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Japan's regulatory structure for the nuclear power industry is weak because of the dual role played by the regulator- Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. It regulates the nuclear power industry, and also promotes Japanese nuclear technology in Japan and overseas. The tasks are separated in the U.S. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission supervises nuclear plants in the U.S. It is independent of the Department of Energy which does research and promotes nuclear power. An earlier effort to correct this dual role arrangement in Japan failed, when an independent Nuclear Safety Commission was created under the cabinet. This body was never given the authority to inspect companies and mandate changes. A body that supports the commission has 4000 scientists and staff. It does research in nuclear technologies, but it has ended up becoming nothing more than a think tank, in the words of a former commission deputy chairman. What makes this situation worse, is the practice of amakudari, or "descent from heaven," a practice in Japan where senior Ministry officials retire young and take up positions in the private sector at companies like Tokyo Electric Power Company. In recent years most of the retired officials have taken positions in the energy sector. In fact Japan's Bar association investigated problems after a 2007 earthquake that shutdown a TEPCO nuclear plant. It recommended an independent regulator. The Democratic Party of Japan supported this idea before taking power in 2009. ...

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The profit squeeze is evident in JP Morgan's net profit margin of 2.14% in the fourth quarter, declining from 2.19% in the prior quarter. Return on assets at 0.78%, down from 0.87% in 2013. Lower interest rates hurt JP Morgan's fixed income, currency and commodities business, and this is not expected to change much in 2015. Legal expenses were $1.1 billion in pretax terms for the fourth quarter 2014.

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Faced with low eurozone inflation of annualized 0.7% in October 2013, and low growth, the ECB lowers interest rates in the eurozone by 0.25%. The risk from deflationary pressures is high in Oct 2013. Weakening the euro from $1.38 in Oct. 2013 to $1.34 following the rate cut helps increase inflation through higher price for imports and helps boost exports. This brings rates close to zero and the ECB having to resort to quantitative easing in future efforts.

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This is an adaptation in the Washington Post from the book by Neil Irwin- "The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire," published by Penguin Press in April 2013.

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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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Bret Stephens on the foreign policy debate about supporting or not supporting dictators. On the big one today of Iraq after the large gains with Maliki in Iraq it could be said that its not an easy path either way with each path fraught with dangers, but in the long run if one perseveres and again in the spirit of democracy and with the people in the region themselves and their leaders having good sense and good judgement and putting the interests of the whole region before their personal interests, given this you are always going to do better by your people and the people in the region affected, by respecting democratic ideals and principles. Pakistan is not a good example because its leaders have put their personal interests before the interests of their people but even there things are changing. Zardari's dirtier and clumsier hands are mentioned by Stephens but even here this time the opposition led by Nawas Sharif decided that its more important to respect the electoral process and democratic ideals and let Zardari run Pakistan. Administrations like the Bhuttos and Zardari's have alway been corrupt so there are no high expectations but even here the people of Pakistan will find a way to make the progress they desperately need and find the leadership that can provide it. The military muffling and jailing dissent and not respecting the independent judiciary may not affect the person on the street in Des Moines or Delaware but for people in Pakistan who have suffered under military rule this may be a different story. And in the Middle East things were not that much better with dictators in power either in Palestine and its an area where the conditional part of leadership in the region having good sense and judgement should be considered as well as history. In Iran its not between the Ayatollah and the Shah, before the Shah an elected government in Iran was overthrown when its anti western oil company stance was seen in the light of the cold war. It was the overthrow of that government that brought the Shah in. Had it continued the internal politics of Iran would have been resolved by the people there. In other words western oil interests and lobbies and the cold war distorted the process there. Without the two Iran's politics would not be of much interest to people in the USA and governments there also would have no reason to be especially friendly or especially hostile to the USA. So once one removes the distorting factors and takes out the countries which cannot be used as good example like Palestine and Iran, on the big one Iraq where the people and the leadership in the region did not fail even in very difficult situation and the US persevered, respecting democratic ideals and principles was the best course with the best results. The improved Libyan relations should not be chalked off as a point in favor of dealing with dictators. With better or worse relations with Libya it made little noticeable difference or probably no difference to the people in Des Moines or Delaware. For Iraq it makes a big difference to get it right by both peoples. Libya which had closed itself off from western technology and ideas now opens itself up because this way it can improve life for people in the region, this may be the only thing that has changed. And Stephens puts it another way its more sustainable. But why is it more sustainable to respect democratic ideals and principles given that the leadership of people in the region affected and the people themselves have good sense and judgement? Because in doing so one is respecting oneself one is more true to one's own people's idea of a good and just society and one is respecting other people....

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This editorial in the WSJ responds to Donald Trump's comments about the system being "corrupt" and "crooked" and saying there could be violence at the convention. It says the rules are transparent and long standing in Wyoming, Colorado and other states where Trump has not campaigned or sought support. It calls on the Republican National Committee not to be intimidated by Trump's statements, especially as it says the the Republican party should not nominate a candidate who has the highest negative perceptions rating of a shocking 65% with national voters in a general election. Trump never complained when he won 99 delegates in Florida with 45% of the vote and 50 delegates in South Carolina with 32% of the votes cast- securing the most delegates because of a winner take all or winner take most system. It says Trump has so far won only 37% of all votes cast and won about 45% of the delegates, a process that can be seen as disproportionately favoring Trump because of the rules. This is particularly true because Trump's core support has remained at about 35%, and the fragmentation of the remaining vote has hurt the other candidates. About 83% of eligible voters have not voted in the primaries, making the process less representative than it should be. ...

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Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, and the leader of the British Liberal Democrats party, the junior member in the coalition government in Britain, said he was "bitterly disappointed" by prime minister Cameron's decision to reject a pact for 27 EU nations to revise E.U. treaties. He told the BBC in a long interview :"This is bad for Britain." Britain is close to becoming a country "hovering in the mid-Atlantic and not being taken seriously in Europe." But he said "it would be a disaster" for the Liberal Democrats to withdraw from the coalition. Cameron's conditions for protecting Britain's financial industry were rejected by Merkel and Sarkozy.

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Lohr describes changes underway in capitalism. Capitalism not purely as economic but rooted in the communities it is in and the overall society. As government becomes a partner of business in navigating this perod of acceleration of changes, that were already underway, whats important to society as a whole is taking prominence. At the WSJ summit recently, CEO's cited obesity in America as a number one concern. Issues like climate change and pollution are taking on more weight, especially with the US playing a role in global efforts to control it. Overconsumption of energy and of resources like oil also become a concern that business works to address. The modern corporation, the salaried manager, the industrial peace with unions and management working together, were not always with us, they were a result of the problems experienced in the years between the 2 wars. And the technologies of telephone, railroads, and telegraph, and the automobile created the mobility and communications that accelerated change in societies and communities, rural and urban areas throughout the growing USA. Now another set of changes will accelerate trends already underway. And business will have a more social face with society becoming interwoven with the other things business does and coloring all aspects of what it is trying to achieve....

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This WSJ editorial says opposition to the military rule and suppression of liberties in Egypt will only grow as the Egyptian military government of Gen. Sissi cracks down on the secular liberal opposition. Meanwhile all sorts of xenophobic theories about the western influences are growing in Egypt similiar to the period under Mubarak. The editorial points out that the Muslim Brotherhood should have been voted out of office not pushed out by the military taking over in a repeat of previous decades of military rule.

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Nickel cadmium batteries - this year 2008 the European Union is banning the sale of all nickel cadmium batteries. Question is why is the US not banning them. And why are companies like Energizer, Duracell, P&G, Mattel, Toys R Us and Walmart still buying them? Why is Panasonic making them? A toy costs $1.50 less to make using nickel cadmium batteries. Are parents aware of what it does to workers making them? Are plants safe in developing countries especially in corruption prone coercive environments like the one in factories in China? Some of the owners of such factories are in Hong Kong, Hong Kong based companies, are they aware enough of the risks and the ethics of doing is? This story is of an engineer who was exposed to factory conditions in a company GP that was supposed to be a good company to work for, and few knew about the effects of cadmium in the year 1995 when she joined. The Panasonic factory is in Wuxi which is not in some remote part of China. And note this about 10% of China's arable land is contaminated with heavy metals such as cadmium according to China's own State Environmental Protection Agency, and the metals are entering China's food supply. 12 studies have shown unsafe level of cadmium in fruits and vegetables. Is this a necessary price of industrialization or is it possible to find a way thats better- a challenge for countries like India. Can there be better protection of workers and still have industrialization? Wouldn't it make sense that a motivated well treated work force will perform better in better working conditions. Aren't there costs involved for workers and owners of such plants. Owners also bear costs, bad press, medical payments, workers leave and good workers are hard to find in the wave of bad publicity and health risks, customers in the west refuse to buy the product, the company's brand name is tarnished forever, as would happen for GP in this case. The coercive patterns of using police to suppress publicity for a Hong Kong Company shows owners in Hong Kong have the same disregard for worker rights, even when living in an area that one hears talk about democratic rights. See the link to chemical spills contaminating a river in China also by a Hong Kong based company. ...

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Solyndra Inc. and what went wrong. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy in Sept. 2011, after investments of private and government capital of over a billion dollars. Of this $535 million was a loan backed by the U.S. Department of Energy, leaving taxpayers with large losses. When emails were being exchanged between Vice President Biden's advisor and OMB staffers on August 31, 2009, according to the Washington Post, Solyndra was already in trouble. OMB pleaded for more time to do due diligence and analysis of the company. A $535 million loan was approved just when the economics behind Solyndra's cylinder coated solar materials were being made obsolete by the existing technology of polysilicon cells laid out on a flat panel. At Solyndra's inception in 2005 the cylinder based technology held promise, as the polysilicon cells technology relied on polysilicon material which was costly to make. In 2009 China was investing heavily in the polysilicon technology and bringing prices down to where the material cost was coming down quickly-down as much as 80%. By the end of 2009, it cost $4.00 per watt to produce Solyndra's product, while the competing Chinese polysilicon product cost $1.00 per watt- today this is down to 75 cents for the polysilicon product. The Solyndra product was harder to manufacture and had more defective material that had to be discarded. It is in the midst of these sea changes in technology, costs, and the economics of the project, that the government pushed for and OMB approved the Solyndra loan of $535 million to build a new factory that could produce 500 megawatts. In 2010 the economics worked as it would be expected, leading to Solyndra sales of 65 megawatts. The original factory had a capacity with improvements of 100 megawatts. Solyndra lost $172 million in 2009 on revenue of $100 million. Private investors attitude to their investment changed in 2009. The Wall Street Journal quotes one investor who saw the government loan followed by an IPO as a way to exit and cash out. A press release by Solyndra in July 2009, stated the company had a contractual backlog of $2 billion, even as the economics of the Solyndra product were collapsing. Yet these orders were not firm orders but framework agreements. In Dec. 2009 the lead underwriters, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, made an initial filing for an IPO, which was cancelled by the board 6 months later when the new factory had to be closed. The private investors interests and the governments interests had already diverged by the time of the email pushing for the $535 U.S. government loan from McSweeney, Biden's domestic policy advisor, to the senior OMB staffer, cited in the Washington Post, Stephens and Leonnig, 9/14/2011. OMB and the White House staffers failed to see this and the bankruptcy outcome that seemed highly probable in August 2009, based on the economics and competitive technology and pricing. This does prove the often cited comment that the government is not good at choosing winners and losers when handing out money. It goes beond this to show the whole process of due diligence failing at agencies such as the Energy Department and the Office of Management and the Budget, where one would think technically qualified staffers could catch the problems and risks of a project that were so apparent. ...

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According to analysts about 3.1 million workers across the USA work in auto manufacturers or related businesses. And every direct job at an automaker in the USA creates 5 other jobs according to the Center for Automotive Research, 2 of the 5 are related to suppliers or dealers and three are related to jobs a businesses where industry workers spend their paychecks. About 355,000 workers are directly employed by automakers, and the USA has 783,000 who make parts for automakers or the aftermarket including repair parts, says Debbie Menk project manager for CAR. Each of those supplier jobs has its own substantial trickle down effect. Another 1.97 million workers produce the steel, rubber and other materials to make the parts, or provide engineering, distribution and other support services, bringing the total to 2.78 million employees with jobs tied to suppliers. The spinoff effects spills into stores and restaurants relying on the incomes of those workers. Menk says that there are 1.7 million people who owe their jobs to the fact that the 2.7 million have jobs, getting the figure up to 4.4 million just on the supplier side. Factoring in some overlap in the retail spinoff from each supplier and automaker job, she estimates total employment in the auto industry at a minimum of 5 million jobs. She describes CAR's figures which are based on a study from earlier this year that used 2006 data, the most recent available, as conservative. Other experts like Anderson Economic Group using 2006 data come up with a higher figure of 8.7 million jobs. The auto industry spends spends more on R&D than any other industry except the government, $18.5 billlion a year says McAlinden, chief economist for CAR, with 85% of this done in Michigan. They also spend $15 billion in advertising. So why is this not registering in the minds of leaders around the country and in the minds of the public? Its possible that most people see only the 355,000 jobs at the automakers and not realize that the 355,000 direct jobs are assembly jobs which is what the automakers do and design and R&D, but there thousands of parts that go into this assembly, and the steel, rubber and aluminium that goes into the metal. And then there are the jobs to feed, clothe, and provide services to these workers. And its possible the arrogance and mismanagement at Detroit automakers, and failure to come up with innovative fuel efficient technologies at a time when the country was sending hundreds of billlions of dollars to the volatile middle east, and failure to come up with really appealing passenger cars, have soured the public mind and image of the Detroit automakers. Resulting in a public perception that the Japanese, Korean and other automakers could pickup where Detroit failed. In the process what is being missed is that the Detroit portion of the USA auto industry is a very significant part of the jobs and economy of certain states, and a big part of the economy of the midwestern states. And as CAR mentions most people do not realize that in the financial services industry one Wall Street job creates only 2.5 jobs elsewhere including spinoff jobs. Only high-tech comes close with 4 jobs including spinoffs for every direct job in Silicon Valley. ...