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Richard Portes of the London Business School provides two good reasons why the EU's decision to adopt the French Banking Federation's proposal for rollovers with 10% interest costs is a serious mistake. It doubles the interest costs from 4-6% to 10% with 2% Greek GDP growth and makes debt servicing untenable. Portes says the real Brady Plan from the 1980's included a 35-40% bondholders haircut. Deals of this type have a precedent- in Mexico in 1988 and in Argentina in 2001 such bond exchanges were soon followed by deals that placed bondholder haricuts on creditors. The lesson from Latin America in the 1980's, says Portes, is that the burdens of servicing a debt of such proportions under onerous conditions only extinguishes the enterprise, investment and productive capabilities of the particular country trying to service that debt, making the debt even less serviceable. See the Wall Street Journal's editorial on this deal which it calls "The French Deception." The terms sound like Greek to the editors leaving a sense that French banks are only saying "gimme." The only benefit achieved may be putting off the problem and avoiding contagion to Portugal and Spain. Yet this is not that much of a benefit when one realizes that the problem has not gone away, and is likely to look much worse six or nine months from now....

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The jointly developed Daimler Chrysler, BMW, GM, hybrid which uses a power path that makes it more fuel efficient at higher speeds than the Toyita hybrids and more compact and lighter, a package that would fit all types and sizes of motor vehicles. Chevy Tahoe fuel efficiency boosted by 25%.

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Hyundai is investing in a$150 million ad campaign to increase car sales from 500,000 to 700,000, a 40% increase in sales by 2010. The campaign will ask viewers to think about what Hyundai has to offer. Some of the aspects of this campaign. How will this work in a soft market with the credit squeeze in summer 2007 and a incentive driven market of late and with the fierce competition in the market for additional sales from the Japanese and now from the Americans and germans.

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United Russia gets about 50% of the vote, with the Communist Party at 19%, Just Russia at 13%, and the Liberal Democrats at 12%, according to the Central Election Commission. President Medvedev says the results in Parliament will mean the formation of "coalition bloc agreements." He said "the result is real democracy."

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Before the war the supplies, spare parts and some of the aircraft for the heavy duty Antonov cargo carrying planes were shifted to Leipzig, Germany from Ukraine. Some of the other aircraft were damaged in the early days of the war near Hostomel. Ukraine was the location of a  significant part of manufacturing capability in the old Soviet Union. The very first helicopter that was mass produced in the world Sikorsky R-4 was made in the US in 1942 and designed by Sikorsky, who is from Kviv , Ukraine. After winning a competition in St Petersburg in 1912 for an early design Sikorsky immigrated to the US in 1919 to form the Sikorsky aircraft company in 1923. 

Sikorsky's story including his early education in aviation in St Petersburg reflects the strong ties that Ukraine has with Russia, yet with the Bolsheviks and the Russian Civil War he chose the opportunities the US offered, and chose to leave for the US. 

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This report in the DW.com says the pandemic is spreading rapidly in Netherlands, and it has one of the highest mortality rates in Europe. The contentious idea of herd immunity or population immunity was accepted by the Dutch government says this report in DW.com. Very few countries have done this and it is a high risk strategy. Early on in the pandemic some in the UK brought up this idea, but the UK changed course once it was realized how costly this could be in human lives. There is a realization that this Dutch approach may just be an aspiration rather than actual intelligence in what the Dutch call an "intelligent lockdown." Neighboring Belgium, Germany and France have a strict lockdown. The Dutch attitude towards souther European countries such as Italy and Spain in the crisis has also come under criticism. The Dutch government shifted course on assistance to southern European countries supporting an Emergency Fund and admitted its initial attitude lacked empathy and was not consistent with how most European countries have acted. ...

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How Gazprom and Shell are changing their partnership to develop Sakhalin II: 1. The vanguard in Russian oil projects is Sakhalin II. In 2005 Shell announced the price tag would double to $20 billion. With forbidding terrain and climate and spread over a vast region in Russia's Far East, this is a really big challenge. Who owns what part of this project- Shell has 55% of the partnership in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, a stake it picked up from Marathon which exited in 2000. Mitsui and Mitsubishi are other partners. Note the arrangement in the original contract which was signed in 1994. Under the 1994 production sharing contract with Shell Russia does not make much money till Sakhalin Energy recovers its costs. Upto that time Sakhalin Energy would pay 6% royalty on revenues. Following this Sakhalin Energy would get 90% of the profits until the project earned a 17.5% return. Taxes are 32%. Because of this arrangement the cost overruns at Sakhalin present a serious problem for the Russian government, as the returns for Russia depend on Sakhalin Energy first recovering the costs. In 2005 Shell agreed to swap 25% of its controlling stake in Sakhalin Energy with Gazprom for 50% of a field in western Siberia. 2. Shell is adapting its strategy in the changing oil picture. Comments by Malcolm Brinded, Shell's executive director for Exploration and Production indicate strategy in the changing global oil picture. Shell sees the importance of engaging with a Russian partner for the long run to make long-term gains with a first-mover advantage. For Shell the real returns would come from other players using Shell's expensive LNG plants and terminals. ...

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The WSJ's Alessandra Galloni speaks with Mario Monti, the Italian premier, for in-depth interviews. Here Galloni and Walker provide an account of what happened during and after the June 28, 2012 summit of European leaders. Monti described the comments of ECB president Draghi in early August- about ECB buying of bonds of Italy and Spain being within the mandate of the ECB if monetary transmission channels were not working properly to reduce yields- as a bold effort following the agreement made at the June 28 summit to support Italy and Spain. Monti expressed the idea that Draghi should feel morally and politically justified if and when he makes the bold moves to rescue the euro. The only problem he says is whether one has to wait till the night before the euro is about to disintegrate for this to happen. This is the first time Monti has publicly expressed the possibility of this happening.

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This Journal editorial cites the regulatory burdens imposed on small and medium sized businesses in Italy that discourage hiring and innovation. Prime minister Mario Monti's efforts to reduce these burdens and change labor laws in Italy.

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President Obama is not greeted with enthusiasm during his speech on the need for financial regulatory reform and curbing executive compensationa adn bonuses on September 15, 2009. The President also showed a lack of clear direction and leadership on the issue, as bankers are not expected to have the same enthusiasm for change from past practices.

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S&P drops France's credit rating one notch from its AAA credit rating on Jan. 13, 2011. Italy, Spain and Portugal were also downgraded.

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Long term changes in voting patterns, with voters shifting allegiance to third parties in larger numbers led to the need for a coailtion government. The Liberals with 23% of the votes won 57 seats. In this election 35% of the vote went to third parties, the highest proportion since 1918, and these patterns are seen as likely to remain. Far smaller number of seats now are close Tory and Labor contested elections, and the Conservatives win their constituencies with large majorities, as a result some of the Tory votes does not register in the way of seats. With a seven point lead over Labor Margaret Thatcher won an overall majority of 44, now Cameron struggled all the way and fell short.