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A Report by the Institute of Contemporary Development is titled "Twenty-first Century Russia: An Image of the Desired Future." President Medvedev serves as chairman of its board of trustees. Thoug it does not have direct influence on Russian policy it still is part of the debate going on in Russia about which direction to take in the future. It calls for restoration of election of governors, an end to censorship of the news media, dissolution of the Federal Security Service, and importantly Russian membership in NATO from a foreign policy perspective. Its them is a theme Medvedev has emphasized - how should Russia modernize? The report makes the point that unless it modernized more of Russia's brightest young people would go to the West.

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Residential installation of solar panels in the U.S. is expected to more than double to over 500 megawatts in 2013 from over 200 megawatts in 2010. Global government funding of solar energy will nearly triple by 2015 compared to 2009, according to the International Energy Agency.

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On the competition in the Chinese car market. Its especially fierce in the small car market where prices and margins are falling. Microcars with engines smaller than 1 litre sales increased by only 7% through August.Subcompacts sales went up by only 4% according to JD Powers. With 80 brands in the market margins are falling from15% in 2006 to about 9% in first half 2007 according to JD Powers. The situation is better in the larger cars. Compacts sales are up 46% and midsize sedans up by 35% (JD Powers). VW saw sales in China up by 30% in first 9 months of 2007, and market share increased from 15% to 18% widening the lead over GM which is No.2 at 9.8%. Toyota's Camry ($26000 to $36000)and the Crown luxury( $43000) sales went up by 40%. Cherry, Honda and Toyota are all at about 8% market share for No. 3 position. Prices of compact and mid sized sedans have dropped so they are a better value now and are attracting many buyers in the better offpart of the middle class.

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The city where the auto industry in the USA started in the 1920's and what it is today and its future a century later as we approach the 2020 mark. The industry in decline and reshaping itself as a global industry with sales in Asia and Europe and the rest of the world a new focus as the US market begins to decine in significance relative to the rest of the world both in terms of sales and opportunities for expansion. The poverty rate the highest in the nation at 28.5% and the highest foreclosure rate in the nation after Stockton, California, with one in 33 homes in Wayne County in foreclosure. And things are only going to get worse in 2008 and 2009 because auto sales are expected to decline and the Alt A mortgages are expected to see a bump up in the interest rates.

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Some of the hrdles Blu Ray is facing are the price of Blu-Ray disc players priced by Sony at $399 vs. $60 for a standard machine, and BluRay discs priced at $11 more than regular DVD's. Sony has said that the price of the disc players won't fall below $200 till the end of the year by which time consumers in the USA may further tighten their spending. An April report by Sanford Bernstein & Co. predicts sales of BluRay discs will add only 1% to sales of DVD's this year, so the outlook is very uncertain for BluRay. Part of the problem is that its a discretionary spending item and consumers may ask themselves why spend so much on the discs when there is not a signifcant appreciable difference in performance? Blu Ray discs do not provide that much of a noticeable difference except for action films.

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BP is by far the oil company most concentrated in deep water oil exploration. So it is coming up for criticism in the industry for not having prepared better for a subsea oil leak at this depth. Talking with journalists BP's President Tony Hayward acknowledged this failure to "prepare for an emergency of this kind. " BP appears to observers to be trying to create the technology to deal with the leak on the go, and Hayward accepted this criticism by saying BP should have done things differently and had the capability to act instantly. Hayward went through two days of hearings in Congress, and the exchange of blame between Transocean Ltd, the Swiss based company that owned and operated Deepwater Horizon, and Halliburton which provided services for the rig, and BP, only worsened its image. Testimony showed that company managers at BP decided to go ahead with finishing work on Deepwater Horizon well even though tests showed highly combustible gas had seeped into it. The failure of a massive effort at its Houston offices to have much to show for results, only demonstrates that poor quality systems and maintenance cannot be corrected easily no matter what the scale of the effort. The publicity surrounding BP's handing out contracts to potential claimants to seal off future claims has not helped....

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Job loss nubers for 2009 from the Labor Dept are- February 681,000, March 699,000, April 539,000 as govt payrolls expanded by 72,000. About 8.9 million people work parttime, adding in the people who have given up looking for a job, the underemployment rate is 15.8% in April 2009.

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The Labor department reported that unemployment surged to 10.2 % in October 2009. 190,000 jobs were lost in October 2009. Ther breakdown lokks like this. Construction lost 62,000 jobs, manufacturing lost 61,000 jobs forming the bulk of the job losses. Its interesting to note that only 16,000 jobs were gained in the federal government and 16,000 jobs were lost at the local government level making the net gain zero at the government level. And what was gained in the health care sector 28,700 jobs and in educational services 10,700 jobs for a total of 39,400 jobs was completely offset by 39,800 jobs lost in retail sector. The useful point here is that local governments are hurting and retail sector is hurting and little is going to change this as long as job losses continue and the gains at the government level and healthcare and educational services are simply offset by losses inretail and local government. This situation will likely ocntinue into 2010. The losses in manufacturing are likely to continue. A sample of companies like Eaton, Boeing and John Deere shows that 2010 will not generate many jobs. Eaton has decided to have its 55,000 employees take aweek of each quarter, so there is one twelfth work capacity unused which is where Eaton will turn to before hiring. At Boeing there are layoffs of 10,000 planned but its also hiring 3800 workers for anew factory in South Carolina, and at John Deere 452 workers will be recalled in November but in December there is aplanned shutdown. A September Survey by Business Roundtable found that 13% of firms planned to increase employment in the next 6 months, but 40% planned to cut payrolls. So manufacturing looks to go on like this in 2010 with slowing but continued job losses. The numbers show that in October the median number of weeks it takes to find ajob up to 18.7 weeks which is the highest number since the sixties. What gets ignored by the small print you find it in the Wall Street Journal is the broader unemployment rate which is 17.5% when you include those who have stopped looking, those who work part time but need full time work and the marginally unemployed. The rates jump for younger workers here and in Europe also. ...

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Global aid to agriculture in developing countries is about $5 billion a year. Mr Obama made the decision to double U.S> aid to developing countries farmers to more than $1 billion ayear in 2010. THe NYT reports that with the G8 meeting in Italy in July, America will spend $3.5 billion dollars over 3 years for helping farmers in developing countries. This according to Michael Fromans, an Obama adminsitration official is going to be new money. As far as the other G8 countries are concerned it could include old money for the total $15 billion committed. Since the worst hit areas for agriculture are in Africa, and Africa has lost a lot of ground in development in the last 20 years, suffering neglect in aid to farmers over 20 years both form the American administrations and their own governments, it is surprising that the amount and the details for where it would go in Africa are not revealed. Mr Obama has grasped the need not just for shipping food assistance from the USA, but need to help farmers. He agrees with ANdrew Natsios former head of Agency of International Development, who says that most of the poorest people in developing countries are farmers and herders living in the countryside, the crux of any effort to improve their lives has to start with agriculture. Obama advocates using the "tried and true agricultural methodfs and technologies that are cheap and are efficient but can have huge impact" in the lives of people. Malawi, is a good example, say Prof. Sachs of Columbia University, as subsidies for fertilizer sharply increased food production. Sachs says it is possible to double or triple food production by giving small-holder farmers access to high yielding seeds, fertilizer and agricultural extension services. But more needs to be done and devloping countries themselves that have made progress like India, China and Brazil can provide their know-how and experts and should have been brought into this, which is another reason why there is no reason for a G-8 summit of countries of European origin. An enlarged organization can bring in the resources and ideas of all the major countries in the world, to especially bear in on Africa, where alot needs to be done. Just to get an idea the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization says the global economic crisis will put another 100 million people into facing hunger this year....

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The first of a series of quarterly reports put out by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, on the subject of household debt and credit. It shows that the process of unwinding consumer debt in the US is a slow and painful one. The figures tell the story, which touch every aspect of the US economy and business, with ripple effects through the world economy. Total consumer debt is $11.7 trillion as of June 30, 2010, which is down 6.5% from the crest reached in the third quarter 2008. Credit card accounts are down 23% from the high reached in second quarter 2008, and mortgage obligations down 6.4% from 2008. By mid 2010 11.4% of consumer debt was delinquent, and this was up from 11.2% in 2009. $1.3 trillion of consumer debt is delinquent, and $986 billion is seriously delinquent- that is 90 days late. Serious delinquencies are up by 3.1%. Other figures fromt he Fed report: Half million people in the USA had a foreclosure added to the credit reports for the period March 31, 2010 to June 30, 2010. This was up 8.7% above the figure for first quarter of 2010. New bankruptcies showed up in credit reports for 624,000 people during that quarter, an increase of 34%. Another major problem stacked on top of this for consumer spending- the Fed's interest rate policy according to Todd Petzel, chief investment officer of Offit Capital Advisors, burdens consumers with a tax of $350 billion in income lost from low to zero interest rates. This creates two problems of its own. Not only does it depress consumer spending. It also makes consumers reach out for riskier investments. This figure was calculated by taking $14 trillion in debt issued by Treasury, federal agencies and municipalities. Rates are near zero on short term Treasuries compared to 3% average over the years. Taking 2.5% on $14 trillion, the figure of $350 billion was arrived at. Or 2% of gross domestic product. Analysts say that it would be better not to save a few zombie banks at the expense of consumers and pension funds. It lowers the cost of the deficits through the lower interest rates the government pays on its debt, but lower consumer spending and a limping economy hurt tax revenues and increases the deficit....

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For years Peter Bernstein has watched the US markets, from the postwar recession of 1958 till today. He is now 89 years old. He sees 2 culprits one is oversecuritization and the second is years of overborrowing by financial institutions and consumers alike. He rules out a V shaped business cycle. he sees an L shaped business cycle or a a flat U. It would be a flat U because it will take a long time for the memory to recover from the excesses of recent years and the consequences. He remembers the early years after World War II, it took a very long time to get the depression out of business and banking decisions. And he says one of the things that helped people take risks was the feeling that the central bank had got things right and knew what it was doing but he says the Fed too now is going to feel what it should do now is less clear. So the feeling going forward will be to be very careful. He thinks this will take a long time to clear up, much longer than people think. Not 2009, he is sure they are wrong, there has to be a respite along the way is how he puts it. He says until credit is going up instead of down you can't have growth. And he thinks housing has to be a part of this. And then there is the uncertainty. What if, what if China goes into a recession? His point that " nothing can go in one direction forever." And China has been growing like this for twenty years since the 1990's. It just does'nt go on forever. and there has to be a respite. Again here him speak: first he goes to housing, he says somehow housing has to flatten out. Then he shifts to say "we have to underpin the consumer" and with that he shifts to saying this is why its different, and to saying this is why its like nothing we have had before. And then he turns to investment, saying its investment that made the V at the bottom of the cycle but he doesn't see the consumer in the USA coming up with a positive till he has worked out the excesses of overspending. Exports or consumer overseas? He thinks they maybe too infected by us to do it. Though Asian growth will help....

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The Gulf economies are not managing their wealth that much better this time. There is more money in the hands of private companies compared to the last boom but the investments in Saudi Arabia to create 6 or 7 cities in the desert and the huge construction boom pose questions about what is the best way to allocate capital for countries like Saudi Arabia, which have larger population than some Abu Dhabi or Dubai for instance. Are many aluminium plants and other similiar investments and building cities in the desert the best way to allocate capital resources to provide for the needs of a growing population in Saudi Arabia, especially as high prices of oil may not last more than a couple of years if conservation and energy efficiency really take hold and there is a global softening in growth after the rapid pace of the last decade? Interestingly some of the wealth that is being spread through imported labor to neighboring countries is not doing enough because of the Gulf countries exchange rate with the US dollar and the link to US monetary policies which create looser monetary policy just when inflation is picking up. With higher inflation and the fixed exchange rates of Gulf countries the inflation eats into the sm all earnings of foreign labor from South Asian countries and elewhere and money repatriated home brings less rupees or home currencies. In addition to all the waste and these distortions in the way wealth is shared with neighboring countries who send in labor, there is also the way this creates distortions in global finance. Mentioned here is the example of how in the last boom in petro economies of the Gulf the recycled petrodollars were loaned out to niave latin american borrowers whose countries borrowed more capital than they could possibly absorb or afford and ended up with a lost decade of growth when it became impossible to support so much overseas debt. The current boom for oil producing countries is already being cited as the cause of the huge global liquidity, that made for the availbility of cheap capital and kept interest rates too low for too long, leading to too much risk taking and taking on off too much debt by homeowners and companies in the USA. ...

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It took a long time for the banks to understand what is in their best interests is in the best interests of the country's economy and homeowners, something Sheila Bair has been saying since the beginning of this year and implementing at IndyMac. Its just too costly for banks to use the foreclosure process to recover their money and it makes much better financial sense on the bottomline of banks and for the economy to make home payments affordable. Because the worse home prices get the worse the economy and banks do and nothing drives home prices down like foreclosures. The Bank of America settlement for Countrywide with state attorney generals to modify loans for 400,000 homeowners because of predatory lending practices also set the direction. Chase Bank is now using the Bair template to get the monthly payments down to an affordable level which is about 40% of the current payment by reducing interest rates and using a smaller loan balance and keep homeowners in their homes. Chase's plan will help 400,000 homeowners and will also help homeowners who are having difficulty making payments. It will put a 90 day hold on foreclosures till the program is put in place. Yet there is one problem. Only $350 billion of the 1.5 trillion in home mortgage it services are owned by Chase, the rest are owned by investors in the form of mortgage securities. It can do little for homeowners covered by these securites that are owned by hedge funds and other funds as a few of these funds oblivious of the overall interest including their own have threated to sue if loans are modified, and it would take some time to figure out who owns each security and what the terms are for modifying loans for that security. Its this part of mortgage securitiization that has slowed down a rational process of unwinding this problem throughout housing by making homeowners monthly payments affordable. And Fed's Bernanke did not come to grips with this point in his talk about mortgage securitization to UC Berkeley on October 31,2008, that mortgage securitization done in a way that make loan modification difficult is dangerous as it is today, and makes a crisis bigger than it otherwise would be, and turn a USA crisis into a global crisis through ricotcheting effects and a series of bad decisons....

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The conditions in the Mexican Navy and Army and why the army and navy are failing in the war with drug cartels. They are woefully underpaid, with few benefits, and poorly equiped, and in some situations lacking the basic equipment in acorrupt system. THis is an account of a Mexican military officer's wife.

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The Trump administration sends an official notice to Congress that it intends to renegotiate the NAFTA treaty with Mexico and Canada. The new U.S. Trade Representative Mr. Lighthizer served as Deputy Trade Representative under president Reagan in 1983. He says the focus of the negotiation will to promote economic growth and jobs by making improvements to the treaty. The notice does not mention major modifications of the type that were hinted at by president Trump earlier. The leaders of Canada and Mexico had asked president Trump to renegotiate. Republicans in Congress and business in the U.S. favor improvements instead of the drastic changes. Mr. Lighthizer's approach is stated in his letter that said "NAFTA was negotiated 25 years ago, and while our economy and business has changed considerably in that period, NAFTA has not." New provisions will be needed said Lighthizer for intellectual property rights, state owned enterprises, labor and environmental areas, with effective enforcement.  Because of the rhetoric and language used in the election campaign, it is important to note that Lighthizer has in the past negotiated favorable terms for the U.S. steel industry to prevent dumping from overseas. His style is the opposite of the president. He has stated- "I am friendly when negotiating. I am not theatrical. The art of persuasion is knowing where the leverage is." ...