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Dutch New Amsterdam with 1500 inhabitants become British New York in 1664. It is later retaken by the Dutch and exchanged for Suriname in the West Indies. From a neglected outpost for the Dutch it becomes a center for trade under the growing British Empire. The city inherits the Dutch spirit of tolerance, diversity and aggressive free trading.

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China's ginni coefficient at 0.5, has changed from 0.3 several decades ago, according to Li Shi at Beijing Normal University. A level above 0.4 is considered socially destabilizing. 150 million migrant workers from rural areas are denied access to benefits such as health care, education and pensions which are provided to urban residents. Migrant incomes are also affected by rising food prices. Estimates of per capita income are $935 a year for rural areas, up 13% in 2010, and $2,965 in urban areas, up 10 % in 2010. An economist at the National Economic Research Institute in Beijing says the income gap is understated because the incomes of families in the higher end are understated.

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The Logan lower cost model produced by Renault's Romanian affiliate Automobile Dacia SA is setting a pattern that is being looked at as a model for the future throughout Renault. It is combining the advantages of Japanese manufacturing methods with their attention to detail and good practices evident at Nissan, Renault's partner company, with the cost conscious methods evident in operations in a Renault joint venture with Mahindra and Mahindra of India. Dacia Automobile was a Soviet era plant, and Renault has modernized it but keeps a more labor intensive attitude with good basics operation here, in contrast to the trend to automate everything and use robots extensively that became popular at other plants in Europe, U.S., and Japan. As Renault managers in France and its overseas operations look at both the expanding markets for lower cost cars and the profitability of the Dacia plant in Romania, it is becoming a model to be imitated. Other plants built earlier now look overautomated and costly for manufacturing cars in a cost conscious pricing sensitive competitive market that automakers face. Logan is contributing to Renault's bottom line, and may help it in reaching the 6% in operating margins that is a new goal for Renault for 2009. Dacia Automobile S.A. initally owned 55% by Renault is now 99% owned by Renault. It has sales of 2 billion euros ,in 2007 with revenue increase of 30% over 2006. The profit was 100 million euros in 2007. It employs 14,000 workers and Renault's investment has reached 1 billion euros upto this point. The plant turns out 60 cars per hour. Compare this with a similiar investment by VW in a Soviet era Skoda automobile plant in the Czech Republic, where VW started with an inital investment in part ownership and ended up in full ownership of Skoda with large investments in modernizing Skoda, and the success in selling Skoda cars known for their good quality. The Skoda is expected to sell at the million dollar sales level in 2010 and is the fastest growing brand in Europe. It ties with Honda in quality surveys. ...

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1. PETROBRAS KNOWHOW IN DEEP-WATER DRILLING HONED IN DEEPWATERS 100 MILES FROM RIO. In the 1970's Petrobras discovered oil in the coastal area near Maca. Later geological tests showed large deposits more than 100 miles offshore and more than a mile deep underwater. Senior Petrobras engineers worked with manufacturers to develop pressure resistant instruments and the hardware needed to drill deeper. This technology was developed over the years and Petrobras has now honed its skills in deepwater drilling. Since then Petrobras has become the leader in deepwater drilling.. The fact that Brazilian oil was offshore made Brazil focus on offshore oil exploration and use the Atlantic ocean near Brazil for one big R&D project. Petrobras uses floating platforms, of which many are converted oil tankers. These platforms are more agile in deep and remote waters and better weater waves and storms. Petrobras gets 90% of its oil from the waters over 100 miles north east of Rio de Janeiro from a cluster of 38 such platforms. The floating platforms are like large ships that can be connected to hoses to pumping points on the seabed. 2. PETROBRAS INVESTMENTS IN OVERSEAS OFFSHORE DEEPWATER OIL PRODUCTION. Petrobras has the size and profits to have global reach and make the large investments and bring deepwater expertise to other regions. It is 55.7% state owned. Production was 1.9 million barrels a day in 2006. Sales of $45 billion and profits of $10 billion for 2005. The 2005 profit was a 50% increase from 2004. Countries where Petrobras is working include Angola, Tanzania, Turkey and India. Petrobras has stated that it will increase overall investments by 66% in the next 4 years investing $87 billion, mostly on exploration and production from 2007 to 2011. Of that $12.1 billion will be invested overseas for new platforms off the Gulf of Mexico and new fields off the coast of Nigeria and Angola. Petrobras plans to invest $2 billion in the Gulf of Mexico for deepwater drilling. ...

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Rehma Malik, Interior Minister of Pakistan, admits in a rare statement that militants were entrenched in the southern part of Punjab province, the most populated province of Pakistan. This happened as two mosques in Lahore were attacked. This showed that the problems are deep in the heart of the country. This complicates the situation in Afghanistan, as all the problems faced by the USA in that country somehow come back to Pakistan.

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Following positions heading manufacturing in 2006 and the expansion of Ford's China operations in 2008, Joe Hinrichs is now president of the Americas group in 2014. Hinrichs is responsible for the product launches in 2014-2015, including the new aluminium body F-150 pickup. Hinrichs supported a strategy for expanding SUV sales in China, which helped increase Ford market share to 4.4% in China in 2013. He started at GM after getting an electrical engineering degree from the University of Dayton in 1989. He is one of the younger managers who came up through manufacturing and feel at home in factories, talking to workers telling them why things should be done a certain way, and problem-solving on the factory floor. Apple CEO Tim Cook also started in manufacturing, with roots in Alabama, and joined Apple in 1997 as Apple struggled with quality issues in factories.

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An international arbitration panel gives Exxon $908 million for oil assets nationalized by Venezuela in 2007. This is much lower than the $7 billion claimed by Exxon. Exxon invested $750 million in its Cerro Negro oil operations in Venezuela. The operations had an estimated value of $2 billion and are located in the heavy crude oil region of Orinoco. Venezuelan oil company PdVSA showed net profit of $4 billion in the first half of 2011. Another case is pending for Conoco-Phillips.

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The government of China increased allocation of funds to build low-income housing from 780 billion yuan in 2010 to 1.3 trillion yuan ($198 billion) for 2011. The target is to build 10 million units of subsidized housing in 2011, up from the 5.9 million units started in 2010.

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The IMF extends $100 billion in loans to countries that have healthy economies but need temporary help, such as S.Korea, Brazil, Mexco and Singapore. Some of these countries have borrowed heavily in other currencies and the drop in the value of their own currencies makes repayment difficult. No strings such as requirements to raise interest rates and to cut public spending are attached to this program. Under this program countries could borrow five times the amount they are normally entitled to, $25 billion in Brazil's case, without the strict conditions that normally accompany such loans. Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz was chief economist at the World Bank. He said the funds use of the words restore confidence itself could make a lot of countries nervous. That is because in the Asian and Latin American crises in the past, the IMF set strict conditions to increase interest rates and cut public spending and food subsidies at a time when the poor especially and the rest of the people, all needed help, thereby increasing public distress. In the developed countries stimulus packages and infrastructure spending goes up to support employment and incomes, but the IMF has advocated quite the reverse in the case of the developing countries, with the US Treasury a key factor in IMF support and ideology. Which is why countries in Asia like South Korea see a stigma attached to the IMF and are refusing IMF help. In Pakistan also the IMF support is a last resort or Plan C. Iceland for instance raised rates in return for IMF help from 6% to 18% to try to stabilize the currency. The IMF was created as part of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 when the Allied Powers USA and Britain and other countries that sent representatives met in New Hampshire for a postwar economic system. Japan, S. Korea, India and China and many other countries were not part of it because of the war or colonial empires....

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The new Australian budget is designed to generate a slight surplus from the A$44 billion deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30. This prepares the Australian government of Julia Gillard for elections in 2013. The budget depends on the mining boom to generate the tax revenues for planned economic growth of over 3% in 2012-2013. This is based on the large number of projects planned for investments in oil, gas and other energy projects, valued at US$456 billion. GE as supplier of turbines and other products to the Chevron-Total gas project and other projects in Australia, has sales in Australia match its sales level in China in 2012-2013. This gives an idea of the extent of the boom in the mining and energy sector. Even the widening trade deficit to A$1.59 in March 2012 reflects large imports for the mining sector. The weakness of this approach is that too much is dependent on the mining and offshore gas boom. Retail spending is weak and Australia is increasingly looking like a two tier economy, subject to the boom and bust cycles that its mining companies have experienced in the past. A bubble in Australia's housing markets and uncertainties in the global economy pose other risks....

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Richard Haas and Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations suggest a path of negotiations for a peaceful settlement of the Iran crisis. Haas points to the difficulties in solving the impasse in the crisis through solutions based entirely either on military options or on expanded sanctions. The merit of this approach, says Haas, would also be to demonstrate that the U.S. and the E.U nations have done their best to come up with a negotiated outcome.

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Richard Barrett, former head of overseas counter terrorism operations of Britain and now head of the UN AlQuaeda and Taliban monitoring group, in aspeech to the Washington Institute of Near East Policy, says Al Quaeda is a diminishing threat because a new generation of Muslims who have little recollection of the events and are less interested in religion. And CIA officials say they are having greater success penetrating Al Quaeda, because of vastly improved intelligence capabilities. In terms of intelligence and capabilities, the technical colllection, intercepts are much better, and overhead surveillance is much better. The human intelligence is much better and they have fewer competent people.

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The 2010 census reveals significant changes in the population mix in the U.S. The number of Hispanic people increased significantly, especially so in the under 18 age group. The Hispanic population went up by 43%, increasing to 50.5 million in 2010, compared to 35.3 million in 2000. Overall Hispanics make up 16% of the U.S. population of 308.7 million. One of the striking facts in the change is that children under age of 18 make up one third of the Hispanic population compared to one fifth for the white population. Texas by itself added 979,000 people under age 18, with 931,000 being Hispanic. 92% of the population growth since 2000-of 25.1 million- came from minorities of all kinds. And mixed race is another major category with nine million people. Asian American population also increased, especially in major cities such as San Francisco, San Jose and New York. Overall 63.7% of people identified as white, 16.3% as Hispanic, 12.2% as black, 4.7% as Asian, 0.7% as American Indian or Alaska natives. New York and Washington saw black populations decline. Detroit dropped out of the top ten cities replaced by San Jose. Chicago's population declined, New York's went up by 2% to 8.2 million people. ...

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HP splits in two in October 2014 separating the PC and printer business from its tech services and corporate hardware operations. The will create two companies with the idea that the 2 businesses are better managed separately.

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Adam Bryant interviews Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft in Feb. 2014. Nadella led the cloud computing effort at Microsoft before becoming CEO in 2014. He is a native of Hyderabad, India, studied electronics and communication engineering at Manipal Institute of Technology, and computer science at the University of Wisconsin. Here Nadella recalls his early leadership experiences. As a bowler on his school's cricket team (similiar to a pitcher in baseball), Nadella was pulled out from a bowling spell when he wasn't having success getting batters out. He recalls the captain bowling to get some outs and then putting Nadella back in, who continued getting wickets at that point. He sees this sports analogy as a leadership experience where the captain was sensitive about keeping Nadella motivated and confident, and giving him an opportunity to try again. He takes more out of this and other experiences in his role at Microsoft- to create energy and genuine commitment in his team, and build a team effort to take advantage of opportunties that present themselves in the future. Nadella makes some interesting observations about the tech business. A $1 million business can seem too small for a large company, but in the tech business driven constantly by innovation, there is the need to pay attention to innovation that starts small. At some point says Nadella an innovation can appear to be a failure, an absolute flop, until it becomes a hit. Leadership has to be able to dig deeper and listen, as small changes can lead to big things. About people Nadella likes to know what people have done that they are most proud of, and what they feel didn't work out or where they failed, and looks for how a person can reflect on his experiences and grow as a result of having had them. A useful point Nadella makes at the end of the interview is that people outlive companies in our rapidly changing society, having a sense of our own mortality within this short duration, gives one a special sense of responsibility. ...

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A discussion on the drying up of capital available to the financial institutions for deleveraging, and the way deveraging puts even more pressure on home prices and lower consumer spending also puts pressure on housing prices by delaying a housing recovery. And the pros and cons of letting Lehman Brothers fail. Sovereign wealth funds are losing money on their investments as stock prices of these firms fall, and their investments are worth much less, resulting in criticism at home. Korean economy has problems of its own so regulators in Korea were not eager to support state owned Korea Development Bank taking a large stake in Lehman. When Mr Fuld, Lehman's CEO stood out for a better deal they may have flagged their concerns to KDB negotiators. And middle eastern sovereign funds are looking for better opportunities in other parts of the world like India, Asia or closer to home. Private Equity funds which have about $450 billion are not able to increase stakes above 25% because of regulations that make them bank holding companies subject to regulators when they go above that limit. Private equity funds like Blackstone and Carlyle are asking for these restrictions to be lifted to be able to invest more in capital starved financial institutions. Meanwhile with share prices plummeting with Lehman losing 90% of its share price it will be harder to raise capital. Merrill lost 17% of its share price in one day so it affects other institutions. Regarding the pros and cons of letting a firm fail the Fed's and Treasury's fear is that markets today are bound together by complex financial instrments like credit default swaps and certain money market instruments that firms and regulators have limited experience handling in a crisis and the concern is that letting a firm fail might have ripple effects. Regulators are addressing the clearing and settling of these instruments but still need time to finish. And there is no formal procedure for disposing off the assets of an investment bank if it fails. And behind all this is the realization as Lawrence Meyer, a former Fed governor, who is vice Chairman of Macroeconomic Advisors LLC puts it : "There's no trend of improvement. It's not improving even slowly." ...

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The slow hunch, serendipity, error, inventive borrowing and the collison between order and chaos. Nancy Koehn looks at two new books on innovation.