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The FBI talked to Steve Job's friends, neighbors, family, former business associates and Jobs in a background investigation in 1991. Jobs was being considered for an appointment in the President George H.W. Bush administration and this was part of the background check. He is described as not having a good start in high school- as his GPA at Homestead High School in Cupertino, California was 2.65. He is said to have used marijuana and LSD in college. This was the period when Jobs was running NeXT, and five years before Apple acquired NeXT and Jobs returned to Apple. The account affirms the description in Walter Isaacson's book of a person who was driven and could have rough edges in his human dealings. The FBI background check account has this to say-"several individuals questioned Job's honesty stating that Mr Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals." In his personal life Jobs is described as neglecting a daughter born out of wedlock with a high school girlfriend....

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Rupert Murdoch makes a $80 billion offer to Time Warner for a merger with 21st Century Fox. A deal would add HBO, TNT and TBS to Fox's broadcast network and its cable portfolio including Fox News channel. Most sports content such as NBA and NCAA games are watched live, attracting more advertisers compared to other content where commercials are skipped using DVR's. A key problem for Time Warner investors and management is that the way the proposal is structured- with supervoting shares going to the Murdoch family that controls Fox- gives too much control to Mr. Murdoch and too little say to Time Warner investors on how the future company should be run. An added complication is that Time Warner CEO Bewkes is 62 and has put in place its strategic plan after divesting some units. By comparison Rupert Murdoch of 21st Century Fox is 83, and his sons are seen by Time Warner as not having the experience to handle a company of the size resulting from a merger.

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Jorg Asmussen, Germany's representative on the ECB'S Executive Board, will take the position of deputy secretary in the Labor Ministry in the new coalition government of Angela Merkel with the SDP. He moves to Berlin from Frankfurt to be close to his two small children and family, who continued to live in Berlin after Asmussen moved to Frankurt ECB headquarters. Germany is likely to nominate Sabine Lautenschlager, member of the executive board of the Bundesbank, to Asmussen's position on the executive board of the ECB. The ECB Governing Council, including the six member executive board and the heads of 17 central banks, will now have the first female member. Ms. Lautenschlager's expertise is in banking regulation, which is relevant today because of the ECB's new role as regulator of banks in the eurozone. Asmussen, who is from the SDP, assumes a position under Labor minister Andrea Nahles. He will be responsible for introduction of the national minimum wage, which was a key demand of the SDP for joining the coalition with Merkel....

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The reorganization underway at NBCUniversal under CEO Steve Burke. Burke is quick to end the practice of different fiefdoms operating at NBCUniversal incuding NBC Sports, and expects all divisions to work together to produce synergy. He uses the example of a Symphony orchestra. Of 20 senior executives at NBCUniversal from the GE days only 5 remain, and the rest of the management structure is streamlined. Dick Ebersol who ran NBC Sports as his own sports empire, including the Olympics, with little oversight is out. About $12 billion has gone into sports because of the potential for advertising. Burke, 55, is from a family with a history in the television business- his dad was CEO of Capital Cities/ABC. He was in corporate strategy at Walt Disney Co. before he joined Comcast in 1998 to develop corporate strategy and acquisitions under Mr. Roberts. The opportunity at NBC gives Comcast a shot at building a business that spans its cable business and a content development company. Operating cash flow for NBCU is up 21% for the second quarter of 2013....

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Philippe Varin faces some tough decisions when he takes over Peugeot-Citroen. Unlike the turnaroungd he achieved at Corus steel group where the booming demand from China for steel helped, this time the auto market in Europe is declining by about 30%. He has to navigate betwen the interests of the Peugeot family which has 45% of the voting rights, employees who are affected by the cost cutting, the French government which has required no closing of factories for as long as the company receives governement aid. Peugeot-Citroen received a low interest loan of 3 billion euros from the French government. Questions he will have to address, as do all auto manufacturers in the USA and Europe relate to overcapacity as demand declines. And for Peugeot this has to be tackled without factory closures. And the other major issue facing auto manufacturers worldwide is how much to focus on the fuel efficient small car segment. Peugeot has key strengths in this segment and Varin may decide on refocussing on this segment....

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The head of Lexus James Farley, who is a Detroit native and has family connections to Ford, will join Ford as head of Marketing.

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Two way trade goal of $60 billion goal set for 2010 during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to China. The focus on both sides is on improving the lives of the people in their countries, where even rapid growth still leaves vast gaps in the country's development between urban and rural, coastal and remote regions in the interior, and huge challenges wherever they turn from the environmental degradation of industrialization, to health care in a capitalist economy for both countries, and worker and human rights in a capitalist economy for China, to infrastructure development in India. So the sobering tone of Wen " its not a matter of who outdoes whom" and the thrust of Manmohan Singh's "our people are united in their aspirations for a better future". See Wen's speech to the Japanese Parliament in 2007 where he referred to two temples or monasteries in China where lamps were burning continuously to promote the cooperation and peaceful development in the two countries. He strikes one as thoughtful and focussed on improving the lives of the Chinese people, but that said is part of the system of development in China which is focussed on manufacturing for export with few of the worker protections and much corruption....

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The bottom half of all U.S. households have only recently recovered the wealth lost in the 2009 financial crisis. They still have 32% less wealth than in 2003 when inflation is taken into account. The top 1% of households have more than twice as much as they did in 2003. Wealth is defined as net worth that includes houses , savings and stocks minus any debt. The wealthy have 85% of their wealth in stocks and bonds. For the bottom 50% half of the assets are in the house or family home. Economic and regulatory trends have happened in ways that favored the people investing in stocks, and rescued people investing in stocks with policies designed with this purpose by central banks and the U.S. government. By contrast for the bottom 50% buying a home is more difficult today. The problem this WSJ report points out is that the next recession would most hurt the bottom 50%, even before they have recovered from the last one which was a result of shaky practices of banks in financial lending and not some cyclical swing in the economy. Policy was then geared to provide a recovery first for stock markets as a way to economic recovery. The bottom 50% have little stake in the stock market, the top 1% have most of their gains from the stock market. Much of the popular anger comes from the way policies by both Democrats and Republicans differed little in past administrations in the way they approached this in shaping economic policy. As a result infrastructure building and investments in public services took less priority in this period of 30 years with trade imbalances with China building up on the external front, in another side to this development. The shift to Trump and to right wing populists in Europe is only the first phase in the corrective action that has to take place to return to a fairer distribution of wealth that existed before the last 3 decades. Eventually it is not right wing or left wing factions or parties, but healthy policies, that matter to create a better balance for society.  ...

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How in the end the Bancrroft family with its many divisions just folded up and settled for Dow Jones assuming their lawyer and investment bankers advisory fees.

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The situation in Boise, Idaho. Home to many electronics and high tech companies like Micron Technology, Boise has weathered many downturns with unemployment rates well below the national average. This time things are not looking at all like previous downturns, as the unemployment rate in Boise climbed to 6% from 2.7%- it has already approached the national average of 6.7%, and is climbing. This suggests that high tech is also being affected seriously. Unemployment is expected to reach 8% in 2010, about the same as the national average forecast according to Moody's Economy.com. Goldman Sachs forecast is for the 2009 savings rate to be between 6% to 10% by 2009. Families like the Capps and Muirs that have young children or children in teenage years, are now serious savers, as profiled in this description. Down to getting their meat from a calf grown on a family farm in the Rocky mountain region where Boise is located, cutting their own wood in the mountains, buying 11 dozen eggs and freezing the insides of the eggs, buying on deals like $8 winter coats at Old Navy's store, bulk purchases of sugar and staples, growing and canning vegetables, handcrotcheting hats and scarfs for sale on Craigslist and local bazaars. All this from Mrs and Mr Muir including starting a Moneysavers Club, an email group of 30 people. The Muirs are a young family with their first child 5 years ago, who have stable employment, with Mr Muir working as a grape researcher for the state Dept of Agriculture, and his wife a dental assistant. But having taken 2 mortgages to buy their $144,000 home because they could not afford the 20% down payment. The wife's 401K of $3000 going for insulation and fence , and the husband's 401 K savings down to $13,000- reduced to half by the stock market. Suggesting poor decisions on housing debt with low savings for a couple in their thirties. The Capp couple in its forties has also low savings, having $40,000 in student loans, and credit card debt of $11,000 just paid off by using the $10,000 severance package for Mr Capp. The Capps are economizing on everything from skiing to using washable rags instead of paper towels. He worked as a field service engineer for Electroglass, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer based in San Jose which fired two thirds of its field service engineers, including Capp. They also used a $25,000 line of credit on their home to buy a used Toyota 4Runner. Considering their economizing skills, their responding to the downturn by paring down debt as quickly as possible, the information of Mrs Muir's skills at saving, the Capps continuing to use their 253,000 miles Toyota Corolla- these are families that were not crazy spenders, but just families that did not take saving seriously. The Capps made $65,000 from Mr Capps salary and $10,000 from Mrs Capps work at a mental health clinic (after getting a BS in psychology), yet their $2700 in savings suggests no effort was made to save for a rainy day. What this saving and economizing means is that restaurants are closing in large numbers in Boise. Retail stores, including electronics and clothing, are shuttering, All this is leading to higher unemployment, leading to saving measures like those used by the Capps and the Muirs. Meanwhile the numbers for savings accounts at Home Federal Bancorp in Boise, Idaho, a $725 million bank with 15 area branches, shows savings accounts up 26% in December from the previous year. And says the banks consumer banking head, the balances are increasing even as the unemployment rate is going up. Which suggests that Rodriguez and Goldman Sachs may be right (seee link) that the savings rate may reach 10%, and even higher, from what is happening in Boise. Views on currency valuation and the dollar as indicated in the analysis of the article about Rodriguez /Grantham/Scheiff, WSJ, January 2, 2009, may have to be separated from the analysis of what is happening in savings, as the weakening of the dollar relates also to the weakening of other economies and currencies. This steep upturn in saving is likely to affect Chinese exports severely and the Chinese economy. This also affect the German economy, as China imports less from Germany, especially its midsized manufacturers. See links. What is happening on saving, on the other hand, is very real, and happening before our very eyes....

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King Salman appoints Mohamed bin Nayef, 55 years-old, as the deputy crown prince in Jan. 2015. The crown prince is Muqrin Abdulaziz, 69 years-old. Mohamed Bin Nayef is the son of the Interior Minister, who worked under his father from 1999 till he became the new Interior minister in 2012. Nayef has pursued an aggressive program to remove Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. By taking action against all dissent inside Saudi Arabia Nayef has also jailed human rights activists, including the flogging of a blogger critical of the government. The defense minister Prince Mohamed bin Salman, is a son of King Salman. King Salman was defense minister till he succeeded his half-brother Abdullah. Ali al-Naimi continues as Oil minister, a position he has held for decades. Saudi Arabia established a panel in 2006 to work with future kings after King Salman to appoint an heir to the throne. Even with the appointment of Nayef, a grandson of Saudi Arabia's founder, Abdulaziz ibn Saud, as deputy crown prince, the leadership of the country remains within a small number of princes of the royal family. Under the Obama administration the relations between U.S. and Saudi Arabia have become strained with president Obama's failure to intervene in Syria. The Saudi have pursued their own policies since then, in first Bahrain and then Egypt the Saudis supported the monarchy and the military respectively to maintain power in the face of the Arab Spring. The danger is that Saudi policies may be contrary to the U.S. position supporting freely elected governments and basic rights, particularly when it comes to suppression of all dissent including peaceful dissent and normal criticism of government, and yet with the rise of Islamic State the U.S. puts itself inadvertently behind these very policies. The Saudis would say this has happened because U.S. president Obama failed to support the effort for freedom in Syria and a transition in Libya and Iraq (with the added complication of Maliki's sectarian policies), creating a war torn neighborhood in which the Saudis had to act on their own. These are the hidden costs of the policy of the U.S. president for the U.S. and for the Middle East- more sectarianism with Shiites and Sunnis openly in conflict, reversal of hard won gains in Iraq, reversal of the Arab Spring except in Tunisia, war torn Libya and Iraq- with a withdrawal that never truly happened because it required a firmly guided transition period of support in the region with lower cost and involvement of an extended period leaving no room for reversal of gains. It leaves both the Saudis and the U.S. in a more precarious position than a decade ago....

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Kindler on Pfizer's turnaround in April 2007. H plays jazz piano like his son and likes to spend time with his family where his daughter likes to remind him that he is not CEo around the house. He goes on sales calls with his sales reps to find out what its really like talking to doctors as a sales rep first hand and no one knows who he is. He likes to go out here on the road to talk to people and find out about the business. Kindler's experience is not as a pharmaceutical industry insider. And he has watched Pfizer stock sink by 50% and all sorts of issues come up fromquestions about the integrity of clinical trials to low morale and layoffs, and skeptical public.

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Hubbard points out that beyond the public show of confidence Saudi Arabia is a society undergoing change and the future remains uncertain. In Jan. 2015 King Salman, 79, succeeded King Abdullah when he died at the age of 90. With the drop in oil prices and the Saudi role to avoid production cuts, the Saudis have a buget deficit of $39 billion for 2015. Reserves are estimated at $750 billion by the IMF. Saudi policies under Salman will remain unchanged.

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The Hulme Company mail order catalog business in Minnesota may not be representative of small business, considering the errors and the scale of the debt taken on. But even if a small fraction of this debt taking tendency is representative of small business, it means that small business will not generate jobs as it did in the past. Small business will actually layoff people. And small business will not be able to provide the bounce the economy will need in years to come. The following is an an anaysis of this venture. The owners of this small business Bidwell and Ms. Guarino bought a luxury goods maker that was losing money for $600,000. Their business was to sell $500 garment bags and $1200 duffel bags. The experience of Bidwell was with Target, Tonka Toys and a cigarette distributor. Ms Guarino had a $130,000 job with a magazine publisher, running regional magazines like Minnesota Parent, which she quit. She had some experience as a handbag designer in California before that. They had never seen hard times, no, they had only seen good times. And were willing to spend heavily on the business like the $600,000 for a business, Hulme Company, that lost $150,000 on sales of $450,000 making duck hunting gear, the business they bought in 2003. All this for a tiny factory employing 3 seamstresses, and with no brand name for luxury goods like leather duffels. Their lender's experience- Kassim who founded Maple Bank in Champlin, Minnesota, considered it pretty typical of small business in those days to do everything on debt and loaned $550,000 over 5 years. So the lender was in for the ride. Another bank Stephens bank loaned on SBA approved loans which were later cut off. Guarino had no experience in this business, and simply relied on Bidwell's experience. The borrowing went on and on from friends, taking in debt with total lack of understanding of what debt means, from their daughter, the entire $50,000 savings of Bidwell's wife, and finally with banks refusing to lend after having friends put up their CD's and collateral on loans. Debt to equity ratio gets to 5 to 1. Second mortgages on the house getting Bidwell and extra $130,000. Even in the best year 2006 sales at $1.4 million, and earnings before taxes and other items at $325,000, not enough to pay the interest and other payments on loans that later totaled $2 million by year end 2007. $500,000 from friends and family including $20,000 from his daughter or two thirds of their savings. 600,000 catalogs went out in 2007. With the Hulme Company behind on payments in 2008, the catalogs mailed in 2008 dropped to 175,000. It is a very capital intensive business from the standpoint of catalog cost. $1 million in inventory at year end 2007, or two thirds of sales of $1.5 million in 2007, was a sign of how expansion preceded even getting the financing in place, and going out into the dark thinking sales wil materialize. So even in the best year 2006 the business was not viable, and would have collapsed even without the financial and credit conditions of 2008, ruining the owners in the process. By 2008 it led to the usual things in this kind of business failure, Bidwell's divorce, loss of his home as he falls behind on mortgage payments, Guarino's loss of job and friends whom she borrowed from, and both deeply in debt. Evaluation of the failure is as follows. Seamstresses and the small factory space could be obtained for a fraction of the cost in an emerging market country, even in an eastern European country, and no cost needed to be incurred for the purchase of Hulme Company or for sending out catalogs. Only travel expenses to meet high end retailers who might carry this merchandise, and go to the country where the plant was setup. Sales would come first, and expansion to meet sales very carefully done so that the plant could be downscaled if sales dropped. Even then scores of small luxury goods makers in China or other emerging market countries could put the owners out of business. The lesson if you can't watch costs, if you don't understand what debt means, then you don't pass the most basic of tests. You cannot run business on savings, home equity or credit card loans, or business loans with personal guarantees. Costs tend to just run up to the money one has artificially created. It will ruin you. If you don't have experience with the business and the product area, or can't put together a group of people with the experience to guide you on the pitfalls and what to watch for, you don't pass the next basic test. Only then does one get to the other tests about whether there is a market, the price and value of the offering and so on. This is before the current economic crisis. Now all these tests become more important than ever, or it will kill you and quickly. One has to be paranoid and very careful after 2008. Stephens Bank loaned money on SBA loans ...

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Vic Starmer spent the day after Thursday's election night at a race course in Surrey. Her mother introduced her to flat racing and she spent time at the Doncaster race course while growing up. She is a solicitor, ten years younger than Keir Starmer, and works in occupational health for the NHS. Vic met Keir Starmer when he called her about a brief she prepared as a solicitor. Starmer says their first interaction was when she was questioned about the brief and s she put down the phone was overheard saying "who the fuck does he think he is?"  Vic grew up in a middle class home in north London the daughter of a father whose family left Poland in the 1930's who worked as a accountant, and a mother who was a GP physician. She went to Cardiff University to study sociology and law, was elected student union president in 1994. They married when Keir was 45 years. Keir Starmer says about her-      " very sassy, very down to earth, no nonsense from anyone." She was political long before Keir, she understands politics, yet she wants to stay outside politics. On the walls in their Kentish Town kitchen the pictures reflect her space, nothing political, just the Doncaster race course, a familiar space for her.   ...

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Italy's political scene is fragmented with two far right parties one the League under Matteo Salvini with a base in the north and the other called Brothers of Italy, under Giorgia Meloni with a base in the south. In Italian politics of the last decade popularity of a party lasts on the right or the left remains for 3-4 years before fading. In sequence after the fading away of Berluconi's party, voters swung to the socialist party, then the party of Beppe Grillo a comedian called Five Star Movement, followed by the League and Salvini on the far right, and now Brothers of Italy. At no time is any such party having at the height of its popularity having more than 20-25% support. Brothers of Italy under Meloni is the newcomer with 23% support mostly in the south, Rome, Palermo, Sardinia.    Brothers of Italy is different from Salvini's party as Meloni is staunchly pro-EU and supports Italy taking a strong stand on Ukraine. The withdrawal of Salvini from the national unity government led by Mr. Draghi, former head of the European Central Bank, and formed during the pandemic, led to its collapse last week. Meloni benefited by being the main party in the opposition during that time, so that it is not clear that if she forms a government after the September election whether Italy will still have a stable government. The difference between Salvini's League with connections to Russia and Meloni's EU positions means far right politics is itself fragmented and the socialist parties are within a point of the Brothers of Italy. Mr. Berluconi's Forza remains a fringe player with 8%. With 200 million euros of EU assistance Italy decided to form a government under Mr. Draghi in a kind of national unity government during the pandemic so that these funds could be managed effectively, and to tackle pandemic related problems. Some of Meloni's appeal may come from broadening her appeal by policies that support nurseries and mothers, the family, and from her working class background in Rome at a time when the pandemic has created serious economic problems for families. Like France Italy is divided with Meloni playing the kind of role Le Pen has in France of being for working class yet facing competition for working class votes from the socialist parties that are close rivals for support. The Five Star and League parties in northern Italy have their own local support base. ...

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Getting savy employers to pay attention and getting employees to have a better sense of who they are, provides the topic of this article in the WSJ. It shows that different types of employee behaviour can be seen after two years of the pandemic, and employers need to pay attention to their needs.  There are ambitious employees and work to live types. Work to live advocates have put lifestyle and health as priorities learning from the pandemic. The great resignation and employers facing worker shortages have given them an opportunity to look for more flexibility in work life situations. Related to work to live type are double duty professionals of which women form the larger part. During the pandemic women took on more responsibilities for children with lockdowns and school closures. This also meant a more stressful life. All of these types of employees are now in the workplace. Employers can get better results by paying careful attention to worker needs. The types are not exclusive as double duty professionals also have the drive and the resilience to match ambitious employees in tackling new positions and responsibilities. The double duty professionals also share the aspirations of work to live advocates for a better work life balance that gives rest and relaxation, home and family, the importance it deserves for a full and complete life. There is one more type which is also part of the workplace that is entirely different. It is the disoriented new employee who has been left alone to find out about new responsibilities at work virtually without the necessary human contact. Related to this type is the desperate to connect type which is the type that has lived in relative isolation during the pandemic and is now hungering for human contact. There is also one more type closer to retirement that is the zest for life type that can be very productive in the workplace because of its experience and talent if given the chance. This type is not just there for the paycheck or career progress. Here the zest for life means the desire to connect with others and learn new things. Companies and management can accomplish more and be more responsive to needs of their employees by understanding these types and their different needs. Dorie Clark ,who teaches executive education at Duke and Columbia University ,says this is important for companies to retain talented employees and get the most out of them by understanding early on what motivates them. ...