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Egypt accepts a $8 billion IMF loan. It also free floats its currency and the Egyptian pound goes from 30 to the US dollar to 49 to the dollar. Houthi attacks from Yemen on Red Sea shipping affects Egypt as fewer ships transit through the Suez Canal and lower transit fees and revenues that affect the economy, in addition to the economic conditions of the whole region including Israel deteriorating from the Gaza war. There is also pressure on Egypt with the possibility of Gaza refugees crossing the border. Wealthy Gulf neighbors that supported Egypt's finances were reluctant to continue support leading to the IMF loan. UAE ADQ fund asked for currency to float freely if it was to invest $35 billion in northern Egypt. Inflation is at 30% and this WSJ report says even before this weeks fall of the pound the currency had already lost half its value. Interest rates increased to 27% from 21%.  This has increased poverty in Egypt and inflation is reducing standards of living. ...

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Overworking in investment banking has become a serious issue with serious effects on health. It is the focus of a WSJ exclusive report on the casualties coming out of an erratic approach to worklife and health. WSJ says it has become a norm to ignore policies set banks a decade ago after similar death and toxic work situations. Bosses it says make impossible and unreasonable demands and younger workers in deference to this are put in a dangerous situation. All this for $200,000 in entry level positions- now Dimon CEO of Chase JP Morgan asks what can we learn from this, saying there are many people at Chase "who give a damn about the human beings at work in this company." The results delivered are also not what is good for the country. Much of the capital allocation that takes place though investment banking leads to enormous waste and poor investment returns. And this is happening as needed funding for infrastructure and other projects for education health and public services remain unaddressed. ...

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A student of international law at Georgetown reflects on a career in the State Department and at NSA and CIA. Avril Haines head of National Intelligence Agency says the law can only take you so far, finds what she is doing in government conflicts with her own beliefs on what is right, that building a more ethical society is still an aspiration.

The adjoining story in the WSJ says Avril Haines headed the NIC during it's meeting with president Biden on Aug 24, 2021, on the origins of a plague like crisis- that resembles the Black Death in Europe which took 25 million lives and after which Brittanica says it took Europe till the 16th century to recover pre-1348 population. At that meeting says WSJ FBI WMD scientist Banaan and FBI, and the DIC scientists were excluded from sharing their views with the US president on the origins of the Covid virus that took 7 million lives and three times that number in unreported deaths.

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By acquiring Vodafone Japan Softbank CEO Son brought competition to the industry and challenged the duopoly of DocoMo and KDD telecom providers. After acquiring Sprint Son is taking a hands on approach to shakeup management at the company, which has lagged behind T-Mobile in building its subscriber base. After years of losses Sprint now faces the prospect of a complete makeover from the old way of doing things. Sprint is based in Overland, Kansas. Son says Sprint is like Japanese lords in feudal Japan who controlled everything in their lands, and said Sprint is a Kansas Daimyo. Masayoshi Son has asked executives to fire all the ad agencies and start over, at one point asking executives if they were stupid. Son has established shadow offices at San Carlos, California to monitor weekly progress at Sprint.

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Recently Abbott has expanded in international markets with the acquisition of Belgium's Solvay Pharmaceuticals, and collaboration with India's Cadila Healthcare Ltd. for generic drugs. Abbott CEO says he is comfortable with the price of the Piramal acquisition in India because he lost out in a bid for another company in an emerging market a few years ago. Piramal Healthcare will receive from Abbott an upfront $2.12 billion, and $400 million to be paid every year for 4 years beginning in 2011. Advantages Abbott's CEO White sees in this acquisition of Piramal, is that 70% of the Indian market is self-pay. And therefore not subject to government cuts in payment for drugs.

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Under new CEO, Georges Plassat, Carrefour focusses more on Europe and reduces expansion in emerging markets. As part of this strategy Carrefour buys 127 malls in which it operates stores and forms a separate propoerty company in which it owns 42%. This reverses the decision in 2001 to sell 150 malls partly to finance the push into China, Brazil and Argentina and other European countries. The prior CEO, Lars Olofsson, increased emphasis on hypermarket stores and expanded presence in emerging markets. Carrefour share price took a 60% drop in 2010-2012 and is gradually recovering. Plassat's strategy is to go back to focus on Europe and withdraw from poorly performing places such as Greece, Portugal, Indonesia and Columbia.

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Mr. Zuchowski succeeds John Krafcik as CEO of Hyundai U.S. operations. Krafcik joined Hyundai from Ford Motor in product planning and became the CEO in 2008. Under him sales doubled. Hyundai was seen as delivering better value with a lot of features packed in its base models -a restyled Sonata in 2010 and the Elantra in 2011. From 2008 to 2011 Hyundai U.S. market share increased from 3% to 5.1%. Market share declined to 4.6% through Nov. 2012 partly due to capacity limitiations. In 2012 the EPA said fuel mileage claims were misstated for Hyundai models and testing was done improperly. Zuchowski joined Hyundai from Mazda Motors in 2007 as president of sales.

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Medtronic's former CEO, Bill George, says Medtronic's plan to reincorporate in Ireland as part of the merger with Covidien is intended to make it possible to use cash piled up overseas. The cash overseas if repatriated to the U.S. would incur corporate taxes of 35%. Medtronic can use its overseas cash resources to finance the acquisition of Covidien. The combination of the two companies will enhance cash flow, says Medtronic's CEO, Omar Ishak. Covidien's overseas cash and future earning from its businesses is not subject to U.S. repatriation taxes. As a result the combined company following merger will have only 40% of total cash "trapped" overseas, compared to 60% before a merger.

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Microsoft has done poorly in anticipating and developing products for the internet and mobile devices. On the enterprise side the server and tools business has done well. Microsoft's Server And Tools business made operating profit of $8.2 billion in the year ending June 2013, up 13% from the prior year. Office 365 sold on a subscription basis to accomodate the shift to cloud computing, and other cloud products are expected to make up for decline in Windows revenues with decline in PC sales. Satya Nadella, who ran the Server and Tools business from 2011 till he was shifted to head the cloud computing effort in the reorganization of 2013, is a candidate for the CEO position.

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The 1953 coup that toppled the elected Mossadegh government was supported and attributed to planning by the CIA. During a cold war with the Soviet Union countries in the middle were considered expendable by either side. Added to this was the interest of big oil companies similiar to the Anglo-French response in the Suez Canal crisis of 1956. This still rankles with Iranians. In response to the election of President Obama and his offer for an open discussion the Iranian President Ahmedinejad calls for an apology for that coup and the toppling of an elected government. This led to replacing it with the Shah's monarchy which was overthrown in 1979 after 26 years.

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Carl Henric-Svanberg, chairman of BP, is from Sweden. He was formerly the CEO of Ericcson, a Swedish telecom company. He has been criticized for not being more visible during the BP Oil Spill.

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The amazing story of Abdel Hakim Belhaj who is seen as a foe by the CIA and turned over to Gaddafi's regime from Bangkok, followed by six years in Libyan jails. He is in the Western mountains near Tripoli leading a brigade that enters Tripoli. Because of the military discipline and experience gained in Afghanistan, Belhaj is put in charge of Tripoli by the Libyan Transitional Council. He looks to the future and is grateful to NATO and the U.S. for freeing his country. He holds no rancor for the past and looks to the future.

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Tesla is building its new factory in Texas, and Elon Musk is movin to Austin, Texas. There is a sense that Silicon Valley is out of touch with American principles and societal needs, says CEO Alex Karp of Palantir Technologies that moved from the Bay area to Denver, Colorado. Mr. Musk also sees that the San Francisco area "has too much influence in the world."  Worse it has distorted the priorities for capital investment in America by focussing too much on needs of the San Francisco region, and not of the nation. During the last 2 decades America's investment in its people, on education, healthcare and infrastructure has declined.

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New CEO Jonathan Lu of Alibaba.

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Denmark plans a huge wind farm project in Germany on an artificial island with 200 turbines. This will be Denmark's biggest infrastructure project. Germany plans to reduce emissions by 65% over 1990 levels by 2030. This means projects like this will be needed. Denmark prime minister Witte is on a 3 day visit to India with renewable energy projects under discussion. Germany's Economics Ministry has set up a joint working group with Denmark. 

The new project will be the size of 18 soccer fields setup on this artificial island in the Baltic Sea, to generate 3 GW enough for 3 million households. After this the project second stage is to install more turbines, for a total of 650 turbines, according to Der Spiegel. The project will cost 28 billion euros ($32 billion) with energy planned flowing by 2033.

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A major problem for getting grain out of Ukraine by truck and rail is the EU bureaucratic paperwork, says this BBC report. For truck routes long waits at the border are common and queues can stretch as long as  25 kilometres or 16 miles. By rail the Ukraine rail system is wider than the EU's so that the grain has to be transferred for rail on the border.This can take as much as 30 days or 16 days. This is limiting the shipments say Ukraine farmers and most of it is at this time corn shipments.

For years Ukraine farmers were used to sending grain out through the port of Odessa on the Black Sea. This is now closed till negotiations lead to its opening or EU and the US finds some other way to do it.

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France's prime minister Edouard Philippe announces hard line measures after rioting in Paris in yellow vest protests.

Yellow vest protests will be banned in worst hit neighborhoods in Paris. The Paris police chief was replaced after violence, looting and arson in the Champs Elysees area of Paris. 10,000 gilets jaunes yellow vest protestors marched in Paris. Police have come under criticism for excessive use  of force. Hand held rubber bullet launchers and explosive sting grenades are some of the devi ces used  by police. The government says not enough force was used. Philippe said "inappropriate orders were given to reduce use of rubber bullet launchers. He says there should be a hardening of France's doctrine of law and order.

Suggests an impasse has been reached between the government and protestors.

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Effects of the pandemic on U.S. and global business, the U.S. and global economy from the WSJ.

Imagine 700 of 763 aircraft, most of Lufthansa's planes parked. Lufthansa is in pause mode, having reduced its capacity by 94%. Most passenger airlines have become cargo airlines.

New car registrations in France have fallen 72%. Nissan Renault is not selling anything, and there are no revenues say company representatives.

100,000 sailors on cargo ships are at sea with no hope for landing as shipping comes to a standstill.

Workers on New York's power grid spend the night on trailers in parking lots and in confined spaces with no more than 6 persons on a team. If one got sick he could infect others, and cause a personnel shortage.

 

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Norbert Reithofer initiated changes at BMW when he took over as CEO in 2007. He reduced costs and improved margins at BMW. BMW has also benefitted from increasing demand for premium and luxury cars in 2010-2012.

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H-P takes a huge $8.8 billion charge over the Autonomy Inc. acquisition in Nov. 2012. H-P's CEO Whitman says Autonomy Inc. had misrepresented the revenue before its acquisition by H-P under CEO Apotheker for $11.1 billon in Oct. 2011. Apotheker was fired by the H-P Board following the acquisition, after his strategy to shift H-P's focus from PC's to software came under criticism from investors and the tech community. H-P alleges accounting irregularities, with $5 billion of the $8.8 billion charge announced by Whitman coming from accounting errors. H-P has asked the UK's Serious Fraud Office to investigate. The SEC was alerted and it is starting its investigation into the allegations of "serious accounting improprieties" and "outright misrepresentations."

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WSJ interview with Scholastic CEO, Richard Robinson.

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In the face of relentless questioning Goldman CEO Blankfein, CFO Viniar ,and Mortgage Products VP, Fabrice Tourre, hold tightly to their story that they did nothing wrong. At one point Viniar was asked by Senator Levin of Michigan how he felt about Goldman employees describing the deals by Goldman in sour terms. Viniar replied that it was unfortunate that it showed up in the email. Levin asked Viniar whether he had no qualms about the matter much less about the email. Mostly the four Goldman executives questioned and the senators seemed to be talking past each other, with the senators- Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kaufman Jr. of Delaware, John Ensign of Nevada, Susan Collins of Maine, Claire McCaskill of Missouri- appearing exasperated that the Goldman witnesses were dodging questions or simply buying time. Senator Pryor compared the whole thing to Vegas casino gambling to which Senator Ensign said that it was more like playing a slot machine while these types from Wall Street were manipulating things in their favor, even Vegas casino were not manipulating the odds while the game was being played. ...

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Charlie Rose interviews Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes.