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This podcast in WSJ tells the amazing story of the development of a vaccine for malaria by a British scientist that took forty years. In a world of short run startups this tells the story of medical and indirectly other research include research on renewable energy to tackle climate change that takes years to develop and makes a lasting change in our lives. This is also true of the mRNA vaccine developed by two German scientists of Turkish descent who developed the Pfizer vaccine. The Novavax vaccine in the US also has a story of resilience in the face of many challenges. Mr Scholz of the SDP, currently vice chancellor of Germany and winner of the German election said recently he wanted to expose the myth that was created of the self-made man that has penetrated our culture over the last 2 decades. One cannot even conceive of self made people at a time when the whole world depends on vaccines developed such as mRNA vaccine by these 2 German scientists at university labs that are the first line of defense against the coronavirus. Both scientists took only half a day off when they got married. Both are children of immigrants to Germany from Turkey. They both cycle to work. Mr. Shin says "I don't have a car. I am not going to get a plane. What's life changing is to be able to impact something in the medical field." The electric batteries used in today's electric cars use technology developed by a Japanese scientist and professor who also worked at Toshiba in the face of many challenges. ...

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U.S. electronic retailer Best Buy company founder Richard Schulze, its CEO for 36 years till 2002, and its current chairman, resigned on May 6, 2012. He will look at options for his 20.1% stake in the company. Hatim Tyabji, takes over as chairman, he previously headed the Audit committee, and was a director since 1998. An internal probe recently found that Schulze failed to notify the board about an improper relationship CEO Dunn had with an employee. CEO Dunn resigned earlier.

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A House budget bill passed in Texas would cut an already lean budget- because of years of prudent fiscal policies- by $23 billion from the current level of state and federal spending over the next 2 year budget cycle. This is a reduction of 12.3%. The budget makes large cuts in public education, healthcare for the poor, highways, prisons and state parks. It takes away full day preschool, cuts teacher incentive pay, and reduces scholarships for college students by two-thirds.

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A new CEO, Takahiro Hachigo, takes over at Honda Motor in Feb. 2015, following quality issues and problems with the faulty Takata airbags. Hachigo is a younger engineer who was managing officer for China. Executives with more experience were bypassed in the selection. This follows Toyota's selection of Akio Toyoda, a younger executive with international experience as CEO, and his successful track record in handling the Toyota recalls for unintended acceleration. This may have persuaded Honda to go with an unconventional choice.

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Pravin ordhan who won confidence as head of the tax authority takes over Trevor Manuel's post of Finance Ministera, and Trevor is kept in an important position in strategic planning. THe communist party and unions get the Education and Economic Development ministries, but otherwise Zuma indicates a preference for continuity in South African financial and economic affairs. With one third of potential workers are without jobs according to the government so there is considerable pressure for improving these measures of development.

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Names like Michel Flournoy, Susan Rice, James Steinberg, at the think tank Center for a New American Security, a think tank setup by Flournoy and Kurt Campbell a former Clinton National Security Council and Pentagon official. Its positions itself between Republican and Democratic positions for some kind of middle ground. Will it bring the new or fresh thinking and imaginative ideas as Obama has raised hopes for, if all it does is takes the old Clinton officials positions and refashions them.

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Roosevelt say experts was a great crisis manager but not great when it comes to policies to create jobs. His achievements were stabilizing the banking system with deposit insurance, government investment in banks, and restrictions on banking practices, creation of the SEC, and fireside chats that steadied the national mood. Unemployment when he took office in 1933 was 25% from 3% in 1929, and industrial production had dropped 40% since 1929. So FDR took office when a lot of the damage had already been done, compared to that Obama takes office earlier in this downturn. And Roosevelt did not fully grasp John Maynard Keynes's advice when he visited the White House in 1934. Keynes complained to Labor Secretary Ms. Perkins that he had thought the President was more literate economically speaking, while the President felt Keynes had a rigmarole of figures he did not understand. Roosevelt said of Keynes: "He must be a mathematician rather than a political economist." It took some time for government spending to take hold. Throughout the 1930's government spending remained around 20% as a share of the economy. Today its 35%. And the average unemployment stayed at stubborn 17% on average for the decade of the 1930's. It was not till the 1940's that things changed. Total government spending as a share of the economy reached 52% in 1942 with the onset of the war, and peaked at 70% in 1944 when the unemployment rate dropped to 1%. One lesson experts say is that its easier to stem unemployment and job losses by action earlier in the downward spiral through vigorous action by government. In retrospect because industrial production fell by 40% during the 1930's experts say Roosevelt was actually timid in his response. U.S. Fed chairman Bernanke is a student of this period and draws a similiar lesson from that period for vigorous action early in the crisis....

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Matina Stevis provides this exceptional account of 3 Greek leaders who fought hard for reforms to put Greece in the right direction for euro currency membership responsibilities, and lost. They tell Stevis they were savagely attacked in the media, by labor unions, and in their own party, so that the fight came at a high personal cost. The 3 politicians now mentioned inside Greece as having done the most to ensure euro currency responsibilities were taken seriously are- Alekos Papadopoulos, who as finance minister fought with Pasok party premier Simitis in 2002 about the dangers of cheap credit coming with the euro currency, Tassos Giannitsis who as labor minister was driven out of Pasok for proposing pension reforms in 2001, and Stefanos Manos who was driven out of New Democracy Party in 1998 after warning of risks in the economy from wasteful spending, including mismanagement of railways, and proposing changes. As Greece commits to a new program under the Syriza left government as a matter of "national responsibility," with reforms to pensions, fixing tax evasion to ensure the tax burden is evenly distributed, reduced military spending, and changes in other areas, the questions in the EU about Greece are about the degree of commitment to changes. In an intervew with WSJ's Bret Stephens Tsipras is candid about the situation when he says the country on its current course would build up the debt all over again, if the debt were to be written off. Problems Tsipras cited in that interview- bribery in health care, tax evasion, burden of taxes on the middle class and honest citizens, large inefficient bureaucracy. Yet 2 years after that intervew in the WSJ, Jan. 28, 2013, Tsipras headed a Syriza government that had no proposals on tackling tax evasion, aggravating the problem of moral hazard seen by the Europeans and the IMF under Lagarde. Stefanos Manos writes in the foreword to his book that its incomprehensible how the public good is ignored by so many people who seek only individual gain. ...

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Two law school professors at Fordham University, Kysar and Sugin, say the Republican tax bill is extreme because it was not based on working with Democrats. As a result not a single Democrat supported this tax legislation. The problem- when the Republicans lose their majority in Congress- a serious possibility after the loss in a Senate race in deep red state Alabama- the whole issue of tax legislation would come up again. This is not without precedent as the Democrats won the presidential election in 2008 and Republicans made a sweeping victory in Congress in 2010.This is why Senators Casey and Wyden (Democrats) and Orrin Hatch (Republican) head of the Finance Committee stated on the floor of the Senate on Dec. 19, 2017, that the next time and in future both parties need to engage in real discussion on taxes. The lack of serious discussion on the health care bill passed by Obama in 2008 has created some of the same problems today that this tax bill passed in a similar way without discussion with the other party is likely to face by 2019. No one needs to look further to realize that the political system is failing in its job of grappling and solving the nation's problems. Kysar and Sugin say this bill is like the 1981 tax cuts skewed towards high income Americans which failed to generate economic growth as intended an led to a swift reversal with tax increases in 1982 and years that followed in 1983, 1984. President Obama failed to address tax reform after appointing the Bowles Commission and not taking up its recommendations to reduce deductions. Another effort at changing the system was made without serious debate, a kind of Republican response to the way Democrats passed the Affordable Care healthcare bill in 2008. Real changes to update the tax laws may be put off till both parties can wrap their hands around the problem together. ...

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Parmeswaran Iyer headed two of prime minister Modi's favorite projects, one for ODI free India through the Swachh Bharat Clean India Mission, and second the Jal Jeeven Drinking Water for All mission. In both he has performed admirably. He is an IAS officer from 1981 from Uttar Pradesh batch and worked with the World Bank water initiatives from 2009 when Modi brought him back to India for Swacch Bharat Mission. Har Ghar Jal to bring water by tap to every family in India is an exceptional achievement of Modi and Iyer.  This report in Hindustan Times shows how hands on Iyer is, as it says Iyer cleaned a toilet pit during one visit to Telengana state in 2017. The behavioural transformation India experienced under people like Modi and Iyer takes India back to the days of the Gandhi Ashram on the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad. Gandhi's activity there including a form of Swachh Bharat Mission in its pioneering days in the 1920's setting the form of activity that was not forgotten and brought back by Modi and Iyer one hundred years later. This has touched the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians today in the way Gandhi's ideas touched the lives of hundreds of millions in the 1920's, bringing dignity and grace to the faces of 1.4 billion people and providing an example for the extended neighborhood to Indonesia for close to 2 billion people. ...

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This report in WSJ takes a detailed look at how the shift to digital payments, and digital badges for covid free designation on smartphones are affecting a part of the population of 60+ years that is notinternet or smartphone savy.  60+ years make up only 10% of the users of internet on age based graph, even though they are a large part of China's rapidly aging population, estimated to be closer to 20% of the population or about 250 million. Elderly people in China are having a hard time with scanning of health codes to access transport and other services. To tackle the covid pandemic China has health codes assigned to citizens which link user national ID and Covid status. These need to be scanned in for access to train and transport facilities and other services, color coded digital badges on smartphones that show one is covid free.  Most elderly cannot handle these smartphone tasks because they lack the skills of young people with smartphones or lack the digital payments having used cash all their life. Other problems are poor eyesight, health problems, but the most severe is a big skills handicap in downloading apps, in typing quickly, and in navigating the internet. The government is taking steps to provide relief for the elderly by prohibiting places of services from refusing to accept cash, and finding ways to make the health codes system work for seniors. ...

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The failure of three layers of quality checks Boeing are shown here in the WSJ video after failure events on airline flights. Two CEO's step down. What is the real problem? It is that the company is run by executives trained in finance and accounting and have too little of a background in the workplace where the manufacturing and assembly components is taking place or grasp of what it takes to turn out quality products by workers on the line. The basic approach is flawed because it is not quality checks that build in quality into a product but the workers on the assembly line who have to be trained and the investment made in quality processes to turn out a quality product. This has long been a focus in the earlier days of America's industrial revolution till the focus shifted to finance in the US and the focus on manufacturing shifted to Asia, to Japan, China and now India. It will take a complete shift in America's company leadership to hands on CEO's who are with and understand the workers on America's assembly lines, who can live some days and nights with workers on the production line to see and feel the problems first hand. This will take a decade, and for America as Jake Sullivan said at Brookings for president Biden and his team- this is a fight we must, and we will achieve. ...

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The devaluation of the Argentine peso from 9.8 to the dollar to 13 to the dollar in Dec. 2015 by president Macri is leading to higher inflation hurting the working class. The cutting of export taxes is helping farmers. Removing most currency controls is designed to help increase foreign investment by letting foreign companies freely repatriate profits. Also expected to be removed are bureaucratic procedures that limit imports of new equipment for manufacturers. Middle class voters see the moves helping the economy in the long run with new foreign investment and changing the outlook for investment. A former central bank president Mario Blejer points out that after 12 years of the previous Kirchner administration Argentina needs investment- by improving the outlook for investment and removing import controls the government plans to stimulate investment to lead to economic growth. Inflation is up 25% and Macri is keeping Mrs. Kirchner's price control programs in place to prevent a surge in inflation beyond the impact of the devaluation. ...

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On the surface Turkey's implementation of an IMF program to reduce its deficit in 2001 has lessons for Greece, but looked at closely the situation has some serious differences. Turkish tax collection was weak and this was corrected by the incoming Erdogan administration, salaries were capped and spending was reduced, taxes raised and state assets sold to improve the deficit. But as Tim Ash an economist at RBS bank points out, achieving GDP growth will be very difficult for Greece. For one thing Turkey's lira fell 54% against the dollar in 2001, spurring exports and increasing growth. Greece is part of the euro currency system and this won't be part of the solution. Also Turkey's debt approached 80% of GDP in 2001 (down to 46% of GDP now), compared to 115% for Greece in 2010, so Greece is in a much worse position than Turkey in 2001. Ash sees a restructuring of debt as the best way to restore growth in Greece.

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This Washington Post editorial says Obama and the politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, want something for nothing. The Ryan budget, Obama's health care plan, all require paying for it with higher taxes, but the mention of the word "tax" is the last word any of the politicians will say. These comments come as the U.S. Supreme Court considers the mandate that young Americans and others be forced to pay for health care along with the rest, as required by the health care mandate, with the idea of keeping costs down. The idea of getting something for nothing was also emphasized in an op-ed in the WSJ, March 29, 2012, by Mayor Bloomberg of New York City, where he called for letting the Bush tax cuts expire for all income groups, and an up or down vote in Congress on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction plan, as part of a two step plan.

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Italy will get 6 billion euros in savings from lower interest rate charges on its debt as a result of lower borrowing costs in capital markets. Italy's borrowing costs were at record low of 2.08% for debt issued in 2013. The new budget fails to provide relief in payroll taxes that would help reduce high youth unemployment. A payroll tax cut will increase take home pay of lower income workers by about 15 euros a month. Carlo Cottarelli, IMF expert, has the task of doing a spending review to cut 32 billion euros in public spending within 3 years. The Letta administration is looking at which tax credits to eliminate. These tax breaks range from aftershool sports programs and veterinary costs and amount to 130 billion euros a year. Automatic measures to reduce spending are part of recent Italian legislation and act to keep spending down. limits in the event the political system fails to produce agreement.

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Under Blackstone private equity ownership Hilton expanded overseas, acquired the international operations, and increased room capacity and revenues. It also almost doubled the debt load to about $13.5 billion in 2013 and hit a rough patch in timing because the 2007 buyout happened close to the 2008-2009 financial crisis. About $4 billion of the debt load has been reduced by negotiating with creditors during this period. Room capacity went up from 501,000 in 2006 to 665,000 in 2013, occupancy from 72.5% to 72.3%, average daily rate from $124 to $136, and revenue from $8.2 billion to $9.4 billion. Hilton adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation were up 25% from 2010 to nearly $2 billion in 2012, according to SEC filings. Hilton now plans an IPO for the first half of 2014 to raise $1.25 to $2 billion. About 80% of rooms under construction are outside the U.S. showing the opportunities overseas Blackstone has focussed on.

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"This year something has happened in Labour. The hope of a Labour victory has turned into a belief." Keir Starmer UK's Labour party leader says being dull does not bother him. One of the big differences with the UK Conservatives is now on display says Starmer on windfall profits of fossil fuel companies to be taxed in the call by Labour. "One of those big differences is between a Labour party that wants the fossil fuel giants to contribute more of their windfall profits to pay for the energy price freeze, and a Conservative government that would not countenance this." See Starmer's big plans for renewable energy announced today, on this page.

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Israel's military chief told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz he did not think the Iranians will go the last mile and build a nuclear bomb. This takes some of the hysteria and escalation out of the crisis. The chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, said: "I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people." He said about Ayatollah Khamanei- "I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don't think he will want to go the extra mile."

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Fred Hassan describes his approach to managing from his years at Sandoz, and Schering-Plough. He describes "passive-aggressives," as a category of people at meetings about change who are the ones most likely to scuttle any efforts to make changes. This group tends to provide what appears to be passive support but are keen on blocking the effort at every opportunity. Hassan takes a hands on approach. He was head of Sandoz in Pakistan, where he improved performance before heading the European operations of Sandoz.

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How Marchionne made the turnaround at Fiat. It takes a crisis to get something done, but you also need a leader who can make things happen. Marchionne turned out to have a direct approach to Fiat's problems, not shirking away from anything he needed to get done. But how he was able to get workers and the younger managers to team up in a new culture of openness and directness to get things done shows that he brought some rare qualities of leadership and persuasion.

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Unbranded drug advertising is becoming popular as it takes advantage of a loophole in the FDA rules, that if an ad doesn't directly name the drug, it doesn't have to include areading of the possible side effects. Pfizer used this method in an ad for antismoking drug Chantix during NBC's coverage of the Beijing Olympics. The 60 second commercial instead of naming the drug says go to site Mytimetoqyit.com to find ways to kick ahabit a woman is shown to have on the tV screen.

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Germany is the world's leading exporter, with export of goods generating 41% of GDP, twice the rate in the UK and Japan and 5 times that of the US according to the OECD. With the global slowdown the German government now expects GDP to grow only 0.2% in 2009. And exports are expected to decline in 2009 with a worsening economic situation in most countries. Slowdown in the EU which takes in two thirds of the exports and in the USA will affect these exports.

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ProPublica Report that shows taxes paid by Warren Buffett of Berkshire, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg, Soros of financial business, and Elon Musk of Tesla. This report put out by Americans for Tax Fairness shows tax rates of a group of 25 such business persons at 3.4% on wealth growth between 2014-2018 of $401 billion. This is not to say that Democrats or Republicans can be elected to solve this, which is basically a problem not of fairness but of how it enables underfunding of America's basic infrastructure of health, education, transportation, and public services such as parks, clean air, and renewable energy, energy grids, water supplies, heating infrastructure, on and on on the list. Why because the difference between a modern industrial base country and a backward, lack of industrial base country is just this list. When the companies also unfund maufacturing in the US as Apple does by making almost  all products overseas it means lossof manufacturing knowhow and loss of leadership of the free world which simply means chaos without America's leadership based on its founder's values.   ...