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Senator Patrick Toomey (Pa.) and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.) are lobbying Republican party members in Congress behind the scenes to accept $300 billion in taxes as the only way to get an agreement on debt reduction in the Supercommittee. This would be part of a plan that addresses entitlements, and changes the tax code to lower rates and reduce tax expenditures by closing deductions and loopholes. This is leading to an intense debate in the Republican party about the wisdom of a purely ideological position on taxes that does not take into account current realities, and risks letting markets take control of the nation's future.

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The strong showing by National Front leader Marie Le Pen and her focus on the economy in France, and the lack of growth with austerity measures, is likely to change the way the eurozone countries respond to the deficits and German insistence on austerity cuts. Marie Le Pen's economic positions for more government spending to reduce unemployment and provide additional benefits is closer to Socialist candidate Hollande's position. The right wing party in Holland also voiced the same concern recently- that it did not want to hurt Dutch pensioners with austerity cuts- when it refused to support the Dutch government leading to its collapse and new elections.

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Ollanta Humala, is the leading candidate for the presidential election in Peru, with 27% of the vote after 43% of the votes were counted. Kuczynski has 23.6%, of the vote and Keiko Fujimori has 21.8%. Humala, lost a runoff against the current President Alan Garcia in 2006. He is modeling his campaign on the effort by Lula Ignacio Da Silva's when he ran for President of Brazil. Both have credentials viewed as left of centre and want to be viewed as offering a more balanced version of development. In Humala's case the rural areas outside of the capital city of Lima have not seen the benefits of rapid development and modernization.

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Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, says the Obama plan for ratings of colleges in the U.S. will not add much value because much of the information is already available. More important she says is to tackle the bad actors in education leading to high student debt. She says she will cut costs by a couple of hundred million dollars in the next few years, and will keep pushing on costs as there is a natural tendency to revert back. With less state support the UC system is admitting a larger number of students from out of state who pay higher tution.

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The port of Lazaro Cardenas in the western state of Michoacan was taken over by Mexico's military in November 2013 in a fight to control the drug cartel Templars. The Templars have infiltrated the local administration and police in the state. Templars are involved in illegal mining of iron ore in the state which is shipped to China. This led to the killing by the cartel of the head of institutional relations at the ArcelorMittal plant in the state in Jan 2014. A detailed account of the events leading to the killing of Virgilio Camacho of ArcelorMittal, the highest profile executive killing in Mexico.

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Chen and Goelfeb provide insights into the life and experiences that led Ukrainian immigrant Jan Koum to found startup WhatsApp. After taking a break from work at Yahoo he decided to travel places including Argentina, where he found it especially difficult to communicate with friends in other countries by phone and messaging. The messaging service was a response to this desperately felt need on his own travels, leading to the conviction that it was best to offer it free and make it easy and convenient to use. A similiar situation on travels to Mexico, with little adequate information on hotels, led to another startup Trip Advisor.

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The U.S. plans to join the EU's WTO complaint over Russia's recycling fee for automobile imports which does not apply to domestically manufactured cars. EU officials say the levy has cut the imports of European automobiles into Russia by 7%. The levy was imposed for five years following Russia's admission into the WTO and is seen as unfairly discriminating against imported cars. Russian automobile sales reached 2,935,000 in 2012, increasing by 11% over 2011. Sales are estimated at 2.8 millon by the AEB trade group for 2013. All ten of the leading models by sales for 2012 were Russian domestically manufactured automobiles. The case goes before the WTO in July 2013.

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Exxon sells a 25% stake in the West Qurna-1 oil field near Basra, Iraq, to Sinopec. And a 10% stake to Pertamina. This field produces 510,000 barrels a day with potential for 3 million barrels a day. Exxon and Shell are heading the $50 billion project. The project is a service contract with the Iraqi government to develop the oil field. After the sale of the stake estimated at about $5 billion for a 10 year contract Exxon retains a 25% stake. Exxon is managing risk in the project after differences with the Iraqi government over its investments in the Kurdistan part of Iraq.

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Whites are gradually coming back to the cities just as black people are leaving the cities for the suburbs and Hispanic people are skipping the cities entirely and heading directly for suburbs. The change is gradual and slow except for some cities like Atlanta and San Francisco where the change is becoming significant. As demographic changes take years to play out this change means that at some time in the near future America's cities will look differentas whites return. This change will only accelerate as more whites abandon long commutes from the suburbs as the price of gasoline keeps climbing and move closer to places of work in the cities.

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French premier Francis Bayrou puts forward ideas for the new government in Jan 2025- Immigration- "Seeking a form of harmony also means addressing the fears and realities that immigration raises in our country. (...) My deep conviction is that immigration is first and foremost a question of proportion. It is our duty to direct a policy of control, regulation and return to their country of those whose presence, by their number, endangers the cohesion of the nation." Education- "I think that, in our school and university system, it must be possible to accept and even encourage [career changes], changes in [professional] training."   PM Bayrou for the promotion of reading, at a time when "screens have taken over from any other mechanism for transmitting knowledge. This is a national issue."  "We'll have to go back to studying the notebooks of grievances that were presented by the 'Yellow Vests'," for "the expectations, often the most unspoken, that are those of social circles excluded from power" to be heard. ...

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Germany's leading candidate for chancellor Merz gets an exemption for Germany to EU Common European Asylum System (CEAS) asylum laws for National Security reasons. The goal is to tight Schengen border controls to keep out illegal migrants.  EU president Von der Leyen calls Merz action on CEAS  asylum laws "innovative solutions." Germany takes U turn on asylum law as public opinion shifts with a series of crimes committed by illegal migrants allowed to stay in Germany including car rampages through crowds on streets, most recently in Munich. A sense of fatigue in EU with illegal migrants and a desire for normalcy, the old way of life, and secure neighborhoods and urban spaces. It is now seen in CDU as Merkel's policy errors and failure of judgement in letting in a flood of illegal migration.

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U.S. Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, has balanced the rhetoric of president Trump on trade in the NAFTA debate by saying the U.S. is looking for win-win solutions in trade relations with Mexico. At the WSJ CFO network Ross says the trade regime from the post war years is now an anachronism and does not work well especially for the U.S. Many experts agree that the trade framework from that period is problematic. It does not take into account, for instance say experts, the situation where a command economy such as China could help manufacturing industries with state policies, including currency policies. The rapid growth in China was different from the rapid growth in an earlier period of Japan, in terms of its impact say experts. The U.S was the dominant economy during the sixties, and the growth in Japan was not at the accelerated pace and of the magnitude that happened in China. As a result the impact on  some communities in the U.S. was much more intense in the last two decades, as documented by prominent trade studies, leading to the sense that trade did not work for these communities. ...

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This editorial in the New York Times is strongly critical of former president Barack Obama for accepting $400,000 in speaking fees from Wall Street for a single speech. It says the news is causing people to question the ideas and words presented by Obama in his books about the dangers of losing sight of the interests of ordinary people. It gives the impression says the NYT, that Obama is cashing in like everybody else, and that his talk was empty. The editorial says the millions raised by Hillary Clinton led to her defeat in the election. Obama is reported to plan a foundation with the work of training a new generation of political leaders. This NYT editorial says it would be better to stay true to vision and purpose, to walk the talk for president Obama, especially now that a recent poll shows two thirds of voters, including about half of Democrats say that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the interests of the American People. By associating this closely with wealthy donors leading Democrats contributed to this. During a period when some of the remarkable achievements of the last fifty years such as the European Union are being called into question, when ordinary working people, young people and older people are struggling, this is all the more a tone deaf approach by politicians. The idea of helping train a new generation of political leaders through a foundation sounds bizarre in this context, and seems to suggest politicians believe there is always a solution through marketing their audacity and money.   ...

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The U.S. vice presidential debate between Mike Spence and Tim Kaine showed Kaine focussing attention on Trump's crude attacks on women, praise for Russian president Putin, and opposition to the minimum wage. Spence's tone was measured and his focus was on deflecting the attacks on the crude language used by Trump in the campaign by saying Trump was "not a polished professional politician," like the others, and not responding to the Kaine references to Trump. Spence stuck to issues about immigration open borders, abortion, president Obama's inaction in Syria, the plight of workers in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He did not respond to repeated questions on Trump's failure to disclose his tax returns and his business failures leading to close to a billion dollars in losses and not having paid taxes for 18 years, as disclosed by the New York Times. Spence had to choose between hurting his own chances for reelection with the traditional Republican voters alienated by Trump and standing up for Trump's crude language against women and minorities. He deftly tried to the best using his skills as a radio broadcaster. Kaine who is usually more measured and thoughtful, had to choose between his traditional style of speaking and the role he was expected to play bringing to the public's attention the crude language and style of the Trump campaign and the instability reflected in it. He used his skills as a litigator to ask repeated questions on Trump, especially on the taxes, which leads to questions about funding infrastructure development and jobs without the wealthy paying their share of taxes. ...

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Next five year plan for China calls for more concentration on industry, dominance in key sectors identified by China such as rare earths, and more exports- not less in each of these areas. Chinese Communist Party is very conservative and once this has worked for China it is not going to change its reliance on exports even at the risk of leaving goods unsold in China or oversupply. The result is that the US effort to reduce the trade deficit, trying every tool in the book does not work, leading to an effort to resort to tariffs as a last resort to cut the unhealthy and risky $1 trillion trade deficit China has with the world. Has it worked? WSJ and other reports show that large companies are diversifying their supply channels, only smaller companies without the resources are sticking with China dependence for supplies. The tariffs themselves make headlines yet the US has made careful calculations not to upset relationships with key partners Britain, European Union, and Japan, keeping tariffs low at 10% with EU, and 15% with Japan which exports automobiles to the US to recover some of the years US made concessions to Japan. There are also loopholes on certain products where it is in the US interest to do so. As a result the effective tariff is 10-12.5% not 17-20% shown in reports. Of this 10% what is passed on to consumers is small- as in autos 80% of tariffs are not passed on by auto importers such as Toyota and Subaru because of the higher margins postpandemic. In retail only 30% is passed on again because of the post pandemic higher margins. The administration of DJT has also carefully worked with world oil suppliers to keep oil prices low, lower than in 2023-2024. The result is that inflation is at about 3% in September 2025. The idea that a capricious DJT is doing the tariffs is a myth as careful economic planners including Bessent, Jamieson, Lighthizer, and Luttnick, economic advisors in the Republican party, are carefully articulating the policy with room for DJT's political talk and appeal to public sentiment. ...

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President Trump outlines a plan for Afghanistan that increases the U.S. troop presence from about 8500 with an addition of 4000 more troops and advisors, in addition to a counter terrorism force. To war weary public in the U.S. he says: "I share your frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money- and most importantly, lives- trying to rebuild countries in our own image instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations." About his criticism of the war when president Obama was in office as a huge costly waste of resources Trump said: My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like to follow my instincts... I heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk at the Oval Office." After resisting the advice of his own advisers Trump decided to fire Bannon who had supported use of American private security contractors for the war in Afghanistan, and used parts of the media to question national security advisor McMaster's views on this. Gen. Mattis, completed a strategy review that showed the mistake of creating a vacuum would repeat the situation of Iraq where president Obama withdrew forces in 2011, leading to a sequence of negative events- with Russia, Iran and Islamic State moving into the vacuum, making American intervention in the war necessary, increase in terrorist incidents worldwide, and a flood of refugees into Europe. Ironically clearing the path for an outsider's bid for the White House, with Brexit in which refugee fears and uncontrolled immigration played a part, and the news of terrorism and the war in Syria-Iraq creating a sense of insecurity. A key difference in the Trump approach with Obama's approach is that "conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables will guide our actions from now on," in line with Trump's criticism of Obama's approach. The military in the U.S. has long maintained that the best approach would have been to insist on U.S. presence in negotiations with the Iraqi government under the sectarian prime minister Nouri Maliki. Gen. Mattis was head of Central Command under the Obama administration and must have pushed the view of the military to president Obama to no avail. Failure to do so led to the growth of Shiite militias and the alienation of Sunnis in Mosul, leading to the fall of Mosul to Islamic State thus creating the current crisis. Gen. Mattis and Lt. Gen McMaster are intimately aware of the problem and must have convinced Trump that this is what really happened, that a repeat would waste the sacrifices of American soldiers in the twin wars. Trump gave this as his reason when he said in his televised speech to the nation- essentially a criticism of Bush that he expanded the conflict too quickly, and Obama exiting too quickly to create a void. Trump call his policy "principled realism."  The roots of the crisis are in the India-Pakistan conflict. Like the conflict in South East Asia the conflict in South Asia extending from Iran to India and Pakistan, may take a generation to overcome. A rapprochement between India and Pakistan, beginning with trade and economic relations, is not only in America's interest, it also provides the basis for a realistic American withdrawal. ...

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Vietnam's efforts to boost solar energy in 2018 by offering 9 cents per kilowatt hour to owners of solar farms is leading to unexpected surge in solar energy. Instead of the 850 MW of solar energy the production increased to 5 gigawatts by 2019. Investments had be done in 2 years for the offer by the state owned electricity company and electricity purchases would depend on daily needs. The huge increase has brightened the prospects for solar energy in this part of Asia.    Most of the solar energy comes from the southern part of Vietnam and the government is expanding the capacity of the power grid to handle the solar energy production. Vietnam is growing at 5-7% a year for two decades and power capacity is expected to double by 2030. The share of coal in the enrgy mix planned is 43%. The unexpected surge in solar energy production means the 10% fo solar energy in the energy mix was achieved ten years ahead of the schedule. This means fewer coal plants will be needed. In five years solar energy is expected to become cheaper to produce than energy from coal, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Coal plants are also meeting public resistance, and regulatory hurdles. Coal plants take ten years to become operation. Solar energy projects can be completed in 2 years. This means solar can take a much larger share of energy production in the future .  ...

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U.S. president Trump set up a separate task force called the Great American Revival Industry Groups. He read each of the names out loud during his press conference on Monday, a list of about 200 industry leaders from all the main industry groups, many of whom he personally knows. The first meeting of this group met in a hour long call with about 35 participants.  Most of the leaders praised the strong action taken by the president. On the task of reopening the economy the participants told president Trump that current testing levels were inadequate for effectively reopening the economy.  This is the first of four calls the president plans to make and included leaders from banking, retail, hospitality,  and food industries. The tasks facing the task force are to provide advice on how to reopen the economy and how to respond to the economic damage.  The U.S. president decided to set up this task force after talking to his friends in the business world so that he could get the broadest possible range of advice and thinking. Dr. Fauci, the leading helth expert on the president's team along with Dr. Birx, said on April 14 that reopening would require testing and virus tracking that was efficient and reliable and that the U.S. was not there yet. U.S. has conducted about 3 million tests. Health experts say there should be millions of tests per day before people can return to work. ...

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Britain's prime minister Johnson has gained approval for 16 billion military buildup for naval and other buildup for the next 4 years. It was apparent for some time during the administrations from Blair through the financial crisis driven by banks under Cameron, that Britain had lost its resolve to have a strong military capability. This was evident in its handling of Hong Kong, from the transfer to its weak response to the situation in Hong Kong as participatory democracy failed in Hong Kong. During the period after the second world war Britain failed to bring participatory democracy in Hong Kong under its rule. Labour and Conservative administrations made no effort even as participatory democracy was brought to large parts of Asia and Africa through independence, following democratic elected legislatures in the period between two wars in India and Ceylon. No such effort was made in Hong Kong leading to questions about its own commitment to the principles when China introduced its own government in Hong Kong by changing legal structures.  Britain lacked the military capability and its partnership with France and the U.S. was also weaker because of other distractions from middle east conflicts and internal problems. This is now changing with the military capability buildup for the next 4 years. This is happening as France under Macron takes a new posture in its battle to defend the ideals of its Republic, and rebuild its manufacturing capabilities. ...

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Polls before the election show the SPD Social Demcorats, Greens and the Die Linke combined have a small majority of votes in German elections. Die Linke is the left party from the days of the party that ruled the GDR German Democratic Republic or East Germany under communist rule. In Berlin, Bremen, and the east German state of Thuringia the Social Democrats SPD, Greens and De Linke have formed coalition governments. With the emergence of right wing AfD in East Germany, the De Linke has emerged as an alternative to the established parties and the AfD in eastern Germany. Federal governments are difficult to form with the De Linke because of historical opposition to NATO. This may change as two younger leaders are now leading the party and in other policies there is similarity between the democratic socialist views of De Linke, SPD and the environmental policies of the Greens. FDP policy has generally not favored policies that favor working class, infrastructure investment, childcare and other issues important to voters in this election. This leaves the De Linke as a more likely alternative for a Greens SPD coalition partner if it can change to be flexible about its views on NATO. Today policies of president Biden in the US are also friendly to workers and families. This makes such a coalition possible if the socialist parties of the De Linke change to get things done instead of staying on the fringes of government. ...

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General Electric has become an example of how not to run a a business. Once  a leader in American business it is now a shadow of its former self, and withered in many of its markets, with a slumping share price. This report in the WSJ shows how the involvement in banking and capital markets was the first error at GE that hit the company's share price hard during the global recession of 2009. Other decisions and a hard driving culture led to more mistakes leading to the current situation. By 2008 GE Capital brought 38% of GE's revenue, for a company that was a leader in infrastructure a huge misstep, and the start of the decline. In terms of company culture and management a more thoughful management style, a willingness of management to have self-criticism and different views represented are better for companies. A hard driving culture can hurt companies over time- here the example Jack Welch CEO, and Jeff Bornstein as CFO are given for this hard driving culture. Renault-Nissan is a recent example of CEO running into issues with the company's culture and profile developed under a larger than life personality. There is a lot to be said in favor of a gentler disposition, a healthy lifestyle, and a thoughtful style, in the management ranks of companies at all levels which produce better results. This serves as a part of Lessons in Management and Culture. ...

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Daisuke Wakabayashi's exceptional account of how Steve Jobs directed the project to develop the iPhone starting in 2005 upto to the introduction in 2007. At one point Jobs gives Christie, the engineer leading the very small project team, 2 months to put it together or he would find someone else to do it. This is similiar to the way in which Sony's Morita approached his project team working on the Walkman telling them what he wanted to see and the size of the device. Jobs payed attention to all the details from how the phone names addresses appeared on the screen, dialing from the phone book, the swiping action to start the device, the music, and the colors on the screen. Only in on the project's detail were Bill Campbell, Apple director, and Jony Ive, Apple design chief. Christie was approached by Scott Forestall in late 2004 about this secret project codenamed "Purple." Christie is the engineer who joined Apple in 1996 to work on the Newton, and early touch screen device that failed because the technology was not developed enough at the time, making the device bulky and cumbersome. Christie was working on software for Mac computers in 2004. Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president for iPhone marketing, monitored other phone makers to see if they were coming up with a device that migrated the iPod's music features to the phone. Hence the absolute secrecy for this project. The project team is amazingly small. The practice of small teams can be found at Amazon and Kayak....

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The U.S. central bank, Federal Reserve, is grappling with the problem of low inflation. Inflation reached around 2% by December 2018 but has slowed to 1.5% in the second quarter of 2019. The cuts in interest rates to keep the U.S. and European stock markets from declining sharply and affecting business confidence and investment were part of the response from central banks following the blunders by banks in the years preceding 2008. This has hurt savers and savings accounts of ordinary Americans over a decade with rates as low as below 1%, creating a sense of inequity/fairness. Now the Federal Reserve is back to reducing rates by a quarter point from its current level of between 2.25 and 2.5%. Rates rose for a while as confidence returned to markets to the current level. The reason for reversing the increases and a cut in rates is that the U.S. central bank sees the need to set rates looking at the rates in Europe and other countries where the economic conditions and confidence is lacking and rates are kept lower than in the U.S. The Federal Reserve sees it as unhealthy to let the gap between the U.S. and rates in Japan and Europe to grow too large because of the global interlinkages. Earlier models of the tradeoff between unemployment and inflation are also seen as unreliable in today's conditions of irresponsible behaviour in banking and other sectors, and unfair trade advantages gained by nations in Asia that are now leading to trade wars. ...

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The US ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach after Liberation Day- soon to be relics from the China Trade of yesterday. On April 9 US responded to China's 34% tariff with another 50% tariff of its own on China. The US tariff now stands at 104% to China's 84%. China says it won't back down and "will fight to the end." The US president DJT is now certain to restore world trade to the days before China entered the World Trade Organization and upended the world trade order leading to the deindustrialization of the US when US corporations followed Apple in 1998. With Tim  Cook in charge of Apple manufacturing in 1998 doing the first major act of outshoring the whole manufacturing base of a company to China. It was a strategy- to use the huge profits of a three punch approach- brand the product at the high end to command high price in the US through innovation and design (punch 1), followed by making using Chinese labor at low cost in China (punch 2), to generate the huge profits to create a virtuous cycle of investment from these profits to generate new cycle of growth (punch 3). What Apple gained, America's workers lost. This was sold by economists at the service of corporate narrative that it was good for America in the face of the facts showing just the reverse for 25 years 2000-2025. Soon almost the entire manufacturing base of the US was shipped out to China, or Chinese supply bases Vietnam. Japan fell in line and became a supplier to this China Manufacturing for the World. What started out as Microsoft demolishing Apple by 1998 and Apple using this 1-2-3 punch strategy turned into first a disaster for American workers, a loss of the working class leading to the loss of the middle class backbone of America, replaced by Silicon Valley and financial interests in New York City and disproportionate rewards to capital, the rural and small towns, cities across America's heartland thrown into decay and neglect.   ...

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Daisy Rockwell translator of Reti Samadhi which won the first International Booker Prize for translation from Hindi says in this interview about reading translations- "Expand your mind! The language is alive! Translation brings you the world!"