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Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou told corporate employees that Hon Hai plans to increase the number of robotic arms in its manufacturing plants from 10,000 to one million by 2013. He says the move will "improve working conditions and provide a better career path to employees." The improvement of working conditions is a major concern after a number of suicides. The plans to automate dangerous and monotonous tasks is intended to migrate workers to other work. Hon Hai has about 1 million employees in China. It is moving plants to the less costly interor of China where wages are lower- to Chengdu, Wuhan and Zhengzhou from the coastal areas.

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Feeding America, a national network of food banks, finds that 37 million, or 1 in 8 Americans, needed emergency food assistance in 2009. Even in affluent suburbs like Long Island it found 280,000 sought assistance for food in 2009. And 39% of these were children under 18. Only 30% of those seeking help received food stamps suggesting that even that program is not reaching everyone that needs help.

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Uki Goni writes from Buenos Aires, Argentina, describing the chaos and poverty of the years 2001-2003 following Argentina's default on its debt. At one point half of the population was below the poverty line. Argentina eventually recovered in 2004 under a new government of Nestor Kirchner, but had already incurred a terrible cost. This was especially hard on the lower middle class who had only their savings to live on and could not access their accounts at banks which were closed. Barter stores were common in those days as the barter currency gained wide usage for exchange of services. It is not clear whether this was due to badly implemented economic policy or defaulting on the debt. Goni says Greeks should seriously consider the cost of such a steep decline in the economy as they consider exit from the eurozone, and carefully evaluate the policies of Syriza politicians who risk a break with the EU.

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Argentina's Kirchner government pressures soy farmers in the Pergamino region, north of Buenos Aires, to increase soy bean exports after a bumper crop. This is intended to maintain Argentina's international reserves of $29.5 billion in May 2014. Soy bean exports are likely to bring in an estimated $29 billion in 2014, making up about one third of exports.

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President Biden's cyber security strategy recognizes that "too much of the responsibility for cybersecurity has fallen on individual users and small organizations." The strategy signed by president Biden took months to develop with involvement of 20 government agencies. The cyber security strategy says that free markets and a reliance on voluntary security frameworks have imposed "inadequate costs" on companies that offer insecure products and services. The 35 page strategy report says that "we must shift the liability to those entities that do not take reasonable precautions." Kemba Walden, acting cybersecurity strategy director, says that "software companies can and should shoulder a bigger share of the cyber risk." President Biden sees this as an effort that will draw support from Republicans in Congress.  Modernizing federal government technology, forging international partnerships for cyber norms, more collaboration with the private sector, and international collaboration are other priorities listed in the strategy report. ...

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Venezuela faces an uncertain future after U.S. efforts to support Mr. Guaido and call for new free and fair elections have failed. With help from Russia the Venezuelan economy is showing signs of recovery from the steep decline and high inflation in 2019. Oil production is expected to reach 1 million barrels a day in 2020 after falling to 650,000- 700,000 barrels a day in 2019. Russia's oil company Rosneft provides critical help for Venezuelan oil sales and maintenance in oil fields.  National Security Adviser John Bolton is faulted for his advice to president Trump on Venezuela, that merely voicing support for 36 year old Guaido, would lead to regime change without action from the U.S. With the recovery in Venezuela with help from Russia and Cuba, Mr. Guaido's popularity has dropped by 20 points to 38%, according to a Venezuelan pollster Datanalisis. Most Cubans and Venezuelans in the U.S. are in Florida where there is support for new elections, and Mr. Trump continues to support Mr. Guaido. The lack of support for change from other countries including Europe, India, Turkey, and Mexico have led to a stalled situation in Venezuela. There is concern for the steep inflation, the migration of about 4.5 million Venezuelans, the shortages of critical supplies as a result of the economic collapse in 2019. The situation is stabilizing for the government yet the future of Venezuela with U.S. sanctions and weak economy leaves Venezuela in a precarious situation. Venezuela continues to be an example of how well meaning changes for social justice can lead to political changes that bring about economic collapse. This happens  when business and the economy flounder under mismanagement and corruption under crony socialism, a variant of crony capitalism. The old capitalist class and the privileged families who ran the country under its old two party system are gone. Replaced with a new class. The trying out of untested economic ideas in the quest for social balance leads to economic mismanagement, loss of critical human resources which leave the country, and a higher degree of poverty with shortages than before.  Today in Latin America Brazil shows how allowing generous pension benefits at the expense of basic needs and public services in the budget can hurt the economy. Argentina's overborrowing once again shows how this leads to IMF loans and harsh economic austerity. Chile shows how not financing pensions and public services can lead to collapse of public confidence and riots. Venezuela shows how the quest for social justice and reducing privilege can itself get flawed, leading to mass migration of as many as 4.5 million citizens. This happens under models that vary from free enterprise models to socialist or nationalist models showing that models can be less relevant than good sense and good management. In the beginning and for some time each of these models worked well, commodity price supported booms concealed real problems. Avoiding extremes, prudent spending, good investment and hard work, investment in education and infrastructure, building consensus, and good management, is critical for the future to avoid the bad outcomes facing much of Latin America. A lesson also for Asian and African countries that basic virtue is more important than socialism or free enterprise or nationalism when it comes to development.   ...

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What is Antifa. during the protests this term keeps coming up, yet no one is really sure what it is.  It started in Germany in the 1920's and basically means anti-fascist or in German antifaschistisch. Most Germany parties from the SPD, CDU and the Greens to other parties accept this as a point of view considering Germany's Nazi past.  Yet DW.com asks is it only referring to all those opposed to fascism in Germany or to black clad anarchists and leftists facing police on German streets. The last such confrontation with police happened in Germany in Hamburg during the 2017 G20 summit. A famous scene from that time is pictured in DW.com. There the meaning becomes complex as the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) adopted the phrase and the disinctinve two flag logo for the 1932 election campaign, in Weimar Germany's last free election, which the Nazis could not win fully but with the left parties split emerged as winner. After the formation of the GDR, the German Democratic Republic in East Germany, the interwar KPD party veterans like Walter Ulbricht came to power in GDR. GDR became part of the Soviet bloc countries during the Cold War and used antifascist in a way that was synonymous with anticapitalism. This same movement then langusihed in the Germany of the early post war years under Cologne's former mayor, Korad Adenauer. In the 1970's and 1980's the left movement revived in Hamburg and Berlin, coalescing with a antinuclear movement and widespread protests against president Reagan's stationing of nuclear missiles on German soil aimed at the Soviet Union bloc. After the reunification the protests against coal, for climate change action, and for anti-globalization. There is even an overlap with anti-Zionism. Germany's internal intelligence agency says the antifa movement is the "main field of agitation" for autonomous leftist groups, with some groups supporting "militant actions." Yet when there are broad uncontroversial protests there can be people from all walks of life, not just the anarchist or far left groups.  So that the protests in the U.S. were met with comments of antifa - Saskia Esken of the SPD saying "58 and atifa. Obviously." To which the General Secretary of the CDU said "Against fascism, and for democracy and human rights. Without violence. Obviously, for me. It's sad that the chairwoman of the SPD lacks the strength to differentiate."  To which Esken says it is only a point of view that antifa refers to, not some action. To which the the youth organization of the Angela Merkel CDU/CSU alliance the Junge Union (founded 1947) replied: " 73 and appalled" getting the final word.  Search for a dictionary and you are left with no clear meaning either. DW.com says Germany's duden dictionary only says antifa refers to the " entirety of the movements and ideologies, which oppose fascism and national socialism."    ...

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As the deadline of July 22 approaches for the 160,000 members of the UK Conservative Party to elect a leader, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and the current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt are running for the leadership position. Boris Johnson has 68% member support with Hunt at 23%, according to YouGov survey. Both candidates are in favor of Britain leaving the European Union without an agreement. Hunt has stated he would cancel leave for Britain's 16,000 civil servants in August to prepare for the departure of Britain from the EU by October 31.  Only 27% of Conservative Party members believe Mr. Hunt can do the preparation needed for an abrupt exit after 45 years of economic integration with the European Union. By contrast 90% of members think Johnson would do the preparation needed. Preparation is needed because of food and medical supplies trucks and in flights awaiting customs at border points. The result could be chaotic without adequate preparation. Under a Johnson government many ministers would leave the government including Mr. Hammond who runs the finance ministry. He is expected to join rebel ranks in the Conservative Party that does not think an abrupt exit like this is good for Britain. If these members in the House of Commons join Labour party members they could vote to block this from happening. Britain's opposition Labour Party led by Jeremy Corbyn has finally decided to call for a second referendum if Johnson pushes to leave the EU abruptly, and to campaign wholeheartedly this time for staying inside the EU. During the last referendum Labour leaders did not push hard for Remain, and David Cameron as prime minister and head of the Conservatives proved to be a weak and ineffective leader using the promise of a referendum as a ploy to win votes for the Conservatives in an earlier election and then finding himself stuck with promises made in the election with his party's right wing led by Johnson. Years of austerity policies promoted by Germany in the EU after a flawed entry of southern European countries with faulty not transparent finances such as Greece too early  into the eurozone had soured Britons on the EU. The friendly migration policies of German leader Merkel for economic as well as war torn country migrants from North Africa finally not just soured Germans on Merkel policies but also soured British working class families struggling to make ends meet and seeing migration as taking British resources that were needed at home. This has split most of Europe including Britain along lines of the major cities and the rural areas plus smaller towns, and in Eastern Europe, East Germany region along the lines of the old Soviet bloc countries which with deeply conservative thinking do not favor such migration policies. These divisive changes have taken place over along period of decades and will take time to heal through economic recovery and a fairer distribution of wealth, better investment in infrastructure, health, education, public services, neglected during the Tech driven flawed investment diversion of economic resources. Yet the hope of this type of change if grasped by Britons as well as Europeans could bring new life and revive the vision of a Europe with shared benefits for all Europeans, not just a French-German project. For this to happen new leaders have to rise to the challenge inside Britain and the rest of Europe.      ...

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Tyler Cowan says slower growth in India is a troubling sign in 2012, and as significant if not more than the eurozone crisis. A less mentioned and major problem is the low productivity in agriculture, and he points to Japan, Taiwan, and S. Korea where major increases in agricultural productivity preceded successful industrialization. With growing population and continued growth India will be one of the largest economies in the world. The other major problem is shortages of energy supplies and the inability of state owned company, Coal India, to upgrade technology and increase output.

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Peggy Noonan describes the Trump candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. She points out that this is a result of the public discontent and dissatisfaction with politicians, and government, which is seen as not able to get things done. She talks to one Tennessee woman in her 60's who describes in detail why she supports Trump. Trump has touched a chord with many voters because of how little they trust politicians in general, Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian, or some other type. As with the UK Independence Party this type of leader taps into resentment of illegal immigrants. In France, Spain, UK and other parts of Europe fringe parties are drawing increasing support because voters have lost faith in existing mainstream parties. In the U.S. this takes the form of discontent expressed through a fringe candidate within a mainstream party itself. Voters put up with inconsistent positions, extravagant claims and charges, just to have an alternative. And Noonan points out that this is not going away anytime soon. As 2016 comes closer the UK election offers some insights- it was thought initially that UKIP would split the Conservative vote, but the elections showed UKIP splitting the Labor vote in the north of England. Voters distrusted mainstream politicians, in the final result they distrusted Labor politicians more. ...

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The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, Germany, ruled in an appeal of a lower court decision, that German cities Stuttgart and Dusseldorf could ban diesel vehicles from urban traffic to reduce air pollution. Diesel vehicle technology of German manufacturers took a hit with the VW emissions cheating scandal. This ruling now puts pressure on the next German government to force car makers to take on estimated 8 billion euros in costs to refit older diesel vehicles to reduce pollution. Another option for government is to push this cost onto taxpayers, not a popular move. A longer term trend is also underway now that diesel fumes are seen as being more damaging to health than previously thought. Cars made up half of cars sold in Europe before the 2015 VW diesel emissions scandal when VW misrepresented the real amount of emissions taking place. This has dropped now to 44%, and is now more concentrated in delivery vehicles, craftsmen vehicles, according to analysts. This is expected to drop to 20% by 2025. The Leipzig ruling accelerates the decline of the diesel engine in Europe. As the Leipzig ruling is at the federal level the Environmental Action Germany which setup the lawsuit says the first diesel bans could go into effect in 3-6 months.    ...

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Android founder Andy Rubin started Android in 2003, which struggled because of a lack of funding. Rubin had developed a phone called the Sidekick in an earlier venture, which had attracted the attention of Mr Page and Mr Brin. Google acquired Android, at the time just Rubin and a couple of employees, and started a secret project in 2005-2007. The project was to create a modern operating system for smartphones that would make it possible to have powerful internet applications. Google planned to give it free and make money on online ads that would come up on the phones. Microsoft made device makers pay fees for using its mobile operating system. By the middle of 2007 Rubin had 100 engineers working in the unit. By late 2007 Google had setup a consortium for an "open handset alliance" with 30 handset makers, including Samsung, Motorola, and LG, with the goal of building the new Android powered smartphones. In the fall of 2008 the first Android phone the G1 was introduced. Progress on the phone led to Verizon Wireless and Motorola working with Google for introducing the Droid Android powered smartphone in 2009. In 2010 Google made a failed effort to sell a Google branded HTC Nexus One smartphone direct to buyers. This was followed by the acquisition of Motorola Mobility by Google for $12.5 billion in 2011....

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Ben Rooney of the Wall Street Journal interviews Mike Lynch of Autonomy. He tells Rooney that the main reason he sold his company to H-P was that H-P had no legacy database business, and this made it possible for H-P to take a new look at how to make data human friendly and to do new things with data that haven't been done before. He describes this as the 85% of what data is about that none of the legacy database companies have shown interest in doing. H-P's size means that it can bring more resources to this effort. He calls this an alignment of values that was the main attraction of H-P to Autonomy. The canny Lynch also says H-P's price, an 80% premium over the share price, was not a blow-out or over-paying by H-P. The London listed technology firms are about 25% undervalued. The acquisition by H-P of Vertica, an advanced database company, also converged in the same direction, says Lynch. And the potential for H-P is to use these resources as a major advatage in developing new products. On the UK technology scene, Lynch says the access to high quality graduates from Cambridge, Imperial, Herriot Watt, and Warwick is an advantage. He worries more about problems lower down with standards of math failing in high schools. ...

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H-P alleges that Autonomy Inc. misrepresented its revenue before its acquisition for $11.1 billion in Oct. 2011. H-P made a surprise announcement Nov. 20, 2012, about a $9 billion charge it is taking for the Autonomy acquisition. Mike Lynch, founder of Autonomy Inc. says he cannot see how 300 people doing due diligence and Deloitte doing its accounting could have missed such a big elephant. Lynch tells the WSJ that he has not been contacted about this by the Serious Fraud Office. The Autonomy Inc. acquisition is unusual because it reflects a period of high CEO turnover at H-P with the hiring of former SAP CEO Apotheker to run the company, following the resignation of CEO Mark Hurd for relations with a female employee. Apotheker made the highly criticized decision to shift H-P away from its main business of PC's and into software. The Autonomy acqusition was the first step and it was widely observed that he had overpaid for the acquisition. A few months later Apotheker was fired by the H-P Board, with the Board itself coming under severe criticism. Lynch says most of the best Autonomy employees in the company he founded over ten years ago had left the company because of culture conflicts with H-P managers. This had already resulted in destruction of much of the intellectual value of the company....

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Overall consumer prices were up 4.4% higher in October 2010, than a year earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Most of the increase in prices was concentrated on food and energy. China is taking action to limit price increases. During previous rise in inflation in 2004 and 2005, the government has resorted to detailed price controls. China's cabinet of ministers, the State Council, has issued orders that local governments and other government entities provide temporary subsidies to help the needy cope with rising prices and to increase allowances for needy students. Chia fears social unrest if prices go much above 5%. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN warns that food prices have gone up by 10% in the poorer countries. According to economists, China is effectively printing its currency renminbi to buy $1 billon a day worth of dollars to keep the renminbi weak, so that its exporters retain an advantage in overseas markets. The central bank takes away some of this renminbi but not all from the system, by selling bonds to state owned banks and increasing the amount of reserves required at the central bank. To keep the renminbi from rising, China's central bank buys up the investment dollars that are coming into the country, as well as dollars coming into the country from the trade surplus....

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Osam Bin Laden is killed in a U.S. special forces attack on a compound 40 miles from Islamabad. The area known as Abbottabad is also the location of a Pakistani military academy. One Pakistani helicopter and 2 American helicopters were involved in the attack. Experts say this changes the dynamic of the war, with the U.S. keen on a disengagement in Afghanistan, and Pakistani concerns about the expanded U.S. footprint in the Pakistan-Afghanistan region working in the same direction. This also comes at a time when the Middle East is no longer what it looked like a decade ago. Democracy protests have changed the way ordinary Arabs look at the world. In recent months Pakistan's relationship with the U.S. has grown tense. Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that top civilian and military leaders of Pakistan met with the Afghan government leaders in Kabul recently. At the meeting Pakistan's leaders suggested that it would be better for Afghanistan to move closer to Pakistan and China, and distance itself from the U.S. The Pakistani leadership must be aware of domestic politics in the U.S., the changes in the Arab world, the desire of Americans and the U.S. government to wind down America's military involvement, and decided that the removal of Osama would give give America less reason to continue its military presence....

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There is a sharp decline in investor confidence in Greece as the Syriza Party leads in polls in Dec. 2014, with a 3-6 point lead over New Democracy Party of prime minister Samaras. There was a sharp selloff on the Athens stock exchange and yields on Greece's 10 year government bonds went up to 8.5% by Dec. 11, 2014. The government needs 180 votes for a presidential election vote in parliament. The outcome is uncertain and could lead to early parliamentary elections on Jan 25, 2015, with Syriza a potential winner. Syriza had taken a strong line on Greece's debt in 2012 elections, including a possible debt default. It now says it is willing to renegotiate and maintain relations with IMF, EU and the ECB creditors to Greece. In fact, Syriza leader Tsipras has met with ECB chief Draghi, former ECB official Joerg Asmussen of Germany, and Greece's central bank chief. Syriza has changed its party promises to reflect its move to the mainstream- such as not offering to hire back workers or make tax relief measures apart from specific ones, only insisting on freezing public sector layoffs and reversing minimum wage cuts. The EU programs for Greece lapse on 28, Feb. 2015, and an EU official say it is important that Syriza agree to a program following that date to reassure financial markets....

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Pete Pyhrr is interviewed by the WSJ's David Kesmodel 40 years after his zero based budgeting method became popular in the Carter administration. Pyhrr developed the method as a controller at Texas Instruments in the 1970's, and says it is a great tool in difficult economic times or periods of rapid technological change to make cost reductions. WIth zero based budgeting budget figures are not simply adjusted upwards or downwards from last years numbers, but the budget is developed from scratch to reflect purposes served in the current environment. It brings costs and benefits of each expenditure into focus, so that more profitable projects can be financed over less profitable projects. Pyhrr published "Zero-Based Budgeting: A Practical Management Tool for Evaluating Expenses," in 1977. It was used by President Carter in managing the budget process in the state of Georgia and in the Carter administration, but fell out of favor in the Reagan administration. Pyhrr says he sees the need for using the method in today's budget cost reductions for government agencies to help taxpayers. As with TQC under Deming, which came back to the U.S. following Japan's use of quality control methods developed decades earlier in the U.S., zero based budgeting is coming back to the U.S. through its use by private equity firm 3G Capital Partners of Brazil in its Heinz operation....

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James Stewart of the NYT describes the remarkable turnaround at Best Buy executed by Hubert Joly, a graduate of the French Etudes de Politiques in Paris and former CEO of Swedish hotel and travel company Carlson. He did this by carefully analyzing the areas where Best Buy was falling short and not delivering for customers a winning proposition. Statistics showed Best Buy had fallen behind on price. One survey showed only 23% of respondents found Best Buy prices were lowest, compared to 71% for Wal-Mart, 56% for Amazon, and 38% for Target. That Wal-Mart and Target are able to hold their own- in the case of Target with 38% along with some other advantages of customer targeting- against showrooming and internet retailers such as Amazon, and the 56% for Amazon which showed Amazon was itself not a price leader, gave Jolly insights into the strategy to pursue. Jolly took out costs elsewhere and made Best Buy the place where the shopper would get the lowest price and much more in terms of convenience, service and advice. The strategy has worked but Jolly is not complacent saying that in this business your success is only as good as your last call. Best Buy's stock is up 240% and is one of the best three stocks of 2013....