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J.P. Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, and his relationship with the Democratic Party and President Obama. Dimon was a strong backer of Obama during the early part of his first term, which affected how the president viewed regulation of the banking industry. Dimon strongly opposes the Volcker Rule and other regulatory changes for "too big to fail," designed to make the financial system safer after the global financial crisis of 2008.

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Reilly raises the question why asset allocation decisions of the type made by JP Morgan Chase since 2008, does not make it similiar to a mutual fund or a hedge fund, and why this should itself not be considered a form of proprietary trading. JP Morgan Chase had $600 million of corporate debt in its overall debt portfolio or 1% in 4th quarter 2006. By end of 2008 this increased to 5% or $10 billion. By end of 2009, this went up to 17% of the portfolio or $62 billion, and they are at that level today. The holdings of non-U.S. residential mortgage securities was also increased, going up to 20% of holdings or $75 billion at end of 1st quarter 2012, from $2 billion or 1% of the portfolio in 2008. Corporate debt holdings at Bank of America at the end of the 1st quarter of 2012 were about 1% or $2.4 billion, and at Citigroup were about 4.5% or $12 billion. The Chief Investment Office unit of JP Morgan handles this portfolio, which is the result of deposits of $1.12 trillion exceeding loans of $700 billion. The low interest rate environment after 2008 creates incentives for banks to look for ways to improve crimped margins and in the process adding risk....

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Peugeot plans to shut down its plant at Aulnay-sous-Bois near Paris in 2014. About 3000 jobs will be lost at the plant. In all Peugeot plans to cut 8500 jobs, about 8% of its workforce in France. Peugeot says the pace of losses is unsustainable, with Peugeot losing 200 million euros in cash each month, putting the entire enterprise in peril. This also raises more questions about France's competitiveness as 400,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the last ten years according to government data. Peugeot is seeing declining sales because of slowing sales in southern Europe, a critical market for Peugeot. Overall capacity utilization for Peugeot dropped from 86% in 2011 to an average of 76% in the second half of 2012, with sharper declines in the small car segment on which the company has focussed. The Aulnay plant produced 300,000 cars 2007, by 2011 this came down to 135,000 cars. Peugeots strategy of making smaller economy style cars with higher French labor costs presents a challenge say analysts, and its slower move into Asian markets has not given it the advantage enjoyed by German manufacturer VW. In addition to the 3000 jobs lost at Aulnay, Peugeot plans to cut 1400 jobs at its Brittany plant in Rennes, and 3600 corporate jobs. To assure unions the company will build a new car at the Rennes plant in 2016, and could move 1500 jobs from Aulnay to another plant near Paris....

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Governor Andrew Cuomo's personal reflections on his father Mario Cuomo, his ex wife Kerry Kennedy, girlfriend Sandra Lee of the Food Network, on politics, gun control, and the extreme left of the Democratic Party. His view of effective politics that has a positive impact on people's lives is that it takes the energy of an Olympic athlete to compete.

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CIC makes a shift in investment strategy away from energy assets to investment in Europe and the U.S., as western economies recover and the Fed tapers its bond purchases leading to credit outflows from emerging markets.

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Carney breaks down Fannie Mae's 2013 earnings figures of $84 billion to show that this is due to unusual factors- such as low interest rates that it gets to access capital from the government, and the reversal of a write-down of deferred-tax assets. $45.4 billon is from the reversal of a writedown of deferred tax assets, $14.6 billion to gains not easily repeated, and about $12 billion because Fannie was able to borrow at 2.06%. (Mortgage securities generated interest income of $22.12 billion. The mortgage guarantee business generated about $12.3 billion which is a result of the 2012 change to the bailout agreement terms) He sees Fannie's core earnings that it could keep generating at about $12 billion. The additional reserve capital requirement that it would face as a systemically important or "too big to fail" financial institution at about $100 billion, making it about 8 years for it reach the reserve capital requirement. The situation at Fannie Mae is not as rosy as the 2013 earnings figures suggest. ...

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GE's plans to acquire Alstom's energy unit.

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A critical factor for success in managing succesful brand acquisitions for Chinese companies is retaining the management of the company and maintaining the brand committment.

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The partnership between CEO Tim Cook and software chief Craig Federighi as Apple shifts to a consensus style of management in 2013.

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Priceline.com, the online airline and hotel reservation site, shows growth taking business away from Expedia and Orbitz. Priceline.com's revenues come mainly from hotel bookings. Second quarter 2013 earnings were up 24% to $437 million and revenue was up 27% to $1.68 billion. Its share price has flucuated wildly from $1000 in the dotcom bubble days down to single digits and now back up to $1000 in August 2013. The stock hit $990 in 1999, then fell to $10 after the burst of the dot com bubble. After heavy spending to expand its U.S. presence Priceline.com's share price increased by 50% in the first 8 months of 2013. It recently acquired travel site Kayak to expand its access to customers.

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The U.S. Justice Department files a civil lawsuit accusing S&P and parent company McGraw Hill of giving improper ratings to poor mortgage investments which allowed them to inflate in value, creating the conditions for a crash in these investments when the crisis happened in 2008. The penalty sought by the Justice Department and the attorney generals for 16 states is $5 billion to cover losses to investors such as state pension funds and federally insured banks and credit unions. The civil suit comes 5 years after the onset of the financial crisis of 2008, which created the greatest financial crisis since the 1930's. Negotiations for a settlement were conducted by the Justice Department with McGraw Hill for an extended period of time. The talks broke down in January 2013. In these negotiations the Justice Department sought a penalty of over $1 billion and S&P's acceptance of wrongdoing. S&P countered with a proposed settlement of $100 million. The government pushed for admission of guilt on at least one count of fraud. It is not known why the Justice Department filed this lawsuit 5 years after the crisis when the public's memory of the ratings issue is beginning to fade. Is it because the preparation of the case required this much time, the action not taken because it would be seen as punitive in 2011 when S&P downgraded the U.S. sovereign credit rating, the fragility of the economy in 2011, because of the approaching election in 2012, or some other reason. One of the reasons why it was important to take corrective action early was to preserve the integrity and credibility of financial markets, so critical for public confidence. An additional reason was to secure from credit ratings companies the internal reforms and change in leadership and culture that would prevent recurrence and damage to the economy. An example of this change is the change in leadership and culture underway at Barclays bank in Britain after the investigation into the manipulation of the London Interbank Offered Rate or LIBOR. The Justice Department action in this respect is an advance from the policy at the S.E.C., which has not insisted that companies involved in the crisis admit wrongdoing, setting up the process for changes in leadership and culture such as the one at Barclays....

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Bush's last news conference, or exit interview as he called it. He thinks about Katrina hurricane relief failure but says 30,000 people were lifted off rooftops. Iraq, the security council resolution 1441 did make it clear- disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. He thinks the "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier after liberating Iraq was a bad idea, and "Abu Ghraib", a big disappointment". But regarding Guantanamo Bay and Iraq he thinks it may be that the elite and some some countries in Europe find it unpopular. Some say that the moral standing of the US is damaged in the world. But he says go to Africa, go to India, and ask about their view of America. Go to China and ask. "But people still understand that America stands for freedom, that America is a country that provides such great hope."

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A former Wall Street trader says banning bonuses for investment bankers would take out much of the risk in the financial system. The current system is different from the one he joined as an intern in the 1980's, he says. At that time banking was a bland business, where the head of a financial firm made about the same as a junior trader makes nowadays. Large bonuses of today were rare at the time. What large incentives to take risk in the form of bonuses do is to encourage extreme risk taking, especially when the downside or pain as a consequence of these decisions is passed on to other individuals or institutions, or the government.

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Honda plans to move more of its manufacturing to the U.S. as the value of the yen drops below 80 to the dollar in 2011. Honda faces problems from parts shortages after floods in Thailand, and U.S. market share down 1.5 percentage points to 9% in 2011. Honda's profit declined by more than 50% for the third quarter of 2011. The yen trading at 77 to the dollar in Dec 2011 is making it impossible for Honda to make a profit from vehicles made in Japan and sold in the U.S. Honda plans to double the capacity of the Civic plant in Greensburg, Indiana, increase capacity at its other assembly plants. It will build a new plant in Celaya, Mexico, in 2014, to manufacture the Fit subcompact. This will raise North American production from 1.29 million vehicles to close to 2 million. About 200,000 to 300,000 of these vehicles will be exported to other international markets. Profits on small subcompacts are small, making manufacture of the Fit more economical in North America than in Japan. In 2011 Honda manufactured between 30-40% of vehicles in Japan, the new plans are to reduce this to 10-20% in the next 10 years, a major shift....

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The new Ford Focus being unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show in 2009, is a new kind of car for Ford. This is a new kind of effort, a new discipline that Ford CEO Mullaly has advocated from the beginning. Making one car for all markets worldwide. Early on Mullaly told Ford's chairman Bill Ford that Boeing did not have a 737 for Europe and a 737 for the US and a 737 for Asia, why was Ford building a Focus for Europe and a Focus for the USA. In fact before Mullaly the Focus for the USA was a stripped down version of the European Focus and did not make much of an impression. The new Focus will have 80% common parts and 75% of parts from the same suppliers worldwide, so that a Focus made in Germany and the USA will share the same parts as a Focus made in Russia and a Focus made in China. And all of these plants will go into production at about the same time with the new Focus. To accomplish this transformation of Ford for "One Ford" worldwide, which is also on every business card carried by Ford managers, Mullaly appointed Derrick Kuzak as head of global manufacturing. See link for Derrick Kuzak. And the strategy was announced in mid-2008 with the start of retooling of truck factories in Mexico, Kentucky and Michigan, to make small cars designed in Europe for global markets. The task of coming up with one design for a global car was given to Martin Smith, a British designer based in Cologne, Germany. Smith says tastes are converging worldwide with the internet use, and customers are more unified than one would think, and whats emerging is a new kind of global cool if one looks for it. This is what happened when Focus protypes were shown to consumer panels in Europe, the USA and Asia, with a good impression created in all 3 markets. Aligning the US and European tastes was easier, China was a bit harder and the yellow leather interior popular in Shanghai had to be crossed out. Another challenge that had to be met in adisciplined manner was the varying safety rules and emissions around the world. For example European designers liked to have the windshield further forward, and Ford's global small car chief had to tell his engineers to move it back to meet US crumple zone standards. Similiar challenges had to be met in purchasing by global purchasing chief, Tony Brown, with a massive coordination effort needed to be done globally. And plastic trim from Michigan has to fit perfectly with sheet metal stamped in Michigan, and Ford used a virtual manufacturing system that allows the car to be built in cyberspace, and the bugs taken out at that early virtual build stage. The entire change is part of a metamorphosis at Ford, a change of culture and mastering a new discipline in coordinated effort worldwide for "One Ford." One year ago the Wayne Truck plant here in Detroit made the Navigator and the Expedition large vehicles.. With a $550 million investment this plant will make the Ford Focus a year from now. ...

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Banks in the UK are considering giving investment bankers allowances to make up for lower bonuses mandated by new EU rules. This is one of the mechanisms banks are considering to be able to pay competitively. EU rules do not limit total compensation making it possible to shift pay given earlier as bonuses to the new 'allowance' category. For instance a 1.8 million euro bonus might be dropped to 1 million euros and 800,000 euros given as an allowance. Such an arrangement means banks can adjust the allowance as markets and regulations change. Increasing fixed salary would mean effects such as higher pension costs. Most of the 35,000 higher level banking employees to which the EU rules apply work in London, England. The UK Prudential Regulation Authority has come out against the EU bonus rule and the UK has taken this up in a legal challenge at the European Court of Justice. U.S. and Asian banks are deferring parts of bonuses and paying in a mix of shares and cash.