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Textualism or strict interpretation of the Constitution word for word may be back but one can never be sure. No sooner is one decision made in a certain direction with a particular approach to the law whether it be textualism or something else it then comes up for rethinking a few years later, under a different approach to the law or from a new angle. This is the law practiced in most British style courts of law including the US.  Former Justice Breyer of the US Supreme Court replaced by his law clerk Ketanji Jackson, is interviewed by NYT's Adam Liptak. Today so much is written about Breyer as a non textualist, and Gorsuch, Kavanaugh recent additions to the Court as textualist or strict interpreters of the Constitution based on when it was written with what intent. Yet as thinking individuals who like the rest of the American people grow in their understanding all Justices cannot be categorized  in this way. Breyer says he worked with retired Justices Kennedy and Souter and found them to be willing and keen on hearing all angles. Then it has to be said that both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were law clerks for Kennedy. Much of American law at the highest court actually is no better than any other human creation - it tries to approximate as best one can the people of the US. Sotomayor coming from Puerto Rican descent, Ketanji Jackson from minority black, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch from Georgetown preparatory schools where Kavanaugh's paternal grandfather attended Yale something even JFK could not claim, Chief Justice Roberts coming from a company professional type background, Barrett a professor at a Catholic university, Kagan with a Bostonian JFK style background, Alito old Italian and Clarence old minority black background. Breyer retired recently to make way for a younger judge, Judge Ketanji Jackson who was law clerk to Breyer. Breyer is writing a new book which he hopes the conservatives on the Supreme Court will read- Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch. The book coming out March 26 has the title- Reading the Constitution- Why I Chose Pragmatism not Textualism. He hope these Justices will read the book and say their colleague was making sense, would say that it was not a bad point. ...

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Isaacson's new book on Musk says Musk's story is a cautionary tale. The compulsion to be drama magnet or mean are not prized traits, say others.  More sinister (the hell) is celebrating a culture that does not respect the need for worklife balance, of respect for nutrition and exercize for good health. Musk's methods which he calls "algorithm", a word known more for obscurity than meaning, are nothing new. For years as the US, Japan and China, now India have innovated there is a focus on simplifying things, and to do this questioning the existing way of doing things by breaking down the existing method into pieces and reorganizing the pieces of the puzzle leaving out unneeded pieces. What is the key to his success as it was for Jobs at Apple is creating a culture in which people would invest in and take risks for innovation at the high end of the price spectrum. Jobs used design and new stuff like the iPod and iPad, iPhone to do this. Musk does this through playing the role of a social media icon but a dangerous one that does not respect worklife balance and good health habits of nutrition, exercize and mindfulness. In processes this can give you a process that takes less time and money- how India's moon mission and rover Chandrayan 3 was done for $78 million showing these work practices of Musk are nothing new, and universally adopted by successful companies and nations. Newer ask your employees to do what you would not do, is also adopted by the best managers. By turning it into a mantra it obscures the fact that America today is a country of massive inequalities where two thirds of 4th graders cannot pass ACT reading test and half of retirees have zero savings, working people and families face a cost of living and health crisis and are badly neglected. How does it help to role model as an icon and popularize a culture that tolerates and accepts such conditions that would leave men deeply troubled, including America's leaders Washington, Lincoln and FDR if they were alive today. ...

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On June 30, 2008, oil prices hit an high of $140. Because of the opaqueness of the oil futures markets that help set the price of oil, very little is known about the different players in that market. Because of increasing demands for public scrutiny of such spikes in the market and its effect on the economy, the CFTC has released information about the players in oil trading and futures markets. This list for the period when the prices reached $140 in June 2008 include banks, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, private investment arms of wealthy individuals, and airlines. Investments related to million barrels of oil were made by 219 investors. The banks include: Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley which have played a role in oil markets for a long time. BP and Delta Air Lines as users of oil products. It includes Yale University endowment fund, Singapore's government, hedge funds Brevan Howard and D.E. Shaw & Co., pension funds for Texas teachers, Cascade Investment LLC (the investment firm of Bill Gates), and the Danish pension fund ATP....

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Six former clerks, many of them now professors at well known law schools, Georgetown, Cornell, Yale, share their memories of Chief Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in 2010 as the longest serving Supreme Court justice on the bench. One of the clerks remembers Stevens for his courteousness, which started with "May I ask you a question?," and did not attach importance to formal titles. Stevens showed remarkable empathy in talking to the clerks about legal cases. Another clerk remembers the time when Stevens pulled up the plaque on his wall "Small Town Lawyer of the Year: Associate Justice John Paul Stevens," as he talked about small hometowns with the clerk. It was given by the bar association of Poulsbo, Washington, and Stevens took pride in his modest beginnings. Some are amazed by his energy, he played a good game of tennis at 85, hired only 2 clerks instead of four to do a lot of the work, and would join the clerks for discussion on different aspects of the law.

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Greece's new Syriza government plans to put a bill through parliament on the minimum wage as one of its first steps. It will reverse plans to sell the government's 67% stake in the port of Piraeus, and a planned sale of the state controlled utility will be held back. Sigmar Gabriel, the Social Democratic leader in the coalition government in Germany says Germany is ready to show solidarity with the Greek people, and says the new government has the opportunity to take better action against corruption and tax evasion in Greece than previous governments. Previous governments including governments of the Pasok and New Democracy parties which make up the ruling political elite in Greece failed to make the serious changes in tax collection needed in Greece whereby the upper class in Greece pay the fair amount of taxes due. The IMF's Lagarde also emphasized the tax collection, and separated it from austerity issues where most of European and American opinion believes growth oriented policies are the right path....

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Diversification has helped BHP weather the decline in commodities prices better than Rio Tinto, Anglo-American and Vale. BHP is expected to report profits of $12.5 billion for the last fiscal year. BHP is also in the oil and gas business, in addition to iron, ore, copper, coal and aluminium. This has made it possible to take writedowns of $5.5 billion and still make stable profits. Andrew Mackenzie, the new CEO of BHP, is a Scotsman who is focussing on the productivity of capital and cost-cutting. BHP announced $1.9 billion in cost savings since July 2012. Mackenzie's goal is to reduce capital expenditures from $18 billion today to $15 billion or less in 2-3 years. Capital is tied up in incomplete projects taken up in the boom period of higher prices, and the process of reducing capital expenditures is gradual. Capital expenditures in the mining business increased dramatically from $20 billion to $120 billion from 2003 to 2012. For most of this period China's economy registered growth rates of over 10%....

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Simply put Ford sells 800,000 F150's a year but sales are dropping at about 100,000 a year, and where has it put Ford? Ford is losing money, $12 .6 billion in 2007, lost market share from 25% at one time to 15%, and a stock price about to go below $6. Turn to the fuel efficient cars Mullaly wants to have, the same car sold in the US, Europe and elsewhere and designed by worldwide collaboration between engineers and designers in Europe and the USA and emerging markets. The Verve a fuel efficent small car is one example and it will also use globally made parts. Why is the Verve though going on sale in Europe this year and not in the US, is not clear. And why won't it be called the Verve in the US? The idea that it could be called the Fiesta may not make sense, as the old Fiesta model in the USA did not have that great an image for quality and value.

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According to ComScore the Yahoo internet site had 618 million unique desktop visitors globally in October 2015, compared to Facebook's 863 million. But for Yahoo this traffic is not yielding much in terms of revenue and profit. Yahoo's lack of quality content to command premium pricing means a continual decline in ad revenues. Analysts point to the lower quality of traffic on the Yahoo site, fewer direct searches on its site relative to clicks on ads, and aspects of its collaboration with Bing and Google, as serious problems. Compared to Google News, Yahoo News is chaotic and likely to draw less quality traffic, with the addition of Kate Couric and other commentary not having much impact on the gradual deterioration of the site. Facebook is dominant in mobile with $3.4 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2015, compared to $271 million for Yahoo. As a result Yahoo's internet site based on its current share price in Dec. 2015 shows a small or insignificant valuation considering the level of traffic. ...

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The sale of $4 billion in loans connected to Cerberus's acquisition of Chrysler has been postponed because of sluggish credit market conditions and shortage of buyers.

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Sweden is one of the first countries providing men with greater opportunities for raising children- both through laws for parental leave, and through a cultural transformation that gives fathers an accepted role in caring for children. Laws reserve at least 2 months of well paid 13 month parental leave for fathers. 85% of Swedish fathers take parental leave and its cool for fathers to be doing work inside and outside the home to care for children.

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Christina Zander provides an exceptionally good report on what holds women back in work and managing positions in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Even in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, with a more enlightened outlook in gender relations, the number of women who are CEO's for 145 Nordic companies is only 3%. For the U.S. Fortune 500 this is about 5%. Good child care benefits and parental leave laws that promote a fair distribution of child raising responsibilities between men and women are part of the enlightened outlook in Nordic countries. Yet the number of women being promoted to senior positions is limited. Interestingly rules requiring quota for women on Boards of Directors have led to a different situation on Boards- in 2013 41% of the boards at Norway's public companies were women compared to 18% at private limited companies. About 5.8% of general managers at publicly listed companies were women in 2013, 15.1% in private companies. Sandvik's Ms. Einarsson was promoted to a senior position recently. She says the opposite is true, one needs to start not at the top but at the entry level to ensure women are fairly represented. Culture is part of the problem as even in companies with equal male and female employees, the managers are mostly men. Men are seen as more eager to take responsibilities and risks, and are more integrated into networks. Even childcare and paid parental leave can be deceptive. One researcher shows that Swedish women still take the major part of responsibility for children, with 75% of the 480 available days. Women managers and researchers point to the difficulties women face with a full time career or working over 60 hours a week in a management position, and combining this with picking up children from daycare. Sofia Falk is the founder of Wiminvest, which helps companies invest in geting talented women. Her suggestions are that companies offer other incentives instead of more money- an assistant, private child care, grocery shopping, shared management positions, technical solutions to be able to work at home. The CEO of Sandvik, Olof Faxander, is persistent in changing company attitudes- he has raised the proportion of women in management positions to 21% from 9% in 3 years, eventually hoping to reach 33%....

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Motoroloa is selling its wireless-networking business to Nokia Siemens, in a $1.2 billion sale. Motorola plans to separate its cellphone business and cable business in 2011.

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How slowing sale and inventory pileups at Walmart are affecting factories that supply Walmart. Particularly hit are garment and clothing factories. This counts for about 10% of Walmart sales.

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Royal Bank of Canada acquired Centura Banks Inc. -a regional lender based in N. Carolina- in 2001 for $2.3 billion. It then made a number of acquisitions including $1.6 billion for Alabama National Bancorp in 2008. The U.S. branch network is fragmented with no major presence in big cities. RBC also failed to integrate the U.S. operations after the acquisitions. This approach hurt RBC because the strong risk management in the Canadian operations was not applied in the U.S. The result is a large number of nonperforming loans. In the 1st quarter 2011, RBC reported this was 6.8% of total assets. In 2009 Royal Bank of Canada took a 1 billion Canadian dollar writedown on the U.S. business RBC Bank. Now the operations are being put up for sale.

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Unorthodox cabinet nominees- Kash Patel at FBI, Tulsi Gabbard at Intelligence get nominated. Others where the nominee is supported broadly by moms and parents, and many senators Rand Paul and Ron Johnson who are highly enthusiastic, are RFK Jr. for Health Secretary who still faced questioning from Republican Kennedy and other Republicans. All of them get nominated by Feb 15, 2025. Republicans in Congress stay together, Democrats do the same strangely opposing everything on the other side, including action on obesity and chemicals in food, drug industry practices they have been railing against for years that are RFK's agenda.  By tapping into different ideas just because they are good, make common sense, and not worrying too much about whether it is from the opposing Kennedy clan, and willing to take some risk with Patel and Gabbard, try youngsters such as Pam Bondi at Justice Department, Elise Stefanik at the UN and Kate Leavitt as Press Secretary, a woman Kristi Noem in the toughest job there is today at Homeland Security, DJT and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles have put forward a different set of people highly motivated, more than a bit rambunctious and boisterous, to get things done on immigration zero illegal migrants, zero fentanyl deaths, and zero deindustrializing technology transfers to the Nation's competitors, and zero play except on a level playing field in trade and business. ...

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This report in WSJ says China's government faces severely strained government finances. Local government entities sale of land financed 40% of local government revenues in China, and most of these have dried up with the very real loss of confidence in property sector. Government now faces $900 billion in shortfall in revenues says this report. There may be psychological hurdles in China's growth with the effects on mental health from lockdowns in major cities, the revolt in the property sector with home buyers losing confidence in developers, the loss of confidence of foreign investors from US and EU. The dependence on the property sector to carry so large a burden of growth for the last 2 decades in China may now look like an error. The dependence on foreign investment may also be an error as the loss of confidence could mean some withdrawal and a lack of sustained investment.  It could even be said that restraints on both sectors property and foreign investors could have created alternative paths to growth, and reduced the shift of factories from the US and Europe to China that have now caused trade friction and and a reverse shift of investment back to home countries of US and EU. Trade friction has it appears backfired in a way that extends to the overall relationship which could have been prevented by preventing the hyper growth that happened. Greg Ip of the WSJ has argued that compared to Japan's growth in the sixties and seventies from a country of 100 million the hyper growth for a country of 1 billion for 2 decades created a massive impact on communities in US and EU that were dependent on factories that were lost to China. This has alienated large sectors of the public in the US and EU which could have been prevented by restraints on hyper growth in China. Ip says the growth was too large and too fast for the US to cope. It may have permanently damaged the relations between the two countries showing that trade and globalization had unintended effects when left to business which has no comprehension of how the macro developments can affect the relations between the peoples if the other effects in the relationship such as community impacts are ignored which business says is not its role,  and governments staying away from keeping an eye on how it was happening and adjusting for ill effects with restraint and redirection of business policies. ...

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Anna Botin, new CEO of Banco Santander says she is acting on the three goals she set for the bank- to increase the number of independent directors on the board, bring in new management, and strengthen its capital cushion. Santander moved to increase its capital cushion to 10% under Basel III rules by selling 1.2 billion shares at 6.18 euros each to raise $8.8 billion in Jan. 2015.

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Zweig points out that P/E multiples fall quickly in the midst of higher uncertainty. Benjamin Graham's "cyclically adjusted" P/E refined by Yale economist Robert Shiller smooths out the top and bottoms of the market by averaging the past 10 years of earnings and incorporating effects of inflation. This "cyclically adjusted" P/E for the U.S. market for the last 50 years is 19.5. The P/E for the market when the S&P 500 was at 1325 in late July 2011 was 22.9, and at the low in the first week of August 2011 of 1167 was 20.2. With the higher uncertainty- as for instance Bank of New York Mellon charging clients to hold cash- the P/E multiples are in a different territory. The P/E dropped to 13.3 in March 2009 after the financial crisis of 2008. Larger macroeconomic trends and uncertainty may have yet to play out and not registered fully in the market indexes. Jack Hough throws light on this from a different angle in the Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2011 comparing stagnant wages and its relationship with corporate earnings....

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Areva will take a writedown of 1.46 billion euros on the value of its uranium mining business. It will take an additional writedown of 800 million euros for the nuclear business following the nuclear accident in Japan. Areva expects a 2011 full year operating loss of 1.4-1.6 billion euros. Areva's new CEO, Luc Oursel, says he plans to reduce the company's debt load. About 1.2 billion euros of assets will be put on sale. The French sovereign fund, SFI, says it will buy Areva's 26% stake in mining group Eramet. Areva faces losses on its acquisition for $2 billion of uranium mining company UraMin, which has declined in value by 80% as uranium prices dropped and uranium reserves in African mines turned out to be less than estimated. Areva's new plans show organic growth of 3-6% from 2012 to 2013, increasing to 5-8% in 2015. Areva's shares at 19.20 euros on Dec. 12, 2011, were down 45% since the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. Britain and the Czech Republic in Europe, China and India in Asia, plan to invest in nuclear energy....

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In the third fiscal quarter ending June 28, 2014, Apple sold 35.2 million iPhones, up 13% from the year ago quarter. Profit reported was $7.75 billion for the quarter, up from $6.9 billion in the prior year quarter. Revenue increased to $37.43 billion from $35.32 billion the prior year quarter. Apple is not experiencing the weakness in smartphone sales that Samsung is seeing. The strong sales comes with increasing sales in China following the distribution deal with China Mobile. iPad sales slowed with sales declining to 13.3 million iPads in the quarter, down 9% from the prior year quarter. While Samsung has difficulty in preventing lower cost competitors such as Xiaomi and Huawei from eroding sales in China Apple sales are increasing. Apple's revenue in China increased by 28% for the quarter. China is a western brand conscious market as seen in sales of U.S. and German made automobiles. Another trend Apple is capitalizing on is the sale of larger screen iPhones. Screens larger than 5 inches make up 20% of iPhones shipped in China, according to IDC, which are estimated to go up to 50% by 2017....

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Sony announced that it was expecting a loss of 110 billion yen or $1.1 billion for the fiscal year ending March 2014. Sony also announced the sale of the PC Vaio computer business to Japan Industrial Partners, a decision he called "agonizing." Another change is splitting off the television business into a separate subsidiary. The projected full year loss includes $690 million in charges for restructuring the PC and TV business, including job cuts of 1500 in Japan and 3500 overseas by March 2015. Currently the mobile phone and Playstation videogame businesses are operated as separate subsidiaries. TV sales are improving in the 4th quarter 2013, increasing by 40%, and operating loss for TV's is down to $48 million for that quarter. Increases in sales of premium priced ultra high definition TV sets improved margins. For the full year TV business had a loss of 25 billion yen. This is the first sign of a change in the TV business. Playstation sales are expected to hit 5 million by March 2014. Overall Sony showed a net profit of 27 billion yen for the 4th quarter of 2013....

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Fed chairwoman, Janet Yellen, speaks at a community reinvestment conference in Chicago about the difficuties faced by people who are unemployed and take up jobs at lower wages. Yellen says- "the recovery still feels like a recession to many Americans, and it also looks that way in some economic statistics." She cited the case of Jermaine Brownee an apprentice plumber and skilled construction worker, 39 years old, who lost his job, worked on odd jobs and is making lower wages now. Yellen talked to Brownlee on the phone before her speech. Yellen emphasized the indicators she has in mind- the seven million Americans working part time and still looking for full time work, the large number of long term jobless, slow growth in wages, and the insecurity that is preventing Americans from changing jobs to better their position. Yellen's first press conference gave the impression that the Fed was planning to increase rates earlier than previously anticipated. This speech restores confidence in financial markets that the Fed will continue to provide support to the economy. It is also in line with her background and her concern for the unemployed coming from her mentor Yale economist James Tobin....