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A warmer than expected winter and lower inflation is helping European stocks in Jan 2023, says this report in the WSJ. European indexes are also not weighed down by the decline in tech stocks as in the US. Germany's DAX and France's CAC have risen by 16% compared to 6.9% in the US for last 3 months.

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Big Tech's hiring of US inventors in large numbers can be a problem because once hired they are less productive, says this report in the WSJ. Big companies can discourage innovation because of the number of approvals needed, the corporate bureaucracy, and the need for promotions, more incentives for being cautious than being bold and taking risks.

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Analysts and mutual fund managers say the declines in the U.S. stock market in April 2014 focussing on tech and biotechs is healthy, as values of tech stocks and biotech stocks had gone up too fast. The pause in the market and even declines of 5-10%, as funds shift money to safer consumer, pharmaceutical and neglected large cap stocks, is likely to set the stock market up for further gains in the latter part of 2014, according to many analysts and mutual fund managers. Unlike 2000 and 2007 there are no similiar bubbles in the market, and the pause has helped clear some of excesses which is seen as beneficial, say fund managers.

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This comes as both president Biden and Republicans under Trump are increasingly wary about the lack of oversight and inability to limit the monopolistic behaviour of tech firms. The investigation of Joshua Wright who defended Facebook, Google and Amazon. After learning about the investigations Amazon acted immediately. Google and Facebook waited before finally acting says this report in WSJ. Joshua Wright, a George Mason University law professor was appointed to the FTC where he had other commissioners dilute the powers of the FTC so that it would benefit Google, Facebook and Amazon from weaker oversight by the FTC. During this period the three companies acquired immense power with monopoly behavior and lack of the necessary oversight from Congress or the FTC. Related to this is the story in this WSJ report of the relations of a GMU law professor with his female students that led to GMU and the tech companies distancing themselves from Joshua Wright as each new story emerged.  ...

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What is the Pirates party in European Union countries? It started as a party of tech savy young people about 15 years ago who were fed up with the mainstream parties. For the first time Pirates and Mayors party in Czech Republic will form a coalition government in 2021. Ivan Bartos head of the Pirates party says the party is "a new wind, no oligarch or big sponsors and completely transparent." It is in a way a party like the Greens, away from established parties, with younger people who are tech savy and want openness in society. In the Czech election the party was able in alliance with other centrist parties to defeat a scandal ridden minority government of billionaire Babis that opposed EU climate change policies.

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Prof. Barry Naughton at the University of California, San Diego, looks at how China has approached tech regulation in a way that has not yet happened in the US and Europe. It says tech regulation expands the role of the government, yet is one that has "a reasonable regulatory rationale," and can be easily supported on an individual basis. It says the US and Europe have recognized the issues that need to be tackled as tech companies were left with no checks or regulation after growing in insidious ways in the last ten years, but have so far failed to act on this knowledge. Some of the goals pursued in China made sense for China it says- technology self-reliance after delinking with the US, data security, de-risking the housing market, getting on a path to carbon neutrality. Other goals such as de-licensing tutoring companies and reregistering as non profit companies-  this was because of president Xi's concern that excessive costs and stress were discouraging Chinese families from having more children as China's population ages rapidly. This means the government plays a bigger role yet Naughton says when it coms to the goal of reducing inequality China has still to come up with ways to use tax policy and other ways to mitigate an extremely unequal distribution of wealth in China. Today this is limited to donations and giving by companies. In the US and Europe social democratic governments from Biden, Scholz and others are taking serious steps and have plans to address these problems of common prosperity with plans to help families and workers. ...

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Microsoft will be taking a $1.2 billion charge to earnings related to severance costs for 10,000 layoffs, as it prepares to do with fewer workers in a slowing economy. Tech took a larger part of US investments than warranted leaving public investments in infrastructure unfunded or underfunded. This is reversing as the US makes a push in infrastructure spending and in new factory investments in manufacturing.

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Children are not getting enough time outdoors. The pandemic has worsened this. The Tech company driven changes in use of screen time have added to this with children spending as little as 10 minutes outdoors. The progression of myopia increased by 35% by one estimate after 3 years of the pandemic. Natural sunlight is needed for the eye not to grow longer which contributes to nearsightedness, say researchers.

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Vernon Jordan points out the problems with media and new tech and the loss of quality journalism. He says this has damaged the political process in the U.S. and Europe by spreading rumor as facts, and not providing reliable information, with news and entertainment not being separated. The failure to educate people he says, risks in Jefferson's words the "perversion of power into tyranny."

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NYT columnist David Brooks says Biden will be judged in the long run by what he has done to bring the two parts of America together that have drifted apart -one educated, affluent, city based and the other less educated, poorer, living in smaller towns and rural areas. One from the professional classes, and college educated that benefited from the tech boom, the other from working classes that felt the brunt of the shift of jobs to China. Biden is old enough to remember his emotional mentor Franklin Delano Roosevelt who faced a similar split America with farmers in small towns and workers who lost jobs in the Depression on one side and the smaller affluent classes of professional workers, small business owners in the earlier tech boom of the 1920's. Biden's father experienced unemployment and had experiences as a blue collar worker in Pennsylvania after business failures. It is an experience that has shaped Biden's views on America and the need to bring back hope after the pandemic that followed decades of neglect of working class Americans.   ...

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The best US cities for jobs is changing rapidly in 2021 after the spread of coronavirus. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston lost jobs. Jobs shifted to hubs in the interior of the country as remote work changed the workplace. Salt Lake City in Utah, Austin in Texas, and Denver became new hubs with environments that included mountains, healthier living, quieter lifestyle, lower costs and efforts to attract employers. Tourist spots suffered with Orlando in Florida moving to 47th place in terms of jobs. The US lost 9 million jobs in 2020 changing how the jobs market in cities looks. The WSJ looks at the changes in this report. Tech hubs such as Raleigh in North Carolina, and San Francisco suffered decline as remote work created new opportunities for cities in the interior of the country. By contrast Salt Lake City was growing twice as fast from 2000 to 2017, and has increased in popularity with surrounding areas of Provo and Ogden in Utah. It is now known as Silicon Slopes as it becomes a new tech hub city. The WSJ looks at Salt Lake City in some detail.  ...

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There was a time when tech meant scientific advance for mankind and something positive for ordinary Americans. Today "Tech" can mean something different from what it used to mean, including something that is unwanted, even pernicious, something to increase profit margins even to exorbitant levels that hurt ordinary Americans and the public, and not a scientific advance in the real sense of the word. Nothing that inspires hope and better future for mankind. RealPage software that induces increase in housing rent prices is one aspect of the current housing cost of living crisis that Harris is focused on. Binyamin Applebaum of the NYT looks at the RealPage software sold to housing companies that would increase prices and be an added burden to households already under pressure from rising grocery prices and housing rent increases during the pandemic. This is a key issue for voters in 2024 and a comprehensive approach has to be taken on many fronts to address costs- including attack on price gouging, $50,000 for first time home buyers, and incentives for home building that Harris has proposed, and other actions.   ...

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The U.S. market has better prospects than emerging markets according to some analysts. This is because a large number of U.S. tech and blue chip companies have good earnings and cash positions, and lower valuations. Commodities prices are volatile because China is raising interest rates to control inflation, slowing growth. Many emerging markets like Russia and Brazil are dependent on commodities exports making them riskier as China's growth slows.

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Adam Neumann, the 40 year old startup founder of WeWork, which is basically a subleaser of real estate space, resigns. Aggressive brash attitude, a party heavy lifestyle, unpredictable decision making,  are cited by WSJ as reasons he lost the confidence of investors. Mr. Dimon of JP Morgan Chase was a key banker for the company. Chase under Dimon pursued startups in the hope of doing the IPO's. The company has substantial losses, and new management was brought in after Softbank decided Neumann should leave. Growth was fast, losses also mounted fast to $1.6 billion. WSJ says many investors decided that WeWork was not a tech company so much as a overvalued real estate company that engaged in business of leasing office space tricked out in millenial friendly decor. The greed for outsize returns has led to the accumulation of capital that could otherwise be spent wisely on infrastructure and other improvements in health and education, even though many of the gains in tech are behind us.  Recently the head of Uber was also asked to resign for an aggressive approach and questionable management style, also with substantial losses, and new management brought in. Fast expansion in an imprudent manner affects established companies. It led to collapse of India's Jet Airways, Britain's Thomas Cook in 2019. Yet the huge amount of capital of tens of billions of dollars wasted as investors seek outsize returns and are disappointed, is a pattern seen mostly in capital markets in the U.S. and to a lesser extent in Europe, China, Japan. The ideas piggyback on some aspect of tech already developed and are not major tech advances by and of themselves, and many as in the case of WeWork are touted as tech because of the catch and appeal of the word for everyone hoping to make an outsize return.    ...

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Layoffs at Twitter begin as Elon Musk assumes control of this social media company. Tech is now losing favor in the US financial markets and focus is shifting to areas where capital can be better invested to serve the public, for infrastructure, for renewable energy, for improving the lives of working families, and for bringing manufacturing back to the heights it enjoyed in the years after World War II.

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Experts at Stanford Law School say the fewer IPO's expected in coming years will be a good thing as it reduces the boom and bust cycles in tech and internet IPO's of previous years. New technologies enable firms to reach breakeven at a much earlier stage with smaller investment- using founders money and capital from angel investors and less reliance on venture capital- so that companies can focus on the long term. The result will be fewer jobs created in investment banking and more in other places.

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In this interview with Herndon of the NYT Bernie Sanders refutes the labels "progressive" or "left" and says it is simply about policy that benefits the workers and families that make up the vast majority of this Nation. Sanders says 60% of workers are living from paycheck to paycheck. The vast majority of people 60-70% support Medicare for All, improvements in Social Security, cutting pharmaceutical costs, and tution support to make higher education accessible to all. Why he asks do workers support Trump? He says it is because the truth is that the Democratic party has abandoned its roots. He does not go into this, yet it can be said that the rise of the Tech industry in the last two decades has led to tech billionaires and business people coopting the Democratic party for their agenda. In the last year of the Obama administration it was evident that Rural America and people who represent rural America such as Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack of Iowa felt ignored while Obama spent more time with tech and internet business people. Former president Trump simply stepped into this void as Democrats failed to turn up for rural America. President Biden has turned things around by making Tom Vilsack an important part of his administrations with the president listening to  him and others speaking for rural America. The passion with which Senator Pat Schumer talked recently on CBS Face the Nation about bringing broadband to rural America shows how Biden and Harris, Harris and Walz see Rural America. This Democratic ticket is fighting for Rural America every step of the way to bring hope and a better life to Rural America. Sanders reminds people of FDR in 1936 after four years of fighting the Depression and improving lives there was so much that needed to be done. It is the same today and Sanders is wading into this fight with Harris and Walz in the same way as FDR did in 1936. ...

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The Journal's Jeff Bennett talks with Rodney O'Neal, the CEO of Delphi Automotive. O'Neal says Delphi's success depends on focussing on advanced technologies where emerging market producers are less able to compete. He has focussed on 33 product lines which are 'green,' safe' and connected.' If it doen't create value then revenue and cost numbers are wrong, is O'Neal's lesson from the bankruptcy filing. He likes the chaotic discussion coming form strong debate, where views are expressed with passion and counterpoints made, and he takes this debate seriously, because as he sees it choosing the right course is a significant task in itself, which takes much time to correct if wrong. There are major improvements in emission and fuel economy ahead and a high tech future for the automobile industry. He see America's future in high-tech where America can do better than emerging market producers, and ensuring that the steady flow of exceptional American talent continues to be channelled properly....

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Microsoft's Satya Nadella got his start at age 24 at Bing search engine. He is now 56 years. During this period he worked with both Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer who succeeded Gates at Microsoft. He is now remaking the Bing Search engine by using AI. This has happened since 2018 when he met Altman at the Sun Valley Tech conference in Idaho. He invested $1 billion in Altman's OpenAI, and has recently brought in Suleyman of Inflection who is a competitor of  Altman's OpenAI into Microsoft with the idea of setting up an internal AI business as well. To do this he has invested $10 billion in advanced AI chips that he has bought from chipmakers which have reduced the capital available for Microsoft's other businesses. This WSJ report by Dotan and Jin says Altman started his venture because he did not want to let AI to be led by Google silently developing its own version and doing leapfrog over competitors. A At this point in 2024 Google, Facebook and Amazon are building their own AI talent and making large investments in the chips that support AI. It is rapidly becoming an oligopoly of a few tech companies that makes deals among themselves for strategic advantage and protect themselves from public or government regulatory scrutiny. The controversy surrounding the firing and rehiring of Altman at OpenAI has brought new scrutiny from the FTC. The monopolistic behaviour of tech companies and their splitting the tech market among themselves as Google and Apple have done show the need for government action to prevent a repeat of this in AI. And to take action to break up existing monopolies in Search engines and in the Internet as Theodore Roosevelt did at the turn of the century for the oil business, breaking up Rockefeller's Standard Oil and Esso. Only when that happens can the true potential of the Internet be realized for Education, Health and other fields. Who can say that the iPad or iPhone or Google's Search engine has increased global literacy or American literacy? By freeing up these technologies- that belong to the people of America and the world- for education, health and other fields of human development mankind can advance once again. By regulating provide the ground rules for good use instead of the current danger of the Internet acting in ways to reduce public knowledge to levels that cannot sustain democratic process, and create stratified society where each group only sees what it has seen before and does not explore the world or knowledge in all its variety, all its ability to surprise us with new discoveries. ...