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John T. Chambers has some very useful guidance on questions to ask and what to look for in hiring. Fairly simple but a lot of attention needed to get the right answers and make sure the hiring is done right. Here he talks to NYT's Adam Bryant. How did Chambers respond to dyslexia as a child? See it as a curve ball said a teacher,once you see it and observe that it comes a certain way, then you can handle it. He reads right to left. And he learned about near death experiences with Cisco in 2001. And he learnt from Jack Welch why they are very powerful and useful. He learnt from his parent, an obstetrician, that you are best being calm when there is an accident happening and people are not. People express emotions at such times and this says little about what's really going on, said his dad. Chambers admits his virtue and fault about being a command and control person, possibly from his early training at IBM. But he is open to changing when pushed, he says. He says his wife of 35 years keeps him from becoming too self-conscious. Questions he asks new people interviewed about joining the company. Tell me about your results. Tell me about your mistakes and failures. All of us have mistakes and failures, he says, so someone who says "I can't think of one, immediately loses credibility." The ability to be candid about mistakes made, and what they would do differently this time, helps make people learners and adapters as they go into different things. He says that he learns more from these two questions than from anything else. He also asks who are the best people you recruited and developed, and where are they today. He does this one gently , which is to figure out if they are oriented towards the customer or merely see the customer as someone who gets in the way. And then he looks for communications skills, and the key part of that is listening. He likes to see how they listen, how they interpret, and are they willing to challenge you. And then he looks for their knowledge in the industry segments, and the areas he is interested in. And that kind of covers the things he has looked for in the last 20 years. For today's world he looks especially for collaboration skills, teamwork skills, and their use of technology to share information, collaborate and work as a team. As its not immediately clear whether someone who says he is a team player is actually a team player, he checks with other people who know the person. Chambers grew up in a individualist world. So he is candid about this. He says that when he was trained it was about me and winning as an individual. The future, he adds, is about how do groups think and work together collaboratively. And how can one add discipline to that through practice and capability, and being able to use the necessary technologies. ...

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The language and tone of the leaders says something about what is likely to be the outcome of the G20 summit. Its a first for significant participation, as countries as diverse as Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and the Netherlands are represented. The credible positions of both sides, the US, UK and Japan, and the European side of France, Germany and the Czech Republic, well presented, provide for some serious discussion and negotiations. France's Sarkozy and Germany's Merkel want to see a global regulator that would reach inside the borders of the US with stricter regulation. Sarkozy calls this "nonnegotiable." And he said that he would reject an agreement that puts off stringent new regulations on banks, tax havens, and hedge funds. He said "the compromise has to come from all countries around the world." US President Obama said that if there is going to be renewed growth it can't just be the US as the engine, everybody is going to have to pick up the pace," at the same time saying that the US had to be concerned about its own deficits. The fact is that the US stimulus will mostly help a severely impacted domestic economy recover with social safey net payments to local and state governments and unemployment insurance, as well as targeted investments in infrastructure, education, energy and health care. It will not mean anywhere near the kinds of imports the US made from other countries, especially China. And Obama made that clear when he said the US will never return to that situation, where the US had become a "voracious consumer market." For the Germans the major market for their middle companies is China, and China has its own stimulus spending on infrastructure spending, which should provide for continued imports of machinery from Germany at a much lower level. Thus Germany and France see a strong tendency to call the source of the crisis and repeat that call till the US listens, and refer to the failure of free market capitalism in its unregulated form. And to insist on fixing it through a global regulator with strict and systemwide rules. So you hear this in Merkel's words, "the foundation for this finacial architecture must be laid now, that is why we seem to be so tough." While the vivacious Sarkozy talks of compromise, and a US gesture in regulation in return for Franc's gesture of joining NATO, the mild mannered Merkel is clear and focussed about her concern. She rejects the idea of linking stimulus spending demands of the Anglo-Americans with the Franco-German demands for global systemwide regulation. "This is not a bargaining chip," she says. The media may mistakenly report lack of consensus as a failure of the summit. But in the long run in the presence of good positions on both sides, it could lead to some tough negotiations even if continued at another meeting. And result in something serious, credible and lasting in its impact, rather than something that was easy and did not in Andy Grove's useful words involve "constructive confrontation." ...

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Andrew Rosenfeld, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, and chief executive of an investment advisory firm, says the Public-Private Investment Program proposed by Secretary Geithner has serious flaws. It risks government money, and expects too little from private investors. The government will essentially finance the private investor's purchase of these toxic assets at an auction, with the private investors putting some money of their own, to buy these assets at prices emerging from the auction. It runs right smack into the problem that Secretary Paulson under President Bush faced when he suggested the auction plan as a way for these toxic assets to be sold off to buyers. It was never clear how shuch an auction would work, and whether it would work at all. Meantime the worsening credit crisis required direct injection of capital into banks. Now Secretary Paulson's abandoned effort has been essentially revived in the Geithner program, with the same problems but with the carrot of government taking up most of the risk with its financing. Rosenfeld argues that under this plan the government assumes all the risk of losses, and if private investors make too much money off of it it will create a public outcry and the risk of an AIG type situation. This might lead to lower bids and the money generated for the banks might end up being too small to make a difference. There is a better way he says, and this is for the government using existing authority to seize banks that look insolvent. Its fairer because the government will own the toxic asets, and the bank, and the proceeds for the sale of the bank, and these would be offsetting the cash that it would inject to recapitalize the bank. The way it would do it is to inject cash in the form of Treasury notes as equity in the bank, and at the same time remove the bank's toxic assets and place them in the basement of the Treasury building, while it waits to see what they turn out to be worth. Bank regulators would swap Treasury securties for the toxic assets "at par," which is at the amount of the original purchase price of assets removed. Within a short time, a month or a few months, the bank could be sold to private investors. This is sounder because it takes away the pricing problem which looks like its never going to be resolved, as banks and investors are never going to agree on toxic asset price. And the new bank could start clean and start lending flowing in the economy. If the bank turns out to be so badly managed and with so many bad bets that it cannnot be sold, its essentially insolvent and irrecoverable, so it should be liquidated. Nobel winner Krugman says some of the same things in his columns in the NYT. He has a sense of despair seeing the return of the failed Paulson solution of auctions with a new twist, even as the economy is flailing in the wind, with job loss numbers over 600,000 and jumping each month....

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Consideration is a term being used in Detroit auto company marketing efforts, if a customer gives little consideration to a company or brand or if its not on his list of brands or companies to consider, then snap you are not even in the running. The customer does not even visit your dealer showrooms, and no matter how well you make your cars its not going to make a difference. It has to take a lot of neglect of customers for this sort of situation to arise, but its exactly the situation Detroits auto companies face. They are trying marketing ploys such as this one by Ford's advertising agency, but its impact is uncertain. The efforts at GM also focus on marketing but again efforts to put Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys in Saturn dealerships next to the Saturn Aura, for side by side test drives have not had much impact on Aura sales. So a similiar effort for the Chevrolet Malibu in Chevy dealerships has been scrapped. There is even skepticism that a lifetime warranty on engines and transmissions by Chrysler on its vehicles will have much impact, so large is the customer resistance and ingrained perception of American car manufacturers. Over time perceptions may change but it will take a while to convince the American customer who feels he was once treated with disdain, and who will give a good hard look at things before he changes his mind. The figures bear this out. Years of neglect of car buying public and focus on SUV's and trucks is showing up in a 51.3 % share of the market for the American Three companies down from 60% 4 years ago. So half the market has pretty much been conceded to the likes of Honda and Toyota. Actually in the West and East coasts the numbers probably range to 60% and 70% depending on the local area in these 2 regions. So that means more established dealerships for cars, years of marketing effort focussed on cars, sales contacts and so that may take years to dislodge to any degree. The figures behind consideration by JD Powers show that 54% of car buyers are import loyalists, a slightly higher figure than the 51.3% showing that the trend is even more defection to imports in the 1-3 years ahead. And 22% consider both domestic and import cars. With this segment there is more selection in the imports beause only now are the American Three carmakers building up their car model lineups, especially Ford, so this will be ahard fought segment with no certainty that the Detroit Three carmakers will come out on top given the lead and established networks of the carmakers like Toyota and Honda. Only 25% are domestic or American carmaker loyal. A lot may depend on the way a customer is treated from reading letters to the editor in the media by buyers of US and import cars. A car buyer treated with no respect and sincere concern for his needs and preferneces is likely to remember the treatment for a long time. Not just products but attitudes and people in sincerity will have to change....

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People with doubts about Obama and McCain being agents of change or just bearers of the latest popular slogan for electioneering, would benefit from looking at the details gathered by the New York Times about the two candidates ties to lobbyists. Obama is second only to Senator Dodd in the amount of donations received from employees and PAC's of the 2 companies Fannie and Freddie. Mr McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, is a longtme lobbyist, and previously was head of Homeownership Alliance. Homeownership Alliance is a coalition of banks and housing industry interests led by Fannie and Freddie to counter another organization FM Watch, which was an alliance of financial institutions and lobbying associations that wanted to even the playing field against Freddie and Fannie by challenging the implicit government guarantee that allowed them to borrow funds at lower rates. And both candidate's vetters for vice Presidential picks have links to Fannie. Its former chairman, James Johnson, initially led Obama's search committee and Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., McCain's vetter was a Fannie Mae lobbyist. For McCain, confidant and adviser, Charlie Black, and deputy Finance Chairman, Wayne L. Berman, lobbied for the 2 companies. For Obama, Robert Tsien, Freddie Mac VP, and directors. William Lewis , Brenda Gaines, a Chicago businesswoman, come up as names of contributors. There are so many such names right at the top of these two candidates advisors, that it makes one wonder seriously who are these people fooling when they make statements about Fannie and Freddie- like the one made recently by McCain about Fannie and Freddie enriching their executives by millions of dollars while things were going downhill, and the picturesque phrase "going to hell in a handbasket". And did he talk to Rick Davis about this. And Obama did he talk to James Johnson about this, and Brenda Gaines? One, McCain is a maverick yes, meaning he is independent, and the other can talk intellectually and excite young people about the future, but its a thin veneer, when all is said and done both promote their careers above anything else, and the difference is in degrees with one perhaps more than the other. And people have short memories. The Times reminds us that McCain was one of the "Keating Five" senators investigated by the Senate, accused of interceding with federal regulators for the operator of a failing thrift and received a rebuke. This is what Paul Gigot, who as editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal has directed the investigative reporting on Fannie and Freddie for years, says in his recent column about all the dishonesty and failure and efforts to corrupt the whole political system across the political spectrum with lobbying and donations and tactics. In a note of pessimism he says "not that either presidential candidate is interested." Quite a comment on the political system. Which is also why Vincent Reinhart, who headed the Monetary affairs section at the Federal Reserve, when asked about the bailouts of Bear Stearns and of Fannie and Freddie, and the help Detroit auto companies are seeking, on Bloomberg News on September 8, 2008, said that "free markets is a thin veneer" when things really get rough. ...

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The Nation is faced with another Supreme Court decision as in 1868 for the 14th Amendment, in 2025 on birthright citizenship.  The 14th Amendment was written in the 19th century it had no concept of the 20th century and absolutely no idea of the 21st century we live in, unable to even conceive of conditions today, or even think of  setting rules for immigration today. It rejected the Dredd Scott decision of 1857 denying black people rights as citizens, restating the law of the land, had nothing at all to do with stating the opinion of the Judiciary on whether a mother flying in from Asia could secure US citizenship for a new born child by merely visiting the US. As in 1857, in 2025 the law is based on assumed historical facts as Lincoln said on Dredd Scott decision, that are not really true. Lincoln said in 1857- "That burlesque upon judicial decisions, and slander and profanation upon the honored names, and sacred history of republican America must be overruled, and expunged from the books of authority." The 14th Amendment was written to give black people the rights of citizens of the US, in a complete repudiation of the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court of 1857 that deprived black people of rights as citizens because Judge Tanney said the British Empire had set up the institution of slavery in the American colonies and the British were responsible for the institution, little we can do about it. When by 1807 slavery was being banned in Britain and in 1838 totally banned in the British Empire. It created the idea that Americans were not the master of their destinies after the departure of the British to choose which institutions they would keep and which they would reject including slavery. Abraham Lincoln citing President Andrew Jackson said each the executive, the judiciary, Congress, and the common man were entitled to their own view of the US Constitution as they understood it. Lincoln also said Judge Tanney's decision in Dred Scott case was based on assumed historical facts that were not really true- Judge Tanney making no mention of the fact that in 1857 the British Empire had already abolished the institution for 50 years. The DJT Executive Order banning birthright citizenship shown here on the White House site has the title- Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship. It is written in  simple language in 1 page -Purpose, Policy, Enforcement and Definitions, Provisions.  The purpose clearly states that the Dred Scott decision of the US Supreme Court in 1857 is what the framers of the 14th Amendment had in mind when they drafted the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. A reading of the 14th Amendment makes this abundantly clear. The wording comes out at the outset reversing the Dredd Scott Decision of 1857. It's repudiation was why the Northern and Southern States fought the Civil War. The National Archives say that with Dred Scott decision to allow the spread of slavery to American territories in the West,  America moved one step closer to civil war. With such  momentous events in the history of the US 1857-1868 the framers of the 14th Amendment were not sitting down to write rules about what was right for America a century and a half later.    ...

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A local government vehicle in China, Sixth Division of XPCC fails to make a bond payment in August 2018. This is the first such instance of failure to make a bond payment for a local government vehicle in 2018. Economists estimate China's total debt at 242% of GDP in 2017, and government efforts to tighten liquidity and reduce support for overextended local government investment vehicles.

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India's demographics show one startling fact. By 2020, the average age of Indians will be 29. This is happening just as the rest of the world is aging very fast. In the next 15 years India will have 130 million more people in the 20 to 49 age group. This compares with a shrinking in population of 100 million in that age group in developed countries and China, according to the U.N. Population Division. The problem facing India is malnutrition that runs as high as 43% for children with half the mothers anemic, weak educational system at the primary and secondary school levels especially in the government run schools, lack of good governance in the most populated states such as Uttar Pradesh in the Ganges plains which has 200 million people, the consequent overburdening of cities which have no plans to manage the migration of the rural poor to the cities. India has to find ways to fill the huge gaps in getting better nutrition, education, dignity and sense of opportunity, and work for the growing numbers....

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The Journal says Santorum needs to fit his economic point about helping manufacturing into a broader economic policy, and broaden his support base beyond the social conservative base. It says about Romney that he needs to find an authentic message that appeals to conservatives beyond catchphrases about repealing Obamacare. The problem it says is both candidates do not appeal to the whole Republican party. One candidate Romney lacks the fervor and firm convictions and the other Santorum has fervor and firm convictions about social issues, but can't do the same for economic issues and the other concerns of Republican voters.

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World Bank chief Zoellick sees advantages for China to remake its industrial structure and its society especially boosting local wages and increasing the purchasing power of ordinary Chinese through a strengthening of the yuan.

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The lack of education mobility in the U.S. with rising student debt and soaring tution.

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Saudi Arabia's strategic moves at the OPE pricing meeting in Nov. 2014. Saudis push for keeping the production levels as they are, not making any cuts. Analysts say the Saudis are aware other OPEC countries and other producers outside OPEC such as Russia, are not likely to make cuts in production as they face severe budget constraints- especially Venezuela, Iran, Russia. In this situation they have decided to take a wait and see approach to see where prices are headed in coming months. A price of $60 for Brent crude is likely to lead to cuts, according to some analysts.

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U.S. federal government efforts through changes in programs for loan repayment to reduce the burden of $1 trillion in student debt. A weakness of the programs is that no effort is made to put some form of cap on what colleges charge for tution, which is moving ever upwards. As a result students will continue to be burdened by high debt. The loan forgiveness after 20-25 years is not an adequate solution as the writer suggests, because extending loan payments of 15% of income for such an extended period of time leaves less for buying a house, for mortgage payments, education of children, and limits what a family can spend for two decades, a poor option for any family especially when both husband and wife are paying off student debt. As long as young people with student debt defer purchases for a new home and other purchases consumer spending will be weak.

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Yascha Mounk says Germany is not as committed to the West as it was in the days of chancellor Adenauer. Policies pursued by Gerhard Schroeder distancing Germany from the U.S. were also carried on under chancellor Merkel.

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Finance Minister Joaquim Levy, a University of Chicago trained economist, is replaced by planning minister Nelson Barbosa, as the new Finance Minister of Brazil. President Rousseff faces criticism as Brazil's economy contracts and ordinary Brazilians feel the effects of fiscal austerity policies pursued under Levy. Former president Lula da Silva was critical of Levy's policies.

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CONTENT LINKS 1. GROWING AUTOMATION AND UPSCALE TECHNOLOGY IN CHINESE MANUFACTURING OF AUTO PARTS. Rockwell Automation one of several companies helping China with automation and software to improve sophistication of manufacturing in the auto parts industry. Major automobile manufacturers are also bringing the auto parts manufacturers into China as they expand manufacturing of assembly plants in China. Chinese companies are also mentioned, Huaxiang Group in Ningbo a coastal city is one of them. .Wanxiang Group is another. As US manufacturing of auto parts becomes uncompetitive at existing UAW wage rates auto parts is shifting to Mexico, China, and India. And with this trend is the shift to manufacture of more sophisticated auto parts in these countries and the move of autoparts plants to these lower wage countries, using more technology and software for manufacturing. Local manufacturers are also moving up the experience curve and shifting to more sophisticated parts with better quality. The companies are very focused on exports," says Huang Xiaohua, secretary general of the Auto Parts Industry Association of Ningbo. "Products are going up-market," as local manufacturers are increasingly becoming first-tier and second-tier suppliers for the major auto makers, he says. "There is a misperception" about China, says Scott Summerville, Rockwell's president for Asia Pacific. While China still has a lot of labor-intensive manufacturing, he says, "there's a big push right now to make Chinese companies globally competitive. You can't do that just with cheap labor."...