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Emil Bowe, 43 years, is a federal prosecuting attorney at Southern Division, New York. WSJ calls him a state school kid among Ivy Leaguers, a law and order type who is passionate about prosecuting the bad guys. Emily Bowe and Todd Blanche are Deputy Attorney General and Principal Attorney General under DJT in 2025. Todd Blanche brought him in to defend DJT in 2024 cases filed against DJT.

Bowe from Seneca Falls upstate New York  went to University of Albany for BA and Georgetown for JD. He has given priority to pursuing immigration offense and narcotics crime in preference to white collar crimes and has a single minded dedication to the task. He is now overhauling the Justice Department to make the shift from white collar crime to immigration and fentanyl flows at the US borders.

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Washington Post's new idea of developing content for social media platforms  (Third Newsroom) to cut losses of $77 million in 2023 by earning profit on social brand exercises, comes at a time when the risks of social media platforms to education of children and to their mental health are great. Social media platforms entry into the news business has led to old news companies first interacting with them over a decade and realizing that this was leading to gains for social media platforms and losses for the old news companies. For older news companies such as the NYT, WSJ, Washington Post and others in the US this was a period in which these companies lost control over their news content along with loss of revenues. Over the last five years the companies have become profitable managing their own content and increasing subscriptions. The Washington Post has run into problems and has a $77 million loss. It was sold to Amazon's Bezos for $250 million by the founding family in 2013.  It is now trying to revive its business by doing what failed for the NYT, WSJ and others- by embracing rather than rejecting social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and others using the News Movement idea of UK journalist Lewis and Winnett. That News Movement makes content for Instagram and TikTok but has not generated profits. Under Lewis as head of Washington Post news division, Matt Murray formerly editor of WSJ would as head of Third Newsroom develop this kind of content for social media platforms. This runs the risks of aiding the work of social media platforms at a time when TikTok has raised national security concerns in the US, and along with Instagram is being cited as part of social media platforms that are affecting the mental health of children. Its disastrous impact on the health of the Nation and its future comes from reducing focus on education and studies by diverting an average of 4.8 hours each day away from educational activity for the children that make up the future generation of this Nation. ...

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The second proposal by the DJT administration is described by the WSJ as being one that may be worse than the first for Ukraine as it opens up repayment of the money US gave as aid to Ukraine to defend against Russian invasion. DJT administration maintains it is $350 billion not the $100 billion Ukraine and the EU say Ukraine received in US aid. In this report Ukrainians say the Ukraine parliament would never be able to pass such an agreement and it sets up more difficulties in US Ukraine peace negotiations if released. The US proposal would set up an entity called the US Ukraine Reconstruction Fund. This fund would have first right to all infrastructure and minerals projects in Ukraine. It's approval would be required for other investors to invest in Ukraine infrastructure and mineral projects. It is written as a commercial agreement, not as a nation to nation agreement. Scott Bessent who runs Treasury is a finance executive overseeing the negotiation and this proposal. He worked for George Soros Fund and provided advice for the bet on the British pound during a difficult time for the UK economy that led to a billion dollar gain for Soros Fund. DJT is a real estate developer. As a result their thinking is based on their experience in the US real estate and capital markets.     ...

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Oxfam agency does a study to show the extent of damage done by colonialism in Asia-taking one of three examples India, China and Indonesia with population today of about 3 billion people. British colonial rule in India-from the 1750's to 1950,  estimate is about $34 trillion. It is important because Gandhi's Hind Swaraj (1910) is the result of work done by Dadabhai Naoroji in Poverty and Un-British Rule in India (1901) in coming up with an estimate in the $trillions that showed Gandhi "the extent of the poverty of India." Gandhi's famous letter to the Viceroy in 1923 comes from looking at the British budget for India where little is invested in Indian development much of it going to policing India. An average of $650- $750 per capita income in1600 for both Britain, Netherlands and India, China and Indonesia diverges to $100 in India, China and Indonesia and $10,000 in Britain in 1947. The Dutch and Britain had financed their industrial Revolution that generated most of this prosperity using funds squeezed from taxation, seizure of provincial treasuries,  and unfair trade in India by the British and Dutch East India Companies from 1750 to 1940.  What made this possible is the advance of science and technology that gives the British Navy and the smaller Dutch Navy the edge beginning in the 1600's and maintained for two hundred years to 1800's to defeat the French Navy. And with a leap forward in the Industrial Revolution propelled by science and technology to maintain this edge against all newcomers till 1920's when the US and Japanese Navies contended for superiority. In 1588 the British Navy under Queen Elizabeth had more 400 ton ships and bigger ship guns than the Spanish Empire's Navy under Phillip the Second that dominated Spain, Italy and Germany, and Latin America. This was the turning point the year 1588, when the Spanish Armada was destroyed by the English Navy and by storms in the English Channel. A new book "Armada" by English historians Martin and Parker (2023) shows this as a turning point from which the British and the Dutch started after defeating Spain. There are questions about what led to attitudes towards science and technology moving forward in Northern Europe and stagnating in not just India and China but also in Spain in 1600-1900. One could arguably say and ask how is it that Spain became as poor as India and China by 1900-1950?  Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) says it is the insulated agricultural valleys of the Ganges and the Yangste river civilizations of India and China that are at fault. Yet one could say this for the Rhine, Danube or the other river based civilizations of Europe. It is primarily the advance of the Renaissance philosophy that opened up thinking in Europe and not in Asia, to ask questions about the world around us, to venture out, to test and experiment then invest capital where Asia and Europe moved apart.      ...

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The close ties developed in the postwar years between Japan and Boeing. Japanese suppliers supplied 16% of the 767 model in 1982, growing to 21% in 1995. By 2011 with the 787 Dreamliner Japan's role had increased to 35%. ANA and JAL almost exclusively use Boeing planes, shutting out Airbus from the Japanese market. New upstart airlines are beginning to order from Airbus. The Japanese government also supports suppliers of Boeing in Japan. Employment is also a consideration as 43% of employment in Japan's aviation industry is linked to Boeing. The battery on the Dreamliner 787 is supplied by Kyoto based GS Yuasa Corp., and Kanto Aircraft Instrument Company near Tokyo makes the circuit board that runs the battery. Battery related fires have led to grounding of 17 Dreamliners operated by ANA and 7 Dreamliners of JAL airlines in Japan. All Nippon Airways is the first and largest operator of the new Dreamliner aircraft. So tight is the relationship that Airbus has in total about 44 planes flying in Japan, with newer airlines such as Skymark expected to use the new Airbus A380 superjumbo aircraft in 2014. ANA and JAL typically do not bargain hard on pricing with Boeing because this supports Japanese manufacturers. ANA managers say it was involved in the design of the jet, including the use of a durable Japan made paint. In the 1990's Boeing studied Japanese manufacturing methods to improve work on its assembly lines, which goes on till today....

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The use of Chapter 11. or the US bankruptcy code, was astrong point of the American system of free enterprise, because it gave enterprises with problems but otherwise having healthy businesses a chance to reorganize and emerge stronger from the crisis. DUring the time in bankruptcy it could work out its debt load with creditors under court protection. Now this is no longer working in the current economic crisis. Because under current law derivative transactions are given preferred creditor status in a bankruptcy many creditors are designing their loans as derivative transactions. And creditors are creating the empy creditor situation by taking credit default swaps to ensure that they get paid if acompany fails to make apayment. In the process the creditor does not have the same interest in the company staying in business as it did before. This happened with Goldman Sachs buying credit default swaps on its loans to AIG. Complicating the situation further creditors are using the law to seize inventories and in other ways get aclaim on the assets if acompany like Circuit Stores for instance runs into difficulty. As aresult CIrcuit City was gforced into liquidation. So on one hand businesses that have achance if reorganized under Chapter 11 are being forced into liquidation and on the other hand companies that are not going to be the source of innovation or productive gains for the economy like Citigroup are simply tying up huge amounts of government money as there is a fear that a proposed bankruptcy could lead to arepeat of the Lehman collapse, where bankruptcy proceedings are too slow and cumbersome for this situation and things fall apart in days. ...

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Americans loaded up with debt may be turning to older thriftier ways of an earlier generation. This this will affect consumer spending, have an impact on Chinese exports, and on the Japanese economy which is dependent on China for growth. Some argue that there is a culture of consumer spending that runs through recent American history. Even after one boom was over the stock boom was replaced by a housing boom, each boom and easy credit offering free spending and borrowing lifestyles. Is it going to change now? But it could be that a point has been reached where the finances of households and of the nation's credit system can only go so far, and culture won't matter if banks tighten up credit. There is a limit for the Fed to act to lower rates, and household debt has reached highly serious proportions. The savings rate went from one tenth of income in 1984, to 5% in 1994, to slightly negative in 2008. Today for those who borrowed against their homes in 2003-2007, 34 million households or one third of the US households, savings rate was negative 13% in 2006 June. Thhis came down to 7% in end of 2007, according to Moody's Economy.com, which suggests that the cutback in consumer spending from this group of people had already begun. What will this mean for consumer spending in the USA? It means that even though the top fifth of American earners who generate half of all consumer spending according to Barclay's Capital, will continue spending though a bit more carefully than before. The rest of the American people will be cutting back, especially the one third of the nation that is heavily in debt, and the unemployed if job numbers aren't that good. Which could be why Goldman Sachs predicts that Japan is already in recession using the Japanese definintion of decline in output, and China may be slowing down more significantly than is understood because of the poor data that is coming out of China. The Chinese economic activity too chaotic to accurately measure, and with large time lags before what is actually happening is detected and quantified correctly. ...

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The contrarians not just then, but still today, as many economists shrug off facts about the new savings rate and predict a bounce back in 2009. Jeremy Grantham, co-founder of Boston money mangement shop GMO LLC, got the date right, predicting real risk to the financial system in October 2008. He pointed out for years since 2000 that the Fed's moves and the government's fiscal actions (including 2 costly wars) after the 2001 terrorist attacks, had simply postponed "a sensational bust". Its useful to see how these three, Peter Schiff, President of EuroPacific Capital, Bob Rodriguez of the FPA New Income Fund, and Jeremy Grantham agree and where even they disagree, and where the common thread of logic runs. Currency valuations including the US dollar, are the hardest to predict, and the predictions in this regard are also hardest to state for their timing. When separated from the rest of the picture, they give a better sense of what this common thread of logic in most of the crisis picture is. Grantham saw this crisis coming, but its not clear that he sees this running for a long period of a decade. He agrees with Rodriguez and Schiff about another 30% fall in the S&P 500 stock index, but at the same time he predicts over the next 7 years returns in the US stock markets will be 7.5% annually. Rodriguez sees this going on far beyond periods 1 and 2 to periods 3 to 10. And he sees government efforts to jump start the economy leading to some progress and then sputtering out because consumers are turning frugal. The savings rate will grow eventually going up to 10% by 2010. What this means is that as 70% of the US economy depends on consumption spending, and consumption spending has been too deeply damaged to recover in a few years, the downturn will only deepen in 2009 and 2010. This is his central point, and the analysis free of clutter and controversy. Basically he says the policy makers do not fully grasp that the US consumer has turned into a saver, and while the Obama administration puts one foot on the accelerator to stimulate spending, consumers will be pushing on the brakes. Schiff sees difficulties in financing the debt leading to higher interest rates and a serious drop in the value of the dollar. The views on the dollar face a lot of uncertainty as to timing, the relative strength of currencies in countries in Europe which have weak economies (UK, Ireland and Spain), and the rapidly weakening Chinese economy. But the common thread of logic runs through Rodriguez's argument about the savings rate and consumption spending, with debt and the overstretched consumer in the US running through every discussion about a weakening economy. Something much like what is happening to the auto industry because of its extraordinary degree of oversupply (with capacity reaching 94 million vehicles worldwide and demand inflated by the boom years and easy money now deflating) playing out in a few quarters, is likely to happen across the whole economy. In a gradual pattern playing out over a few years, as consumers postpone purchases of retail goods. Already this is showing up in the inventories of electronic goods that is building up. See links. Kelly Evans in the WSJ front page on January 6, 2009, confirms the signs of a seriously frugal American consumer....

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Jack Healy, who the NYT says writes about the rapidly changing politics and climate of the American southwest, provides this report from the border town of Nogales, Arizona, on the border with Mexico. In this desolate isolated border region America's future is being decided- Biden being the only Democrat since Harry Truman in 1948 to take Arizona and by just 10,000 votes. There near Nogales the border wall Trump built ends abruptly at the Kelly ranch in a picture shown in this report. Rural Santa Cruz County is except for migrants a solitary and quiet place along the border. Mr. Kelly moved here in 2002 and runs more of a hobby ranch unlike the bigger cattle ranches in the area. Migrants make their way through this part of the border and the Kelly ranch. In the most recent episode a migrant is shot and Mr. Kelly reports the shooting to police. Healy looks at the lives of the rancher and the migrant to give a snapshot picture of what life is really like on the border. And the different sides of the story seen from the rancher's and migrant's situation.  A border area where in a vast dry mesquite region ranchers on the Arizona side live alongside Mexico with people facing high unemployment where people are looking for work and choose to take the risks of crossing the border illegally. Crossings that are made at points on the border wall that end in canyons and riverbeds where migrants and their smugglers make their way. It affects the lives of the ranchers and the migrants in many ways. Ranchers who are in isolated areas- the Kelley ranch is 170 acres- feel isolated and vulnerable as they see a threat in the network of smugglers sending migrants across the border. This is also where the future of America is being decided. After the overconcentration of manufacturing in China, there is the border with Mexico, two regions that have little to do with each other but determine politics and emotions in the US about workers, about migrants and about borders. By understanding both sides of the story president Biden became the first president since Harry Truman to win Arizona in the presidential election of 2021. He won it by just 10,000 votes with a recount showing about 360 more votes. Without Arizona and Georgia both won by Harry Truman in 1948 Biden could not have begun the process of tackling the major issues facing America in 2021. Keeping uppermost workers and families, keeping uppermost the people of America as Truman had done in 1948.     ...

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People in Japan are living longer healthier lives. So much so that people are working well into their 70's. In Nagano, Japan, people say that those in their 40's and 50's are like a child with a runny nose, and people in their 60's and 70's are in the prime of their careers. In this WSJ report, 38 years old Norohiro Aizawa is a part time farmer, who says he plans to work into his 70's like many farmers in Japan. Today his father in his early 70's is active and in charge. Sachiko Kobayashi runs a crafts business, has a job making box lunches, and a garden full of pumpkins and radishes. She is 65 and gets up at 3 am. In Nagano she is called by the term pre-elderly, not elderly. For elderly she has a long way to go. Japan has 29% of the population in under over 65 years group, Europe 21% and US 17%. Yet something else is happening. People are just taking better care of themselves and their health, and living, working longer. A 70 year old today in Nagano is in health status like a 60 year old one or two generations ago. Perceptions of what is elderly have changed.    Japan's White Paper on the Elderly in 2021 shows studies suggesting that many in the 65-74 year group do not share traits associated with the term elderly.  Only 6% require care by others. Half of 65-69 year olds hold jobs, and a third of those in their early 70's also hold jobs. Life expectancy in Japan stretches into the late 80's for women, and early 80's for men. This is almost 5-8 years more than countries like the UK with a strong national health service. In April 2021 a revised Employment Law took effect, telling big employers to offer work to workers until age 70, up from previously government sanctioned retirement age of 65 years. Government says it is meant to protect the right of people to work longer. There is even a term called late-elderly.  Oshima 82 of Nagano, leads a volunteer group that shoots video of community festivals and works late into the night, and is cited in this WSJ story as saying that even if people called him late elderly, his response is oh yeah? I don't care. It is all about living a full life, terms don't matter at all when one stays healthy.   ...

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Carlos Tavares runs Stellantis the company that combined the operations of France's Peugeot, Italy's Fiat and America's Chrysler right out of his living room in his Lisbon, Portugal home one week every month. He is a believer in the advantages of hybrid work model and says most of the 75,000 workers at the company can work remotely most of the time.The quality time that is generated in this new work model that allows life balance and getting fresh air walks outside is needed when you consider that auto companies such as his are embracing world of electric cars- Stellantis will have 75 models of electric cars by 2030 In this interview with the WSJ shown here he says the fact that one is giving back high quality time that otherwise goes to commuting means you get more time during the day. Carlos Tavares says remote work is an opportunity to recreate a better life balance. He doesn't see any risk in it at all. He sees how hard people are working, harder than they did before, and says giving back one half hour or two hours of quality time actually helps the process of getting good work. Look he says after a long day of remote work people need that time to go out and have a walk for an hour just to refresh one's mind, because the work was so intense. Tavares asks why shouldn't we trust each other? He believes it is the only way to go. Asked about his own work routine for remote work.He says it is the Portuguese routine of  7 am to 4 pm or 5 pm and then an hour out for a walk. He has a small desk in his living room, and he is sitting there with his iPad, grandkids are going by but nobody sees them. Does he miss the face to face contact? He does says Tavares. He still sees other employees as he does go to the office. What about mentoring for junior  employees? This does not have to be five days a week, you may want coaching one day a week, what you don't want is someone on your back five days a week. For Tavares it is all about the quality of time that is used. On company culture the much abused word Tavares makes some good points. If you say this is the culture and hand it to somebody then how do you get that creative mind to exercize his own judgement, how do you get diversity of thinking. Tavares is forthright and honest here- he says if I give you a culture and put you in that box I will get it wrong, and by killing the valuable diversity of thinking I will make it counterproductive. Actually with French, Italian and American operations under one roof and employees of 170 nationalities there is a value in appreciating the value each employee can bring. Practices at Stellantis- Tavares says if you want your people to be in game shape or in great shape mentally don't call them or email them on weekends, so that they can use the weekend to recharge themselves. He even apologizes for calling on a weekend. Or if you email your people tell them to not respond till Monday. ...

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O'Malley, Sanders and Clinton agree that the media has spent much too much time on the Hillary Clinton email controversy. The first Democratic party debate also puts Sanders on the defensive on issues such as using force as commander in chief, gun control, and foreign policy including a no fly zone over Syria. Clinton defended her positions as consistent and having the same values throughout her political career, on the Patriot Act which she supported, and on other issues such as the Keystone pipeline, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership which she opposes because it does not do enough to protect U.S. jobs. Clinton emphasized her flexibility by saying that- "But like most human beings, including those of us who run for office, I do absorb new information. I do look at what's happening in the world." The debate was a win for Hillary Clinton because it helps to put the email controversy behind her, puts the focus back on her story and work as Senator and Secretary of State, and showed her ability to take on the many questions about her credibility....

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"No amount of misrepresentation or statistical contortion can conceal or blur or smear that record. Neither the attacks of unscrupulous enemies nor the exaggerations of over-zealous friends will serve to mislead the American people." FDR said this  on October 31, 1936, it could also be president Biden.The current Media and Hollywood efforts to choose presidential candidates of their choice runs contrary to "We the People," contrary to views of ordinary Americans, of voters, workers and families. President Kennedy was told he should not take the nomination because he was too young. Kennedys' response was that it was he not Humphrey that went to state after state and won the votes in the primaries, no one else made the effort to run in the primaries in each state. President Biden has the support of 14 million in the primaries. George Chidi from Atlanta reports that undecided voters number about 1 million in the swing states and most are much older than the average. Most may feel insulted by talk about age when they are in the same category.  A 102 years old Lockheed engineer in Atlanta suburbs says he is a Republican but will not vote for Trump. There is also the women's vote in Georgia and Atlanta suburbs with abortion ban as the issue as it was in Kentucky and Kansas. How many vote will also be a factor, making energizing the base a key factor. The idea that one party is doing better than the other is refuted clearly by some of the people in Georgia shown here, and the age factor does not get the prominence the Media have given it, as long as the government is functioning well. Media has failed to look at the policy details of each candidate in a colossal failure that calls for alternatives. Older voters who are the major part of the 1 million or so voters in swing states that are undecided also say that the fact is that with both the candidates- as it is with administrations that are led by young presidents seen as too young to lead (JFK) the opposite of today- many of the decisions are made with an experienced group of advisers around the president. Many if not all also realize that the vast experience of an older president is also an asset. Much of Biden's legislation for chips science, infrastructure, the Inflation Reduction Act have not happened in Germany, France or the UK, and would not have happened in the US without the ability of president Biden to get the bipartisan support from being the one with the most experience in Congress in a long time. The result is the hundreds of thousands of jobs created each month and a growing economy, inflation down from 9 to 3% as the first step to further cost of living action to support ordinary workers and families. Only LBJ comes close and he signed landmark legislation for Medicare and Medicaid, and for civil rights into law 60 years back. By removing America from the wars that Reagan and Bush started and Obama and Trump failed to end president Biden has given the US an opportunity to inspire and lead the free world in a way that has not happened in many decades and build a growing economy, a bright future for the Nation. ...

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How the supply and demand for oil is changing according to updated forecasts by the International Energy Agency. Demand is expected to be 500,000 barrels a day less than originally forecast for the fourth quarter by IEA. Also Iraq's northern fields produced 600,000 barrels a day and Angolan production also went up to increase supply by 1.4 million barrels a day. This provides some slack in the supply-demand situation to ease price pressures. Examples of energy conservation are given one of a refrigerated truck firm, Willis Shaw Express in Arkansas which runs a fleet of 725 refrigerated trucks and has installed "governors" on its truck engines to max speed at 65 miles per hour and thus get more fuel economy per gallon used. The full impact of recent price increases has not been felt at the pumps till noand this should also encourage further conservation. The slowing down of the U.S. economy should help reduce demand in 2008 as the full impact of the mortgage crisis is felt (see the OECD report of further losses ahead estimated at $300 billion by 2008-2009) this should lead to slowing demand. At this time demand in the US is rising by 1% down from 3-4% in the 1990's. This could be be part of a trend that could lead to actual decline in consumption in the industrialized countries. The impact of a US slowdown could impact less industrialized countries and moderate demand there. Slower growth is reported for Eastern European countries. Meantime Saudi Arabia states its on schedule to increase production from 11.3 million barrels a day to 12.5 million barrels a day by 2009. ...

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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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Pakistan has moved ahead in developing its nuclear arsenal. The production of uranium and plutonium for bombs and developing new weapons to deliver them has actually been accelerated during the recent period of unrest in Pakistan. Four years ago Pakistan had an estimated 30 to 60 weapons. Hans Kristensen, is the director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists and author of the annual global nuclear weapons inventory published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Kristensen says it is not unreasonable to say that Pakistan has produced at least 100 weapons. Simon Gregory, Director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Britain's University of Bradford, puts the number at between 100 and 110. India is estimated to have 60 to 100 nuclear weapons. A 2008 agreement that lets India purchase nuclear fuel for civilian purposes was a motivation for accelerating nuclear weapons development in Pakistan. In December 2008, Peter Lavoie, the US intelligence officer for South Asia, told NATO officials that despite impending economic catastrophe, Pakistan is producing nuclear weapons at a faster rate than any other country in the world," according to classified State Department cables released late last year by the Intenet site WikiLeaks. This leak angered the Pakistan army chief Gen. Kayani who said "the real aim of US war strategy is to denuclearize Pakistan."...

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House Speaker Pelosi and Majority leader Reid prempt the Bond-Levin proposal to use the $25 billion of funds from the energy efficiency retooling for operating expenses. They said there were just not enough votes to pass the change. And the general feeling was that the automakers had hurt their case more than they had helped it after 2 days of hearings in the Senate and the House on November 18-19, 2008. Pelosi put it this way, "until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money." The automakers were asked to come up with a plan that shows accountability and viability. Pelosi is from California, a state that has seen its mandate for controlling auto emissions held up by the automakers lobbying and the Bush administration EPA, and which favors higher fuel efficiency, higher than the numbers passed in recent legislation, also held up by the automakers lobbying efforts. So there is a three way battle going on with the states in the midwest and the Bush administration pitted against Pelosi-Reid-Waxman and the younger Obama supporters in Congress for the $25 billion in energy efficiency retooling to be used for salaries and so on. And the other battle pitting the midwestern states against all those who call for strict conditions including firing management, and serious restructuring within or outside prepackaged bankruptcy. Reid and Pelosi called for Congress to reconvene on December 2. Reid said that what happened this week has not been good for the auto industry,, which is ominous, because the hearings showed an unrepentant automaker management which did not accept any of the errors made by management long before the credit crisis in October, which riled Congressmen. Another thing was the reference to corporate jets which came up in the hearings, and Reid emphasized as did others that these guys flying in in their corporate jets did not send a good message to people in Searchlight or Reno, Nevada. The reason this is important is that executive compensation and golden parachutes are moving right to the top as they do in such times, as evidenced by the story in the Wall Street Journal frontpage on November 20 about 120 executives making $21 billion in compensation in the last 5 years including failed companies, see the link. . ...

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Thomas Friedman sees the WikiLeaks information showing America paying the Pakistan army and intelligence services to be two-faced, to both fight with the Americans and at the same time support the insurgents fighting the Americans. He sees America being made the sucker in this game. And without the resources to change the region and transform it, America needs a better approach that does not waste its resources and energies.

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Russian president Putin tells the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, before his visit to Italy, that the failure to carry out the agreement of Feb. 2015 called Minsk II- following the eruption in fighting at Debaltseve and Mariupol in eastern Ukraine- is because of the Poroshenko government in Kiev. He called on the U.S. and Europe to pressure the government in Kiev. The Ukrainian position is that the local elections cannot move forward until pro-Russian fighters and weapons are withdrawn, and the control of the border with Russia is given back to Ukraine. As western sanctions on Russia over intervention in Ukraine are coming up for renewal at a meeting of the G-7, Putin said he was committed to the Minsk II agreement for autonomy to be given to the region of the Luhatsk and Donetsk republics, which were established in the east with Russian assistance. Putin told the newspaper in an interview: "The document we agreed upon in Minsk, called Minsk II, is the best agreement and perhaps the only unequivocal solution to this problem. We would never have agreed upon it if we had not considered it to be right, just and feasible. On our part, we take every effort, and will continue to do so, in order to influence the authorites of the unrecognized, self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics. But not everything depends on us. Our European and U.S. partners should exert influence on the current Kiev administration, We do not have the power, as Europe and the U.S. do, to convince Kiev to carry out everything that was agreed on in Minsk." That the two sides are far apart on issues is shown by Ukraine president Poroshenko's position that for an election to take place for implementing decentralization in the eastern region of Donetsk and Luhansk - "It is impossible to provide the election when the bandits and terrorists with guns are on the street. This is not free and not fair." Putin's position is that " Specifically there needs to be a constitutional reform to ensure the autonomous rights of the unrecognized republics. The Kiev authorites do not want to call it autonomy- they prefer different terms, such as decentralization. Our European partners, those very partners who wrote the corresponding clause in the Minsk agreements, explained what should be understood as decentralization. It gives them the right to speak their language, to have their own cultural identity and engage in cross-border trade- nothing special beyond the civilized understanding of ethnic minorities' rights in any European country." ...

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Bill Ford answers some very pertinent and good questions with confidence and clarity in a meeting with Maria Bartiromo of CNBC and Business Week. His answers are direct and show his thinking today and throughout his difficult experience of the last few years struggling to establish his presence at Ford Motor and then struggling to get the right person to run the company. "It hurts us to see the employees of the company suffer," and this has made this experience at Ford have a personal impact as Ford traumatized over the layoffs of employees with many years of service. And he himself was not easily accepted in the prevailing culture of the time at Ford, and asked to drop his contacts with environmentalists when he joined the Board, which he says he told them he had no intention of doing. He knows his managers had foresight in borrowing a "ton of money" just before the credit crisis struck, and which will be a key to going through any further deterioration of the market in the next 2-3 years. Much clearer than any of the other manufacturers is Ford's new vision under, Bill Ford, Mullaly and Farley, with the finance guys in the background, of Ford as a car company and focused on smaller fuel efficient automobiles. And Bill Ford's vision and aspiration has a lot do with it, who he helped bring in and what he supported and pushed for in the old Ford culture helped Ford to grasp a vision of its future with clarity and purpose like a new beginning. Ford will continue to make trucks but it believes as Bill Ford does that the market will never go back to its old ways, that the absolute price of oil will have less to do with it than the psychology which will push for smaller more fuel efficient cars. And as he points out its European cars are" extremely well appointed and very, very succesful and extremely profitable"....

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Chinese company investments in Korean companies are not doing well because of widespread feeling among Korean workers in these companies that the Chinese company is only interested in transferring the Korean company technology to China. Also hopes of selling products in the Chinese market have not been realized. Instead the experience is that the Korean company ends up up laying off most of the employees after being hollowed out. In 2003 BOE a Chinese company paid $380 million for Hydis, a Korean maker of displays for cellphones and laptop computers. After the transfer of technology to build a new display panel factory in Beijing, Hydis was left o hollow out and went into bankrupptcy protection in 2006. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation bought a controlling stake in Ssangyong Motor of South Korea in 2004. Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, one of China's top state owned companies saw this as a push abroad, as China accumulated large dollar reserves from foreign trade, and a chance to acquire foreign technolgy for SUV and luxury car manufacture. Shanghai Automotive has partnerships with GM and VW to use foreign technology to make cars in China. The Korean economy after the financial crisis of 1997 was opening up to foreign investment. In this climate the Korean side was expecting China to open its market to Korean cars from Ssangyong, but this did not happen. Instead Korean workers say the company transferred technology to its Chinese parent, and after 5 years the partnership is falling apart in protests by the workers, layoffs and bitter battles amid declining sales. The Korean workers even have a word for such foreign companies that have come to Korea, during Korea's opening to foreign investors after the 1997 banking crisis, when Korean firms went for fire-sale prices. That word is "meoktwi", a slang term that means "a thief who eats and runs away." This has hurt China's reputation in South Korea, and its reputation as an enlightened investor in other countries. It also is what may be happening with Taiwanese investment in China in this downturn. Companies like Hon Hai, with its Chinese subsidiary Foxconn, are reported by the Economist to be shrinking their Chinese operations in a large industrial city sized campus employing 250,000 workers in the Shenzen area, to 100,000 workers. That factory city made laptops, PC's cellphones for Western companies using foreign technology....