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A heart warming story of aging well of a world class Masters swimmer who stays fit at 89, Gail Roper can be an inspiration for people wanting to live healthy into an advanced age. She was a national champion by the time of the 1952 Olympic games in Helsinki, FInland. At 44 she started swimming in Masters competitions. She thinks one should not need a walker when one is growing old, provided one has plenty of exercize. She says she could be competing even now except for her driving. She lives in a senior community and swims 2000 yards everyday in an outdoor pool. Her daily routine includes, 20 sit-ups while watching the news, 20 push-ups against her kitchen sink between washing dishes, 200 revolutions on her stationary bike, 100 steps on her stair stepper, resistance bands to stretch. Want to stay straight up and down, and not crouched or humped over, then you must work at it says Gail Roper. Its that simple. It means working lives don't end when you retire, just take different shapes and adopt new routines. She speaks to 5 people everyday as a rule to keep up social skills. And she reads as well to keep her brain active. Gail starts the day with a cup of Nespresso coffee, granola and fruit, and adds yogurt. Snacks on walnuts, almonds and dried fruit throughout the day. Her main meal is lunch which includes a salad and beverage where she spends time with other people at the seniors center. Dinners are small portions. On Sundays its pizza and wine. Thats it! Secret to healthy living for the retired and older people.   ...

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Two way trade is expanding at 35% for the last 5 years to $15 billion. A new goal is being set for expanding it to $50 billion by 2010. Senior executives of big Chinese infrastructure companies are involved and the exchange is at the highest level, with Bo Xilai, Commerce Minister of China, heading a 200 member delegation to New Delhi. This includes senior executives of Shanghai Electric Power Generation Group, ZTE Corp, and China Corporation Bank. US- India trade growth goals were set by President Bush in a recent visit. With Bo's visit China- India trade growth goals are being set on the same scale. Bo said China and India can learn a lot from each other- "China has a lot to offer in infrastructure development to India and we can learn about developing software, information technology, and how to improve the services sector."

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Hitachi supplied signalling technology components for safety on China's high speed trains. Hitachi was the supplier to Beijing based Hollyss Automation Technologies Ltd., which is one of the two suppliers along with China Railway Signal & Communication Corp (CRSC) for the signalling equipment. To protect its proprietary technology from competitive threats Hitachi uses zumen or "black box" so that the components cannot be reverse engineered. Experts say that as a result Chinese engineers did not have a good grasp of how crucial aspects of the safety tecnology worked, leading to the collision of two bullet trains in 2011. The key components of the ATP, the Automatic Train Protection, the onboard brain on the trains, was supplied by Hitachi. Engineers at French company Alstom SA's China operations say China needs time to master the complicated technology acquired in the last seven years of the high speed rail program.

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Automakers had U.S. sales of 1.2 million cars and light trucks in December, 2011, an increase of 8.7% over Dec. 2010, acccording to Autodata Corp. Total light vehicle sales for 2011 were 12.8 millon, an increase of 10.3% over 2010. Chrysler showed a 37% increase in Dec. 2011 over Dec. 2010, Ford 10%, and GM 4.6%. For 2011 Chrysler showed the biggest increase in sales over 2010 of 26%, followed by Ford at 11% and GM at 13%. Toyota's sales declined in 2011 by 6.7% to 1.64 million. Honda's sales for 2011 declined by 7.1% to 1.15 million. American manufacturers introduced new models in the small and midsize segments to take market share from the Japanese. Ford plans a new version of the Fusion and Chrysler will introduce the Dart in the small car segment. GM and Ford are forecasting auto sales above 13.5 million for 2012 in the U.S. market.

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India's Reliance ADA Group and CBS are planning to setup a 50-50 joint venture, to be operational in 2010 or early 2011. CBS would initially use American programming for the Indian television audience, and in the next phase work with Reliance ADA to develop local programming. Disney, News Corp., Time Warner and Viacom already have a presence in India. The market is getting crowded in India with News Corporation's Star Plus, a leader in soap operas and movies. Viacom's channel "Colors" is creating local versions of reality shows. The new venture would try to compete with more thoughtful programming and good marketing. The size of the market and growth is large, growing from $5.7 billon in 2009 to estimated $11.3 billion in 2014 according to KPMG. Only 58% of the households in India currently watch television. The programming is growing quickly with 460 channels in 2009 from 120 in 2003.

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Time Inc. publishes about 80 print magazines, including Time, People, and Sports Illustrated. CEO Joe Ripp says Time Inc. was slow to respond to the digital transformation of media, and revenue is declining for several years. In 2014 Time Inc. ad revenue from digital ads was only 17%. Unlike Meredith Corp. and other companies which have television stations, or cable-television systems which can support its business, Time has little in the way of support, and could be broken up if the transformation into digital fails. Ripp was Chief Financial Officer of first Time Warner in 1999, and then of AOL Inc. at the time of the merger with Time Warner Inc. One of Ripp's recent risky moves not followed by other media companies is merging the media content side with the advertising side in native advertising. Time Inc. has 7000 employees as of Dec. 31, 2014, 800 fewer than the prior year.

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Google Inc. has made an agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. for $12.5 billion in cash. This deal puts Google in direct competition with Apple Inc., RIM, and Nokia. Google is taking on new risks with this acquisition. It is known as a software company, and the acquisition puts it in an area with which it has little experience- manufacturing and managing sales of devices working with retailers. It also risks making partners- such as Samsung, HTC Corp., Sony Ericsson, and LG Electronics that make mobile phones- into rivals. Forrester Research points out that this could lead to these companies hedging their bets and also making mobile phones that use the Microsoft operating system. Google considered a similiar plan for entry into the PC market after it developed the Chrome operating system but decided against it, opting instead to work with PC manufacturers Acer Inc and Samsung. The deal brings with it a large number of patents Motorola holds in mobile technology.

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Within minutes of the SNB's decision to lift the cap on the euro the Swiss Franc surged 30% against the euro and 18% against the dollar. FXCM, retail currency broker, suffered severe losses and the company needed a $300 million investment from Leucadia National Corp. to survive. Citigroup and Deutsche Bank AG each had losses of $150 million. Hedge Funds Discovery and Comac also suffered losses. FXCM losses stem from use by FXCM clients of borrowed money, along with higher leverage the company also has lower margin requirements. Interestingly FXCM fought CFTC efforts under Dodd-Frank legislation to limit leverage to 10 to 1- saying "it would have a devastating impact and drive it overseas." The limit finally set at 50 to 1, meant that an investor could borrow $50 for every dollar he put in of his own. The leverage meant large losses for inexperienced investors and threatened the survival of FXCM in a matter of minutes.

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Wells Fargo bank's share price reached a high of $51.90 on June 13, 2014, up 14% in Jan-June 2014. Richard Kovacevich arranged the acquisition by Norwest Corp of Wells Fargo & Co. in 1998. Wells Fargo has a 16% share of the mortgage loan business in the U.S., with $36 billion in loans for the first quarter of 2014. It is the third largest bank in deposits, with 6200 branches, the most branches of any bank in the U.S. Wells Fargo performance shows 15 quarters of uninterrupted profit growth, making it the most valued bank at the June share price. Over the last 10 years the stock price is up 76%, the best of any bank including Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley. Compared to the other banks Well Fargo has relied on its mortgage business and marketing traditional banking products aggressively through cross selling, staying away from investment banking and trading businesses.

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Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia Corp.'s cellphone business for $7 billion in August 2013. This is less than the $8.5 billion Microsoft paid to acquire Skype. A major European corporation goes for less than a company that did not even exist a few years earlier. It shows how quickly a strategic misstep or failure to anticipate a new competitor or technology can upend the marketplace. Nokia failed to anticipate or move quickly to develop products in mobile smartphones. Strategic missteps included relying on its own technology for smartphone development as the market moves first to the iPhone and then the Android based smartphones from Samsung, and other manufacturers. Microsoft also failed to anticipate or prepare for smartphone development. There is a one-two punch because after losing to Apple and Samsung in the highend smartphone market, Nokia is hit by lowpriced Android based smartphones from Chinese competitors such as Lenovo, HTC and others. The entire marketplace Nokia had known for a generation has shifted before its eyes....

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The US Department of Agriclture reported that the number of Americans who lacked consistent access to adequate food jumped to 49 million in 2008. This was an increase of 13 million. Researchers track "food insecurity." This figure is at 2008 rate of unemplooyment. With 2009's unemployment exceeding 10%, things are much worse going into 2010 when jobless rates will be even higher. The way this breaks down is that one third of these Americans in struggling households have "very low food security," which means that they may skip meals, cut portions at some point during the year. The other two thirds eat cheaper foods, relying on food stamps, and visit food pantries and soup kitchens. The scary part is that 506,000 children faced "very low food security" in 2008 compared to 233,000 in 2007. See the story link to young unemployed immigrants here from Mexico who are getting money from parents in Mexico to put fod on the table.

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Everything you might want to know about coffee, where it comes from, how cultivation is changing with climate change and higher temperatures, and the effort to map the coffee genome. With higher temperatures the farming of coffee moves to higher altitudes in coffee growing countries in the tropics, but it is easier to cross breed the 124 varieties to produce a plant that can withstand the change in temperatures and one that can resist fungus.  A coffee fungus and higher altitude rains destroyed much of the crop in Central America including Guatemala. This led to increased migration to Mexico and U.S. of farmers leading up to Mr. Trump's plan to have the National Guard of Mexico police Mexico's border with Guatemala.  Coffee is a sensitive plant and needs cooler weather and water which is found more in the tropics. Growing it in California or in Italy makes it very costly leading to Frinj coffee being sold in California at $16 a cup. Climate change could reduce the area where coffee can be grown by about 50% in the tropical countries from South east Asia to African countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia, and in south America Colombia and Brazil, says Climate Institute, Washington DC based climate change experts.   ...

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Democratic Party U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tells a Georgetown University audience that Muslim nations should bear the biggest share of the burden of fighting Islamic State. He cites reports Qatar was spending $200 billion to host the Soccer World Cup in 2022 but providing little to bear the cost of fighting extremism in the Muslim world. Sanders says his focus in running is not on pursuing "reckless adventures abroad, but to rebuild America's strength at home." This contrasted with remarks by Hillary Clinton in New York the same day calling for the U.S. to lead the fight to defeat the the Islamic State terror network after Paris attacks in Nov. 2015, and putting forward a position that contrasts with that of the Obama administration.

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Germany's $ 3 billion aid to Ukraine can only go through if it is clear where the money comes from. Scholz and Habeck oppose taking it from pensions, local government spending, or needed transportaton infrastructure spending. Greens see this kind of funding with cuts from domestic needs as a cop out. Scholz opposes cuts in pensions. CDU suggests cuts in unemployment benefits. Scholz opposes this. Germany as a debt clause in its Constitution put in by former CDU chancellor Merkel. It doesn't make sense now with the needs in infrastructure and the extra revenue that could be generated in the economy from an expanding economy that has rebuilt and updated its infrastructure. Yet it is still in place and leaves Germany less able to cope with demands for security, defense, and for infrastructure, modernizing its economy. By contrast the US under Biden and Trump is committed to domestic spending on infrastructure and modernization, leading to faster economic growth than in the European Union in 2025-26. ...

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Meg Whitman, H-P CEO, repeated her statements that a recovery was four or five years away. She sees little sales growth till 2015 and predicts losses. H-P's share price fell by 13% on Oct. 3, 2012. Whitman said in an interview that H-P has failed to invest in research and development. She was critical of lack of R&D investment under Mark Hurd. But says many of the problems go back to when Carly Fiorina was CEO in 2005 and made the acquisition of Compaq. The acquisition approach has worked poorly for H-P, with lack of R&D within H-P. H-P's financial position also worsened with the $10 billion paid by Leo Apotheker, Hurd's successor, for Autonomy Corp. Internal software systems disconnected costs from revenue, so that in 2011 field selling costs increased by $1 billion even as revenue decreased by $5 billion. A series of management changes made things worse through poor decisions, inconsistency and lack of focus, all of which will take years to correct.

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Jurio Osawa talks to Toshiba Corp.'s CEO, Norio Sasaki about Toshiba's plans to increase investments in infrastructure businesses, including nuclear energy. Sasaki sees continuing need to use nuclear energy because of limited supplies of oil and gas to meet needs in emerging markets. He sees demand growing for nuclear energy in China, Brazil, India, Turkey and Vietnam. Toshiba owns Westinghouse Electric, a maker of nuclear power equipment, and acquired Landis+Gyr, a Swiss company which makes advanced power meters. Demand for Westinghouses' AP1000 reactors with safety equipment in China is expected to grow from the 4 being built today to 20 in 2020, and 70 in 2030. He says the consumer electronics businesses have suffered because of the strong yen, and for the failure of Japanese companies to taking strong action to improve their competitive position and staying ahead of market trends. At the same time the consumer electronics business generates cash because investment requirements are low compared to infrastructure businesses, which is why Toshiba will continue to operate in profitable parts of the consumer electronics business....

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Italy vs. Brazil in World Cup Soccer 1982 in Barcelona. Memories from that game in which Paolo Rossi of Italy scores a hat trick to knock Brazil out of the World Cup. With the passing away of Rossi this report looks at the legends of the game. Rossi also scored the opening goal in a 3 to 1 win for Italy against Germany in Madrid. 

Amazingly Rossi was seen as coming out in personal redemption after getting a 3 year suspension from the game for a match fixing scandal of 1980.  When it was reduced to 2 years Rossi got the opportunity to redeem himself. The World Cup Soccer was to be held in Spain only a few months after he started playing again. Rossi was declared unfit to play and did not score in the first three pool matches. Then came the Brazil game. Followed by 2 goals in the 2-0 win over Poland in the semi final. And then on to play Germany in the final with the opening goal. 

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Intel is expecting 8-10% growth in its forecast for unit PC shipments for 2011. For the second quarter 2011 revenue of the Intel PC unit increased by 11% from the prior year. Two factors are enabling this growth. PC shipments in emerging markets are growing fast, with increases of 70% in Turkey and Indonesia in the second quarter. Profit margin is at 60.6%. Third quarter revenue growth was given by CEO Otellini at $14 billion, and the total revenue for 2011 is expected to show growth at the mid-20% range.

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Warnings to governments and leaders in industry and pharmaceutical research about epidemic preparedness by Bill Gates were ignored. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop new vaccines and create disease tracking systems. But only governments could tackle this problem. He tells the WSJ in an interview that he feels terrible and that he wishes he had done more. His fear that a once in a century pandemic has come true. Governments did respond to the public health preparation needs as reported in France 24 to both SARS and the H1N1, both in Britain and France. It was the disbanding of this effort in the period of the global financial crisis and the eurozone financial crisis that led to the level of unpreparedness that Western Europe finds itself in today. This was caused by irresponsible banking practices. The response was austerity measures in Britain, France, Germany and Spain that led to leaving public health system investment being neglected, without fixing the original source of the problem. Misallocation of capital and lopsided priorities continued through most of the period leading up to the pandemic. There is a lot that Gates and other public spirited leaders could do now do in the new reordering of priorities and shifting the allocation of capital to public services and investments in infrastructure, and supply chain renewal to safeguard national interests. Today he is working with pharmaceutical executives and governments to produce billions of doses of vaccines while they are being tested. His foundation has reserved space in a manufacturing plant so that production can begin quickly once an effective vaccine is found. He says nobody has made 7 billion vaccines so that it will need all the help that it can get and international cooperation.  In an earlier interview with WSJ he told the interviewer in November 2014 that the world as a whole did not have preparedness. France and Britain prepared and then abandoned the effort for epidemic response by 2012 following the global financial and eurozone financial crises. Gates repeated the warning to 2016 presidential candidates in the U.S.  In 2017 at the Munich Security Conference he reminded people- "getting ready for a global pandemic is every bit as important as nuclear deterrence and avoiding a climate catastrophe." One focus of Gates was to come up with faster ways to a vaccine by using ready made components and then customizing it. This is an approach being adopted today by Oxford scientists and by Quidel Corp. in the U.S.   ...