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Blackberry RIM discards a plan to go private. CEO Thorstein is to leave the company and Fairfax Financial Holdings led investor shareholder group will invest $1 billion in the company. Fairfax owns 10% of Blackberry. After the news was announced the RIM Blackberry share price dropped 16% to $6.49. John Chen, former CEO of enterprise software company Sybase is the interim CEO. At its current cash burn rate, even with the $1 billion infusion Blackberry would run out of cash by the end of 2014.

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A study by Sentier Research from Census data shows people in the U.S. age 55-64 years make 10% less in June 2012 compared to June 2009. Every demographic has suffered income losses in this period. Median household income declined by 4.8% in these three years. Using December 2007 as astarting point shows a decline of 7.2%- $50,964 vs. $54,916. Blacks, those with some education like a high school diploma but no degree, the older Americans, and younger Americans were hit hard. Long term unemployment was the cause of the decline among older Americans. Even college graduates suffered a decline of 5.9% from $88,570 to $83,378.

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Michelle Bachelet wins Chile's presidential election with 62% of the vote in Dec. 2013.

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Bangladesh is seen as doing better than India and Pakistan in life expectancy, hunger, fertility rates, and other key development indicators. The new Padma Bridge over the Ganges river operational in 2019 will link different parts of the country and is expected to add 1% to GDP growth. Other infrastructure projects are being planned with $30 billion in projects planned with China including a new port south of Chittagong. The Vision 2021 Plan plans to take Bangladesh out of the poorest nation group by 2021, the 50th anniversary of independence. Germany is the second largest donor and the gender equality in Bangladesh with coeducation in schools is seen by experts as unique among all Muslim countries. The growth of Dhaka and the social and economic change from 5 million garment workers, mostly women and rural could lead to social and cultural change that may be underestimated, says DW.com, providing the view from Germany. DW.com also warns that there are risks for Bangladesh in relying on remittances from Gulf countries, and in not diversifying so that it is not dependent on textile exports alone. Overall German view is that development aid works, and Bangladesh is welcomed from that perspective in Germany. ...

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Rockets fired by Iran close to the U.S. aircraft carrier U.S.S. Truman in December 2015 could lead to a shift in sentiment in the U.S. following the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 by the Obama administration. Ballistic missile testing was one of the issues in the negotiations leading up to the nuclear deal with serious differences between Congress and the Obama adminsitration on the issue. Recent ballistic missile tests by Iran may reinforce differences on this issue.

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Experts point to several factors favoring a lawsuit by the EU against Google. Google's dominance in Europe is higher than in the U.S., with Google used for 90% of web searches in Europe. The case is easier to build in Europe because the EU commission acts as prosecutor, and EU judges in Luxembourg rarely overturn the commission's major decisions. The EU competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, who took office in Nov.1, 2014, sees the need to give smaller internet companies room to compete with Google as a definite priority. She favors setting a legal precedent through a formal court process, and says that "citizens and companies should see that we are willing to go to court if that is the right thing to do."

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AstraZeneca PLC showed a net profit decline of 8.3% in fourth quarter 2011, on sales that remained stable at $8.66 billion compared to $8.62 billion in the prior year quarter. AstraZeneca is facing competition from low cost generics and cuts in government health care spending similiar to the rest of the industry. The company has announced new job cuts of 7,300 job for 2012, which brings total job cuts to 30,000 for the last 5 years. Most of the job cuts are in the U.S. and Europe. Hiring has continued in emerging markets leaving the net job cuts over the last 5 years at 9,600. Of the 7,300 job cuts planned for 2012, 2,200 will be in R&D departments, 1,350 in manufacturing and 3,750 in sales. AstraZeneca is changing the way it will do research and development with these changes. It will close the neuroscience research laboratories in Sodertalje, Sweden and in Montreal. It will have in its place "virtual" neuroscience units, small groups of 40-50 researchers working with academic groups and scientists outside to utilize the best science in the field. This is one of the most radical changes in R&D practices among pharmaceutical companies. In marketing the approach has shifted from having full time sales people call doctors offices to using online marketing tools and telemarketers. This approach is also being adopted for emerging markets....

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The defeat of Eric Cantor in a Republican primary in 2014, by David Brat, a professor of economics at Randolph-Macon College of Ashland, Virgina. Brat did this with just $200,000 and the support of local talk show person Laura Ingraham, compared to $5.4 million raised by Cantor. Brat did this without national Tea party support, depending more on local activism in a conservative district, and the sentiment locally for Anybody but Cantor (ABC). This shows how quickly sentiment on the ground can change, as Cantor had previously won primaries with much as 79% of the vote in an area stretching from Richmond to the Washington suburbs.

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Perry told viewers of the Republican presidential candidate debate in Florida on Sept. 22, 2011, he supports Social Security and would work to fix it for younger workers. On immigration Perry defended his policies in Texas. He opposes efforts to build a fence along the long stretch of the U.S.- Mexican border. Perry said his policy of giving children of illegal immigrants in-state college tution, was backed by the Texas state legislature with only 4 dissenting votes. He added, "I greatly support it."

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An export rebound is not matching the growth in imports. Imports went up 31% since May 2009, while exports went up 27%. The result is that the trade deficit is growing, primarily because of imports from China and imports of costlier oil. The trade deficit is expected to reach $40 billion in December 2010, compared to $25 billion in May 2009.

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Statistics from the Canadian government show that household debt in Canada now exceeds that in the USA. Household debt in Canada as a portion of disposable income was 148% in the third quarter, 2010, more than the US level of 147%. Canadians are taking on more debt. The average size of a mortgage is up from C$120,000 in 2004, to $170,000 as of last spring, according to CIBC World Markets.

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A terrorist attack on july 15, 2016, by a Tunisian born delivery truck driver using a large delivery truck to crush people on a Nice promenade. The death toll is about 85 with 50 people badly injured. The delivery truck driver is Bouhlel, 31, born in Tunisia and from Msaken, Tunisia, who moved to France in 2005. President Hollande extended a nationwide state of emergency for 3 months. The Euro 2016 soccer games in France went without any incidents, only to be followed by this attack.  Georges Fenech who headed a parliamentary inquiry into intelligence and terrorism said about the attack - "it is a predictable tragedy." He said France "is clearly not equiped to fight against Islamic terrorism," in an interview with news channel iTele. This was one of the conclusions of the parliamentary inquiry which called for a new agency to be setup, and merging of existing intelligence agencies. The president of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region told BFM-TV about the Hollande administration: "I don't want to hear the usual "we are going to do an investigation." He questioned the Interior Minister Cazeneuve for how a single person could have breached the security line at the Bastille Day clebrations in Nice on a prominent promenade, Promenade des Anglais. ...

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Banco Santander SA will buy the remaining 10% of Banco Espanol de Credito SA, or Banesto, for 263 million euros by May 2013. This is part of the restructuring in the banking industry in Spain with Banco Santander replacing the Banesto brand and the private banking Banif brand and replacing it with the Santander brand. Santander will close 700 branches of the total of 4600 branches it, Banesto and Banif have in Spain. Spain's banking network will decline by 35% from 2008 to about 30,000 branches. This is also part of the consolidation of banks in Spain to five or six stronger and larger banks. Bankia SA which was required as part of the 40 billion euro bailout from the EU to Spain's banking sector to cut staff and branches, will cut 6000 staff, close over 1000 branches, and shut down real estate lending. Santander's move was intended to save 420 millon euros annually by reducing costs through consolidation. Santander is not one of the banks being bailed out.

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Italy's prime minister, Mario Monti, in an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, June 22, 2012, says the detailed blueprint for action will not come out of the meetings in Rome of European leaders at the end of June. But he added: "there will be some strong elements and a short road, I hope, short, a few months, to get from there to the overall project." Separately Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, said after meeting European financial leaders in Luxembourg: "A determined and forceful move towards complete European monetary union should be reaffirmed in order to restore faith. At the moment, the viability of the European monetary system is questioned." Monti is a former senior EU official, and Christine Lagarde was France's finance minister under president Sarkozy. The difference now compared to meetings in 2010, is the changes in France, Italy, and Spain, and at the IMF, with new leaders Hollande in France, Monti in Italy, and Rajoy in Spain, and Lagarde at the IMF, and a new context in that the austerity policies by themselves are seen as failing to produce the desired results. A further change in the dynamic is the win by Social Democrats in regional elections in Germany and Hollande opening a dialogue with the German Social Democrats. The dialogue with Merkel has been enhanced by appointing seasoned EU officials in key positions in the Hollande administration in anticipation of a tighter fiscal union in the EU....

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Pemex (Petroleos Mexicanos) CEO Emilio Lozoya is fired and replaced by Gonzalez Anaya, a close friend of finance minister Videgaray, as the company experiences a liquidity crisis by Jan. 2016. Anaya is known for cost cutting as head of Mexico's government healthcare institute. This report in the WSJ cites a Pemex official who says at one point in Jan 2016 Pemex was down to $8 million in cash. Under Lozoya Pemex failed to introduce financial discipline ahead of collapsing oil prices. Anaya is expected to cut spending by 19% or $5.8 billion. Mexico's governemt made a capital injection into Pemex of $4.2 billion to pay debts to suppliers, and offered tax relief of $2.8 billion. Pemex output is down to 2.2 million barrels a day in March 2016, decline of 4.5%. Pemex cuts will come in putting off exploraion spending of $800 million in one field in the Gulf of Mexico and paying less to rent oil platforms.

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About 3.5 million Americans ages 45-64 were unemployed as of May 2012, 39% for 1 year or more. This is even higher than the unemployment among younger workers and is a new aspect of this recession compared to the ones before this. Some have quit looking for jobs after depending on extended unemployment benefits of upto 99 weeks, and some have taken part-time jobs. Statistics on unemployment from the U.S. Labor Department give a more distorted picture this time because the unemployment rate as defined by the Labor Department includes only people looking for work. More people today are discouraged and not looking for work, dropping out of the labor market entirely or in part-time jobs. So that the unemployment rate is much higher when these workers are accounted for.

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The advanced technology on the Noble Bully 1 oil drilling rig in deep waters 140 miles south of New Orleans. It is jointly owned by Shell and Noble Corp. The technological improvements on the rig could only have been imagined a few years ago. A Eiffel tower shaped structure is completely enclosed in the rig compared to open derrick structures used on earlier rigs. The technology includes GPS, wind sensors, motion sensors, hydraulic systems, computer controlled thruster propellers on the bottom of the vessel to drill wells with precision. It can operate in water 8250 feet deep to 12,000 feet with safety upgrades, and upto 40,000 feet. A similiar ship Noble Bully 2 operates on the coastal part of Brazil. A new platform called Olympus will be a tension leg platform floaing on the sea like a cork, held together by tying it to the ocean floor using cables. The project is called the Mars B development. New sensors use seismic technology with devices closer to the ocean floor in the Gulf picking up data. The data is sent to Shell scientists working onshore and produces four dimensional maps of oil reservoirs using computer chips. The cost savings for the smaller structure include less steel and less fuel used, zero toxic emissions, and operating with 160 workers- 40% less workers than previous rig designs. Veteran drillers say its a lot better working environment and lot safer. Chief drillers sit in "drill chairs" and adjust the speed and direction of drill pipes using joy sticks and computer screens. It is this kind of technology that countries like Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and India need to develop their off shore oil fields, creaing new opportunities for oil companies such as Chevron, Shell, BP, Exxon and Total. The new technology equiped drilling ships, platforms and LNG processing ships are a way for Shell to reduce costs and improve capital efficiency, the new focus for CEO Van Beurden in 2014-2015....

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Rapidly shrinking readership of newspapers in France. The eight national daily newspapers sell a total of 1.2 million copies a day. The second largest business daily La Tribune has suspended debt repayment. The Tribune fall in sales was 33%. Mediapart is a web newspaper designed around anti-establishment scoops. It needs 40,000 subscriptions at 9 euros a month ($12) to survive. Subscriptions increased from 25,000 in June to 47,000 at the end of 2010.

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RBS announced extra provisions for legal issues and settlements of 3 billion pounds in Jan 2014. RBS is also taking impairment charge of 4-4.5 billion pounds for an internal "bad bank" to cover losses from the 2008 financial crisis.

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This essay in the Economist magazine points out the special nature of the 2017 presidential election in France with the rejection of establishment candidates- Manuel Valls, Sarkozy, Juppe, and now Fillon. Fillon and Valls were prime ministers under Sarkozy and Hollande, from the Republican and Socialist parties respectively. With unemployment high in the areas outside the major cities their is a surge in support in these areas for the National Front. Emmanuel Macron, former Economy minister in the Hollande government, is the only candidate leading Marie Le Pen at this time. In a second round of voting he has to bring in centre right supporters and centre left voters and moderate voters, and appeal enough to working class voters, young unemployed people, offering hope for a better future to win this election against Le Pen. Economist magazine research shows support highest for Le Pen outside major cities in outlying areas, and for Macron in the major cities. There is also an education divide as seen in the U.S. election and Brexit referendum with less educated voters preferring the nationalist sentiment, church support sentiment fostered by the National Front.  ...