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A poll done by the International Republican Institute, a nonprofit affiliated with the Republican party, of 3500 people across Pakistan found a couple of important things. The Republican Institute's goal is to promote democracy in the developing world. 1. Popularity of President Zardari at 9% and Nawas Sharif's at 55%. The US resumed contacts with Sharif, and Sharif is seen as able to bring the Islamic moderates to the American side. 2. Economic issues are what concerns Pakistanis most. Refugees are approaching the 1 million number according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. 3. 81% said the country was going in the wrong direction, Zardari was never elected and is incompetent and this could be the reason. But military is still unpopular, 77% want democratic rule, possibly with Sharif or some sort of combination of Sharif, lawyers movement, and Islamic moderates in charge. 4. From alow of 9% in January 2008, now 37% are willing to work with the USA against extremism. Could Obama's election and US support of Pakistan's effort to heal itself be apart of this change of heart? 5. 45% support fighting extremists in the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. And 69% say having the Taliban and Al Quaeda operate in Pakistan is a serious problem. If these poll results accurately reflect shifting feeling in Pakistan, American help to help Pakistan pull itself up by its bootstraps economically and unify the country under a democratic administration of Islamic moderates and people from other areas like the lawyers movement, could work. It also improves the prospects of pulling out of Afghanistan after the situation improves, and setting up an administration that comprises Islamic moderates and tribal representatives that keeps out Al Quaeda, and works to rebuild Afghanistan after seemingly endless years of war. These efforts would require cooperation of Iran, India, Pakistan and the US, and assistance of countries like Turkey, in creating an atmosphere that promotes peaceful development in the entire region. ...

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Theme Park revenue is holding up well at Disney with promotions at theme parks, but revenue at ABC TV networks is weak with auto ad spending down and declining viewership, and dvd sales are dropping precipitiously. Profits for the quarter ended Dec 27, fell 32%. ESPN and the Disney Channel are also seeing the effects of weak ad spending. Attendance at theme parks is up this year over last for the last quarter.

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Honda is confident that it can sell 3% more cars in 2008 in the US market at a time when the US auto market is declining which tells you something about the high regard for Honda cars.

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The thinking is that a slight drop in the year to year increase in GDP from 11.4% to 10%, according to both IMF and Goldman Sachs group forecasts, isn't going to do much in reducing China's demand growth for oil. For one thing China's industry is very energy intensive and consumes a lot of energy to produce a give amount of output. Its estimated that it takes about 1% of increase in energy demand to produce 1% rise in GDP. It ranks as the largest consumer of coal and the second largest user of oil. It takes in about 8 million barrels a day of the 84 million barrels a day, that is 9.52%. Even as China's export sector slows down because of lower demand from the industrialized countries, the Chinese government can use its large cash reserves to build roads and bridges and ports and upgrade infrastructure to maintain employment levels. Major refiners margins have swung wildly from $30 in May 2007 from $10 in the last few years. Before the recent boom in refinery margins the margins average $5, and it looks like the boom in refinery building in Saudi Arabia, India and China and the US that resulted from shortage of refinery capacity, will bring margins back to their longterm average. A surge in oil prices that has outpaced the rise in prices of gasoline and refined products is shrinking margins and lowering profits and stock price of refiners like Tesoro and Valero. and upgrade its infrastructure ...

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Andrew Ross Sorkin points out that investors are sitting on their hands and money is moving out of the stock market. About $171 billion has moved out of mutual funds over the last year, according to the Investment Company Institute. About $208 billion has gone into the bond market in the same period. There are now fewer long term investors and the market is dominated by professionals which increases the volatility. There is a lack of confidence in the economy, the same reason that businesses in the U.S. are sitting on $2 trillion in cash that could be invested, and for investors the feeling that the market is rigged to favor insiders. The Financial Literacy Group surveyed 878 students at 18 high schools in 11 states in the U.S. It found that three fourths of the students agreed with the statement: "The stock market is rigged mostly to benefit greedy Wall Street bankers."

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The unnerving and distracting effect of a long IPO process and investor demands on two co-founders of Box Inc., as competiton and market perceptions change for a once promising tech startup in cloud computing.

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McCain's Plan announced in the debate with Obama moderated by Tom Brokaw was clarified further and looks more like the plan proposed by Hubbard in the WSJ. The government would step in and clear up the old mortgages and issue new 30 year mortgages at 5%. Taxpayer money would be involved, about $300 billion but the effect would be immediate relief to all homeowners, and the opportunity to stabilize home prices before a recession makes the situation worse with higher unemployment, more foreclosures. As much as 40% of all mortgages acccording to Deutsche Bank expected to go under water with home values dropping below the outstanding mortgages, and encouraging default in that situation. Lenders who made mistakes would get off without punitive price but even in the purchase of toxic assets by the government there is no certainty that private equity and other buyers of the assets from the government would not benefit. And the banks themselves could unload these assets at below their value to the Treasury because of asymmetric information, the lenders having a better idea than Treasury what these assets are really worth. And bad lending practices especially abusive ones can be prosecuted through investigation, the courts, and tough negotiations by the states and the government just as Jerry Brown obtained a settlement against Countrywide/Bank of America for $8 billion. And some of the people involved in the abusive practices and who benefited from them could have charges filed against them and end up serving time. The advantage of such a plan is that it would be decisive action and comprehensive action to see immediate effects of preventing whole neighborhoods being blighted across the nation, as most people underestimate the speed of this downturn from 6% to 16% home foreclosures from 2007 to 2008 and expected to hit as much as 40% of all mortgages in 2009 or 2010 absent any such action. Making what seems sensible letting lenders take the pain for their mistakes could then end up causing systemwide pain. When other ways of punitive action or shared pain or burden could be found especially prosecuting such behaviour and getting settlements through investigations and tough negotiations with the offending lenders. ...

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U.S. gasoline prices were below $2.06, adjusted for inflation, during 1986-2003, dropping to a low of $1.51 in 1998. U.S. gasoline prices at the pump dropped below $2.00 in Jan. 2015. Buyer behaviour responded quickly to the change for automobiles, with sport utility (SUV) sales rising to 34% market share in the U.S. in mid-Nov. 2014, according to Edmunds.com.

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Nuclear arms control SALT treaties expire Feb 2026 - need for new negotiations as the treaties were obsolete, did not include China, smaller nuclear weapons, and weapons from space. The SALT arms limitation treaty was first signed in 1972 by Brezhnev with Nixon. These treaties went through a second version and were renewed. The US no longer thinks this is relevant as China is not included, and smaller nuclear weapons, ones from space are not included and new negotiations are the best way to conduct true arms limitation. An accompanying video in NYT by David Sanger goes into these aspects of talks. Rafael Gross, head of IEA International Atomic Agency, says- You wouldn’t negotiate the same treaty again. There are new technologies that are not covered by the treaty — hypersonic missiles, undersea nuclear weapons, space weapons. And there are many other countries that, for one reason or another, feel now as if they may need a nuclear arsenal of their own.” This is the reason. It also happens that in 2026 US and Russia could coordinate their efforts, so that new US weapons may be needed as other risks could emerge from other places. There are smaller nuclear powers and new nations that might develop nuclear weapons as the US nuclear umbrella may be seen as not fully dependable. This new thinking would be that US and Russia may not see themselves as adversaries but work together to prevent nuclear risks from other sources. This is also why the US (and Russia) may want to wind down smaller regional conflicts, reduce their reliance on their own alliances, so that nuclear cooperation between nuclear powers US, Russia, China, and India may lead to control of nuclear weapons in a larger sense from space and from smaller countries that might develop nuclear weapons as has happened in Iran, which might create new risks that cannot be managed. A belligerent North Korea could lead to South Korea and Japan developing a nuclear weapon. This is also why the Ukraine conflict has run its course and it is in no one's interest to let the Nordics or Britain continue the conflict. The US, Russia, China, India, Brazil should not let middle or smaller powers continue regional or historical conflicts, and promote settlement through peace talks of such conflicts, as it inevitably leads to damaging the interests of billions of people around the world in peaceful cooperation and tackling challenges that affect the quality of life. ...

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Rockets fired by Iran close to the U.S. aircraft carrier U.S.S. Truman in December 2015 could lead to a shift in sentiment in the U.S. following the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 by the Obama administration. Ballistic missile testing was one of the issues in the negotiations leading up to the nuclear deal with serious differences between Congress and the Obama adminsitration on the issue. Recent ballistic missile tests by Iran may reinforce differences on this issue.