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The impact on the Republican party in 2012 of reform governors who came in with the 2010 U.S. elections- Christie of New Jersey, Walker of Wisconsin, Brownback of Kansas, Snyder of Michigan, Daniels of Indiana, Jindal of Louisiana and other state governors from Maine to Tennessee.

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Stevenson and Gough describe the remarkable success of AirAsia under Tony Fernandes, who turned it into Asia's largest budget carrier with 43 million passengers in 2013. Fernandes acquired the airline for 1 Malaysia ringgit or 29 cents in Sept. 2001 from a Malaysian conglomerate. He is an accountant educated in Britain, originally from Goa, India, who worked as a Warner Music executive in Southeast Asia. Fernandes says he was encouraged by the founder of British budget carrier EasyJet, and hired executives from Ryanair. Expanding in Asia was accomplished with acquisitions and partial ownership in local airlines located in Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, India, Japan and other countries. Using the Ryanair model AirAsia has maintained a low cost structure, while increasing revenues with prices for addon options such as seat selection and checkin. It has revenues of $1.1 billion and is profitable. The airline uses relatively new Airbus 320 planes that are also used by other successful budget carriers. Fernandes has a hands on style of management reflected in this account of his handling of an AirAsia accident in Indonesia in Jan. 2015....

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Any Asian conflict involving China would in a few months destroy Apple's value, CEO's would change quickly, and Apple policies change to shift entire production to India and the US in a rapid shift. Tim Cook would be seen as having gambled against America's interests, unresponsive and failing after repeated warnings.  Apple's goal of sourcing from India by 2027 a mere 26% of its iphones, means that a decade after USTR Lighthizer and DJT started the task of reshoring manufacturing to US and allies in 2016, the No. 1 outshoring company would still be making 75% of its dollar value iphones in China. A degree of overconcentration that would make no sense considering that Apple's 75% of manufacturing would be entirely at risk in 2027 after repeated warnings and inaction. The only option for Tim Cook in 2025 is to come up with new goals of shifting a minimum of 50-60% of its dollar value product manufacturing for iphones to India by 2027. . Tim Cook as Apple CEO has done little to prevent the overconcentration of manufacturing in China since 2016. About 10 years after DJT was elected to bring manufacturing back to India or close allies the simple idea of diversification was not implemented. Why? Having set up this system starting in 1998, a system that did not exist before that tiem when Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook with a winning formula to Make in China, a country just emerging from its Communist phase of failed state economy. By 2008 in 10 years the infrastructure was built in a backward largely agricultural economy that was rapidly modernizing under a market economy with state run capitalism under the Communist Party experiment. The Bush Obama 16 years were ones with America not responding to the challenge posed by this new system which could create huge surges in production capacity with focus on key technologies and flood markets. The next decade after 1998-2008 was one of rapid growth of this experiment which combined with design and engineering in the US generated few jobs in manufacturng in the US, but huge profits with huge margins fro a low cost base with a high image and technology innovation product. Lighthizer, Navarro, Jamieson had already sounded the alarm for American manufacturing and loss of jobs in 2016.  America's deindustrialization was becoming a bigger challenge by 2020 so that president Biden continued the policy of reindustrializing. In 2025 China 2025 Plan that was a warning in 2016 is already a reality with China flooding the world in solar panels, and ready to flood the markets overseas with electric cars. Apple may only get a reprieve, this exemption is not the same as the last one. National security is an issue, key technologies need to be protected. There is only one more opportunity to rebuild American manufacturing and keep promises.     ...

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President Biden's style and years of effort leading to the presidency are similar to another Democrat - US president Harry Truman who took the US and the world through the last years of World War II, the Berlin Crisis and rebuilding war torn Europe through the Marshall Plan, and the Korean War. By doing so Truman built the security and economic structure that was the foundation of the Free World. Prsident Biden faces a similar opportunity says Mr. Zoellick in the WSJ. Mr. Biden is already engaged in a similar task as large as that facing Harry Truman as he sets a new direction for America. To build a new supply chain for the US and Europe, to advance the technological and scientific leadership of the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and India, and to build a new security alliance in Asia and Europe, and strengthen Latin America. Mr. Truman was not deterred by the 1946 midterm elections with Republican majorities and used his experience as a Missouri Congressman to work with Republicans of like minded thinking to strengthen American leadership in the world. Mr. Biden is not deterred by Mr. Trump's challenge and shifts in voter sentiment as he set his focus on what matters most for America in the decades ahead from climate change to economic leadership. ...

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Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves dropped to $2.9 billion in February 2023, says this report in the WSJ, enough to cover 2 weeks of imports and a fraction of debt servicing requirements. Under an IMF agreement that is being negotiated $1.1 billion will be given by the IMF, which would lead to further lending by other countries and banks based on IMF oversight. This includes putting $630 million in  additional taxes and increasing the price of electricity. Successive governments have decided to avoid the IMF conditions of increasing taxes and price of electricity. Donor countries such as Saudis and Qatar, UAE, would step in once IMF oversight is in place and invest in airports, power plants, oil and gas companies, and make loans to Pakistan once the IMF oversight is in place, says WSJ.   Sri Lanka faced a similar situation after it delayed an IMF program and loan, leading to financial crisis. The situation is now stabilized with the IMF on the verge of making a $2.9 billion loan and other banks making loans on the basis of IMF oversight. In Sri Lanka's case India is a serious donor, investor and supporter of Sri Lankan recovery. ...

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A huge fraud led to a 5% drop in the Bombay Sensex and a 70% drop in Satyam shares. Satyam Computer's chairman and founder said that 50.4 billion of the 53.6 billion rupees in cash and bank loans the company showed as assets for its second quarter ending September, were nonexistent.

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Comments in an interview by the World Bank's new chief economist Kaushik Basu on problems for global job creation. He served as chief economic advisor to the Indian government for the last 3 years. He talks of the drying up of trade credit with the eurozone crisis that is hurting exports of developing countries. Basu also emphasizes the importance of addressing the unemployment problems in developed countries. The World Bank's annual development report shows 200 million people unemployed and seeking work globally. And 620 million youth-many of them women- are neither working or looking for work. He is on leave from Cornell University.

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The U.S. bans travel from most of  Europe and India imposes quarantine on visitors and overseas citizens entering the country for 14 days. Countries around the world reacted quickly to the situation in Italy, France and Germany. The strict measures taken by China are gradually being adopted by other countries. Quarantine done early has worked limiting the spread of the coronavirus. Countries with strong public health systems are better positioned to weather the health crisis. Where strong action is taken early and in anticipation, with a strong public health response, there is better control over the spread. This comes with some economic cost as it has hit the Chinese economy, yet the rebound is likely to be that much quicker and done with more confidence. For instance air travel in China declined by 85% in February from a year earlier to 8.3 million journeys according to Chinese aviation officials. Moves to keep social interactions to a minimum have yielded results. Only food stores and pharmacies remain open in China till March 25.  ...

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The need to increase the reading of non-fiction books. The problems with TikTok video, You Tube video and social media as distractions. Even Wikipedia reference is giving one bits and pieces of information. Only an effort to read and read books expands one's horizons and learning. The irony of getting a bachelor's degree at 22 years and then stopping reading except an occasional book across most of the people in the US, Europe, India and other nations.

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The language and tone of the leaders says something about what is likely to be the outcome of the G20 summit. Its a first for significant participation, as countries as diverse as Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the Netherlands are represented. The credible positions of both sides, the US, UK and Japan, and the European side of France, Germany and the Czech Republic, well presented, provide for some serious discussion and negotiations. France's Sarkozy and Germany's Merkel want to see a global regulator that would reach inside the borders of the US with stricter regulation. Sarkozy calls this "nonnegotiable." And he said that he would reject an agreement that puts off stringent new regulations on banks, tax havens, and hedge funds. He said "the compromise has to come from all countries around the world." US President Obama said that if there is going to be renewed growth it can't just be the US as the engine, everybody is going to have to pick up the pace," at the same time saying that the US had to be concerned about its own deficits. The fact is that the US stimulus will mostly help a severely impacted domestic economy recover with social safey net payments to local and state governments and unemployment insurance, as well as targeted investments in infrastructure, education, energy and health care. It will not mean anywhere near the kinds of imports the US made from other countries, especially China. And Obama made that clear when he said the US will never return to that situation, where the US had become a "voracious consumer market." For the Germans the major market for their middle companies is China, and China has its own stimulus spending on infrastructure spending, which should provide for continued imports of machinery from Germany at a much lower level. Thus Germany and France see a strong tendency to call the source of the crisis and repeat that call till the US listens, and refer to the failure of free market capitalism in its unregulated form. And to insist on fixing it through a global regulator with strict and systemwide rules. So you hear this in Merkel's words, "the foundation for this finacial architecture must be laid now, that is why we seem to be so tough." While the vivacious Sarkozy talks of compromise, and a US gesture in regulation in return for Franc's gesture of joining NATO, the mild mannered Merkel is clear and focussed about her concern. She rejects the idea of linking stimulus spending demands of the Anglo-Americans with the Franco-German demands for global systemwide regulation. "This is not a bargaining chip," she says. The media may mistakenly report lack of consensus as a failure of the summit. But in the long run in the presence of good positions on both sides, it could lead to some tough negotiations even if continued at another meeting. And result in something serious, credible and lasting in its impact, rather than something that was easy and did not in Andy Grove's useful words involve "constructive confrontation." ...

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Pakistan prime minister Nawas Sharif's friendly overtures to India. The need for improved trade and economic relations with India to improve Pakistan's economy and fears that the military and intelligence services or extremist groups could torpedo these efforts.

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What is the difference between South Korea and the U.S., Europe in the handling of coronavirus? It is tracking and testing.  President Trump and health adviser Dr. Fauci, see South Korea as the successful model to be followed in controlling the coronavirus. What has happened till now it is accepted with shortage of basic medical supplies and equipment, stress on hospital systems, are merely mitigation actions. South Korea was prepared for the coronavirus crisis because of the MERS and other epidemics, and failures resulting in corrective actions. Labs were centralized and better equipped for testing and tracking the infected. One of the key tools is testing. President Trump says the goal is for the U.S. to exceed and far surpass tests per capita in South Korea. Five million tests are planned by the end of April in the U.S. Where the U.S. falls short is in use of multipronged digital tracking using data from people's use of mobile phones, credit card usage, and use of apps designed to separate infected people from others. South Korea is a democracy with a population of 52 million people, about the size of France. People who were student activists in the democratization era in South Korea say the use of digital technology is a need today. We have to adapt in emergency situation they say. Ki Mo-ran, epidemiologist, and adviser to South Korean government says this is a key part lacking in the European and U.S. efforts to control coronavirus. She says in South Korea we know the patient's contacts, where he goes and stays, so we don't have to lock down everybody. Without digital tracking one cannot know which place is contaminated, which place is clean, so that there can be a lockdown of just that area and not the whole country, says Ki Mo-ran. She asks the question- is one person's privacy more important than the lives of a family or other people who are affected. Is it OK to lockdown every child in the country in a home as in Spain for over a month so that particular people's privacy is respected? These are serious questions for western society, are they exceptions or is democracy not just a western idea but equally cherished in Asian societies, people talk about Confucianism in China and the Asian culture forgetting that the biggest democracies are quite large and functioning well in India in addition to South Korea, Taiwan Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Japan, far larger in area and population than China. The French government has chosen the app TraceTogether as the least intrusive one adaptable to France for use there. The U.S. is having Google and Apple develop one of its own. India will be developing one of its own. The NYT raises the question will it be watered down so much in France or in the U.S. and UK to be less effective than the  dire need for an alternative to lockdowns? ...

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Labor problems at its Manesar plant, higher imported parts and royalty costs due to the rising yen, and sluggish sales led to a steep loss of 64% in net profit for third quarter ending Dec. 31, 2011- down to 2.06 billion rupees- for Maruti-Suzuki India Ltd. Demand is slower because of higher gasoline prices and higher rates on loans.

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Did you now there are internet addiction camps to rehabilitate people affected by overuse of internet time, spending time online for hours at a stretch. The BBC looks at one such camp in South Korea. Having such fast internet connections and being one of the most well connected internet countries in the world looked great until one realizes the cost. Being advanced or going faster and faster doesn't mean better without the exercize of needed discrimination of what is best for healthy lives and healthy mindsets. Everything elders once took for granted such as time spent with crafts, sports, outdoor activities, and hobbies, are being given to kids at these internet addiction rehabilitation camps. One kid watched youtube for 18 hours a day and now the way back to mental and physical health is to stop using the iphone or android phone altogether. This maybe of some comfort to countries without the internet connections prevailing in so called advanced countries. Even there the improvements are coming with a cost such as the proliferation of watching Tik Tok from China in India and China with poor quality content that is likely to fragment peoples attention making it harder to lead healthy lives that we once took for granted before the advent of Mr. Job's screen enabled phone. ...

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Sharply lower consumer spending is hurting Apple sales in China. Apple cut sales and issued a sales warning in January 2019. This follows Apple's sharp slowdown in India with its uncompetitive pricing.

Retail sales growth in China- which bounced back in previous downturns- dropped to the lowest level in 15 years in November 2018. Auto sales are down with the sharpest drop in 7 years- the first annual drop in sales since 1990. Fears of a housing bubble have led to restrictions on home purchases for speculation which have not been lifted. Income tax reduction has not increased spending. GDP growth for the fourth quarter dropped to 6.4%.

Further signs of a sharp pullback are seen in the drop in consumption tax revenue falling by 61% in October and 71% in November 2018. The consumption tax is placed on cars, gasoline and luxury goods, and is paid by the companies making the products.

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The increasing competitiveness of Mexico compared to China and India as an investment destination in 2013. Foreign companies are investing heavily in Mexico because of investment advantages in labor cost, supply of engineering and management talent, and proximity to the U.S.

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DJT says about the loss of American manufacturing of key technologies-

"We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations."

A separate bucket is planned for this category customized to what is needed and appropriate, returning manufacturing to US and Allies India, working with Japan and South Korean allies, and at the same time providing a smooth transition away from China. Overconcentration in China is not going to work, has not worked, action is needed now.

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How a deficiency in trust is affecting the US effort to vaccinate its whole population in 2021. The US government took steps early to build vaccine supplies, and was one of the first countries with the UK to begin its vaccination drive. Then after 6 months something went wrong. The deficiency in trust led to about 80 million people many of them young, to avoid getting vaccinated. US president Biden said the country was losing patience with these people. He setup a vaccine mandate and required all employees in private sector in companies with more than 100 employees to get vaccinated. This applied to about two thirds of American workers. All federal government workers were also required to get vaccinated. Yet even after the vaccine mandate the number of vaccinations has not exceeded 900,000 a day. By contrast India was doing 20 million a day. By September 2021 the US had fallen behind all nations in the G-7 in percentage of people vaccinated with one or two doses, behind Italy, France, UK, Germany, Japan, Canada. Trust was also needed, not just vaccine supplies to make a vaccination drive effective. By September the US passed the 675,000 deaths that happened in 1918 pandemic. The deficiency in trust leads one expert to call it breakthrough without followthrough. Other experts see the entrenched social forces that had diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1970's also affecting the vaccination drive. ...

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As OPEC members met again in June 2015 for the first time since the meeting in November 2014, there is a sense that OPEC no longer exerts the same influence on oil prices. There are 4000 oil companies in the U.S., says one U.S. State Department official, even if OPEC were to cut production the cuts could be matched by shale oil producers in the U.S. quickly increasing output. This is the new reality, say experts. OPEC expects to keep production at the same level of the current production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day in place for the 7th meeting in over 3 years. Algeria and Nigeria, both hurt badly by the drop in oil price, have called for cuts but failed to persuade the Saudis. With Russia unwilling to join a coordinated production cut, there is not much talk about doing this. The Saudis and Iraq have continued to pump more oil, with April 2015 production of 30.84 million barrels a day the highest monthly average since 2012. Other factors also remain in the minds of the Saudis and other producers such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar- policies on climate change, use of less energy and more from friendlier sources for the same amount of economic output demonstrated by countries such as Germany, advances in technology, energy saving transitions in emerging markets such as China and India....

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With China's economy contracting China is now reviving the sidewalk trade with hawker stalls, food trucks, and other types of sidewalk retailers. Chinese premier Li Keqiang says small entrepreneurs at the micro level are as important as larger business to keep unemployment low. Li says these small traders are as important "as vital to China as bigger and more high end businesses." He is now promoting these smaller business enterprises and individual business owners saying "we will support you," and praising food stalls for their contributions in the past before China industrialized to "human culinary culture."  Only when the economy took off and large companies emerged were these small businesses forgotten. This reverses the Communist party's instructions to close street vendors. Li says that in Chengdu, population 14 million, 100,000 jobs were created in a few weeks by allowing 36,000 street vendors back on the streets.  In fact the informal economy plays a big role in India and other countries in Asia and Latin America, Africa. ...

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Tory MP's rebels in the southern part of England are opposed to prime minister Boris Johnson's second lockdown for the whole of England. This report in The Times of London looks at how Johnson's conservative government might have to get Labor party support to pass the lockdown measures in parliament. Or Labor may decide to abstain from the vote. Mr. Gove says the NHS risks being overwhelmed if the lockdown does not take place. Responding to the statements that southern England does not have high or has falling rates of coronavirus Mr. Johnson says it has been shown that a low rate catches up in one area when it is next to a high rate area for coronavirus so that the result is the spread of the virus to the point where the NHS cannot cope.  The NHS like the French health system and other health systems in the European Union, U.S.  India, and other countries are strained to the limit. Most healt care workers in hospitals have felt severe strain on themselves and their families during the first wave. Most are exhausted and are in a situation of fatigue with the added factor of some healthcare workers on leave from the virus illness. This puts additional burdens on the system. Without the action taken the health system may be overwhelmed in many countries leading to disaster.   ...

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The Economist looks at real estate markets in the U.S., Canada, Britain, Germany, Hong Kong, India and other countries in May 2013. It looks at price to disposable income and price to rent ratios and sees if these ratios are higher than historical averages to determine if prices are based on sound foundations. Canada's real estate market looks set to face problems of a bubble bursting. The U.S. recovery is seen to be based on firm foundations. Property prices are undervalued in Germany and set to rise.

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In a country with 70% inflation and debt of $83 billion, the NPP party leader Anura Dissanayake  who had only 3% of votes in the 2019 election wins by a landslide. Sri Lanka's economy is stabilizing with IMF assistance and negotiation, yet the economy has left the people in great difficulty to meet basic needs. Dissanayake led the JVP party in 1989-1997 period with considerable disturbances for which he has apologized. The Rajapaksa government also won with a landslide but failed during covid and the debt buildup crippled the economy and left the central bank without funds for essential imports. Ranil Wickremasinghe of a centre right party the UNP led a government after the economic collapse and negotiated a deal with the IMF, which included raising taxes to stabilize finances. Corruption and depletion of funds that are allocated for infrastructure and essential economic improvement, is a perennial problem in Sri Lanka since independence, making it impossible to build a modern economy from what the British left- rubber and tea plantations, an educated citizenry, good administration without the investment it deserved.  This problem also exists in India, Malaysia and many parts of Asia. The Modi government in Gujarat and the federal level was the first to break away from this by making every infrastructure dollar count and well spent with delivery in 3-4 years of highways, hospitals, airports, bridges, and logistics infrastructure for exports. ...