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Prof. Cusumano of MIT, says that with the loss of Apple's Steve Jobs, the company has lost a great visionary, and it will be difficult for Apple's new CEO Time Cook to make up for this loss. Cusumano has talked to many Apple employees in 2013-2014, and is writing a book on innovation. In this piece Chen and Richtel point out the ways Tim Cook is trying to fill the role Jobs filled, by assembling a group of people within the company who can play the pioneering role for new products, and making new acquisitions such as the Beats acquisition to bring in outside talent. Cook pushed for the introduction of the iPad Air, which now accounts for 60% of all iPad sales. The constant push for the magic in new products that Steve Jobs obsessed with down to details, will be missing. Jobs met daily with design chief Jonathan Ive for lunch at the Cupertino headquarters. Cook meets Ive 3 times a week. And Jobs pulled all the pieces of the new product together in a way that others will have difficulty doing. Cook has brought a different dimension to leadership at Apple by talking about Apple in terms of "advancing humanity," talking about his own personal experiences in the South, and seeing racial discrimination barriers for minorities. He was challenged recently to address issues of working conditions at Apple supplier factories in China. Cook is bringing some manufacturing back to the U.S. with building of new plants in Arizona and Texas. These are areas which were gaps in Jobs record, which Cook is filling gradually, and asking shareholders, customers, to be patient....

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Obama's 2009 Stimulus package sets aside money to promote new mass transit infrastructure building, but no money is set aside for operating budgets of existing mass transit systems. With prices of diesel fuel doubling in 2008, and revenue from state property sales and fuel taxes down from the economic downturn- on which the mass transit depends for operating budgets- many systems are considering service cuts and fare boosts. Transit agencies are facing huge shortfalls in New York, Washington DC, San Francisco and Chicago. Th Metropolitan Transportation Authority which runs public transportation in New York city and greater New York has a shortfall of $1.2 billion in a $11 billion operating budget. It will be forced to cut fares by 23% and severely cut services, including some lines like the Z line and shorten hours, to meet budget. All this is happening as use of public transportation is surging, and is at the highest level in over 50 years. In 2008 Americans took 10.7 billion trips on the country's 6,500 public transportation systems, according to the American Public Transportation Association's recent report. Some of the systems are old and need renovation. New York's operates 24 hours aday and handles millions of riders. Repairs are needed on its 90 year old signalling mechanisms. The MTA has maxed out the money it can borrowfor repairs, and debt service costs on its loans will reach $2 billion a year. Additional Stimulus needs to set aside money for the modernization of existing mass tranist systems, which would deliver value just as significant as the new mass transit infrastructure building that is planned....

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Working America, an arm of the U.S. trade union the AFL-CIO, conducted conversations with 350,000 voters in 17 U.S. states. Here a representative of Working America, says the overwhelming response to the question "does it make a difference whether Democrats or Republicans are in power for my well being," is reflected in one of the responses- "does it even matter?"

The suggested approach here is for Democrats in particular who have represented working class voters in the past, to start with a fresh approach by creating new conversations with working class Americans.

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The ECB's Long Term Refinancing Operation is working as planned with the lowering of borrowing costs for Italy and Spain. Spanish government two year bond yields are down to 3.3% in January 2012 from a high of over 6%. Italian government two year bond yields have declined to 3.9% in Jan 2012 from a high of 7.8% in November 2011. Experts say the response is much more positive than the market was expecting. Morgan Stanley anaysts expect the banks to borrow extensively when the ECB makes new loans under this program in February 2012, which they estimate could reach 400 billion euros. Spanish banks are expected to borrow 15-45 billion euros to use for buying Spanish government debt, which would take up about half of the debt Spain needs to issue in 2012. For the banks the 3 year loans at 1% interest with flexible terms for collateral given to the ECB, offers a way to earn higher interest rates on sovereign government debt of their national governments.

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The near-premium or near-luxury car segment that Honda is appealing to with its Acura ILX and Buick is appealing to with its Verano model. The European carmakers also plan to bring cars to the U..S. that are economically priced and have luxury features. White points out that baby boomer buyers in their fifties and sixties are particularly careful to compare these cars with the luxury features on a moderately priced Accord and Taurus, and can see any flaws in the near-luxury cars which indicate compromise such as afour cylinder engine or manual controls where electronic controls are expected. Honda's marketing people have looked at American buyers and see the new profile of a customer who is sophisticated but is also looking at price in today's more fugal environment for purchases, as the buyer they are targeting. But they will have to be careful as this category bumps up against the moderately priced cars that have some luxury features and are competitively priced to attract buyers.

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Microsoft's new Metro interface for Windows 8.

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Wipro's new software development centre in Atlanta.

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China sets new goals for nuclear energy.

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A sad situation at the library system in San Jose with exorbitant late fees turning young people from low income families, immigrant children- the very group that needs to be integrated better into society with improved English language skills and a path to higher literacy and reading scores that can lead to college- turning these children away from libraries to avoid the late fee penalties. Parents with low incomes can ill afford the high late fees in the San Jose library system, and some residents keep a distance after being pursued by collection agencies, according to this report by Carol Pogash in the NYT. The situation is different in San Francisco which charges less in late fees, and with the openness of libraries in New York which counts more reading time in libraries as a way to pay off any late fees. The numbers are significant as this report shows 187,000 accounts at the San Jose library system, or 39 percent of all cardholders owe the library late fees. Compared to 50 cents a day for unreturned books at San Jose, San Francisco charges 10 cents a day for adults and no late charges for users under 17 years. Here the principal of Washington Elementary School in San Jose, Maria Arias Evans, and librarian Ms. Bourne, draw attention to a problem when 95 percent of the children attending the school qualify for free and reduced lunch programs. When America is seriously reflecting on the issue of lack upward mobility through education in 2016, better integration of immigrants into society, turning away young students from libraries is the last thing we need as a society and a nation. The digital and other divide in San Jose has never been so evident even from the outside. In March the German new weekly ran a story on San Jose and Silicon Valley satirically titled "Beyond Awesome."...

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Eric Bellman's intervew with Rajiv Lall, chief executive officer of Infrastructure Development Finance, India's largest infrastructure financing company. Lall says the conditions are right for power development to be the next telecom of India's growth story, with some of the same impact that telecom has had bringing mobile phones to hundreds of millions of people in India. IDFC expects 20% growth in net profit in 2010 and 30% in 2011.

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There are differences between the governors of 10 worst hit states and the president of the U.S. on when to reopen the economy. The seven on the East Coast including New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and three on the West Coast including California and Washington, all but one have Democrat governors and want to wait beyond May 1, till it is believed to be safe to reopen.190,000 of the 592,000 infected cases and over 10,000 of 25,000 cases of deaths are from New York alone. This is as though a third of the problem is in one state. The feeling in New York is that it should be the last to reopen, other states can go first in the middle of the country. The position in the U.S. Constitution is for states to maintain public order and safety. This was the basis of the president's position to work with the governors and continues to be the case, though there is pressure from economic advisers to the president to reopen earlier balanced by the opinion of health experts around the president.  Some states are taking action to reopen because the virus has not severely affected these states. President Trump says it is for governors to decide what is best for each state in consultation with the federal government. The U.S. government would step in if a state is taking risky action with the coronavirus. On the issue of whether the president could have acted quickly in February following his decision to stop flights from China and set up quarantines in January, the BBC has this to say. Dr. Fauci, the president's respected health expert was one of many public officials who did not see the magnitude of the crisis evolving with lack of good information from China. BBC North America Editor Jon Sopel cites Dr. Fauci's comments on February 13- that the coronavirus danger is "just miniscule" compared with the "real and present danger" of flu. As it happened the president acted alone in his sense of the danger from the outbreak in China through incoming flights and not relying on others. Here is what the situation of each country on reopening is- India -  has extended the lockdown to May 3. France - has extended the lockdown till May 11. U.S. - has extended the lockdown to May 1. States are taking the responsibility. UK - continues lockdown restrictions till May. The French president Macron had a simple answer to the question " when will we be able to get back to a normal, prior life?" Macron said "Quite frankly, humbly, I have no definitive answer to that." Some nurseries and schools will reopen May 11. Not restaurants, hotels, museums and theaters. By May 11 France will be able to test and quarantine anyone with symptoms and general public masks will be available to all. This is what Dr. Fauci in the U.S. also wants to see before being able to reopen, that testing and tracing, isolating, procedures be efficient and reliable. ...

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The credit lending boom in Brazil is leading to rising levels of household indebtedness and credit card abuses. In Brazil and Chile consumer lending regulations are lax. Credit card interest rates in Brazil can be as shockingly high as 220% annually. The household debt to income levels were 70% at the end of 2010 in Chile, according to the Central Bank. In Brazil this ratio is 40%, according to LCA Consultores. Consumer appliance and electronics stores such as La Polar and Casa Bahias are lightly regulated and offer lower priced products to a new class of consumers in lower classes that have no experience with consumer credit. La Polar is under investigation in Chile for increasing rates and changing the terms on loans unilaterally for 418,000 customers. In Brazil the federal prosecutors office is charging banks such as Itau, HSBC, and Santander with $300 million of illegal bank charges on clients from 2008 to 2010.

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In this essay in Der Spiegel, Charles Hawley says that the Trump movement has become a movement of patriotic downtrodden whites, with a whole range of interests-of extreme right talk show hosts, Tea Party politicians, white power supremacists, those left out by globalization in the working class especially in the midwestern states. The danger he says is that this movement of which Trump has become a part, rejects the narrative on which America is based of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers establishing a country based on principles of "the inalienable rights of man," that have evolved through the years to include black people, women, and minorities.  To put this in perspective, president Obama writing for The Economist magazine in October 2016, puts this movement in a different context- that of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Know Nothing Movement of the 1800's, the anti-Asian sentiment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, periods when anti-immigrant or anti-foreign sentiment gained prominence. Obama's view is that it is not fundamentally economic. In this he is right in that some of the forces on the far right do not stem from globalization. Yet he would be missing a great deal if he did not address the economic problems for the middle and working class that have given such views the support of a broad segment of the population, especially in some midwestern and older industrial states compared to say the economy of California or New York. Obama is aware of the problems in his essay as he points to the problems of workers trying to get a decent wage, of job losses through globalization, and the aggravation of these problems by the financial crisis of 2008 when some of the potential physicists and engineers as he calls them went into the financial sector to create faulty mortgages. Yet he goes back to the free trade and global networks of supply chains as having reduced global poverty, without showing a keen awareness of how it has through a combination of events and decades of policy indifference to manufacturing communities in the U.S.- as documented by experts and shown in Lyrarc, with David Autor and Gordon Hansen in the WSJ, 2016- 08-16. A Gallup Study, WSJ, 2016-05-16, supports Obama's assertion by showing that many of Trump supporters are actually self-employed and not in economic distress. Yet the movement would not have taken its proportions without the merging of different groups particularly largely disadvantaged working class voters, and fortunately Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, have a better sense of this than the president. It is by their efforts that income and wealth disparities can be tackled in a way that restores the social fusion of all parts of society- in Hillary Clinton's emphatic words in the final debate by "growing the middle," growing the middle class. This is the task of the next decade, or possibly two decades. (For Gallup study see WSJ, How Economic Anxieties Explain Trump's Appeal- And Where They Fall Short, Nick Timiraos, 08-16-2016. And for Autor, Hanson, see Tallying the Toll of U.S.-China Trade, Justin Lahart, 08-27-2011)   ...

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Italy's finance minister Carlo Padoan, the EU president Jean-Claude Juncker, and Vitor Constancio, vice president of the ECB, express the need for increased public spending and investment to reverse increasingly sluggish economic growth by Septembr 2014. In a letter to Paduan, finance ministers of France and Germany, Sapin and Schauble, express support for a new investment program in 2014-2015.

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Working mothers and fathers living in shelters on $50,000 a year in New York City in 2025. A sign of how housing also presents a crisis in today's America.

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One of the good things after the pandemic is that people are going to spend more time in their home countries instead of travelling overseas, says this report in the DW.com. World tourism has grown too quickly and too fast in the last two decades. Places everywhere are becoming extremely congested. I remember visits to Paris, to Notre Dame cathedral and its surroundings, in the eighties and nineties and compare them to two decades later with regret that it has changed for the worse. By 2010 everyplace looked different, transport, hotels, streets were so congested as to make trips less exciting and less fun to do.  The question posed here is whether having 3 million less people travelling around the world is such a bad thing? It says the tourism industry has grown so quickly and so fast that it poses a danger to the environment, to the quiet of neighborhoods and cities, driving a commodities culture. As this writer says it drives locals away from the cities they have lived in for generations, and robs those who stay of the quiet lives they have enjoyed. In fact once the cities experienced so much less pollution during gradual reopening, and streets had less traffic, a lot of people turned to use bicycles. Bicycle lanes were replacing car traffic lanes. A return to calmer living with enjoyment of one's own neighborhoods and cities, and travel within one's own country, is becoming an attractive alternative. People now remember that it was the huge amount of airline traffic that spread the pandemic from cities in Asia to cities in Europe, and cities in America. It also spread quickly through tourist destinations inside Asia and Africa, and Latin America. Even some of the early clusters in Germany, Italy and the U.S. had their origins in the the spread of globalized supply chains in China, Germany, and Italy for automobiles. Auto industry business people traveled to places in or near Wuhan, then to Bavaria, and on to northern Italy in the global supply chain for automobile manufacturing.  As new nations like China and India with billions of people are added to world tourism this changes everything in a way never imagined before. This pandemic gives one a pause to rethink whether it was a good idea in the first place to seek fulfilment by travel outside one's own country, without first exploring it and one's own neighborhoods in a quieter setting. We travel to new places seeking fulfillment. There comes a time when the tourism today has become so big that it is not sustainable, safe or economical anymore. A rethink and new habits make sense.     ...

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The South China Morning Post, SCMP, looks at China at the 40th year of the great economic experiment  that changed China. This started with the Deng reforms by the then Chinese leader that opened up the economy in 1978. As this report points out in 1978 Deng Xiaoping's efforts at loosening the state control of the economy and business was actually a way to get out from the effects of the Cultural Revolution and prevent another Cultural Revolution. Deng was removed from office during the Cultural Revolution. Instead of unquestioned acceptance of Mao the new criterion was "Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth." In economic and business matters this was followed so that if it worked then the experiment was expanded, gradually giving life to the Chinese model of state capitalism, economic expansion under the state with the state supporting state corporations that operate in a market economy.  This means the Communist Party was to continue its control but with experimentation away from the planned economy in the coastal provinces of Guangdong and Fujian, and then into Shanghai. Experts close to Jiang Zemin, the next leader after Deng, say China's Communist state would not have survived without the changes started by premier Deng. Farmers still did not own the land but they were free to plant and own the yields for their efforts.  Deng established the Three Benefits Principle in 1992 trip to Guangdong, whatever helped increase productivity, increased the strength of the country and improved living standards was good, you did not judge it by whether it was socialist or capitalist. Jiang Zemin's work was to follow Deng's ideas and help negotiate the entry into World Trade Organization and set up the new economic regulations. Capitalists were allowed to join the Communist Party for the first time. State and local government ownership of land was turned into an advantage as this provided one of the critical inputs in terms of land for setting up new factories, with capital coming from savings, and other inputs of technology and investment coming from the U.S. after entry into the WTO brought American and European companies to China. A steady supply of labor poured in from the countryside and urbanization became a goal of Chinese development policies. Today India and other countries in Africa, Latin America, can look at the Chinese experience and effort and look for ways to modernize, urbanize and improve living standards, productivity and strength of their economy. One key is to experiment and look for what works that can then be expanded to other locations, and build on the advantages that may open up as the experiment makes progress. Following entry into WTO China was able to take advantage of overseas markets and build an edge in manufacturing, something that was not evident even in 1992.   ...

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With its slogan "Expect More, Pay less" Target has tried to combine low prices with moving upmarket, carrying designer merchandise and chic styling without breaking the family budget. Now with the recession and consumers becoming frugal in the USA, Target and its new CEO who took on the role in May 2008, Steinhafel, is looking at Wal-Mart to see how it can also emphasize the low prices in this recessionary climate. With store sales fallig by 10% in early 2009 Target executives were concerned that something needed to be done. And the thing was to bring even lower prices withor making customers feel cheap. Its chief marketing officer natty Francis always believed in the marketing philosophy of the 1952 book about Marshall Field "Give the Lady What She Wants." Question was what the lady wanted in today's environment. Instead of the old aspirational image of the designers behind Target apparel, Francis now put up the idea of how good value can be chic too. Target designers emphasized how the lady can look "frugalista fabulous." The other challenge was introducig groceries in the store. And instead of packaged foods he idea was to introduce fresh foods which have higher margins. Protype grocery stores were put up and the concept launched. And now instead of gradual rollout, Target went hyper local putting fresh food in all 30 Philadelphia stores. And the marketing ads, radio, newspaper circulars, TV everything made Philly residents aware of the move. Sales went up by 5to 10%. Now the concept has proven to work and Target plans to put in in 350 stores in 2010. And Nat Francis thinks Target did not move fast enough considering how quickly consumers have turned frugal. In the new frugal environment Target research showed its working-mom was obsessing about the price of milk not the thigh-high boots, and she was visiting the grocery store twice aweek and Target only 3 times amonth. Showing groceries mattered. Meantime Target's markeing is ore focussed and its creating the perception that Target and Wal-mart are so close on price. Target is actually devoting 75% of its advertising budget to price compared to 25% in 2008. So a 32 inch panel TV is $246, a coffeemaker is $3. Yet Target executives don't want to undo a strategy built up over years of a better customer experience, designer merchandise at lwer prices, something that would differentiate it from Wal-Mart. So the moves may simply be an adjustment to comport with the thriftier savings oriented times....

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Samsung's decision to go with Android rather than its own inhouse developed software for its smartphones, and the execution of the new plan, was pivotal in its recent success. This is what differentiates it from Nokia and Research in Motion, companies which decided to develop their own software. In the case of Nokia, it made a costly switch from its Symbian software to Microsoft software. Samsung's other business in chipmaking is not as profitable, with margins dropping to 9.5%. Operating profit declined in the fourth quarter in the chip business, dropping by half from the prior quarter. The rapid changes with one costly error changing the whole playing field, also shows the precarious nature of the mobile phone business with changing leaders every few years, from Motorola to Nokia, to Samsung and Apple.

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U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Yellen launches a sweeping review of practices for supervision of large banks in Nov. 2014. The review is designed to check "whether there are adequate methods for decisionmakers to obtain all necessary information to make supervisory assessments and determinations," and whether channels exist for decision makers to take into account divergent views when important issues arise. This is in response to questions about how the culture at the New York Federal Reserve may have stifled differing opinions on how banks should be supervised and what is proper information sharing between regulators and banks.

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Paul Davies says the leadership at Deutsche Bank is short sighted and cannot afford more slip ups or missteps following the U.S. New York Fed's examination. The examination revealed serious shortcomings in regulatory reporting and failure to correct them. As U.S. operations represent one fourth of its balance sheet this raises issues for the bank's overall financial position. Deutsche Bank has committed additional $1 billion in systems investment and staff to tackle this. Added problems he mentions are that Deutsche Bank lobbied against the Fed's proposal for foreign bank capital requirements even though it remains undercapitalized. The bank's leverage ratio at 3.4% is low and Davies says changes at the top are needed if further missteps occur.

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Scientific American says 8-11% impact larger emissions under the One Big Beautiful Act than the 61%-66% emissions cut under Biden IRA in 2035 over 2005. What is the reasoning behind DJT Republicans approach? 

Remember that the wealthiest House districts are now in the Democratic party and the working class, rural and poorer districts are now in the Republican party as shown in the recent WSJ analysis.  In this situation after  30-40 increase in the price of groceries, new and used cars, and housing costs 2019-2024 the argument is that American working families need relief. Another factor was the grasp of the fact that for climate change action to work China could not be allowed to build one coal plant a week (95GW of coal electricity capacity in 2024). In 2024 US represented only 12% of global emissions and EU only 6%, China, Russia, India, Brazil etc emitting the rest of 82%. 

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After the resignation of Angela Rayner UK prime minister Keir Starmer faces pressure from within the Labour party on the direction of policies to benefit the working class base of the party. Splits within the party with a new party being formed by Jeremy Corbyn would only benefit the Reform UK party of Nigel Farage. Only a year after winning in a landslide Labour is struggling to win support in local elections as it faces the need for a tough line on migrants proposed by Farage and his UK Reform party. This tough line on no tolerance for illegal migrants was put forward by Farage in The Times, and the Times in an Editorial described it as something Labour and Starmer should listen to. Previous differences existed when Labour contested the last election, Labour simply needs to keep the party together and tackle migrant issues without any preconceptions as it is something the public expects it to do, not spending billions of dollars on illegal migrants which are needed in housing and working class benefits that were cut. ...

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Over the last 5 years 2021-2025 Americans who are more excited than concerned about AI has dropped from 18% to 10%, and Americans who are more concerned than excited has grown from 37% to 52%, in Pew Research surveys. Showing that self-interested tech companies such as Microsoft and OpenAI, Google are making loud claims for AI that do not reflect the views of the American people as a whole in 2025.

Americans by large margins in Pew Research believe AI will help in day to day tasks from weather forecasting to inventing new medicines. And by large margins of 40% Americans think AI will hurt ability to think creatively and form meaningful relationships and by 20% will hurt for making difficult decisions. This shows Americans -similar to people in China as reported- believe in using AI for ordinary day to day routine tasks, and are wary of AI and aware that AI's usefulness is limited to such routine tasks only.

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Plan B for US president DJT on Tariffs - Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act to place a 150 day 15% tariff. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. Trade Investigations under Section 301. Much of this set of laws are already in place and being used by the US. A law passed in 1930 is another avenue for tariffs Section 338 of ther Tariff Act of 1930. The US government and US president DJT could also have Congress enact a new law as it has majority in both the Senate and the House and the president could make acase for the reasonable use of tariffs with the EU and Japan having taken advantage of trade to the disadvantage of the US. There is also broad support for fentanyl action by the president using economic action on tariffs on nations Canada, Mexico, China that continue to let the flow of fentanyl across their borders for use by drug trafficking gangs in Mexico to send over US land border at the 2000 mile long US-Mexico border.