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Bosch wants to supply Indan car maker Tata with electronics systems brakes and fuel injection systems for the low end of the market that Tata i spursuing vigorously. Bosch wants to invest 500 million euros in India from 2008 to 2010 and expects sales in India to grow by 20% a year. This according to its India chief Hieronimus. Bosch wants to increase sales to 1 billion euros by 2010 to India's lowcost car makers. Shows that car suppliers are catching on to the huge potential in the Indian car market and the pioneering efforts of Tata in the low end of the market. Bosch is the world's largest car supplier at a time when US car suppliers are going through a price squeeze from the Big Three and many of them losing money or in bankruptcy.

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Major policy changes for Wen Biao's second term as Prime Minister with the reorganization of government ministries to streamline them to focus on new policy priorities of reducing pollution, becoming energy efficient, improving the environment, and providing better housing and health care services to migrants and the poorer sections of society. How will this work in execution and in practice remains a question. there will be a new cabinet level Ministry for the Environment. Previous agency for environmental protection had only 300 employees compared to 18,000 for the EPA in the USA so it was woefully inadequate to the task and there was lax enforcement. The budget for environmental protection increased by 31% to $14.47 billion, the size of the new ministry is not disclosed. After the recent snowstorms disrupted energy supplies and infrastructure a new Ministry has been formed to for Transport.

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A majority of 300 adult members of the Rockefeller family who are significant shareholders of Exxon have voted to support four shareholder resolutions at the company's annual meeting in late May. The proposals are to first create an independent chairman position , cut greenhouse gas emissions, and examine whether Exxon should take a more active role in developing sustainable energy technologies. The feeling is that Exxon has tunnel vision and that it has become out of touch with the way the world is moving and changing. On Wednesday several members of the Rockefeller family are holding a press conference to express their concerns. If the Rockefeller family takes a stand, Harvard College and the Ford Foundation and others may be jolted out of their complacency about Exxon's increasingly out of touch positions when it comes to developing a plan for the future.

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This NYT report by Eric Schmitt describes the efforts of U.S. troops in Europe under Lt. Gen. Frederick Hodges to build  a fast movement capability to counter the threat from Russian forces on the borders of countries in Eastern Europe. Hodges says speed of movement is crucial. American forces are deployed in smaller numbers than the Russian forces. A 10 day exercize under Hodges involved 25,000 American and allied forces across Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Russian forces exercizes involve more than 100,000 troops. The war in Ukraine involved a breakaway region in the east supported by Russian forces.

Commanders and younger officers were trained to address the Cold War threat with the soviets. Then for over a decade the focus shifted to Afghanistan, then Iraq and Syria. Now the focus shifts back to the Eastern European area with a new Russian threat.

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Reliance Industries plan for new 4G telecom network in India using the latest technologies.

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Because of its size ($230 billion in sales) Toyota is Japan's largest taxpayer, largest company, showcases its engineering capabilities, and one of its largest employers. Which is why Akio Toyoda referred to returning Toyota to profitability as part of the effort for the "revitalization of Japan." Experts in Japanese universities who think the Toyota crisis offers lessons about Japan's future, see a direction away from mass manufactured products to a more service driven economy. Already the Japanese economy is down from 28% of the economy in manufacturing in 1990 to 22% in 2008.

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A bailout of Ireland with $136 billion bailout planned by the European Union. Fear of contagion effects on Greece, Portugal and Spain. Pressure on Ireland to accept the bailout for its banks.

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Best performing stocks in 2014 include American Airlines, Micron Technology, Facebook, Tesla Motors, Yahoo.

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Toyota's market share in China is about 5-6%, lagging behind GM and VW. After a "willful pause" since 2012 when Toyota ran into quality issues following an aggressive expansion in manufacturing, Toyota is beginning to make investments in new assembly plants. New assembly plants will be built in Mexico and China with a $1.25 billion investment.

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The supporters of free university education bring up some practical and important points. Not providing free university education at a time of rising inequality after a severe financial crisis that worsened inequality and led to a lost decade for middle class families in the U.S. leads to a situation in university attendance is restricted to people from wealthier backgrounds. Studies in Britain show this says the Economist magazine.  A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think tank, showed an increase in tution fees paid out of pocket of 1000 pounds ($1243) is associated with adecline of 3 to 9 percentage points in university attendance. Work by Thomas Kane at Harvard University confirms this. Other studies in the U.S. show attendance and completion rates higher for university education with  education being more affordable. Results of studies also show that the tangle of application processes and eligibility rules can reduce the benefits of tackling this by the current approach of financial aid. For this reason free tution which is easy to adminster and easy to understand for all is the real option for today's situation. Wealthy students can pay for it later in life with the progressive taxation. Warren proposes higher taxes on multimillionaires, and Sanders would tax financial transactions such as on stock and capital markets, as ways to address this and bring back free university. As the Economist magazine for the first time  puts this in its Free Exchange column the real support for free university comes not from economic efficiency, or even the way it benefits all in a free, open and equal opportunities society, but from the values that society believes in. There are broad social benefits to a well educated citizenry. The nation is stronger economically, more open to new ideas and more open to technological change to be able to grow when it has promoted to the fullest extent the education of all its citizens. This is especially true in today's world where more than 12 years of education are needed to build a strong base for a country to grow its economy and industry. A warning is presented by the Economist magazine that as the rich pull away from the rest of society they can actually undercut the very values based solutions that are needed today. Their increased political power can restrict the tax increases needed to fund the higher education the nation deserves, that the people deserve.  Social safety nets are also reinforced and societal harmony is strengthened when everyone cooperates to help everyone.  ...

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The critical exchange between oil companies and auto companies about who is at fault for the energy crisis. In one ad that ran last year, Chevron argued that "if automakers improved fuel economy across the board by just 5 mpg, we'd save over 22 billion gallons of gasoline a year." The criticism is also sparked by the high price of oil which is hurting sales of pickups and large SUV's that the automakers depend on for profits. One ad by Exxon Mobil shows a cartoon of a large SUV filling up at a gas station and hints that the problem rests with the automakers who have failed to build the kind of highly fuel efficient vehicles that are needed. The ad says that the average fuel economy of new U.S. autos has not gone up much in two decades, the small gains have been offset by the increases in the size and weight of vehicles.

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MaC Group, a risk advisor to Spanish banks, says Spanish banks hold about 30 billion pounds of distressed real estate and unsellable land. Prices are down 28% from the peak in 2007, according to a report by the IESE Business School, and are expected to fall a further 15-20 percent in the next 2-3 years by some experts. Much of the bank owned land is far from city centers and there is no demand for this. One Madrid based consultant R.R. de Acuna Asociados, says 43% of bank owned land is poorly located and there may be no demand for unfinished residential units for decades. The new government of Mariano Rajoy plans to take action to cleanup the banking system. Louis de Guindos, director of PricewaterhouseCoopers and IE Business School Center of Finance is expected to become the new finance minister. Guindos says strict rules need to be implemented, with some banks able to handle this and others that won't. MaC Group's Cantos, a managing partner, says the gap is huge between prices offered by banks and what investors will pay- as much as 70%. Prime assets can be sold for 30% discount but the land, residential and commercial real estate will require discounts of 70%. Banks have made provisions for losses of 30%, and are now facing the prospect of another 40% in losses. As a result many of the medium and small sized banks which operate only inside Spain may have to be shut down or consolidated by the government of Mariano Rajoy. Only the larger banks like Banco Santander, Banco Bilbao, La Caxia, and Bankia are likely to surivive....