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Advertising is shifting to basic bread and butter products like Campbell soups, Kraft cheese, Post cereal and down for GM and Ford.

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In 2017 Facebook noticed a drop in user engagement- fewer comments, fewer posts, and less sharing. To address this Facebook made a change in its algorithm, which is a bunch of mathematical equations which determine what you see in the newsfeed. The result says this WSJ Facebook Investigation was to make Facebook an angrier place, a place where divisive comments were being posted, and sensational or exaggerated comments were being shared. This increased the level of divisiveness in the US during the early period of the Trump administration. As America looks back on this time- the issues related to migration across its southern border that are still alive today and on which there is now a consensus across Democrats and Republicans on returning migrants. The issues related to the urban-rural divide that many presidents preceding Trump and Biden had chosen to ignore, and which the Tech community showed little interest in. The divide also across educational lines with college educated splitting away from people lacking college education just as costs of college had soared. All these issues were out in the open and instead of having an educated debate these algorithms never intended for solving social problems actually made them worse.  It is now in the interest of both Republicans and Democrats to take a hard look at what went wrong and restore the civility and dialogue that marked American experience across all ages and income groups, and remove the overstated influence of such algorithm based apps. The WSJ Facebook Investigation is a way to restore the traditional media's true place in the national dialogue and push back against the insidious and dangerous influence of algorithm based news feeds such as this one.  Outrage Algortihms may be good for a few people and a few in tech  business in California and in capital markets in New York, yet they are bad for America and the American people as a whole, bad for the vast landscape of America and the vast majority of the American people. Mindless infatuation with pictures of young adults leads to a mindless and dangerous result in mental health, bad effects on women, illusions about what is right living, and increasing divisiveness in America.  ...

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German industry says a complete shutoff of Russian gas to Germany would be catastrophic. Paul Krugman, an expert on international economics, looks at it in this NYT report. He says estimates show a worst case scenario drop of 2.1% in GDP for Germany to shutoff Russian supplies of energy. This estimate is from ECONtribute a thinktank from the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. This reluctance says Krugman to take the tough decisions such as turning off Russian energy supplies prolongs the war in Ukraine and its painful consequences in food scarcity and inflation all over Africa, Asia and Latin America. By comparison Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal went through severe downturns as a result of debt crises and economies that were mismanaged, with 27% loss of GDP in Greece, says Krugman.  Merkel's government argued for strict austerity policy during the eurozone financial crisis. By comparison says Krugman the shutoff of Russian energy supplies only imposes 2.1% loss in GDP that the German economy could handle.This estimate is also similar to estimates by Bruegel Institute and International Energy Agency, says Krugman. It would also speed up climate change action in Germany and set an example for Europe. German Economy minister Habeck's plan on alternative sources of renewable energy goes part of the way to accomplish this yet more needs to be done to correct the errors of policies from the Merkel administration that allowed German dependence on Russian energy to reach 55%. It is hard to comprehend why the Merkel administration could not be uneasy with something that would give Russia a huge leverage over the German economy and limit its voice in world affairs. It is now left to chancellor Scholz to correct the errors of the Merkel administration and of past members of his party the SPD, such as Mr. Steinmeier and the Schroeder SPD administration that preceded Merkel. Difficult questions have to be shouldered by the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. It is only through the courage shown by Annalena Baerbock of the Greens Party, in laying bare what these German policies were leading to, that Germany is recovering her voice in the world. In his speech to parliament making a U turn from the old policies Scholz credited Annalena Baerbock for the hard work in convincing Germans of the need for action.  ...

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Experiences of individual homeowners the at a bankruptcy lawyer Neil Crane offices in Hamden, Conecticut. Nurses with home improvement projects and creditcard debt, truck driver, manager at a fast food place and so on. Economist, Mark Zandl sees the situation deteriorating because of a self reinforcing downward cycle for some time.

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Honda's policy of hiring from certain counties within a 50 mile distance from its new plant in Greensburg, Indiana, to keep a good distance from closed UAW plants and keep away from new workers who have UAW loyalties. Honda's policy of hiring at wages near the prevailing wage in the region surrounding the plant, and the freedom from the UAW that enables Honda to follow this wage policy. In a very competitive automobile market the gains made by GM in its negotiations are undercut by Honda and Toyota's own efforts to bring its wages more in line with the area where the plant is located, which are generally lower than the higher wages paid in the past.

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Next stop in the crisis on Wal Street Alt-A mortgages, mortgages that are like prime mortgages in credit scores but lack the documentation to be prime. For investors the fact that a large part of these securities have good mortgages has not made much difference because a chunk of them are perceived to be shaky. This is what happened to Thornburg as investors let its shares drop to below $1 a share even though at Thornburg only one half of 1% of borrowers are delinquent with payments. It shows how nervous markets are. And now Alt-A mortgages comprise about $500 billon to $1 trillion of the mortgage market so a lot can happen now in this region.

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The IMF extends $100 billion in loans to countries that have healthy economies but need temporary help, such as S.Korea, Brazil, Mexco and Singapore. Some of these countries have borrowed heavily in other currencies and the drop in the value of their own currencies makes repayment difficult. No strings such as requirements to raise interest rates and to cut public spending are attached to this program. Under this program countries could borrow five times the amount they are normally entitled to, $25 billion in Brazil's case, without the strict conditions that normally accompany such loans. Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz was chief economist at the World Bank. He said the funds use of the words restore confidence itself could make a lot of countries nervous. That is because in the Asian and Latin American crises in the past, the IMF set strict conditions to increase interest rates and cut public spending and food subsidies at a time when the poor especially and the rest of the people, all needed help, thereby increasing public distress. In the developed countries stimulus packages and infrastructure spending goes up to support employment and incomes, but the IMF has advocated quite the reverse in the case of the developing countries, with the US Treasury a key factor in IMF support and ideology. Which is why countries in Asia like South Korea see a stigma attached to the IMF and are refusing IMF help. In Pakistan also the IMF support is a last resort or Plan C. Iceland for instance raised rates in return for IMF help from 6% to 18% to try to stabilize the currency. The IMF was created as part of the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 when the Allied Powers USA and Britain and other countries that sent representatives met in New Hampshire for a postwar economic system. Japan, S. Korea, India and China and many other countries were not part of it because of the war or colonial empires....

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How the work ethic has changed in Japan through the last two decades as the country never really recovered from the low growth and deflationary situation since the early nineties. Places like the Tokyo Metropolitan government a destination for the city's elite say only 14% of eligible employees took the higher level exams for management positionsin 2007, down from 40% three decades ago. And information technology companies and electronics companies and other companies are finding that people are looking to switch jobs to get out of positions that are too demanding. A comic book series called "Otaryman"has become this year's hit. The new salaryman worries about his collleagues files spilling on his desk rather than trying to impress bosses. He is content and not ambitious, something the author 28 year old Yoshitani says "people my age find comforting," Another popular book is titled "Slow Career: Job Survival for People Not Rushing Career Advancement", with chapters like, "Forget goals, just stay true to yourself" and " Not everybody needs to become a leader." Dr Arai who has written about this says this situation has arisen because of the long slump in the nineties and early 2000's when younger workers saw older generations throw themselves at work only to face job and pay cuts in company restructuring. Also in Japan a promotion does not mean a big pay raise, so there isn't any real incentive to put off time witha girlfriend to put in late hours at work, or not have family time with kids to put in these long hours. The wage difference between managerial and rank and filepositions has actually shrunk over the past decade as companies cut compensation amid restructuring. In 2005 division mangers were paid 2.2 times the rank and file worker, down from 2.7 times in 1985. So younger Japanese have figured out that it makes sense to get more free time, and in fact to retain good employees companies are increasing wages without promotions, so that those not looking for bigger workloads can carry on at the company. In this story a office employee Nishikido looks with disapproval on a 31 year old female manager Ms Matsumoto, who leaves her sick baby with her husband at home, so she can be at work. Says 24 year old Nishikido, " thats definitely not the life I want, no way." For the younger generation the thinking goes like this: my job is important but its not what makes me tick. ...

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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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Jair Bolsonaro, a former army officer, is expected to win by a large margin in the runoff election in Brazil against Fernando Haddad of the Brazil Workers Party. Crime, corruption including the Car Wash scandal involving the state oil company and politicians, a deep recession with the fall of commodity prices, have led to a shift in Brazil away from the Workers Party. Polls from Datafolha show about 60% of the vote in runoff going to Bolsanaro. About 30% of supporters say they are voting for something new after the deep recession and failure in providing government services with no money in the budget for adequate spending on infrastructure and services, education and health.  Both the centrist PSDB and the Workers Party that came in following the shift to civilian rule from military dictatorship in the mid-80's failed to win a significant part of the vote. The conservative PSL party only had 5 seats in the outgoing 313 seat house showing the deep dissatisfaction with the existing Congress and politicians in Brazil. Crime is a big issue with 64,000 deaths in Brazil in the last year, with failures in government services, including a failure to tackle a yellow fever epidemic over 2 years, are other issues that have led to the change in the mood of the voters in Brazil. ...

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David Brooks of the NYT says the Republican party is failing when it embraces Trump's version of populism with its racial division, tax plan that favors Republican donors and ignores fiscal conservative concern over deficits that affect future generations, supporting the election of Moore in Alabama, the constant Twitter comments that show prejudice. He says this will have destructive effects that could last an entire generation. This isn't the Republican party he has known for so long, says Brooks. The time is passed says Brooks when sensible republicans could go along in the middle by not agreeing with Trump, yet avoiding the task of opposing the elements of Trump policies that conflict with America's long held ideals shared by both parties. He calls its a corrupt deal that Republican party leaders in the Senate and Congress have agreed to make with Trump thinking that somehow this will all work out for them even if it doesn't for the party. Selling one's soul is somehow not an option that people would take in their right mid, so he wonders aloud what is happening in the party- and calls it a rot besetting the party of Lincoln, TR and Eisenhower that won't get it to any good place.   ...

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The figures are huge and it takes the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to do something however small in Japan about smoking. Now the half million vending machines that dispense cigarettes to some 26 million Japanese smokers can only dispense to adults because users have to have a special card called Taspo or tobacco passport that they insert into the vending machine. This will shift sales to convenience stores like the Lawson's chain. In Japan 29.2% of all adults and probably an even higher percentage of men smoke according to OECD data. In the US its about 17%. Like obesity and poor eating habits and the availability of fast food in the USA, smoking in Japan remains largely untouched by any efforts to educate young people and the public about the great dangers, with companies largely uninterested and the government and schools and universities largely apathetic about what are really huge health concerns that reverberate in so many ways across the fabric of society. For example a obese person consumes more health care dollars, a smoker also consumes more health care dollars. And health care dollars are scarce dollars and need to be spread out in better ways than wasted on preventable things like obesity and smoking through partnership in education and other measures between all groups and organizations in society and the government. ...

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Progressive caucus in the US House of Representatives led by Pramila Jaypal, a first time Indian American Congresswoman defeats an attempt by Josh Gottheimer of the Problem Solvers caucus to separate much of the president Biden's agenda in health, education and social policy and risk it being defeated by Senators Manchin and Sinema in the US Senate. Without the efforts on child care, education and health, climate change and social services part of the Biden Workers and Families Plan much of the Biden agenda would remain unfinished and Democratic party promises not kept. This also means that Manchin a Senator from West Virginia with a population of 1.8 million and Arizona with a population of 7.2 million, both conservative leaning Democrats could sink the entire agenda of president Biden to support American families and workers for a population of 331 million people. That two states with a population of less than 3% of the American population could sink the entire agenda of president Biden shows how fragile a situation has been created within the Democratic party to support workers and families even during the pandemic following the leadership of Carter, Clinton, and Obama Ms. Jaypal, a three term Congresswoman from Seattle, Washington state, was first elected in 2016 with an endorsement from Bernie Sanders who was the Democratic Party's leading candidate for president till the late stages of the 2020 US presidential primaries. Bernie Sanders says of Jaypal- "I think she is doing an extraordinary job. And I think the Progressive Caucus is doing an extraordinary job." Sanders founded the Progressive caucus after getting elected to the Senate from Vermont 30 years ago. Even though it is hard to imagine the Democratic party being the Democratic party without bold policies in climate change, affordable housing, reducing income disparities,  investing big in childcare, education and healthcare, attempts were being made to sink the entire Democratic party and national agenda going back to Franklin Roosevelt. Jaypal is described in the WSJ as diplomatic and firm, saying "I am so proud of our caucus; I have never seen our caucus so strong. And I am a very good vote counter also." Fifty members of the 100 member Progressive Caucus held firm in support of president Biden's original agenda without which the president would have little to show in keeping promises he made to the American people in the election and little to differentiate him from Mr. Trump who also supported infrastructure spending. Separating the infrastructure bill would have risked sinking Mr. Biden's plan for recovery of America from the pandemic and the devastating policies pursued by American presidents in the last two decades. Policies by previous presidents that have impoverished the country, created huge income disparities, weakened America in the world in trade and technological leadership, and wasted resources in foreign wars. There are no centrists or far left- these are just labels. When Ms Japal said "Let's just remember the Speaker (Nancy Pelosi) is a great champion of this agenda. I think she was trying to do as much as she could to get this done," she could have said it is Mr. Biden's own agenda pushed forward with conviction to help workers and families during the pandemic, and build a solid American recovery, restore American leadership in the world. Pramila Japypal is the first Indian American woman in the US Congress, and one of only two dozen naturalized American citizens in the US Congress. That she could play such a critical role for good in the US Congress shows that with the right convictions, determination, experience, much can be done for the common good in America and the world.   ...

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China has seen novel uses of the internet. Pinduoduo is one of them. It brings people together on the internet to socialize and shop together. Purchases are small compared to Alibaba- $324 a year on average. By  bringing people in large numbers it has brought in about 788 million users in 2020.  One of the attractions is an orchard game where people tend to their digital orchards to earn shopping vouchers and prizes such as boxes of mangoes.The founder Mr. Huang studied computer science at the University of Wisconsin- Madison where he met Chen who now runs the company. Huang's first effort as recently as 2015 was to sell lychees and fruit from their sole warehouse in Shanghai on WeChat platform. This failed when the computer systems of the website could not handle the large number of orders. Lychees then rotted at the warehouse. From that first effort he realized the way social and browsing platforms could work with shopping. To build up large number of buyers who could be served advertising he came up with subsidies to buyers that are financed from the advertising. Money from advertising is put back into the subsidies. The buyers get discount on purchases and the browsing social platform builds large number of users in a short time. In this way it has as many users as Alibaba but purchases are small.  As in these types of startups with huge valuations and fast growth no profits were made in 2020. The loss is $1.1 billion in 2020. It has put $13 billion of the ad revenues into subsidizing the products on the site. Investors have given the company $6 billion for an agriculture program to sell fresh food and produce.  The Chinese government sees the company subsidies as having an effect of distorting the market prices. Regulators have fined the company for its practices. The company's working culture has some aspects that come under criticism with deaths of two employees.  This offers a glimpse of China's internet culture. How much of it is real constructive development of the internet is always a question. Is investor capital productively invested is also a question. Like Japan in the late 1980's few questions are asked by investors about productive uses of capital. As growth slows as it did in Japan by 2000 a lot of these questions are likely to come back.   ...

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The contamination of staple foods such as rice, cabbage, carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes and other staples of the Chinese food, as water and soil remain contaminated after years of spilling toxic chemicals into the environment.

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Competition in the Chinese market between Coca Cola and pepsi is shifting from the traditional carbonated beverages to juices, teas and non-carbonated drinks. Pepsi sells pulp based juiced under the name Tropicana Pulp Sacs, and Coca Cola has Minute Maid Pulpy. The Chinese governmet has discouraged acquisitions, and did not approve Coke's $2.4 billion acquisition of fruit juice manufacturer China Huiyuan Juice Group Ltd. Growth has to be maintained by investing and developing their own products for local tastes and culture. Both Pepsi and Coca Cola plan increased investments in China. Pepsi has 27 plants, five farms, and over 20,000 employees in China and expects to double the number of employees by 2015. Pepsi executives say Pepsi is following a"seed to shelf" approach in China, growing food on farms and developing teas and snacks for local tastes. In China Pepsi has a Lay line of chips with cool-cucumber flavors and Cao Ben le line of drinks based on Yin and Yang, cooling and warming. Pepsi's 13% growth in snack volume and 10% growth in beverage volume for its Asian, Middle East and Africa operations are mainly because of this growth in China and India. By contrast soft drink sales have declined for 5 years in the USA and come under criticism because of high levels of obesity in the USA. Pepsi's strategy is to move further into the interior of China, further west according to Pepsi executives. It plans to invest $2.5 billion in about 12 new food and beverage plants in the interior of China to be built over 3 years. Coke announced a $2 billion investment in late 2009, and is a lead sponsor for the Shanghai Expo. ...

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How inflation is affecting people who thought themselves to be in the middle class like postal workers and teachers and public sector emplyees. Wages are stagnant in many parts of the European economy as inflation picks up and the price of basic necessities like bread and fueling the family car cost more as the year progresses. A study by the German Institute of Economic Research in Berlin finds that the broad middle of the German workforce defined as workers earning 70 to 150% of the median income shrunk to 54% of the population in 2007 from 62% in 2000. Something is clearly going on with wages not keeping up with inflation and it does not look good just as a global slowdown that started in the USA is affecting the rest of the world. In Britain striking teachers closed schools as proposed wage raises of 2.5% were not enough to meet the rising cost of living, with food up 7% and oil up 20% since this time last year. German workers have already staged a series of strikes for a greater share in the increased wealth after years of making concessions and the mood in Germany is that a lot of the senior business people are making too much at the expense of workers who are being asked to sacrifice too much....

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Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University economist, author of the well researched book on the 2008 financial crisis, "This Time Is Different," gives his thoughts on the economic prospects for the U.S under the new Trump administration. He says 4% GDP growth and 3% inflation is possible temporarily for a while with stimulus policies, less regulation, and increased private investment. After 8 years of not investing in much needed infrastructure because of concerns about the deficit, the timing is right for such investments, especially as the economic effects of the crisis of 2008 gradually fade.  This is about taking advantage of ultra low interest rates to invest in infrastructure. He says it helps that Trump policies are pro-business. He sees drawbacks as the stimulus program adds a 25% increase with extra debt, adding $5 trillion over 10 years, but adds that for many years Nobel prize winning economist Krugman and others have said that there is good reason to increase borrowing to invest, and this is now being tried. Inflation remains an uncertainty- if there are large quantities of underutilized and unemployed resources it would raise prices less than its effect to increase output. The reverse would apply if the U.S. economy is closer to full capacity. One factor that would help- increasing confidence for business and increasing investment. Against this what he calls optimistic view or spin, is the idea of mistakes under a Trump administration, errors made and a degree of incompetence which he says is a real possibility. Overall his view is that some risks are appropriate now, and from his deep study of financial crises sees the slow growth of the last 8 years a result of a financial crisis that now begins to fade, creating the possibility of higher growth under prudent policies.  ...

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Fact check looks at the facts and what candidates claimed happened. Jeb Bush is right says fact check about the casinos Trump tried to get started in Florida. Fiorina overstates what she accomplished at H-P. Kasich is largely right about fixing the finances in Ohio. Trump is wrong about the U.S. being the only country with birthright citizenship- there are 30 countries according to The Center for Immigration Studies. Trump throws the number out of $200 billion, as what it is costing the U.S. for illegal immigrants. An estimate by The Federation for American Immigration Reform put this at $113 billion a year in welfare programs. From this one has to deduct what illegal immigrants pay in payroll taxes to get a good estimate. Trump says he never went bankrupt, he means not him personally- his companies have filed for bankruptcy Chapter 11 protection. Considering how many times Trump has misstated, it would be useful if the network broadcasting the debate would have an independent company do the fact check at the same time as the misstatements are thrown around, and show this on the bottom of the screen or during the advertising breaks, because it is very important to viewers to get the right information. In our opinionated partisan environment it is important to let candidates know that they cannot get away with it by misstating facts, over and over again....

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Louis Uchitelle talks to Stanley Moses, an economist at Hunter College in New York, and others, to find out if things will work out as expected with the $700 billion or $800 billion that Obama plans to invest in infrastructure, energy, and other things to generate the 3 million jobs and investment. Will this generate private investment like the Interstate Highway program which ocurred during the Eisenhower days and set the economy on fast growth, or will it generate enthusiasm and jobs for a few years, and just as Roosevelt backed off in 1937 to let private investment pick up he found that it was still too weak to make a difference. The point that he hears from some experts like Moses is that the current times are setting up for a deep downturn, so that is not reminscent of the Eisenhower years when the economy was getting on the growth track after the war years. Its not exactly like the Roosevelt years either, because of the many changes that have ocurred in a modern economy, but in terms of the mood, the collapsing investment, consumer spending and credit and the collapsing growth in emerging markets which hits exports, this is a situation that is not easily reversed with a few years of aggressive government spending. Things have to change in the public's mood and in private industry's initiative to invest that would return the economy to a growth pattern, and this may be a long time coming with so much deterioration happening at the same time....

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After the huge crisis the debate about capitalism. What went wrong, and importantly what did not go wrong. Not in the sense of more punditry to place the blame but to ask questions to have a better grasp of the fact and better understanding of the twists and turns of the last decade, the complexities, the frailties, the errors of judgement, and the failings, and the outright falsehoods and ethical breaks. So that the good things are not lost for instance the individual initiative and the bad things are corrected and measures put in place to prevent recurrence and minimize damage. Has the model of anglo-saxon capitalism failed? Actually some specific things failed, deregulation at a time when banks and markets were behaving irresponsibly and without any restraint internal or external, credit ratings agencies failed, financial institutions failed in performing their first line of business which is to finance investment in the economy not in housing and mortgages, and American consumerism failed in that value of saving disappeared and abundance of debt brought American savings to zero, leaving little for investment in the economy and infrastructure except by borrowing from other countries. And living on illusions and not on sound basics the leadership failed thinking that free enterprise and technology and productivity improvements somehow allowed a country or group of countries to live way beyond their means, and a tendency to excess in the popular mood of the country, excesssive consumption, excessive and profligate use of energy which sent trillions of dollars overseas over decades, and excessive expectations of the lower classes for housing and goods beyond their means, all played a part. What did not fail is the freedom to trade, the fall of "barriers to intercourse" between nations, that produced gains on a big scale so that computer and cell phone technology developed in one part of the world quickly spread around the world and the innovations and technology developed in one country spread producing benefits all over the world. It created amood of optimism in developing countries whose incomes rose especially where countries encouraged growth as in China, India, Russia, Brazil, Eastern Europe and pulled hundreds of millons out of poverty. With China, America and Germany in effect shipped technology goods in return for lower value added goods like textiles and shoes, to help China industrialize, and American consumption played a useful part until things reached an extreme and the system was abused by forgetting the basics and allowing excesses and failing to respect ethical responsibilities. Regarding regulation excessive regulation and red tape has proved to be bad as in the license Raj in India which stifled private initiative and new enterprise till it was abandoned in 1990, and no one in India is calling for more regulation. What is bad is to abandon good common sense and to rely on the illusion that no regulation is needed to run a complex financial system like we have today, a laissez fairre libertarian philosophy that was rampant in the Bush administration and in the country's leadership in the Bush years. As a result an underfunded SEC failed to deliver on its basic mission and responsibility, and the lack of a centralized regulatory authority with powers and funding to meet the challenges of modern finance as for instance ineffective derivative regulation under the CFTC, simply aggravated things further. ...

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The US needs good manufacturing jobs for the jobs and income that it brings into communities, and also because of the tax revenues from the companies making products in America that provide the basis for local governments to provide good public services in healthcare, education, and transportation. To say comparitive advantage that helped first Japanese and now Chinese manufacturers is real and how society gains is to deny some basic facts that are self evident from observation that contradict textbook ideas in economics. Comparitive Advantage is a textbook economics concept that says countries are proficient in what they make best and should specialize in that product. But it is a static concept that exists only in textbooks. If Japan in 1960, China in 1980 and India in 2000 were each presented with this idea they would have turned down the idea of making steel and remained makers of lower end products such as footwear and textiles. If Japan in 1980, China in 2000, and India in 2020 were each presented with this idea they would have turned down the idea of making semiconductors and remained makers of lower end products such as steel. A senior vice president of US Steel in the late 1960's even told this writer a graduate student at Northwestern in Chicago- as the US can make steel better than India or China let us keep making it for you. He and much of the business faculty at Northwestern also could not understand in 1970 why Airbus was being setup to compete with Boeing who by the concept of comparitive advantage should have had the whole market to itself for commercial aircraft . By this kind of thinking Airbus would not exist today because it did not have the lowest cost or the manufacturing technologies Boeing had through its vast manufacturing operation. America would be still the only one making aircraft in 2023 if textbook concepts ruled the day. By indirect methods such as hidden preferential arrangements, provision of inputs such as land, capital and labor, tax relief, the costs can be represented in a way that shows it is cheaper to manufacture overseas. The lack of a level playing field is what president Biden is correcting by doing what first Japan, then South Korea, then China and now India are doing since the 1960's. By 1974 in four years after its founding in 1970 Airbus came up with its first model the A-300 using advanced technologies. America will regain its leadership in the cost and manufacturing of many products through Biden policy and the efforts of American companies by 2030, and do this in a transformative way that will benefit the world as a whole.  It is an enormous error to say the US does not need good manufacturing jobs, that local governments do not need the tax revenues from manufacturing plants to build services for communities where manufacturing workers live, and the US does not need the manufacturing experience curve that leads to reduced costs. It is this loss of the manufacturing experience curve that is the most vital aspect for understanding the need for the US government to compete effectively with the governments of Asian countries to keep manufacturing healthy and strong at home. Economics experts ignorant of how important this science and engineering principle is fail to grasp this. Related to this is the idea of a virtuous cycle in manufacturing- whoever braves the hard years of moving up the learning and experience curve gets rewarded because once that country has mastered that skill it gets better an better as the technology advances- making it harder and harder to prevent a new monopoly in manufacturing by the country (Japan, China or Taiwan) that had the highest costs and the least advantage ten or 20 years earlier but just persevered through it all with the government's help to gain cost competitiveness. This part does not make it into the economics textbooks which are mostly theory and much of it outdated by the time they are written. Observation is the best teacher and guide as it is in science, to guide policy and action. Obsessive attachment to theory that ignores observation becomes the enemy of progress. Comparitive advantage is one concept that needs to be retired even from the textbooks. Overseas manufacturing then is a piece of the overall picture that fits into what is good for the US. Macroeconomic principles determine microeconomic outcomes as opposed to microeconomic principles with companies out on their own being forced to compete without a level playing field, or handing out technology for special status in a recipient country as some do putting the US at a macroeconomic disadvantage. This is also healthy for the recipient country overseas, as recrimination with loss of manufacturing jobs in the US inevitably leads to the kind of recrimination that does not serve either country well as in the case of China today, and worse still can lead to conflict, even war. After the egregious situation of loss of manufacturing communities across the US leading to destabilizing the social fabric, it is hard to see such thinking prevail about the US not needing manufacturing as a vital part of its social fabric and industrial strength. China, it can be said, would have developed, and developed well over the past two decades without overconcentration of US and EU manufacturing in China. Without aggravating the problems of climate change and contamination of air, land and water, and destabilizing the social fabric in the US hurting workers and communities across the US, if macroeconomic policy was made to manage this process in the US government without it being left entirely to individual companies to decide. Instead China faces today a difficult situation through events such as destabilizing the social fabric in the US (the Trump tariffs), advanced economies in G-7 resistance to sharing of technologies, the damage to its environment from microeconomic locally determined policy at individual companies, and the global effects of climate change from climate unsustainable levels of growth since 2000.  ...

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Carlos Tavares runs Stellantis the company that combined the operations of France's Peugeot, Italy's Fiat and America's Chrysler right out of his living room in his Lisbon, Portugal home one week every month. He is a believer in the advantages of hybrid work model and says most of the 75,000 workers at the company can work remotely most of the time.The quality time that is generated in this new work model that allows life balance and getting fresh air walks outside is needed when you consider that auto companies such as his are embracing world of electric cars- Stellantis will have 75 models of electric cars by 2030 In this interview with the WSJ shown here he says the fact that one is giving back high quality time that otherwise goes to commuting means you get more time during the day. Carlos Tavares says remote work is an opportunity to recreate a better life balance. He doesn't see any risk in it at all. He sees how hard people are working, harder than they did before, and says giving back one half hour or two hours of quality time actually helps the process of getting good work. Look he says after a long day of remote work people need that time to go out and have a walk for an hour just to refresh one's mind, because the work was so intense. Tavares asks why shouldn't we trust each other? He believes it is the only way to go. Asked about his own work routine for remote work.He says it is the Portuguese routine of  7 am to 4 pm or 5 pm and then an hour out for a walk. He has a small desk in his living room, and he is sitting there with his iPad, grandkids are going by but nobody sees them. Does he miss the face to face contact? He does says Tavares. He still sees other employees as he does go to the office. What about mentoring for junior  employees? This does not have to be five days a week, you may want coaching one day a week, what you don't want is someone on your back five days a week. For Tavares it is all about the quality of time that is used. On company culture the much abused word Tavares makes some good points. If you say this is the culture and hand it to somebody then how do you get that creative mind to exercize his own judgement, how do you get diversity of thinking. Tavares is forthright and honest here- he says if I give you a culture and put you in that box I will get it wrong, and by killing the valuable diversity of thinking I will make it counterproductive. Actually with French, Italian and American operations under one roof and employees of 170 nationalities there is a value in appreciating the value each employee can bring. Practices at Stellantis- Tavares says if you want your people to be in game shape or in great shape mentally don't call them or email them on weekends, so that they can use the weekend to recharge themselves. He even apologizes for calling on a weekend. Or if you email your people tell them to not respond till Monday. ...