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A music enthusiast who played in a rock band, before studying political science at the University of Hanover, and running for parliament, Lars Klingbeil comes from humble roots in Saxony. He led the campaign which brought the SPD Social Democrats to power in 2020 federal elections, and also into an election where the SPD secured only 16% of the vote a new low in 2025. Klingbeil comes as much of a surprise in the way his amiable manner and personality convinced the CDU leader Merz to give him the Finance Ministry as well as the support for major investments in the German economy. This was a goal the SPD failed to accomplish under Scholz with his Finance Minister from the FDP Christian Lindner blocking investment plans for 4 years. The frustration in the SPD is intense and Klingbeil and Merz coming together on borrowing and massive investments in infrastructure and defense is something of a miracle after the Merkel years and the constitutional brake she put in place on spending.  Right from the start the SPD and the CDU realized that this was their last chance as Merz put it to get things right before the far right or some other party took over. Problems that require investment- in crumbling infrastructure and obsolete transportation, lack of investment in IT, problems in childcare and in cost of living could not be postponed. Risks had to be taken, and the 28% of the vote CDU had needed the 17% of the vote of the SPD with the Greens 12%, total 57% of the 2025 vote, to act fast and decisively. ...

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William Dalrymple is writing a book about the First Anglo-Afghan War, which ended in a retreat from Kabul of 18,000 British East India Company soldiers and an equal number of Indian sepoys in 1842. This was 3 years after the British invasion of Kabul. based he says. on dubious intelligence about a Russian envoy reaching Kabul. The retreat ended with 50 surviving British infantrymen making a last stand at Gandamak. This is now the name of the diplomatic quarter of Kabul.

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Feldstein says GDP growth was smaller than the 1.8% that was reported for the 1st quarter of 2011, because two thirds of that 1.8% went into business inventories and not for sales to consumers or final customers. This means final sales growth at an annual rate of 0.6% and actual quarterly increase of 0.15%. With mostly inventory investment and not much response from the consumer he says business cannot be persuaded to hire and invest. A closer look at the numbers shows the growth was in February and March, with declines in April for real wages, durable goods orders and manufacturing production, existing home sales, and in real per capita disposable incomes. Feldstein sees the Obama administration's failure in several areas. The stimulus could not make up in size and structure for the loss of annual consumer spending of $500 billion and loss in housing construction of $200 billion. At $300 billion in 2009 and $400 billion in 2010 it was not enough to fill the huge gap presented by the financial crisis. President Obama allowed the Democratic leadership in Congress to put together a package that while adding to the deficit added less than a dollar to GDP for every dollar of stimulus. The stimulus lacked punch for economic growth as it consisted more of transfers to state and local governments, transfers to individuals, temporary tax cuts for low income people etc. The lack of a plan to reduce the deficit by creating higher uncertainty about future tax rates and interest rates has hurt the economy. The President's health legislation with the cost of $1 trillion over 10 years diverted much needed time, attention and bipartisan goodwill from the core issues of unemployment and the deficit. The Obama administration also did not tackle the housing issue as suggested by Feldstein with specific proposals in the first year of the Obama administration, with very little done to reduce the millions of foreclosures that have kept housing in a prolonged slump. ...

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Wall Street Journal NBC polls taken in January that show only 34% of Americans think the country is headed in the right direction compared with 54% who think its on the wrong track. A similiar survey taken by WSJ/NBC in December showed two thirds of Americans say the don't feel confident about the prospects for their children's generation.

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The huge potential for online university courses.

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Ford shows originality at the March New York Auto Show by showing a crashed Taurus which was intentionally crashed into a barrier at 35 mph for this display. It has amonitor which shows how the crash happened and how the electonics work to protect the occupants in a crash. Ford learned from its bland ads of taurus as the safest car in America which did not boost sales as Taurus sales dropped 13% so far this year. VW had an ad of the Jetta in a crash but nothing this original has been tried. For Ford it helps draw the attention of car buyers who have defected to foreign makes.

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Tankersley points to the broken links between economic growth and growth in jobs and incomes since 1989, which have created a shrinking U.S. middle class. In the postwar period before 1989, a one percent increase in economic growth generated a six tenths of one percent increase in jobs growth during economic recoveries. During the 1992 recovery under George Bush this was down to 0.4%. In the 2001 recovery under George W. Bush this dropped to 0.2%, during the current recovery under Obama this is at 0.3%. Income growth also showed a similiar pattern. Median household incomes declined from 1990-1992 and from 2002-2004, after adjusting for inflation, even with economic growth of 6% during this period. For the 2009-2011 recovery period the economic growth was about 4% yet real median incomes increased barely at 0.5%. By contrast from 1982 to 1984 with economic growth of 11%, real median incomes went up by 5%. The result workers median wages are lower now in the beginning of 2013, after inflation adjustment, than at the end of 2003, and real household income lower in 2011 than in 1989, says Tankersley. Why were the recoveries of 1990 and 2001 for the most part jobless? U.S. Federal Reserve studies show employers mindset had changed, instead of hiring back laid off workers during recoveries, employers did not add many jobs. Automation in factories requiring fewer workers, global outsourcing and supply chains, manufacturing overseas, lack of union-management cooperation on wages and jobs in industries such as the auto industry, increase in temp workers, all played a part in creating fewer and fewer good paying jobs. Some of this is playing out worldwide. In Japan the economic recovery has also come with similiar costs- moving jobs overseas for the auto and electronics industries, increase in temporary worker jobs with lower pay and benefits to about one third of all jobs, and depressed consumer spending as a result lowering the economic growth potential. Even the recent German economic recovery has come with an increase in lower paying temporary jobs and driven by exports to Asia. For the U.S. the situation was worsened by three additional factors- housing foreclosures and the hit to savings from the 2008 financial crisis, high cost of college tution and resulting debt, and the high cost of medical care. The Obama administration's effort to increase the minimum wage would help the poor, but do little to address the broken links between economic growth and jobs growth/income growth. The push for college education does not address affordability and neglects jobs training. Most of the questions raised by the changing patterns remain unanswered, which may be why Obama calls this a generation's task, not that of one administration....

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This NYT piece suggests that 9 new members for the 30 member board have already been named and none of them are non Japanese. So the similiar WSJ piece stands corrected as these new members have already been named. With 2.54 million cars sold in the US and about half imported from Japan this does not reflect internationalization by any stretch of the imagination, as the NYT puts it the rest are all "graying salarymen". Toyota still reflects its narrow parochial centre in Aichi prefecture around Nagoya and growth has not changed the outlook. Compare this with Sony. There are advantages for Toyota in its hometown centred way of doing things so as not to be distracted by the latest management fad, and maintain focus on quality and efficiency but considering the expansion in overseas markets its amazing that the Board should be so underrepresented with other nationalities.

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As one wonders how the housing crisis will affect sales of items like cars and other items, its interesting to note that in addition to subprime borrowers who should never have taken the mortgage in the first place because of lack of proper credit background, there are borrowers who were otherwise healthy but are in a financial bind because of house flipping or speculative buying in the hope of gaining from the speculative price increases. These are defaults on prime quality loans and about 21 to 32 percent of the prime quality loan defaults in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Florida are mortgages with homes not occupied by the owner. Note that Goldman Sachs estimates that housing prices will fall about 7% this year and another 7% next year. These estimates may change as the housing crisis deepens with more foreclosures on subprime and prime properties.

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The rarely mentioned origins of the U.S. Medicare reform proposal of Rep. Paul Ryan and Rep. Ron Wyden, which includes work done at the Hoover Institution and liberal think tanks, in a debate subject to distortions on all sides.

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The inflated costs for spinal surgeries at some hospitals in California. How surgeons, doctors, consultants, distributors and hospitals operated in a flawed system to make revenue gains through overbilling, and focus on increasing the number of surgeries performed.

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The action taken by local and government officials to address the high PM 2.5 pollutant levels and smog in Harbin, China, in October 2013. For the first time the Ministry of Environmental Protection has powers to take serious action. It is sending out inspection teams to cities across China for the winter to make sure environmental regulations are enforced. One big change is that cities now report in real time the change in pollutant levels for PM 2.5, the worst pollutant. By Oct. 2013 113 cities in China carried the live reports on websites. The Ministry has published a list of the 4189 factories in China that create 65% of total industrial air pollutants in China. The Jinping-Li Keqiang administration supports the stronger enforcement and has set a goal of reducing PM 2.5 levels by 15- 25% each year for Tianjin, Beijin and Hebi province in northern China, compared to 2012 levels. These three regions have been given the target of reducing coal use by 80 million tons a year.

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Gasoline pries hit $5.00 a gallon in California in October 2012.