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Making the shift to smaller cars and putting its money where its mouth is meant converting Ford from a large vehicle company to a company that makes a lot of smaller cars, and this meant Ford would have to convert to smaller cars a lot of its truck and SUV plants and close some of the other plants. Alan Mulally is doing just that as he moves to give Ford a completely new direction What is not surprising but is still more than a bit disconcerting is the skepticism he is meeting from executives inside the company that Ford can only make money building larger vehicles even in the face of a market that is moving in the opposite direction. So again and again Alan is having to ask the question "what does a sustainable Ford Motor look like?" Shows that the American car companies are not only caught with the wrong bag of product mix but are in some kind of culture shock as the ground below them is changing. Alan also is focused on a global market almost as though he realizes that from now on there is only a global market to deal with not the sort of American market that existed in the past, so he reminds other Ford executives that the global market share of larger vehicles is only 15%, and as if to sound incredulous asks them and you want us to continue to invest limited resources in that market?...

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John Bolton on the efforts needed to secure nuclear and biological weapons in North Korea and to reunite the two Koreas, by joint concerted action between China, the U.S. and South Korea. Prof. Cha of Georgetown University, and the Editorial Board of the Washington Post call for similiar preparation and action on Dec. 20, 2011, soon after Kim's death.

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Having an adequate supply of N95 masks is critical for each hospital tackling the coronavirus pandemic. The lack of enough masks leaves health care personnel without the basic protection and is a grave emergency. Hospitals are resorting to reuse of the masks in this crisis and this is not a good practice as it increases the chances of infection. President Trump has invoked the Defense Production Act on April 2 against 3M. This gives the federal government more control over 3M's operations to ensure that it goes all out to make the healthcare N95 masks that the hospitals need in this grave emergency. This report in the WSJ covers the situation as of April 3 on the supply of M95 masks for health workers and others. N95 masks block 95% of very small particles. Supply in the U.S. is for 50 million N95 masks. Demand in the U.S. is for 300 million N95 masks as estimated by the Department of Health and Human Services. in March- this is how many are needed by health care workers to fight this pandemic in the U.S. The principal manufacturer is 3M. 3M company has doubled its production since January 2020. The trend before this pandemic was to send production over to China and other countries. This is changing now with the pandemic and the U.S. policy shifting to be self sufficient in medical supplies in the event of an emergency. A policy Peter Navarro, who heads the agency in charge of getting medical supplies, says President Trump is insisting be implemented. Hospital buyers supported the earlier trend to keep costs down, but this appears to be a costly mistake, putting health care workers in hospitals across the U.S. without the basic protection they need. Minnesota based 3M invented the first modern disposable masks in the 1960's. Interestingly 3M continued to make millions of masks in the U.S. even though competitors moved manufacturing overseas. The 50 million disposable masks 3M made globally went to workers in industries where it provided extra safety from metal shavings or other substances, and medical workers. Now 90% of masks go to medical workers. 3M ramped up production globally since January 11 when the pandemic first hit to 100 million masks a month globally, and 35 million a month in the U.S. at plants in South Dakota and Nebraska. 3M says that it will import 10 million masks from its factory in China, which earlier this year was restricted from shipping it outside China as China needed masks for the pandemic. About 10 million more masks are made by two other manufacturers Alpha Pro and Louis Gerson Co.  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ordered 600 million N95 masks from 5 companies to distribute to hospitals and build up the national medical supply stockpile. 190 million each of this is from 3M and Honeywell and 130 million Owens & Minor Inc.  3M says it will make 50 million a month in the U.S. by June. Honeywell which had moved production overseas, plans to bring back production to the U.S. by making 10 million masks by May at its Rhode Island and Phoenix plants. There is a company in Singapore that makes one million masks a day in China and other Asian countries, Pasture Pharma Pte, but most of it is committed to government agencies in China.   ...

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This report in the Economist magazine points out that income per head has gone up only 40% over 30 years of democracy and economic liberalisation. And most of the benefits from NAFTA trade agreement have gone to northern Mexico where most of the factories have been built. Southern Mexican states like Tabasco were badly neglected. Lopez Obrador's party Morena is an allusion to La Virgen Morena of Guadalupe, Mexico's patron saint, and also to a term used to describe darker skinned Mexicans. Obrador was born south of Mexico City and sees his goal as bringing industrialisation and infrastructure to the south. He vows to pave every road in Oaxaca and offer price guarantees to southern farmers. And even northerners are excited about him because of his nationalist instincts, and corruption and violence under president Pena. The disappearance of 43 student teachers in gang violence was a terrible incident in the wave of violence under president Pena which has horrified Mexicans of all classes.  Under Pena Mexico is tied with Russia in the Transparency International Corruption Index at 135th place and it is more blatant in Mexico than ever. ...

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If John F. Kennedy were writing Profiles of Courage in 2024 he would have James Lankford as one of these Senators who showed courage to take the right stand in the face of opposition from his fellow Republican Congressmen and people in his state and the country who support loyalty to president Trump. Lankford says in this NYT interview that in December 2023 the immigration bill would have passed Congress into law. He has always seen that no one person is the boss. Trump is not the boss even as president. He is a co-equal branch, says Lankford. He sums it up saying- I work for the people of Oklahoma not the president.  Senator Lankford of Oklahoma is interviewed by Lulu Garcia Navarro of the NYT for his role in negotiating a immigration bill with Democrats in Congress and president Biden that would fix asylum policy and close the Border with Mexico. It is a tough bill says Lankford, and the Republicans held onto their position that there would be no citizenship for the immigrants who crossed the border illegally since 2024. If it came up in December 2023 it would have fixed the Border, says Lankford. It came up in February, and by this time the election nominee was Trump who decided not to support it, as it would take away the immigration issue that he hoped to run on against Democrats. It is still alive as Kamala Harris says it is her top priority to get the Lankford immigration bill passed into law. To know Lankford is to know that he ran the largest Baptist youth camp in the Nation at Fall Creek. He believes every person has value and worth and even if he disagreed with them that person has value and worth. His faith, he says, is something important for him, and not something you take off and put on.  The title should be The Men and Women who Solved Immigration for the Nation. This includes Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, Senator Krysten Sinema of Arizona, and Democrat Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Lankford for 22 years a youth Baptist minister from Oklahoma, Sinema immigration attorney from southern Arizona, and Murphy a lawyer from Connecticut. The man who selected Lankford to negotiate the immigration bill on behalf of the Republicans in Congress was Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. For the Democratic party Pat Schumer helped bring Democrats in Congress and president Biden behind a tough bill that reflected the consensus view that something serious had to be done about the US Border for a lasting solution. This opportunity may come again if Kamala Harris wins as she says it will be her top priority to get the Lankford -Sinema Bill passed. ...

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The Survey published by Britain's Nationa Health Service (NHS) shows an increase by about half since 2017. The pandemic has made the problem severe with lockdowns, closure of schools and inequality in society leaving many children without access to online learning because of a lack of internet. What is seen early in this NHS Survey is probably true for many countries Mexico to Brazil, India to Indonesia, Egypt to South Africa, much of Europe and the US. This needs to be addressed quickly, for children. It also needs to be addressed for adults. 

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The Journal's Jeff Bennett talks with Rodney O'Neal, the CEO of Delphi Automotive. O'Neal says Delphi's success depends on focussing on advanced technologies where emerging market producers are less able to compete. He has focussed on 33 product lines which are 'green,' safe' and connected.' If it doen't create value then revenue and cost numbers are wrong, is O'Neal's lesson from the bankruptcy filing. He likes the chaotic discussion coming form strong debate, where views are expressed with passion and counterpoints made, and he takes this debate seriously, because as he sees it choosing the right course is a significant task in itself, which takes much time to correct if wrong. There are major improvements in emission and fuel economy ahead and a high tech future for the automobile industry. He see America's future in high-tech where America can do better than emerging market producers, and ensuring that the steady flow of exceptional American talent continues to be channelled properly....

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The government of China increased allocation of funds to build low-income housing from 780 billion yuan in 2010 to 1.3 trillion yuan ($198 billion) for 2011. The target is to build 10 million units of subsidized housing in 2011, up from the 5.9 million units started in 2010.

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Elected to the Politburo in 1980, Gorbachev became president of USSR in 1985. In the six year period to 1991 he launched a movement to free the USSR from the rigid constraints of communist party rule called Perestroika to improve productivity, freedoms and quality of life. He came from a peasant family with Ukrainian origins and was born in 1931 during the period of upheaval in Russia. The rapid removal of Soviet rule was something Russia was not able to adapt to in the early years with no experience in democratic process. By 2000 after drop in life expectancy and fall in the standard of living Mr. Putin emerged as president.  Russia's economy recovered under Putin's three terms till the miscalculations in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, that were itself a result of a sense that Russia had lost something with the fall of the Soviet Union and the advancement of NATO and the European Union. Gorbachev's sense in his memoirs was that Russia would do best under democracy. Even in 2017 he wrote that Russia and its people were "ready for a real multiparty system, fair elections and a regular rotation of government." Yet he was too much of an optimist and not enough hands on to grasp that Russia was a large economy and safeguards had to be put in place for the rule of law to prevent lawless elements that could control companies, safeguards for the vulnerable sections of society such as pensioners and older people, and limited self government through elected assemblies and parliaments were needed for a decade before democracy to take roots. Gorbachev's knowledge of American and British democracies, constitutions and parliaments and their evolution over centuries was non existent, with little contact and education of this sort under the Czar or Soviets. The democracies in Germany and Japan were established with American power and extensive education, the Marshall Plan, and unlimited imports by the US from Japan to prevent economic catastrophes of the kind experienced by the Weimar Republic in Germany in the 1920's. No plan from western aid and assistance, limited self government of the people was introduced as training ground as in India. In India the British introduced limited self-government or Swaraj in the 1930's with elected assemblies in Indian states, in the pattern of Dominion states such as Canada and Australia. Mohandas Gandhi negotiated the rights of indentured Indians in South Africa in this arrangement and studied British law and constitutions. This led to the catastrophic failure of the rule of law in Russia after 1979, lawless elements emerging under Yeltsin  that controlled companies and the state, high unemployment, failure of the economy, and drop in life expectancy between 1979 and 2005. How this led to the Putin years and now led to the war in Ukraine is covered in more detail under the Lyrarc article on Gorbachev and how he is seen in Germany. ...

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Will reminds readers about what King wrote in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," about being labeled an extremist, the same words that he sees Democrats saying about Ryan's plans as being extreme for Medicare and Social Security, now that he is Romney's running mate in the U.S. presidential race. "But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction...Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need for creative extremists." Will's point is that Ryan is unfairly being labeled an extremist for coming up with creative solutions because "ending Medicare as we know it" will happen though the laws of arithmetic for the U.S. deficit with runaway health care spending and uncontrollable medical care price inflation. This would produce more drastic results than through the kinds of creative changes that Ryan is proposing. Will's other point is that the entitlement spending increases cannot be solved by simply raising taxes on the rich especially at a time when costs are out of control. This is especially true because the U.S. economy depends on private sector confidence and investment for growth, and even more so now that the stimulus has had limited results and served its purpose in crisis management. Ryan has also modified some of his ideas in discussions with other voices in his party, a process which will continue to evolve with the infusion of ideas from Dave Camp, Romney, and others in his party....

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Inventories of foreclosed homes are going down, because of the moratorium on closures by the banks, in areas like California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Michigan. But buyers are concentrating on foreclosed homes so ordinary properties with higher prices are not seeing buyer demand. But this is temporary as the moratorium has expired and banks are foreclosing on homes just like before, which will create a large flow of foreclosed homes on the market. This will continue to depress housing prices. And with firsttime buyers getting skittish because of the fear of a job loss, this demand is not on a strong footing. And other than California and Michigan, these states that include Arizona and Nevada, don not account for significant economic activity of the country. South Florida has such ahuge backlog of unsold home and condominiums that the sales of foreclosed homes won't make much of a dent in the backlog. The rest of the country has a glut of homes on the market. For these reasons it would be dangerous to interpret the rising sale of foreclosed homes in ahandful of states in the west as helping clear up inventory of unsold homes, and risky for the government to let this tidal flow of foreclosures to continue. Significantly reducing forecloures with government action may be essential for economic recovery, as otherwise the housing market may take years to recover. This is something Martin Feldstein, adviser to McCain and now adviser to Obama, has advocated all along from the early days of this crisis in 2008....

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What Handan Iron and Steel in Hebei Province 300 miles south of Beijing and ThyssenKrupp in Dortmund, Germany, have in common. The transplanting of Germany's aging defunct iron and steel furnaces and plant to Handan, boxed and crated away- its unreal that in 1998 Handan Iron and Steel bought and transferred an aging polluting plant to a city where the steel works are located in China which has 8.5 million residents. When years later the steel works were debated to be moved to a distance away from the city with Baoshan Steel, the decision was made to instead put a new plant there instead. The solution was to make pollution payments to residents of Handan. It was Mao's dream to build a steel industry in Hebei province ,which has large deposits of iron ore and coal and a rail line. Couple of questions come up to mind- one why did the first steel works go up right in Handan, and same is true of Dortmund, labor supply perhaps but couldn't homes be built nearby instead and these plants located away from cities. Second the deal for bringing the ThyssenKrupp plants was as recent as 1998, by this time China was already a big steel producer (producing more than the US by one estimate) and in a few years Chinese steel production was to exceed the US, Europe and Japan combined. With steel production already on the rise why didn't China move more carefully. Some of the Thyssen Krupp assets were built only a few years before 2000 and met stringent environmental control. China bought these.. Why didn't China pick out the best assets instead of old aging blast furnaces. The possible answers are that they were available at cut rate prices, but were they worth it. The second is that Hebei must be competing with other parts of China, and there wasn't a rational allocation of capital as would happen if a sophiticated company like a Mittal or a Tata Steel is involved. Is China operating on a outmoded concept- nationalism, competition between provinces with local government officials running the show? The other question is that in the case of the automobile industry a different pattern is seen, the most modern technology was selected , and in the case of Cherry, the most recent technology was selected for manufacturing cars, then why was this same pattern not adopted in the case of steel. In the end China has a surplus of steel mills, which makes this rush into steel production without carefully thinking through this appear to have been a mistake. The visual picture if one flies into Dortmund of manmade lakes, green park areas and residential housing and shopping from the $22 billion the EU and Germany are investing to turn the Ruhr valley region of Dortmund into a centre of education, technology and tourism now contrasts sharply with Handan in Hebei province. Can emerging countries do better, build manufacturing for jobs but keep living conditions in mind, be patient and work to achieve the best overall results, and build education, technology, appropriate for their own situation. ...

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DW.com shows the Straits of Hormuz where the Persian Gulf meets the Gulf of Oman before it meets the Arabian Sea facing India. Ships cross a narrow space of 2 miles in the narrowest point that is 21 miles wide in the Straits of Hormuz. The UAE, Oman face Iran in that area. 20 million barrels of oil by tanker traffic cross the Straits of Hormuz every day. India, China, Japan and EU depend on the Straits of Hormuz for oil supplies making it critical for sea navigation. Iranian parliament  has threatened closing of the Straits as aresponse to the US strike on nuclear weapons development sites. China and India lose cheaper oil supplies from Iran as a result of the Israel-Iran war. Russia, Saudis, UAE, Qatar, gain because it increases the price of oil supplies from Russia. Iran loses a source of oil revenue with damage to its oil facilities. The Israeli economy is resilient and its stock markets are showing rapid growth as the war changes the Gulf region and  Southwest Asia, South Asia moving it in the direction of economic and business deals and agreements that enhance improvement in the lives of the people away from decades of conflict from the colonial era in which the British and the French gained control of the Gulf region and Iraq, Syria after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the anti colonial regimes that failed to provide development, the CIA's intervention under Dulles and Eisenhower to remove the democratically elected government of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 and its repercussions in the Reagan period with Rumsfeld/Reagan compounding that error by supporting Iraq's Hussein leading to 3 decades of loss of American lives in the region's wars and also endangering Israel. ...

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Extreme positions on business related issues taken by politicians in the Republican party. An effort to influence the Republican party's platform through the ouster of moderate Republicans like Jim Bennett of Utah. The impact on the US Congressional elections in 2010. Positions such as the abolition of the Federal Reserve, prohibiting stimulus funding, sealing the borders and doctrinaire positions on the role of government. Education reform, immigration reform, investment in infrastructure building all will be out in this type of platform adopted by some candidates. A Senate candidate from Alaska suggests Social Security is unconstitutional. By appealing to popular discontent with the Obama administration, and anger with the bank bailouts, what is called the Tea party movement has taken shape. It is built around politicians Sarah Palin of Alaska, Jim DeMint, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and other candidates such as Haley in South Carolina who are using it to tap into discontent. It has the support of Fox News, and Dick Armey former Congressman from Texas who heads FreedomWorks, and libertarian billionaire David Koch. Built around seductive principles of small government, the movement has no clear program considering the diverse positions of the different politicians and different extreme positions adopted, including a general hostility to large corporations without differentiating a BP or a Goldman Sachs from a GE. GE's operation of MSNBC puts it in the same category as a Goldman Sachs. The lack of a clear position by the US Chamber of Commerce, because of its opposition to the Obama administration. The movement carries with it risks, as the Republican party's control of the House of Representatives is not ensured. Ideology of a vague kind has become a substitute for good credentials and experience, in the fast-forward effort by activists such as Dick Armey to capture popular discontent. Says Dick Armey, "We live by the creed 'hard work beats Daddy's money,' " raising serious questions about how a statement like this would help the jobless or the economy. ...

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How Obama's new selection for Fed governor, Daniel Tarullo- who taught banking law at Georgetown University- is shaking things up at the Fed. He is in charge of regulation of the banking system at the Fed. He has instituted a review of bank review practices and supervision at all of the regional Federal Reserve banks. With many banks failures in the south, the Atlanta Fed came in for serious review, and regulators from outside the area were sent to the Atlanta Fed. Tarullo did not hesitate to make new appointments for serious oversight, as regulators had simply become lax. Tarullo has brough in economists to take a fresh look at how the banking system would perform in the event of another crisis, and what action needs to be taken. This compares to individual bank examiners having alimited perspective what damage the overall banking system could do with lax regulation. He has also asked the Fed regulatory staff to look closely and hard at the troubled commercial real estate loans and toughen regulatory measures. Welcome and overdue as this is, in another banking crisis this could be too little too late. Congress has weakened regulatory reforms proposed by the Obama administration, and the Obama administration itself has not the will to address the tough issues raised by the banking crisis. Both have buckled under pressure from the lobbying of the banking industry, and the close connections between some banking executives and the administration. This has raised the level of urgency felt by Tarullo, Volcker, Mervyn King and some in the financial industry itself, with the issue of "too big to fail" and breaking up the larger banks into smaller ones, moving to the top of everyone's agenda. With the simple fact that if banks were "too big to fail" before the crisis, then they are much bigger now, and the question of what action must be taken shoved aside as too big to tackle....

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As German chancellor Merkel pointed out at the EU summit, all central European states and Eastern European staes are not doing the same. Czech Republic and Poland are doing relatively better, Hungary, Romania and the Baltic Countries are in serious crisis. And smaller Slovenia and Slovakia are part of the core countries in the EU which use the euro. The Baltic countries are looking to Sweden to help and the Swedish Finance Minister has said it is the political responsibility of Sweden to help the Baltic countries, which Sweden should consider as part of the home region. Romania is looking to a reluctant Germany for help. And voices in Europe are asking if it isn't the political responsiility of Western European countries like Germany to help, and if not what does it mean to be part of the European Union? The Eastern European countries caught up in this crisis with their currencies losing value and large loan repayments to western European banks, feel they embraced the liberal capitalist model without any knowledge or experience with its fluctuations and crisis prone nature, as part of the integration into a united Europe. Now they are left they feel, to drift on their own. The recent emergency European summit meeting in Brussels saw the Czech prime minister Topolanek, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU, say that no member would be left in the lurch, and the need to avoid a dividing line in Europe that North-South or East-West. The Hungarian prime minister insisted on a special European Union fund of upto $241 billion to protect the weakest members, and circulated a paper saying that Central Europe's refinancing needs for 2009 were $380 billion. So far the governments of the EU have already spent $380 billion in bank recapitalizations and put up $3.17 trillion to guarantee bank's loans and to get credit moving again. And the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank have promised $31.1 billion to Eastern European countries....