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One of the authors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology study cited by president Trump, John Reilly, says president Trump in citing the MIT study showed " a complete misunderstanding of the problem." Reilly's view is that even the Paris accords are not enough, that it is one step, in his words "an incredibly important step," without which the next step cannot be taken. His view is also that the Trump White House may not be listening, so MIT does not plan to reach out to correct this view.

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Citigroup's CEO Pandit sees growth in its Asian and Latin American businesses in 2012-2013. He cited growing investment in infrastructure and the needs of middle class customers in these countries.

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With an article posted online and a 2 hour question and answer session Medvedev outlined his vision of Russia that attacks the corruption, commodities based economy, and lack of pluralistic democracy. This is the first major effort where Medvedev has repeatedly emphasized the differences between his vision for Russia and the existing state of affairs. He did not rule out running in 2012 for President even though he stated he has ggod relations with Prime Minister Putin.

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The yen is 34% stronger than the Korean won since mid 2008, hurting Japan's competitive edge. This affects exporters like Toyota which sees annual profit reduced by $390 million or 35 billion yen for every one yen appreciation against the dollar. The dollar now trades at 88 yen over 30% stronger than the precrisis level in 2008. So how does the new Japanese government see this. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and the Bank of Japan have made comments suggesting that they favor a stronger yen, making imports cheaper to help spark a rebound in consumer spending missing in Japan since the 1980's. This would reduce the dependence on exports for growth, something that severely hurt Japan and Germany when the world economy took a dive late last year in the global financial crisis.

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Citing Alexis de Tocqueville, the Russian President makes a plea for writing a new page in Russian-US relations, by working together, because he says the world expects the two countries to take energetic steps to establish a climate of trust and goodwill, and not to languish in inaction and diengagement. Medvedev says he was greatly impressed with Obama's inaugural address and its unbiassed assessment of America's problems, the need to change together with the rest of the world. Its a kind of call to action, to restart cooperation and working together, building trilateral cooperation between the EU, the USA and Russia.

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If there is no good succession in Medvedev's view the economic and social development of Russia will slow down significantly, for this reason the First Deputy Prime Minister under Putin puts a lot of significance on getting a good leader in place to continue the development progress of recent years. It is interesting that the thought process behind the remarks shows that the person has reflected a lot on these things, on leadership and good succession and its role in development, on a government and the importance of a good constitution and getting the best out of it, on studying the experience of other countries and being aware of their historical development, the role of a national leader, the constitution and everybody abiding by it, on corruption and its presence in latent and other forms and its different character in different societies. He talks about the importance of a Presidential system for Russia with strong presidential power, and the complete unsuitability of a parliamentary republic for Russia because it appears that the government could end up being weak with a many party coalition, especially in Russia at this time where there are many parties and factions each would be jockeying for power. Coalition governments would not accomplish much leading to stalled economic and social development. Manufacturing is very important to Russia, and adding a high portion of the value added to products is very important,  that Medvedev understands. It appears he has reflected on a lot of things that matter to Russia's development, and would make a different kind of President than Putin. He just might carry forward Russia's development for the next 8 years in a proper manner. From the standpoint of oil prices and availability of supplies, a good environment for cooperation in the energy sector between foreign companies and Russian companies, it appears that Medvedev would offer good leadership for the next 8 years in a Medvedev- Putin combination as President and Prime Minister, a Medvedev-Putin administration. This would also be true in the manufacturing sector in the expanding industries like automobiles and others. ...

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IBM's sales increased in the 4th quarter 2007 by 10% to $28.9 billion and profits by 24%. What is behind this surprisng result when the US economy is seeing recession conditions and tech spending is affected? IBM's globalization strategy is paying off, it is no longer dependent on the US economy. Even to a much larger degree than companies like HP and Intel which get more than half their sales abroad, IBM has recently pursued an aggressive internationalization strategy. Even more than most companies seeing globalization affect the way they operate and expanding aggressively overseas- including companies like GE which see great scope in infrastructure spending in Asia- IBM has pursued internationalization with a vengeance. It has focussed on India, and there its growth has been breathtaking, taking talent away from Indian software companies that only recently were eating IBM's lunch. See the recent link on this. Today IBM has 73,000 employees in India. As the Indian ruppee has strengthened and other currencies aborad strengthen vs the US dollar IBM benefits from currency gains. Note that half of the revenue gain came from currency gains. This exaggerates even more the gains in getting sales and talent overseas. Whats next in IBM's plans? IBM will invest $1.6 billion in the next stage of emerging market expansion in Ukraine, Vietnam, Ecuador, Venezuela, Poland and the Czech Republic. The selection of countries is significant. Ukraine, Poland, And Czech Republic are attractive places for foreign investment and so is Vietnam. Analysts see this level of globalization of sales leading to a different response to recession type conditions in the home market. Instead of across the board cutbacks tech companies will be selective in their cutbacks. In many ways IBM leads the way and a pattern is being set for the whole of US business.The auto industry that emerges in the next few years will tend to look more and more like these tech companies with half or more sales generated abroad, and similiarly for other industries. ...

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Doubts about a decoupling of the Asian and European economy from the US economy. Opinion that the US economy could have a stronger impact on the export driven economies of Japan S. Korea and China than is usually thought and differet view from the one given recently in the Oct-Nov. report from the IMF, the OECD forecast and other reports suggesting only a modest impact of the housing crisis in the US and the credit crunch.

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Steps that might ease the crisis in food supplies and rising prices. Prevent hoarding of supplies, boosting research in yields, and investing more in irrigation and rural transportation. And producing biofuels with solar and wind energy Also powering African farms with solar and wind energy. These steps could eventually lower food prices and increase the supplies in the market. Countries like China and japan also could put more supplies on the market. And traditional food exporters could do more.

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The pressures on Apple to reduce prices and margins in 2016 with the slowdown in sales. Apple also has to deal with the impact of a stronger dollar with a large part of sales coming from overseas.

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The weaker dollar has given a boost to U.S. exports. The dollar has dropped by 9.1% compared to the prior year against a broad basket of currencies. U.S. exports have provided 1.4 percentage points of the 3.0% annualized growth since the 3rd quarter of 2009. The U.S. dollar is now 5% away from its all time low in March 2008, when tracked using the dollar index. Before the 2008 crisis the dollar had over a six year period lost about 40% of its value. Low interest rates in the U.S. and concerns about the deficit have contributed to the dollar's decline in value. While the decline helps boost exports, it also increases the price of oil in dollar terms and increases inflation. A Gallup poll in April showed 42% of Americans had no confidence in the Fed's policies for the economy, and 43% had no faith in Treasury Secretary Geithner. The decline is taking place even as Japan is recovering from the earthquake, and Greece is likely to have to restructure its debt obligations with European banks taking losses....

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Bret Stephens articulates an idea presented earlier by Robert Kagan, Walter Mead and others, about the world of western liberal democracies needing the U.S. as a leader. He points out that the policies of U.S. president Bush committed the U.S. to activist policies worldwide following 9/11 terrorist attacks, followed by a backlash in the form of president Obama's policies that have reversed these policies to the other extreme leaving entire regional neighborhoods such as the Middle East to unravel, and undoing the very gains made under Bush at so much cost. Stephens says the "broken windows" theory for keeping streets in cities safe -by regular patrolling and making sure broken windows or other appearences of disorder and breakdown do not send the wrong signals to passersby and those with inclination to break the law- has application and lessons for America in the regional neighborhoods of Asia and Eastern Europe.

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Rapidly increasing credit to GDP ratios between 2008 and 2012 in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan.