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Harold Meyerson poses some difficult questions for those who like Mitt Romney say America's choice is between the merit based society Romney sees and the "European social democratic vision." In Romney's words- "a merit-based opportunity society- an American-style society- where people earn their rewards based on their education, their work, their willingness to take risks and their dreams." Meyerson cites several studies to show that European societies today are more dynamic on several measures of performance than America's. In intergenerational mobility he cites a Brookings Institution study by Julia Isaacs, that shows incomes are three times more likely to remain the same in America compared to Denmark, Norway and Finland, and one and a half times more frequently than in Germany. Another measure evident from Germany's experience is the degree of union-company-government cooperation to worker retraining, corporate boards that have representatives of workers and management, the "kurzarbeit" program of retaining employees to smooth out impact of cyclical swings in the economy on workers and companies, and worker's willingness to show restraint on wages especially because management wages are not way out of line as in America. Meyerson reminds readers that the U.S. had a more merit based society in terms of upward intergenerational mobility, distribution of rewards of work between workers in manufacturing and service sectors and management, educational mobility with the G.I. bill, in the first 30 years after the Second World War. In a separate article in the Washington Post on Jan. 5, 2012, David Ignatius poses questions about the effects of globalization in shrivelling the middle class. The access to lower wage manufacturing in China, India, Mexico, and other countries, and lowering of wages in the U.S. to be competitive, was part of globalization. The two tier wage structure in the U.S. automobile industry is one example, making middle class wages a thing of the past. Globalization opened up new markets for American companies. Yet many of the gains in employment were made in emerging markets, as the example of GM's expansion in China showed, with automobile manufacturing expansion inside China....

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Members of the U.S. Congress lead a lousy life with life split between the capital and their home state location, most are weekend dads or moms. This makes them less likely to grasp the issues of work-life balance and the issues of parenting faced by average working families or couples with both parents working, says this essay in Politico magazine. This is true also of understanding issues facing women and mothers. Hard to believe but this report points out that Congress in the U.S. does not have a family friendly leave policy and no restroom for women till 2011 on the floor of the House. Similar issues face women in Japan and other countries for women in parliament. Former Speaker Ryan says he is tired of being a "weekend Dad." Senator Biden, former vice president says of his commute from Delaware to Washington D.C., he realized that "a child has a thought he wants to share and 12-18 hours later its gone, gone, gone." ...

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Paul Volcker before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on May 9, 2012, before the announcement of the $2 billion trading losses by J.P. Morgan Chase. The following day Chase announced the losses from trades made by JP Morgan trader Bruno Iksil- nicknamed the "London Whale"- who made a complex hedge on a group of corporate bonds, betting $100 billion that the bonds would not default. The Volcker rule as it is currently written would not prevent such a transaction. The problem as Volcker pointed out before the Banking Committee is that under "too big to fail," "the losses would be socialized with the potential gains all private."

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Maruti Suzuki has 41% of the Indian car market. Sales in rural areas are helping the company weather the downturn in sales in 2013 because of a weak economy. In the April to November 2013 period sales were up 18% in rural areas compared to 5% decline in urban areas. With 7 small car models Maruti is able to provide a small car that is useful on Indian roads. Sales for the last fiscal year reached 1 million. The Maruti Suzuki sales network reaches 60,000 villages and planned expansion is to reach 100,000 villages. CEO Bhargava says the fast growth in rural markets is critical for Maruti, making up 30% of its sales. Overall sales for urban and rural sales is flat for Maruti and declining by 5.3% in the April to Nov. 2013 period, according to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.

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"There is'nt another planet to export to," is what Paul Krugman of the New York Times says, when referring to the impossibility of all countries keeping up exports and reducing imports at the same time. In crises similiar to what the US faces today, countries have increased exports as a way to stage an economic recovery. But this time countries are depressing their currencies to gain or preserve a large share of global demand achieved through high exports. China has resisted demands for a significant revaluation of the yuan, and persists in efforts in currrency markets to keep the value of the yuan low. This cuts off one avenue of recovery. Bloomberg Business Week and Bloomberg News interviewed Edmund Phelps, Jan Hatzius, Krugman, and other economists, with the idea of figuring out how the US could stage an economic recovery. Krugman is not optimistic, considering the effects of the financial crisis being really protracted. Krugman points out that when comparing the US currently to the eaarly stages of Japan's lost decade, the US is doing worse. Unemployment is worse, and overall he says, a weaker policy response. And he says Japan is still a depressed fragile economy 18 years after its financial crisis. Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs, predicts that the unemployment rate will rise back to 10% in early 2011, with a 30% chance that the economy will fall back into a recession. He says that in the postwar economy, there has never been an increase in the unemployment rate of one third of one percentage point that did not result in a recession. Phelps and Hatzius see one way the US could stage a recovery is with replacement old structures and equipmet as wear and tear and obsolescence takes place. Phelps sees the possibility of technological innovation resultig in a new burst of activity. Robert Gordon of Northwestern University, is less optimistic about this, and predicts a lower growth rate of 1.5% over the next 20 years. ...

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Rockwell Collins CEO, Clay Jones, talks to the Journal's David Kesmodel, about Rockwell's strategy as the U.S. Defense Department faces large cutbacks. Rockwell supplies the cockpit electronics on military aircraft. With the growth in sales of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and Airbus's jumbo jet, Jones is shifting resources, capital investments and engineers to the commercial aircraft business. He tells Kesmodel that his No.1 problem is to position Rockwell in the international area to benefit from sales to India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Turkey, South Korea, Australia, countries which he says will have to build their own aircraft capabilities as the U.S. pulls back from overseas bases. He sees international sales going up from 33% to 40%. Only small acquisitions are planned, of between $50-100 million, as Rockwell prefers organic growth.

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Oil traders are pricing in much higher oil prices- with $150 not being inconceivable- because of Mideast unrest. They see this unrest playing out over a long period of time, and do not see this changing even if the Libyan situation returns to normal tomorrow. Saudi Arabia will need to price oil at $85-90 a barrel just to meet the economic demands for a growing population, says Rachel Ziemba, analyst at Roubini Global Economics. Saudi King Abdullah recently promised $150 billion in new housing, higher wages and other benefits to prevent protests. The fiscal pressures are growing in these countries. A $15-$20 premium for unrest is assigned by Paramount Options, a trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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French voters turned to parties outside the mainstream left Socialist Party and the right Republican Party for the first time in a run off presidential election. The National Front's Jean Le Pen made it to the runoff in 2002, then lost to Chirac of the Republican Party who won 78% of the vote. This time the Republican Party candidate Fillon had about 20%, the Socialist Party candidate Hamon won just 6% of the vote with the rest of the socialist vote going to a far left candidate Jean Luc Melenchon who had 19.6%. The winners were Emmanuel Macron, a former Economy minister under president Hollande of the socialist Party, getting about 24% and Marine Le Pen, the daughter of Jean Le Pen of the National Front, getting 21.5%. Compared to the U.S. the situation is slightly different in France because of the very high unemployment rate for young people- younger voters supported the National Front, and people especially in rural areas in the north, north east, and the south of the country around Nice and Marseille supported the National Front. Macron's movement En Marche, centrist party drawing support from centre right and centre left without clear ideology except to renew France and pro-EU, was strong in urban areas, among more educated people, especially in Paris and the area around Bordeaux and Toulouse in the south east of the country. Fillon did not do well in some traditional Republican Party areas including Nice, with inroads from Le Pen, who defined the party around anti-immigration, closed borders, and withdrawal from the European Union. ...

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After $120 billion in losses to rescue failed banks, the FDIC is raising $45 billion from banks in a restoration plan. After these losses the FDIC now has negative net worth. Banks would be ordered to prepay their annual asessments through 2012.

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Intel is expecting 8-10% growth in its forecast for unit PC shipments for 2011. For the second quarter 2011 revenue of the Intel PC unit increased by 11% from the prior year. Two factors are enabling this growth. PC shipments in emerging markets are growing fast, with increases of 70% in Turkey and Indonesia in the second quarter. Profit margin is at 60.6%. Third quarter revenue growth was given by CEO Otellini at $14 billion, and the total revenue for 2011 is expected to show growth at the mid-20% range.

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Fuji Heavy which makes Subaru cars is targeting sales of 50,000 cars in 2010 for China. It has no factory there and says it needs 100,000 in sales for putting up a factory in China. Sales in the US were robust and went up 39% in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, to 227,000. Sales for 2010 are targeted at 244,000 vehicles for USA. Fuji Heavy plans to source smaller models from Toyota- which has a16% stake in Fuji Heavy- so that it can address demand in emerging markets like Russia and China.

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With no clear strategy to pursue vaccines or generics like its competitors, and no promising new drugs in the pipeline, Astra Zeneca faces an uncertain future. Acquisitions are costly with a high premium in 2012. Nestle paid about 20 times earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes for Pfizer's baby food nutrition business. Astra Zeneca's first quarter earnings in 2012 declined by 44%. Government price reductions and competition from generics led to first quarter 2012 sales decline by 11%. New management takes over in June from the current CEO.

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The market shares of Hyundai, Kia, and VW have received a boost as the Detroit carmakers struggle. Kia and Hyundai have moved their market share from 5 in 2008 to 7.3% today, up by 2.3%. Hyundai had difficulty getting brand name recognition for quality and performance in prior years, but it has persevered. KIa and yundai spend more on incentives, $3200 in 2009 compared to $2000 in 2008 to attract first time buyers. To take into account the economc conditions Hyundai was the first to come up with the Hyundai Assurance Plan, which allows buywers who finance their purchase to return the cars if they lose their jobs. Once these buyers try the Korea cars the ope is that they will see that the quality is on par with the Americans and the Japannese for a lower price, or even exceeds them. The Korean carmakers have worked hard on improving quality. In 2009 Hyundai won the North American Car of the Year award at the Detroit Auto Show for the Genesis luxury car. VW is also gaining market share this year. VW's market share is up to 2% from 1.5% in 2008. Aggressive marketing of the Jetta has moved its sales by 8.3% in May. Some of this market share is coming from Japanese carmakers....

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Acquisitions by Chinese oil companies in 2010 included state-owned China Petrochemical Corporation's acquisition of a 40% stake in Repsol's Brazilian oil assets for $7.1 billion. China made $24.3 billion worth of acquisitions in 2010, up from $17.1 billion in 2009, according to Dealogic.

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One of Britain's largest infrastructure projects HS2 gets the go ahead from prime minister Johnson. The project was estimated at 66 billion pounds in 2015, is now at 88 billion pounds. It cuts intercity time by rail significantly between London, Birmingham, Leeds and the West Midlands, to boost the economy. Infrastructure is a key part of the program of Mr. Boris Johnson.

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South Korea with 2069 hours year has the longest working hours of any developed country, according to the OECD,  and only Mexico exceeds this of all countries. In an effort to increase productivity and boost a dropping birthrate the National Assembly in South Korea reduced the maximum number of working hours from 68 hours a week to 52 hours- starting July 2018 and  initially for large companies. In Japan there is actually a word for working to death called "karoshi." The period of rapid industrialization in the fifties and sixties was a period of long working hours for most Japanese men. Today the working hours have dropped to average of 1713 a year. Africa shows the greatest number of countries in which one third of the labor force works more than 48 hours per week. Asia is the region with the longest working hours with 30% of the countries with thresholds of 60 hours or more.The U.S. is one of the countries where there is no limit- most other developed countries in Europe consider work-life balance important and have maximum limits without sacrificing productivity. ...

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Admiral Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says it is is good for the U.S. to be talking to China at top military levels. The way to make the U.S.-China relationship better is to keep talking, to keep up the dialogue. This is why Mullen invited China's Gen. Chen Bingde to the U.S. in May, and why Mullen visited China in July 2011. He says helathy skepicism can coexist with a healthy exchange of views. This relationship is too important to be allowed to managed through blind suspicion and mistrust, and Mullen says this was tried and didn't work. The dividends from such a policy are better understanding and willingness to live with differences, more transparency, and ability to address common challenges. Both Bengde and Mullen feel the future depends on the younger officers, who are ready for closer contact.

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Gen. Chen Bingde, People's Liberation Army chief of general staff, leads a military delegation from China to the U.S. He made a speech at National Defense University in Washington D.C. in May 2011. In that speech he pointed out that China's military capabilities remain far behind the U.S. capabilities, which he described as "a gaping gap." He described China's military modernization as having "unfortunately aroused unfounded suspicion and exaggeration of China's defense and military capabilities." With the overstatement of the threat posed by China only "distorting China's strategic intention, tarnishing its international image, and polluting the political environment for Sino-U.S. military relations." In other remarks he said China "does not want to use our money to buy equipment or advanced weapons to challenge the United States." The meeting between Admiral Mullen and Gen. Bingde was the first in seven years between military chiefs of the two countries.