LyrArc Article Gist
Knight Capital's aggressive introduction of software with ony a short period between approval and implementation resulted in a wave of erroneous orders resulting in losses for the brokerage firm of $440 million. These losses were incurred as Knight Capital had to sell all the stocks it accidentally bought as a result of malfunctioning software that sent out waves of wrong orders on August 1, 2012. Knight accounted for 11% of the stock traded in the U.S. in the first half of 2012, according to TABB Group. It took 45 minutes for the New York Exchange to detect the problem, identify Knight Trading as the source and shut down trading.

LyrArc Article Gist
Problems in the power sector that limit India's economic growth. Power plants being built are short of coal and other fuel supplies. Coal supply has not kept up with increase in power plant capacity- coal production increased by a mere 1% in 2011 and power plant capacity increased 11%. The gap between demand and supply for power increased from 7.7% in 2010 to 10.2% in 2011. Coal India which has 80% of production has not invested enough in new mining equipment and technology to rapidly increase production. This combined with higher energy costs for imports and weak infrastructure continues to act as a constraint to economic growth.

LyrArc Article Gist
U.S. president Trump's 2017 budget is an effort to reshape spending priorities by the Republican party. Apart from Medicare and Social Security all other entitlement programs from the days of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society are subject to cuts. Deep cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, including introducing work requirements. The philosophy behind it is that compassion will now be measured not by how large these programs are but by how much the government can get people "off these programs and back in charge of their lives,"  according to Budget Director Mulvaney.  The cuts are $616 billion to Medicaid and Children's Health programs, $193 billion in cuts to Food Stamps, $143 billion in student loans, $72 billion in disability programs. The overhaul of the Affordable Health Care Act is part of this change. The reallocation would put more money into infrastructure for $200 billion, and in tax cuts, $19 billion in a parental leave program and $29 billion for veterans programs, plus added spending on the military. William Hoagland of the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Republican who worked on budget issues says it will be politically difficult as the cuts to lower income groups come with tax cuts for small businesses and higher income individuals.  Beyond the policy priorities there is an area where both Republicans and Democrats are skeptical of the budget. This is how it impacts the U.S. debt. Under Congressional Budget Office estimates the U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP which rose to about 75% after the Great Recession starting in 2008, is projected to grow to about 85%. In sharp contrast the Trump administration estimates of the Office of Management and Budget are for it to drop to 65% based on rosier estimates of 2% inflation, 3% growth for the decade ahead. Experts say this is unlikely once the Fed raises interest rates and the unemployment rate currently at 4.4% leads to rising inflation, undercutting growth which has remained below 2% for a long period. These concerns are also voiced by Hilsenrath in the WSJ based on the experience of other countries such a Britain that cut corporate taxes without seeing an uptick in economic growth. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
China's exports were able to show year over year growth of 7.6% in the first quarter of 2012, a sharp decline from 20.3% in 2011. As a result IMF estimates of China's long term current account surplus which were about 7% of GDP in the World Economic Outlook in Sept. 2011 may now be lowered to about 5%. This would reduce the strength of arguments that the yen is undervalued. The IMF is now engaged in making estimates for current account balances till 2017. China's current account surplus peaked at 10.1% of GDP in 2007 and the IMF forecasts in 2008 were for this to remain at 10% for the long term. The situation is rapidly changing because the most recent estimates from China's State Administration for Foreign Exchange show the actual current account surplus for 2011 at 2.8% of GDP. Since the 2010 Group of 20 nations summit meeting when China was pressured to reduce its trade surplus and let the yuan appreciate, the yuan has appreciated by 8.3%.

LyrArc Article Gist
India's central bank governor, Raghuram Rajan, announces a interest rate reduction of the benchmark rate by one quarter percentage point to 7.75 percent on Jan. 14, 2014. He had come under criticism from business for not lowering rates at the Dec. 2, 2014 meeting, after the decline in oil prices. Rajan notes in his news release that when he left rates at the same level on Dec. 2, the policy statement said clearly- "once the monetary policy stance shifts, subsequent policy actions will be consistent with this stance." In the NYT interview with Keith Bradsher, Rajan pointed out that more information was needed to confirm that low crude oil price environment was going to last. India imports about $100 billion in crude oil and is a key beneficiary of lower oil prices, at a time when the energy infrastructure and supplies are lagging behind causing a severe bottleneck for growth. The current situation points to inflationary pressures easing. Dec. 2014 inflation was 5%. Prices have fallen for fruits and vegetables since Sept.2014, and cereal price pressures are also easing. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
 President Trump says China is backing off in negotiations to address U.S. demands for a fair relationship on trade. He says the U.S. will increase tariffs from 10% imposed in September 2018 to 25% on $200 billion of Chinese goods starting May 10, 2019. China has put tariffs of 10% on $60 billion of American goods exported to China responding to the American tariffs in last September.  The U.S. says since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001 with the approval of president Clinton it has unfairly benefited in trade with the U.S., leading to closure of factories and loss of jobs in the U.S. with state subsidized Chinese exports to the U.S. contrary to the spirit of the WTO and its rules. China has made promises to correct this and not kept them says the U.S. side in negotiations led by Robert Lighthizer. The tariffs moves are a tactic of president Trump to get China to relent and make fundamental changes in the way it exports to the U.S.  So far the Chinese response has been tit for tat. But this can change. As this report points out what is already known that China benefits far more and exports far more to the U.S. than the U.S. does to China. The $60 billion of American goods exports on which China placed tariffs represent two fifths of China's imports from U.S. With smaller exports from the U.S. to China, China has not much leverage in trade negotiations in this kind of tit for tat retaliation. It hurts China's exporters and economy much more than it does U.S. consumers. The increase in prices for U.S. consumers are also not expected to be significant, according to this report in the NYT, if China increase tariffs further. Aware of this and China's belief that past administrations have not responded is a guide to what the Trump administration can or will do, has convinced president Trump that there is no other way to get a fair trading relationship that respects U.S. interests, its jobs and workers. As Robert Lighthizer who leads the U.S. negotiating team faced this type of response from the Japanese when he negotiated with them (shoving off U.S. demands to reduce Japan's trade surplus in the eighties before accepting them), the U.S. thinks this strategy will work again. In any case it sees no alternatives to achieve its goal of a fair and balanced trading relationship. The U.S. international trade deficit in goods was up to $891 billion in February 2019 even after the tariffs on Chinese goods in September, showing that it will take a lot more to turn this as well as other trading relationships around.   ...

LyrArc Article Gist
UN projections show median age of Chinese citizens will overtake that of Americans in 2020. Yet China's median income is only a quarter of that in the U.S. Life expectancy in China today is 76, very close to that in America. In 1960 a Chinese person born that year had life expectancy of 44 years.  China is aging at the pace of Japan, and a bit slower than South Korea, but wealth per capita was three times higher in South Korea and Japan than China when the aging accelerated. A Chinese woman fertility rate today is 1.6 compared to 4.6 in 1973. A prominent Chinese economist says in a recent report that median age in China in 2050 will be nearly 50 compared to 42 in America and 38 in India. WSJ cites figures showing China will have gone from 9 working age adults per retired person in 2000 to just two by 2050. So how to pay for retirement of all these workers today? Government spending on retirement is a tenth of GDP, about half the level in older wealthier countries, and increase in spending will impact growth. Today this is about 6.2% potential growth rate. It also pushes wages up with a shortage of workers in cities such as Shenzen and X'ian even with the use of new technology and robots in factories.  Solutions are to raise retirement age currently set at 60 years, increasing labor force participation of women as Japan has done, and increasing productivity. China has transferred 10% equity stakes in four state owned financial firms to the national pension fund to shore up its finances as estimates from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences show it running out of money in 2035. Traditionally children supported families in old age but the one child policy leads to situations where the child is working or in another city. In Suzhou near Shanghai, a retirement business sends 1800 helpers to private homes and 130,000 retired people, in a new trend. The city administration of Shanghai plans 400 neighborhood care centres for elderly by 2022, with health clinics, drop in facilities, and homes. 12,000 elderly people use one centrre in central Shanghai area of Changning. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Th Basel Committee on Banking Supervision set strict financial guidelines for capital and liquidity that banks have to hold, but failed to implement early compliance. Banks get 8 years to comply for most of the banks, and 13 years for some of the banks. Increasing capital requirements by triple the current levels in the form of current equity, as required by the new Basel rules, gives banks a larger buffer in a situation that some of their assets lose value in a crisis such as the one in 2008. The US argued for stronger requirements and early implementation. Germany held back the implementation timetable mainly because its regional banks are saddled with bad loans; which might require $100 billon capital infusion by the German government, if early compliance was set in the new rules. The result is that the Basel rules have not grasped the opportunity to act quickly to strengthen the banking system, according to Prof. Jeremy Stein of Harvard University, a former advisor to the U.S. Treasury Department. In Stein's view the timetable is so far out, that another crisis will probably take place before the implementation. In the event, regulators from the U.S., Germany, and other countries let fears of tightened lending by banks prevail to an extent where the new rules timetable is stretched way out for 8-13 years....

LyrArc Article Gist
Gates experience one rainy night in March, at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, welcoming 4 dead soldiers who lost their lives to a roadside bomb on a rutted road near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, provides an insight into what he sees as important for the US military. One is to address the realities of the war that is facing the US in the now, not some theoretical conventional war as the Pentagon is overly focused on. This war is fought in insurgencies in Iraq and in the Pakistan-Afghanistan area. And even the takeover of nuclear weapons by Taliban, is not ruled out with the collapse of the government in Pakistan. So he sees reason for doing things quickly. At Dover that night, Gates expressed his anger to his staff, "find out why they had'nt gotten their goddamn MRAP's yet (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles). Gates went into the 747 carrying the draped coffins, and knelt alone and prayed for 5 minutes. Gates was President of Texas A&M University, before he took the assignment at Defense during the last 2 years of the Bush administration. He knows the ways of the bureaucracy, and is a persistent and effective when faced with lack of cooperation and delays. When the field commanders in Afghanistan said they needed 40 Predator combat air patrols instead of the 12 they had, Gates went around the bureaucratic delays and had his task force set up and and doing problem solving down to details. They went about getting more flying time, and pilots, and control stations in the air force to support this. He keeps presentations limited to 45 minutes, and inists all slides be turned in the day before, for him to look over carefully. And he is decisive in making changes. The Army Secretary was asked to come to Washington immediately, and fired on the spot, not Gates says for the appalling conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital, but for not acknowledging that problems existed and taking quick action to fix them. And Gates is using the 2010 Defense budget to steer away from large scale conventional weapons programs, and get more money for the immediate needs of the field commanders in the wars being fought today. He makes it clear in talking with lawmakers, that "listening to our troops and commanders, unvarnished and unscripted, has from the moment I took the job been the greatest single source of ideas on what the department needs to do." In doing this he has to face up to the bureaucracy and set ways of doing things at the Defense Department, things that were never questioned under his predecessor Rumsfeld. In 2008 the generals who run the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps formally "non-concurred" with the classified version of Gates's National Defense Strategy, which said it was necessary "to take additional acceptable risk" in the area of conventional war so that the military could improve its ability to fight irregular wars. Gates met with all the defense chiefs to listen to their objections, and decided to draw his own conclusion after thinking it over, that the reasons given "were non-compelling," considering the grave dangers that the military was facing in existing wars. Gates is convinced that its his job to give the troops in the field the equipment and resources they need, and he is not letting the military brass or officials block the way. He does not let the criticism affect him. Gates is very quiet when he listens to arguments presented on the other side that he does not share, responding in a thoughtful and controlled manner. Last week, Jaffe of the WPost says, Gates flew to Afghnistan to ask for the resignation of Gen McKiernan the field commander there, a man he had chosen 11 months earlier, but now felt was the wrong man for the job. During this trip he visited a new base being built in southern Afghanistan, and met four marines whose MRAP vehicle took the blast from a roadside bomb, all survived with minor scratches and injuries, and one broken arm. Gates was mightily pleased. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
The CDU takes 32% of the vote in Saxony down from 39% in 2014, 5 points ahead of the AfD, and he SPD wins in Brandenburg with a 3 point lead over the AfD. The federal government in Berlin is run by a coalition of the CDU and the SPD. The east west divide in Germany clearly shows with the AfD doing well in the former Communist East Germany. People in the east feel that they are "second class citizens" and this plus the migration policy of chancellor Merkel that alienated many including its partner in Bavaria, has given an opening to the AfD that has exploited these divisions. The AfD now has an ultra right wing and both the mainstream parties the CDU of Merkel and the SPD of Willy Brandt campaigned against it. The AfD or Alternative for Germany Party is basically a creation of chancellor Merkel's open migration policy which has affected Europe and may have provided the small margin to the pro-Brexit parties in Britain in the first referendum. The CDU and the SPD now look set to seek new leadership to tackle the problems of infrastructure neglect, the impact of the migration policies in fragmenting politics, increasing inequality, and the policy towards Britain and other states in the EU. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
There is a mixed picture behind the drop in investment in new oil exploration. The IEA estimates that overall investment will be down 15-20% in 2009. The number of drilling rigs in use globally fell 32% in the year to April 2009, to 2055, according to Baker-Hughes, an oilfield services firm. In America the number of rigs in use is down by 50%, and OPEC countries are cancelling 35 big projects, according to the OPEC secretary general, Salem Al-Badri. Cambridge Energy Associates estimates that 5.5 million barrels a day of capacity additions may not take place in the next couple of years, which is a third of expected net increase by 2014. Examine this a bit more closely and you find that the oil majors despite lack of access to oil in inhospitable terrain or foreign countries, are still holding up well in investment. Exxon increased capital spending by 5% in the 1st quarter 2009, and Shell and Chevron plan to invest the same in 2009 as in 2008, $31 billion and $23 billion. BP plans to go from $21 billion to $20 billion. Canadian Tar Sands investments are being reevaluated in the light of prices, and smaller companies like Devon Energy are cutting back, for Devon from $9 billion in 2008 to $4 billion in 2009. From the national oil companies the investments are holding up in Saudi Arabia, whereas they are faltering in Russia and cash strapped Venezuela. Saudi Aramco recently completed a 5 year project increasing capacity from 10m b/d to 12.5 b/d at cost of $70 billion. And another $60 billion is set aside for more investments which will be less vigorously pursued as Saudis have 4.5m b/d of idle capacity after production cutbacks by OPEC. Petrobras plans to increase its investment by 55% to $174 billion in the next 5 years in offshore discoveries challenged by deep waters and thick layers of salt. The oilfield services companies like Schlumberger are cutting back, with Schlumberger cutting investment in 2009 by 13% to $2.6 billion and shedding 5000 jobs. Baker Hughes shed 3000 jobs. Mature fields are also receiving less investment, so that the drop from mature fields will be 9.4% according to IEA instead of 7.7% projected earlier with larger investments. The picture described above shows investments by the Saudis, the majors, oil field services firms, investments in recovery improvements in mature fields, not in a precipitious decline. The picture is of cautious and careful investment and some pullbacks as the economies of the US suffered decline in GDP of 6% in the 1st quarter 2009 over prior year and the German and Japanese economies suffered decline of 15-16%. Even the most optimistic forecasts for China do not go above 8% for 2009. In the light of these growth estimates the moderate drop in investments in new oil exploration may match the moderation in growth in Asia and the drop in growth in the USA and Europe and Japan. The forecasts of steeply higher oil prices or spikes like those in 2007-2008 are based on the notion of a quick economic recovery. See the links to economic recovery on this. These links suggest that the current surge may not last as the basics for a recovery are weak. In the US foreclosures, toxic assets, housing, consumption and savings, and unemployment all indicate a weak economy for several years down the road. And it is this weakness that the oil investment exploration budgets may be responding to in amoderated manner. The latest sign of this weakness is the spread of foreclosures to prime borrowers with job losses, link NYT May 24, 2009. The Saudi king thinks that $75 is a fair price for oil. Current prices have taken oil to $60 a barrel, even as inventories remain strong with over 60 days of supply. No spikes like those in the past are realistic in this economic environment....

LyrArc Article Gist
A history of French nuclear energy. How it got started in the area known as Beaumont-Hague. The decision of the French government to pursue nuclear energy and set up new nuclear plants. The efforts to Frenchify the early nuclear technology developed by Westinghouse in the U.S. Today nuclear plants produce 78% of its electricity. Setting up the industry has cost about $120 billion and France has accepted the risks of spradic radiation leaks. Electricity accounts for 20% of French energy consumption, oil takes up 49%, leaving France still dependent on foreign oil.

LyrArc Article Gist
IG Metall, the union representing 3 million workers in metals and engineering industries, negotiated a 4.3% wage increase over 13 months. The union had asked for a 6.5% increase. Unions won wage increases of more than 6% in the public and telecommunications sectors. Workers in chemical, agriculture and hotel industries are pushing for increases of over 6%. The union wage negotiations help set the pattern for wage increases for the 41 million employed workers in Germany. This will help France and other EU countries close the gap with Germany in wages and improve competitiveness.

LyrArc Article Gist
Efforts at Caltech and MIT to produce hydrogen based energy from light absorbing materials that combine sunlight and water vapor to emit hydrogen. Three innovation hubs have been set up by the U.S. Energy Department including the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Caltech. The project has $122 million in funding from DOE. The research is especially applicable for a product that can be used to provide energy in developing countries - using existing resources and providing a small power station as it were for each home without the large energy needs of developed countries.

LyrArc Article Gist
The NYT editorial reminds readers on the day following the Bush bridge loan approval that it would have been far better to ask the the top executives to step down as anecessary step to push substantive change through Detroit's entrenched mind-set. Which again poses the question whether Wagoner is the right CEO to reinvent the company as he said he would do. And by February 17, GM has to get bondholders to convert at least two thirds of their debt into equity, so achieving even the near term hurdles remain uncertain.

LyrArc Article Gist
Wang Lequan, who is the party leader for Xinjiang, is aprotege of Chinese President Hu . He was pulled into the party from Hu's days in the Chinese Communist Youth League. He is from Shadong province China's industrial and petroleum capital. Because of his familiarity with the oil industry Wang may have beeen transferred to Xinjiang province. He arrived in Xinjiang just as the Soviet Union was dissolving, and the central Asian administrative regions that were formed inside the Soviet Union were becoming independent countries. China's army had occupied Xinjiang in 1949 under Mao. Millions of Chinese were leaving the Xinjiang area and the thinking was that the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang would also form their own country. What happened was that Wang reestablished the Chinese presence in Xinjiang province. He opened the Xinjiang region's oil and gas fields to drilling, laid pipelines east to China and west to Kazakhstan. A Production and Construction Corps was formed so that Chinese soldiers leaving the army service could find work, and this was later listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. With growing industry and government jobs, many Chinese were attracted back to Xinjiang. In the 1990's 2 million Chinese went back to Xinjiang. At the same time his policies may have had the effect of making the local Uighur people feel that their culture and language weere being threatened and they needed to fight for its survival. Wang acting with dictatorial powers tightly constrained Uighur culture and religion. He substituted Mandarin for Uighur in primary schools, saying minority languages were "out of step with the 21st century," and banned or restricted Islamic practices among government workers, including the wearing of beards and head scarves and religious practice like fasting and praying while at work. He has been Communist party leader in Xinjiang for 15 years, which is unusually long, such jobs usually only lasting 10 years. SInce 9/11 Wang has fought hard to limit the influence of separatism, and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, an Uighur group, and he has swept up thousands of Uighurs accused of terrorism or religious extremism. He worked to have the East Tukestan group listed as Al Quaeda allies by the Bush administration in 2002. He is closely allied to President Hu who supported Wang, giving him a seat on the Politburo. Wang's protege in Xinjiang has been placed in charge in Tibet. There is a sense with Wang and Hu, that a failure now in Xinjiang and in Tibet to control unrest would lead others in the Chinese leadership who think differently on theses issues to bring a different leadership to succeed them. The difficulty here is that the Han who now comprise 40% of the population in Xinjiang, and are heavily involved in the oil and gas industry, have brough a modernizing influence to Xinjiang but may not be received by the Uighurs as apositive influence. First any government that is in power for as long as 15-20 years tends to lose support over time. This happened with the Congress in Kashmir. Too powerful or corrupt, and lose touch with the young people. But compared to India the democratic ways of that country have helped it recognize the need for respecting the language, religion and culture of the people of each region. The British did the same, so it was something that went back to British times. With the monopoly of power of the Communist party, lack of precedent and amodel to follow that respected different culture and languages, the intolerance of Uighur and Tibetan language, religion and culture, creates a different situation in China. Elections were held in Kashmir recently and an effort is being made for reconciliation with different groups, the media is open and different voices are heard. No such prospect remains for Tibet and Xinjiang. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
As HP separates into two separate companies that can be focussed and nimble, CEO Meg Whitman says that it has been a difficult road for HP. The new organization will have a lower cost basis by making job cuts as HP sales shrink- about 30,000 additional job cuts will be made in addition to the 55,000 announced earlier, mostly in enterprise services as the outsourcing operations have declined. HP sales and profits have declined with profit of $8.76 billion in fiscal 2010 on $126 billion in sales dropping to $5 billion in profit on $111.5 billion sales by fiscal 2014. Meg Whitman, CEO, says this should complete the changes and set the business up for future growth in new business areas. She also says HP has not done anything stupid in the last 4 years, alluding to the losses on the ill advised Autonomy acquisition. A big shift is being made in the Enterprise Services Group by setting a rule that no single account should be more than 10%- in 2013 just 3 accounts made up 65% of operating profit. One area of growth is cloud computing related business where it sees revenue growth of 20% for the next couple of years. Other areas include data analytics....

LyrArc Article Gist
The repeated denials by VW officials from global headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, and from VW in the U.S., since 2012- when the problem of higher emissions on roads compared to emission test readings first came to public attention- show that VW management took the problem lightly. The deep consequences of such a move to hide real emissions, not just from the EPA but from unwary buyers, appears to have been entirely missed by management. Even when the issue was raised by the EPA, VW stated to EPA that the differences in results on roads vs actual emissions tests were technical flaws. In December 2014 VW even made a voluntary recall of half million diesel vehicles. Yet the high emissions on roads continued till VW officials told EPA about the software that was the real cause in August 2015. Even then VW officials offered to personally apologize, and asked for certification of 2016 models in the U.S., missing entirely the deep consequences of their actions. VW now says that the software to conceal the real emissions was installed on 11 million vehicles worldwide. VW management has set aside $7.7 billion as provision for penalties. The VW stock declined by 35% by September 22, 2015....

LyrArc Article Gist
After heated debate Governor Christie and leaders of the democratic party in the legislature agree on changes to New Jersey's public employee retirement and health benefits and pension system. New Jersey's pension system has unfunded liabilities of $54 billon and some estimates forecast that it will run out of money to pay pensions by 2018. The retirement age for new workers is now set at 65 not 62, pension contributions go up to 7.5% from 5.5% for state workers and to 10% from 8.5% for public safety officers. A major change is to delay annual cost of living adjustments till the pension fund returns to a stable financial footing. The absence of this change would have meant reducing retirees pension value by 30% in the next ten years. After the plan is 80% funded a new employee-employer pension governing board will modify the contribution rates and pension rules based on advice from actuaries. On health benefits the changes are for workers earning more to pay a larger share of premiums- so that a worker earning $60,000 would pay 27%, and a worker earning $95,000 would pay 35%. This particular change is phased in over 4 years and saves $300 million....

LyrArc Article Gist
Joe Nocera joins Simon Johnson and other experts in saying that Fed Governor Daniel Tarullo's suggestion to raise capital requirements of U.S. banks to 14% makes sense. He quotes Anat Admati, a fiance professor at Stanford Business School, who says the only way to get rid of bailouts is to raise capital requiremets to an adequate level. The Wall Street Journal editorial on June 16, 2011, also supports the higher Tarullo capital requirements. Why is it that European banks and the Basel III accords provide a 7% capital reserve requirement phased in over many years- to as far out as 2019- if this is the case? The European banks are in much worse shape than the U.S. banks especially with Irish, Greek and other debt on their books and Basel III is designed to accomodate this. The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, is also advocating higher capital reserve requirements than Basel III, including the flexibility for countries like Britain and Sweden to set their own capital reserve requirements based on their own situation and the need to protect taxpayers. The U.S. stands to gain a lot from setting its own standards if France and Germany and other European countries decide to user lower standards through Basel III....

LyrArc Article Gist
IBM's Watson Computer business has set a target of $1 billion in sales by 2018 and $10 billion by 2024. Current sales are in the $100 million range. Manoj Saxena is the head of the Watson business unit. The Watson ranks medical treatments by "confidence scores" and incorporates learning from errors. The way Watson works is for IBM engineers to study the technical details of a customers business and store this information for the computer to use. Uses so far are insurer WellPoint using it for determining if doctor's treatments meet company guidelines and a patient's insurance policy. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is developing a version that recommends leukemia treatments for patients by data mining medical literature. Watson was moved to commercial phase in 2011 after beating 2 Jeopardy champions. IBM has a $15 million deal, its largest so far, with M.D. Anderson. It has taken frequent interaction between developers and IBM engineers to develop a version that recommends cancer treatments. The versions are only as good as how well knowledge in the field is translated into usable software, a long and difficult process. Applications in health care are seen as the best prospects for revenue generation. Google with its data mining capabilities is seen as the closest competitor....

LyrArc Article Gist
Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier, says Airbus is set to double its profit margin by 2015 through improvements in efficiency and management. In 2012 EADS Airbus unit showed an operating profit margin of about 4% on sales of 39 billon euros, compared to Boeing commercial airplane division operating margin of 9.6% on sales of $49 billion. Under the 51 year old French engineer Airbus is redoing the way it makes planes, giving factory managers more freedom to make decisions, and bringing an "entrepreneurial spirit" to the company. Each plant is treated as a small business, and Bregier says the fact that the planes are complex does not mean that one needs to be complex in doing things. Airbus parent company EADS stock has risen by 50% in the past year with shares at 42.84 euros on June 14, 2013. The reduced stakes of the French government and Daimler AG in EADS has increased the amount of freely traded shares to 72% from 54%, increasing pressure from investors for better performance. Airbus has 150,000 employees and subcontractors and changing the culture in the organization is a difficult task. Bregier was chief operating officer for 5 years before assuming the CEO position in June 2012. ...

LyrArc Article Gist
Wal-Mart is expected to announce a five year plan to meet specific targets for lowering sodium, trans fats and aded sugars in a whole range of foods- including rice, soups, canned beans, salad dressings and snacks foods- in packaged foods sold under its house brand, Great Value. Other moves towards healthy foods are to move to eliminate the extra cost to consumers for healthy foods made with whole grains. It will also lower prices on fresh fruits and vegetables. This plan is similiar to other plans announced by companies such as Con Agra Foods which set a target of reducing sodium content in foods by 20% by 2015. New York City also has a public health initiative for healthy foods. another move by Wal-Mart is to get major food suppliers like Kraft, to follow the example set by Wal-Mart. Kraft sells 16% of its global sales through Wal-Mart. The move will be gradually introduced over five years which makes for slow progress, and the targets set for sugar reductions are much less than they should be, says Michael Jacobson, executive director of Center for Science in the Public Interest. Another serious drawback is that Wal-mart has not proposed to tackle the major cause of childhood obesity, which is the added sugars in soft drinks....

LyrArc Article Gist
A magistate's court in Hong Kong orders Joshua Wong, who led the protests for democracy in Hong Kong, to do 80 hours of community service work for unlawfully entering a fenced area outside Hong Kong's government headquarters on Sept. 26, 2014. Another activist Nathan Law was ordered to do 120 hours of community service. Wong and Law have formed a new party called Demosisto. Law plans to run in the legislative election on Sept 4, 2016. The first pro independence rallies happened in Hong Kong in early August. Wong says he is pushing for self-determination after the "one country, two systems" framework operating since 1997 expires in 2047.