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Conflict of interest and the role money has played in creating a collusion of diverse interests which were supposed to be kept separate, if the system was to work properly. The way these collusions of interest worked to create crises that range from the financial crisis to the BP Gulf Oil Spill.

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Mexico's GDP increases at 3.9% compared to 2.7% for Brazil in 2011. Foreign investment is increasing in Mexico especially in the automobile industry and in industries where Mexico is favored over China as a production location. The G-20 meets in Los Cabos, Mexico in June 2012.

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Increasing supplies of natural gas in the U.S. will play out over 3 decades and reshape industry and manufacturing in the U.S. A new study by the University of Texas and funded by the Sloan Foundation of the Barnett shale rock formation shows that large quantities of natural gas are available that can be drilled at a cost of $4 per million BTU. This is only slightly higher than the current price of $3.43. This makes the increasing supply of lowcost natural gas a multi decade development, according to the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas.

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The turnaround at Ford Motor Company described in Detroit News reporter Bryce Hoffman's book "American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company."

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The average U.S. light vehicle price was $30,303 in April 2012, up $1219 from the prior year. Incentives were also lower, down $146 to average of $2,446, according to TrueCar.com. This is happening even though cars account for a greater portion of sales of light vehicles. Used cars and trucks prices increased by 3.2% in March over the prior year, according to the Labor department data. Pent up demand is part of the reason. Another reason is the discipline exercized by auto manufacturers, especially the Big Three, in not letting supply exceed demand and therefore not having to offer higher incentives to get rid of inventory. These practices of oversupplying the market hurt the Detroit automakers in the period before bankruptcy, especially GM. Increases in used car prices and higher prices of new cars create a virtuous cycle for automakers to support higher margins. With the high retirement and healthcare costs reduced through bankruptcy and new agreements with the UAW, the Detroit automakers are now better positioned in the market to sustain margins by limiting production to demand. ...

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Chile and the dilemma of copper exports taking up 57.8% of exports in 2009, from 54.4% in 2005, making 15.5% of GDP. With the surge in China's growth Latin America remains as tied to commodities exports as it has been for decades, facing boom and bust cycles and not able to diversify into value added and industrial products. A regional economic commission says in a report, that Latin American and Caribean exports were over 50% in raw materials in 1980 and declined to 27% in 1999, and back up to 39% in 2009.

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No indication that Gulf money is that much better spent this time, as another flood of petrodollars hits the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, with no idea for how long. The huge reserves of dollars built up by the large exporting nations of manufactured products and commodities may have created a huge surge in liquidity that indirectly caused the spending boom that fueled realestate and domestic retail markets in the USA from which the US will take a long time to recover. So these large surpluses of petrodollars cannot be looked at without some concern as they create distortions in the allocation of resources and in spending habits in different nations in the world economy and in different ways. A too low price of oil simply let fuel economy fade as a concern and let fuel economy standards become stagnant for over two decades and a splurge in light trucks and large fuel guzzling vehicles. The freespending buying habits sustained development in China but the low prices of lowend manufacturing goods also led to too much concentration on that kind of manufacturing in China leading to an environmental breakdown. And corrective action comes a llittle late when a lot of the damage has been done and only after this is the alarm raised and the corective action taken. Meantime while these excesses are taking place its seen as a strength as some industrial sectors grow richer and as soon as the excesses become a problem these very industrial sectors become a weakness. Take a look at the auto industry in the USA and the small manufacturers in Guangdong province in China....

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Eric Bellman's intervew with Rajiv Lall, chief executive officer of Infrastructure Development Finance, India's largest infrastructure financing company. Lall says the conditions are right for power development to be the next telecom of India's growth story, with some of the same impact that telecom has had bringing mobile phones to hundreds of millions of people in India. IDFC expects 20% growth in net profit in 2010 and 30% in 2011.

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Chile's president Bachelet takes office for the second time in Jan 2014, after serving a term from 2006-2010. Her new administration will boost public spending and spending on education. Corporate tax rates will be increased and personal tax rates lowered. As growth slowed to 4% in 2013 from the 5.8% in prior years, Chile will have to look for new ways to boost growth.

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Indonesian president Joko Widodo announces that he has won re-election with an estimated 54% of the vote. Voter turnout estimated at 80% was high. A massive logistical exercize for a country which stretches as long as the United States across thousands of islands in the Indian Ocean, with 193 million people eligible to vote. There are 800,000 polling stations and 17 million people taking part in setting up polling booths and other services. The opening of a new subway in Jakarta, and the infrastructure projects including roads and rapid transit, airports, that Indonesia is building under Widodo helped him win public support. Under Widodo Indonesia has advanced democratic processes and improving lives with public services. 

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The situation in Iraqi Kurdistan is covered in this WSJ report, with the referendum by the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq set for Sept 25, 2017. This is a region of 5.2 million people in northern Iraq. Adjoining it is a region with a mixed Arab and Kurdish population in oil rich Kirkuk province. The referendum is being held also in these areas as the Kurdish militia the Peshmerga took control of Kirkuk following the hasty withdrawal of the Iraqi army from attacks by Islamic State. Like the other aspects of the long war in Iraq this again complicates the U.S. position. As this report shows Arabs are being displaced in this part of Iraq after moving south as refugees. The Kurdish forces were a reliable ally for the U.S. in the war in 2015-2016, yet the U.S. maintains a policy of fairness towards all communities in Iraq. 

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Experts say CEO's have constituencies in the form of employees, shareholders and customers. This has affected CEO's as they responded to president Trump's comments on the Charlottesville attack.  Even the cautious optimism that CEO's maintained during the early months of the Trump administration- as they sought not to miss out on representation on advisory councils- has now faded. Most CEO's have decided that it is not worth having this voice in advisory councils when they have to be seen as supporting positions on racism and culture they cannot support. One by one the actions by Trump on the travel ban, climate change agreement withdrawal, Charlottesville attack,  has led to a shrinking of support. From non-involvement in Trump's campaign but cautious optimism, to a sense that it is not possible to work with the president without violating deeply held beliefs. Gini Rometty of IBM told employees that dialogue was critical to progress, but that " this group can no longer serve the purpose for which it was formed."  A sense that not much would be accomplished, and the reputational cost for business was too high to make it worth the effort. In the span of 3 days three advisory councils to the president were disbanded. ...