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The Vickers commission, has been appointed by the Cameron government to look into the British banking system and the largest banks. Ringfencing to protect retail deposits from the bank's other investment activities has been suggested. The focus is on increasing capital requirements as critical to protecting British taxpayers and the banking system. This means going beyond the Basel 3 requirements to build an extra safety buffer for the types of situations the British government was faced with in HBOS, where losses were even greater than average. Determining this should be coordinated with EU and Basel regulators.

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Interview with Dieter Zetsche, Daimler's CEO on what Mercedes is doing. Daimler is introducing the Smart car in the US in a big way. Its just 8 feet long and gets 40 miles per gallon. Demand for it from dealers was so strong that instead of 40 dealers as planned Mercedes has setup 67 dealers in 31 states in the USA. About 3500 were sold in the first 3 months, Feb to April 2008. Its Bluetec program is another way its boosting fuel efficiency. The Bluetec program is for making diesel engines as clean as gasoline engines and gasoline engines as efficient as diesel engines. Its the second generation of direct injection systems and both engines will work with self ignition. And Daimler is on the path of combining these engines with hybrids. And also develping fuel cell and all electric battery driven vehicles emission free. As Zetsche says Daimler is moving along this path very fast. In lithium ion battery in cars Daimler is taking the lead. He says the American and Japanese makers are pushing hard but Mercedes is ahead by taking the car to market that has a lithium ion battery. How does Daimler do it? It has about 24 patents. The main reason no carmaker has made it to market with lithium ion battery for cars is the cooling problem that has been seen in laptops also. Mercedes solution to this has been to integrate the cooling of the battery into the cooling system of the car with a sophisticated system, hence the many patents. Next year Dailmer will introduce the S-Class with a six cylinder gasoline engine, the S400 Hybrid with a lithium ion battery, and it will be the first in market. Dieter Zetsche is so confident that he says it will have perfect performance and absolute safety. With targets for fuel efficiency in Europe more aggressive than in the USA, and the German public pushing for higher fuel efficiency aggressive emissions targets and intolerant of excuses from German carmakers, makers like Daimler are moving very fast in this direction. Adding to pressures from the German public, they see oil prices at current levels for the foreseeable future, this adds to the urgency. Americans and Japanese makers stand the risk of falling behind. See the links to the pressure from German public opinion and the German carmakers response to this. And clearly Zetsche reflects that confidence in this interview. Daimler's Mercedes division is selling a lot of cars in China, Russia, and the Middle East. As he put it there are 400,000 millionaires in China and Mercedes are sellig very well in these markets just as the US market shrinks. And these are cars in the dollar 40,000 plus or $100,000 plus range in which Mercedes has he lead. This market will also shrink as the global economy slowsdown but the profits from this market will probably be plowed into the Bluetec and other advanced fuel efficiency programs that will give Daimler a market advantage in the longer run....

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This beautiful DW.com video shows the use of face masks in vibrant colors and styles is in the hope that it will become popular. It is of great importance in the fight to stop the spread of coronavirus. A large part of people who have coronavirus are asymptomatic and are a big problem as spreaders of the virus, say health experts. The Robert Koch Institute in Germany recommends use of face masks. Jena is the first city in Germany making them mandatory. Other cities will follow, only not soon enough,

Face masks to prevent spreading the virus are a way of life in China, South Korea. Then why is it so difficult for Europe and the U.S.? Czech Republic and Slovakia have made face masks mandatory. The Center for Disease Control in the U.S. are now revising their guidelines to require people to wear face masks to avoid the spread of the virus, cloth masks or scarfs could be used also.

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Joydeep Gupta, director for South Asia at North Pole, environmental news site, says 2050 is important but even more important is what India does now. This is why what Modi promised at COP26 Glasgow for 2030 matters- achieving 500 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, improvements of 45% in reducing carbon intensity, and cutting carbon emissions by 1 billion tons. Here Gupta looks at what India will be doing, the obstacles and ways of achieving these goals.

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OECD forecasts show global GDP increasing by 4.2% in 2021 and 3.7% in 2022.

Countries with rapid testing facilities and large scale vaccination efforts are likely to recover faster. Smaller businesses are more likely to fail and go out of business. The will be damage to socio-economic fabric in many countries. OECD calls for investments in education, health, physical and digital infrastructure, and cooperation across borders for vaccine efforts and public health. 

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Tsuneo Kita, is the leader of Japan's largest business daily newspaper, the Nikkei. Kita had stated his dream of buying the Financial Times, Britain's largest business newspaper, many years back. He made the best offer of $1.32 billion in cash for the paper to complete the acquisition. Because of ties between the two newspapers and reporting by FT carried in the Nikkei newspaper, FT Group decided to give Nikkei Inc first rights to bid for the paper. The Nikkei is not publicly listed, and a large part of its shares owned by employees. Print still works in Japan and the morning edition has 3 million subscribers. Kita moved to build the digital business early along with efforts at the FT and the Wall Street Journal. A paid website was started in 2010 for the Nikkei and it has 430,000 online subscribers. Kita is a journalist who joined Nikkei Inc. straight out of Keio University in 1971. He was senior editor in New York and Tokyo. Nikkei Inc. was able to make the acquisiton because of its financial strength. It has $830 million in cash on hand and a similiar amount of liquid assets. Profits are modest- 10 billion yen in profit on 301 billion yen revenue in 2014. Kita says he will keep the FT Bureaus intact and not merge them with Nikkei Inc. bureaus. He wants to preserve the editorial independence of the Financial Times, and sees the paper as part of a publishing group covering a broader region of Europe, the U.S. and Asia....

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Suzuki is not going to give up its dominant position in the Indian market easily. It has about 25 years of experience in India and owns 54% of Maruti Udyog which makes about 750,000 cars a year and plans to make 1 million cars in India annually by 2010. In JD Powers surveys Suzuki ranks first then Hond and Hyundai and Toyota fourth. Tata Motors is ninth. Competitiion is sure to heat up and Hyundai also has considerable experience being the second foreign company after Suzuki to come into India earlyon. The newcomers from Euope USA and Japan like Toyota and GM don't have anywhere near the experience and distribution netwrks and years of experience of Suzuki and Hyundai. So Suzuki may lose market share but will continue to be one of the top companies in India for some time. This is made possible by Suzuki investments in India. Suzuki plans a one billion yen research center in India to develop cars for the Indian market and is building a new plant in India.In the nextfew years Suzuki plans to double the number of service centers and showrooms to 1000 to reach every part of India. Suzuki is seeing considerable demand for its Swift car and has higher end versions in the Grand Vitara and the SX4. The head of Suzuki, Mr. Suzuki, has run the company since 1977 and is determined to respond to competition from newcomers with moves of his own to keep Suzuki as one of the leaders in India. ...

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Alan Blinder talks about the benefits of alarge cash for clunkers program and how it could be designed around what parameters and upon which it could be broadened or narrowed. One thing he points out is that it would help the economically challenged, though how these low income people would go out and buy new cars in the midst of deep recession and credit card bills, and other debt, is a question. The German customers were not in the debt situation many lower income Americans are. The alternative approach would be to broaden the program to give the middle class the benefits, and design it around giving a boost to the depressed auto industry and the midwest region. Such a program would need adequate financing like the $20 billion, Blinder says, and would include the possibility of turning in an old clunker for a Malibu or Impala or a Focus. Only focussing on small cars would not give much of a boost to Detroit car makers, which are focussed more on the middle and larger ends of the product line. From the cleaner environment perspective and carbon emissions perspective, the cars that are 13 years or older account for 25% of the miles driven, but 75% of the pollution from cars. This and reducing dependence on foreign oil suggest that the benefits of a well designed program or a combination of programs targeting different goals such as environment, boosting the Detroit car makers, and so on , could be well worth an investment of more than the $20 billion, Blinder suggests. ...

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South Africa's currency drops to 16.78 against the dollar by Jan 11, 2016. The currency is affected by the slowdown in China since June 2015. In the 6 months from June 2015 to the beginning of 2016 the currency lost 26% of its value.

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New information shows a crisis is developing in higher education as student debt passes $1 trillion with the unrelenting rise in the cost of college. Higher debt levels is leading to higher droput rates. According to think tank Education Sector, 30 percent of college students taking out loans dropped out of school, compared to 25% ten years ago. And work can be a large factor as students take parttime jobs to lower the loan burden- half of college dropouts attributed dropping out to work, according to a 2009 study by Public Agenda. It also adds another burden to the productive potential of the U.S. economy. The director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, Anthony Carnevale, estimates the cost to the U.S. economy at half a trillion dollars in terms of skills not available for increasing economic output and income lost for dropouts.

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Thomas Friedman of the NYT sees a climate change as an area in which Trump has ignored the information of eminent scientists. He sees a weakness of the Trump administration in Trump's putting no importance to briefings by experts from climate change to national security briefings. Friedman sees Russia and hacking as a major issue facing the new Trump administration, including the new hearings in Congress from leading Republicans on the cyberattacks.

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With the effects of the government tax credit fading, Commerce Department numbers show a 33% drop in sales of new single-family homes from 446,000 units in April to 300,000 annual rate in May 2010. The supply of homes for sale went up by 47% to 8.5 months in May from 5.8 months supply in Aprill 2010.

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Bank of Spain Governor Luis Maria Linde told a parliamentary committee "the loss of confidence in our banking system cannot be blamed exclusively on the global economc downturn, on problems in the eurozone, or on our own recession." He was critical of the previous Bank of Spain Governor Fernandez Ordonez, an appointee of the previous Socialist government, for "acting with little determination, or insufficiently or inadequately." He said the central bank's permitting of virtual mergers of troubled savings banks in place of real mergers with restructuring decisions, were part of the problem. Linde is a member of the ECB's governing council. Spain's central bank had for years championed macroprudential supervision, where banks set aside funds in good times for contingencies in bad times. Linde described those efforts as having failed because the Bank of Spain was "too timid" with the provisions set and failed to curb the credit and property bubble.

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The competing visions of Li Shufu of Geely, Volvo's new Chinese owner, and that of Stefan Jaccoby, CEO of Volvo. Volvo is known for a family friendly car with fuel efficiency and safety. Geely's vision for Volvo is a luxury car that will compete with Mercedes S class and the BMW 7 Series, and Lexus in the Chinese upscale market. The problem is that China is less than 10% of Volvo's worldwide market and Jaccoby wants to keep these customers who buy the Volvo as an understated family friendly car that emphasizes safety and fuel efficiency. Geely executives are moving in another direction and are focussing on the fast growing market for luxury cars in China. This segment is dominated by Mercedes, BMW and Lexus, who sell 90% of the cars in this segment. Such a strategy would depend on gaining acceptance in this segment, which is highly uncertain. It also risks alienating customers around the world who look at Volvo in a certain way, just as Subaru owners in the U.S. look at Subaru in a certain way. The culture clash is also reflected in the backgrounds of the two executives. Jaccoby, is quiet in manner, studied at the University of Cologne, and worked at VW before joining Volvo. Li Shufu is a son of former farmers who built Geely from humble beginnings in a rural area of China. Li wanted to move aggressively and build three plants in China. Jaccoby persuaded Li to make plans for one plant and make agradual expansion. The design of a new Volvo shown recently in Shanghai also represents a compromise. The design is called Concept Universe and gives a larger and different look for the Volvo....

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Friedman on the opportunity for president Morsi to move the Middle East towards a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine and acceptance of Israel in the broader Muslim community. For the U.S. it also means continuing support for the democracy movement in Egypt and the Middle East. For this to happen Israelis have to take the extra step away from the current position of being insecure in their borders and morally secure to a unknown but right direction of moving towards a lasting settlement of problems. This is looking beyond the conflicts with Syria and Iran- which are likely to be resolved by the people of Syria finally asserting themselves and the Iranian people choosing economic improvement over a weapons program.

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Friedman describes the achievements under two Obama initiatives- Race to the Top education initiative and the fuel efficiency for automobiles initiative.

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U.S. GDP growth was a seasonally adjusted annual -1% in the 1st quarter of 2014, according to the Commerce Department.