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The 11th Annual State of the News Media Report of the Pew Research Center is optimistic about the future of the news media business and news organizations. The optimism centers on the new investments in the business leading to new hiring for Buzz Feed, Washington Post, and other organizations, the access to news media on the tablets and the smartphones, the new ways and tools used to reach a younger demographic, on line video clips on the digital websites which are drawing users away from the news cable networks with viewership of Fox, CNN and MSNBC declining 11%. Six of 10 adults watch video online and half of them watch news videos. Interactive data presentation is popular. Younger people of highschool or college age get news on Facebook and social media networks, another way of consuming news information. Especially useful are results of the Pew Center's research showing 68% of American adults connect to the internet on tablets or smartphones, and 31% of tablet owners telling Pew they were taking out more time for news information. The tablet is particularly well suited for news information, and as lighter, thinner, easier to hold and fit into a pocket tablets are designed at lower prices, this trend is likely to get stronger....

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China's efforts to control air pollution by increasing supply of wind power, hydroelectric power and nuclear power. Efforts to control air pollution and the problems China faces. Proposal for a carbon tax on polluting plants.

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The enthusiasm for Six Sigma was carried by McInerney from GE to 3M. 3M was sluggish at the time and growing bureaucratic over time so an outsider and the efficiency focus of getting more for every buck spent and focus on quality in all processes and designing for quality and reduced defects may have helped to bring a new dimension to 3M. But as the author reflects and Buckley who stepped into McInerney's shoes says aloud, as well as several B School Professors, this imposed on a culture like 3M's that thrived on innovation, the post it note being a classic example, was not going to produce the best results in the long run. Interestingly GE itself under Immelt has emphasized innovation, research and development in addition to Quality Control. Going back over the years Japanese QC actually was taken from earlier work at GE in the 30's and 40's in Quality Control, so it was natural for GE to return to its own accomplishments in this area after a period when it had lost its leading edge in Quality. But foremost GE was about innovation and creativity and new products, back from its origins with Thomas Edison's company. The other GE person Nardelli at Home Depot also tried to bring a numbers only focus and doing it in a marine corps seargent type of way stumbled badly and resigned. So this piece on McInerney and buckley and 3M reflects a quiet shift to thinking of new ways to approach the complex global markets of today and the global competition of today. And the rapidly changing marketplace where shifts in buyer behaviour and competitor innovation create a constantly changing playing field. Is Tata Motors small car at an incredibly low price going to change the car industry, if the same companies can then make better cars at a much lower cost after developing lowcost high quality technologies? What is happening as Apple and then HP achieve success by selling their brands through stores and Dell starts to slip? Why is P&G and Unilever looking at the prospects in selling to consumers with smaller budgets and shifting its focus to these markets for growth? Doesnt this require one to think on ones feet and listen and observe and reflect on what these changes mean? Roger Martin of the University of Toronto has a piece in BW, May 21, 2007, with a similiar thought. ...

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Sinn Fein is very different today from what it was decades earlier as the political wing of the Irish Republican party. When Ireland became independent Britain retained a third of the country as part of the UK as Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein's goal was to reunify the country.  It is popular today along the border and in regions struggling with poverty, including rural areas. As a left of centre party it is unique in Europe as both the main parties are right of center. Housing is an issue for Sinn Fein because it is the first to call for government to play a role in building new housing to tackle a severe housing shortage. With social policies that include government involvement to support social programs, Sinn Fein is likely to be the largest party winning 25% of the votes, with Fiana Fail the current party getting 24%,  and Fine Gael 20%. Yet rival parties are not likely to form a coalition with Sinn Fein. It also shows how much has changed when Irish reunification is now on the agenda with a referendum in 5 years proposed by Sinn Fein, as an accepted feature of the political landscape with Britain leaving the European Union. Under Mary Lou Macdonald who is from Dublin, replacing Gerry Adams, the image of the party is very different today, compared to the violence tinged past of the links to the Irish Republican Army. Most supporters today have few memories of that period, growing up in the period after peace was established in Ireland between different factions.  The exit of Britain from the European Union has provided momentum to the idea of reunification of Ireland from all sides for the first time. The links to the EU are popular in all parts of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The links to the economic crisis of 2009 and free markets have tainted the record of Fiana Fail, long the dominant party.  In Northern Ireland Mr. McGuiness is succeeded by Michelle O'Neill, who was just 21 when the peace deal was signed. In Ireland Mary Lou McDonald entered politics after the peace deal and has a Dublin accent.  The new generation looks at the EU as a natural partner, distancing itself from England. It also thinks and acts differently than Sinn Fein of the past. In just the way Scottish independence has found its way as an accepted idea in Scotland, Irish unification is seen as a positive idea with its association with the European Union, ...

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During the presidential debates Donald Trump was asked about his proposal for a 45% tariff on imports from China to the U.S.. Trump's response was "if they don't behave." he would use this as a negotiating tactic against China. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas responded by reminding viewers of the high tariffs under Smoot-Hawley legislation that were one of the factors that created the Great Depression in the 1930's. Economist and former Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke is a student of the Great Depression, and says "it was highly counterproductive, it lengthened and deepened the Great Depression." Economist Peter Petri of Brandeis University in his study cited in this article, says that the tit for tat that starts with such a move could eventually cost the U.S. 1 million jobs. It might fix one problem the one of imbalanced trade with China his figures show, and create another huge problem the loss of markets for U.S. goods all over the world. Overall a 45% tariff would reduce U.S. merchandise imports by $383 billion and reduce U.S. merchandise exports by $658 billion, says Petri. Gordon Hanson, economist at the University of California, San Diego, who has actually shown how trade has affected different counties in the U.S., leaving some dependent on government assistance. Hanson sees this tariff as counterproductive, it makes the U.S. more self-sufficient but hurts U.S. exporters, would significantly hurt the tech boom, and reduce America's standard of living. The problem is that everybody can get into this in a tit for tat. France did this even before the Smoot Harley Act of 1938 was passed in 1930 with 60% increase in tariff on individual items, by higher tariff legislation in 1928. Close allies Canada followed quickly after Smoot Hawley increasing its tariffs, so did Great Britain. Unemployment went up significantly after 1931, worsened by weak banks and lack of support from the Federal Reserve. Trade with Mexico would come to a halt Petri shows, and the result would be more Mexicans trying to cross the border turning a relatively non existent problem of immigration in 2015 -with Mexicans preferring to remain home and net immigration dropping significantly following the 2008 financial crisis and the strict Obama policy of deporting illegal immigrants- into a real one. Trump says its just a threat, but it is likely to lead to a tit for tat response by China, then by U.S. allies, other trading partners. Consider that president Herbert Hoover opposed the Smoot Hawley bill for raising tariffs on industrial goods, and only proposed adifferent legislation reducing tariffs on industrial goods and increasing the tariffs on agricultural goods to give relief to American farmers. Politics intervened as Smoot from Utah and Hawley from Oregon, from mountain and agricultural states with a lack of understanding of how the international trading system works but as heads of two influential commmittes, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee, let politics overrride and pushed their legislation through Congress. In 1932 Smoot and Hawley were defeated for reelection, but the damage had been done, and promises of better conditions for workers and farmers never kept. A significant reason for the U.S. standard of living is that it is a leader in the global trading system. Even in 1945 and the years following the end of the war tariffs were higher in Britain and other countries. In return for this leadership the U.S. enjoys the advantages of the dollar being the main global currency, and the advantages of a world leading technological sector that has large global markets. Hanson and Autor have pointed out how imbalanced trade has hurt some counties in the U.S. This is a very real problem for workers in the manufacturing sector, as shown by elections in the midwestern states, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and other parts of the country. The problem is compounded by the tech sector looking out for itself, the financial sector looking out for itself, and forgetting that we are all in the same boat. And that includes the Chinese who are in the same boat. China is doing a major shift in policy towards a consumer driven economy, and this needs to be accelerated for the benefit of ordinary Chinese. This makes the policy of a 45% tariff by the U.S. doubly unproductive because it hopes to add urgency to the problem of the U.S. trade deficit and manufacturing workers, but takes an approach that risks ending up damaging the global trading system by setting in motion a process that no one controls or can foresee the destination....

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The tensions that exist in Australian society, as a result of the large Chinese investments and imports of infrastructure building commodities such as iron ore, natural gas and other commodities. Australia's Pilbara region in the northwestern part of the country, has become one huge quarry for China, as an estimated 1 million tons of iron ore raw material is loaded onto 2 story high trucks each day- with automated driverless trucks system being implemented- and shipped by 2 mile long trains to waiting ships on the coast. Australians remember this done on a smaller scale in the 1980's by Japan. At the time Japan brought in Japanese workers. The same is true today but on a bigger scale, with China bringing in workers with lower pay. The concern now is what it was then, as one local leader put it- are we going to have towns with mines or mines with towns, he asked. The mining companies are looking at it purely as a commercial venture, and not investing in the towns. The towns now fear they will find the boom times gone someday and nothing tangible to show for it, no schools, hospitals and no infrastructure. And because the mining project companies fly people in and out, the 8000 aboriginal people in Pilbara- the original people of this land- see little of the mining expansion's benefits. Wandoan, a small place with 300 homes in the outback in Queensland, in eastern Australia, is an example of the gut wrenching change taking place in the mining areas. The lives of the people from the local pharmacy, the local supermarket, and the local ranchers, depend on the mining decisions made in China. This area was part of a planned, on again off again, $6 billion coal mine -part of a A$150 billion complex of natural gas and coal projects for exports to Asia in Queensland- and involved Xstrata buying 70,000 acres of the best grazing land for 7 coal mines. With the locals selling off, the mining uncertain, the supermarket closing, the whole town has the feeling of being up in the air, and fading out someday. Australian public sentiment recognizes this feeling, and at the same time is ambivalent about the impact. Polls conducted by the Lowy Institute for International Policy, show 73% of Australians feel Chinese economic growth has a positive impact, and at the same time 57% feel that there is now excessive Chinese investment, and 46% feel China will be a military threat in 20 years. Australians remember the same feeling about Japan's investments in raw material sources in the eighties. In 1988, polls then showed 70% of Australians saying there was too much Japanese investment, even though they also recognized that Australia had benefitted. The difference now is that there are also fears of China's influence, and foreign investment guidelines limit investments in Australian mining companies to below 50%. China's investment in Australia's natural resources comes in several ways: in the year upto July 2009 A$42 billion in export demand, A$3 billion in direct investment in Australian companies, and about A$5 billion in project financing. Iron ore sales to China amount to A$22 billion each year, and about one fourth of Australia's exports went to China, growing at a rate of 31% in 2009. According to the chief economist of Austrade, the government trade organization, Australia benefits from the economic relationship with China- this adds A$3,400 per year to every Australian household. Efforts to use some of the profits made by mining corporations for infrastructure and other public purposes, by increasing the mining tax have failed; as the mining industry launched a campaign against the government of Kevin Rudd, who was removed from office by his party. In the recent national elections, the ruling Labor party lost its majority, after losses in the resource rich states of Western Australia and Queensland. In the meantime the Australian currency has become the currency used by currency speculators who cannot use the yuan to make a bet on the currency- as the yuan is pegged to the dollar- and instead use the Australian dollar as a proxy. This makes it volatile, with the Australian dollar losing 10% of its value in a single day, when pessimism increased about China's growth forecasts. It also shows how much of the good story of employment and gdp growth in Australia is tied to the story in China, and the extent of the negative impact a reversal in this area can mean for Australians; especially now that the bad debt in the post-2008 explosion of bank lending poses risks to China's banknig system. ...

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President Obama in his speech at Georgetown, April 13, 2009, describes the thinking behind the decisions made in the first 12 weeks of his administration- why the actions are not aggressive and overreaching as some critics say, and why they are not timid as other critics have said. This was not a typical downturn of the business cycle, but a perfect storm arising from irresponsibility and poor decisionmaking in Washington, Wall Street and Main Street- in effect several crises colliding for something like an explosion, if not dealt with at once, and with strong action. He says "the key to dealing with our deficit and debt is to get a handle on out-of-control health care costs, not to stand idly by as the economy goes into free fall." The recognition that the crisis itself brings with it new possibilities, the opportunity for coming to grips with and forging a good solution to health care, energy and education issues that were neglected while Wall Street directed investments to areas other than investment in building for the future. To the critics like Krugman, Rosenfeld and others who say that the takeover of insolvent banks should be done quickly before the situation worsens, he says it is not because of any ideological or political judgement he has made about government involvement in banks, but because it is more likely to undermine than create confidence at this point. He goes on step by step, through the process of decisionmaking, first to step in and boost spending vigorously, second to get lending flowing again to businesses and families, strengthening the non-bank credit market for consumer purchases and loans, the housing plan, the auto plan, and the work at the G-20. Then President Obama goes on to project his vision and the road to getting there. The five pillars he sees for the future are: redirecting Wall Street and banking to constructive investments for the future, investments in education, investments in renewable energy and technology to create new industries and new jobs, investments in health care to cut costs for businesses and families, and new savings in the federal budget to bring down the deficit. Obama says he will look for savings line by line in every corner of the budget, and has already identified two trillion dollars in deficit reductions over the next decade. And the goal is to reduce discretionary spending for domestic programs as share of the economy by more than 10% over the next decade. Procurement reform will greatly reduce no-bid contracts and save $40 billion. Secretary Gates is attacking th problem of hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and cost overruns that have bloated the defense budget, without adding to the nation's safety. And education programs that don't work will be removed, and waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare program will be controlled. Finally, Mr Obama points to the nation's political system as one more reason we are in this perfect storm- "a fundamental weakness in our political system." He cites the putting off hard decisions for another day, scoring political points instead of rolling up up sleeves to solve real problems, an impatience that is only worsened by the 24 hour news cycle, and a short attention span that focusses on the immediate results and on poll numbers. And there is too much responding to the "tempest of the moment until the furor has died away and the media coverage has moved on, instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focussed way." After these 12 weeks President Obama says, for the first time there are glimmers of hope, and way off in the distance can be seen a vision of America's future that is far different than its troubled past. And citing the parable in the Sermon on the Mount about that "house built on a rock", he sees America's house built on a rock, a house for which we use this moment to lay a new foundation, come together and begin the hard work of rebuilding, persisting and persevering in the face of disappointments and setbacks that surely lie ahead. Then he has no doubt "that this house will stand and the dreams of our founders will live on in our time." Its a remarkable speech in its directness, its simplicity in approaching the subject, and its borrowing from the Bible for that story of that house built on a rock, and its Lincolnesque reference to the house that will stand. And more than a speech, it describes a vision, and the set of actions and steps taken and to be taken to get there. ...

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Following the events in Charlottesville where a car drove into protesters, president Trump's remarks seemed to equate the actions of white supremacists to protesters. This has led to strong criticism from the business community with most business leaders withdrawing from the president's advisory councils from the business community- the Strategy and Policy Forum,  and Manufacturing Council. This includes the CEO's of Johnson and Johnson, Merck, JP Morgan Chase, GM, GE, 3M, and other companies. In his response president Trump disbanded both councils. JP Morgan Chase CEO Dimon said of the president's remarks- 'Constructive economic and regulatory policies are not enough and will not matter if we do not address the divisions in our country." Members of these councils had hoped to use their presence to have a voice. Yet by August 2017, 6 months into the Trump administration this appears to be changing, with CEO's of many companies expressing the view that the Republican policies favoring business would not matter if the basic consensus on tolerance and openness and what the U.S. stands for is allowed to deteriorate. ...

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Stamouli and Walker of WSJ describe the last days of negotiations in June before Greece pulled out its negotiating team, and German chancellor Merkel decided to call off the bailout of Greece. The impasse was over pension cuts and vaue added taxes, yet the negotiations were still going over details when Tsipras pulled out Greece's negotiating team with the surprise announcement of a referendum on July 5, 2015. By saying the Syriza party would call for a "no" vote Tsipras alienated public opinion in Germany. Chancellor Merkel seeing the shift in domestic opinion favoring Greece's exit from the euro during the tense months of negotiations with the Syriza government and acrimonious charges, moved to call off a continued EU bailout of Greece.

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Matteo Renzi's effort to push electoral reforms that would give the elected party or coalition a stronger mandate to govern than the current system, which has made Italy less governable. Stronger government action is needed to pull Italy out of the economic slump, with 12% unemployment and production down in December 2013, say business and industry leaders. Confindustria, Italy's major business association, expressed its sentiment: "We are worried that time is passing and nothing is happening." Renzi and prime minister Letta are from the same Democratic Party. Renzi was recently elected party leader. He has expressed doubts about the pace of change under the Letta administration.

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Japan's economy grows at an annualized pace of 3.5% in the first quarter of 2013 after aggressive monetary easing by the Bank of Japan under Haruhiko Kuroda.

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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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The main thrust of the article is contained in 3 content links: first one is how the Resistance as the Hezbollah cals itself has made itself part of the social fabric, the second the peculiar set of events thaat led to this, the third about the peculiardemocratic representation system that was designed after the Lebanese civil war. Content Links 1. Hezbollah as part of the social fabric. Hezbollah legislators pushed through a $35 million drinking water faility, a waste disposal project of about $35 million and a $68 million road project in the Shiite dominant Bekaa Valley. See the reference to the organic farm and other economic and charitable projects in Solomon/Leggett WSJ 7-21-06, financed by Iran. 2. The Peculiar Set of Events that Led to Hezbollah integrating into the Lebanese social and political fabric. The Lebanese civil war began in 1975 and formally ended in 1989 with accord that reserved ccertain number of parliamentary seats and key positions for each sect or religious group. The Shiites had 27 and Sunnis 27, the Christians 64 and the Muslims 64 in the 128 member Parliament after the 2005 elections. The President has to be a Maronite Chrisitian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite Muslim, according to the accord. The Shhites led by Hezbollah took the maximum number of seats available to Shiite Muslims during the election, 35 according to this article though 27 is shown under the earlier Solomon Democracy article. After the election which followed Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, the Shiite parties joined the coalition government an took 2 ministries , energy and labor, and negotiated veto powers over any cabinet decisions. 3. The Lebanese Democratic System that emerged from the 1989 accord. This gave Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims (for long time priviliged and better educated groups in Lebanon compared to the less well educated Shiites having higher rates of unemployment and illiteracy as well as less access to governace, ) a proportionally bigger say in the government. About 40% of Lebanon's population is Shiite, but their representation in the Parliament of 128 seats is a maximum of 35 seats, with the rest going to other Muslims and Christians. Ali Nasr refers to this in his key article for this group. In a Lebanon with a Shiite Revival this still leaves more progress in democratic representation for the Shiiites in the future. ...

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Zampano and Emsden describe the difficulties new premier Matteo Renzi will have with a divided parliament and opposition in parliament from the parties of Berlusconi and Grillo. A poll by IXE shows 53% of Italians support Mr. Renzi compared to 37% for former premier Letta. He is expected to focus on economic measures and institutional reforms are likely to slow down because of the political situation with no party having a clear mandate. European elections in May 2014 will be a first test for Renzi and the Democratic party.