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April saw a 15% year over decline in housing prices according to the Case-Shiller 20 city home price Index. And the process of foreclosures leading to a cycle of lower prices leading to new wave of foreclosures is picking up speed. Meantime the lenders cannot agree among themselves about who how to share the pain so that his process does not get out of control and end up damaging all lenders and the banks in addition to the homeowners. The primary lender cannot agree with the homeowners equity line of credit or second level lender, who needs to signoff on the restructuring of loans. And the owners of mortgage securities have contractual terms that limit the the number of loans that can be modified to 2%-7% as a way to get favorable tax treatment. And mortgage insurers also can hold up mortgage restructurings that will trigger claims against them. As a result not enough of the details have been worked out to allow the process of loan restructuring to occur inlarge numbers to slow this process of foreclosures. And banks are not prepared to handle a wave of foreclosures leading to large losses on theri balance sheets. So the FDIC division that liquidates failing banks has received authorization for 1 50% increase in employment to 331. FDIC's Blair believes bank failures will go up but not to early 1990's levels, and a lot of the damage will be done by how the housing affects the larger economy and creates banking distress....

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Bill Gates on how to improve education in American schools by focussing on excellence in teaching. Excellence in teaching is the single most important variable in education, says Gates. The task, he says, is to identify the excellent teachers and transfer those skills to other teachers. He makes no mention of enriching the teacher pool, by attracting brighter education oriented people from society into teaching. He make some generalizations about class size and teachers studying for advanced degrees, saying they have no impact on educational achievement. This may be relative to the situation, depending on the actual class size and the numbers involved. And higher educational attainment by teachers is hardly a drawback in what the teacher can impart to students. It shows teachers actively engaged in the educational process themselves. Gates talks about improving education without additional spending, but does not address the issue of cuts in education spending in states that are reducing deficits. ...

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The Washington Post points out the astounding fact that given a choice Japanese voters would have chosen as the new prime minister, Seiji Maehara, who has a 40% approval rating in a recent poll. Instead finance minister Yoshihiko Noda was chosen by 398 Democratic Party of Japan legislators. His approval rating? Below 5%! The ruling DPJ has a 18% approval rating, and the Liberal Democratic Party has a 15% approval rating! It is interesting to note that a similiar situation exists in other major Asian democracies. In India the ruling Congress party coalition and the opposition parties are deeply unpopular because of a series of corruption scandals involving both parties. In Singapore the ruling party barely scraped through in elections. Many of the Asian democracies have an aging leadership and a new generation of effective leaders has not appeared to make the transition.

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The internal divisions in the two main political parties in Japan, the Democratic Party and the LDP. The lack of a coherent base believing in a particular set of ideas in either party.

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Powell at the Fed, the US central bank, and DJT have different views on reducing interest rates. Most of the business community and heads of banks see it as essential that the Fed be able to decide independently when to lower interest rates. Jay Powell was selected by DJT in the first term and Biden continued with Jay Powell. Powell carefully monitors the economy, the cost of living, supply chain inflation, jobs reports, and the international situation, to come up with his view, which is that inflation is moderating and job situation and the economy are good, so that the Fed does not need to take action at this time.  In this situation where the president wants to see lower interest rates to lower the interest burden on government borrowings for the larger defense budget and other priorities., including trade action, Bessent has stepped in. His advice to the president as he did earlier on tariffs is to show flexibility. The president listens.  Earlier with Liberation Day tariffs Bessent advised DJT to give financial markets confidence in the new policies by a willingness to reduce them or pause them. ...

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Chozick and Parker of the NYT show how Donald Trump's frequent sexist comments on women and references to Hillary Clinton in similiar terms are likely to influence the outcome of the general election of 2016. The women's vote has played a significant part in the recent elections of 2008 and 2012 helping Democratic candidate Obama. Trump has a astonishingly high disapproval rating with women, unprecedented in U.S. election history, cited by the WSJ as 75%. Cruz's choice of Carly Fiorina as a running mate shows an awareness of the importance of the women's vote. Some of the comments cited here include the Trump comment that "if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she would get 5% of the vote." It is not clear if this will help the Republican party, as such comments could alienate the mass base of women voters, including the base of young women voters who supported Sanders, women who are independents and moderate Republican women. Hillary Clinton is carefully planning a fall campaign in which such Trump attacks are expected, and the response will be handled not directly by Hillary but by Super PAC's, as Hillary sticks to calling them sexist and energizing her base from the attacks. CBS polls show Trump has the support of 39 percent of white women, compared to 50% for Hillary Clinton. Trump's attacks on women are strangely enough targeted at getting the support of white women- and men - in another wild twist of the 2016 campaign....

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Chrysler's effort to improve quality under a former Toyota executive, Mr. Betts. Fiat-Chrysler CEO, Marchionne, has given wide ranging authority to Betts to stop everything if needed to make changes and improve quality. Chrysler quality has lagged behind competitors GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, and is only now beginning to catch up. The new Jeep was given particular focus. And the product launch of the new Dart is getting a similiar focus on quality.

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What is the relevance of this to the automobile industry or other industries facing a situation where proliferating brands and changing business conditions and consumer trends require new approaches. This is an example of change in the clothing and retail industry. Focussing on a smaller number of brands as the proliferating brands required too much management attention making for "complexity management" the expression used here. Focus on particular brands, even phasing out the Liz Claiborne brand and replacing it with a new Liz & Co label and trying out new approaches with depat stores, building its own stores, all follow a changing market and buyer behaviour. Speed based retailers like Spain's Zara who can respond quickly to changing market tastes, and Sweden's H&M are changing the way the market is organized as specialty retailers have more of the business and department stores are shrinking in clothing sales. Claiborne was heavily dependent on department stores and structured for that kind of business. Now its a whole new ball game....

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Investors compare Goldman Sachs which has retained its trading commodities business with Morgan Stanley which has shifted focus to wealth management and other less risky business. Morgan Stanley's share price has increased more than Goldman Sachs since the 2008 financial crisis, showing the different approaches taken by financial institutions that were battered during the financial crisis of 2008. Morgan Stanley had a change in management after the crisis, Goldman is still being run by CEO Blankfein, showing a key difference between the two banks. Morgan Stanley was battered during the crisis as its share price plunged on rumors in a way and extent that Goldman was not. Goldman was relatively better managed and avoided the frequent egregious errors made by other banks such as Deutsche Bank, UBS, Citigroup, taking fewer risks, leading upto the financial crisis of 2008, though it faced increased public scrutiny in the Abacus case for mortgage securities. It also helped with regulators that Goldman has a tradition of public service with executives working in government- Treasury Secretary Rubin worked in fixed income trading at Goldman, Treasury Secretary Paulson was former CEO at Goldman with strong China connections, and Gary Gensler at the CFTC. Now Goldman gets a larger share of its revenue from trading than competitors and was affected by the sharp commodities price swings in the 4th quarter of 2014. Revenue from fixed income, currencies and commodities trading declined by 29% in 2014 to $1.22 billion. Since the low reached in share price during the 2008 financial crisis, Goldman is up 267%, Morgan Stanley is up 291%. Even as tighter regulation is squeezing returns and banks are required to set aside more capital as buffer for riskier assets, Goldman continues to maintain its focus on commmodities business and trading. Mr. Blankfein and another senior executive Cohen, both got their start in commodities trading which generated about 8.2% of revenues in 2006 when Blankfein became the new CEO. Blankfein and president Gary Cohn worked at J.Aron & Co., a coffee importer, when it was acquired in 1981 and the location moved to Goldman's former headquarters in New York. The commodities business took off with China's surge in demand for metals and other commodities. Goldman's traders buy and sell aluminium, crude oil, natural gas, soyabeans, sugar, and derivatives. Goldman's revenue of $34.53 billion in 2014 has declined from $45.17 billion in 2009, and Goldman has reduced its balance sheet by a quarter. Net income increased in 2014 by 5% to $8.1 billion. But other than these changes Goldman unlike Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Barclays, has not let its commodities trading business shrink. Goldman's commodities division is headed by Gregory Agran and co-chief Guy Saidenberg in London. Goldman says CEO Blankfein, "remains unabashedly an investment bank," and is waiting for economic conditions to improve....

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Biking to work, using the new city bike programs and biking for all seasons to be in the outdoors.

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Creation of new investment code that would assure host countries of investor intentions and practices for sovereign wealth funds.

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Alexander Freund of DW.com looks at the BRICs conference in Xiamen, China, and says its members are all facing serious problems at home. China's growth has slowed, and it faces problems with large debt, need to reorient the economy away from dependence on exports, and a bubble in real estate markets. Russia and Brazil are both hit by drop in oil and commodities prices, and Brazil's ruling elite faces corruption charges. South Africa's economy under president Zuma faces problems of mismanagement of the economy and corruption. Only India says Freund, is the bright light in this group. The Modi government in India is working on removing barriers to growth such as bureaucratic hurdles, unification of tax scheme through the new unified GST for the whole country, and efforts to attract foreign investment. In many ways the BRICs has become a thing of the past as China focusses on its own Belt and Road Initiative and tackles its internal problems. The border dispute between India and China at the time of the BRICs conference in Xiamen shows a lack of policy agreement on economic and development priorities between the two major countries in that group. This had the effect of reducing whatever impact BRICs had in the past. The term originated at an American investment bank and it appears to be an odd grouping of countries today. ...

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Vernon Smith, Professor of Economics and Law at Chapman University, 2002 Nobel prize winner, makes an effort to explain in simple language what has happened in the housing bubble, the various aspects of this crisis, and what might help and what might be difficult to accomplish in the rescue plan. He thinks that a reverse auction is awfully hard to do with some success especially as Treasury has no experience with this, and thinks its better to inject capital in banks and companies in return for equity stakes, which incidentally is what Gordon Brown's plan in the UK intends to do. With that Chapman believes Treasury has experience having recently demonstrated that several times including the way Treasury and the FDIC assisted JP Morgan takeover Washington Mutual. He asks readers to look at the Shiller price index graph from 1987 and asks do they think the home prices which only in 2006 and 2007 gradually turned downward and plumetted in 2008, has it run its course. The answer from the graph looks like a no after such a long runup in prices since 1987 and there is a ways to go in 2009 and into 2010. In this context and the context of a declining economy wiith higher unemployment what are the prospects of stabilizing home prices anytime soon? Which suggests injection of capital in return for equity by the government to recapitalize them and get lending back up, as well as act a a clearinghouse to take some of the fear risk out of transactions, as some of the more sensible solutions. And at the same time putting in a comprehensive homeowner relief program with taxpayer money and lender participation to have the lenders modify mortgages, or something like the Hubbard or Feldstein plans, to keep homeowners in their homes. And there is one bit of good news in all this oil prices have already hit $80 a barrel and are headed downward, and so are the prices of all commodities including steel, and the prices of soybeans, corn wheat and so on. ...

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Dennis Muilenburg succeeds Jim McNerney as CEO of Boeing in July 2015. He is former head of Boeing's defense and space business. Muilenburg's challenges include reducing costs on the 787 Dreamliner, and adapting its defense business to the situation of cuts in U.S. defense spending for reducing the deficit. Muilenburg was made president and COO in Dec. 2013.

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Useful and necessary tips on driving not taught at driving school but which should be part of that driving school training requirement. It should also be part of the program at high schools. Getting young people to have good driving habits early that save energy. Here Gil Portalatin, a 25 year veteran engineer at Ford, the Hybrid Propulsion System Applications Manager, talks about Ford's work in hybrids, the best way to conserve energy in driving regular cars, and how to drive hybrid cars. Tip 1: Don't accelerate too hard from a stop, Remember easy on the throttle and then glide. By Glide is meant releasing most of the pressure on the accelerator to use the bare minimum to maintain your speed. Tip 2: Anticipate Traffic. Watch the flow of traffic and distance to the light, then ease off the accelerator pedal to coast up to the next light. Tip 3: You won't believe how much energy it takes to go from 65mph to 75 mph. Gil knows from working in an aerodynamic lab. Its huge and to save energy just ease up on the accelerator pedal. For hybrid drivers he says many accelerate too slowly from a stop, and he advises accelerating a bit more and then lifting off the throttle to engage EV-motoring. About the Fusion hybrid. The 2010 Fusion hybrid gets 41 mpg city and 36 mpg highway. It beats Toyota Camry hybrid by 8mpg and 2 mpg respectively. Ford has its own unique hybrid technology, and is engineered differently with its own unique software....