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Global infrastructure needs are expected to go up by 20% to 2.1 trillion dollars annually for the next 10 years compared to the previous ten years, according to the Samsung Economic Research Institute. India's investment in infrastructure will double to 1 trillion dollars in 2012-2017. compared to the prior five year period. Toshiba hopes to increase sales by 20% to $38 billion for nuclear power generation and distribution equipment and railway equipment, by the year ending March 2013. This is 38% of total revenue for Toshiba. Hitachi has set a goal of a 46% increase in sales to $29 billion, or 20% of total revenue for Jan 2011- March 2016. The Japanese Government and a consortium of Japanese companies are working together on deals such as the deal signed with Vietnam in October 2010 for nuclear power. The International Nuclear Energy Development of Japan entity, includes 12 companies and the Japanese government. The consortium was critical to negotiating the Vietnam deal.

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As moratoriums on foreclosures that were put in place earlier expire at Chase, Wells Fargo, Fannie and Freddie, and other mortgage companies, foreclosure activity has increased. Foreclosure related filings increased by nearly 6%in February from month earlier, and were up nearly 30% from February 2008, according to RealtyTrac. In California notices of trustee sales, which are a precursor to foreclosure sales, climbed more than 80% to 33,178 in March from February, according to ForeclosureRada.com and the Field Check Group. The increase reflects both the expiration of foreclosure moratoriums and a California law made late last year that temporarily delayed default and foreclosure notices. As aresult Ronald Temple, co-director of research at Lazard Asset Management, expects that home prices will decline by 22% to 27% from their January levels. Over 2.1 million homes will be lost in 2009 in foreclosure according to Moody's Economy.com, up from 1.7 million in 2008.

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(Article on TSM from NYT, February 22, 2023.) When Morris Chang setup his factories for chip production in Taiwan in the 1980's America was the leader in chip production. He tapped into American technology at MIT and other American research universities. Over decades of support from government subsidies and easy transfers of American technology Morris Chang built up what is TSMC today. Chang now sees the building of a plant in Arizona as a challenging task. Originally from Ninbo, Zhejiang province, China, and having survived the Sino Japanese war and civil war in China he went to Hong Kong in 1949. Without the bachelors and masters degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1953-54 and the first jobs at Sylvania Semiconductor in 1955, Texas Instruments in 1958-83, both pioneers in semiconductor production, Chang would not have been able to found TSMC. Mistaken laissez faire economic theory destroyed America's own semiconductor industry. Texas Instruments invested in Chang for him to get his PhD. degree from Stanford in electrical engineering in 1964 and enabled him to run its worldwide semiconductor business. Without this start enabled by companies at the cutting edge of US technological innovation and institutions such as MIT and Stanford, TSMC would not exist today.  Chang's approach was to price ahead of the cost curve which essentially means taking smaller profits in the short term to gain advantage over the long term. In this way he built TSMC with the help of support from Taiwan's government. About the Arizona plant Chang says it was similar to putting up a plant in Washington State, which he postponed after people, cost and cultural problems. A dream fulfilled became a nightmare fulfilled, he says and postponed that plant. This lack of enthusiasm shows a lack of memory an awareness of the difficulties that Chang himself must have experienced in 25 years of work at Texas Instruments- with cultural, cost and people problems, and the efforts at American pioneer manufacturing companies to assist Chang. Chang is reported to have said on a Brrokings Institution podcast that building a wafer plant in America will be "a very expensive exercize in futility," forgetting that he got his own start in America, with American engineers, American science and technology, and American manufacturing, and American workers. ...

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Ryan Tracy and Anthony DeBarros try to address the question of patchy internet service for America's heartland, rural areas from the prairies of Iowa to the west, and in the south and southeast. Public funds were allocated through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund for broadband service with the latest optic fiber technologies in 750,000 census blocks in all states except Alaska in the US. This was supposed to bring digital internet with fast speeds enjoyed by urban users to every American home. Instead after this and another program the Connect America program why is internet service serving some customers and not others in rural areas, with patches of areas in each rural part of a state without internet service at the speeds one should expect for streaming and other uses? This WSJ research looks at data and conducted interviews on this important issue and found that internet service providers were given public funds by the FCC yet allowed to pick customers leaving some customers out. FCC rules till 2021 did not require service for all customers equally as long as they provided service to a minimum number of locations statewide say former senior FCC officials. One senior former FFC official says it is not surprising that companies made the decision to do the bare minimum required.  In Heavener, Oklahoma this meant that during the pandemic and lockdown when schools were closed the lack of good internet service affected learning from home. Many students could not get online from home. In 2021 another effort was made. This time funds will not go through the FCC but through the states. The Biden $1 trillion infrastructure spending for workers and families includes $42.5 billion for a rural broadband program in America. This WSJ report does useful service to America by putting the spotlight on one of the issues that divides America today the gap between the quality of life in rural vs. more affluent areas of urban America. It also shows that it is the federal bureaucracy that is at fault in this case for poor internet service in rural areas. Careful attention to this is needed so that rural America gets the attention it deserves from the prairies of Iowa to the mountains, the breadbasket of the country, and the heartland.   ...

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Ausra using Australian David Mills technology and research has come up with soar mirrors that focus the intense heat of the suns rays in desert climates onto water that is directly turned into steam that then runs the turbines that generate electricity. With PG&E for distribution and Vinod Khosla's venture capital investment solar energy for about 10 cents per kilowatthour (kwh) is within reach using Ausra's technology and compettitve with cola based energy. Carbon is also going to be about 20% more expensive with higher environmental costs of coal based energy factored into the price as governments restrict its use. The plan is to go from a initial $47 million investment to a $400 million investment for a 100 megawatt plant. This technology could bring a promising future for solar energy and cut dependence on oil and coal, and help bring down oil prices and spur growth with cheaper and clean energy.

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About 53% of the uninsured Americans disapprove of the Obama health care law, in comparison to 51% of the insured with health care coverage who disapprove of the new law. About 35% of the uninsured say they are likely to pay the penalty for not carrying insurance, and six of ten uninsured say it will make their health better. Overall the approval of the law is at 39% and disapproval at 50% in the Dec. 2013 poll. A striking part of the poll result is that 57% of the uninsured say it will increase their health care costs, compared to 52% of the insured. Only 20% say it will decrease their health care costs. This reflects the lack of serious controls on the surge in healthcare spending in the law. A separate research shows that more of the costs are passed on to users who will pay higher out-of-pocket costs after the law.

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More than 50% of Americans believe the government should do more to solve problems. According to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll by a margin of 53% to 42% Americans want government to "do more to solve problems". But there is lack of confidence in Congress and in companies. According to the National Opinion Research Center only a little more than 10% of the people have a great deal of confidence in Congress and only a little less than 20% have a great deal of confidence in major companies. So the regulation it is felt is better setup through expert packed commissions.

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According to Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, 6.1 million Hispanic children lived in poverty in 2010. The poverty line is defined as a family of four living on $22,314. Of the total poor children in 2010, 37.3% were Hispanic, 30.5% white, and 26.6% black. Hispanics were hit hard by the 2008-2009 recession because many are employed in construction and the hospitality industries or blue collar jobs. A majority of the Hispanic children were born in the U.S. 4.1 million have immigrant parents and 2.0 million have U.S. born parents. Of the total U.S. population Latinos are 16%, yet they comprise 23% of all the children in the country. With a quarter of America's children being Latino -and with these numbers expected to grow in coming years because of higher birth rates- the fact that many of these children are less likely to get a college education or acquire technical skills because of poverty levels, has serious implications for America's future competitiveness.

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The poor decisions made by former CEO, Mark Hurd, leading to underinvestment in research and development and lack of funding for H-P Labs, leave H-P in a weaker position. The cuts were lauded at the time by the financial media but left the company with weaker technological capabilities. The distractions since 2005, with changing CEO's and lack of proper direction in the company, a weak board of directors, a large bureaucracy and inefficient sales force, and the emergence of low cost competitors from Taiwan, are hurting H-P's performance and capabilities. Meg Whitman, the current CEO, plans another round of layoffs, following the layoffs under Hurd. About 30,000 of 324,000 existing employees will be retired or laid off. H-P generated only $1.7 billion in net earnign on sales of $127 billion in fiscal 2011. In smartphones, cloud computing services and tablet computers, H-P has either stumbled or still struggles to develop clear winners.

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Tokyo Electric Power says that a total of 11,125 spent nuclear fuel rod assemblies were stored at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Experts say that this is 4 times as much radioactive material as in the reactor cores combined. Germany and China do not store these spent fuel rods at their nuclear plants for safety reasons. This is the practice in Japan, at Fukushima, and at some U.S. nuclear plants.The storage pools of water needed to keep these fuel rods has leaked because of the earthquake. And there are signs that some fuel rods have begun to melt and release extremely high levels of radiation. Richard Lafey, Jr., is a retired nuclear engineer who supervised General Electric's safety research for the type of reactor used in Fukushima. He says the zirconium cladding of the fuel rods can catch fire if exposed to air for hours, when the storage pool of water is lost. Zirconium, after it catches fire is so hot that its hard to extinguish.

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Important research presented by experts from University of Chicago, Princeton university Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, presented at a forum in New York on the Federal Reserve organized by the University of chicago and Brandeis University. The presentation indicates that there will be amagnified effect of the current credit crisis once you take into account the accounting rules to use market prices and the risk practices of financial institutions that lead to adding to reserves. They calculate that leveraged institutions like banks, thrifts and securtities dealers will want to boost their capital to asset ratios by 5% because of the increased risk. Even after raising $100 billion in new capital (such as the money raised from sovereign funds) these institutions will still try to shrink their assets of about $20.5 trillion by about $2 trillion. The impact of this would be to restrict lending in a magnified effect and could cost the economy about 1.5% points in growth.

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Mistakes French bank Societe Generale made with acquiring a controlling stake in Greek bank Geniki. Credit Agricole bank had a similiar experience with its stake in Greek bank Emporiki. In 2010 Societe Generale was forced to set aside 400 million euros for bad loans. Credit Agricole had to remove the CEO and higher executives in 2009 before introducing good loan criteria at Emporiki. Today Emporiki has loan loss provisions of 12.5% of gross loans, and Geniki has 21%, according to analysts. Dirk Hoffmann-Becking, analyst at Bernstein Research, estimates that a default that took out 30% from the value of these Greek banks loan book and 70% from Greek government bonds would result in a loss of 3 quarters of earnings for Credit Agricole and for Societe Generale 1.5 quarters of earnings. This would mean that the French banks would take 3 quarters longer to get their capital reserve ratios to 9% for new Basel III regulations.

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About 4.2 million Americans will be 65 years old in 2024, and for the next six years about 4 million will be added to the 65 plus population each year making the 2030 population of 65 plus larger by about 24 million people. As America ages it will need more young people to do many jobs in healthcare, care for the elderly, in agriculture and transport. This is what we are seeing in Japan and even a country highly protective of its own culture has a policy of admitting immigrants from Vietnam and other countries to meet worker shortages. Claire Ansberry looks at the 65 plus population today and compares it to 35 years ago and finds it is more oriented to exercise, health, and has more accumulated wealth. About 20% of people over 65 years work today compared to 15% 35 years ago, says Pew Research, and of these working 65 year olds two thirds are working full time compared to half in 1987. They are wealthier having median net worth of $410,000 today compared to $282,000 in 2010 much of the 45% gain made in the last 2 years from rising house prices and stock investments. Those over 75 years have a 13% gain. Overall the wealth is significantly higher today. ...

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Grove's take on what is going on in Silicon Valley, and interviews at startups and Labs like the Almaden Research Center by Steve Hamm. Grove is especially infuriated by the concept of an"exit strategy". Intel never had an exit strategy he says. It takes time to build important companies over along period and a different kind of attitude, and resilience. Steve Hamm visits all parts of the Silicon Valley to understand what is going on. Big companies won't come up with the next big development and startups aren't measuring up to the task. Yes things are happening in the area of electric vehicles, solar energy and green energy. HP sees more productive effort coming from software development than hardware advances. Overall short term thinking and risk aversion dominates, and Grove and Hamm do not see the kind of paranoid attitude and worrying nature and resilience, that got Intel to go back and develop new products and look for new opportunities after taking a beating from the Japanese, who at one time took over Intel's existing markets. ...

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The Romney campaign's campaign manager Matt Rhoades is from Saratoga Springs, New York and attended Syracuse University. He rose through the ranks doing opposition research at the Republican National Committee. He has a good sense for the media cycle, getting the candidate out in the best light, and a willingness to use a barrage of ads at critical points to turn the tide. Rhoades is competitive and eager to win. He has conserved resources throughout the campaign, maintained a loyal team and tightly run the campaign to avoid the dysfunction of the previous Romney campaign in 2008. Some of the key decisions Rhoades pesuaded Romney to make are releasing his tax returns before the must win Florida primary given Romney's reluctance to do so, and getting the candidate to give up his suit and wear informal clothing. The informal dress and manner has taken away some of the negative image of a Romney as a business type not comfortable with ordinary people.

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The fiscal 2016 U.S. budget of president Obama proposes government spending at 7% or $74 billion above the caps set in a bipartisan deficit reduction deal reached in 2011. It proposes $561 billion in defense spending with an increase of $38 billion, and $530 billion in non defense spending with an increase of $37 billion. Across the board cuts known as the sequester were set in 2013 following a 2011 bipartisan budget deal plan to take $2 trillion out of the federal budget deficit over 10 years. Spending caps were set at the time and a supercommitte was setup to look for ways to trim $1.2 trillion from the federal budget. With the failure of the supercommittee the sequester went into effect until Sen. Murray (Democrat) and Sen Paul Ryan (Republican ) agreed to ease cuts through fiscal year 2015 ending in September. The Democratic president's effort is to remove the caps in 2016 to invest more in infrastructure, medical research, other strategic priorities and defense.

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EU leaders and proposals to limit tax avoidance by digital companies by requiring the companies to show the profits in the countries where they are made. This would require changing bilateral treaties. France is looking at proposals to tax companies by the number of clicks or user data. Large digital companies, including Apple and Google declare most of their European revenue in Ireland using legal loopholes in that country to shift profits to lower tax locations. A Senate report in the U.S. in May 2013 shows Apple using technicalities in Irish and U.S. laws to pay only a small amount in corporate taxes in four years 2009-2012 on $74 billion. Fredrik Reinfeldt, the prime minister of Sweden stated the argument for fairness in tax policy- "These companies ask for a lot of investment in infrastructure, in research and development, they want to have well educated staff members. Well, let's keep that together: Pay your taxes so we can afford all of these investments."

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A major British and Indian collaboration and scientific achievement of both countries is not given the recognition it should get because of mismanaged communication of the results of clinical trials. Tom Whipple science editor of The Times says do not make the mistake of thinking oh Pfizer vaccine scores a 9 out of 10 and Oxford's a 7 or 8 out of 10. Pfizer vaccine says it 94% effective. But this is only part of the story. It is the first exam paper in a long number of exam papers and the final score will require scoring them all. "Oxford vaccine is complex, and we are happy with the complexity," says Adrian Hill, Oxford researcher and head of the Jenner Institute. It is not highly unusual in this complex field for a half first dose to work better than a full first dose in a two dose vaccine treatment. This happened with the Oxford vaccine. As a result the study results were harder to communicate. This happened by accident. Much of medical research and much of medicine's biggest breakthroughs in the last 200 years happened by accident, as one researcher looked for something and accidentally discovered something else profoundly useful. Whipple's points are turning out to be true now that Britain's medicine regulator has asked that Pfizer vaccine not be given to people with history of allergic reactions after 2 NHS workers had strong allergic reactions. A lot of questions remain for all vaccines. How long will the protection last? WIll it prevent transmission of coronavirus? Are there any other complications? Which vaccines can work without ultralow refrigeration storage? Ahead lie the prospect of billions of doses. Two are in final stages in India including Bharat Biotech request for emergency authorization. Johnson & Johnson has a competing one to Pfizer's in the U.S. As many as 30 are being developed in India and 100 around the world. Countries like South Korea say they will wait to find out which one works best and where cost overall combined with benefit is attractive. Some of the vaccines are coming out only weeks apart. The early ones could stumble, if something was missed. ...

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Voter awareness and discomfort about the $1.6 trillion deficit this year, does not translate into wanting to see spending cuts in Medicare, Social Security and popular programs. It is the view of public opinion that is determining political leaders inaction on these issues, which are at the heart of controlling spending and the deficits. It is no surprise then that the Obama budget showed no action on these issues. Both parties are careful not to talk about cuts to popular programs without broad public support. The Pew Research Center survey shows 12% of Americans want to cut spending on Medicare or on Social Security, only 6% want to reduce spending on veterans benefits. Politicians can do the math from these numbers. They may be sending loud signals to Democrats and Republican politicians that voters will punish those who cut these popular programs. Polling done by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News produced similiar numbers.

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Sony is trailing badly in the smartphone business in 2014-2015. Global market share is at about 3.1%. Sales in China have failed to gain with only 0.4% market share, as Xiaomi has made large gains in China in 2014, and with other low cost competitors such as Lenovo. Even in India once considered a promising market Sony smartphone sales market share is at about 3.2%. Market share is about 6.9% in Europe and 14.4% in Japan, according to Counterpoint Research. The mobile division is cutting staff by 2100 from current level of 7000, as mobile becomes Sony's only money losing unit. The head of the mobile division and CEO Hirai are now considering options including selling the unit or joining with third parties. Mr. Totoki, head of the mobile division, says Sony has learned through this experience that creating customer enthusiasm for products involves much more than simply putting together powerful parts.

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Auto parts makers employ 600,000 workers concentrated in 7 states and also supply foreign carmakers in the USA. They are asking for access to TARP or other government money as they are feeling the effects of this downturn. Carmakers are using the stuy by the Center for Automotive Research that says 3 million jobs will be affected. However bankruptcy law allows the carmakers to continue to operate, and gives the automakers an opportunity to renegotiate all labor contracts on the basis of the new realities in the American economy, as demand collapses and credit is tight and companies need rescue money from the government. Douglas Baird, a Professor at the University of Chicago Law School who specializes in bankruptcy law says that this 3 million figure is laughable as modern bankruptcy law is designed to protect against that, in effect suggesting that companies like the airlines that are operating in bankruptcy can continue to operate as before but do so with serious restructuring.

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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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Blackberry RIM discards a plan to go private. CEO Thorstein is to leave the company and Fairfax Financial Holdings led investor shareholder group will invest $1 billion in the company. Fairfax owns 10% of Blackberry. After the news was announced the RIM Blackberry share price dropped 16% to $6.49. John Chen, former CEO of enterprise software company Sybase is the interim CEO. At its current cash burn rate, even with the $1 billion infusion Blackberry would run out of cash by the end of 2014.

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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.