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The Jihad anti-Indian groups and the Pakistan Taliban in 2009, as they disrupt life in the Punjab province.

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Wallsten describes the tense and now frayed relationship between Obama and immigration groups and the way this has evolved from idealism to frustration to mere coexistence amid loss of faith. Obama's frustration expressed in words such as "I am not a king." And the immigration groups voicing their concerns about Obama's loss of credibility, as minorities especially Hispanics have fared poorly during his adminsitration, hit by rising deportations, foreclosures and the impact of high unemployment in construction and other sectors.

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Porter of the NYT points out that the figures released from census information that the U.S. median household income increased by 5.2% in 2015 to $56,500 is good news for Americans including minority and working class families at the lower tiers. However more needs to happen compared to previous recoveries in the mid-90's, and for people who suffered during the recession to finally put that experience behind them, says Porter. 

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This NYT editorial points to the dangers lurking behid the jobless numbers. The House bill that passed recently for $154 billion to extend unemployment benefits- set to expire in Feb 2010- to June 2010, and increases aid to local and state governments. It also includes infrastructure spending and help for small business. But it does not do enough for young people whose joblesness is at all time high. For instance only 4 in 100 low income black students found work in Fall 2009 This according to a study by the Northeastern University Center for Labor Market Studies. According to the analysis done by this Center the employment rates among teenagers has risen four times faster than the rate among adults since 2000, and todayme over 65 are more likely to find jobs than youth of 16-19 years.

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A new study by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation shows partisan politics will affect the new president in the U.S. in 2013, to the point of making it difficult to govern.

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Stephanie Pope is good for Boeing and good for America. Pope headed the parts and services business, and is now the CEO of the commercial aircraft unit. With quality defects a major issue for Boeing leading to two CEO's leaving early, the last being Mr Calhoun a finance executive leaving in December 2024, there is strong opinion that an engineer is needed, yet merely an engineer is not enough as Muilenberg an Iowa State engineer stepped down in 2019. Stephanie Pope has an accounting degree from Missouri State, joined McDonnell Douglas in 1994, which merged into Boeing in 1997.  She says "Culture beats strategy. If you have wrong culture you never succeed." and "Out of failure comes success. You can't be afraid of failure." It's rare to hear that. It also tells one that she has the right idea and practices about the process and hard work that gets results. Pros- she loves the company her grandfather was sheet metal inspector for the company, her father electrical mechanic, at McDonnell Douglas based in St. Louis, Missouri.  She has worked 30 years at the company. She aspired to be a teacher- and its good to have humility.  A VP in the parts and services unit describes how she helps out when quality issues come up in a hands on way bringing in engineers and other resources to help. The Chief Engineer says she is comfortable in the technical space.                                                  Cons- She has an accounting background. There is a sense that Boeing wanted to push planes out of he factory floor as fast as possible to meet production targets. Stephanie Pope with her humility, hands on style, her attitude in work with others, treating assembly line workers with dignity, her attention to the culture at Boeing, persistence in the face of failure,  all present a rare opportunity for Boeing and for America to engage in the task of renewal under a new leadership conscious of its responsibilities.        ...

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Bayer AG CEO Marijn Dekkers talks to the Journal's Geoffrey Rogow about the company's pharmaceuticals business and job retention. Dekkers says profits are reduced by the tight budgets of European governments and the pressure on pricing. He cites the 16% mandatory rebate in Germany on prescriptions. For Bayer diversification through the chemicals business offers a way to handle the ups and downs in the pharmaceuical business with patent expiration. He is not interested in acquisitions because of the high premium involved and the difficulty of recovering this for investors. Bayer like other drug companies has extensive operations in China. Bayer is training salespersons in top and second tier Chinese cities. It has a program to train 10,000 physicians in rural areas of China working with the local government. Dekkers makes an interesting point about jobs and job retention in the U.S. He says a lot of jobs were outsourced in the 1990's and its difficult to bring them back. Germany has done a better job with job retention with "kurzarbeit" and other programs working in partnership with industry. In his view this could have been managed better in the U.S. with active programs such as this in the last two decades....

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This Washington Post editorial says vice president Biden's comments that "I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes to Social Security. I flat guarantee you," made to a voter in Southern Virginia, is downright disheartening. It points out that this is not the conclusion of the trustees of the Social Security Fund, which includes the secretaries of Treasury, labor and health and human services of the Obama administration. The April annual report of the trustees says that the disability portion of the trust fund "becomes exhausted in 2016," and the overall fund "becomes exhausted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2033." Actions suggested by the trustees include: raising the payroll tax, tweaking the inflation calculator, reducing benefits, or some combination of this. It is clear from polls that the U.S. voter does not want either party to touch Social Security, but the reality is something different. The idea of a flat guarantee in the light of facts that all can see is seen by the Post as going too far, trying to win votes at the cost of postponing necessary decisions which will become harder and costlier if not addressed early....

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Fiat CEO Marchionne's tells Fiat managers to focus on export markets and to look beyond, Italy and the European market. In a presentation to prime minister Mario Monti he emphasizes the capacity utilization at Fiat's Italian plants of 40% in 2012.

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Illinois uses a discount rate of about 8% for its pension liabilities. This makes them look smaller than they really are. The 8% represents expected return on assets. Illinois's five pension pllans assume returns ranging from 7% to 8.5%, yet their average 10 year returns ranged from 2.4% to 3.6%. The Netherlands uses a discount rate equal to government borrowing rates, which would be 4% for the U.S. And Dutch plans have to be fully funded or take steps to make up the difference. Illinois will have its plans 90% funded by fiscal 2045. Canada uses a government return adjusted for inflation and an additional premium, which is about 6%. The Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan for instance uses a discount rate of 5.4% and is about 85% funded. The Ontario plan's CEO, Jim Leech, says his fund would be 200% funded if it used the Illinois approach. Which raises the question is the Illinois approach realistic and isn't the best approach to be realistic about the finances.

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Janet Yellen, Fed chairwoman, says the financial system is safer now after the financial regulation, stress testing, living wills and other changes that the Federal Reserve has implemented. She says there is no need for a reduction in these key regulatory rules. One of the changes is that banks now use a safer mix of financing- equity financing has doubled for capital, and wholesale borrowing is cut in half, since the 2008 financial crisis that took the U.S. and with it the global financial system to the brink of disaster. The appointment of Randall Quarles to the Fed by the Trump administration was intended to  reduce regulation, and this is Yellen's response to such proposed ideas. 

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The shift of offshore manufacturing jobs from China to Mexico in 2014-2015.

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Nouriel Roubini has proven correct on global financial issues. He said in an interview on the sidelines of a symposium in Malaysia, that China needs to revalue its currency for its own sake. China will see a growth collapse in the next 2-3 years if it fails to do so. His point is that China can still maintain growth by shifting to domestic consumption and less infrastructure spending and exports. In his view growth should not be affected if China exports less and consumes more. He points to the decrease in consumption as a share of GDP from 45% to 36% in the last ten years- this ratio is 70% in the USA. A cheap yuan keeps foreign goods unaffordable and protects state owned companies which also get cheap credit, as keeping the yuan low requires China to keep interest rates artificially low. What this does is make a massive transfer of income from the household sector to the state owned companies, just at the time when China needs to do the very opposite of this. And compounding the problem is that the 25% of China's GDP that is made up of retained earnings of mostly state owned companies, goes into real estate and production facilities. See the link to David Barboza in the New York Times who points to the wasteful spending and real estate speculation by state owned companies. Roubini cites the automobile sector where capacity has doubled in the last year to 20 million, when the domestic market increased by 50% to 10 million vehicles. The stimulus only increased the effect of surplus capacity and misallocation of investment, with highways to nowhere and brand new airports that are three quarters empty. The Chinese leadership is beginning to grasp this, but the state owned companies and other interests who benefit fromm the old model, may make it difficult to reverse the trends. A lot is at stake in this, as it affects the U.S., as well as countries dependent on China's imports such as Australia, Canada, Brazil and Germany. ...

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Max Fisher of the NYT points out the unique approach taken by Canada in the U.S.-Canada relationship - to cultivate a grassroots network of Americans in legislatures, business, and at different levels of government. This has enabled the Trudeau government to build a relationship with president Trump, and at the same time have relationships at different levels of government and with business in the U.S. to tackle issues where the Trump administration has acted in ways unfavorable for Canada. Provincial governments in Ontario and Quebec lobbied against a New York state government provision for Buying American on state contracts worth over $100,000. By emphasizing the $10 billion in exports from New York to Ontario this lobbying persuaded the New York legislature to cancel the provision. Premier Trudeau's popularity helps and the proximity to the U.S. means Canadians can visit quickly and understand the U.S. as a close neighbor. Still Premier Kathleen Wynne of Ontario says Canadian businesses are nervous about the uncertainty from the Trump administration.   ...

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Simon Denyer talks to experts in China in this remarkable piece about the risks to China's own forward development for the economy and society of adopting the so called Putin Way. Particularly when Mr. Putin himself may have second thoughts about as it offers so little and risks so much- actions in Ukraine reduce trade, much needed foreign investment and technology leading to slow growth. This is because technologically advanced societies and economies in a globally interdependent economy need to remain open and vibrant. Mr. Putin's failure to transform Russia's economy from overdependence on commodity exports, while risking development further for relatively insignificant gains on the fringes of its borders, reduces his own development scorecard from a B in the first term to a C in the second. Russia and China have large rural population with low incomes, and the risk is that these emerging markets will fall into the "middle income trap" reaching a certain level and then stagnating, with the additional burden of an an aging population. The irony is that Mr. Putin was elected with the help of this rural population outside the big cities specifically to preserve and expand economic gains made in the first term not erode these economic gains....