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Repairing his sail near New Zealand gave Charlie Daniel the right mood to sail again. He wrote on the bulkhead on the cockpit- "Sail like yourself and enjoy it." Underlining yourself. From the coast of Brittany to the world sailing on the Vendee Globe race, solo, nonstop and unassisted, is one of the great achievements. Charlie Daniel made the trip to the Cape of Good Hope, to the coastline on the coast of South America, up to the Equator, and back up the French coast in 64 days. Here he is interviewed in Le Monde about key moments on that trip. Competing with fellow sailor Yoann Richhomme who he has known and sailed with for 20 years, Charlie Daniel was aware that mistakes could be costly. He stayed vigilant, analyzed every weather file until the very end, to take the best rout and not make errors. At times he felt Richhomme was overcanvassed and pushing too hard, in the Southern Ocean, Daniel doing 600 miles in 24 hours told his team that it was too intense that it was wearing down the boat with a long way to travel and he proved right. A crack in the hull was on the inner side which he fixed in New Zealand. At the time he had a negative mood that did not last. ...

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The Financial Times interview with the PM of India as posted on the PM's site. It makes no mention of the efforts for Clean India Swacch Bharat, cooking gas for tens of millions of women, tap water for every household in India, access to the internet and 4G and transition to 5G at data rates that bring access to all, and the modernization of Indian Rail with new technology making transport fast and with comfort. It shows gaps in understanding that are mind boggling. The PM talks in language that the financial community understands- startups, economic achievements, and leaves out the material above that he talks to in every speech in parliament about the transformative effects in the life of India's 1.4 billion people that the financial community does not see as its first concern.  The financial community today is shortsighted and lacks a sense of history and transformations that have already happened. Japan's from the Meiji period and its phases of modernization by 1900, 1900 to 1930's, and 1950 to 1960's. China's after 1990 and between 2000-2019. And India's now underway with Indonesia following India is the largest such change in history for upwards of 1.7 billion people. It is the third phase of Asia's transformation and India is in the early phase of a massive transformation to give standards of living similar or better than the other advanced economies. It is hard for anyone to imagine what this means for upwards of a billion people in Asia. The first phase was to address the centuries old neglect of the vast base of the population at the bottom that was neglected and without hope and at the same time invigorating the drivers of industrialization in the middle class. The financial community today also lacks an understanding of the importance of not letting the infrastructure of the US and European economies deteriorate. This plays the same role as the infrastructure of India that is being built from scratch around the major cities and the second tier group of cities under a Master Plan or Gati Shakti. The financial communtiy has allowed the infrastructure of the US and EU to deteriorate when it plays a role similar to what it does in India and Indonesia. There is not even a mention of infrastructure in this interview. Gati Shakti  India's Infrastructure Plan is a main driver of India's transformation, yet it barely got mentioned in this interview of the Financial Times. At a time when president Biden with bipartisan support in Congress built from years of his hard work in the Senate has launched the biggest infrastructure building effort since the 1960's with investment in trillions of dollars in the US, it is the same effort in India that is beginning to accelerate, that is the biggest reason for hope for the people of the American continent and for the people of Asia.   ...

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Yellen tells the governor of Guangdong that China's huge subsidies for solar, EV and other industries disrupts "the level playing field" America needs. In all previous administrations  of both parties American economic ministry heads stayed silent or said it in a way that they were ignored. A culture of government staying out spread like wild fire under Reagan and "free to choose" advocates such as Friedman who did not realize the grave dangers to American manufacturing and its workers inside America, and to the world's other manufacturing capable nations such as India with overconcentration in one location. It was America's misfortune that economists and business leaders in the US were not listening enabling China to ignore this. By offering huge government subisidized incentives China and Taiwan shifted manufacturing away from the US in semiconductors, solar, EV's. It started with Apple and is still going on with Tesla. Today economists such as Yellen say economic resilience and supply chains are at risk before they said it lowered cost for consumers and failed to wake up when advanced technologies were at stake, as economists never trained in manufacturing had no knowledge of how it works with learning curves and knowhow that is built over decades, once lost hard to regain. The message fellow Americans is that trust your instincts and common sense, and trust observation which is what the Renaissance in the 15th century was all about and which put Europe ahead of Asia, to the great misfortune of Asia. Japan, China, have learned these lessons well, America as an immigrant nation is different from Europe, and must use its good sense to keep open the opportunities for its people and workers, and the people and workers of all nations that are manufacturing capable. Yellen said- "Direct and indirect government support is currently leading to production capacity that significantly exceeds China's domestic demand, as well as what the global market can bear...Overcapacity can lead to large volumes of exports at depressed prices, and it can lead to overconcentration of supply chains, posing a risk to global economic resilience,"    ...

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General Motors lost a third of its value in a single day as the Dow plunged 679 points on Thursday, October 9, 2008. Why? Citigroup Global Markets estimates that GM which needs between $11 billon and $14 billion in cash to run its business, would end next year with $998 million. Citigroup says "very thin even with a $5 billon asset sale execution." And car sales have not yet reflected the economic downturn's impact on unemployment and consumption, and the effect of foreclosures increasing at an accelerating rate on consumption, as well as the impact of loss of savings in a severe drop in value of shares of over 25% in 2008. As conditions depress the global auto market from Europe to China and India to Brazil, so the few bright spots for GM and Ford overseas are fading quickly. Gimme Credit, an independent ratings agency says Ford has "nine to 12 quarters of liquidity". Citigroup estimates Ford would end next year with an "adequate cash surplus of $5.7 billion". But from the standpoint of the deepening economic downturn these numbers could change as sales drop further in 2009 and increase the losses at Ford. ...

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US differences with Pakistan are based on two different perspectves that are not reconcilable. Recent events and the relationship between the US and Pakistan's army chief have confirmed that this is not going to change. US sees militants and Taliban inside Pakistan as havens for the short term as the US disengages from Afghanistan, whereas Pakistan's army sees them as useful elements in Pakistan's security interests in relation to India for the long term. Whe Kayani met with Obama in Washington, he handed Obama a 13 page document showing Pakistan's strategic perspective and emphasizing the gap between short term US interests and Pakistan's long term interests. The Wikileaks cables show Kayani discussing with US officials a possible removal of President Zardari and his preferred replacement. This made Kayani, normally reticent, to rant for hours on the irreconciliable differences between the US and Pakistan with a group of Pakistani journalists. He described Pakistan as the US's "most bullied ally," and said the frames of reference of the US and Pakistan regarding regional ssecurity "can never be the same," according to news accounts. And added that "the real aim of US strategy is to de-nuclearize Pakistan." Holbrooke and Admiral Mullen had hoped to reverse "a trust deficit" between the two sides. But this has not happened. General Petraeus is taking a tougher attitude and patience is thin on both sides. According to a Kayani friend, air marshal Chaudhry, Kayani is always asking Petraeus what the strategic objectives are in Afghanistan. US officials say they have given up on changing Kayani's thinking and that Kayani has told them: "I don't trust you." Kayani's position makes sense when one looks at the strongly anti-American public in Pakistan. Pakistani military and intelligence officials say a campaign against militants inside Pakistan incites domestic terrorism and uproots local communities. And by following Pakistan's own interests and frames of reference Kayani sends signals that win esteem among the Pakistani public. Opinion polls now show the military held in higher esteem than the Zardari administration. This puts the US in a no-win situation in Afghanistan with no clear objectives for the long term. This leaves the US in a time of tight budgets stretched thin to meet the needs in other defence areas that need attention, such as modernization of forces, trouble spots such as Korea, Iran and elsewhere, and resources needed for modernization of US infrastructure and supporting new technologies and industries. The lasting solutions that will take time, careful thought and preparation would be to integrate South Asia as a whole into an economic zone, extensive infrastructure building, and bring India and Pakistan closer through diplomacy and negotiations. See the articles by Richard Haas and others on the need to redirect resources. ...

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This article in DW.com cites experts who point out that the Republican Party always had tensions within it because of the diverging interests of three groups that have allied together to form the party- Wealthy businessmen and corporate interests, evangelicals, and white working class people who have seen their incomes decline for several decades. The interests of each group have some overlap, are sometimes masked but frequently they diverge. Nigel Bowles, former director of the Rothermere Institute at Oxford University, says there is no particular reason that this coalition would hold together, that it was unstable to begin with, a wonder that it did not split up earlier. Scott Lucas, an expert on American Studies at the University of Birmingham, says that Reagan showed great skill in holding this coalition together, and Donald Trump has taken it apart by mobilizing only one constituency of white working class voters and leaving out others. The break between Republican party leaders Ryan, McCain, and state party leaders, with Trump is unprecedented in post war American politics, and putting it back together now looks like a lost cause in the medium term.  ...

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Douthat offers insights into U.S. president Obama's thinking when he said at a National Prayer Breakfast, that Christians also had committed bad acts in the name of religion and reminded listener of the Jim Crow days when blacks were oppressed by church going Christians. The Crusades were a long battle against an advancing Islam over several centuries and many regions, says Douthat, and do not quite compare with the actions committed by an individual organization such as Islamic State in 2014-2015. The Jim Crow reference comes from personal experience during the fading days of racial discrimination. Yet says Douthat this reference to Christian culpability does little to bring the criticism back to self that the writer Niebuhr, Obama's role model, suggests, because it does not take the criticism back to self or political party to serve as useful introspection. It is almost like saying Christians are just as bad,(so why act?) without distinguishing from Christians and Muslims who respect tolerance and peaceful coexistence from those who do not. It also encourages one to remain a bystander in foreign and defense policy, leaving a younger generation with any future consequences. Ike does better by bringing self-criticism home to his own party and ideological wing by talking about the military-industrial complex and the problems it will create....

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Nocera points out that in a larger sense pay czar Feinberg hasn't accomplished his goal- to change the ethos of the pay culture at banks and companies. $200 million to be paid out at AIG is in contracts for March 2010, and 14 of the highest Citigroup executives still will make $5 million to $9 million each, and Ken Lewis wil still get $70 million in retirement pay, and nothing that Feinberg can do about it. A lot of it has been shoved under the rug. As far as shifting compensation to stock instead of salary, Goldman and Morgan Stanley have already done that and that is a change that is already happening at these banks. But executive compensation will nevertheless be out of proportion and the public angry. Nell Minnow, the co-founder of the Corporate Library, says the only way is to throw the bums out, meaning the board members on the compensation committees. But this is up to shareholders and the job maybe to make it possible for shareholders to do so easily.

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The new generation of Communist party leaders that takes over from Hu Jintao and Wen Biao. Chongqing region's party chief, Bo Xilai is one of the leaders expected to be part of the senior communist leadership, along with Li Keqiang as prime minister and Xi Jinping as president. Xi and Bo are sons of communist party veterans from the Long March. Chongqing was the main base of the Communist party in the 1930's and 1940's, as Mao and the communists fought the Nationalists and then the Japanese. Bo has suppressed the influence of Mafia elements in the region, and is campaigning for a place on the Politburo's Standing Committee with a call for a return to Maoist values of "conscientiousness." Chongqing's state companies are supporting a project launched by Bo in 2010 to build 800,0000 subsidized apartments in 3 years, with an investment of $18.5 billion. This comes as income and wealth gaps in the country are widening and housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable for ordinary wage earners....

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Africa's Harrison Mwillima looks at Geman reunification from an African perspective of regional integration, and says unity should be an everpresent endeavour. Visiting cities in East and West Germany organized by DW's Africa department he is struck by how much East Germans feel left behind. Merkel herself grew up in East Germany but like many young people in 1990 left for the west and seemed to forget the east where they came from. He remembers the time when people from Angola , Mozambique and other African countries studied at universities in the German Democratic Republic, former east Germany,  and the sense of socialist solidarity that aroused much enthusiasm.  Mwillima says a sense of unity can only go so far if there is a lingering sense of inequality  between the two parts. He sees a distinct hunger to achieve unity among regions and peoples or countries. Yet 31 years later in Germany its not only worth pursuing this ideal but remembering that it has to be done as a natural and ever growing endeavor that is not just an event. ...

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Airports and airlines are trying to promote flying by offering coid testing to avoid quarantines imposed by state and federal governments. Airports are opening test centres offering the PCR test which takes 48 hours for results and rapid tests that take 15 minutes but are not as accurate. Some airlines are looking at designating certain flights as covid tested flights with all passengers either tested and negative or having been removed from the flight. Lufthansa has testing at airports in Frankfurt and Munich with the German government agreeing to it that people tested and negative did not have to quarantine for 14 days. Following this summer traffic jumped. The head of the resting task force at Lufthansa, Mr. Leffers, says testing is now becoming an integral part of the flying experience. Bermuda has some of the toughest testing rules with tests required on Day 1, Day 4, Day 7 and Day 14, resulting in low traffic over the summer. Yet with covid rates rising elsewhere Bermuda has become a safer destination resulting in a large increase in traffic this month. ...

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Without good governance India would fail to meet the aspirations of its youthful population of 1.2 billion people. The prevailing sense of impunity brought the country to an impasse 10 years ago and development of the country to a standstill, says prime minister Modi. Only 15 paise out every rupee reached the final beneficiary of government programs leading to a loss of confidence in government, said one prime minister. At this rate 16 lakh crores rupees out of 27 lakh crores transferred to final beneficiaries and the poor would have been lost, says pm Modi. During the struggle for independence of the 1940's, the drafting of the new constitution, early period after independence with distractions of partition, Mohandas Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Nehru, did not realize that for a period that would stretch from the 1950's for about 70 years almost as long as half of the period of British rule India's institutions would struggle to operate. India's institutions so carefully set up would struggle to operate effectively as political parties turned to state and local funds meant for development to finance their election campaigns. A new culture got entrenched that considered this to be an acceptable way of operating- destroying the chances of development in the world's largest nation and keeping 1.2 billion people in a permanent state of underdeveloped economy.    ...

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Visiting the new presidential libraries is an excellent way to understand the history of America, American democracy at work, to grasp civic responsibilities, and to have a day's outing overlooking amazing landscapes. This NYT report shows the new JFK Library overlooking Boston harbor. The first Library and Museum of Franklin Roosevelt in Hyde Park opened in 1951 and shows that period of the Depression and the recovery under FDR, the Second World War. A visit to the JFK Library is an opportunity to see a temporary War exhibit with JFK's own experience in the war in the Navy. A Boston Harbor walk is also part of the experience on a 43 mile greenway on city's waterfront. Eisenhower's in Abilene Kansas and the Reagan Library are also shown in this report. New Exhibit at Eisenhower's library and museum shows connections between the suffragette movement of the 1950's and Ike's election in 1952. It also shows an exhibit on the Cold War. These issues are relevant today as is the exhibit in the FDR Museum on the New Deal- on Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear. Libraries and museums of 13 presidents are open today. Under the Presidential Libraries Act of 1955 these libraries are privately built and federally managed, run by the Presidential Office of Libraries which falls under the National Archives. ...

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Systemic risks from "too big to fail" and the pushback on capital reserve requirements that leave banks with lower reserves. Ewing describes the role of the president of the Swiss Central Bank, Mr Hildebrand, in setting rules for higher capital reserves for Swiss banks than that of other countries and the pushback from the banks resisting the new regulations. "He will never find another job in Switzerland," a Swiss newspaper Der Sonntag quoted one banker saying this about Mr. Hildebrand. Losses at Swiss bank UBS during the financial crisis and the $2 billion loss at a UBS trading desk in 2011 have created a new awareness of systemic risk at banks. During the financial crisis banks used an optimistic estimate of "risk weighted assets" which led to insufficient capital reserves in a crisis even as the banks were shown to be well capitalized. A sense that banks in Europe and the U.S. will continue to have insufficient capital reserves at 3-4% of assets under new rules and with the longer phase in times for the new Basel III regulations of reserves at 7% of assets to after 2016....

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During the Greek debt crisis in 2011 the ECB bought Greek bonds at a discount to face value to support the price of Greek bonds. It did so under the agreement that the bonds would be worth the full amount. Now as part of the negotiations between Greece and private bondholders (mostly French and German banks) about how much losses private bondholders will take- to make Greek debt serviceable as its economy shrinks and tax revenues decline- the ECB says it will take $11 billion in losses on these bonds as its contribution. The ECB will do this on the condition that Greece comes up with an agreement with private bondholders that makes debt serviceable. This could mean increasing private bondholder losses to 70%. from 50%. The central banks of EU countries hold $12 billion of Greek bonds. The ECB says this will not apply to these bonds. Negotiations are also underway between the EU and Greece for a 20% reduction in Greece's minimum wage and an additional 3 billion euros in government spending cuts, and pension cuts for retirees. The EU is asking for a written committment from the Greek government and from Antonio Samaras of the New Democracy party to the austerity program, as the measures are highly unpopular in Greece and are leading to continued street protests in Athens. ...

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Drew Western, a professor of psychology at Emory University, asks the question about Obama that is on many people's minds- who is this man who wrote the book "Dreams of My Father." And what happened to him? It is as if he is asking did they conjure up something that didn't exist, was there really too little about the man in a book written when the young Obama was still in law school- about his experience growing up between two races, except a remarkable effort to grapple with that experience. It would say little about the man himself, the choices he would make, the decisions he would face as he entered his thirties, and forties, a period that provides the crucible and the formative experiences in the development of character. It is as if readers had appended their own chapter at the end of the book and conjured up many things that really did not exist. And which would serve as a kind of Rorschach test experience where readers were free to read into the picture whatever they wished to see- and something Obama could use to be all things to all people. Drew Western draws from his knowledge of psychology and his direct or virtual conversations with about 50,000 people to reflect and make some hypotheses about what has happened to Obama, or what Obama was always about. He starts by pointing out what was missing in the inauguration speech and has been missing ever since- a clear sense of narrative and a vision, a story about what had happened and how it could be made different in the midst of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. Western provides several hypotheses for what has happened. Obama simply lacks the experience to handle the presidency -having been merely a community activist and not run a city, a state or a business, and had accomplished little before becoming president, and had an unremarkable career as a law professor having published nothing during his 12 years at the University of Chicago except an autobiography. And remarkably says Western voted 130 times in the Senate as "present" instead of "yea" or "nay," suggesting a tendency not to take a stand on difficult issues. The auto fuel efficiency standards issue may be the singular exception. The challenges of a presidency are much larger, and the challenges in 2009 were even greater. Obama could not measure upto the task. A related hypothesis is that given the lack of experience and the inability to make the narrative because of an unresolved identity, Obama is willing to do whatever it takes to dial for dollars and get re-elected. ...

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By acquiring Vodafone Japan Softbank CEO Son brought competition to the industry and challenged the duopoly of DocoMo and KDD telecom providers. After acquiring Sprint Son is taking a hands on approach to shakeup management at the company, which has lagged behind T-Mobile in building its subscriber base. After years of losses Sprint now faces the prospect of a complete makeover from the old way of doing things. Sprint is based in Overland, Kansas. Son says Sprint is like Japanese lords in feudal Japan who controlled everything in their lands, and said Sprint is a Kansas Daimyo. Masayoshi Son has asked executives to fire all the ad agencies and start over, at one point asking executives if they were stupid. Son has established shadow offices at San Carlos, California to monitor weekly progress at Sprint.

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Laura Meckler describes the many experiences as First Lady in Arkansas and in the White House, the many political investigations that happened, that led to the more cautious style Hillary has taken since becoming Senator from New York. This combined with her intense longing for privacy have led to the strange situation where people do not the human person that is Hillary, when they are inundated with information about the Clintons as a couple. With the 2016 campaign that human person is what is coming out as her fighting spirit kicks in, for someone who has seen all sides over a long time. 

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Chancellor Merz New Year Message to Germany 2025, reflects on the events of 2025 with the DJT US administration distancing itself from Europe in favor of a peace agreement in the Ukraine war- with Europe left to take responsibility for defending it's region. By December 2025 the US asserted the Monroe Doctrine and made securing the western hemisphere the top priority, not Europe. Merz and SPD's Lars Klingsbeil removed the constitutional brake on spending placed by Merkel and passed a bill in parliament by December 2025 for a one trillion dollar infrastructure buildup and defense buildup. “Germany is a great country that has, time and again, reinvented itself, emerged stronger from crises, given rise to new cohesion and offers all of its citizens a livable and lovable home.” “We are not the victims of extraneous circumstances. We are not at the mercy of great powers. Our hands are not tied.” A similar situation is happening in South Asia as India faces China over a long border in the Himalayas and India puts up roads, bridges, tunnels and airstrips in the Himalayan border regions.   ...

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In Asia hardest hit are India for LPG gas used for cooking by most people in a country of 1.4 billion people. Australia is hardest hit for oil and gas with only a 32 day supply and Vietnam. Australia, Vietnam, Japan all three getting 90% of their oil supplies from the Middle East, an untenable situation. These three need to diversify out of the Middle East for their oil supplies. India has the option (now supported by the USA in a 180 degree U turn during the Iran War) of getting supplies from Russia for oil and gas with its good relationship with Russia. Japan has managed Middle East supply by keeping over 254 days of inventory but this looks to be very risky as Germany learned from its dependence on Russian oil which went in the wrong direction under Merkel. Japan has released about 18% of its total reserve amount of the 254 days inventory (146 days in national reserves and 101 days in private mandated reserves). It uses 3.14 million barrels a day in 2026 down from 5.8 million barrels a day in 1996, using about half today through conservation and using renewable energy showing the potential for the US and Europe. ...

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With voter turn out at 72% in Finland's election the National Coalition party headed by Petteri Orpo gets 20.8% of the vote, the far right nation first Finns party 20.1% and the SDP 19.9%. The NCP party will form a new government in coalition with one of the two other parties. The NCP supports Ukraine in its war with Russia and also its joining NATO. It advocates less spending on unemployment and housing benefits. The Finns party is for less non EU country immigration. Boosting the economy and creating new jobs is also part of the new government's program.

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About 727,000 fewer students signed up for undergraduate programs to go to college in 2021 compared to 2020. This is bad for Ameirca, bad for upward mobility, as these students missing in college are missing an opportunity for better education and the income gains that go with it. Only 63% of high school graduates signed up for college in fall 2020 the lowest in 20 years. This is alarming news.

This report in WSJ says schools are not giving up- they are trying to get back as many as possible. Some call it working to the point of exhaustion to have that conversation with students on where they are at and where they want to go. If we can't get it right its a huge failure, says one organization doing this in Tennessee.

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As England and Australia prepare for Ashes cricket Test series, Mike Atherton looks at the two captains, Tim Paine for Australia and Joe Root for England. Tim Paine is an unlikely captain because of not playing in enough matches after hand injuries and surgeries. He is a Tasmanian and played on and off for Australia. He also came in unusual circumstances as a captain after failures of the Australian team, with his close relationship with coach Justin Langer. Joe Root by comparison is a top batsman and has made it to the top after playing well for England in many matches. 

The result is a contrast in the two sides. Yet in cricket as in any sport anything can happen. And the Australian side will do its best to upset any predictions.

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Thailand's prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra's intervew with foreign journalists on Dec. 11, 2013. She says no one listens to people in the northeast and northern region of Thailand around Chinag Mai where most of her support lies. She was only 18 when her mother died and her older brother, a former prime minister, is seen by her as more of a senior figure. Protesters in Bangkok see her brother Thaksin Shinawatra, a Thai businessman in London as the one who runs the government's policies. The country is badly split between urban Bangkok and the rural regions in the north. The military ousted Thaksin in 2006 and protesters where shot in 2010 in a crackdown. The latest episode of confrontation between the two parties reflecting the two regions is a followup to this, as an amnesty bill was introduced by Yingluck which would let her brother return to Thailand. The interview was setup at an airbase outside Bangkok, as the country remains deeply divided and protesters occupy most of Bangkok....