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This is a WSJ special report on Nissan and the failure of Carlos Ghosn's management style at Nissan leading to deep discontent in management ranks and employees, and also in Japan. Ghosn failed to invest in Japan seeing it as an aging society, and preferred the U.S. for investment. This was an affront to many Japanese, not just Nissan employees.  A big problem was that Ghosn's salary was larger than that of all nine top Nissan executives combined. Even during the 2008 financial crisis and cost cutting Ghosn's salary was understated by using accounting methods not approved by its auditor Ernst & Young. Under new Japanese rules oversight on compensation was given to Mr. Imazu who had to uncover the different shell companies that were used to shield the compensation and benefits going to Ghosn from public view. Lack of transparency and frugality was a major issue as one Nissan executive put it- "where is the transparency, and where is the frugality." New laws introduced in Japan in 2015 required release of compensation for any company executive making more than $800,000. Under these rules Japanese prosecutors were able to investigate the situation at Nissan.  In the end when the CEO of Nissan, appointed by Mr. Ghosn announced the arrest and detention of Mr. Ghosn, the Japanese audience applauded, showing how deep the discontent was in Japan. On November 19, in a carefully managed operation that would make a detective type story Japanese prosecutors arrested Mr. Ghosn as his plane landed in Tokyo, and arrested his assistant Mr. Kelly on the same day after his plane landed and his car was taken off the road to a rest area. Ghosn story has also its management lessons as this type of hard driving management with time spent jet-setting more than in contact with people and employees of the company is becoming unpopular. It is bad for employees and presents a rather unhealthy lifestyle, lacking any kind of role model for the rest of the company and society where the company is located. In this case not just Yokohama, but all of Japan, which resented the way it was treated. Recent articles have highlighted the situation at other companies. The General Electric story about the failure at GE in the U.S. - also explored this week in the WSJ -tells a story of hard driving management style of some executives that is increasingly becoming unpopular. A more thoughtful management style, with mindfulness, not based on personality or ego, is more productive leading to better decisions after taking in all views and enabling participation of other top and middle managers. ...

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The UN badge and logo for sustainable development goals is becoming highly popular in Japan. It has 17 colors for the 17 Sustainable Development goals set by the UN- ending poverty, reducing inequality, improving education, other aspirations of the people of the world. It is something India, the US, Canada, Britain ,Germany, France and other nations should adopt in the way Japan has done. India has taken up specific goals, clean India, clean water, electrification, and made it available to all 1.2 billion people, in its own version of SDG. Introduced into Japan by 2016, this badge is now so popular that there it is everywhere says this report in NYT. In children's playgrounds, in comic books, on NHK broadcaster's video with about 1 million views, on Buddhist temple websites, and used by businesses. In 2016 it was made official national policy by Mr Abe's government and a task force established on them by the government. In 2017 it was adopted to its charter by Keidanren, the business federation.  In the US very few know about S.D.G.'s but in community oriented Japan it has been taken up with zeal. It is part of the conversation and one survey shows 40% of Japanese business were working towards the goals in 2021. It has been adopted by Education Canada Network and it is a good way to bring this idea in education to schools and colleges in North America, Britain, EU, India and China, as well as Africa and Latin America, other parts of Asia. In India some of the SDG's are already the focus of campaigns by the Modi government Goal 0  Clean Nation one that has not been coined yet one that is called Clean India or Swacch Bharat Goal 1 Zero Hunger was taken up during the vaccination for covid campaign to get free foodgrains and vegetables to all 1.2 billion people. Goal 2  Clean Water and Sanitation or Har Ghar Jal getting clean tap water to all rural homes by 2024. Goal 3 Infrastructure, Industry, Exports Goal 4 Renewable Energy The sequence is different from the UN SDG's. The difference is it is a goal set for universal meaning everyone and delivery meaning by a specific date, and the priorities are set in the numbering. The Indian SDG campaigns under the Modi government and at federal and state levels are unprecedented in history for a population of this size, and now present a model for all nations in Asia, Africa, Latin America on how to go about doing the SDG's in practice. ...

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This 40 minute IMF Video looks indepth into how far the Paris Agreement on Climate Change of 2015 has moved the world to address 1.5 degree change in climate? What is the situation in 2023 as we move towards 2030? NIcholas Stern of LSE says the peak of emissions will be reached by 2024 however the curve will not be pretty as the drop in the curve will be a small dip in emissions not steep drop that we need. Action is needed to accelerate.. Pilita Clark of the Financial Times conducts a discussion with Nicholas Stern of the Grantham Institute at London School of Economics, Bo Li Deputy Managing Director of IMF, and Zhou Xiaochuan who heads China's Boao Forum and formerly was Governor of the Bank of China.

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China is consulting Japanese officials to understand their experience in negotiating with Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative. Lighthizer negotiated with Japan as Deputy Trade Representative in the Reagan Administration, when Japan was seen in the same way as China is seen now by the U.S. with difficult trade relations and trade imbalance.

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This report by James McCauley of the Washington Post, points to the uncertainties in the French presidential election. About one third of French voters are undecided. Le Pen and a surprise candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon are pulling in voters on the far right and the far left. There are questions whether Macron's effort to pull together centre right and centre left voters will work in such an environment. McCauley says the gist of Macron's approach is summarized in a line in his 2016 book- removing "the obstacles on the road," making equality of opportunity a reality in a land of elite government and business running the country, and key being " renewal of ideas and men."  It is not exactly a way forward, more about renewal in French society. His opponents are pitching exiting the European Union and different visions of a protectionist welfare state. Macron is pitching continuity with renewal and changes to bring more opportunity to young people by investing in vocational education, recreate French schools, and expand health services, lower residency taxes. A lot depends on centrist voters coming out to vote as happened in the recent Dutch election, and undecided voters looking for renewal instead of the uncertainty of drastic changes. ...

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In commenting on Rishi Sunak, a former hedge fund manager's sudden rise from anonymity three years ago when Boris Johnson became prime minister to leadership of the Tory party and prime minister, The Hindu cautions that it is of limited symbolic value, this kind of connection between India and the UK. The Tories are a house divided against itself, with many factions. Truss was brought down by Gove and others on the backbench who were not included in the government. Other Conservatives on the backbenches today, and Johnson, Jacob Rees Mogg, represent factions that are not represented in this government as was evident in questioning by Opposition leader Starmer in QA in the House of Commons. Other problems remain also evident in Starmer's questioning for Labour in parliament, including questioning about non domicile status in the family for tax purposes. Privileged Tories with connections to free markets such as Jacob Rees Mogg or Sunak without an awareness of the pain of ordinary working families, are not what a country with a cost of living crisis sees as leaders who can point to the way forward for Britain. As The Hindu points out he faces the same difficulty that Johnson with his style and personality was able to sidestep, that Truss naively tackled with quick unraveling of tax cuts for the upper incomes, and which Sunak with his experience with financial hedge funds may appear to have grasped but find escaping his grasp. This is the difficulty of matching traditional Tory policy of tax cuts and austerity, at a time when all major countries of Europe and the US are providing significant cost of living assistance to working families. Even small bits of austerity policy, or lack of conviction to help working families may now be seen by the Opposition, Labour, and even within some part of the Tory party and the vast majority of working families as oppressive.  Starmer is keen to remind working people of where Sunak stands as he did with the question in parliament Q&A about the comments made by Sunak at a small gathering that he had transferred money from poor districts to more affluent Tory districts. Would Sunak correct these erroneous funding formulas, Starmer asked. The Hindu also mentions Suella Braverman's appointment as Home Secretary only weeks after her resignation. It was poor judgement shown by Johnson in an appointment that cost him Tory support a few weeks before his resignation. Starmer brought this up from the beginning of parliament Q&A- asking whether a deal was made for her appointment to get far right wing Tory support from Braverman's faction in the party. For India and the Indian people there are so many genuine connections with Britain and the British people, some set when Mohandas Gandhi won the hearts of English working families during his visit for negotiations with the British that are are a better basis  and that will be remembered forever in the hearts and minds of the British people. ...

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Friedman made a similiar point before the presidential election in the US about Obama's inexperience and using the Afghan war to burnish his credentials. See the link to Friedman. Here Congressman Wilson is shown as using Tip O'Neill's and Democrats opposition to the Reagan support for the contras in Nicaragua as the good fight and the use of the support of the "good" war against the soviets in Afghanistan to ward off accusations from Republican right of weakness against the Soviet Union's expansion.

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A young socialist leader in the Sanders campaign effort asks what it is about aging socialist leaders Jeremy Corbyn, 68 years, in the UK, and Bernie Sanders, 75 years, that makes them popular with young people. She says both leaders stood up consistently for decades on issues important to ordinary working class people, when Labor under Blair and Democrats under Clinton abandoned their base to a point when one political expert could say Democrats  were the "second most enthusiastic capitalist party" in the U.S. She says under Blair Clause IV was rewritten. That clause committed the Labor party in Britain to "common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange." Under Corbyn, with support from young people, Labor received 40% of the vote. The party was reenergized on issues important to students such as making higher education accessible to all. A similar situation happened with Sanders in the U.S., who received more of the young people's vote in 2016 primaries than Trump and Clinton combined. ...

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This is a heartwarming story from the BBC in beautiful video of how Maria Baltazzi went back to her family's land in the buffer zone outside Nicosia, Cyprus, and turned a wasteland into a farm with olive trees. In 1974 Turkish forces invaded Cyprus turning this land near Nicosia airport into a war zone. Since then UN forces patrol the area which was wasteland in the buffer zone separating Greek Cypriots from Turkish Cypriots.

Maria Baltazzi took a look at this land which was part of her family's land, a 54 hectare farm part of it in the buffer zone and part outside. Here in the buffer zone she with a colleague Netien introduced organic farming for olive trees and turned this area into an olive growing farm which produces some of the best olive oil in the region.

Olives grown here are hand picked in the farm and crushed in mills outside. Nutrients testing show this to be some of the best and healthiest olive oil in the region.

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In less than 3 weeks World Central Kitchen has found a way to serve 300,000 hot meals a day in Poland. In this WSJ report an American volunteer in Poland describes his experience meeting people from England, Portugal and other parts of Europe and North America who have volunteered to help refugees from Ukraine in Eastern European countries. Child care for transient families, most refugees being women and children, temporary housing and clothing are pressing needs. People from as far away as Lawrence, Kansas, are out here helping in a stunning display of support for the women and children who are refugees.

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The US dollar is only 5% way from reaching parity with the euro. The euro was at $1.03 during the beginning of May. It is at $1.05 on May 21. With the US central bank raising rates, and the effects of energy shortages on the European economy, parity looks likely says this report in WSJ. Additionally weakening demand from China for European goods or the EU shifting its supply chains back to home countries and trading less with China could also have an impact from the ripple effects of China's support for the Russian position on Ukraine.

 

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Young people's testimonies in this analysis in The Guardian show they are willing to draw systemic conclusions about the way elites have gone into this pandemic and how they shaped societies and countries, and how thy have handled this pandemic when it hit. Most countries in the west in the US and Europe were caught without basic medical supplies for a pandemic and without the ability to make masks and basic equipment for months as they pandemic spread. This happened as capital was misallocated away from health, education and basic infrastructure to an extreme degree that left countries and peoples unprepared and unprotected.

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The US Justice Department imposes a $225 million fine on Teva Pharmaceutical and requires it to sell its Pravastatin drug line as part of a deferred prosecution settlement on price fixing charges. The  public was overcharged by $350 million according to a 2020 indictment. Collective fines on price fixing charges in the generic rugs industry amount to $680 million reports WSJ. Teva will also have to donate $50 million to needy patients. This is another way the Biden Justice Department is bringing down the cost of living by keeping a close eye on drug costs pushed up by illegal price fixing. 

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Rosalynn Carter is the most politically active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. She actively participated in Jimmy Carter's political campaigns first for governor of Georgia, then for the US presidency as a Democrat in 1976. Both come from a small peanut farming town of Plains, Georgia. Carter served in the Navy and went to Annapolis for naval training. After leaving the presidency the Carters wer active in humanitarian efforts to tackle disease in Africa and in other efforts including Habitat for Humanity building homes for lower income Americans. No president has served in this way for this long as Jimmy Carter.

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What the Indian Supreme Court failed to do was ask for accountability for the nearly 3 years lost in timely delivery of infrastructure that was to be completed in 2021 for the $3 billion Metro subway for Mumbai. Work that was moving 24 hours a day 7 days a week under Ms Ashwini Bhide was stalled and left to stagnate. This is unconscionable for a country with 1.4 billion people and most under 35 years whose aspirations get repeatedly stuck in the mud by politicians and a mentality that has itself given into the way colonial powers looked at India of being undeveloped, dirty and disorganized. Mohandas Gandhi would have a hard time understanding that Hind Swaraj that he envisioned in 1910 could lead to this kind of stagnation. Mr. Jain points out that the Indian Supreme Court has left it to the Assembly Speaker to decide on the issue of disqualification of 16 MLA's- in effect leaving the new government in place which has a majority in the Maharashtra state assembly in India. The 2 party coalition was formed between Mr. Modi's party BJP in the state, the principal driver for infrastructure and 24 X 7 development in India, and Mr. Shinde's party on 30 June 2023.  From November 2019 to June 2023 for the period of the pandemic for 2 years and 8 months the state was under a government that stalled on major infrastructure projects in the state that were being done 24 hours a day. Such as a huge project that the WSJ called "audacious" run by Ashwini Bhide at MMRC with over $2 billion from the Japan International Cooperation Agency for a new METRO subway for Mumbai taking it into the 21st century from an old broken British rail system. Unfortunately neither the Supreme Court or the press delved into the loss of 3 years that added this loss in infrastructure that was to be completed in 2021 to the losses from the pandemic. The project is back to operating 24 hours a day 7 days a week under Ms. Ashwini Bhide since the Shinde government was formed in June 2023 with pm Modi's party in the state.  ...

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Textualism or strict interpretation of the Constitution word for word may be back but one can never be sure. No sooner is one decision made in a certain direction with a particular approach to the law whether it be textualism or something else it then comes up for rethinking a few years later, under a different approach to the law or from a new angle. This is the law practiced in most British style courts of law including the US.  Former Justice Breyer of the US Supreme Court replaced by his law clerk Ketanji Jackson, is interviewed by NYT's Adam Liptak. Today so much is written about Breyer as a non textualist, and Gorsuch, Kavanaugh recent additions to the Court as textualist or strict interpreters of the Constitution based on when it was written with what intent. Yet as thinking individuals who like the rest of the American people grow in their understanding all Justices cannot be categorized  in this way. Breyer says he worked with retired Justices Kennedy and Souter and found them to be willing and keen on hearing all angles. Then it has to be said that both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were law clerks for Kennedy. Much of American law at the highest court actually is no better than any other human creation - it tries to approximate as best one can the people of the US. Sotomayor coming from Puerto Rican descent, Ketanji Jackson from minority black, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch from Georgetown preparatory schools where Kavanaugh's paternal grandfather attended Yale something even JFK could not claim, Chief Justice Roberts coming from a company professional type background, Barrett a professor at a Catholic university, Kagan with a Bostonian JFK style background, Alito old Italian and Clarence old minority black background. Breyer retired recently to make way for a younger judge, Judge Ketanji Jackson who was law clerk to Breyer. Breyer is writing a new book which he hopes the conservatives on the Supreme Court will read- Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch. The book coming out March 26 has the title- Reading the Constitution- Why I Chose Pragmatism not Textualism. He hope these Justices will read the book and say their colleague was making sense, would say that it was not a bad point. ...

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Peter Goodman who covers the consequences in the lives of ordinary people of the industrial changes going on around us, gives this report from Michigan. He shows how today's Michigan, was home to Henry Ford's automobile plants that made it a major part of the industrial revolution in the US after 1910, when Ford's first assembly line manufacturing was set up in Highland Park, Detroit. Industrial growth till 1960 made the US the leading industrial nation in the world. Followed by Japanese imports and auto manufacturing shifting to Asia and Mexico, that led to deindustrialization and neglect in Michigan and the midwestern US.  Key aspects of resurgence today is coming from lessons learned in the period of deindustrialization. From labor and management not working together, from huge pension obligations and costs that had to be overcome, that made existing wage and cost structures uncompetitive with Asian manufacturing. Labor concessions in the last decade have made a rearrangement of cost structure possible, yet along with the financial crisis of 2008 further worsened worker incomes. The first steps of a return for Michigan to its role in the early industrialization of America, the new labor contract negotiated in 2023, the support of president Biden and the government, the investment in the new technology of electric car manufacturing by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. Goodman shows how the state, federal government, community colleges and other educational institutions training workers and students, and car companies are working together to promote interests of workers and communities. There is uncertainty created about the fewer parts in the electric car manufacturing process, automation advances, and fewer jobs. Yet the process is a transition over many years and this is accepted by the Biden administration and by the industry as it responds to slower demand for electric cars in 2024. This provides the time to bring up new training programs for workers, enable the funding of new research into battery technologies that would bring down the cost and make electric car prices accessible to the wider population. Uncertainty and fears about the transition are counteracted by the effort the Biden administration is making to bring up all manufacturing and to make large investments in American manufacturing.   ...

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The South China Morning Post, SCMP, looks at China at the 40th year of the great economic experiment  that changed China. This started with the Deng reforms by the then Chinese leader that opened up the economy in 1978. As this report points out in 1978 Deng Xiaoping's efforts at loosening the state control of the economy and business was actually a way to get out from the effects of the Cultural Revolution and prevent another Cultural Revolution. Deng was removed from office during the Cultural Revolution. Instead of unquestioned acceptance of Mao the new criterion was "Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth." In economic and business matters this was followed so that if it worked then the experiment was expanded, gradually giving life to the Chinese model of state capitalism, economic expansion under the state with the state supporting state corporations that operate in a market economy.  This means the Communist Party was to continue its control but with experimentation away from the planned economy in the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, and then into Shanghai. Experts close to Jiang Zemin, the next leader after Deng, say China's Communist state would not have survived without the changes started by premier Deng. Farmers still did not own the land but they were free to plant and own the yields for their efforts.  Deng established the Three Benefits Principle in 1992 trip to Guangdong, whatever helped increase productivity, increased the strength of the country and improved living standards was good, you did not judge it by whether it was socialist or capitalist. Jiang Zemin's work was to follow Deng's ideas and help negotiate the entry into World Trade Organization and set up the new economic regulations. Capitalists were allowed to join the Communist Party for the first time. State and local government ownership of land was turned into an advantage as this provided one of the critical inputs in terms of land for setting up new factories, with capital coming from savings, and other inputs of technology and investment coming from the U.S. after entry into the WTO brought American and European companies to China. A steady supply of labor poured in from the countryside and urbanization became a goal of Chinese development policies. Today India and other countries in Africa, Latin America, can look at the Chinese experience and effort and look for ways to modernize, urbanize and improve living standards, productivity and strength of their economy. One key is to experiment and look for what works that can then be expanded to other locations, and build on the advantages that may open up as the experiment makes progress. Following entry into WTO China was able to take advantage of overseas markets and build an edge in manufacturing, something that was not evident even in 1992.   ...

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China's economic growth has slowed further to 6.1% for 2019 following trade tensions and tariff war with the U.S. Further decline in economic growth is expected.

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Early warning about the danger of a small group of individuals deciding the future of an important technology that has dangerous potential if placed in a few hands. With the dangers ever present that the pace of development is outpacing regulatory effort, and the profit enabling a few corporations to stifle regulatory effort in America's flawed democracy. Sam Altman is seen by the board of OpenAI as "hindering the efforts of the board to carry out its responsibilities." The tension of the board with Sam Altman comes from the thinking at the board that the rapid expansion of commercial offerings was not giving time to consider the safety implications of the products rolled out. Watching Joanna Stern of WSJ interview Sam Altman and Murali Murthi gives the impression that Altman was  moving too quickly and Murthi was saying the right things but lacked the experience and capacity to tackle AI's vast responsibilities. This also stems from the fact that what young Stanford and other tech graduates in their early thirties have done in the last 2 decades ends a chapter in America's tech history. AI is an entirely different technology which requires the involvement of major parts of America's whole technological and scientific community and its society, not just a few individuals. This is also the lesson from the pandemic for virus research where not just the Cambridge, Massachusetts community needed to be involved, but vast parts of America'a health and medicine scientific community and the American public. A million lives were lost in the pandemic in the US alone, and millions all over the world. It is a lesson that should never be forgotten- that technology can get out of control. ...

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TNT Express was started in Australia by a war veteran in 1946 using the money received for demobilization to buy one truck. In 1996 the company was acquired after rapid expansion overseas for A$2 billion by Dutch company Royal PTT Nederland. In the early days its name TNT was cause for anxiety among Australians. It stands for Thomas Nationwide Transport, after the name of its founder Ken Thomas. UPS is negotiating a deal to pay 5.2 billion euros for the acquisition.

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Krugman points out that the federal tax rate for the top 1% is 34% in 2013, according to the Congressional Budget Office, because president Obama let the high end Bush tax cuts to expire. It is the number to remember says Krugman- 34. In 2008 the figure was 28.2. Under Hillary Clinton the average tax rate for the top 1% would go up by 3.4 percentage points, according to the Tax Policy Center. Some of this would help pay for the tution plan to provide access to the middle class to public universities. Under populist Trump, Krugman points to the elimination of the inheritance tax and tax rates going down substantially, and no such programs to promote the upward mobility that everyone is talking about, and no way to pay for a big infrastructure building effort for growth and jobs- upward mobility that is the focus of every candidate's election campaign including Sanders, Trump in appealing to older white working class families, Clinton, Ryan, Bush, and others in both parties.   ...

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Looking back at China in 1945 Bernstein's book on the period shows the difficult choices faced by Truman as he confronted the problem of dealing with Chiang and Mao in the period following the Japanese invasion and defeat. With the Iron Curtain beginning to come down in Europe, Truman had to take action against the spread of Communism. At the same time Truman did not want to get America involved directly in the conflict because of the nature of the civil war in China following the Japanese invasion and defeat. Christiansen says that if any side put China on the road to communism it was the Japanese imperialists with their invasion of China. Truman was simply choosing between a bad choice of negotiating a solution and ending up supporting Chiang, with a worse choice of getting directly involved in the conflict. That choice of direct involvement came a few years later with the Korean War, by which time America was committed to defending Western Europe from communism.

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Daegu in South Korea was hit early and hard by coronavirus. Now 3 months later the social distancing rules are practiced diligently and people have become used to it. Large gatherings are still banned. Daegu is South Korea's Wuhan the center of the epidemic in China,  with a city of 2.4 million having 40% of South Korea's cases. People in Daegu remain comfortable with social distancing guidelines. What they worry about is not having to practice these guidelines- these are an accepted way and it makes everyone feel safer. It also gives people in Daegu a sense that this way another upsurge is less likely to happen and drive away consumers from shops, shops then having to close. In fact preparation and disciplined approach, with backup scenario planning and continued testing for cluster isolation and quarantine following contact tracing, is giving people here an extra sense of confidence. In some areas markets and shops have gained back 80% of customers, and most shop owners want to keep it that way.  ...