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Samsung's plan to open "Experience Shop," in 1400 Best Buy stores, which sent Best Buy's share up 16% in April 2013. Samsung gains much from this plan, as it allows Samsung to have a friendly retail presence in-store that it badly lacked upto now.

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Of the $787 billion stimulus program only $46 billion has gone out so far, mostly to help with unemployment checks and for Medicaid, and only $33 million has gone out for transportation projects.

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Manufacturing output and employment are down 15% since the start of the recession in December 2007 to October 2009. The share of domestic manufacturing consumption taken by imports has risen from 31% in 1998 to 37% in 2008.

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Exports measured in dollars were 2.8% lower in December than a year ago, and imports down 21.3%, according to the customs agency. Measured in yuan exports were down 9% from a year ago. To get a sense of how big an impact this is, consider that the exports were growing an an annual rate of close to 30% in summer 2007. The result is millions of workers having lost heir jobs heading back to homes in rural areas by train. The slow down in imports also reflects exporters cutting back on purchases in anticipation of falling demand. Importers in the USA are finding it harder to get letters of credit financing, and rates are as high as 20% according to Bank of America, Sr VP Treasury products. This suggests the slowdown is just beginning and could be severe in 2009.

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After cellphone sales crumble by dropping 50% in the holiday season quarter compared to ayear ago quarter, Motorola cuts 4000 more positions.

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Martin Peers of WSJ says he thinks the $250 million infusion from Carlos Slim may buy too little time for New York Times company, if it does not do more aggressive cost cutting and asset sales. The asset sales are going to be difficult for media business in this environment with declining ad spending. In the first 9 months of 2008 revenue fell 6.5% to $2.18 billion but production, selling general and administrative expenses fell only 1.9% to $1.99 billion, says Peers so its cost base is not shrinking fast enough. And the 14% interest for the Slim investment raises interest costs from $50 million to $74 million a year.

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A World Food Program report says India is home to over a fourth of the hungry people in the world, about 230 million people. Purnima Menon of the Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C., says India ranks below two dozen sub-Saharan countries on a Global Hunger Index. It ranks Madhya Pradesh, a state in central India, as somewhere between Chad and Ethiopia. And serious hunger and malnutrion persists in states that have done better in economic growth, like Gujarat and Maharashtra. The number of children suffering from malnutrition in 2009 is in the range of 42.5% in India compared to about 7% in China, according to figures cited by Rieff.

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Demonstrations across France in cities like Paris, Lyon and Marseilles, by private and public trade unions drew an estimated 2.5 million people. They are protests that President Sarkozy's government is not doing enough to provide stimulus to the economy and protect jobs. THese are the largest nationwide demmonstrations in more than 20 years. France lost the most jobs in 40 years in the last quarter of 2008 and Sarkozy's government has only announced a$35 billion stimulus. Germany and France are also holding back on large stimulus spending , including significant help for Eastern European countries, and this will become an issue at the April 2, 2009 G-20 meeting. Ted Truman at Treasury is articulating aforceful response for the Obama administration calling on the EU countries to come up with astrong stimulus plan. See link.

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Generic version of Zocor by Merck to reduce bad cholesterol is now available and can substitute for Lipitor which costs $2 to $3 per day. This generic can be bought at Costco at 10 cents per day. Generics can have a huge impact on cost for patients and for the country's medical bill and for affordable health care its very important to achieve affordable health care.

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Simply put Ford sells 800,000 F150's a year but sales are dropping at about 100,000 a year, and where has it put Ford? Ford is losing money, $12 .6 billion in 2007, lost market share from 25% at one time to 15%, and a stock price about to go below $6. Turn to the fuel efficient cars Mullaly wants to have, the same car sold in the US, Europe and elsewhere and designed by worldwide collaboration between engineers and designers in Europe and the USA and emerging markets. The Verve a fuel efficent small car is one example and it will also use globally made parts. Why is the Verve though going on sale in Europe this year and not in the US, is not clear. And why won't it be called the Verve in the US? The idea that it could be called the Fiesta may not make sense, as the old Fiesta model in the USA did not have that great an image for quality and value.

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New legislation that cleared Congress on helping homeowners about 400,000 homeowners avoid foreclosure. Congresspromises to get tough on lenders and loan servicers if they do work to honor what Congress has mandated. The Federal Housing Administration will run the program and it will insure upto $300 billion in refinanced 30 year fixed rate loans The mortgages cannot be for more than 90% of a home's newly appraised value. For mortgages that exceed that value the lender would have to voluntarily write down the principal to the qualifying level. If the home goes up in value the borrower must share newly created equity with the FHA. THe program begins October 1 and ends Sept 30, 2011. Borrowers will not qualify if they have intentionally defaulted on the loan or if they had a debt to income ratio of less than 31% as of March 1. This is the first serious effort by Congress and the Administration to work in bipartisan fashion to put a serious dent in the housing foreclosure levels which are at the root of the present financial crisis and Secreatary Paulson, Bernanke, and Barney Frank and others in Congress have helped support this effort which should eventually help the financail markets recover from failing mortgages that caused this crisis....

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Hyundai says it can meet the 35 miles per gallon target for its automobile fleet by 2015 instead of 2020, 5 years ahead of schedule. It can do this without relying too much on hybrids, concentrating efforts in the direction of lighter materials, new engine and powertrain technologies such as direct injection, dual continuously variable valve timing, and eight speed automatic transmissions. And Hyundai can do this, says its head of R&D division, Lee Hyun-Soon, by increasing the price of the automobile by only a small amount. Lee says by increasing the cost of an automobile by a mere $100 or $200 a gain of 10% in fuel efficiency can be achieved. Meanwhile US automakers are arguing that the current requirements in a law signed by President Bush in December 2007 for 35mpg by 2020 is too stringent. The standard this year is 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.5 mpg for light trucks. See the group " Was America asleep at the spigot?"

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The Japanese government reports a revised estimate for GDP growth in 3rd quarter 2015 from a decline of 0.8% to an annualized rate of growth of 1%. As a result Japan is no longer in recession as previously reported.

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Laurence Peter of the BBC News describes a meeting of EU leaders in December 2016. The new Europa building with its space egg shape will be the location of the next summit in 2016, adding to a sense of history that the EU idea has witnessed since the 1950's, even optimism about far it has come at a time of a few setbacks.  He points out that Theresa May was not without persons to talk to at the meeting, though some video clips showed her looking lonely. EU president Martin Schulz said he was emotional seeing students crying after the Brexit vote, but that it was time to find solutions and not be emotional today. Lunch was offered at the meeting by Spain and Portugal, to mark the 30 years since they joined. People forget how much the European Community meant to the two countries after decades of suffering under fascist dictatorships- it meant new hope and an opportunity to set things right. Problems facing the EU today include, the frustration at the carnage in Aleppo, Syria, how to deal with Britain and Brexit, setting up an asylum system that will work, dealing with Ukraine and Russia without making the situation worse, and remaining concerns about the Greece debt crisis. ...

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Chancellor Merkel of Germany proposed bilateral or trilateral deals between smaller groups of countries as a temporary solution till some agreement can be reached on immigration. She said "The European Council will not yet provide an overall solution to the migration problem." Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic which have opposed a quota system for asylum seekers did not attend.  Austria, Denmark, and Italy with the new government openly opposing immigration, attended the summit. Merkel said  a "lot of goodwill" was created, and leaders agreed that borders need to be better protected to prevent people from entering illegally, and reducing immigration at its source points in Africa. The migration problem has persisted as an issue long after the huge surge in immigration in 2015 has diminished to a trickle, and after chancellor Merkel has accomodated critics with new policies strictly limiting new immigration. New governments in Denmark, Austria and Italy, and the government in Hungary under Viktor Orban, have kept the issue alive by running on anti-immigration platforms. The European summit in 2018 was used by Merkel to reduce disagreement on this issue by allowing different countries to express their views and working in smaller groups for mutual benefit. It also reduces tension inside her CDP-CSU coalition after Bavaria based CSU decided to run in 2018 state elections on a platform calling for securing borders. ...

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Unemployment in the eurozone drops to 7.7% in 2017. Unemployment in Spain drops to 17%.

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Note this comment by the head of the U.S. National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration in the Bush Administration. NHTSA Administrator Jackie Glassman says the average mileage for the fleet today is 30 miles per gallon and raising the current standard of 27.5 mpg for an automakers passenger fleet by 2.5 mpg won't put much pressure on automakers. The Bush administration- and the prior Clinton administration- has not committed to making major improvements to the national mileage standards, with the current standards of 27.5 mpg not having changed since 1990! Glassman says the NHTSA starts with the manufacturers product plans and then sees whether it can get additional fuel savings with these plans. This suggests an NHTSA that is more follower to the auto industry rather than a leader in setting the standards that the auto industry then tries to achieve to reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Also note that it takes 2 years for things to change, as it will take months for rule changes, and 18 months have to be given to automakers to implement the new rules. By 2008 the fuel efficiency based on market competition and Toyota focussing on hybrids and higher fuel efficiency across the whole car lines, might well exceed any new standards that are watered down, especially if crude prices hold up. Lawsuits by attorney generals of different states and the Lugar-Obama bipartisan bill pushing the adminsitration to mandate higher standards are intended to put pressure on the Bush administration to come up with new higher standards. The failure of Democrats and Republicans in the Clinton and Bush years to raise standards and require the auto companies to use new technology to meet these standards with government assistance is one of the significant failures. This will affect the prospects for the U.S. economy in the years ahead....

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As part of the effort to become more competitive with Asian automakers, VW is using new strategies with labor to reduce costs. VW made a one-off payment of about 6,300 to each of 80,000 employees at its western German manufacturing plants. In return VW secured union agreement to change work schedules at the plants to 33 hours a week from 28.8 hours, without having to make a pay increase. This is part of concessions being made by labor as Germany tries to improve its competitiveness. VW's second largest shareholder is the German state of Lower Saxony, and VW makes many automobile parts in its German plants in addition to automobile assembly, making employment a major issue for industry, labor and government.

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The Bernie Sanders 2016 U.S. presidential campaign is compared to the Howard Dean 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. Both are from Vermont- Sanders was Mayor of Burlington, Dean was governor of Vermont. Dean and Sanders draw many white, educated, affluent voters to their campaign rallies. Yet the situation in 2015 is different. Dean's major issue was his opposition to the Iraq war started in 2003. Sanders says his position is more class based, and calls for a revolution to help working class Americans gain upward mobility as wages remain stagnant, and educational opportunity restricted. The Democratic Party today is also different, with more ethnic voters, and 40% female.

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The People's Bank of China lowers the benchmark lending and deposit rates by 0.25 of a percentage point, and cuts the reserve requirement ratio by 0.5 of a percentage point. The PBOC said the move was designed to offset "the persisting downward pressures on the country's economic growth." It was also designed to offset the large volatility in China's stock markets. The PBOC also removed the upper limit on interest rates for fixed term deposits of more than one year, as part of interest rate liberalization. The move also counters the large capital outflows affecting China, as is happening for all emerging markets, of $70 billion in July. These outflows may have accelerated in August 2015 with declining investor confidence. Experts say the reserve ratio cut should inject about $100 billion into the banking system.