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Not since the days of the Vietnam War has Madison, Wisconsin seen the kinds of demonstrations that were seen last week. This raises a question whether this creates an awakening of the progressive movement. Wisconsin, New Jersey, Ohio, seem to suggest that whats happening in the states will become more important in shaping public opinion as the U.S. elections of 2012 approach. Ohio also has a plan by Governor John Kasich that restricts collective bargaining rights of public workers. A key question is how much public support there is for reduction of pension and health benefits of public employees. Even though the favorable ratings of unions are at a low, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center, the public is divided over whether it supports unions or state governments in disputes about benefits, with slightly more support for the unions. And other states such as Michigan with new Republican governors and majorities in state legislatures say they are not taking the path of Wisconsin in limiting collective bargaining rights, suggesting caution in this respect, even as they plan cuts in benefits. Because of the intensity and passion that has been aroused something more than the calculations of the politicians, including the President, may be at play. President Obama, says the Washington Post, is playing a longer game on the budget, with a measured response, but also saying that teachers, firefighters and police officers were being vilified. The demonstrations in Wisconsin were more bottom up than top down, and have the potential to affect the political dynamic and the way the U.S. addresses its problems in unpredictable ways....

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An August survey by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, shows 40% of the country's manufacturers saying they would shift production and R&D facilities overseas if the yen remains at 85 to the dollar. It has dropped below that. Nissan will make 71% of its cars overseas in 2010, compared to 66% in 2009. Murata Manufacturing plans to double its foreign output to 30% by March 2013. By buying Dutch printer maker Oce NV in March, Canon Inc., saw its overseas output jump to 48% for the first half of 2010. Toyota is on track to produce 57% of its output overseas in 2010 , compared to 48% in 1995. The popular Prius will now be built at a plant in Bangkok, Thailand. Sony did 20% of its television manufacturing in Japan in 2010, it is aiming to do 50% in 2011. As a result Sony showed a profit for the April-June quarter, after 6 straight years of losses. Its also important to note that when inflation is taken into account the yen has not strengthened the way it appears, which reduces domestic pressures to dampen the yen's rise. Tohru Sasaki, head of foreign-exchange research at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo, says that in inflation-adjusted terms, the yen is 30% below the rate it reached in April 1995. U.S. consumer prices have risen by 69% since 1990, in Japan the prices rose only 8.5% during the same period. In inflation adjusted terms the April 1995 exchange rate of 80 yen to the dollar would be 56 yen to the dollar today. Japan's exporters can also benefit from the fact that a large part of Japanese trade is denominated in yen- according to Japan's Ministry of Finance 48% of exports to Asia were paid for in yen in 2009. Like China and Germany, Japan remains highly dependent on exports for growth- which provide two thirds of its growth. The yen's strength increases the outflow of production facilities. In July 2010, 10.3 millon workers were employed in manufacturing in Japan, down from 12 million in 2002. Japan's unemployment rate was 5.6% in 2009....

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The Bank of Italy, is conducting central bank examinations of Italian banks in July 2013. The loan portfolios of the 8 largest banks are being examined, and on-site inspections are being conducted for 20 other banks. This could lead to Italian banks having to sell assets or take other steps to improve capital positions. During the last central bank examinations in the fall of 2012 Italian banks were required to set aside 3.4 billion euros to protect against bad loan losses. Bad loan losses are increasing at Italian banks as businesses and individuals fall behind on payments with the worsening economy in 2013, and into 2014. Non-performing loans are up to 249 billion euros, or 14.2% of the banking industry's total loans, according to the Bank of Italy. This is up from 157 billion euros, or 8.9% of total loans in 2010.

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Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer launched a series of acquisitions after becoming CEO in 2012. Tumblr was acquired for $1 billion. Yahoo has disclosed in a regulatory filing that it plans to write down the entire value of that acquisition. A number of other acquisitions have also failed to deliver value as Yahoo struggles in ad revenues- mobile ad revenues for Yahoo in the 1st quarter of 2016 were $250 million compared to $4.5 billion or 17 times that for Facebook. Yahoo has 200 million visitors each month, but its display ads are not strong on mobile and its mobile apps have not done well with users. As advertising shifted to mobile Yahoo stumbled badly. The failed acquisitions investment could have been better utilized in retaining talented mobile engineers, but Yahoo's CEO resorted to cost cutting when the strategy of looking at consumer trends for news content through digital magazine investments failed. As a result Yahoo suffered from slumping morale and a brain drain.

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The Journal points to the lack of changes to "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions after the global financial crisis of 2008, as the same large banks are likely to be put on the Federal Reserve's list of banks that are considered to be "systemically important" four years later in 2012.

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The amazing story of Katalin Kariko who came to the US from Budapest, Hungary, in 1989 taking a position as research assistant professor at the UPenn Medical School.The work of Katalin Kariko in mRNA vaccine research that led to the discovery of mRNA vaccines was derided at first at Penn leading her work to be shunted to a lab on the outskirts of town and having her pay cut in a demotion, says this WSJ report. It won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2023. Universities are not places where new ideas can get a boost when there is much skepticism and constant pressure for research funding on more conventional lines. Less opportunity for experimentation that can lead to new discoveries that revolutionize science and medicine.  Kariko and others working as research assistant professors were shunned at Penn and referred to as "aliens" because inthe interests of research they took lower paid positions. As it turns out Kariko felt liberated during the period of her being demoted, to work even more patiently on the mRNA molecule, one that was more difficult than the DNA molecule most researchers had focused on. This report in WSJ shows a picture of a Budapest street with a large mural of Kariko. Unfortunately few people in her adopted country know about the work of this remarkable scientist to whom is owed so many millions of people's protection with mRNA vaccines. ...

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ADP is now using a new jobs collecting methodology to calculate the numbers on jobs added. The October 2012 number of 158,000 jobs added uses this new methodology. ADP is now partnering with Moody's Analytics. Analysts say it would require several months of data to get a good reading.

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Greg Ip provides useful insights into the nature of the economic recovery in Britain compared to the U.S. by 2015. The recovery in Britain has done better than in the U.S. in job creation, but has lagged behind in productivity gains. The labor force participation rate is 72% in Britain compared to 68% in the U.S., going back up to 2007 levels in Britain, whereas in the U.S. it has steadily declined with some older working class Americans too discouraged to look for work and left behind. Stagnant wage growth is a major issue in Britain, more so than in the U.S. where wage growth is slow. Economic austerity is not the main cause of the economic difficulties as the coalition government of prime minister Cameron relaxed earlier goals for austerity by 2012 with tax revenues and growth below forecasts. The structural budget deficit has been reduced by 6.6% of GDP since the peak, and the Office of Budget Responsibility estimates the UK economy was 1.5%-2% smaller by 2013 because of the austerity policies. Britain was also affected by the eurozone crisis to a larger degree than the U.S. Productivity remains a long term challenge- with needed investments in housing, education and infrastructure, improved lending for new business, and higher tech improvement exports....

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Seantor Dan Sullivan and the WSJ say Alaska's economic potential and its standard of living was ignored with blanket blocking of any development of its resources. WSJ says under the Biden administration the state was turned into a nature museum.  WSJ says the state's leaders know that spoiling the environment would be mistake. Yet developing some of the state's resources would help the US in sourcing natural gas and rare earth minerals for renewable energy products. This would achieve a policy balance. One of the arguments North Dakota Governor Borghum and new US Interior Secretary makes is that China is building a coal plant every 2 weeks with 12 built in the first 6 months of 2024. As of July 2024 Statista shows China with 1161 coal plants operational, 6 times the 204 US coal plants and 4 times the 295 coal plants in India, 89 in Japan- and 90% of new coal power capacity added. This means climate change issues remain no matter what the US does. By using natural gas fired electricity the US gets transition time for the shift to renewables and can attack the cost of living, export to the EU.  ...

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The problems Brazil faces with a sea of liquidity from developed countries with low interest rates going to emerging market countries with higher interest rates. Brazil is taking steps including a recent cut in interest rates to stem the flow. But interest rates at 12% are still too high not to attract business people in the carrying trade who borrow at low rates in the U.S. and Europe and invest the money in Brazil. The foreign direct investment has also increased. The result is an artificially overvalued currency- by as much as 36% since Jan 1, 2009 according to analysts- which hurts exporters and job creation in Brazil, as it becomes cheaper to import products than manufacture at home. Workers from VW recently protested in Sao Paulo as imports of cars are up significantly and there is a fear of job reduction at VW plants in Brazil. Brazil's automakers association estimate is for car imports to make up 25% of all cars sold in Brazil in 2011. This compares with 5% of cars sold being imported in 2005. It also shows up in production statistics. Brazilian industrial production declined by 1.6% in June 2011 from May. The cost of inputs are increasing rapidly for labor, raw materials, transportation, making Brazil a costly place to do business. The cost of living is now higher in Sao Paulo than in New York city. Cynthia Benedetto, the CFO of Embraer, a large Brazilian aircraft maker, says she always thought since she was a little girl that Brazil was the place of the future. But its deceptive now that the future is here, because this euphoria of progress could be shortlived. Embraer is investing in technology to reduce labor costs and is opening factories overseas. Bombardier, one of Embraer's competitors from Canada recently announced plans to build a manufacturing plant in Mexico. Brazilian president Rousseff is aware of this, and told Latin American leaders in Lima, Peru: "we have to defend ourselves against this immense, fantastic, extraordinary sea of liquidity that finds its way to our economies in search of returns that it can't find in its own." At the same time Rousseff has election promises to fulfill that require larger spending and for which the capital inflows are convenient but could prove erratic- for social welfare projects, and for infrastructure spending in advance of the Olympics. Turkey is seeing a similiar situation with booming consumer credit sustained by capital inflows even as its manufacturing competitiveness has remained weak. ...

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Italy's bank UniCredit is making a rights issue of 7.5 billion euros in Jan 2012, to meet new reserve capital requirements set by regulators in Europe. Existing shareholders have the right to subscribe to the rights issue to new stock at a discount, a way of raising funds used in Europe.

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John Harwood provides an insight into the polarized positions of each side in the negotiations and the changes in the national scene that have led to a polarized political climate and a polarized Congress. The political positions on the Republican and Democratic sides in Congress and the Senate are different from any other time in many decades of government. Between Tea party members of the House and Pelosi Democrats in the House there is a serious divide. The senior leaders of each party command less support. Consider the loud "no" given by newly elected House Republicans led by Rep. Cantor to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's backup plan. The written pledge for no tax increases has given the Cantor House Republicans little room for compromise. And as Harwood points out each side, the tea party House Republican group, the Democrats in Congress, and the President, all know there is every chance that they could be voted out of office in 2012.The media is also splintered with vocal positions on either side. As Senator Chambliss of the Gang of Six Senators said on a talk show a week before the August 2 deadline for raising the U.S. debt ceiling: "Frankly, we don't know what's going to happen for sure." ...

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The Genbaku Dome shown here was the only structure left standing after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.  It is shown here on the UNESCO Heritage site. We show this on the day of the Nolan movie "Oppenheimer" at Oscars that shows the life of the scientist who headed the Los Alamos laboratory that invented the first atomic bomb, yet does not show the effects on the people of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. As recently as May 2023 prime minister Kishida of Japan had the G7 meeting in Hiroshima Japan, where he is from. He wanted people to see the Peace Memorial in the city and its new exhibition. NHK television Japan showed a documentary of the exhibition of the people who survived the bombing on that day, their lives on that day of those who died and those who survived the bombing including children, what they were doing at that very moment. G7 leaders visited the exhibition. Having seen that NHK documentary of the black and white pictures of the exhibits only 8 months back, one could say the winning of awards by Nolan's "Oppenheimer" without showing the Genbaku Dome and some of the exhibits from the museum leaves the story incomplete in missing the consequences of the research in the desert in New Mexico in 1944. ...

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Philips Electronics NV showed a net loss of 162 millon euros for the 4th quarter of 2012. Philips took a loss on discontinuing its television business of 270 millon euros in the 4th quarter, in addition to an earlier provision of 110 million euros for this purpose.

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Underlying the importance that Information Technology plays in India's growth Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) becomes India's most valuable company. TCS has an estimated market value of 2.272 trillion rupees compared to Reliance's market value of $2.269 trillion rupees (42.8 billion), using the February 24, 2012 trading figures.

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About the collapse of two banks- Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank Fed vice chairman for financial and banking supervision, Michael Barr, had this to say at a Congressional hearing last week- "I think anytime you have a bank failure like this, bank management clearly failed, supervisors failed, and our regulatory system failed."  The rest of this report looks at changes the Fed can on its own make stricter supervision of banks over $100 billion, action the Biden administration is thinking of taking, and action by the FDIC. The Biden administration does not want to be seen supporting wealthy depositors at Silicon Valley Bank by guaranteeing uninsured deposits as it did. It took this action solely to protect the financial system so that it would not hurt working families. For this reason alone the Biden administration will seek tighter controls of mid sized banks now that the illusion that banks below $250 billion do not pose a risk to the financial system is gone. It will also seek to recover all funds used to support these failed banks from the banks and financial sector that has lobbied for so long for less regulation leading to failure of banks not once in 2009, but again in 2023. This time under the Biden administration the damage is carefully controlled so that it does not affect the American economy and working families. ...

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This obituary for FW De Klerk looks back at the dismantling of race based rule of Apartheid in South Africa in 1992, the release of Nelson Mandela, and elections in 1994 through universal franchise. This was done by the son of a schoolteacher in the Transvaal region who rose to the top through the provincial leadership. De Klerk took the actions to bring racial harmony after growing up as an Afrikkaner and working in the local politics of the National Party that introduced Apartheid rule. Before 1989 reforms in the Botha government left black people on 13% of the worst land in the country, tribal homelands in which they did not even live in, in a distorted form of representation. Limited representation was given to Indian ethnic minorities and colored people.  All this changed between 1992 and 1994 after De Klerk assumed leadership of the National Party and the government in 1989. This required great courage and statesmanship, and vision from De Klerk to set the foundations for a multiracial society that even Margaret Thatcher and Reagan failed to grasp and promote. De Klerk died in 2020. For Mandela the path was clear, for De Klerk the path had to be forged out of nothing and against the natural instincts of his own party. This saved south Africa to become a true multi racial society with respect for the rule of law and democracy. ...

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When Daniel Henninger of WSJ Editorial Board says in the adjoining article/video that to get anything done with something like the current split Congress a newly elected Republican president would have to operate by executive orders and could get little done, he is referring to the stalled Ukraine aid legislation in the US Congress after passage 70-20 by bipartisan vote in the US Senate. Legislation is stalled in the 2022 newly elected US House of Representatives with a group of Republican Congressmen called the Freedom Caucus seeking to block all legislation if it does not get its way. The now famous line "dead on arrival" line of Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana for legislation passed in the Senate for Ukraine aid. Pew Research looks at the change in the House and explains. It says about 49 members of Congress are part of or aligned to this group. About 71% or 35 of 49 members have less than six years of experience which includes 9 freshmen, compared to 58% or 100 of 173 Congressmen of all other Republican members of Congress. And two thirds of Freedom Caucus are from the South compared to 46% of all other Republicans in Congress. It is striking that only three are from states such as Wisconsin, Illinois and Pennsylvania or a mere 6% for Northeast and Midwest.  ...

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The Obama adminstration and Democrats start the U.S. "fiscal cliff" negotiations with a call for $1.6 trillion of additional tax revenues, twice the amount of $800 billion discussed in talks with Republicans in the summer of 2011. During the Obama-Boehner talks in mid-2011, the Republicans and Democrats neared agreement for a plan to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years, with new revenues of $800 billion. Obama then pushed to raise the revenue to $1.2 trillion and talks collapsed afterwards. The Republican side through GOP senior aides says $1 trillion in new tax revenues is where this could end up. The Republicans would agree to cap deductions for the wealthy as proposed by Feldstein-Romney, and the Democrats would agree to changing Social Security and increasing the Medicare eligibility age to above 65 as proposed by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D., Maryland) in such a scenario.

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The home ownership rate for the U.S. in March 2012, is 65.4%, the same rate as in 1997 before the housing bubble, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The irony of this is that the housing bubble was inflated by politicians in Congress and mortgage lenders and purchasers of mortgage securities. Fannie Mae and Countryside worked together ostensibly to promote home ownership while pursuing profits. In the case of politicians they pursued goals of raising employment and growth without understanding the risks of artificially inflating home ownership, and without consideration for incomes of subprime borrowers. A less benign view of the interests and goals of politicians comes from reflections on the impact of political lobbying by Fannie Mae and other housing lenders in the U.S. Congress. The consequences in terms of foreclosures have been devastating for minorities as well as other middle class homeowners. It has also damaged the U.S. banking system, credit growth in the economy and prospects for recovery, which will take years to correct. The federal government is also saddled with large losses at Fannie Mae because of its quasi government agency role. That role led to inflation of the bubble. Most of the consequences will be borne by middle and lower income households in the U.S. The pass-through effects in a global economy affect Europe, and emerging market countries. ...

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Jason Zweig interviews John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group, in September 2011, after weeks of extreme volatility in the U.S. stock market. He says the index fund concept has been "bastardized" by exchange traded funds and the speculative behaviour in ETF's with insane turnovers approaching 10,000 percent. He considers investing in a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds a useful way to approach investing even though the last decade has produced medicore results. And predicts a 7% return for the next decade, with money doubling every 10 years. The changes today mean you have to start earlier, save and invest for longer periods, says Bogle, but the returns should still be good. It would be insane to expect the high returns of the 70's and 80's today, says Bogle. In today's market Bogle has 80% of his investments in bonds and 20% in stocks.

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Wang Yi, a senior adviser for China's decarbonization strategy and 5 year plan has this to say about China's approach to climate change. Yi says it is more important to focus on what actions are to be taken between now and 2030. Here he says China has outlined concrete steps that it will take that the world media has not covered in its coverage of COP26 Glasgow. Yi says China is making changes to its entire system not only its energy sector, across the whole society and the economy. Yet he says "nobody knows this." The working guidance document for carbon control China has put out says it will peak coal consumption by 2025.  Yi says it is unfair to ask China to close all coal powered plants, saying that if these plants with a life of 10 years were closed now who will pay for stranded assets and who will hire the laid off workers. He called attention to western nations failure to provide climate finance to China, India and developing countries. And he called attention to the the plans that by 2030 Chinese investment is to have 1200 gigawatts of installed solar and wind energy, more than the entire installed electricity capacity of the US. He says we are all in the same boat yet in different cabins, with some living in bigger space and consuming too much. ...

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The Chinese government's report on the high speed rail accident at Wenzhou, in July 2011. The report said top Railway Ministry officials bear responsibility for focus on "speed of the railway project construction and neglect of safety management." The railway minister Liu Zhijun, who was removed because of corruption charges bears responsibility, and 54 other government and ministry officials, according to the report.

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China's state owned China National Nuclear Power is planning a Shanghai IPO that will help finance $27 billion in investments for 5 nuclear power projects. Chinese law states that only 20% of equity needs to be raised for power projects, which means China National Nuclear needs to raise $5.4 billion for the projects in Fujian, Zhejiang, Hainan, and Jiangsu provinces. China's State Council, the country's cabinet, has approved the 2020 nuclear-safety strategy and inspections have been completed on existing nuclear reactors. This gives the go ahead for the reactivation of nuclear power development after the Fukushima accident in Japan. With the move away from coal in China's electricity supplies, nuclear power is expected to play a bigger role. It has 14 nuclear power plants in operation, producing 11.8 gigawatts, with plans to expand this to 40 gigawatts by 2015 and 60-70 gigawatts by 2020.

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  $112 billion out of $170 billion in new investments resulting from Biden's 2 climate laws, and the bulk of the 200,000 new jobs are being pushed by president Biden into Republican states. Republican voting states including many southern states are getting the largest share of the hundreds of billions of dollars in renewable energy investments by the Biden administration. Two new climate laws were passed by Biden without many Republican votes in 2022. WSJ offers a visual guide to where new manufacturing investment is taking place. It shows that three fourths of the $170 billion in investments by companies are going to Republican voting states. On a state wide basis this amounts to $112 billion for Republican states. Most of the public is unaware of the role of the climate laws in this new investment in manufacturing. This is why other presidents talked about manufacturing investment including previous presidents Republican and Democrat, president Biden has done the country a great service by making much needed investment in manufacturing and creating a new sense of hope in once neglected communities. Investments are being attracted to these states many in the south with easier land development and lower costs for labor, electricity, and lower taxes. This gives Republican states the ability to use their advantages in the best way and overcome the failure of many Republicans in Congress to support these investments with president Biden putting together bipartisan support.  ...