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Mead points out that the world with an effective U.S. leadership based on democracy and the values we cherish is needed now more than ever, after the failures of the Bush and Obama administrations to provide the kind of balanced leadership all Americans can stand behind. A world without an effective and enlightened leadership from the U.S, is one in which the world could fall apart in regional rivalry, one in which the hundreds of millions of people in the poorer parts of India, China, Russia, Brazil, and other developing countries of the world, will have less opportunity to meet their aspirations for a better life. This is because a focus on development requires less regional rivalry and because serious missteps can reverse in a few years decades of economic progress as shown in the 2008 global financial crisis. More so because we live in an increasingly interdependent global economy. It is also the kind of world where suppression of freedoms and suppression of the opposition as in China and Russia, provides a wrong kind of message, a world in which we or our children would not want to live in. Russia, India and China, are too driven by rivalry and lack the deep experience to go it alone, multipolar is more likely to end up being multipolar rivalry leading to a race to the bottom, which would be bad for all, especially for the poor in Asia and the developing world. The 2008 crisis showed what some serious economic mistakes could do to employment and incomes in the world with output dropping by a third in most places. Political missteps could lead to a slippery slope of this magnitude but more difficult to correct. Greater participation in the political process and more enlightened leadership is needed in all countries to allow many voices and greater interaction across boundaries, focussing on the dangers of such multipolar rivalries. The world of the G-7 is already moving to the G-20 where many voices are heard and serious discussion of differences takes place, but participatory is different from multipolar....

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China surpassed Germany as the world's No. 1 exporter in the first 10 months of 2009, with $957 billion in exports compared to Germany's $917 billion, according to customs data compiled by Global Trade Information Services, a Geneva based firm. With the global financial crisis China's exports fell 20.4% in the first 10 months of 2009 compared to 27.4% for Germany and 21% for the USA. Global consumer spending has fallen more than the capital goods and machinery exported by Germany. Yet these numbers suggest that there has been no significant change to the export models of the two countries even after the global economc crisis revealed cracks in the export model.

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Biden's address to Congress after three years of the pandemic marks a turning point for America like Lincoln in 1962 and FDR in 1933. As Biden surveys the damage done to the country not just by Covid loss of 1 million lives, he sees the closing of factories and abandoning of communities that depended on them all over America, abandoned by administrations of either party. Which has led to a loss of faith in the fairness of the system and of democracy itself.  "And two years ago democracy faced its greatest threat since the Civil War. And today though bruised, it remains unbowed and unbroken. . . That's always been my vision for this country, and I know its many of yours. To restore the soul of this nation. To rebuild the backbone of America, America's middle class." Biden sees a complete rebuilding of America to bring back manufacturing, restore American leadership in manufacturing. And invest three hundred billion dollars for the effort that will create jobs and new opportunities.  "For decades, the middle class has been hollowing out, and more than- and no one administration, but for a long time. Too many good paying manufacturing jobs moved overseas. Factories closed down. Once thriving cities and towns that many of you represent became shadows of what they used to be. And along the way, something else we lost. Pride, our sense of self-worth. I ran for president to fundamentally change things, to make sure our economy works for everyone so we can all feel that pride in what we do. To build an economy from the bottom up, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up, and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well." "Folks I've been criticized for saying this, but I am not changing my view. We're going to make sure the supply chain for America begins in America. The supply chain begins in America." "And when we do these projects- and again I get criticized for it but I am making no excuses for it- we're going to buy American. We're going to buy American. Folks, and it's totally consistent with international trade rules. Buy American has been the rule since 1933. But for too long, past administrations, Democratic and Republican, have fought to get around it. Not anymore. . . Folks my economic plan is about investing in places and people that have been forgotten. So many of you listening to me tonight, I know you feel it. So many of you felt simply that you've been forgotten. Amid the economic upheaval of the last four decades, too many people have been left behind and treated like they're invisible."   ...

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Mismanagement of the rail network and lax oversight by the Greek government leads to a train disaster.Trains on Athens Thessaloniki route are on manual mode signalling. This leads to the collision of a freight train with a passenger train which was mistakenly put on the same rail line by a station master. Many of the 342 train passengers were students returning home. Automatic signalling has not been installed in Greece for Athens to Thessaloniki even though equipment was brought in for the 2004 Olympics, and concerns were raised with the government about the risks, say trade unionists in this report in The Times.

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Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winning economist points out an astonishing fact about the 2016 U.S. presidential election- U.S. television networks nightly news devoted only 32 minutes in 2016 to all policy issues combined. And these networks devoted 100 minutes to Clinton emails. He calls this "disgraceful."  For weeks at a time in September and October the main television networks lacked the integrity and courage to ask questions and persist on the major questions facing the country of the economy, correcting income distribution that has been skewed away from the middle and working class, infrastructure rebuilding, education and healthcare, and what the policy proposals of each candidate would do for the country. Krugman does not mention this but the media devoted hardly any time to the economic plan devised by Trump that respected economists and economic analysis showed would increase the deficit by $5.3 trillion, and lead to a short term temporary increase in growth followed by a sharp decline. The worst thing that could happen to middle and working class families struggling to recover from the blow to their finances from the last recession.  The cyber hacking of a U.S. presidential election by a foreign power never received the unanimous rejection that it deserved from the television networks, not just Fox News as Krugman points out, but by all the networks. The future landscape of the media needs assessment to bring in new ideas and new entrants to bring constructive improvements, and for older media organizations to rebuild after the loss of confidence among young people. Only about a quarter of young people in the U.S. have confidence in the large media organizations news coverage according to surveys done recently. There are other pressures coming from the tech world that make it imperative to do this. Many experts point to the destructive effect of social media in spreading rumors or information disguised as facts, which are spread instantly by Twitter and Facebook, without any obligation to check the facts. This is also dangerous with a public that is now divided between better educated and less educated along political lines, older more settled in their views people, and younger people quicker in looking for the facts and checking things out before believing them. ...

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Jon Gertner makes several critical points about the importance of supporting and investing in manufacturing. The U.S. private sector in new industries such as alternative energy, and electric cars is competing not just with the private sector in Germany, S. Korea or Japan. It is competing with the governments of these countries which are investing heavily to build innovation and jobs in their home countries. Innovation, design and manufacturing are woven together in these new industries in a manner that is different from the iPhone/ iPad/ Search algorithms /Facebook software type industries dominated by names such as Apple, Google and Facebook. The software industries are the opposite of jobs intensive industries with Facebook having 2000 employees and Google having 29,000 employees. By comparison the lithium battery industry could generate over 62,000 jobs in the next 10 years, and the electric car industry as a whole with its supplier networks could generate much larger numbers of jobs. Because of the advanced technology involved these are good well paying jobs. The finance industry in the U.S. is attracted to the quick returns in the software related fields, leaving a gap for the American government to fill a role nurturing these industries. This would be similiar to the manner that the German and Japanese governments do working with their own private sector. The private sector in the U.S. needs only the early nurturing and can operate on its own by innovating its way to competitiveness in manufacturing and cost after the early years. Because of missteps in failing to support manufacturing in the U.S., the U.S. may have to import some of the technology from countries such as Japan and S.Korea to make up for these missteps. This is happening in the lithium ion battery manufacturing technology and facilities, which experts say is being successfully imported from these countries to the U.S.. The Obama administration has provided $2.5 billion dollars from the stimulus investments to support projects of 30 companies operating in the advanced battery technology field. This includes companies such as A123 Systems and LG Chem Power in Michigan. As a result of these efforts the Department of Energy estimates that by 2015 the U.S. will have the capacity to manufacture 40% of the world production of lithium batteries for the autombile industry. In 2009 the U.S. had capacity to manufacture 2% of the batteries....

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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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In just 7 months the Trump administration has a falling apart with business leaders and union leaders on the days following the Charlottesville car attack. Here Richard Trumka gives his reasons in the NYT for withdrawing from the president's Manufacturing Council. He says Trump presented big idea such as infrastructure and fair trade deals but he is not likely to live up to his promises. Only tweaks are expected on NAFTA says Trumka, and labor rights are taking a hit under president Trump. The AFL-CIO was not called to a single meeting by president Trump, says Trumka. He now sees the Trump administration in the same way as other political leaders- filled with broken promises. In the case of the Trump administration he sees working families ending up much worse off. Trumka says a University of Pennsylvania study shows even if a plan for infrastructure comes up the president's budget proposal would sink it- leading to a net loss of $55 billion for highway, water facilities and public transit. Trumka points out the damage to the social safety net as a matter of serious concern- cutting $1.5 trillion from Medicaid, $59 billion from Medicare, $64 billion from Social Security over 10 years. With cuts to construction workers wages, and a 6% cut for government workers. He calls as "morally bankrupt" and bad economic actions the effort for large scale deportation.  He calls the events in Charlottesville and the president's condoning of the violence in Charlottesville by blaming both sides, the last straw for his union. Separately business leaders resigned from two advisory groups. Chase CEO Dimon pointed out that for economic progress the basic consensus in the country must be preserved, and divisive rhetoric can lead to the unraveling of economic progress- the vital link between society, politics and the economy in line with America's ideals being evident to the business community, as well as to labor. ...

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Angela Merkel said that contact tracing was "above all else" in importance in tracking down infection chains. Apps would not work in Germany because tracking movements and recording information is a sensitive subject in Germany with its history of communism and fascism. Germany still did it but very early on adopted a low tech way that so far is working. Staff from provincial administrations have shifted to do contact tracing work as other work is slow or suspended. Volunteers also have taken up the work. Germany's goal is 5 contact tracers for every 25,000 people- or about 16,000 for a population of 83 million. All the contact tracers have is the phone and a central database of information on the desktop computer as shown here in this report in the Washington Post. There is no advanced technology or software.  Most important say experts is social skills - to talk to people in a way that makes them feel comfortable to share information about how they are and their contacts in a very informal friendly setting, that even includes some humor. Here a contact tracer in Reinikendorf describes the work she is doing and a typical day. There are about 75 contact tracers for 260,0000 people in her area. When she calls someone she notes down what contacts they have had and puts them in Category 1,  2 , or 3 depending on the need for quarantine. The calling is mainly about asking the contact about his or her movements. A contact for more than 15 minutes is Category 1, less than 15 minutes Category 2. The whole conversation is for 10 minutes. Then someone from the health department will call the person contacted everyday. Reickendorf began building up contact tracing in March after an outbreak in a kindergarten was too much for the usual number of health officials to handle. The German trace and quarantine approach, home grown, low tech,  and based on what resources are available, the most important thing being start immediately, has its flaws. Yet it has worked to limit infections and deaths.  In about 65% of cases health authorites have no idea how a person was infected. Asymptomatic carriers are not detected. In some area the resources are limited.  This effort has helped control the virus first cluster in Bavaria at a car part manufacturer. Sixteen people had tested positive and hundreds were quarantined. The German approach is that testing is fine but if you are in quarantine testing is not going to make a difference in spreading. Testing with a negative result is also not helping as it could be that its too early for the infection to register because of the incubation period. ...

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The Pamban bridge connecting Rameswaram island to the mainland at Mandapam is India's first sea bridge and the longest sea bridge in India till 2010. It was built by the British in 1914 to increase trade with Ceylon. From Dhanushkodi which is connected by rail line to Madras Egmore a ferry can be taken across the sea to Talaimannar on the Ceylon side, with a rail connection to Colombo. India is now building a new rail bridge as it closes a century old Pamban bridge which has suffered from severe corrosion.

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The settlement price of wheat per bushel (60 pounds) is $6.13  August 18 at Chicago Board of Trade compared to $7.58 at the start of 2022 before the Ukraine war started. Russia's bumper crop and its ability to continue exporting is one reason. Higher commodity prices also mean producers plant more. This is good news for the cost of living not just in poor countries but also in the US and Europe. Peter Coy looks at the dynamics of wheat pricing and production.

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The European Union has a massive surplus of $147 billion with the U.S. President Trump is making this an issue in trade negotiations. A 20% tariff on German cars imported into the U.S. is part of the tariff response from the Trump administration. 

To settle this dispute Germany is making new offers with the visit of European Commission president, Jean Claude Juncker, to Washington. France sees little room for compromise as it sees Trump's efforts designed to break European unity by driving a wedge between France and Germany.

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Andy Grove makes this passionate plea for the dignity of workers in America in 2010. It is worth reading in 2020 what this founder of Intel Corp and pioneering spirit of Silicon Valley has to say. Andy Grove of Intel says there is something seriously wrong when the unemployment rate in the Bay Area is higher than the 9.7% national average for the USA. American companies have added jobs like crazy in Asia, but things are sputtering back home. Hon Hai has 800,000 employees and makes most of the electronic and computer products for American companies. Grove says startups are not the answer, unless they scale up and create jobs the way Intel did starting back in 1968, with a $3 million capital infusion by investors. The move from the first production model to mass production is critical, as companies hire thousands of people. Innovation and scaling up have to go together. He makes his point clearly by pointing out that Apple has 25,000 employees. For every Apple employee there are 10 employees in China working on Apple iMacs, iPods, iPhones. And he adds that the same 10 to 1 relationship applies to other U.S. tech companies. And here Grove asks the tough question by first posing an answer. He says it sounds like- no big deal, we keep the high paying jobs, we keep most of the profits, but what kind of society are we going to have with highly paid professional workers and lots of people unemployed? And he doesn't mention that there are a lot more young people unemployed. He says the US has become very inefficient at creating tech jobs, and it would be a great mistake not to act decisively early on. And adds that the investments in such areas as solar power and electric car batteries have to be made early on to maintain leadership in these areas. Grove faults academics like Alan Blinder and others who say loss of manufacturing jobs and whole industries was no big deal. The U.S. has forgotten the value of manufacturing jobs. He wants to see America focus on jobs and rebuild its industrial base. And less of transferring engineering knowhow and new technologies overseas, technology that can help bring innovation and scaling up of factories at home. In his view individual companies doing their own thing, in a misguided fashion that jobs don't matter, is not the answer to the situation we face. The industrial economies of Asia, China at the present day, have focussed on jobs and technology, and scaled up. Grove reminds readers of the situation in America in 1932, when jobless veterans demonstrating outside the White House in large numbers were dispersed by soldiers with live ammunition and fixed bayonets. This makes him shudder at the very thought of it, and brings back memories of his early years in Hungary, as a young man in 1956. Are we listening? ...

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In this interview with Der Spiegel Bernie Sanders reflects on the 2016 election. He says that the Democratic Party missed the fact that many people in the midwest, south and other parts of the country, were worse off after president Obama left than when he came in in 2008. He also says Hillary Clinton relied too heavily on speechwriters and advisers upto the point of  having three speechwriters say why she was running for president. He finds the cuts proposed to healthcare, in the budget, and action on climate change, immoral. He also points out about the investigations that Mr. Mueller is someone everybody respects and that it would be wrong to offer a biased opinion, that Trump supporters would see this in the way that he is picked on when he just came in. He also believes Trump supporters are like other voters and are likely to look at the results, how better off they are under the Trump administration.

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The BBC's security correspondent looks at the cyber espionage being conducted from Russia during the U.S. presidential election. The U.S. director of national intelligence has pointed to the Russian government as the source of hacking into U.S. databases. U.S. intelligence officials say this is intended to interfere with the U.S. election process in some way. It follows hacking into the DNC database of the Democratic Party.

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Rolf Wetzer, a German metal working factory manager reflects feelings widespread in Germany. He says, we work hard and save our money, and he can't see why Germans have to throw money at countries that cannot do the same. There is considerable negative feeling about the bailout of Greece, because it is seen as brought about by the excessive spending, public corruption, and irresponsible accounting that went on in Greece. There is less negative feeling about the bailout of Ireland, as the Irish are seen as an industrious people, and the crisis was brought upon Ireland by Irish banks. Because of the negative feeling it will be much harder for Angela Merkel to go back to the German parliament for more funds, especially as her popularity has suffered. The existing fund will be stretched by the possible bailout of Portugal and Spain. Germany remains committed to the euro, but there is considerable anger about the bailouts. Germany has benefitted from the euro-zone through its exports, which jumped 31% in the last decade. Germany has a $105 billion trade surplus with the rest of Europe. At the same time there is fear that public opinion may turn against the euro. Thomas Mayer, chief economist at Deutsche Bank, says you can already feel it. Frank Schaeffer, a legislator for the Free Democrats, says that whether Germany needs the same currency as its neighbors is something he has doubts about....

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The Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers meet i Sao Paulo, Brazil. On the side the BRIC countries finance minsters hold their first meeting. Brazilian President Da Silva calls for greater say for the BRIC countries and for countries like Argentina, Mexico, South Africa, Nigeria, S. Korea and other large developing country economies in shaping the new global financial architecture. There is extreme frustration in Brazil that all their efforts to build a better life for millions of Brazilians may come to nought, and the first real sustained growth in decades that came to Brazil may now be cut short abruptly with huge cost to millions or rural and urban poor, a fate shared by all the BRIC and other developing countries. Wall Street source of the crisis remains closed to the BRIC and developing countries in the sense that what goes on there is determinied by insiders from the G7 countries, but the severe consequences of a fallout in Wall Street on trade and credit hit these countries just when there was hope for millions to live a better life. Just as when the Asian crisis and other crises hit in the last two decades there is a lot of talk about global financial architecture with Treasury's Rubin then and IMF's Kahn and World Bank's Zoellick now making statements, but no clue except to accept the need for getting the large developing countries of the G20 to the table for concerted action. ...

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The size of the stimulus package announced at 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) involves only 1 trillion yuan in new spending according to analysts, the larger number was announced to bolster consumer and company sentiment. Export order are falling quickly from 27% increase in 2007 over 2006, to 21% increase in Sept 2008, to 19% increase in October 2008. over same month prior year. But imports are falling more quickly which is not good news for European exporters like Germany and for American exporters except for infrastructure exporters, and for commodities exporters like Brazil, Australia and Canada. In October imports slowed from 21% in September to 15% in October, which actually increased China's trade surplus from $29 billion in September to $35 billion in October. Exports of iron ore from Australia and Brazil are down and machinery from Germany. For China's urban middle class and rural poor the one relief is in inflation for fuel and food, the consumer price index rose 4% in October compared to 4.6% in September and down from a peak of 8.7% in February 2008. The spending will come in infrastructure including railways. Railways construction spending will be increased from 300 billion yuan in 2008 to 350 billion yuan and double to 600 billion yuan in 2009. This is expected to create 80,000 new jobs to replace jobs lost in the toys and furniture export sectors and other job losses. ...

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Kerala state of 35 million people who speak the language Malayalam, is one of the rare places today that has only 4 deaths from coronavirus, 524 cases confirmed and no community transmission. Here the Guardian looks at the reasons why. The Health minister KK Shailaja started very early on January 23, with a meeting of her rapid response team when the virus was still in China.  She setup a control room and instructed Kerala's 14 districts to do this on Jan. 24. When the first case arrived on Jan. 27 on a plane from Wuhan, Kerala had already adopted the WHO  protocol of test, trace, isolate and support. These passengers were checked for temperature, tested and quarantined. With some at a nearby hospital and others in home isolation. This is all the more amazing considering that Kerala is a state in southern India on the west coast that has a large number of people living and working overseas. Many are in the Gulf countries and the arrival of these refugees could have triggered a second outbreak. This was prevented by careful testing, and contact tracing of clusters.  When one group was evasive and concealed information from an airport surveillance team -arriving from Venice, Italy,  in late Feb- a case was detected back to them.  Contact tracers tracked down all of the hundreds whom they had been in contact with and quarantined them.  By 23 March all flights to 4 Kerala airports from overseas were stopped, including Cochin and Trivandrum. On March 25 India went into lockdown.  Some of the achievements in Kerala include quarantining 170,000 people early. with strict surveillance, which is now down to 21,000. Accomodating and feeding 150,000 migrant workers from other states, before returning them on charter trains to their home areas. A big reason for the success is the high literacy rate in the state. A big emphasis on education and healthcare is a part of the Kerala model. Shailaja is a secondary school teacher, and Health minister. From the days since independence of India in 1947 the state has a strong socialist tradition of taking care of the basics- health, education and public services. It also generates a part of its GDP with income from workers who are overseas.  Another reason for the success in dealing with coronavirus is experience. The state had a virus epidemic called Nipah in 2018 which has become the story for a movie called Virus in Malayalam. There is decentralized public health system in the state and people value their health care facilities, understand and trust the health care authorites. There are hospitals at every level of administration and 10 medical colleges. But trust and education, experience tackling the virus before, are key. Kerala is showing that poor countries can deal effectively with the virus, and create a better life by adopting the right model of creating good societies that value education, healthcare services, better economic structures and distribution of wealth, and  a degree of trust and responsibility found in a state that values public spiritedness. ...

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Under the Volcker Rule setup during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, banks total investments in private equity, hedge funds and similar higher risk funds cannot exceed 3% of high quality capital. During the financial crisis investment banks were highly leveraged leading to the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and the precarious financial condition of other banks. Goldman has pared down about 60% of such investments. Remaining are $4.8 billion in private equity investments, $1.2 billion in real estate, and about $1.1 billion in both credit and hedge funds. Regulators have given the bank till July 2017 to comply. As banks recovered from the impact of the crisis, the tearing of the social fabric that happened with high unemployment in some groups especially older white men, has remained six years after the crisis- as evident in the U.S. election campaigns this year. As a result the mood has shifted for tighter regulation and both party platforms, Republican and Democratic, now call for reinstatement of the Glass Steagall Act, which separated commercial banking from investment banking as part of the lessons learned from the Great Depression. Volcker, was chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve during the Carter administration, known for taking a tough line against inflation. He was the principal driver of the move to restrict banks from risky activity, and faced considerable opposition from banks during the 2009-2013 period when the rule was being formulated.  ...

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Arvind Subramanium, outgoing Chief Economic Adviser to the prime minister in an interview with the Hindu newspaper, shares some of the knowledge he gained from failures and successes. The key lesson he gained is that it is important to have independent advisers in government who can speak their mind. Finance minister Jaitley has embraced this point, that such an adviser is not just one more part in the technocratic machinery of government. The success in getting GST he says shows that cooperative federalism is needed going forward as a kind of technology for many changes, including agriculture, DBT.  Subramanium calls the Economic Survey a success with 350,000 unique visitors. He likes the independence and distance of the CEA job to propagate the big ideas combined with closeness to decisionmakers. He counts as a failure not being able to create an office of CEA to the states, a request from 7 chief ministers and state finance ministers. Subramanium sees the need for more people in government with specific expertise in different areas as opposed to generalists as the work of government is becoming much more sophisticated. There is much need for talent and the flow of lateral talent into government.  Responding to economic issues such as the impact of oil prices on the economy Subramanium sees CAD at 2%, inflation at 4.5% much better compared to 2013 levels of double digits and not in unhealthy territory and very manageable. He sees risks in the impact of a combination of oil prices, dollar appreciation, and currency trade wars that are happening. On Iranian oil imports and strict U.S. sanctions on importers Subramanium sees the cost of not complying as stiff once you are in the dollar trading system. On demonetisation he sees there are short term costs and potential long term gains that requires an assessment every 2-3 years provisionally, what happened to tax and formalization, and the costs. Including costs in inconvenience and hardship for informal cash intensive sectors noted in the Economic Survey. For GST he says the revenue growth rate is 16-17% in aggregate for next year, growing 12% in the first year after a difficult implementation. The poorer states have seen an expansion of tax base and revenue performance is unprecedented.    ...

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COFCO is the abbreviation for China National Cereals, Oil and Foodstuffs Corporation, which was the state company importing grain and other staple foods into China during the period before China opened up its economy. It is now a dominant company in China's grain and other staple products from edible oil, dairy products to bacon and beer. Under CEO Ning Gaoning, Cofco has transformed itself since 2004 from primarily being a grain importer to value added products, food processing, and technologies in the food business. Cofco is expanding rapidly overseas with deals and acqusitions, and has about $10 billion in state funds for acquisitions. Recent acquisitions include $2.7 billion for Dutch grain trader Nidera BV, and 51% ownership of Noble agricultural unit. Earlier acquisitions include vineyards in Chile and France in 2010, and Australia's Tully Sugar in 2011. Current plans are for acquisitions in the U.S. and Latin America. Revenues in 2014 were an estimated $63.3 billion. Interviews with cane farmers that are part of Tully Sugar in Australia show Cofco has managed the company well and won the support of farmers....

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In an intervew with WSJ's David Pearson, Tom Enders, CEO of Airbus, points to the changes at Airbus after improvements in governance in 2012, leading to a smaller role for the governments of France and Germany. One is the shift away from Europe. Compared to 2004 when Airbus orders were 50% from Europe, this has dropped to 10% in 2014. Airbus is also staying away from a 623 million euros loan from Germany for the new Airbus A350 widebody jet, because of pressure from the German government to allocate work to German factories. The same policy will be followed in future programs to rely less on government support. Enders does not want to be tied down to certain workshare agreements imposed by governments with the loans. In 2012 Airbus reduced the role of the German and French governments with a large increase in the percentage of shares traded on stock markets. In the past the funding was critical for programs. Today Airbus has 9-10 billion euros on its books because of booming sales.

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A Peterson Institute of International Economics study on the TPP trade agreement shows it would reduce growth in the U.S. manufacturing sector by a fifth, according to this report in the NYT. Workers incomes and job losses in manufacturing are a key concern for voters and account for the surge in polls for Trump and Sanders in the U.S. presidential election of 2016. All four leading candidates Clinton, Sanders, Trump and Cruz oppose the TPP agreement. Congress will wait till after the election to decide. This is a big issue today because about 5 million jobs have been lost in 1977-2014, according to the Alliance for American Manufacturing. The Peterson study predicts job losses of 50,000 a year, yet another study by Tufts University predicts job losses of 450,000 a year. Another study by the Economic Policy Institute study shows other damaging effects such as labor's share of national income declining from the TPP.