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A survey by Boston Consulting Group of 5000 users of online news content shows that only 48% of Americans are willing to pay to read news content online. They are willing to pay about $3 per month for access to online news content. This is much smaller than European countries presumably because of the acess to so much news content free online in the USA. The study was done by Mr Rose and Dominic Field, head of the media practice at BCG. News content is so fragmented in the USA, say the authors, that its still possible to find free content if some papers charge. Interestingly Americans were more likely to pay for sites that offered access to online news content for multiple papers. The most avid news readers are the ones most lik,ely to pay.The study concludes that charging for online access won't increase revenue that much but because the cost of reaching internet readers is very low, it has potential for significantly higher profits. Other countries surveyed are Germany, France, Spain, Norway and Finland....

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Chancellor Merkel visits Latvia in August 2014 and calls for a "persistent NATO presence" in the Baltic states. Merkel also visits Ukraine for talks with Ukrainian leaders. Germany is also mediating in the crisis and helped to arrange a meeting between Russian president Putin and Ukraine president Poroshenko in Belarus.

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Dubai airport had 67.3 million passengers in the 12 month period through Feb. 2014, according to Airports Council International. Emiraes airline is based in Dubai. It was setup in 1985 using a $10 millon grant from the government of Dubai and 2 Boeing 727 planes. The precipitating factor was a cutback in flights by Gulf Air between UAE and Pakistan. Emirates benefitted from a business friendly environment in Dubai and open skies policies that helped the aviation sector grow. Another factor helping rapid growth is that the CEO of Emirates, Sheikh Ahmed bin al-Maktoum, is chairman of Dubai Airports and Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, chairman of the low cost carrier Flydubai, and is the uncle of Dubai's ruling king Sheikh Rashid al-Maktoum.

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The Case-Shiller 20 city Index showed a gain of 1.6% from the prior month in July 2012, and an increase of 5.9% year to date through July 2012. Experts say some of this improvement comes from less short and foreclosure sales which boost pricing data.

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Jimmy Carter comes back to us from a different era. He was born in a tiny town of Plains, Georgia, in 1924 and grew up on a family farm in a home that lacked plumbing, electricity, as a boy.  Jimmy Carter attended college for 2 years in Georgia, then enrolled at the US Naval Academy graduating in 1946. It shows the changes happening in the US with Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman in the efforts to industrialize America, bringing electricity and new opportunity for college education to rural areas in 1932-1952 which continued with highway systems under Eisenhower 1952-1960.  Carter also led the unwinding of the Democratic party with roots in the Roosevelts-Wilson era since 1902, going back to Teddy Roosevelt who as a Republican pushed hard for integrity, pro worker and antimonopoly policies in the administration. A process that went on with another Southerner, this time from Arkansas that led China's entry into the WTO and world trade without any safeguards for American workers 1992-2000. Policies that went unchanged under another Democrat Obama in 2008-2016. Instead of staying in the Navy he joined his family's peanut farm business in 1953, followed by running for governor of Georgia and grasping the opportunity to run for president as an evangelical from the South to bring moral integrity to the White House.   ...

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German chancellor Merz makes his frist trip to Asia starting with India. He sees India and Germany as natural partners and shifts the focus to India from China. Under Merkel Germany remained focused on China. This is changing now that Merz is chancellor. The winds of change are also blowing and the war in Ukraine, the distancing of the US under DJT, US and Chinese restrictions, require this change and Modi, Merkel step up to create anew strategic partnership. The EU and German trade is now set to increase significantly as India modernizes its economy. Merz and Modi see less dependence on Russia for oil and gas and defense needs. India seeks German technologies and capital to industrialize its economy. The scope is immense and both sides are at an historic opportunity. Merz is afar cry from the Merkel years when Germany never grasped India's potential and failed to invest in the German economy. Merz has put forward a $1 trillion plan to invest in modernization of Germany and India is the partner Germany has chosen as central to its plans. This brings the entire EU close to India and its aspirations to be a modern economy like the EU. This is a long term project that began today in Ahmedabad with the two leaders at ease at a Kite Festival in Ahmedabad after Merz visited Gandhiji's Sabarmati Ashram. And Merz showed he understood India-"We are in complete agreement in our assessment of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," Merz said. At the same time, he understood how India's dependence on Russian oil and gas had happened only recently. "Obviously, it is not that simple in India, and I am the last person to visit other countries wagging my finger at them." The patience is there as there is a meeting of minds for what is the largest project of its kind to 2037 and 2047 for 2 billion people pooling technologies, capital and talented engineers. ...

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Can the new intelligence assessment that Iran gave up the effort to make nuclear weapons three years ago affect oil prices and to what extent? At least it calms the anxiety that there is an unknown out there being the development of nuclear weapons in the backyard of Iraq where US is involved and in a major oil producing region. This should take some of the pressure off oil prices and any its significant in another way, that any developments in the middle east would be taken in a different light, not as a part of a cloud of uncertainty but taken by evaluating the new development on its own merits carefully. Interestingly this happened in the same week that another development ocurred. The President of Venezuela lost a referendum in Venezuela designed to givie him emergency powers by amending the constitution. Even by controlling most of the media and using oil money to support social programs and giveaways to the poor and working classes, Chavez lost the referendum that he initiated. It was not clear what would happen in Venezuela, and the Iran development was a surprise, so this also means that in international affairs educated people will look at a lot of different possibilities from now on before drawing any conclusions. In fact this is exactly what appears to have happened in the case of the intelligence on Iran, as mentioned here the new assessment was based on allowing different agencies and groups within the government to come up with different conclusions and then to test the facts again and again, and to question old assumptions....

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Ford's new 2013 Fusion model was radically redesigned to compete with the redesigned midsize Camry, and expected redesigns of the Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, the VW Passat and the Chevy Malibu. Ford hopes to gain market share with the Fusion after making only a small gain in market share of one tenth of a point in 2011, compared to half a percentage point for GM and 1.3 percentage points for Chrysler. VW Passat sales doubled in the last quarter of 2011 compared to all of 2010, showing increased competition in this segment. The new Fusion was designed at Ford's design center in Cologne, Germany, where the Focus was designed. Ford is shifting responsibility for car design to Europe and keeping pickup truck and SUV design in the U.S.

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European doubts over research data, on medical interventions, and the efforts to exercise caution on transgender. Having allowed medical interventions and treatments for years, the medical community in 5 countries, UK, Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, now urge caution in their use for minors, stressing lack of evidence benefits outweigh risks, says this report in the WSJ. The UK's National Health Service limited the use of puberty blockers to clinical trials,.

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Who knew that Prince William had actually slept on the streets of London in 2009 to understand homelessness and his passion to end homelessness through affordable housing. There is also the passion of the King Charles to do this another way by building aesthetic, friendly housing at lower cost so that it serves the needs of ordinary people. Around this one idea the deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and  William, Charles have found a new relationship. Charles chats freely with Angela, says the Times in this report and the two have developed shared concerns, as it is Rayner who as housing minister that has to come up with the 1.5 million new houses to be built under Labour's and PM Starmer's promise to Britain. It is agood sign for the new Britain that the royal family can come together with someone who has had her own struggles as Angela Rayner has had in her earlier years with an early pregnancy, as the three people come together to fight homelessness in our communities. ...

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In this highly informative piece WSJ's Scism shows why buying long term care insurance policies in the U.S. in 2015 should be weighed carefully, because of large premium increases, and fewer insurers willing to sell such policies. The period of stays in nursing homes is shorter than previously estimated, with more men and women spending some time in nursing homes as they get beyond age 65. A Boston College study in 2014 shows men and women have 44% and 58% lifetime risk of needing nursing home care, higher than previous research, but the stays are much shorter 10 months and 16 months for men and women respectively. And 50% of nursing home stays for men, 36% for women do not exceed 3 months, giving them coverage under Medicare 100 day maximum for stays following hospitalizations. This changes the earlier calculations. About 8 million people have long term care insurance, according to Limra, a research firm, and 131,000 such policies were sold in 2014, down 24% from 2013, and way down from the 750,000 a year in the 2000s. A typical basic policy provides $164,000 in potential proceeds by paying a premium ranging from $1,685 to $2,813 for a 60 year old couple, according to the American Association for Long Term Care Insurance....

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Discussions in the government about what to do if there is a loss of confidence in financial markets in Fannie and Freddie, and if the companies see default rates on mortgages rise and are unable to raise aditional capital as losses mount.

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Analysts at Citigroup predict that Bank of America might record a$3.6 billion loss for fourth quarter 2008. It appears that Bank of America may have overreached in acquiring 2 troubled firms Countrywide and Merrill. WIth $25 billion in TARP funds already given to Bank of America, Bank of America has informed Treasury that without additional funding it may not be able to complete the acquisition of Merrill. Treasury and Bank of America are negotiating these additional funds. Meanwhile Goldman Sachs analysts estimate worsening losses from the credit and financial crisis. Losses says Goldman economists could reach $1.1 trillion from residential mortgages alone up from $780 billion earlier estimate. Adding in losses from commercial real estate, credit cards, auto and business debt could send this figure up to $ 2.1 trillion. And bad overseas loans of US institutions would be additional to this. Not surprisingly Fed Chairman Bernanker would like to see much of the second half tranche of $350 billion in TARP funds ging to stabilize the financial system....

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Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, leads the EuroFuture Project. Here he offers his ideas of the dilemmas facing German leaders in agreeing to letting the European Central Bank take a larger role of supporting the bonds of Italy, Portugal and Spain. He says Germans are seeing a contradiction between European demands for German leadership and not wanting to be led by Germany or perceiving Germany as a hegemon. Brockhoff says Germans have never in the postwar period wanted to or learned to exercize continental leadership. He recounts the postwar period when Germans were content with the deutsche mark, and limited their expression of national pride to the deutsche mark. Giving up the deutsche mark was part of the deal for reunification of the two Germanys, a surrender of economic sovereignty for the sake of a larger integration into Europe. He says that even though the arguments are framed in terms of orthodox economics, economic nationalists who never really wanted to give up the deutsche mark are the core of the opposition to the common issue of eurozone bonds. The German position is to go back to the framework of principles for economic and monetary union and tighten the rules for spending and taxes, something that is good in the long run, but does not work in the short run with shrinking economies from austerity programs and nervous markets. The Merkel government's resolution of this crisis is to set new fiscal rules for the eurozone, and either move in the direction of letting the ECB play a larger role, or support such a move. What is not clear is whether the government will survive the next election taking on this leadership role in Europe, or a revolt in the Christian Democratic party....

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The weak dollar and lower unionized labor costs may make exports an attractive goal for US carmakers as the US market is shrinking. After years of shunning export markets US carmakers may finally be waking up to the potential in places like Brazil, China and India. GM is considering export of the Malibu to Brazil, and expects to send 25,000 Buick Enclaves to China because the Buick brand sells very well there. With the new UAW agreemets and lower unionized costs, the US carmakers backs to the wall and open to trying new things and not so America centric, and a cheaper dollar, exports may be one more way in which US carmakers can revive the automobile business in a declinig uS market. It is possible that after this recession the US market may have matured to the point where US sales levels may have peaked like that in Japan and Germany and exports and international markets are the only ways to growth. In this sense the transformation to making the so called Big 3 into global companies has begun in earnest in a true sense, and their company structures and the kind of people who work there will in future reflect this global nature of their business. The UAW is on board in this effort, new wages are at $14 per hour for new hires, and the UAW understands that exports mean additional jobs. In fact the Lordstown, Ohio plant is one location for another GM small car in the future which would be exported, this 42 year old plant once a target for closure could then become an example of renewal in a new kind of business model. Note that the US exported $50.66 billion in vehicles, half of it to Mexico and Canada. It imported $150 billion in vehicles. From now on the shift wold be to export to emerging markets....

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Differences over Gaza policy in the ruling coalition in Israel lead to the reisignation of the defense minister Mr. Lieberman. The result could be early elections which Mr. Netanyahu called "irresponsible" considering the situation in Gaza and Israeli security.