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Labour party shadow chancellor McDonnell takes charge of party affairs as Britain prepares for a general election with uncertainty on how long the minority government of Boris Johnson can remain in office. Misssteps by leader Jeremy Corbyn at the annual Conference- the failed effort to abolish the post of deputy leader held by Tom Watson, and the resignation of Andrew Fisher, a senior Corbyn aide.This led to a backlash against Karie Murphy Corbyn's chief of staff for her brash aggressive style.  Karie Murphy was informed by a former head of the civil service advising Labour that she and Corbyn's political director will now work at party headquarters on election campaign shifting from the leader's office. McDonnell wants to see more female members in senior positions, and his casual style in promoting Labour's agenda as a kind of normalcy after the austerity years and divided Britain under Cameron, May and Johnson, is critical to winning support for Labour's programs. ...

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With the Swiss economy experiencing falling wages and prices, fears of a deflationary spiral have led the Swiss central bank to take strong action to preserve export competitiveness. The Swiss National Bank is doing this by buying euros and keeping the Swiss Franc from appreciating above 1.20 euros to the franc, a peg set in Sept 2011. Since 2010 the central bank has printed Swiss Francs to buy euros and other currencies resulting in a quadrupling of the foreign assets it holds to about the size of its GDP- about 500 billion Swiss francs or $541 billion. Action of this size is unprecedented and comes as the eurozone economies contract in 2013. It has worked for 16 months and Switzerland has managed to increase exports to the eurozone and keep the Swiss franc below 1.20 euros. Japan's new prime minister Shinzo Abe is pushing a similiar policy to bring the yen down to 90 yen to the dollar to improve export competitiveness.

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This report in the NYT by Halbfinger and Kershner shows a Israel that is divided in its views about prime minister Netanyahu. In early 2018 with the police report on the investigation into Mr. Netanyahu on campaign finances, half of Israelis support Netanyahu, with the other half thinking that Netanyahu should resign. Mr. Netanyahu has dismissed the investigation as full of holes like Swiss cheese. His supporters see it as part of a left wing conspiracy including state prosecutors and police. Supporters of Netanyahu see him as having improved Israel's security in its region, people who oppose him see him as being too divisive, using divisive rhetoric to improve his own position.  Younger voters in particular have a distaste for divisive politics practiced under Netanyahu, which extends to the supporters of Israel in America, and the policies leading to delaying of the peace project.  That peace project is also seen as part of the nation's mission to seek peace with its immediate neighbors, an unfinished project for Israel as a nation. After many years in office Netanyahu's party lacks the dynamic vision needed and it now appears only to see remaining in office as its goal, according to this NYT report. This is happening at a time when a larger centrist constituency is developing in Israel as most of the moderates are outside government. ...

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Tesla is turning to promotional discounts to support sales. This leads to drop in gross margins to 14.6% by July 2024. Tesla's other businesses have an uncertain future.

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S&P 500 gains 15% in first half 2024.

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DeepSeek vs OpenAI -

1. chain of thought reasoning + mixture of experts = less computing power = 1/20 the cost

2. Open source makes it go viral

3. embeds DeepSeek in many places and gets developers to come up with new versions

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Fei Fei Lee and John Etchemendy co-founders of Stanford Univeristy's Institute for Human-centred Artificial Intelligence the public sector needs to lead AI development.  Acceptance and advocacy by the people at Stanford University that AI is too important to be left to the private sector. That like space exploration conducted by NASA and the Hoover Dam and Tennessee Valley Authority during the Depression, the Erie Canal in the mid nineteenth century, some work is better done by the public sector. For this to happen Stanford needs to accept its position as one of the many great educational and cultural institutions of this country not what Silicon Valley and the Reagan era hand it to being its preeminent beneficiary and representative. This marks a change at Stanford after thinking long and hard about the dangers to America that have emerged from the Reagan era thought that took in its fold Democrats like Clinton and Obama- the 2009 financial crisis fueled by deregulation and defunding of infrastructure and manufacturing, that laid the seeds for America's downward spiral.  ...

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Samulelson points to the problems of pushing college-for-all. He compares it to the misguided housing policy that sought to promote housing access to all Americans including those who could not afford it by lowering requirements on credit and downpayments. Problems include student debt without job prospects, inadequate vocational training, and lowering educational standards at all levels including high school and college. Compared to Germany and other European countries the U.S. does poorly in providing vocational training and relating education in college to jobs through apprenticeship and other training in companies. Combining classroom and on-the-job training is more advanced in Europe. As sociologist Rehman of Northwestern University points out its important to set different pathways to rewarding careers. In 2008 the U.S. had only 480,000 workers or 0.3% of the labor force who were apprentices, according to Robert Lerman of American University. Useful to note is also that only 69% of U.S. jobs in 2010, required a post-high school degree, according to the Labor Department. Putting everybody on the college track, belittles those who do not finish college, ignores the need for vocational skills and technical skills in jobs, and puts the diploma above skills and knowledge gained.. Taking the approach to an extreme hurts young people in the job market and reduces America's competitiveness. This is similiar to what happened in housing policies that sounded good but actually devastated the financial condition of minorities that it was supposedly intended to help, as seen in high foreclosure rates....

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Companies that have consistently ranked high in the managing across several criteria in WSJ/Drucker rankings include Microsoft, Pfizer, P&G, Apple, Accenture, HP Inc. Focus on innovation, employees, in addition to customers is important to these companies.

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This report in The Mint gives information on the extensive preparation for 5G in India including auctioning of 5G spectrum for 51,236 Mhz that was allocated to telecom service providers for 150,000 crore rupees. Jio bid 88,000 crore for half of the spectrum with Airtel Bharti bidding with Vodafone for the rest. The cumulative economic impact on transformation of India is expected to be $450 billion for India by 2035, according to the Ministry of Communications. PM Modi will be shown three different case studies of use in education and other fields. PM's vision is for India to develop 5G parallel to global standards and take the lead in 6G technology. Jio video case will show how a teacher in a school in Mumbai reaches out to students in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Odisha. The Airtel video will show how a girl in Uttar Pradesh learns about the solar system using 5G augmented reality. The Vodafone case will show how safety of workers in an underground construction tunnel of Delhi Metro can be maintained through creating a digital twin of the tunnel on the dias. The digital twin would help give safety alerts to workers from a remote location. Other demos include smart ambulances, health diagnostics, precision drone based farming, smart agri-programme and others. ...

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Breaking the norm of jobs requiring sitting down in one place for long hours that is killing us with health problems is desperately needed today. 20,000 NPR listeners joined this study by the Columbia University Medical Center to see if they could break the habit and set a new model for work behaviours. Participants were asked to take a break of 5 minutes every hour. 70% took the break showing that given the right encouragement people are willing to try something new that improves job performance, mental health, and physical health.

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All cash purchases of homes by wealthy seniors and by foreign owners in 2013-2014. The thinning out of homes as distressed properties available from foreclosures in 2014. Institutional investors are also buying homes. Black Rock bought 45,000 homes for $8.6 billion in 2012 and 2013, and is retrenching a bit as it reduces purchases to about $30-$40 million a week in 2014. Other buyers from the middle class are still struggling to build up enough savings to buy homes, a reason for the weakness in the housing market.

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The message is clear from Paris - anybody can do AI at the profligate overspending and cost of people like OpenAI, and Microsoft. After DeepSeek in China proved it can be done at a tenth of the cost, there is the tremendous potential of the largest pool of young engineers and scientists in India to do it for a fraction of the cost in China.This is why this Action Summit in Paris is being done by sharing the cost keeping at  13 million euros, and having India under PM Modi as co sponsor with France's Macron. Modi called it and extension of similar efforts working with France on solar and renewable energy. Here is how the French did it- the Ministries each pitched in. The Economy ministry 3 million euros to attract foreign investors, the Foreign Ministry 2 million euros to welcome world leaders Vance and Modi, the armed forces 1.5 million euros, the Culture Ministry 1 million euros and staff to coordinate the summit. The buildings used were familiar ones- the Summit at the Grand Palais build for the Pais Exposition of 1900, the Institut Polytechnique for science themed events, and the Bibiliotheque Nationale France for the cultural weekend Feb 8-9. ...

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Can OpenAI pay? Does it have $300 billion? These are the questions analysts are asking. Remaining Performance Obligations is RPO's which refer to a company meeting probable targets which are not certain. Oracle stock went up 36% in one day because it was saying it would get thei $300 billion from OpenAI. Now as analysts look carefully at Oracle surge they are saying wait a minute who has this $300 billion. This report in the WSJ says RPO's for Oracle are now up to $523 billion. Oracle stock is now down 43%. Analysts are questioning these outlandish claims. Another claim is from the "circularity" in the AI sector, which means A is connected to B is connected to C. OpenAI expects $100 billion in investment from Nvidia which makes advanced chips, but is it definite? Nvidia says in it's latest quarterly report that "there is no assurance that any investment will be completed, on expected terms, it at all." Note that OpenAI makes hardly any money today and is in fundraising stage- it has expectation to make $20 billion. And the $300 billion where does all this come from? When most people in the Nation are living from paycheck to paycheck there is this wild speculation and mania in the AI sector.   ...