctions and take strong action against North Korea., to the meetings in Singapore and Hanoi. At the time Mr. Tillerson at the State Department had suggested after a visit to Beijing that there were 2 or 3 avenues open, which Mr. Trump rejected and instead fired Mr. Tillerson. Mr. Pompeo who replaced Mr. Tillerson at State Department formerly headed the CIA and had detailed knowledge of the North's nuclear program including facilities hidden in tunnels all over North Korea. He and Mr. Bolton the National Security Adviser did not favor having the meetings first in Singapore and then in Hanoi. After the South Korean president's efforts to increase friendship with the North Koreans and his visit to Pyongyang he passed on an offer for Mr. Trump to meet Kim Jong-Un which Mr. Trump in a complete turnaround immediately accepted. This led to meetings in Singapore and then Hanoi with Kim against the advice of Mr. Bolton and Mr. Pompeo. At this point North Korea has suspended further tests but continues its nuclear development. The U.S. has suspended military exercises with South Korea.  ...

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Leakage of state funds is serious. Just think how many hospitals and schools, how many solar panel farms or wind farms can be built with $4.5 billion that is reported as the money laundered in the 1MDB leakage of state infrastructure funds? Here it is reported that Goldman Sachs settles for its involvement in the 1MDB with $2.5 billion in cash and guarantee recovery of $1.4 billion in proceeds from assets lost by the Malaysia state infrastructure fund. This is what the WSJ says on July 24, 2020, Ben Otto and Chester Tay- "Goldman Sachs was the main banker for the Malaysian fund 1 Malaysia Development Bhd. or 1MDB. The bank raised billions of dolars for the fund which was allegedly stolen by people working for the fund, government officials and two senior Goldman bankers." It also says Goldman raised $6.5 billion for the 1MDB through bond sales in 2012 and 2013, much of which was stolen by a Malaysian government advisor. And that Goldman received $600 million in fees which would be about 10%. Many of the countries in Asia and Africa have a colonial past in which little or no investment was made for centuries in heath, education and infrastructure. This makes it all the more appalling and heartbreaking. Goldman bankers were also involved in advising China during the hyper growth years which are leading today to little or no growth and concentration in property sector, with appalling devastation of the climate in China over a compressed period of 10-15 years 1995-2010,  leading to fires, floods, drought in China and worldwide, including in Africa and Asia. Was this good advice or self-serving for investment banks as this was accompanied by shift of manufacturing to China leading to decay of communities throughout America and and now a reversal after the pandemic all compressed so as to wreak havoc first one way and then the other way leading to a world more prone to conflict and war. Was this good advice or a cautionary tale for both America, for African and Asian countries and for China most of all a country that has a colonial past and treated with respect by Americans. Two Americans come to mind  Theodore Roosevelt who helped establish the now famous Tsinghua University in Beijing in 1911, and Joe Stilwell who led the Allied operations in China against the Japanese. Were Roosevelt, Stilwell sincere friends of China and Asian countries or the Goldman bankers is a question that just comes up. ...

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A chemical attack on a rebel held area in northern Syria leads to international outrage and protests.

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On a tighter monetary policy now or a more gradualist course. Ben Bernanke makes a speech at the IMF on June 4, 2006, about a possible tightening of monetary policy so that higher energy costs do not get permanently embedded in core inflation and to achieve sustainable growth in line with the increase in productive capacity of the economy.

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How Ben Bernanke is having to invent Fed policy on the fly. His thinking in academia was that the Fed should not make ad hoc policy but go through things carefully. Now with crisis after crisis in the financial markets in 2007 this is what he has to do make policy in response to changing events.

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In a first at Davos World Economic Forum, China's president Xi Jinping uses the 2017 meeting to give a one hour long spirited defense of the world trading system, critical of U.S. president elect Trump's protectionist views without naming him. Xi pointed out that "no one will be winners in a trade war." And went on to add that restricting world trade was like "locking oneself in a dark room, keeping out wind and rain from outside but also light and air." For the first time Jinping stated that China would take the U.S. role of defending the world trading system from attack as needed. On climate change Xi defended the Paris accords, and gave China's commitment to pursue changes regardless of what the U.S. under president Trump does. This follows Chancellor Merkel of Germany's statements on the issue critical of the views of president elect Trump, and taking the lead to defend the world trading system. Xi also pointed out that many of the ills that led to voter discontent in the West were not really from the freeing up of trade but from the pursuit of excessive profit with the financial crisis of 2008.   ...

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Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms gets words of praise for her short 4 minute but effective speech finding just the right words to protesters on the night of May 29. By 9.30 pm the protests became violent.  She is a first term Democrat mayor and had so much at stake in keeping the city of Martin Luther King peaceful that night. She went up to police headquarters and setup a press conference. Everything had to be done right. So she just said it the way she read the situation, her gut sense combined with self discipline and the long view- and said it directly addressing the issues head on- alway keeping the goal in mind of restoring peaceful protest in the spirit of the black leader in Atlanta of a generation ago alive for future generations.  Her directness and poise showed- "You're not going to outconcern me and outcare about where we are in America. I wear this each and every day. I pray over my children each and every day." Washington D.C Mayor, Muriel Bowser, also a first term Democratic mayor, showed poise and directness, a sense of calm amid the storm, as she talked to reporters at a press conference. Her situation being critical as this was in the nation's capital city, only blocks away from the White House. She had a plaza in the city painted yellow and named for black people facing daily struggles in their lives to live their aspirations in society, on June 4. A quiet yet lasting statement. ...

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WSJ asks the question how are companies run in America by CEO's during the 9 month old pandemic? To answer that question it looks at Emerson Electric, based in Ferguson, Missouri, with its 90,000 employees in the U.S. and around the world. David Farr is CEO of American conglomerate Emerson Electric that makes products in a number of industries, for longer than most CEO's in America. At 65 years today, he has managed the company since he became CEO at the age of 45. It has 8000 employees in China and 10,000 in Mexico, and plants in the midwest, all hard hit by the pandemic. Add to this racial riots after killing of a black man in Ferguson, Missouri, and you have a challenging situation for any CEO.    As a son of a plant manager at a Corning plant in Corning, New York and growing up in a manufacturing environment in England, his instincts are that customers are what matter the most. That shrinking production could lead to some competitors making it and others shrinking if they did not act quickly to protect their supply chains. His goal is to keep factories running to have parts ready for their customers who made the finished product in the oil and gas industry and in factories where Emerson supplied the automated processes. As a first step he has 7 charter planes fly parts from a Nanjing factory to Shanghai when the trucks stopped moving. He campaigns with the Mexican ambassador to the U.S. to have the company listed as essential business to be kept open in a lockdown but fails. He gets up at 5.30 am and works till 8 pm and spends most nights reading, lounging with 2 spaniels, and going to bed early. He tells his son who works at Caterpillar company to get back to work as soon as he can as he believes being on the job is really really important. Yet he is worried up his daughter working as a pastry chef in New York and wants her to come back home to the midwest. He is a manager in the old style saying he wouldn't hire American workers because the Obama administration was out to destroy American manufacturing with its environmental rules forgetting that he was doing just that in the end-  and what had America and the concept of a free nation and a free people with opportunities for all have anything to do with like or dislike of any president or party. He also has his quirks, keeping 5 baseball bats and swinging a bat while he took walks and did some thinking. Passionate, hard working, and getting it done he keeps Emerson in the game as an industrial competitor from the U.S. ...