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Donald Trump's Style book would include things like, using a little hyperbole, exaggeration, like setting up a wall to stop immigration. It also includes attacks on opponents, the better with some publicity, good or bad, as his attacks on Carly Fiorina for looks, Jeb Bush for energy, and Megyn Kelly of Fox News show. Trump writes about this in his book written three decades ago- "The Art of the Deal." In the book he says that putting down the competition can help. And what about the deal itself? Its all for the joy of doing it, not much about what its about, or how it will all end up in helping people in their daily lives.

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Joe Parkinson of the WSJ gives a in-depth account of the emergence of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey's politics, with contributions by Emre Peker, Ayla Albayrak, Yeliz Candemir. Erdogan grew up in a poor neighborhood of Istanbul, and became the head of a local youth branch of the Islamist National Salvation Party in 1976 after an adolescent period steeped in mosque culture and Islamic ideas. In 1994 he is elected Mayor of Istanbul amid voter discontent with corruption and problems with infrastructure and public services. He served for four years making improvements. After reciting a poem publicly that said "the mosques are our barracks, domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets and faithful our soldiers," he is jailed for 4 months by a military backed secular government in 1999. During this period Erdogan, described by friends from his youth as having a unique ability to adapt to difficult situations, makes a transformation. He moves to the centre, coming out in favor of stronger ties to the EU, and works hard to attract support from the secular and nationalist voters to add to his conservative religious base. In 2003 he is elected prime minister as head of the Justice and Development Party. This begins a period of ten years in which Turkey sees remarkable period of economic growth during which Turkey's GNP nearly quadruples from a little over $200 billion in 2002 to $794.5 billion in 2012, according to the IMF. It may be partly coincidence and partly good management of the economy under Erdogan. Turkey's previous banking and currency crises before 2003 created a better understanding and discipline for managing the economy. Emerging markets such as Brazil, India, China, Russia, Indonesia, and other parts of Asia and Latin America were able to achieve high rates of growth during this 10 year period. Competitiveness in Brazil and Turkey has not improved significantly in this period according to experts, and large capital inflows into Turkey partly supported the credit boom in Turkey. And just as growth is slowing significantly in all emerging markets, Turkey under Erdogan faces a new test. Especially now that Erdogan is seen as autocratic in his effort to suppress protests to build an Ottoman era army barracks in Taksim Square, Istanbul. The fears of secularists in Turkey are that this is the Erdogan of the period in 1999, after serving as Mayor of Istanbul. Just as Turks turned away from the overreaching actions of the military, the public sentiment may be shifting beyond the overreaching actions of the religious parties in Turkish politics. The protests in Brazil against the Rouseff administration after the popularity of the Lula administration, show that slowing economic growth and missteps by the elected government can alienate younger voters. The parties still retain a majority but face an uncertain future in which lower economic growth and missteps lead to a search for alternatives. At the same time Turkey's efforts for accession to the EU are beng put on hold as Germany opposes the actions to suppress protests of the Justice Party in Turkey. ...

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As corruption investigations proceed in Turkey and the split in the ruling AKP party becomes irreversible the effects are felt on the Turkish lira. Turkey's lira declined to 2.097 to the dollar on Dec. 20, 2013. Turkey's borrowing costs jumped with yields on 2 year government bonds at 9.61%.

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Linda Thomsen is out as Director of the SEC's enforcement division since 2005, as she resigns. Robert Khuzami, a lawyer for a bank dealing in securities, Deutsche Bank, is her replacement. In the current environment with serious concerns about the independence of regulatory agencies and the different mindset needed for regulators, the new SEC enforcement chief will still have the mindset of someone working in a bank which was involved in the same risk taking practices that got the banks into trouble.

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A Republican says the party's failures to come up with alternative policies instead of simply opposing president Obama, has led to the atmosphere of negativism and anti-immigrant rhetoric that increases support for Trump in the party base. He cites as an example 2012 Republican presidential nominee Romney and his comments about "self-deportation." Other examples cited include pushing Rubio to where he repudiated his own immigration legislation just to maintain support in the party. He says this leaves him little option but to vote for Hillary Clinton.

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A report by the Bank of England suggests a more prudent approach for British banks by setting aside more reserves for losses on bad loans from past decisions. Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, says the Financial Services Authority should talk to banks and tell them to look "more prudently" at their credit levels. King says current capital ratios do not provide a correct picture of the health of the banks. The report says capital ratios of Barclay's, RBS, Lloyds, and HSBC could be overstated by between 5 billion or 8 billion and 35 billion pounds. The goal King says is to restore confidence in Britain's banking system with a prudent approach.

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All the danger signs are flashing red says Prof. Simon Johnson of MIT's Sloan School of Management, as Citigroup stock loses 26% on November 20, 2008 and 50% of the stock's value in just 4 days. The fear is that Citigroup faces still bigger losses as home mortgages, credit card loans, commercial real estate debt all deteriorate further in a deep economic downturn, and that Citigroup will need large sums of additional capital from the government. There is similiar to the Detroit auto industry executives and public opinion a big gap in how Wall Street investors and Citigroup executives see the company's situation.

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How short sellers target Citigroup and work havoc with its share price losing half its value in afew days. The need for reinstating the uptick rule but a mystery that no action has been taken. And Paulson scores himself as a ten from 1 to 10 in a question from Alan Murray at the WSJ CEO Council, even as lack of comprehensive action on foreclosure prevention, the failure to reinstate the uptick rule, and time lost in the debate in Congress and afterwards over buying up toxic assets, remain a mystery.

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The designers finally get their say to bring a new vehicle to the market which is something quite different. Sales tends to be conservative and in this case the concept vehicle for the Flex was first shown at the 2005 International Auto Show in Detroit. Usually this is where so many people take different shots at it that by the time engineering, sales and production have modified it does'nt look the same. This is on situation in which the concept vehicle made it all the way to a production model at the New York Auto Show in 2007. The designers were able to sell it as a new kind of crossover idea to seat a family and draw customers who were dumping their large SUV's fpr other vehicles. As some designers see it a mix of the Mini Cooper and a Ford 1940's classic "Woody". Its one of the bold moves by Ford. Mulally after he took the CEo position at Ford supported the idea and its due to be in showrooms in summer 2008. See the link to the article on how much difficulty Ford (and GM) are having getting people to come to the showrooms and how Ford has had to resort to novel and extreme ways of getting people to test drive Ford cars and talk about them. What better way to do this than to come up with something new in design and let the product do the talking. ...

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After an emergency cabinet meeting and a vote in the Spain's Senate prime minister Rajoy imposed direct rule on Catalonia, dismissing the government of Mr. Puigdemont in Catalonia. He set local elections in Catalonia for Dec. 21. Rajoy was responding to a vote in the Catalan parliament with 70 in favor, 10 against and the rest abstaining, in favor of independence. As the BBC points out Catalonia has 16% of Spain's population and generates 25% of exports, 20% of foreign investment, leading to a feeling among Catalan people that they are sending resources to other parts of Spain. The vote was still far short of the large majority that would show Catalans overwhelmingly support Mr Puigdemont's move for independence. As the reality of the consequences of such a move- when the EU and other parts of Spain have shown little support -begin to be felt it is possible that new elections could bring a result like that in Scotland where the Scottish Nationalist party lost ground to the Conservative party in the recent British parliamentary election. It is significant that the BBC cites a recent poll which shows 41% of Catalans favor independence, 49% opposed. Particularly now that Catalans may have time to consider carefully the difference between redressing a grievance and making a complete break into an uncertain future outside the European Union. Also relevant is that Catalonia enjoys a high degree of autonomy, and that other parts of Spain including Mr. Rajoy's home region of Galicia also suffered under the Franco dictatorship. Even the Basque region has come to terms with the past from the period under Franco and has opted to be part of Spain. ...