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Chrysler's sales are dropping the fastest of all the car companies . April 2009 sales dropped 24% from March 2009. Ford sales are doing better than Toyota, as they declined in April over same month prior year by 32%, compared to 42% for Toyota. It appears that the Buy American factor may be helping Ford Motor more than the other American car companies, and that Chrysler also suffers from the lack of new models with new technology and investment in new features. At GM the situation is better at Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC, where sales in April 2009 declined by 29%, over same month prior year, which compares with a 55% decline in sales, of Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, and Saturn brands which are likely to be dropped. See the related link on same day on steep fall in Chrysler sales.

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Transcripts of Federal Open Market Committee meetings of the Federal Reserve in 2006, show new chairman Bernanke, and New York Fed president Geithner's failure to see the housing slump. Fed Governor Susan Bies raised the housing issue at meetings of the Fed, and is ignored by Bernanke, who sees a soft landing for the housing market.

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India's inflation rate declined to 4.4% in Nov. 2014 and 5% in Dec. 2014. Price pressures are moderating throughout the economy. With lower oil prices in 2015 and long term trend for lower prices the outlook has improved for controlling inflation. The central bank governor Rajan cut rates by one quarter of a percentage point in Jan. 2015 and indicated further rate cuts are ahead to boost economic growth. The financial markets reflect a 1% decline in interest rates and the stock markets were up 2% in Jan. 2015

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The influence of lobbyist on members of Congress just as the Obama administration, having studied the failure of the Clinton submitted healthcare plan try a different strategy of letting Congress come up with a healtcare plan. $133 million was spent in the second quarter alone by healthcare industry lobby interests creating headaches for reform efforts and the Obama administration.

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Myanmar's economy shows slower growth in the early period of the Suu Kyi administration. Experts say part of the reason is that the administration has slowed investment in petroleum and mining and pushed it in favor of other areas to diversify the economy. The inexperience of the government is also an issue, as Myanmar needs workplace reforms. The IMF says growth should improve to 7.5% after 6.3% growth in 2016. The government is in office for only about 2 years, and this comes after decades of mismanagement and cronyism under military rule. Another problem is that Suu Kyi is considered a micromanager and is only now delegating matters to experts, some from Australia. In a sign of the sluggish foreign investment the two American companies investing in Burma are Coca Cola and a can making company. The initial enthusiasm for investment has waned. 

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In a program of gradual change the new leadership under premier Li Keqiang steers China's economy in the new direction set by the DRC Report: China 2030 and the Third Plenum in Nov. 2013. New priorities listed under major Tasks in the annual work report by Li Keqiang place setting up deposit insurance at the top of the list. Policy changes include allowing cities to issue bonds directly to increase transparency in construction spending and control burgeoning debt.

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This piece in DW.com is critical of Merkel and Macron, leaders of Germany and France, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. It says the West - European and American leaders bear partial responsibility for the developments in Ukraine.  Another view that also is critical of the western leaders says that NATO's role needed to be redefined, Russia's role in security cooperation in Europe needed to be defined not in the old terms of European history but in a new way so that NATO did not become a new form of shifting Eastern Europe into the opposite of what it had become under the Soviet Union. The western leaders of the last 20 years never addressed these issues and allowed them to be decided by default by different countries in Eastern Europe, just as they engaged in small lengthy wars in remote corners of the world - in Afghanistan to Iraq. From Reagan to Bush Sr and Bush Jr, from Clinton to Obama, from Kohl to Merkel and Schroeder these leaders never addressed the basic underlying issues creating the situation that is faced today. ...

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A period of ample oil and gas supplies and low prices in 2015, the opening up of alternative sources of energy supplies including LNG for Europe, are factors reducing the leverage of Gazprom through pricing and supply restrictions.

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Under new proposed changes carbon emissions permits would be sold to industry and heavier polluters would have to pay more. And to make it fair to European companies exporters in other countries like China would have to buy these carbon permits to be able to export to Europe. There is similiar discussion about this in the USA which expects caps on greenhouse gas emissions in a few years. These changes wouldn't go into effect till 2013 at the earliest and industry will be trying to create a level playing field by then. Countries like China and India because they are developing have been exempt from the greenhouse caps under the Kyoto Protocol which expire 2012. Under the Kyoto Protocol which Europe signed and the USA did not sign, European companies are giving carbon permits free to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas every year, the heavier polluters have to buy the permits from the ones that pollute less creating an incentive for companies to reduce emisssions.

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This New Yorker has resilence in his roots in the Scottish Hebrides islands. No wonder he was able to take up the challenge of a US unable to extricate itself from  wars in the Middle East (Reagan, Bushes, Obama), and unfair trade with China, and an onslaught of unfavorable media attention. His name is DJT. According to the BBC in this story on Donald Trump's mother Mary Ann Mcleod, she was a regular churchgoer, well respected in the community, who visited her homeland in Scottish isle of Lewis, British Hebrides, frequently. Mary Ann McLeod is the youngest of 10 children of a Scottish family in the town of Tong in the Hebridean isle of Lewis in the North Sea, northwest of the Scotland mainland. Her father ran the local post office. The family was  relatively poor coming from Scottish people cleared of Highlanders during the Clearances and with fishing disasters in the family. Two hundred servicemen returning from the first world war to Tong lost their lives in a shipping disaster and the economy of the island was in poor shape. With no opportunities or future many immigrated to Canada. Mary Ann's sister Catherine immigrated to Canada and on a visit to Tong she took Mary back with her to New York in 1930. Mary worked as a nanny for a wealthy family in New York before meeting a socialite of German immigrants Fred Trump. Mary returned to Scotland in 1934 and by then she found a new life with Fred Trump whom she married. The couple lived in a wealthy area of Queens and Fred Trump ran a real estate business he had inherited with his mother. Donald Trump still has three cousins in Tong in the British Hebrides Scottish isles. His older sister Maryanne Trump Barry regularly visited Tong. Donald Trump visited Tong in 2008. Of this family a local who knows the cousins and the family John MacIver, a local councillor and friend of the cousins told BBC in 2017- "They are very nice, gentle people and I'm sure they don't want all the publicity that's around. I quite understand that they don't want to talk about it."   ...

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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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A Nikkei poll shows only 36% of people in Japan support a reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution to allow "collective self defense," and 51% disapprove. Prime minister Abe cites the need for "thorough debate," and legislative moves in this area will be held back, to gain support for reforms in the agriculture and other sectors. Abe appears to have lost some goodwill for reform measures to launch the Third Arrow. In an address to the Australian parliament in English Abe made a committment to the principle underlying Article 9 by saying- "This vow that Japan made after the war is still fully alive today." He also stated that Japan woud never let the horrors of World War II be repeated. Japan and Australia have agreed to share military equipment, and Japan has a role in developing a submarine fleet for the Australian navy of 30 billion Australian dollars (US $28.1 billion). At about this time in Beijing U.S. leaders for the foreign and finance ministries, Lew and Kerry, met for the Strategic and Economic Dialogue sixth round in Beijing's Diaoyutai State guest house. China's president Jinping, probably aware of the waves created by its own assertive stance in the region and the response of neighbors and Japan, said that the Pacific was large enough to accomodate both the U.S. and China....

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U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen's speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston conference on inequality was remarkable in the clear focus on the increase in inequality of the last three decades. Yellen calls it "the most sustained rise in inequality since the nineteenth century." Yellen also described the stark inequality between the lower half of households and those at the top- "The lower half of households by wealth held just 3 percent of wealth in 1989 and only 1 percent in 2013. To put that in perspective... the average net worth of the lower half of the distribution, representing 62 million households, was $11,000 in 2013. About one fourth of these families reported zero wealth or negative net worth, and a significant fraction of those said they were "underwater" on their home mortgages, owing more than the value of the home." Without saying this explicitly Yellen has accepted the Fed's own role in this situation under Greenspan and Bernanke. Under Bernanke Yellen was vicechairwoman. Yellen participated in many of the decisions of the Fed that kept interest rates low- hurting savers and those who could not take the risks of a volatile stock market. Yet Yellen has shown courage in stating the problem with all the facts she could muster, and making clear that Fed sees the long term unemployed as a critical driver for Fed policy....

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The writedown on Greece bonds held by large banks in Cyprus of 50% after an EU agreement in Oct 2011, added to the stress on Cyprus banks from the property bubble, and from loans to Greek companies. The central bank and the country's president at the time were not on speaking terms according to reports and the regulatory was extremely weak. The head of Laiki bank was a Greek tycoon and made loans to well connected Greek companies. The property bubble created problems that remained hidden till the large writedown on Greece bonds led to an impossible situation in 2011. Cyprus's economic model of an offshore tax haven, which included laundering of dirty money according to reports, was based on lax banking laws. These very banking laws made regulatory supervision, capital requirements and eurozone wide deposit guarantees, the necessary framework for the euro currency that is now being built, outside the scope of this economic model. Seen from this perspective of setting a sound basis for the euro, the German position that this economic model had to go was a logical move. Something the Cypriot leaders and the bank management entirely failed to anticipate and grasp. These very lax banking laws made it impossible to know the real condition of the banks, and plan for contingencies, right down to the end. ...

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The German ambassador to India calls the Indian preparations for the G-20 meetings simply outstanding. Annalena Baerbock, the German Foreign Minister, is a very unpretentious person and when her plane arrived early, decided to spontaneously leave the plane without any formal arrival ceremony. The German ambassador says- "she laughed, she thought to herself it was quite funny, and we had a very nice welcome." Annalena Baerbock is simply one of the friendliest persons from Germany to land in India. It is clear about the way she relates to Africa and India- Baerbock was amazing the way she took the Benin Bronzes back to their home ground in Nigeria from Germany recently. For India she is one of those rare visitors the country is grateful to have from Germany, and welcome like no other, as one of its own. Baerbock and Habeck have given Germans something they can feel optimistic about the future.

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Zeit Online shows in this article the continued efforts of the Russian government of president Putin to discredit Chancellor Merkel, following efforts to do this for Hillary Clinton in the U.S. presidential election.  During the Ukraine crisis and the settlement accords of 2014 Germany was seen as a partner by Russia, following sanctions, and renewal of these sanctions Russia no longer sees Germany as a partner. This report shows Russian efforts to discredit chancellor Merkel and the use of RT German channel, WikiLeaks reports of Chancellor Merkel and the TTIP agreement, for the same purpose. The refugee crisis following what is happening in Syria with Russian involvement, terrorism, financial crisis aftermath from 2008, are being used  says Zeit Online to support a movement for "order" as the state ideology now put forward from the Russian government. This could be an early indicator for the 2017 German federal elections, says Zeit Online. Merkel has said that she supports continuation of western sanctions on Russia. It is hard to see what Russia has gained in improving its economy and the standard of living of the people from this type of political action. Putin was able to achieve economic goals during 2005-2010 using good Germany- Russian relations as shown in LyrArc. This was the earlier period of Putin's terms in office, with a broad group of advisors, including finance minister Kudrin, who set forward a prudent economic course for Russia including foreign investment. The world and Russia are poorer from the departure from this earlier set of policies which would have enhanced Russia's economic growth. Kudrin was fired in September 2011, and the economic course has gradually drifted away from what is most prudent for the Russian economy and growth, and for the global economy. Nationalism was part of an earlier period before 1950, that led to frequent wars and economic catastrophes. A new course has been set since then, especially by American presidents Truman and Eisenhower, and people in India, China, the developing world, in Europe and in the U.S., would see little to gain from the politics of that earlier period in world relations.  ...

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Mortgages Ltd a company in Arizona which makes loans to commercial developers at rates of 12% with other fees that bring it up to 19% with no red tape, higher rates which serve about 5% of that market, went bankrupt with only 27 of 71 commercial borrowers making their loan payments. It used doctors and dentists money to loan out usually for smaller projects of $20 million under the CEO Coles' father who founded the firm, but in the last few years of the booming real estate market the younger Coles who was running the company overreached and went into larger projects in Tempe, Arizona and other places which ran into more than $100 million. These docotrs and dentists would get 9% to 18% returns on their money but as the company overextended and loaned out $928 million ten times what it had previously lent out it ran into trouble and as real estate went sour it has failed to make the interest payments to these doctors dentists and others. Mr. Coles then commited suicide recently. It gives some insight into the nature of events in the commercial real estate markets of places like Arizona....