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The Bank of Japan's Governor Haruhiko Kuroda announces a massive monetary stimulus in November 2014, with a 33% increase in asset purchases, including government bonds and also stocks and real estate funds. The move was intended to get the maximum possible impact with the Nikkei Averages up 5% and boosting global stock markets. It is designed to make an affort to achieve the target of 2% inflation in 2 years announced earlier by Governor Kuroda. Slowing consumer spending with the increase in the sales tax to 8% was expected to lower growth in GDP for fiscal 2014 ending in March to 0.5%. At the same time inflation which had reached 1.5% was decelerating to the 1% level in September 2014. Faced with this problem and confidence levels in Abenomics dropping below 50% in polls, the BOJ and the Welfare Ministry acted jointly to support the economy. BOJ move is supported by a shift in the portfolio of the Government Pension Investment Fund, which will reduce purchases of government bonds and shift to higher investment in Japanese and foreign stock markets. The Welfare Ministry said it would increase its share of assets in the $1.2 trillion Government Pension Investment Fund for Japanese and foreign stocks each by 10 percentage points. Kuroda has insisted he will act strongly to fight Japan's "deflationary mindset." The vote to take the action was 5 to 4....

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China is not experiencing high unemployment in 2012 the way it did in 2009. The lower growth rate of 7-8% is not having an adverse impact on unemployment. This makes it possible for the stimulus this time to be much smaller. There is rising upward pressure on wages. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, CEIC and WSJ, average annual wages at private sector manufacturing companies in current U.S. dollars was up 5% in 2009, 16% in 2010, and 20% in 2011. This is being encouraged by the government as China gradually shifts its economy towards higher domestic consumption and better standards of living for workers. Hon Hai Precision Industry Company added 82,000 workers in China in 2011. Salaries at the Shenzen plant were 2200 yuan or $345 a month in February 2012, an increase of 10%. An April survey by Manpower Group showed that a majority of companies will increase workers or hold employment stable, only 3% of companies will have job cuts. Demographic changes are also playing a part-with fewer people in the 15-19 age range, dropping from 120 million in 2005 to 95 million in 2015, according to UN estimates. The number of migrant workers remains steady at 252 million in 2012, up 4% from 242 million in 2010, according to the Bureau of National Statistics....

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HP CEO in aplanned reorganization will merge the printer business with the PC business. It is ameasure of how far the PC business has come since Mr Hurd was made CEO 4 years ago, and after he hired Mr Bradley a former Palm CEO to shake up the PC business. Mr. Bradley has made the PC division supply chain more efficinet especially in the fast growing consumer netbook PC business, and has cut costs. Meantime the printer business under Joshi has stagnated. The PC business was merged into printer business by Fiorina in the hope that Joshi could make a difference. Hurd separated the two and put Bradley at the PC division.Now its the PC business that is taking off and its head who will try to improve the printer business. Bradley has run alean business and improved PC margins even as prices of PC's have tumbled. HP also passed Dell in PC's sold. In the quarter ending July 31,2009 HP PC sales were$8.43 billion and $386 million in earnings, accounting for 12% of profits, printer and ink were $5.66 billion and $960 million in earnings for 30% of overall profit. Hurd told analysts in aconference call that he was disappointed in how the printer unit inventory was managed, and that HP had to get some internal stuff right. The ...

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After the financial crisis of 2008-2009, commercial real estate defaults posed a serious threat to the US economy. Now this threat is receding with low interest rates making it easier to get cheap financing, which raises the returns. For banks the rising earnings give a cushion to absorb losses, letting them sell distressed properties and not have to hold onto them. From office towers in Manhattan to Florida apartment buildings and retail properties in Washington, commercial real estate values are going up. Prices of commercial real estate properties sold by institutional investors went up by 19% in 2010, according to an index developed by the MIT Center for Real Estate. Investors have boosted the prices of bonds backed by commerical real estate to the highest level in two years. The managing director at Real Capital Analytics says, that with values going up, both the owners and lenders have more room to work out difficult situations. Real Capital Analytics January 2011 report shows that of the $52 billion in retail properties to fall into default, a little over half have completed workouts. In Feb 2010, the Congressional Oversight Panel of the Troubled Asset Relief Program said that the commercial real estate market had the potential to pose a serious threat to the US economy. The panel estimated that about half of the $1.4 trillion in commercial property real estate loans set to be paid off by 2014 were under water, where the borrower owes more than the property is worth. Market segments for hotel, apartment buildings and retail are going up. Hotel occupancy rates in the top 25 markets went up from 60% to 64%, according to Smith Travel Research. Sales of apartment buildings in the US went up as home ownership hit new lows, and lease rates went up to the highest levels in 4 years, according to Axiometrics....

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The Conservative Party under David Cameron won 330 seats in the British parliament, securing a majority in the 2015 general elections. The Labor party won 232 seats, losing 26 seats compared to the 2010 election. The Conservatives gained 24 seats. The Labor party lost very badly in Scotland, winning only 1 seat. The Scottish National Party won 56 of 59 seats in Scotland. Opinion polls underestimated the strength of the Conservatives whose campaign theme was jobs created under the Cameron administration. Austerity was a theme for the Scottish National Party and Labor, yet as Greg Ip reported in his column on the British economic recovery the Cameron administration adroitly managed this by relaxing deficit targets after 2012 forecasts on the deficit cutting could not be met with lower revenues. Labor was hit by the sense that the Tony Blair type liberal economics had failed to reverse the decline in real wages and jobs for working class people, and the Conservatives were taking on a tough situation with the deficit and the 2008-2009 recession that started under Labor. This hurt Labor in Scotland and in the rest of Britain. Labor leader Ed Balls lost his seat. The UK Independence Party fared badly winning only one seat and its leader Nigel Farage lost his seat. Prime minister Cameron promised a EU referendum for 2017 during the election, and he will now have to manage this issue as his party favors membership in the EU with some changes. The improvement in jobs was a strong point for the Conservatives, yet Britain faces wage stagnation with low productivity gains which will be a challenge for the new administration....

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The Economist cites a think tank that says about 600,000 young educated Kashmiri adults are jobless. Kashmiri religious and political leaders worry that their youngest followers might take up radical positions. The violent insurgency has so far subsided but is now replaced with stone pelting and hartals (strikes). The fear is that the influence of moderate leaders such as Mr Geelani, who is in his eighties, will be replaced with leaders who would reignite tensions and an insurgency. Dr Mushtaq Margoob, of the psychiatric hospital in Srinagar, talks about the throngs of patients with stress and anxiety, with the youngest the most damaged. He sees "a collective anger, a traumatized generation." A three man team, comprising 2 academics and a journalist, was sent by the central government to Kashmir to prepare a series of reports by talking to all sides in the conflict The team has proved ineffective as the members do not carry political weight to influence decisions. A Wahhabi organization, al Hadith is using Saudi funds to establish itself as a strong welfare, religious, and cultural force. The non-muslim minority in Kashmir sees al Hadith as bringing Saudi Islamization to a region long known for its Muslim's religious tolerance, building community centres, mosques, schools and clinics. Are there creative better ways to bring peace to Kashmir and redirect the resources India has to commit to the region, Pakistan has to commit to its border with India, and the U.S. has to commit to its ground war in Afghanistan. For now India is locked into a silence about Kashmir in international discussions, Pakistan is playing out its own "security objectives" in Afghanistan, and the U.S. is locked into its anti-terrorism objectives in Afghanistan. Only by connecting all these dots can peace and redirection of resources be achieved. The U.S., Pakistan and India, would come up with a creative solution only if each side finds itself pushed to the point where continued commitment of resources is no longer tenable because of economic crises, or the US and the Western alliance see the need to pull South Asia together to act as a balancing element in Asia in relation to China and Japan; and push for negotiations with an offer of stronger economic ties. ...

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Paul Krugman describes the situation of slowing inflation in America and the prospects for president Biden in 2024. In just a few months since the midterms inflation is receding. Shoppers are showing resistance to price increases in retail stores. The Fed under Jay Powell has taken a resolute stand against inflation slowing inflation in house sales and rental, in automobile pricing and other sectors of the US economy. New investments under the climate change bill passed in Congress and the CHIPS and Science Act, Inflation Reduction Bill, mean more factory openings and jobs in America. A milder winter in Europe is helping it tackle an energy shortage and bringing oil prices under control.

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is building huge aluminium smelters powered by crude oil. Some of these aluminum smelters are near new economic cities coming out of desert landscape. This is part of an effort to create new jobs for young people at the cost of about $600 billion. The Saudi unemployment rate for young people is officially 12%, but probably more like 24%, because there aren't that many of the kinds of jobs which Saudis would accept. But a smelter like one being built on the Persian Gulf Coast creates about 10,000 jobs, and even 10 of these smelters couldn't create more than 100,000 jobs, and takes up 600,000 barrels a day of Saudi production. With a population of 24 million there is a need to create more jobs in which these smelters make only a small dent. Most countries use natural gas for electricity and for a high energy consuming industry like aluminium use natural gas. Because Saudi Arabia needs a lot of electricity to power heavily subsidized and wasteful use of electricity and has not been able to get natural gas production upto where it should be, the government has made the decision to use its crude oil for producing electricity to meet its growing needs. This means a lot of crude is being used in a manner that its normally not used and quite wastefully because its heavily subsidized. Because of the soaring electricity needs the head of the Saudi Electricity Company sees the need for six big power plants to raise generating capacity to 55,000 megawatts over 7 years, about what the United Kingdom uses, all using crude oil. As production is not going up by that much it means more of Saudi crude will be used up in Saudi Arabia and not available for export. The figures show that Saudis used more than 2 million barrels a day in 2006, up 6% from 2005 when Saudi production dropped by 2.3%. Just to remain level with the current production of 9 million barrels a day the Saudis have to bring an additional 600,000 barrels a day each year to make up for depleted and declining wells. And it is becoming more difficult to increase capacity. Apart from the fact that more Saudi oil will be in future used up by a growing population, there is a question about whether the investments in aluminium, petrochemicals and new economic cities estimated at $600 billion in future years is the best allocation of resources to create jobs. If oil prices decline and oil revenues decline with prices then these projected investments especially in the economic cities and costlier projects may have to be abandoned In that situation there will be more oil available for domestic use but the situation for unemployment may not be much improved. ...

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Dirk Kurbjuweit of Spiegel says Merkel needs to show strong leadership to overcome the challenges with the rise of right wing populists in the U.S., Britain and France. He points to the leadership shown in the latter part of Kohl's term in office to promote German reunification after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The challenges include talking to the German people directly in a convincing way, and meeting the day to day challenges of life for the people with investments in education, health care, infrastructure so that people see real significant improvement. It is even necessary to reorder priorities such as the shift from nuclear energy so that this challenge is met. It is not enough to hope that more Christian Democrats turn out to vote than Social Democrats, that the fifth of Germans who feel the economy is not working for them and feel threatened by immigration see real changes being made to address their concerns.

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Though the German public opposes a "transfer union," bailouts of EU countries, and fear a weakening of the euro, there is also support for the European Union. Most of Germany's political leaders and business elite see the euro as good for Germany. And nearly two thirds of Germans agree that Germany can only prosper inside a strong EU, according to the ARD poll. Yet the same proportion of Germans oppose bailouts of troubled countries such as Greece. This suggests that the way forward will have to be the development of mechanisms that ensure fiscal discipline throughout the EU to back up the euro currrency, and agreement on enforceable sanctions.

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Rio Tinto took a $8.9 billon writedown for 2011 on its Alcan aluminium acquisition. In total Rio Tinto has now taken a writeoff of $18.2 billon of the $38 billion paid for Alcan. CEO Tom Albanese says this is because of the heavy price Rio Tinto paid. He will forgo his 2011 bonus as a result. Analysts say Rio Tinto paid a higher price trying to outbid Alcoa and because aluminium prices which were $3000 at the peak in 2007 when Alcan was acquired, have since dropped to $1500. Chinese production expanded from 12.5 million tons in 2007 to 17.8 million tons in 2011.

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James West, energy analyst at Barclay's Capital, who co-authored a survey of 402 companies, estimates that the oil industry will spend $490 billion in 2011 to search for and extract oil and gas. This is up 11% from 2010. This spending includes increases in costs for finding and extracting oil and gas in hard to reach areas. The largest companies, including Exxon, Shell, Chevron and BP, are expected to increase spending by 16% to $108.6 billion. Chevron recently announced a 29% increase in spending, partly to develop large off-shore projects in Western Australia, the South China Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

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To meet the budget deficit Russia plans to issue $50 billion worth of ruble denominated bonds and privatize $10 billion in state assets every year until 2014. Russia is also changing its policy to attract foreign investment. For the first time since the 1998 financial crisis Russia will turn to international banks and pension funds in the US and Europe to maintain financing for a whole range of activities- from modernizing the military to paying high public sector wages. Russia is planning the sale of a stake in state bank VTB. And shares in oil companies, hydroelectric dams and shipping lines are also expected to go on the market.

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Microsoft embraces open-source software for the first time. CEO Steve Ballmer once considered Linux open-source software "a cancer." Microsoft announces the creation of Microsoft Open Technologies in April 2012, as a unit that will manage the introduction of open source software programs and the compatibility of Microsoft software with open-source software. Cloud computing has strong elements of open-source software in it and Web services provided by Google and Facebook rely on Linus's open-source software. Younger programmers are trained with working on Linux and it is important for Microsoft to accept and work with the open-source software community to retain its influence in the field.

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Sony and Panasonic will jointly develop mass production methods for organic light emitting diode display, or OLED, by 2013. The two companies are also cosidering an alliance to mass manufacture OLED television sets under their brand names. One option is to work with a low cost Asian manufacturers such as AU Optronics of Taiwan. Samsung and LG Electronics are planning to introduce 55 inch OLED television sets in 2012, with the sets costing about $9000. The challenge for the manufacturers is to bring down the cost of manufacturing. Sony is a leader in this technology, having developed the first 11 inch OLED set in 2007.

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Denmark's central bank sells $16.3 billion in Kroner in January 2015 alone to protect the peg to the euro at 7.46 Kroner. The move is designed to avoid deflation and preserve export competitiveness. Similiar moves were made by the Swiss central bank till it sold Swiss francs for about 80% of GDP, finally abandoning a peg setup in 2011. Denmark has sold Kroner for about 30% of GDP in comparison to the Swiss. The Danish situation is different from the Swiss, say analysts, as the Danish Krona may be slightly overvalued and should be closer to 8 to the euro, as the Swedish Krona is about 9.4 to the dollar.

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Brazil's debt at 57% of GDP which is not likely to decline in 2014, is a concern for analysts at Moody's. Heavy spending and lower tax revenues with high interest rates will increase the deficit to 3.7% in 2014 from 2.48% in 2012, according to central bank estimates. Inflation is about 5.98%. Trade surplus is lower at about $2.6 billion for 2013. Brazil's foreign reserves are much higher than Argentina at $359 billion, ten times short term debt, Argentina at 109% of short term debt and Turkey at 84% of short term debt- which protects Brazil compared to its reserves in the 1997 financial crisis.

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The Indonesian currency, the Rupiah, has declined by 13% in 2013- by Sept. 3. It reached a level of 11,050 rupiah for one dollar on Sept 3. Economic growth has declined to 6% for the second quarter of 2013. The depreciation of the rupiah is likely to increase inflation significantly and affect the consumer spending boom in Indonesia. Indonesia had a $2.3 billion trade deficit in July 2013 after a continuing surge in imports. This will affect car prices and prices of international brands popular in the country. Toyota set the rate at 9500 rupiah to the dollar and plans to increase prices now that the rate has passed 11,000 rupiah.

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Since 2011 democracy protests Tunisia's unemployment rate has increased from 13% to 18%, with an estimated 750,000 people unemployed. About one third of the unemployed are college graduates. By 2015 about 100,000 new college graduates will be looking for jobs each year. Tunisia's economy contracted 1.8% in 2011 with a 30% drop in tourists, according to the World Bank, which predicts 2.2% growth in GDP in 2012 and 4.6% by 2014. The democracy struggle in the Middle East started in Tunisia and demographics in Tunisia are similiar to that of the rest of the Middle East, with a surging number of young people and college graduates looking for jobs.

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NoSQL databases which use newer technologies are transforming Oracle's core businesss in database software. Oracle introduced relational database based on rows and columns and has dominated this business for three decades. Companies are transitioning to NoSQL databases because it has advantages including data analytical capabilities. New companies such as Workday are offering better products. Oracle's business in server is also declining. This is an example of new technologies and competitors upending the market for established players, a situation facing companies such as Dell, Oracle and H-P. Oracle has made acquisitions in the cloud computing field, but this will not change the basic situation facing Oracle of obsolescence in technologies.

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President Yudhoyono picks the former finance minister and central bank governor Boediono, a respected economist, as his running mate for elections in July. Indonesia is still growing at a rate of 4.4% from a year earlier, down from 5.2% in the 4th quarter. As economy minister till earlier this year Boediono was instrumental in getting a popular program to give $20 a month to Indonesia's 19 million poorest families, reaching about a third of the country's 240 million people. This is similiar to programs in place in Brazil and India, though the Brazilian program works with incentives for parents to send their children to school.

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The ruble has stabilized by April 1, 2014 following Russian intervention in the Crimea and western sanctions. It reached record lows of 37 to the dollar from a range of 29-33 rubles to the dollar since 2011. To stabilize the ruble the Bank of Russia says it spent about $24 billion in March 2014. The Russian Finance Ministry held its first auction of Treasury bonds on April 2, 2014 with yields increasing to 9% from 8% in February. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov says the ministry will resume daily purchases of foreign currencies of about $100 million- stopped since March 4, 2014- to replenish its sovereign wealth fund. Bank of Russia head, Ms. Nabiullina, says consumer inflation will exceed the target of 5% and economic growth is likely to fall below 1%. The crisis come at a bad time for Russia as it has slowed economic growth when growth had already fallen sharply in 2013. Russia plans to introduce its own payments system to reduce dependence on Visa Inc., and introduce its own credit ratings system as S&P, Moody's lowered its credit ratings....

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Chrysler's second quarter loss of $172 million, follows a first quarter loss of $197 million. Operating profit for the second quarter was $183 million, compared to $143 million in the first quarter. Chrysler's forecast is to breakeven on sales between $40-45 billion. Revenue was up by 8.2% in the second quarter to $10.5 billion. Main problem Chrysler faces is an old product lineup. A slowdown in the economy in the second half of 2010 and in 2011 could hurt Chrysler more than the other automakers. Chrysler has available cash of $7.84 billion and additional $2.3 billion available from U.S. Treasury and Canadian government loan agreements.

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The contrast between lack of effective measures taken in the Lombardy region with the aggressive action in Veneto that has proved effective. Veneto followed the method of quarantining, mass testing for clusters and isolating the affected people.  The Italian government took the first steps to close off northern Italy Feb 22, and it was not till March 10 that a nationwide lockdown was done. The action taken in the Veneto region is shown here in this WSJ report with the town of Vo as an example of steps taken that worked. A microbiology professor and infectious diseases expert at the University of Padua, Dr Crisanti, developed a test for the coronavirus as early as mid-January using the information made public by Chinese doctors. Dr. Crisanti oversaw the testing of 95% of residents of Vo, a town of 3400 people in Veneto region. He found 3% of the population was infected, with half testing positive asymptomatic. Following the aggressive lockdown the tests were done two weeks later and the rate of infection had fallen to 0.1% with only 8 new infections. "The main lesson from VO is that when you have a cluster of infected people, you should do a very aggressive lockdown and then test as many people as possible," Dr Crisanti says. The results from Vo led to Veneto increasing testing in the rest of the region carrying out 80,000 tests, compared to 88,000 in Lombardy, with double the population and 5 times more infections. Lombardy followed government directives to test only those with symptoms. When it spreads it is harder to do the test isolate clusters, test isolate clusters, in a continual loop, yet this remains the method cited by Dr. Brx in the U.S. today as the right way to target clusters in a laser approach. In yesterday's briefing at the White House Dr Brx said this is a method the U.S. is familiar with and has used in Africa to tackle HIV, Ebola Virus. It is possible using GPS to target down to a specific clinic in a specific place, which is how it was successfully done in Africa. ...