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Years of conflict between two quarreling camps led to Yoon declaring martial law on December 2 2024 which was opposed by the ruling party and the opposition party in parliament leading to it being withdrawn within 24 hours. A tense situation prevailed outside parliament as it met to vote against martial law powers of the president.

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American women outperformed at the Rio Olympic Summer Games by winning 27 gold medals compared to 18 for the American men. A big part of why this was possible is that women have equal access to sports gained with the education amendment Title IX in 1972. One of every two American girls participate in sports in high school. More women watched the Summer Olympics in Rio than men. Seeing American women do so well acts a role model for young girls watching and thinking "I can do that."  Thirty years ago this was not the case. A lot has changed since then. This is especially true for black women in the games with African American athletes, Simone Biles in gymnastics, Simone Manuel in swimming, Ashleigh Johnson in water polo. With the success comes an effort to try new sports to break more barriers.

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Hitachi's conversion to a leaner, more profit conscious company, learning from rivals, GE, Siemens, IBM and large Korean companies. CEO, Nakanishi, graduated from Stanford with a computer science degree in 1979, during a break from Hitachi. He takes a hands on approach to management and brings this approach to tough assignments to learn what is going wrong. He moved to San Jose, to figure out why the hard disk drive business Hitachi bought from IBM for $2.05 billion was losing money. There he found quality problems were causing 60% of the hard drives coming off the production line with defects. After fixing the problems and achieving 10% profit margins Nakanishi put the company up for sale. Western Digital bought the company for $4.8 billion. His hands on approach includes meeting directly with public officials and ministers in governments around the world that buy its nuclear plants, high speed trains and large machinery. To maintain its preferred bidder status Nakanishi met with Britain's transport minister during the switch in government to the Conservative party in 2010. In his approach he is part of a new breed of Japanese executives, some with education in the U.S., such as Toyota's new CEO, Akio Toyoda, and others such as Toshiba's CEO, Norio Sasaki, who are eager to break away from the mold. Like Toshiba, Hitachi has shifted away from its consumer product lines. Hitachi consumer products are expected to make up only 10% of sales in the coming fiscal year. Emphasis is on the industrial products from nuclear plants to power plant equipment and high speed trains that powered Hitachi from its early beginnings as a maker of mining equipment in the 1920's. These executives are vigilant about a "Not Invented Here Syndrome" typical of large Japanese companies. Nakanishi says there is a lot Japanese companies can learn from rivals about cost and strategies. The experience came with hard knocks. In March 2009, Hitachi announced the biggest loss for a Japanese company upto that time of $9.9 billion. As head of the power and industrial business Nakanishi lost a contract to build a power plant in the Unted Arab Emirates to Korean companies. Compared to Hitachi, Toshiba's strategy is to emphasize industrial products such as nuclear reactors but also keep a presence in consumer products because Sasaki's view is that consumer products require smaller investments and generate cash flow. Jurio Osawa, WSJ, April 9, 2012, Toshiba's Chief Takes Stock....

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Amazon reported a 96% drop in second quarter 2012 profit to only $7 million on sales of $12.83 billion. Sales were up in second quarter by 29%.

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A sense of how the U.S. Supreme Court Justices viewed key aspects of the Obama Health Care Law after three days of hearings on March 28, 2012.

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ConAgra Foods buys RalCorp Holdings, the largest maker of food sold under supermarket and retailer brand names, for $4.95 billon, a 28% premium on RalCorp's share price.

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Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley Asia doesn't see a quick return to growth. He sees unemployment hitting 10% nationwide in 2009 and 2010, before any growth resumes.

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Teva's at-risk-launches of generic versions including Wyeth's Protonix and taking about 60% of the prescriptions written for Protonix. Its a profitable strategy for Teva Pharmacetical.

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The 2014 budget for Spain is free of the strong austerity measures, cuts in spending, and tax increases, of earlier budgets. Growth is expected to be 0.7% in 2014, after 1.3% decline in 2013. The unemployment rate is set to decline from 27% high in first quarter of 2013, to 25.9% in 2014. Savings of $800 million euros will come from changes in the pension system and civil servants face a freeze in salaries for the fourth year. The premium over German government bonds for Spain's government bonds is now less than that of government bonds of Italy. Cost of financing Spain's debt is projected to decline by 5.2% to 36.6 billion euros, according to Treasury minister Montero. The EU with the backing of the IMF has considered the high unemployment in Spain in its decision to relax deficit targets. This has given Spain an opportunity to clean up its accounts without further damage to the economy. Spain's deficit will now decline to 6.5% in 2013 from a deficit of 6.8% in 2012. The target for the deficit is set at 5.8% for 2014. Credit is still tight and consumer spending weak, major concerns for the government- in addition to the need for creating jobs- of prime minister Rajoy....

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A new study shows that physical activity is essential to maintain weight loss for obese people. About 80 minutes a day of moderate activity like walking and 35 minutes of vigorous activity led to keeping away the pounds lost. 

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The European Banking Authority has worked on an exam for European banks since October 2011- separate from earlier stress tests- to determine the capital shortfall at banks arising from potential losses on bank holdings of sovereign debt. The EBA says banks in the eurozone will have to come up with 114.7 billion euros in new capital by June 2012, to meet reserve capital requirements for core Tier 1 ratio of 9%. The EBA looked at bank holdings of European government bonds as of Sept. 30, 2011. Loss rates for government bonds were applied at current market prices for the debt, and banks that fell short of the Tier 1 capital ratio of 9% were identified. This is different from the stress tests in that the stress tests were designed for banks to withstand deteriorating economic conditions, where a range of losses were applied to test for resilience. Spain and Italy have capital shortfalls of 26.2 billion euros and 15.4 billion euros respectively. Germany has a capital shortfall of 13.1 billion euros, France 7.3 billion euros, Portugal 6.9 billion euros, Belgium 6.3 billion euros. Banks have till January 2012 to show how they will come up with new capital. EBA officials will ask banks to do this without restricting lending. Germany's Commerzbank has a 5.3 billion euros capital shortfall, and may need government funds. Italy's UniCredit SpA plans to make a 7.5 billion euro share offering to its existing investors which will address most of its 8 billion euro shortfall. Spain's Banco Santander is divesting assets in Brazil, Colombia and Chile to meet a 15.3 billion euros shortfall. France's BNP Paribas and Societe Generale have shortfalls of 1.5 billion euros and 2.1 billion euros, which they plan to meet by selling billions of euros of assets....

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Dart Management, a vulture fund based in the Cayman Islands, received 90% of the 436 million euros bond payment by Greece on May 15, 2012. Dart is one of the holdout investors who did not participate in the Greek debt restructuring deal. It planned to sue the Greek government. This has implications for the other holdout investors with about 6-7 billion euros of Greek bonds. The reason given by the Greek government was that this caught Greece at a bad time- suing Greece could have tied up European bailout funds that Greece needs to make interest payments on its debt. The timing is bad from another standpoint, as it will further exacerbate voter discontent with the parties associated with the government just before the second Greek elections in June 2012.

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The NYT editorial says sharks circle in Congress to kill the Obama plan for a new consumer protection agency with the necessary powers to protect consumers. Campaign contributions to members of Congress by the banking industry is having anegative effect. But says the NYT the federal regulators who put the interests of banks first are also having the negative effect. It cites the example of a Fed governor, Elizabeth Duke, who says the Fed has all the powers to protect consumers, in a Congressional hearing. Says NYT the Fed was given sweeping powers to prevent predatory lending in 1994, but did not issue new rules till July 2008, till the damage had alredy been done. And not just to consumers, but to the American and global economy. It goes on to say that consumer protection is the unwanted stepchild in the regulatory community as protecting consumer s is spread across 20 statutes and seven different agencies. Considering the damage to the economy that has already been done its amazing that the same tired old arguments can be repeated without severely straining credibility. The close relations between Geithner, Rahm Emmanuel Obama's chief of staff, and others in the administration with the banking industry do not bode well for coming up with the strong legislation to protect consumers. See the link to Chase's Dimon's close relations to Rahm Emmanuel and members of the Obama administration. And the close connections which helped the banking industry kill legislation that would have helped homeowners, by allowing bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages to prevent foreclosures....

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Panasonic forecast a loss of $10 billion or 780 billon yen for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012. This is the second largest loss for a Japanese manufacturing company. Hitachi lost 787 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 2009 after the financial crisis of 2008. In the prior fiscal year Panasonic showed net profit of 74 billion yen. Panasonic posted restructuring costs of 191 billion yen for the television business and 49 billion yen for the chip business for the first three quarters of the current fiscal year. For the fourth quarter it will take a 250 billion yen writedown of goodwill for the Sanyo acquisition. Panasonic acquired Sanyo based on the potential for growth in its lithium ion battery and solar panel business. But the Sanyo unit is facing stiff competition from manufacturers in South Korea and China, with Samsung Electronics as a major competitor. The strength of the Japanese yen is affecting all Japanese manufacturers. The price competition is severe in the television business and this is also affecting Sony. Since the acquisition Sanyo's earning prospects have significantly worsened says Panasonic CFO, Makoto Uenoyama. Panasonic CEO Ohtsubo defends the acquisition saying that without the rechargeable battery business and its potential in hybrid/electric cars Panasonic's growth potential would not be the same as it is now. Panasonic plans to stop production at two plants making plasma and LCD panels this fiscal year. The job cuts planned will bring the number of employees down from 367,000 in the prior fiscal year to below 350,000....

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Charlie Rose talks to Nouriel Roubini about his thoughts on the next bubble and his book- "Crisis Economics." He says financial crises don't just happen out of the blue, they don't happen at random, instead they are predictable. Excessive risk taking and leverage have undesirable outcomes which are predictable as they take shape and get overblown. What happened to all the toxic assets? Banks are still carrying these assets hoping and praying that they don't need to be written down. His view coincides with that of Jeremy Grantham and other experts who see a growing danger in a prolonged period of zero interest rates which encourage risk taking. In all the developed economies of the U.S., Europe and Japan, borrowing can be done at zero interest rates. Investment banks are back to huge profits in proprietary trading using money borrowed at zero interest rates. A new bubble is developing that could burst in 2 or 3 years. The value of most risky assets has gone up by 50-80% in the last year. See Shiller's expert view on the danger from declining confidence levels and from higher uncertainty. Roubini says the Dodd bill is not enough. It does little to addresss the "too big to fail" problem as banks actually became larger after the financial crisis of 2008, and are too big and complex to manage. He also points to the risks of not separating proprietary trading from bank holding activities, and the need for something similiar to Glass-Steagall to separate the two. See Volcker's views on that subject....

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The Indian economy is expected to grow by 8.5% this year compared to 6.5% in 2009. But a major problem looms in the high inflation facing India. The poor monsoon in 2009 led to higher prices for foodgrains, lentils, and sugar. And the government's cut in the fuel subsidies will lead to more efficient use of energy, but will lead to one additional percentage point in wholesale price inflation according to the Reserve Bank of India, India's central bank. The whoesale price index in India went up by 10.5% in June from the prior year, and this after a 10.1% increase in May. Bloomberg's tracking of consumer prices in the Asia-Pacific region shows India at the top of 17 countries in inflation, and consumer prices paid by industrial and farm workers in India are shown to be increasing at 14% annually. The government is coming under criticism for not releasing more grains from its stocks to soften the impact of last year's monsoon. The Manmohan Singh government finds inflation at above 10% unacceptable and is looking for further action from the central bank. Reserve Bank of India governor Subbarao has raised rates 3 times since March 2010 to 5.5%, and a further increase is expected at its next meeting on July 27. A better harvest in September, from a better monsoon season, could help lower food prices. If this does not happen, more tightening by the central bank could hurt economic growth, putting the government in a quandary....

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Th Obama administration's Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, is designed to provide relief to homeowners facing foreclosure. HAMP has also prevented these homes -from the seven million home loans that are delinquent -from joining the overall inventory of homes, and depressing home prices further. Eighteen months after HAMP was introduced, it looks like HAMP has failed to help homeowners to the extent needed to revive housing. Of the 1.3 million modifications extended to homeowners, about half have been cancelled, and about one third or 422,000 homeowners have received permanent loan modifications. The results for July 2010 show that it is slowing down even more. The number of homeowners receiving modifications in July is growing at a much slower rate. 17,000 new trial modifications were started in July, 2010, but 5 times that number of loan modifications were cancelled. HAMP has reduced the montly payment through a lower interest rate and longer term, with the average borrower receiving a montly modification of $500. But even with lower payments and permanent modifications homeowners still have lots of debt. The median rato of total debt payments to pretax income is around 63.5%. And analysts estimate that 20% of borrowers with permanent modifications will re-default. The program had aroused huge expectations, hoping to help 3 million homeowners. Which is why Professor Kenneth Rosen, of the University of California, Berkeley, considers the results embarrassing for the Obama administration. Adding that the Obama administration should be ashamed of these results after all the hopes that were aroused for real help to homeowners. ...

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As Russia expands its intervention in Ukraine in Feb. 2015, a former Deputy Treasury Secretary in the Clinton Administration, Roger Altman, points out the importance of the response of global financial markets. Financial markets have downgraded Russian debt, and the ruble continues to lose value. With $200 billion in foreign currency reserves available to tackle the financial crisis caused by $150 billion in capital flight and 50% loss in ruble value, and a business sector with large dollar debt, Russia, he says will have to take into account its weak financial situation. Arms aid to Ukraine to which Russia can respond is not a good option compared to stronger economic sanctions, says Altman. Altman points out- what president Obama has also pointed out- Russia has a GDP the size of Italy, a population of 140 million, with its budget and economy overly dependent on oil exports, and an economy connected to the global economy and dependent on global technologies. It lacks the economic strength to continue with its more aggressive policies, and cannot ignore world opinion indefinitely or isolate itself from the global economy. This is true of any country in the global economy, and especially for any emerging market dependent on foreign capital, foreign investment and foreign technologies, making it important for Russia to play by the rules of fairness in the international community in the postwar global order of peaceful cooperation. As Schemann points out in a NYT editorial observer Russia is losing credibility in the global community....

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Following concerns about cybersecurity China is pursuing the development of its own chipmaking capacity. Tsinghua Ungroup has the support of Chinese officials. It emerged as China's largest chipmaker with the acqusition of two large mobile chip firms in China- Spreadtrum Communications and RDA Microelectronics in 2013. Intel took a 20% stake in Tsinghua Unigroup for $1.5 billion as a way to enter the market serving the low end smartphone market with chips. Taiwan's Mediatek Inc. is its largest competitor. China's technology in mobile chips is still 2-3 years behind the latest technology, according to research firm Canalys, and serves mostly the low end smartphone market for emerging markets.Tsinghua Unigroup CEO, Zhao Weiguo, says that by investing in the long term like Huawei, his firm can catchup with larger companies in the field. China plans to use its chip fund to invest $1.6 billion in the company over the next 5 years. The company was started in 1988 at elite Tsinghua University, is still controlled by a university holding company, and has close ties with the government through its alumni network. Xi Jinping and other leaders graduated from the university. It is considering an acquisition of HP's H3C. H3C is a joint venture of 3Com and Huawei supplying corporate data networking gear in China, now part of HP. Tsinghua Unigroup is in its early stage of development as its estimated sales of $1.8 billion for 2015, make up a small part of the $340 billion global chip market, according to Gartner Research....

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In 1980 Jeb Bush 27, was looking for a place where he could make a fresh start away from the Bush name in Washington and Texas. His father was making a run for president that year. Miami with its bustling Cuban American community seemed a perfect place for Bush with his fluency in Spanish and his Mexican born wife Columba. The co-chairman of the Bush campaign in Florida was a Cuban American, Armando Codina. He set up Bush Realty, making Jeb Bush a partner with a 40% stake in the firm. In this period 1980-1992, Bush's gross income averaged 107,000 for the 6 years before the elder Bush was elected president to $1.6 million in 1990 half way during the elder Bush's term as president, according to a WSJ analysis of tax returns. This was also a period when Jeb Bush while engaging in business deals, was also running for office- first as Commerce secretary for 2 years in 1987, making a unsuccessful run for governor in 1994, and a successful run in 1998, 2002. He helped boost the Republican party in the Miami area, bringing together Republicans and the Cuban American exile community, during the anti-communist mood of the Reagan period. As Miami-Dade county Republican party chairman he helped boost voter rolls for the party, which had a 2 to 1 Democratic party advantage in earlier years. Stewart and Reinhard document the situations in which the Bush connections at the White House helped Jeb Bush in his real estate business....

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The remarkable composition of the most vibrant immigrant filled city in the world, with 47% of the employed being immigrant and foreign born, mostly from developing countries such as Dominican, Chinese, Mexican, Guyanese, Jamaican, Ecuadorean, Haitian, Trinidad and Tobago, and Indian. The city's immigrant population is 3.1 million, 37% of the total population of 8.2 million. The report is written by Joseph Salvo, director of the population division of the City Planning Dept. and Arun Peter Lobo, deputy planning director. Dominicans are 380,000, Chinese 350,000, and Mexicans 186,000. During 2002 to 2011 Chinese population went up 34%, Mexicans 52% and Dominicans 3%. Queens has 1.09 million immigrants, half of that borough, Brooklyn 946,500 or 37% of the borough. The 37% immigrant foreign born population of the city compares to 27% for the New York Metropolitan region. Other interesting details- the growth in the Chinese population of about 89,000 in the city is greater than the entire population of Indians of 76,000, and the large growth in the Ecuadorean population by 22,000. The Indian population went up by 8000 or 12%. Indians in the New York Metropolitan region were in the upper income groups in neighborhood income comparable to people from UK, Germany and Israel, with Chinese being from lesser neighborhood income groups. Median income for Indians in the city was $84,000 compared to Chinese of $43,000, with 28% of Chinese immigrants having a college degree compared to 65% for Indians. This suggests immigrants from China are from poorer areas....

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The plan for a 4.5% mortgage rate the Treasury Department is considering is a good thing for stabilizing house prices and keeping up the demand for housing according to Hubbard and Mayer. Hubbard and Mayer are Dean and vice Dean of the Columbia Business School and Mayer is Professor of Finance and Economics. Their research estimates suggest that real house prices increase by about 75% of the decline in after-tax mortgage payments, so a decline in mortgage payments of 16% would result in approximately a 12% floor on the decline in house prices. In their view with the futures market suggesting a decline in house prices by 12-18% in the next 18 months a 4.5% interest rate might well lead to flat or even slightly higher house prices in 2009. How do they view other proposals to reduce foreclosures by reducing payments onmortgages with the government picking up some portion of the payments or reforming the bankruptcy code to keep people in their homes? In their view stopping foreclosures may not prevent house price declines as much as proponents claim. They now see the market as properly priced. In apaper to be published in the Berkeley Electronic journal of Economic Analysis and Policy they argue that in most markets house values are today lower than what is consistent with the average level of affordability in the last 20 years. The meltdown in mortgage markets and the poor employment outlook can cause prices to deteriorate and overshoot in the other direction. This is where government policy can help stabilize house prices....

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Robert Shiller explains why price increases in U.S. housing are likely to remain at inflation adjusted 1-2 % a year in coming years. The Zillow-Pulsenomics Home Price Expectations Survey, incorporating 100 forecasters, and the S&P Case/Shiller Composite Index Futures, as of Dec. 2012, both show this modest growth for the next 5 years. The sharp price increases of 2012, with the S&P/ Case-Shiller 20 City Index up 9% from March to Sept. 2012, are seen as partly seasonal and not likely to last. Reasons he cites against the possibilities of another U.S. housing price surge are a more regulated housing market, wary buyers, lower economic growth, preferences for renting vs buying, and harder to rent detached single family homes. Recent housing price increases also include seasonal fluctuations and could moderate in coming months, says Shiller. History shows only one housing price boom in the U.S. in the last hundred years, with real prices increasing 68% from 1942 to 1953. By comparison the price surge in home prices from 1997 to 2006 was 86% in real terms, which was reversed almost entirely by 2012. The Census Bureau statistics show the home ownership rate declining to 65.5% in the third quarter of 2012 from 69% in the third quarter of 2006. Karl Case said in an op-ed in the NYT in 2010- the investment in a home was never meant to be a way to pay the bills and enjoy an artificially high standard of living, and only seen as a safe investment for most of American history. ...

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Simon Johnson, is Professor at MIT's Sloan School, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, co-founder of BaselineScenario.com a widely cited site on the global economy, and is a member of the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisors. Here he talks to the WSJ's Deal Journal reporters. He says the stress test don't mean much because the government using a milder scenario, made the banks look better than they really are. He suggests a wait-and-see strategy, as banks have 1 month to file plans on how they will raise needed capital and 6 months to do it. He sees a steeper yield curve on Treasury debt as a result, with long term Treasury securities like 20 year Treasury notes yielding higher than short duration securities, which should stimulate long term lending. Expect banks to issue more bonds than stocks which dilute shareholders value, and as bond prices are low. Johnson sees real risks of inflation in 1-2 years, becaue of the way the government has inflated the economy, in a manner he says like the private sector bubble. Expect the government to cut back to prevent this from happening. He also sees pretty good earnings in the financial sector in the second quarter which should help stocks. The question remains about how sustainable all this will be, because he says " the government by oversubsidizing the financial sector will get us stuck in the same kind of financial bubble that got us into the mess in the first place." ...