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This Washington Post article by Henry Farrell explains the implications of the 2016 EU ruling on Apple asking it to pay 13 billion euros in back taxes. Other countries in the European Union are upset that Ireland is taking away business and siphoning away tax revenues from their country, and giving most of it back to Apple. Normally the European Union Commission does not have authority over taxes in the member states. However considering the social and political implications at a time of deep recession and political upheaval in the EU and the U.S., the European Union Commission under Margarethe Vestager has seen it proper to look at arrangements in which companies come up with tax arrangements that deprive member states unfairly of tax revenues- revenues that could support social welfare and basic education, healthcare services at a time of painful cuts. A tax rate of .005% in 2013 for Apple is cited by Vestager as she points out that Apple's taxable profit does not correspond to economic reality, as most operations are conducted outside Ireland. Ireland is just on paper the tax location for EU operations. Vestager has thus come up with a legal approach based on Ireland's tax arrangements being a form of illegal state subsidy, which is not allowed under EU rules, and gives the EU Commission authority to require that it be reversed by paying the back taxes of 13 billion euros. Farrell answers the question why the U.S. Treasury is saying that Apple should not have to pay these taxes, as the U.S. also hopes to get some of these taxes at some future date with Apple repatriating profits to the U.S. under a still to be set tax arrangement. ...

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A series of actions by Ford to cut prices, Toyota to have no price increases, and Hyundai to invest $21 billion to Make in USA and similar actions by GM, mean that except for about 300,000 imported German VW cars the car market in the US will have no price increases for average Americans. Foreign media and media in the US that is misleading say there will be price increases in the US for cars after US tariffs on imports from Japan of 24% and on EU of 20%, South Korea 25%.  NHK Japan reports that Toyota will not increase prices in the US despite DJT Liberation Day announcement of 24% tariff on Japanese imports including auto imports. Toyota will continue to make the 3.12 million cars it makes in Japan as well as the employment, of which 586,000 are exported. Toyota says it needs to cross the threshold of 3 million domestic car production to keep its technological capabilities.  Toyota will also look at ways to increase US production.  Hyundai is planning investments of $21 billion in the US from 2025 to 2028. Hyundai is likely to follow Toyota and make no price increases till it ramps up American production to Make in the USA. Ford is cutting prices of cars under its From America For America sales program. Ford has 568,000 cars in inventory. It has 60% capacity and can ramp up to make up for VW cars that are priced higher to give American buyers of German cars a cost effective option.  ...

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Much of the inflation reduction actions were taken by the US Federal Reserve as the central bank of the Nation and by president Biden in passing the Inflation Reduction Act and investing in growing the economy. All this may be jeopardized by the action of a Trump administration limiting the independence of the central bank. The support for crypto currency by Trump creates more risks to the economy. Additional risks are posed by the views expressed in Project 2025 on the US central bank. It is stated that the financial stability mandate be removed, that employment stability be removed and its regulatory role be effectively taken out. A commission to be appointed to look at alternatives to the central banking role of the US Fed. There are inflationary episodes and banking crises yet they stem from poor behaviour of banks as private players (2009 financial crisis) and price gouging by companies and firms and are not because of the central bank. There are also episodes of poor management  which reflected the culture of that period such as Libertarian culture under Greenspan. As in management in private industry firms good or poor managers make adifference. The institution created of the central bank around 1910 comes from the crises that happened in the period before that  and how it evolved into its postwar role. This includes the Great Depression when it did not have its regulatory, financial stability and employment role. Tampering with the basic structure that has evolved over 100 years of experience would cause lasting damage to the US economy and expose it to hidden risks. This would put a severe burden on the Nation after the loss of one million lives in the pandemic that just happened, the cost of living crisis, and the severe impact that decades of loss of local manufacturing have placed on communities across America- which both the US Federal Reserve under Jerome Powell and president Biden have fought so hard to tackle. ...

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The Romney story says this editorial is one of a turnaround- of a kind patiently nurtured from his days turning around businesses as a management consultant. This one was different and probably required a lot of soul searching and courage to take up new positions. As a technocrat, says the Journal, Romney would have been more comfortable with a room full of IQ's going over spreadsheets of numbers. He tried to do this by not taking up specific positions till the need to convince voters, first in the GOP base and then centrists and independents after the convention, forced Romney to make the reassessment and turnaround he needed to make. In November 2011 he accepted the Ryan position that Medicare needed changes, and in Feb 2012 he took up the case for lower tax rates and cutting deductions. In October 2012 came the first debate, with it Romney abandoned his reluctance to put forward a plan for the economic recovery and put forward his five point plan. That was the turning point in the campaign but all the other steps including the selection of Ryan, a Congressman from a working class district in Wisconsin, agianst the advice of advisors, were leading up to this turnaround. This was likely the most difficult of turnarounds, even searing in its soul searching as Romney scribbled "Dad" on paper at the lectern before the first debate- turning back to beginnings he had doubted for so long....

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Some 51.5 million women representing 49% of the total of 104 million voters will vote in the December 2018 general election. Yet only 22 were members of parliament in the 350 member parliament. Zobaer Ahmed in DW.com shows how women remain marginalized and underrepresented in Bangladesh government and parliament. The women leaders Hasina and Zia are from influential political families. Hasina's Awami League party has fielded only 25 women for the December election.

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This report in The Times says one of the things going wrong at the talks for denuclearization between the U.S. president and Kim Jon-Un of North Korea in Hanoi was Mr. Trump's sense that he had a special rapport with Kim.  Another reason for breakdown in the talks it says was Mr. Trump's view that the most important thing was to end missile testing and further development, not denuclearization. 

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The Economist points to dynastic politics in India and the weak leadership of prime minister Manmohan Singh, who owes his position to Sonia and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party. There is a vacuum in the leadership resulting in no clear policy and definite actions on tackling corruption issues. This has created a crisis of confidence for the Indian public, especially for young people who have lost faith in the government to bring much needed change. Technology with mobile phones, computers, television and mass media, increasing use of cars and motorbikes and rapid road/rail links are rapidly changing Indian society. The Indian public is looking for changes in governance to keep up with these rapid changes and greater publc awareness of the world around them.

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As tensions increase with Japan Xi turns to the US and has discussion on Ukraine and Taiwan with US president DJT. Xi looks for ways to build a better understanding with the US on a unification of China with Taiwan.  Chinese president Xi calls DJT November 23, 2025. In the background the US 28 Point Peace Plan for Ukraine is being discussed with Ukraine and the EU.

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Jakarta is sinking with 40% of the city and most of North Jakarta under sea level. By 2030 the city is likely to be under water at the pace with which it is sinking into the Java Sea. Jakarta's problem comes from years of overbuilding, migration from rural areas, with no adequate system for supplying piped water. Many of the wells illegally built by developers, with 97% of the city in concrete preventing resupply of aquifers from heavy rains, have aggravated the sinking. The aquifers acted as a kind of foundation for Jakarta. Climate change is another factor adding to the problem. As a result a city that gets heavy rains and rivers coming in from the mountains with water, is now flooded frequently, unlike an earlier period when the Dutch used canals and dikes to manage the water flow. Efforts to prevent developers from draining the aquifers on which Jakarta rests have failed. North Jakarta is the worst affected and this area has many of the poor slum areas of the city. Evicting the tenants living there to clear the debris and clean up the canals and rivers has failed. The former governor of Jakarta, Mr Purnama known as Ahok, of ethnic Chinese origin, lost the election to Islamic parties and their allies following his efforts to clean up the area and take action to replenish the aquifiers. This NYT report is based on interviews with residents of the kampungs or settlements of people from rural areas within North Jakarta. A Dutch hydrologist Mr Brinkman is a expert on Jakarta's water systems. He says eviction is not the answer by itself but some effort to move people is needed and North Jakarta needs to be restored to its original mangrove situation, which would allow replenishing of underground water. Giving Jakarta a more stable foundation. About 30 million people live in this fast growing city and a lot depends on how Indonesians can prevent the city from sinking further into the Java Sea. ...

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How Obama appealed to both sides, the religious and the secular in Turkey, choosing his words with care. For the secularists the emphasis on Turkey as "a strong and secular democracy" and not as moderate Muslim which has different connotations, and for the religious references to the Muslim world and the idea of mutual interest and mutual respect. Its hard to say but it may have created some sense of comfort on both sides and created asense that these two can coexist and should coexist peacefully in contrast to the tension in the past.

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The amazing story of how the human march of Syrian refugees on highways from Keleti station Budapest to the Austrian border got started, told by WSJ reporters Thomas, Bradley and Geiger in an exceptional way.

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VW which has failed to build market share in the US is leaving aside its appeal point of German engineering in 2023 and now selling itself as an American brand. VW has become dependent on China for half its sales and badly needs to avoid overconcentration in one country. It is trying to enter the SUV market with the Scout brand for buzz as an off road vehicle and will introduce 2 dozen models. Scout is a 4 wheel drive recreational vehicle designed in America for International Harvester, a company VW acquired in 1981 when it was called Navistar. It is a mashup of a World War II Willy Jeep and a pickup truck with its boxy shape. Half a million were sold from 1960 to 1980. With this plan VW with only 4.5%  of the American market is trying one more time, this time as a way out of overconcentration in China. Realizing that America is where the automobile entered mass production in the factories of Detroit. South Carolina's assembly has approved $1.3 billion to support VW in building a new plant near Columbia to build the Scout.   ...

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Difficulties facing the recovering airline industry as the price of oil continues its increase. Goldman Sach's Group raised its forecast from $68 per barrel in 2007 and 2008 to $80 in 2007 and $90 in 2008. Airlines have already taken a lot of the costcutting steps from flying lighter more fuel efficient planes to smaller steps like reducing the weight of beverage carts and taxiing on the runway with one engine and so on. But their forecasting and business plan estimates of oil costs have been far off the mark and hedging has been inadequate. Lasty year as per the ATA, Airline Transport Association, 42% of the consumption on average was hedged at $60 per barrel, this year 2007 only 31% of fuel consumption on average has been hedged at $62 per barrel. To give some idea of how far off the mark, United's business plan used $50 per barrel through 2010, and Delta used $65 in its business plan for 2007. Expect more fare increases and capacity reductions if this price trend for oil continues. ...

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This report by Juan Montes in the WSJ shows how much Lopez Obrador has changed since he lost by a small margin in the 2006 Mexico presidential election. His campaign manager, Tatiana Clouthier, says broadening his appeal to women, evangelicals, middle class Mexicans, rich and poor, is needed for Obrador to win in 2018. In elections in 2006 and 2012 Obrador continued to be seen as the candidate only of the working class. An effort is being made to change this image. Obrador, 64 years old from the party of the left, formed his own party in 2010 after leaving the PRD party. He is a former mayor of Mexico City. Five recent polls show Obrador leading by an average of 7.5 points over Ricardo Analya, the PAN candidate for president which now has the support of the PRD. PAN on the right and PRD on the left are other opposition parties. PAN party formed the government under Felipe Calderon before the current PRI president Nieto now tainted by corruption scandals became president in 2012. If he were to win Obrador would change the way Mexico was governed for 5 decades. His first step would be to review the 91 exploration contracts given by the government under the Nieto administration to check for signs of graft. Corruption is a key platform of the parties running against the current government of president Nieto, for both Obrador and the PAN/PRD alliance candidate Anaya. Obrador says he would keep balanced budget deficits and respect the central bank's autonomy. The shift would be from the current export model that Mexico has supported for 35 years, to one based on import substitution policies, higher salaries, and more government spending for education, jobs programs, healthcare, new oil refineries. With the Trump administration's stance on trade and immigration Mexicans are now showing anger and frustration, with 75% of Mexicans in a Reforma poll looking for change. Both the PAN/PRD and its new face in Ricardo Analya, 38 years old, and the Obrador party see corruption and with it in the Mexican context the rule of law as a key issue.  ...

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Ramachandra Guha comments on the selection of Institutions of Excellence by the Government of India- ten private and ten public institutions- that can be turned into world class leaders in the education field. He says IIT Madras would be a better choice than IIT Delhi, IITMumbai and Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore are considered good choices. The choice on the list of Jio Institute is seen as strange because it is has no students and no campus and still at the concept stage. KREA is a better choice for an education project at an early stage, says Guha.

Institutions not on the list that deserve attention are Ashoka for the best social science departments, Jindal for infrastructure, Azimji Premji for research on policy issues, and Ahmedabad University for innovative trans-disciplinary approach.

 

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The election of her close ally Kramp-Karrenbauer to head of the CDU party, protects Merkel's position as Chancellor till her retirement in 2020. Karrrenbauer is to the right of Merkel on social issues and to the left on economic matters. She is likely to take a different view on the migration policy that has let the CDU ratings drop and produced poor election results. The move stabilizes the CDU led government. Karrenbauer will try to rebuild relations with the party's conservative wing through her conservative views on social issues.

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Foxconn makes a $3.5 billion acquisition of Sharp Corp. in March 2016.

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One of the opportunities of this pandemic is that it offers a chance to think anew and act anew. Where in Lincoln's words "the dogmas of the past are inadequate for the stormy present, as our case is new we must think anew and act anew." Here Vladimir Putin offers his assessment of how the pandemic calls for a fresh approach to reviving De Gaulle and other postwar European leaders vision of Europe that spanned the entire continent culturally including Russia. He accepts mistakes have been made by all sides and the title of the article by Putin is "Be Open, Despite the Past." The Russian Embassy in Germany contacted De Zeit for publication of an article by Putin, and it can be seen as part of the Russian response to president Biden's effort to build a new cooperative relationship with Russia that is in the best interests of the US, Russia, Germany, the European Union and also of India which has a cooperative relationship with Russia. There is the danger that it could be seen as reported in The Times of London and comments posted seeing it against distrust built around Ukraine and Eastern Europe. The 670 Comments in Germany on De Zeit site on the article reflect a more German perspective of being a close neighbor that suffered so much from the war that left millions dead on both sides. One German commenter says his father and grandfather were forcibly recruited to fight in France and Russia and suffered much in wartime. The occasion is the 80th anniversary of the German invasion of Russia in World War II. Some of what Putin has to say- "We hoped that the end of the Cold War would mean victory for all of Europe. It would not be long before Charles De Gaulle's vision of a unified continent would become a reality, more culturally and civilizationally from Lisbon to Vladivostock." Russia has changed, Russians see themselves as European, as part of the larger European Union, culturally and civilizationally. This is not the old Russia of the Cold War or of the Soviet period. "NATO itself a relic of the Cold War, created out of a confrontation from that time." Not objecting to NATO but to the expansion of NATO to Russia's borders. But saying this has not got us anywhere where our heart not our brain says we ought to go. Lets try again to draw different conclusions from what we have seen. Its important to think anew because "we are all confronted with the common challenges of the pandemic and its extremely serious social and economic consequences." "The entire prosperity and security of our common continent are only possible through the combined efforts of all our countries, including Russia because Russia is one of the largest European states. Wed feel our inseparable cultural and economic ties to Europe." "We simply cannot afford to carry around the burden of previous misunderstandings, hurts, conflicts and mistakes. A burden that prevents us from solving current problems. We are convinced that we all have to admit and correct these mistakes. Our common and undisputed goal is to ensure the security of the continent without dividing lines. And to create a unified space for equal cooperation and collective development in the interests of the prosperity of Europe and of the whole world." President Biden was right to think anew and act anew in Geneva, and to "disenthrall ourselves" from old ways of thinking, and for rising to the occasion. Jill Biden said of president Biden's preparation for the meeting in Geneva- "Hell, he was overprepared," and it showed Biden's genuine feeling and effort that he owed it "in the interests of Europe and the world."       ...

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Contact tracing being setup using iphones and android phones with bluetooth technology by Apple and Google. The idea is being studied for adoption by the U.S. government. The problem is that this kind of contact tracing is not as effective as the kind used by South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore with information from cellphone carriers. Contact tracing apps would be written by developers for each country and chosen by Apple and Google one for each country. How it works- When a person comes down with symptoms he can upload the information about who he has been close to stored on the phone. This information would then be used to contact the person who was exposed to the person with symptoms but unaware of this. A message would tell that person he was exposed to someone who now has symptoms and to contact public health authorites and take effective steps. When the person with symptoms gets tested if he was positive that would also appear on a exposed person's phone without name or other information.  The normal contact tracing is time intensive requiring many phone calls and using data from cellphone carriers. This is done in Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. It is considered to be more effective. The approach of these Asian countries is more thorough and allows effective tracing and isolation, quarantining of persons having coronavirus or having exposure in countries with rampant coronavirus. The U.S. needs to move quickly to adopt the methods used in these Asian countries. The loss of hundreds of thousands of lives should be weighed against privacy concerns and clearly there should be a way to allow one time use of personal information for coronavirus, so that this kind of information is used only in public emergency situations. All three Asian countries are democracies. Putting health care workers at great risk including working pregnant doctors, as in the story in WSJ about a hospital in Maryland, should make it clear that everything including privacy concern should be placed in context, and use of personal information be permitted in a public emergency such as a contagious virus- with information protections removal for the period of the crisis. ...

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Plans of the incoming administration of president Lopez Obrador to increase renewable energy from wind, solar and other sources, in Mexico. Mexico's potential is for 8 times the current levels for wind energy and 75 times current levels for solar. Solar energy has not received much attention as Mexico increased reliance on coal and oil for energy. Mexico's supply of renewable energy is only 25% of total installed power capacity compared to 50% for other countries in Latin America.

The Obrador administration plans to cut Mexico's emissions by 6.8% a year. Solar energy in particular has high potential in Mexico.

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Galston points to the study in the Economist magazine by Ray Avent showing the hugely negative effect of Tech on jobs in the last 3 decades. He calls for using the full tools kit of solutions to tackle the problem. Society will face huge problems if nothing is done as divisions in society are likely to increase with a few people doing well with a large number of unemployed and the working class having stagnant wages. He points to BLS statistics showing worker wages increased annually by 0.3% after inflation for the period 1981-2014 in the U.S. This is not just a U.S. problem. It is a worldwide problem with particular relevance for U.S., Europe, India and China. Galston was deputy assistant to president Clinton for domestic policy, 1993-1995, and holds the Ezra Zilkha chair in governance studies at Brookings Institution.

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Two Cameroonians explore their country's history and tradition doing research into Africa's collective memory. They focus on law, traditional customs, and art. The name Cameroon also has colonial origins - coming from the camaroes or shrimps in Portuguese that were found by Portuguese explorers.

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Germany's chancellor Merkel sees Britain as necessary for Europe and the European spirit. This even though she has differences with British prime minister Cameron on how to elect the new president of the EU following EU parliamentary elections in May 2014. She told the German parliament in June 2014- "Britain is really no cozy partner. Yet Germany and Britain share values and interests. I consider it grossly negligent, in fact unacceptable, how easily some people say that it is really all the same whether Britain goes along or not, or more: whether Britain remains a member of the European Union or not."

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The CBI Institute of Directors and the British Chamber of Commerce tell The Times that there is no desire for massive deregulation in Britain. Jonathan Portes, professor at Kings College, London, even calls the Singapore comparison, that Britain would even resemble a low cost Asian economy "a fantasy."

Britain spends 35% of GDP on public services, Singapore spends 14% on public services. After Covid experts call this a sheer stretch of the imagination. More likely Britain could enhance growth through its interconnections with a rapidly growing Indian economy, with which it has strong ties of history, immigration and culture.