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Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama campaign together in swing states such as North Carolina. Hillary Clinton capitalizes on the surging popularity of Michelle Obama, who has a 64%  approval rating, according to Gallup, 10 points more than president Obama, and above Hillary's 43 percent. Both women show a mutual admiration and sisterhood as they campaign together with rising crowd enthusiasm. For Michelle her unprecedented effort as First Lady is a result of the dirty campaign fought by Donald Trump to turn off voters to the political process, and her effort is meant to counter this. She says about this demeaning of women, "Enough is enough." Both women are drawn together with a campaign for a woman as president. And the slogan coined by Michelle has taken off  "When they go low, we go high." It has energized the very African American and millenial voters that have played an effective role in previous Democratic campaigns.

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Strack of DW.com reports on the 2016 CDU convention where Merkel received 89.5% of the vote. Merkel receives applause for the burqa ban, and her denunciation of populist hate sentiment, of Islamism and parallel societies, parallel cultures. The best passages of Merkel's speech says Strack, were about reunification, about how she started in politics from the natural sciences, her start at SPD, then shifting  quickly to the "Democratic Beginning" leading to the CDU. "Head into the open," "that is where freedom is," and says Strack she had the hall listening to a chancellor speaking with emotion when in the past she has been cool and reserved. Parallels to the 1994 campaign of Kohl for a fourth term when enthusiasm came only from "generation" Kohl are being made.

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Nelson Schwartz provides an exceptional indepth account on the changing leadership role of James Gorman at Morgan Stanley. Gorman is from Melbourne, Australia. He studied law before joining Columbia Business School. Consulting with McKinsey was followed with a job at Merrill Lynch. He joined Morgan Stanley in 2006 before the collapse of Merrill. Compared to his predecessor John Mack in the CEO role, James Gorman is a quiet type who prefers to stay out of the limelight.

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The Obama administration's $38.6 billon loan program using Stimulus funds was intended to create 65,000 jobs. Two years into this program, with half the money disbursed, the program has created a mere 3,545 new permanent jobs according to Energy Department figures. The Energy Department claims its $5.9 billion loan guarantees to Ford Motor Company to produce energy efficient vehicles by upgrading plants in 5 states saved 33,000 jobs. Brookings Institution analyst, Mark Muro, says the administration appears to be counting all the workers at these plants and not the jobs saved. 33,000 is close to half the Ford hourly and salaried U.S. employees. Harvard Business School professor, Josh Lerner, says there is a tendency to do a lot of fuzzy math in these figures. Muro points to the need to set large expectations for short term political calculations. The Energy Department's own figures show 20 "green tech"companies won loans so far under this project by negotiating with the Energy Department. If these companies hire the people they agreed to they would hire 8,050 new permanent workers. Only 10 of these companies have created or saved jobs so far. Of the other 10 some won loan approval only recently. The whole process is time consuming. Even if the Energy Department were to create the 60,000 jobs under the revised estimate, each job saved or created would come at a cost of 640,000 dollars in loan guarantees. Using the figure of $19.3 billion disbursed 2 years into this program (half of the $38.6 billion) and 8,050 jobs created, would give a cost of $2.4 million in loan guarantees for each job created- an astoundingly high figure. Other factors to consider are the additional jobs created downstream by suppliers to these companies as the administration states, and the cost of loans if as in the case of Solyndra a company goes bankrupt. Solyndra received a loan of over $500 million and represents 3% of loan guarantees. The administration and Congress assumed a failure rate of 5-10% for this program. ...

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China's GDP growth of 8.7% for 2009 is based on private sector investment in housing and infrastructure spending through the stimulus funds. Now with a asset price bubble developing from excesssive lending in 2009 the government is trying to slow bank lending. Experts see a situation similiar to Japan, as an asset price developed there in the 1980's after rapid industrialization. Even though China will still be a developing country after this phase of growth. Property prices are going up by 20% a year in the major cities. And with it making housing unaffordable for most people except the top 20% of the people who comprise about 120 million. This raises issues of equitable growth for Beijing. Much of the rest of the country is being left behind when it comes to housing and in other areas like health care.

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Lt. Gen John Allen will succeed Gen Petraeus in leading the war effort in Afghanistan. Allen was the deputy commander in Anbar province, Iraq, from 2006-2008. He backed Colonel Sean MacFarland's efforts to get Sunni tribal leaders to join the U.S. against Al Quaeda militants- which came to be called the Sunni Awakening. Allen is close to Gen. Petraeus and has the skills and diplomacy that Petraeus is known for. He is described as someone who understands that the war in Afghanistan involves policy, politics, perceptions and diplomacy.

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McDonald's is seeing declining sales in the U.S. The percentage of people in the U.S. going to McDonald's declined by 12.9% in the 19-21 age group and was flat for the 22-37 years age group, according to Technomic. Younger Americans especially are seeking out healthier alternatives with emphasis on fresh food. Another competing trend is fast casual restuarants such as Panera Bread. Fast casual restaurants increased from 9000 to 21000 in the last 10 years, while McDonalds has remained at 14,000. Chipotle started in 1993 and now has 1600 locations. Five Guys has 1000 locations. Consumer Reports surveyed 32,000 subscribers and rated McDonalds as the last in taste of 20 burger chains. Consumer Reports gave as a reason millenials and younger consumers who will try hard to get the right food. Problems in Russia about sanitary conditions and declining sales in China after the government accusations about a key supplier using expired meat also add to problems. Increasing concern about healthcare and obesity also add to the search for alternatives and careful selection of meals, especially among younger educated buyers....

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Under new CEO, Georges Plassat, Carrefour focusses more on Europe and reduces expansion in emerging markets. As part of this strategy Carrefour buys 127 malls in which it operates stores and forms a separate propoerty company in which it owns 42%. This reverses the decision in 2001 to sell 150 malls partly to finance the push into China, Brazil and Argentina and other European countries. The prior CEO, Lars Olofsson, increased emphasis on hypermarket stores and expanded presence in emerging markets. Carrefour share price took a 60% drop in 2010-2012 and is gradually recovering. Plassat's strategy is to go back to focus on Europe and withdraw from poorly performing places such as Greece, Portugal, Indonesia and Columbia.

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The boost to India's stock markets from a expected election win by Narendra Modi and the BJP party in May 2014 elections.

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The collapse of the will of people around Yanukovych, including a deputy interior minister, as fighting units moved with weapons taken from an armory in Lviv towards Kiev, may have been the decisive event that decided the fate of the Yakunovych government. The deputy interior minister then negotiated with a protest leader Levus realizing that other than the front line of police the rest of the police were ready to abandon the fight. Levus then negotiated a safe corridor for the police to withdraw. As the Polish diplomat Sikorski came out to the square he found to his complete astonishment the police simply disappearing from the Square in Kiev. Hours earlier he had warned protesters that a crackdown was coming and they would all be wiped out, according to a report in the WSJ by Benoit, Norman and Fidler, 2/22/2014, so that they should accept a deal which would set a date for new elections but not lead to the immediate resignation of Yakunovych. That deal it also appears came after a Putin call to Yakunovych and not simply from diplomatic pressures, and it is probable that Putin had realized earlier than the diplomats that most of the police were not going to fight. Bringing in the army would have had dangerous consequences for relations between Germany and Russia in particular- as German public and chancellor Merkel felt strongly about the situation in Ukraine- and relations with the European Union and the U.S. Putin, Yakunovych, and even the EU diplomats may have missed the depth of feeling in Ukraine and the organization of the protest movement. Germany and chancellor Merkel, with her determination to make things come out right in Europe after a flawed history, gave hope to the protest movement. ...

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Apple provides about 40% of Taiwanese company Pegatron revenues. Starting with older iPhone models, the company now supplies the new model iPhone 5C. Revenue in the 4th quarter 2013 for iPhones and tablets increased 20%, as sales from televisions and PC's declined. Operating margins increased slightly to 1.9% in the 4th quarter 2014 from the prior year quarter 1.6%.

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A 2000 square foot space used as a bike shop in San Francisco now rents for $117 per square foot, as Silicon Valley companies look for space in the city. Google and other companies are attracted to the talent pool in the city.

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Of the $787 billion stimulus program only $46 billion has gone out so far, mostly to help with unemployment checks and for Medicaid, and only $33 million has gone out for transportation projects.