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By August 6, Britain had 16 gold, 11 silver and 10 bronze medals at the 2012 Olympics in London, more than any nation except the U.S. and China. Andy Murray won the Olympic gold medal in tennis defeating Federer in straight sets. Britain won gold medals in cycling, sailing, long distance running. Runner Mo Farah won the 10,000 metre race. At one point Britain won three medals in one hour in track and field events as Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Farah won gold.

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The expiry of pandemic aid programs and the cost of living increases in housing and food, medicine, have increased poverty in the US and affected the middle class and lower working class struggling to make a living. This is an issue for Biden-Harris to tackle upfront.

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The WSJ's Alessandra Galloni speaks with Mario Monti, the Italian premier, for in-depth interviews. Here Galloni and Walker provide an account of what happened during and after the June 28, 2012 summit of European leaders. Monti described the comments of ECB president Draghi in early August- about ECB buying of bonds of Italy and Spain being within the mandate of the ECB if monetary transmission channels were not working properly to reduce yields- as a bold effort following the agreement made at the June 28 summit to support Italy and Spain. Monti expressed the idea that Draghi should feel morally and politically justified if and when he makes the bold moves to rescue the euro. The only problem he says is whether one has to wait till the night before the euro is about to disintegrate for this to happen. This is the first time Monti has publicly expressed the possibility of this happening.

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Donald Trump in the week before the Republican caucuses in Iowa. Trump says he will be the winner in Iowa. He is introduced at an event in Pella, Iowa, by Senator Chuck Grassley, who has not formally endorsed Trump. He stays at an Holiday Inn Express in Sioux Center, Iowa, and attends church sunday service at Muscatine, Iowa.

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The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization released its food price index for February 2011. This shows a 2.2% rise in world food prices. The index has seen an eighth successive increase since June of 2010. It is now at an average of 236 points. International export prices of food grains are up 70% since this time in 2010.

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Xiaomi is China's leading brand. It is very different from other companies in China and America. It is tightly controlled by its founder Lei Jun who has built a loyal following for the brand  through fan clubs and creating an enthusiastic following. Because the firm is run by founder Lei Jun it can make quick decisions to enter a market. Lei Jun was a computer science student in Wuhan in 1987 as China opened up to the world.  By 2017- in three years from being zero in the Indian market place in 2014- Xiaomi had become the largest smartphone company in India. The company was launched in 2010. Profit margins are thin about 1% in a very competitive pricing market.  Metrics are based on revenue per user of $9 per user from an installed base of 190 million smartphone users, spending 54 minutes a day using Xiaomi's app, game and other services, or 20% of the phone use time. Revenue per user comes from advertising, and from commissions on the apps and games it sells to its user base. In 2015 Xiaomi had a loss, in 2016 sales dropped, in 2017 new products led to a resurgence in the market with sales increasing 68%. As Xiaomi goes into its IPO, experts say much of the $10 billion from the IPO could go into reinvestment as Xiaomi reinvents itself and moves into other internet business. ...

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Nouriel Roubini has proven correct on global financial issues. He said in an interview on the sidelines of a symposium in Malaysia, that China needs to revalue its currency for its own sake. China will see a growth collapse in the next 2-3 years if it fails to do so. His point is that China can still maintain growth by shifting to domestic consumption and less infrastructure spending and exports. In his view growth should not be affected if China exports less and consumes more. He points to the decrease in consumption as a share of GDP from 45% to 36% in the last ten years- this ratio is 70% in the USA. A cheap yuan keeps foreign goods unaffordable and protects state owned companies which also get cheap credit, as keeping the yuan low requires China to keep interest rates artificially low. What this does is make a massive transfer of income from the household sector to the state owned companies, just at the time when China needs to do the very opposite of this. And compounding the problem is that the 25% of China's GDP that is made up of retained earnings of mostly state owned companies, goes into real estate and production facilities. See the link to David Barboza in the New York Times who points to the wasteful spending and real estate speculation by state owned companies. Roubini cites the automobile sector where capacity has doubled in the last year to 20 million, when the domestic market increased by 50% to 10 million vehicles. The stimulus only increased the effect of surplus capacity and misallocation of investment, with highways to nowhere and brand new airports that are three quarters empty. The Chinese leadership is beginning to grasp this, but the state owned companies and other interests who benefit fromm the old model, may make it difficult to reverse the trends. A lot is at stake in this, as it affects the U.S., as well as countries dependent on China's imports such as Australia, Canada, Brazil and Germany. ...

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Other than president Milos Zeman and the UN people still call the Czech Republic, the Czech Republic. The alternative Czechia is not liked by Mr. Babis, the prime minister, and is not the chosen word in the U.S. and Europe. The old name was Czechosolvakia. In 1990 Solvakia became an independent nation, with the other country being the Czech Republic with the capital Prague.

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India reaches $400 billion in exports for 2021-2022. This is a significant increase from the pre covid export figure of $330 billion in 2018-2019 which slipped to $313 billion in 2019-2020. Frequent lockdowns marked the period of the pandemic.

India's industrial sectors play a large role, including cotton yarn and the apparel industry. With the global supply chains being restructured and shifted away from China, India is gaining a more significant role. Australian exports are up 94% and US exports up 47%. India is making an effort to become a key part of the new supply chain arrangements of US and Europe, along with Vietnam and Japan. As part of the supply chain India is increasing imports from other countries with imports reaching about $600 billion, up about one third in 2021-2022.

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As Eliud Kipchoge sets a record with running the marathon under 2 hours in October 2019, The Times looks at another time and another record- Roger Bannister of Britain running the mile in under 4 minutes in 1954.

The contrast- the BBC showed the Bannister run only afterwards, Kipchoge was shown on 25 television networks. Both had pacemakers, runners who set the pace for them and fell back. Weather was carefully planned for Kipchoge, Bannister took a chance on May 6, 1954 at Paddington grounds. Bannister was a medical student, Kipchoge was working at running going to sleep and back to running. Bannister had a ham salad, Kipchoge had oatmeal before the run. Both tried to break records at the Olympics and decided on this as an alternative for a personal best and setting a time record.

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This report in the WSJ shows how Amy Barrett, the new Supreme Court nominee, has managed to combine parenting with her career as a Notre Dame professor and judge on the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A lot of help from her husband, a flexible workplace, living in a smaller town South Bend, Indiana, and a willingness to go with nonconformity, make it possible. She is up at 4 or 5 am to exercize. Blending different worlds is part of this. She can go from work to run an activity for the children. She also views raising children as the activity that has the "greatest impact on the world," so that her career is seen in a bigger context of life.

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The need for earth friendly diets is shown in this editorial in The Guardian. Animal based products account for 57% of greenhouse gas emissions compared to 29% for food from plants. An outsize meat and dairy industry accounts for about 15% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions according to UN message in 2021. Mr. Dimpleby is Britain's food minister. He says a 30% reduction in meat eating would make it possible to have sustainable land use in Britain. The Guardian says high income countries are eating double the meat, poultry and fish products that they should be eating for living within the planetary sustainable living boundaries- that is to have no net environmental damage. Go back to the periods before 1600 and European, American, high income countries consumption of animal based foods was a fraction of what it is today.  A new legal regime is seen as a fair, just and sustainable living oriented solution. The Netherlands is doing just this to reduce the size of its large animal and dairy industry as a step towards more sustainable living and planet. It is not easy to convince farmers yet the public supports such a move. With the fires, floods and drought in Europe there is increasing awareness that action needs to be taken even where it is difficult.  ...

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Lane Forsheim has this interview with tennis player Andre Agassi who won the Grand Slam in The Open era in 2003. Agassi suggests living in the present and avoiding future tripping thinking and solving problems for the future which may not exist. Agassi describes his daily routine. He says pickleball is a great way to exercise without thinking of exercise especially for over 50's. Agassi works for 3-4 hours a day and then plans his daily life around this. He loves the way Alcaraz, Sinner and Medvedev have brought new life into tennis as an exciting game to watch. Agassi talks about marraige- he is married to Steffani Graf, who also played tennis in the top ten. He says know yourself and you can't come into a relationship needing the other to be complete.  For breakfast he has oatmeal with protein or some granola and fruit. Less well known is that Andre Agassi is from Las Vegas, and has a thoughtful autobiography "Open" that is remarkably honest about his survival in the competitive world of tennis after many struggles with parental pressure to win. Yet he comes through having made his own choices. He started the preparatory Agassi Tennis academy for underprivileged children. When Sinner won the Australian Open yesterday he thanked his parents for not putting pressure on him for letting him try different sports. ...

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James Pressley, in this review of Joseph Stiglitz's new book- "Freefall: America, Free Markets and the Sinking of the World Economy," says Stiglitz's advice should be taken into account by the new administration. Stiglitz, says, the Obama administration has so far offered no alternative vision of capitalism and is only "mudddling through." It is simply following the course the Bush administration had taken. And has retained as key economic advisors, Geithner, Ben Bernanke and Summers, all from previous administration's economic teams, thus largely removing the possibillity of serious change. And by doing so, says Stiglitz, the Obama administration has "squandered the opportunity," to fix things that needed to be fixed in the economy. Stiglitz, says Pressley, urges Americans to think what kind of America they want to see, what kind of society they want to make, and then what kind of economy will get them there. Stiglitz wants to see banks back to where they they only make loans, and act as an efficient payments system, and not engaged in risk taking. At a meeting of the American Economic Association, Stiglitz, presented a paper that suggested that between globalization for integrating world financial markets and keeping them separate, the latter is the better course. Financial markets he believes, need circuit breakers to not bring down the whole system....

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Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of Bangladesh, concluded a visit to India with an agreement for cross border electricity and rail lines. Bangladesh borders the Indian state of West Bengal, and 53 rivers flow into Bangladesh from India making sharing of river waters a major issue, which remain unresolved especially for the Teesta river. Bangladesh signed agreements for $5 billion in loans, including $1 billion for a Russian built nuclear plant and $500 million for arms imports.

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The annual assumed rate of investment return is widely overestimated in the largest U.S. public pension systems. 59 of the largest pension systems use 8% return, 17 use 8.25%, 12 use 8.50%, and 32 use between 7.5 and 7.75%, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. This is unrealistic in today's financial markets and overstates the extent to which the pension funds are funded. Calpers, California Public Employees Retirement System, is one of the largest pension systems that uses 7.75% assumed investment return. The Board of the $227 billion pension fund decided to retain the 7.75% return, against the advice of the fund's actuary, at a recent meeting. Calpers actuary had recommended a modest drop to 7.5%. The rate is used as a discount rate to calculate the present value of benefits owed to retirees in the future. The lower the discount rate the higher the pension fund's liabilities, probably requiring a higher contribution by local governments. Corporations use the interest rate on highly rated corporate bonds yielding about 6%, as their pension funds discount rate. An expert at Northwestern University suggests the use of a discount rate based on Treasury yields, which is now 4% for long term bonds. Even the modest drop to 7.5% would increase the amount local governments in California would be required to give the state pension fund by 1.5% to 3% of their payroll in many cases according to Calpers. The budget pain is the reason why state pension funds are sticking with unrealistic past returns....

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The campaign rhetoric for renegotiating NAFTA and building a wall at the border has had a sharply negative effect on growth in Mexico. Growth slowed in 2016 and is expected to be close to zero in 2017 with declining foreign investment in the economy. The uncertainty is leading to sharp decline in foreign direct investment of 24% in the first 9 months of 2016, according to the Bank of Mexico. Further declines can be expected in 2017. The decline in the value of the peso of 16% since May 2016 has led to 6 interest rate increases in the past year. Inflation on annual basis was at 4.72% in Jan. 2017 and is rising. As Mexico depends on exports for one third of its output growth, and 80% is sent to the U.S., there is a need to diversify with trade agreements made with the European Union and other countries. Mexicans now question the value of NAFTA trade agreement as average growth of 2.6 since NAFTA was signed is below the 4.6% in the 2 decades prior to that. And poverty level is the same with about 60% of people in the underground economy. In addition crime, drug trade, a weak education system, weak rule of law, political corruption, show that Mexico has not made the progress since NAFTA that it should have made. ...

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Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist of the Romney campaign points to the Romney campaign's success in getting a majority of votes of people making over $50,000, a majority of white voters under 30 by a 7 point margin, winning the votes of a majority of America's middle class, and falling short of a win of the Electoral College by 320,000 votes. He says Obama turned Democratic party weaknesses of being too liberal and too dependent on minorities into advantages. The Pew Research Center and other expert opinion cited as the principal reaon for the defeat, Romneys failure to empathize with voters. He appeared callous in his image with Hispanic voters with his self-deportation stand, and similiarly his position on the auto bailout was shown as callous in a barrage of political ads by the Obama campaign in the midwestern states, the remark about the 47% dependent on government help simply reinforced this notion of being insensitive to concerns of the less affluent. The candidate never succeeded in shaking off impressions in the minds of voters of being a private equity executive who could not empathize with weaker sections of the community, which were reinforced by heavy negative advertising in the 2012 election. Stevens says nothing about the short sightedness of a callous immigration policy of self-deportation adopted by a former governor of Massachusetts, in the face of Census statistics showing more children of minorities, especially Hispanics, born each year than children of any other demographic group in the U.S. The changing demographics may have made a crucial difference in many states....

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The WTO setimates that global merchandise trade will decline by 9% in 2009. Betweeen 1990 and 2006 these trade flows increased by 6% a year, outstripping the growth of world output which remained at 3%. See the chart showing GDP and world trade growth year over year. Because of vertical supply chains products were shipped across borders and imported back into the country that exported a product, till the product was finally assembled in some third country like Mexico, in the case of automobiles. This interlinking of countries worsens the effect in adownturn, by bringing output down in many countries at once in any particular industry with these supply chains. And conversely positive effects are exaggerated in a upturn or boom cycle like that which was witnessed in recent decades. It makes a 1930's like situation less likely, where trade dropped by over 25%, because now all countries are affected, America's car industry exports as well as imports the same item as it is processed in several countries, and imported to the USA as a semifinished product and then assembeled in Mexico, as one example. Leaders of the G-20 agreed to fight protectionism athe the London meeting in April 2009. Is this enough? Should the Doha Round of talks be resumed? Arvind Subramanium of the Peterson Institute, and Aaditya Mattoo of the World Bank, argue that the Doha Round is too ambiious, as it tries to open markets for rich countries manufactured goods just when the crisis has hit developing countries making this ahard sell. At the same time DOha Round does not exclude Buy AMerica provisions and subsidies to fialing industries like the auto industry support measures taken by both the EU countries and the USA. So they sugggest anew "crisis round" of talks to replace Doha, and this makes sense as the items on the agenda can now be tailored to the pressing needs of a different time from when Doha round was conceived, and thus more realistic in its approach. And in the meantime all WTO members would commit to astandstill and take no measures that are protectionist. The Economist says the new "crisis round" would not do any better as there may not be the same level of interest in another round. It suggests that agood start would be for the leaders of the G-20 to be specificabout what protectionist measures it sees as unproductive and unhelpful in containing this crisis. Draw up a comprehensive list of protectionist measures that go beyond tariffs and export subsidies. The WTO would then be asked to monitor the countries based on this list and publish alist of offending countries, letting embarassment of these countries act as a kind of policing. And in addition an agreement should be reached on coordinating fiscal policy, so that it would reduce fears of leakages abroad. ...

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The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and its leader Khairat Al Shater. Al Shater talks to the WSJ's Kaminski on his plans for Egypt and his demands for reinstatement of the elected parliament, the newly elected president of Egypt Mohammed Morsi taking that position, and the military backing off from its decree of unlimited powers over the president and parliament. He says he does not want a collision with the military and prefers to achieve the goals over three or four years, feels the military betrayed them, and admits to having too many disagreements with other pro-democracy groups in Egypt. His new emphasis is on a broad based effort and national accord to bring democracy and the rule of law in Egypt. Al Shater is a new breed of Muslim Brotherhood leaders in that he is a businessman having made money in furniture, software and other businesses, and at the same time a devout Muslim who spent years in Saudi Arabia. An interesting fact about the Muslim Brotherhood is that many of the leaders are academics, engineers and doctors or businesspersons, yet devout Muslims....

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Nikki Haley is doing what has happened before, fighting for principles in her party and showing that a fully significant 40 percentage points of her party believe in the old conservative ideas, of the Republican party. That of the country club type, the everyman who happens to be conservative the core of the party, small and large business owners. The situation is analogous to the intraparty struggles that beset the Democratic party after the abrupt end after 1000 days of the John F. Kennedy presidency and administration. Since the 1920's and two periods of rising inequality accompanied by technological change from the 1870's that ended with the Great Depression, the US had experienced a great revival under Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Eisenhower. In 1960 a new future was articulated by Kennedy of the new world that lay ahead, one he had seen upfront in Asia before, during and after the war. How would we bring the post colonial world of billions of people into the modern world. Since then both a modern China and now modern India are part of this change. "Today our concern must be with that future. For the world is changing. The old era is ending. The old ways will not do." Acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for President, July 15, 1960. It was interrupted after the intraparty disputes that began in 1968, Robert Kennedy challenging LBJ, leading to Richard Nixon, and Edward Kennedy challenging Jimmy Carter leading to Ronald Reagan. John F. Kennedy had articulated a vision that still is alive today based on an understanding of how America's needs fit into all humanity's needs.  In some ways the situation after 2024 or 2028 still goes back to the vision of a new order of the world with emerging nations in Asia with 3 billion people, and additional billions of people in Africa, Latin America. The Arms buildup promised by Reagan in 1980 has yielded little about 50 years later, not even the fall of the Berlin Wall which today has been replaced by another struggle in Eastern Europe in 2024. Truman tackled the Berlin Blockade,  Eisenhower had faced upto Soviet tanks in Budapest, Kennedy had faced the Berlin crisis in 1963 his ich bin ein Berliner (I am Berliner). What purpose would an orbital weapons program serve- and could the US ever be or even want to be  "only one superpower in a safe world," with an orbital weapons program as Reagan and Weinberger went out to do and failed completely. America faces a situation analogous to 1920's with increasing inequality and weakness in the social fabric, as a result of four decades of rising inequality accompanied by technological changes, and misguided Reagan programs that diverted from John Kennedy's vision that the "old era is ending, the old ways will not do."  The vision put forward by John F. Kennedy has more relevance today for the future. That vision he articulated in the First Inaugural Address in which he also said that this work may not be accomplished "in our lifetime on the planet." It is important to remember that John F. Kennedy connected his vision to FDR when he said in his State of the Union Address to Congress in Jan. 1961- In the name of a great President whose birthday we honor today, closing his final State of the Union Message sixteen years ago. "We pray that we may be worthy of the unlimited opportunities that God has given us." This is the vision that stands before America even today in 2024.   ...

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Walt Mossberg, who writes the Wall Street Journal's consumer technology review section, watched Steve Jobs up-close over the years since 1997. They met one-on-one for product introductions, long discussions about the industry, and recently after Jobs illness, at his home in Palo Alto. Mossberg describes a long walk to a nearby park after Jobs had undergone a liver transplant. It provided an insight into the man Steve Jobs was. Persistent- he called Mossberg for 4-5 straight weekends during the dark days of 1997-1998 to convey his vision of Apple products or discuss aspects of reviews. Patience and optimism about the future- Jobs always maintained a positive tone and a vision of what could be in the digital revolution, and Apple's role in it in these discussions. There is the opening of the first retail store in the Washington D.C. area, and Jobs patiently handles Mossberg's incredulity about Apple and its inexperience with retail stores. And Jobs saying that he had taken a serious interest in the details- down to the translucency of the glass. There is the meeting with Bill Gates at the fifth All Things Digital Conference, when both made their appearance together for the first time and Jobs hands a cold bottle of water to Gates. By this time Jobs had already come to the conclusion- as he once said after accepting a $150 millon investment from Gates in 1997-1998- that it was no longer true that Microsoft had to lose for Apple to succeed....

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The Economist's view is that trade and currency tensions are too high to result in an accord along the lines of the 1985 Plaza Accord. There may be a general underestimation of how strongly the American public feels about trade and jobs issues, and the currency issues that are intertwined with trade issues. This includes the Economist. See the 2010 survey of American public opinion (Murray, Belkin, WSJ, Oct 2, 2010, Americans Sour on Trade), which shows that better educated and higher income professionals are also shifting to firm opinions on trade that impacts jobs in the U.S. Also see Roubini's recent analysis (interview with Peter Stein, WSJ, 10/2/2010, Yen Revaluation for China's Own Sake), on why it is imperative in China's own interest to move forward with a currency revaluation. Economist Robert Gordon of Northwestern University (Peter Coy, Business Week, 9/30/2010, Why One Economist Predicts Slow US Economic Growth), recently pointed out that his models show a significant slowing down of the U.S. economy over the next two decades, the slowest growth since the Presidency of George Washington. This means growth slowing down to 1.5% in the period 2007-2027, from 1.93% in the prior three decades, which he says leaves less money for everything from tackling carbon emissions to infrastructure needs. ...

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The India China border clashes in the Tawang area of Arunachal are covered in this discussion by experts in United States Institute of Peace. The Tawang area it says is unique because of connections with the Dalai Lama of Tibet and China has special concerns about this area that go back to its invasion of Tibet in the 1950's soon after the British left India and the civil war in China ended with Mao and Communist China in 1949 taking control with the defeat of the Japanese. That chaotic period and Indian unpreparedness along a border that stretches for as long as the US border with Mexico. The lack of Indian infrastructure and roads and military modernization from that period to the last decade is now being corrected on the Indian side in an accelerated effort. Global trade and the economic needs of China in relation to the US, and India's efforts to focus on modernization, common challenges of climate change and pandemics, are leading to a new dimension that is being recognized by all sides. This limits the extent of the clashes and the swift return to normalcy of sorts. ...