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The stock market rally is due to government support and quantitave easing. Once that government support is withdrawn this recovery will not be sustained. There is a lot of liquidity that is driving this. About $332 billion has been withdrawn from money market funds yieding today .01% in interest. Quantitative easing is a significant part of the liquidity. Equity and bond markets have received a big boost from central banks creating money to purchase mostly government bonds.This keeps yields on Treasury bonds low, it is now 3.5% even though record amounts of debt are being issued.If this QE stops yields will rise and drive up borrowing costs. In this way it is a government sponsored bull market.

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The FDIC report in Feb. 2012 shows improvement in bank lending to $130 billion, for the 4th quarter of 2012. This is an increase of 1.8% over the previous quarter. Lending to commercial and industrial borrowers increased by $62.8 billion, or 4.9%. Smaller commercial and industrial loans of less than $1 million increased for the first time since 2010. Banking profits for 2011 were up to $119 billion, up 40% from the prior year. Banking revenues for 2011 declinedby 4.5% from 2010, as a result of low rates and slower loan demand.

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Lydia Polgreen and Marcus Mabry talk to black and white South Africans in Bloemfontein, the capital of the Afrikaaner Orange Free State. The National Party which started Apartheid as state policy in 1948 and the African National Congress were both founded in Bloemfontein. The accounts provide insights into race relations in South Africa and the growing gap between the economic condition of black and white people. After free elections and about 20 years of ANC governments under Mandela, Mbeki, and Zuma, progress has been made in primary and secondary schooling but most blacks are falling behind in the skills needed in a modern economy as shown by the widening income gap from $17,000 in 2001 to $30,000 in 2011. Less than 40% of South Africans socialize with other races, according to SA Reconciliation Barometer. 22% of whites and 20% of blacks live in racially integrated neighborhoods. 11% of white children and 15% of black children attend integrated schools. The result is a South Africa where a lot remains to be done after Mandela....

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Autodata statistics. Same day NYT says Ford has 18% decline, here wsj says Ford has 21% decline in sales in Sept 2007

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It shows that Brexit promised cutting migrant flow but its action did just the opposite by removing cooperation with France on fighting migrant trafficking. Could doing away with EU bureaucracy and getting a special degree of autonomy have been accomplished in other ways than Brexit. Was this also the fault of French and German governments under Hollande/Macron and Merkel. The failures to accomplish Brexit goal to cut migrants of Conservatives and now continued failure in 2025 under a Labour government shows the need for European nations to work together. This is what president Macron and prime minister Starmer agreed to on Macron's visit to England on the invitation of King Charles, a pilot program that aims at breaking the migrant boats trafficking model. It will return boat migrants crossing the English Channel from France back to France.  Starmer says- "This is groundbreaking, because this is a scheme intended to break the model, and to make it clear that if you cross in a small boat, then you'll end up where you started. In exchange for every return, a different individual will be allowed to come here safely." The scheme will start in coming weeks.    ...

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Maps of the region of Kashmir in the Himalayas shown here show how close Pakistan cities of Lahore and Islamabad are to Jammu and Kashmir and how close the Punjab is to Kashmir. It gives recent history of Kashmir since colonial rule of British ended in 1948, and no mention of the history of Kashmir from 100 BC to the 15th century when for 1500 years Vedic and Buddhist cultures, Shiva culture prevailed in the region. For only 200 years between 1500 and 1700 were Muslim invasions prevalent in the region after 1750 the British gradually took control of the region when Kashmir was a British protectorate under British law and non-religious rule.  Much of the present situation is a result of the abrupt end to British rule after World War II by 1948-1950 with Communist China, a new state of Punjab and Sind called Pakistan, and most of South Asia as India emerging from the conflicts and contesting control. India now leads an effort since 2016 for modernization of the region, to provide the education and healthcare levels of modern states of Europe and America to Himalayan region that is missing because of a lack of the technological resources, and resources India is now able to use to build infrastructure and invest.  ...

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How reckless actions that ignored public sentiment on illegal migrants have led to a surge in Germany and the US of foreign born populations, It jumped in Germany from 7.5% in 1990 to 21% by 2025 and in the US from 10% in 1990 to to 16%  in 2025. This means as shown by NYT graphs the US went up by 60% and Germany went up by a shocking 300%. This is why young Germans voted for the AfD. Merz's CDU has rejected Merkel policies and has imposed a series of actions to put in border controls, stop migrants.  Putting such stress on working class communities is an affront to people when they face crime as has happened in recent years, and when cost of living issues, covid pandemic have already caused much stress. Here the NYT reverses its position on migration and speaks of the dangers of such migration, the stress on woking class communities where migrants settle, on the public services and resources stretched to their limit. It now says Merkel made a huge mistake and ignored public sentiment leading to the situation where extreme opinions endanger democracy and young people in Germany prefer the AfD to the CDU and SPD, or the Greens. ...

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"The privilege of United States citizenship is a priceless and profound gift." The 14th Amendment was a repudiation of infamous Dred Scott decision and stood up for rights of black people, at no time was it intended to bring mothers from Asia or Africa to the US to get automatic citizenship for a child. 255,000 mothers a year with no connections to the US arrive here for automatic bithright citizenship- US Supreme Court rules "no" June 27 2025, and objects to mothers filing the lawsuits for their children when the mother has no legal status. Justice Coney Barrett in a 6-3 decision says the district courts cannot make laws over the decisions of the executive branch for the whole country as they have tried to do till now. This means birthright citizenship executive branch decision cannot be overruled across the nation. Most of the lawsuits are filed in states favorable to this or that approach.  In a few months the Supreme Court will address the automatic birthright citizenship issue at its core. Can a mother come to the US just to get her child US citizenship coming on a visitor visa. Much of the nation sees this as belittling the value of US citizenship.  ...

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The plant in Tychy, Poland where Fiat turns out 500,000 small cars a year, one every 55 seconds. Chrysler engineers are now visiting this plant to see what can be done with small car production. The Fiat 500 is turned out here. Its Fiat's best effort in terms of quality. Zdzislaw Arlet, is director of the Tychy (pronounced TICK-ee) plant. He says the right combination of robots to individual workers was critical to achieve efficiencies and to have the flexibility to switch to different Fiat small car models depending on which is selling more. This enables the Tichy plant to operate round the clock six days a week. About three years ago workers were assigned an individual ID that is stamped on the sections of the car that they assemble so any problems at the end of the line can be traced to the source. As a result of these efforts defects have fallen from 20% in 1996 to just 4% now, and the time to have a car roll out of the assembly line has been halved.

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Merkel prods Russia to follow Germany's example as she lands in Kiev on the 75th anniversary of the nonaggression pact signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Merkel said: "That today a German chancellor can be here shows what has happened... We want countries to be able to freely decide their political direction. We no longer participate, as the Federal Republic of Germany, in stirring up historical misery, and that is a good development of history." Russia badly needs to find a new place in a new world rather than stir up memories from the Soviet or Tsarist period, just as Germany has done in the period since 1945 with chancellors Adenauer, Brandt, down to Merkel and president Gauck today. The world today is very different from the period when Merkel grew up in the German Democratic Republic and Putin lived as a KGB officer in Dresden, Germany. Even more so as the manner of living in urban areas in different parts of the world, business, industry, the arts, culture, products is increasingly converging, with higher expectations. ...

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Cold weather dampened U.S. economic growth in the 4th quarter, with the initial reading of 3.2% seasonally adjusted annual growth in GDP revised to a reading of 2.4% by the Commerce Department. Projections by economists are for even lower growth of 2% in the 1st quarter from the cold weather, which was the worst in 35 years for some parts of the north and midwestern U.S. Consumer spending adjusted for inflation increased by 2.6%, and the savings rate dropped by one percentage point from the average of the last 3 years to 4.5%. Government spending and investment declined by 12.8%, as efforts to reduce the deficit continued. Offsetting this, and the bright spot here was more business investment on equipment, software and buldings of 7.3%, and exports up by 9.4%. GDP in the 4th quarter was up 2.5% from the prior year and unemployment rate was 6.6% in Jan 2014. Overall assessment was cautiously optimistic for the U.S. economy at the beginning of the sixth year following the global financial crisis of 2008....

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Francesca Doner's interview with Jean-Marc Duvoisin, CEO of Nestle Nespresso SA. Duvoisin was CEO of Nestle SA in Mexico before becoming chief of Human Resources for Nestle. He now heads Nespresso. Here he responds to questions about the competition from other companies such as Swiss supermarket Migros, which makes the coffee pods for Nespresso machines. Duvoisin says the competition is not affecting Nespresso sales and he sees the consumer insights from selling direct to the consumer as invaluable to Nestle. Nespresso's next challenge is markets in the U.S., China and emerging markets. He sees the shift from tea to coffee in China as a very gradual one. Nestle's focus is on making the coffee experience good for consumers so that they stay with Nestle for a long time. Strategy in the U.S. will focus on the long cup of coffee with milk and not on the espresso. This he sees as a more feminine experience, more relaxed and smoother. TV spots in the U.S. feature actress Penelope Cruz.

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Amazon has 15,000 employees in Seattle from global employees of about 97,000. New towers being built in downtown Seattle will bring 12,000 new workers to Seattle. The development is similiar to that of other companies such as Twitter which are developing urban spaces to attract young employees with children. This means the city has to bring public schools and create residential space in the city. The area Amazon is using was bought by Microsoft founder Paul Allen for development that never started and is from the city's gritty maritime past. Northeastern University based in Boston has started a remote campus near Amazon buildings. A park next to the Museum of History and Industry provides green space. And the Museum itself was renovated with a contribution from Amazon founder Bezos. Amazon's head of global estate and facilities, John Schoelter, says the renewal of the area was apparent as soon as Amazon began work in South Lake Union area. Instead of driving through this area people now mingle in urban spaces here. ...

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Robert Morgenthau, a former district attorney for New York County, says the American deportation effort is putting about 1000 people out of the U.S. every day. He calls it a deportation effort that has gone wildly astray. Here he says the new leadership of Jeh Johnson is likely to be better than her predecessor Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in ensuring that the agency can move in a direction that ensures fairness for immigrants who are law abiding. Morgenthau says in his long experience as district attorney he has learned that the trust and cooperation of the immigrant community in New York is essential to going after the criminal elements that are a danger to society. And some of this trust has been eroded by the actions of the ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, part of Homeland Security Department, through large scale and record breaking deportation approaching about 400,000 a year. A report for the last fiscal year shows only 14.5% of the deportees in immigration court were criminals or suspected of terrorism....

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Krugman points out that the inflation adjusted wages of non-supervisory workers in the retail field in America has declined by 30% since 1973. He says there are no adverse effects on unemployment because workers in retail are not competing with workers in other countries as happens in manufacturing. They are also some of the lowest paid workers to begin with, and the numbers are not small. One estimate is that here are 30 million workers who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage from the current level of $7.25 to $10.10. State by state comparisons provide proof of this as no evidence of losses in employment are to be seen when one state has raised the minimum wage and another neighboring state has not. Germany is facing a similiar problem of low paid temporary workers and a new coalition government is planning an increase in the minimum wage in 2014 as a response to increasing inequality and disparity in incomes developing in the last two decades.

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Scott Sperling, co-president of THL Partners, one of the oldest private equity firms, says rather than be anticapitalist the Obama administration is capitalism at work, as the restructuring is rebuilding two auto companies through bankruptcy by reducing unsustainable legacy obligations and making the bankruptcy process work right for these two companies. It also helps these firms get a new start. The process of "creative destruction" that helps make capitalism work is put to work in an enlightened way so there is creation as well as destruction, destruction through the tough choices that all stakeholders had to make, and creation through the new structures that are coming up. Preservation also works here through keeping what was good in these firms, which are the employees who had no part in management's mistakes, and workers who may be just as badly trapped in union ways. Scott also explains why the government's offer of 10% ownership shares to debtholders is fair, considering that without the government's money Chrysler would be worth little....

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Barrack Obama's speech on closing Guantanomo, on the constitution and its abiding values and principles by which he would like to live by and be guided by, in making the decisions on various issues related to national security. " I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offered. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their thruths when I lived as achild in aforeign land. My own American journey was paved by gernerations of citizens who gave meaning to those simple words-- "to form a more perfect union." WIth that Obama in his characteristic style addressed the fears, the passions, and dangers presented by the response America makes to global terrorism. And tries to find in the founding documents,- to which he refers again and again- and inside his own inner sense of what it takes to honor those documents and the principles enshrined in them, the guidance of how he should lead the country....

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With use of the software technologies and cloud computing Athenahealth hopes to revolutionize the medical records of physician practices. Here Joseph Rago of the WSJ talks to Jonathan Bush, CEO of Athenahealth. Bush says the way things are done now in healthcare there is no choice and choosers, and ther is not thing like a market in health care and people in Washington DC don't understand remotely why a market might be remotely useful. The deep problem in American health care he says is that no one knows the actual value of the services doctors give, not even the doctors, and the complexity of the method of payments keeps everything hidden, as doctor's clerical staff bills your treatment to insurance companies picked by your employer, and pays the doctor through money taken from premiums or foregone wages. Athena designed a program to digitize records and automate billing and is moving into clincal record keeping. It now has 15,000 physicians in 43 states using its program as avirtual office and growth at 30%....

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People are looking at their neighbors and in their neighborhood, and at their friends. If someone loses a job, it influences how they respond. They read things in the print media, and see people leading frugal lifestyles and tips on how to save, how to grow your ownvegetables and save here and save there for children's tutions and for arainy day. In this way even those who have secure jobs and good incomes are changing their lifestyle and how they look at things. They are also not likey to believe anything anybody says about things getting better, until they see things are different in their neighborhoods. It also makes sense to be frugal, especially after the overspending and bad habits of previous years. There may be a yearning to go back to frugal and responsible ways of their parents and their grandparents, the memories and the stories they heard from childhood may still be alive and a return to these ways seen as desirable behaviours. In this way frugal and thrift can become a lifestyle of many people in this country....

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Detailed anatomy of Ford what went wrong, what can and is being done, the problems in a culture that went astray, Mullaly direction and first steps to correct things. David Kiley of BW has done a pretty good piece on Ford, best so far in breaking up the mess that is Ford into some tangible things one can see that give one a feel of whats gone wrong at Ford, and some clues to whats gone wrong at the Big 3 American makers also. I'll attempt a list in the virtues vs. vices area that appear here 1. candour and openness vs. secrecy- sharing information between operating divisions 2. simplicity vs. complexity- too many platforms 3. economy vs. waste by duplication- duplication in the organization structure 4. respect vs. arrogance- for others within the company whatever the rank 5. inclusiveness vs. exclusiveness- the creation of grades for employees that stifle communication 6. honesty about ignorance and curiosity to learn vs. not admitting and remaining ignorant - at meetings and in discussions. ...

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The way in which the subprime mortgage crisis is affecting Germany. How mid sized German banks formed conduits like the larger banks in Europe and expanded them to the point where their conduits were as large as those of the large banks. Lacking the resources of the larger banks these banks were the first to fall in this crisis. Conduits are off balance sheet affiliates that borrow using short term commercial paper to invest in longer term securities. Its critical that they have access to capital borrowing because the commerical paper has to be renewed. In a crisis like this one if the borrowing ability vanishes because of perceived risk by lenders then the whole operation can blow up. So the German central bank had to intervene to support 2 of these institutions IKB Deutsche Industrie Bank and Sachsen LB and organize a rescue operation. The background of how these stateowned banks got into this conduit business is explained here and information available on their exposure to USA subprime mortgage securities. ...

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Even though exports are gaining in Iowa and overall it has benefitted from free trade, the wages in Iowa as elsewhere have suffered as companies pressed hard by global competition are reducing their wage. This is one way globalization is hurting workers in Iowa as it is hitting workers in other states. The two tier wage system at John Deere provides for lower wages for new younger workers. This is hurting incomes in the state. Because of these changes politically free trade is not very popular in the state and this reflects feeling acrss the country. The trend is to argue for protecting the wages of American workers by changing free trade agreements to include environmental and labor protections for oveseas workers so that this closes some of the gap between the wages here and overseas. The advantage to American workers of lower prices at a Walmart is more than offset by the lower wages as products are manufactured overseas and wage pressures are felt at home is the feeling reflected in some of the opinions expressed in Iowa....