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The Wall Street Journal CEO Council which met in Washington for a 1 day conference provided some idea about what CEO's are thinking. Laurence Meyer a former Federal Reserve governor said he projected a 4% annualized contraction in output in the 4th quarter and a 2% annualized contraction in output in the first quarter of 2009, and the US unemployment rate exceeding 8% by the end of 2009. That does not include impact of alarge stimulus program by the incoming Obama administration. Asked to vote by electronic device only one out of 93 CEO's said it will be 6 months before the economy returns to a normal growth rate, almost 80% were expecting a slow economy through 2009 and 2010.

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The big gaps between European and Japanese compensation of executives and the American compensation, with the Japanese compensation one tenth the USA's and one fifth the European compensation, and the European compensation one half of the USA's. The average compensation was $1.3 million a year for Japan including bonuses and stock option grants, according to Towers-Perrin for data gathered from 20004 to 2006, for CEO's of companies with more than $10 billion in revenues. The comparable USA number was $12 million and the European number was $6 million. In Japan it is not socially acceptable to have big pay packages says Jesse Fried, law professor of the University of California, Berkeley, who co-authored a book on executive compensation in 2004.

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Calls for GM CEO Wagoner's resignation by Senator Dodd, and Obama's statement on "Meet the Press" that if the management team thats currently in place is not willing to make the tough choices and adapt to the new circumstances then it should go. Obama described the approach of current management as a head in the sand approach thats been prevalent for decades now. Jerome York, an expert on the auto industry, called for the resignation of Wagoner and 5 members of the board who have participated in the disastrous decisionmaking and have been there for over 10 years. Austin Ligon, who retired as head of CarMax, also called for the resignation of Wagoner and the board members calling them a disaster.

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A leader of the Syrian moderate democratic opposition to the Assad regime calls for help from the Obama administration for the moderates and Free Syrian Army. The request for Manpads to counteract Assad's air attacks and the deteriorating situation around the city of Aleppo and in Northern Syrian areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army. The collaboration between the Hezbollah, Assad's forces, and the ISIS as each attempt to increase the areas under their control pushing out the Free Syrian Army and moderate forces fighting the Assad regime. Hillary Clinton comes out against the Obama administration's policies in August 2014, saying "don't do stupid stuff" basis of Obama policies is not the basis for a sound foreign policy. Obama comes out with a $500 million aid plan for the Free Syrian Army but the approach is vacillating and slow, leading to a rapidly deteriorating situation, and a complete breakdown of what was a period of hope called the Arab Spring.

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Higher oil production in Saudi Arabia in 2012 as the Saudis support U.S. sanctions against Iran.

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Speaking in Santiago, Chile, Philadelphia Fed president Charles Plosser, pointed to the limits and hazards of excessive use of monetary policy by the US Fed. The Fed, Plosser said, cannot reverse the sharp decline in house prices when the economy has significantly overinvested in housing. The Journal editorial states that though its never been stated as such, the Fed's current easy money policy is intended to reflate the housing and job markets. Plosser said the excessive faith and reliance on monetary policy can undermine the recovery by "distorting price signals and thus resource allocations, adding to instablity."

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The cost of social stability in OPEC countries is changing the attitude of countries that advised moderation in pricing in the past. Saudi Arabia has committed itself to $129 billon in new spending for public sector jobs, pay increases for state employees, and allowances for the unemployed, to preserve social stability after the democracy protests in the Middle East. This is happening throughout the Arab world and in most OPEC countries. Algeria and Iran have also increased social spending. The oil price that Saudi Arabia needs to balance its budget and pay for this is going up from $68 a barrel in 2010, to $88 in 2011, and $110 in 2015, according to the Institute of International Finance. Merrill Lynch says it is $95 a barrel for this in 2011. This is bringing the moderates like the Saudis and the hawks like Iran and Venezeula together on price issues. In the second week of April 2011, Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi, said the Saudis had cut production by 800,000 barrels a day in March because of oversupply in the market. A consultant for Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation which reflects Saudi and OPEC views, says: "OPEC members spending pattern is expected to bear on their oil price preferences and production policy behaviour." The only restraint on price will be that price at some point will affect the global economic recovery and lead to lower consumption and growth, something the Saudis have paid attention to in the past....

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This podcast in the WSJ takes up a Chinese startup Luckin Coffee that had major investors in the U.S. and China, including big banks in the U.S. and Europe.  The idea is simple- sell coffee in China to aspirational coffee drinkers following western lifestyles using mobile app. It is the story of huge investments and losses, and collapse of a NASDAQ listed company with what the WSJ investigation calls fabricated sales. Why are infrastructure and health, education products starved of capital left high and dry, while billions are poured into such investments with huge losses. All you need is this article in the WSJ of Sept 16, 2015, shown in today's articles. Showing forecasts of rapid growth of coffee consumption for an aspirational western lifestyle consumer in China, and a small mobile app investment to attract investors in a startup -if you refashion the coffee retail outlets as a tech company by selling coffee for delivery/takeout by mobile app. Luckin Coffee in China shown in the podcast in today's articles did this and attracted billions of dollars in investment from investors, including large banks and financial companies in Europe, U.S. and China, only to collapse in 2 years with losses and investigations in China and the U.S. Luckin Coffee soared after its NASDAQ stock exchange listing in 2018 only 1 year after its founding. WSJ calls it "brazen" the effort to add tech hype to a coffee company and have it listed on NASDAQ in just over a year, only to see its sales and value collapse just as quickly. $400 million in convertible bonds losing 90% of their value, the stock losing most of its value and NASDAQ delisting the stock after $311 million in fabricated sales were found as reported in the South China Morning Post. For U.S. investors the problem is that Chinese companies can list on the NASDAQ or other stock exchanges in the U.S., but U.S. investors cannot look at financial records of companies in China. Yet there are basic questions- why is it a tech company? Why are investors like big banks and other large financial investors pushing so much money into such places when there is so much that needs to be done in health and infrastructure investment, and real tech investment? 5G or 6G? Health systems? Ocean Grounds has a coffee store in Shanghai, Pacific Store has coffee retail outlets in China, and Starbucks is still in the business with retail outlets - remember none of these companies are tech companies. In 2017 Luckin Coffee started by making it look techy with a mobile app and refashioned itself as a tech company.  What is so big about a mobile app as there are hundreds of millions of apps. The rest came from making it look like Starbucks, right down to baristas, fancy coffee machines, and opening stores near Starbucks, according to the Podcast in the WSJ.The difference between Starbucks and Luckin Coffee - the price Luckin Coffee would sell for about $2 compared to about $4 for a Starbucks latte. Yet do this by pricing at closer to Starbucks and issuing promotions discounts constantly on the mobile app, that would bring the price to about $2. That is all it takes to make a tech company nowadays. No scientific research, no science and technology, no technical experience, nothing of the kind that led to the invention of the computer chip or the vaccines that are now being developed, or research activity of any sort. Banks, financial companies are willing to channel huge amounts of money into these places and lose it, as they did in We Work, and are doing at companies such as ride sharing app companies, as well as other app companies without any core technological component or value added such as infrastructure or health products. Only it is not the bank's money but the people's money and savings that are deposited at banks and channeled into investments. At the same time as investments in much needed infrastructure and health, education, services that really matter to us as a society, are neglected and starved of capital.     ...

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In a effort to improve nutrition for the urban poor in India, the Indira Canteens formed in 2017 have already made substantial progress in Bengaluru (Bangalore). The canteens backed by the state offer subsidized meals, breakfast costing 5 Indian rupees or 7 U.S. cents, lunch and dinner costing 10 rupees or 14 U.S. cents. About 65 million Indians live in urban slums, a highly marginalized group, many migrants from nearby villages who now live in slums that are often near neighborhoods of the affluent and upper middle class. In addition to low income groups, rickshaw cab drivers, and laborers, this program has benefited school and college students who also use the canteens. More than 170 canteens have been set up in Bengaluru in a hub and spoke model with canteens located near colleges and hospitals and supplied from central kitchens nearby. An app gives the menu, nearby locations and takes feedback. It costs the state 16 million euros from a state budget of 26.4 billion euros, and is an imitation of a similar project Amma Canteens in neighboring Tamilnadu state. It reaches 250,000 people a day in Bengaluru. ...

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Efficiency is a critical way to drive down energy consumption. This kind of discussion is long overdue. Compared to countries like Japan which have focussed intensely on energy conservation in industry and homes the US has neglected this area for a long time and remains a far heavier user of energy when measured by indicators. New York and Vermont are taking the lead in the drive to get industry on board the efficiency drive by keeping use constant. Are home users going to make rational efficiency decisions? Should government regulate rates and returns for utilities when this does not promote efficiency of use? These are some questions raised here. A bottom line set of figures- it takes 10 cents for coal per kilowatt hour and 20 cents with carbon taxes and it has gone up from 4 cents in the 1990's. Cost for efficiency remains at 4 cents, which means it costs 4 cents of energy saving mechanism per kilowatt hour to eliminate the need for that kilowatt hour. This is a significant fact that should soon be reflected in the dynamics of the energy conservation picture. ...

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Spotify acquires podcasting firms to broaden its appeal and acquire nonmusic content including listening time on radio. Spotify thinks it can bring to nonmusic content podcasts what it has done for music by bringing better curation, customization and recommendation, while developing tools and collecting data for podcasters. Talk enhances the experience of listening to music, says Spotify CEO Daniel EK.  Spotify aims to take some of the two hours people listen to radio globally and make money off of it. Ek says video is a bout $1 trillion market, and music plus radio $100 billion, but he questions whether our eyes are worth 10 times as much as our ears." Adding more monetization opportunities is key. Spotify says it has seen that podcasts command an engaged audience- people who see podcasts spend twice as much time using the service, and tend to stream more live music. They are less likely to cancel subscriptions.  Spotify has 206 million users and 96 million subscribers. Average revenue per user is 4.89 euros as many of Spotify's users come in through family plans and in international markets with lower pricing power. ...

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The U.S. 2010 Project study's lead author, Barrett Lee, sociology professor at Pennsylvania State University, says diversity is becoming a part of daily life in America throughout the country not just in large gateway cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Hispanic immigrants are moving eastward changing the faces of towns and cities in the South and Midwest. Hispanic population increased 42% from 2000 to 2010 to 50.5 million, Blacks increased 11% to 37.7 million in that period. Asians quadrupled between 1980 and 2000 to about 18 million.

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The inflated costs for spinal surgeries at some hospitals in California. How surgeons, doctors, consultants, distributors and hospitals operated in a flawed system to make revenue gains through overbilling, and focus on increasing the number of surgeries performed.

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Yale Prof. Fair says that evidence from his model shows the yuan appreciation having a positive effect on American jobs looks better than it really is. Two negative effects are in play. The first is that Chinese output decreases will have an effect on Chinese imports that will affect US exports. And the other effect that will come into play is the increase in US prices. His conclusion is that it unlikely we will see a large increase in American jobs from the appreciation of China's currency.

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President Obama tells Hispanic high school students he supports a bipartisan plan for immigration reform from Senators Graham, McCain, Rubio, and Schumer. A critical part of the plan and the President's plan is a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants. Obama wants to see a pathway "from the outset," senators say this should happen after stricter enforcement requirements are met. If the senators do not move ahead with this plan the White House will put forward his own plan.

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Keith Bradsher describes the life of one family of migrant workers in China struggling to get their ony daughter through college. Wu Yiebing is a worker in coal mining and his wife Cao works on farms nearby. He has managed to send his daughter Wu Caoying to college. She is a sophomore in college but fears for the future because of the lack of opportunities for new college graduates in China. She also feels the heavy burden as the parents spend half their income to get her through college and have no retirement savings. This is typical of many migrant families in China who see education as the only way for the next generation to have better lives than their parents.

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PC shipments worldwide declined by 14% in the first quarter of 2013, compared to the prior year quarter, according to IDC. Gartner Research's estimate for the first quarter PC shipments shows a decline of 11.2%. IDC analysts say the introduction of Windows 8 with touch screen capabilities has not reversed this trend. It may have exacerbated the trend because Windows 8 made changes that reduced the PC experience to bring in touch screen and other features available on tablets, and made the product more confusing to use. This view of IDC is confirmed by some companies which say the incremental value of Windows 8 is not worth the cost of training employees to use the new PC's with Windows 8.

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Wilber and Tau of the WSJ report that Special Counsel Mueller in the Russia investigation has impaneled a grand jury to further strengthen his investigation. Mr. Mueller has put together a team of 16 attorneys with long experience as prosecutors. By working with a grand jury Mueller and his team are working only a few blocks from the U.S. federal courthouse where grand juries meet, which helps the team to conduct its investigation. A number of experts consulted by WSJ say this means a vigorous investigation is now being put together.  The U.S. Congress is also acting independently to support Mueller. Legislation being sponsored by Sens. Thom Tillis and Chris Coons on August 3, 2017, make it possible to reinstate Mr. Mueller in a situation where he is fired by the president. Under the legislation a special counsel can challenge his removal and a three judge panel could reinstate him. Separately Sens. Graham and Cory Booker are also putting forward legislation for the same purpose. All Senators are from both parties, the two Republicans are from North and South Carolina. In a rare show of unanimous bipartisan support for Russia sanctions following the involvement in the 2016 U.S. election, the entire U.S. Congress over 500 members voted in favor- except for 5 members. The vote in the House 419 to 3, and in the Senate 98 to 2. Such a level of unanimous support is rarely seen, suggesting how the U.S. Congress views this matter as of the highest importance. ...