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Projecting a sense of a voice of moderation above the messy fray of politics may be a good thing, but it may also be seen as a sense of aloofness and a lack of new ideas and vision. It could end up creating a fuzzy-fuzzy picture of the President's leadership role on major issues facing the country, say some experts. Bill Clinton's period was a period of relative economic calm, the current times and economic uncertainty may actually require serious leadership.

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As the federal revenues rise to about 18.1% of GDP (close to historical rates after return to growth) and outlays to offset the effects of the 2008 recession diminishing, the deficit is forecast to drop to 3% of GDP in 2014, and 2.6% in 2015, close to the average for the last 40 years. The deficit is estimated to be total $514 billion for fiscal year 2014, declining from $1.4 trillion in 2009. Real GDP growth (adjusting for inflation) of 3% is forecast for 2014-2017. In 2018 and the years to 2024 the deficit will increase because the pace of growth slows, and spending will increase- slower growth of the labor force as the population ages, increasing health care costs, subsidies for health care, and increasing cost to service debt. Outlays other than for health care, Social Security and interest payments on debt for year 2016-2024, are set to be the lowest percentage of GDP since 1940, according to the CBO report in 2014. Debt will increase to 79% of GDP by 2024 from an estimate of 74% for 2014. CBO projects unemployment only slowly decreasing, remaining above 6% till late 2016, with the rate of participation in the labor force- lower now because many people have opted to not look for work discouraged by the job prospects- slow to recover....

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Fiat's Marchionne leads Chrysler. He will keep Jim Press as deputy CEO. Press is a veteran from Toyota. The four brand CEO's are Peter Fong for Chrysler, Michael Manley for Jeep, Michael Accavitti for Dodge, and Pietro Gorlier for Mopar. Except for Gorlier, all are Chrysler employees. Ralph Gilles continues as Design executive, and Scott Kunselman, a Chrysler veteran will lead product development. Frank Ewasyshyn will continue to lead manufacturing. Doug Betts will remain in charge of quality, and Scott Gaberding, as head of procurement. Only Marchionne and Richard Palmer, the new Chief Financial Officer are the new faces at the upper ranks. Marchionne's mesage to Chrysler employees is that Fiat was perceived by many as failing in 2004, " a lethargic automaker that produced low-quality cars." But he says "most of the people capable of remaking Fiat had been there all the time. Through hard work and tough choices, we have remade Fiat into a profitable company." One thing that Marchionne has already in mind is a flattened organization with which he says "we are able to increase speed of decision-making and improve communication." Marchionne is actually a manager who worked and spent many years in Canada. He got his MBA at the University of Windsor, in Windsor, Ontario, in 1980 and his LLB law degree from York University in Toronto. His parents immigrated to Canada when he was 13, and he grew up in Toronto. He worked at Deloitte Touche and Canadian companies before moving to Europe. So he is very familiar with working in North America. Compared to the young group he had working for him in changing Fiat, he has many older managers at Chrysler. ...

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Paul Bremer the American in charge on the ground in Iraq issued a decree on May 22, 2003 disbanding the Iraqi army, to extirpate all forms of Saddamism and dismantle the intelligence and command centres of the Iraqi military. This was not part of the original invasion plan according to some reports. Bremer's decision sent many of these officers to fight against the Americans as insurgents, cost American lives and lives of the insurgents effectively turning the invasion into a years long war with hit and run insurgents formerly of the Saddam army. Also effectively destroying or weakening the former elements of Saddam's army. In the process it gave Shiites the first hope of living free of Sunni control and Sunnis who wanted no part of Baathist politics and repression their freedom to exercize their rights, it also brought in the turmoil and lack of security, the bombing of Shiite holy sites by politically motivated Sunni elements and Shiite reprisals, that led to effective partition of the country something a long history of ethnic conflicts and colonialism may have already exacerbated long before the arrival of Americans. The documents of the war planning may suggest that keeping the Iraqi army intact was part of the plan but Bremer could not have issued the decree and had Bush back him up unless Bush and Rumsfeld felt the same way about extirpating Saddamism, seeing it in the way Americans treated Nazis and Nazi instituitons after invading Germany and seeing it the way the Americans saw the Japanese militarists and their institutions after the invasion of Japan. The Baathist treatment of the Kurds, the gas attacks on the Kurds, the destruction of Shia in the marshes after the first American invasion, the repression of Sunni and Shiite, were reminiscent of Nazism and Japanese militarism....

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Unemployment has fallen more heavily on blacks in New York City, with 80,000 more unemployed blacks than whites, even though there are about 1.5 million more whites than blacks in New York City. This is from areport by the City Comptroller's office, and is as of the end of March. THe gap between black and white unemployment has widened substantially in the past few months and this may be because of the large numbers of black people in retailing and other hard hit service industries.

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Kristof compares Pakistan to Bangladesh. Bangladesh he says has more girls in high school than boys, and compares this with only 3% of women in the Pakistan tribal areas who are literate. He points out that this may well be why Al Quaeda is in Pakistan and not Bangladesh. He asks if its so hard to build schools, then how is it that Greg Mortenson has built 39 schools in Afghanistan and 92 in Pakistan- and not one has been burned or closed down. The Afghan Institute for Learning he adds has 32 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with noen closed by the Taliban. Afghnistan needs nutritional support, irrigation, schools, education, healtcare just as badly as the rest of South Asia where one report says about 48% of the children under age of 48 are malnourished, just more desperately so.

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Miles White, CEO of Abbott Labs, describes the approach based on 4 P's- people, product, presence and perseverance- that will work best for emerging markets. The idea is to become a citizen of that country or region, with the right mix of local people, product customized for regional preferences, local infrastructure, and perseverance for the long haul. The stakes are huge, as emerging markets are growing rapidly. The pharmaceutical market in India is expected to quadruple from $12 billion today to $50 billion by 2020.

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Signup on health exchanges for the Obama healthcare law, Affordable Healthcare Act, crosses 6 million by March 2014. Still unknown are how many have paid premiums, and how many are from the uninsured.

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Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, is released after agreeing to a deal in a Brooklyn court hearing. Meng Wangzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, admitted to wrongdoing in a fraud case. The Biden administration acted to remove a friction point with China, and China released 2 Canadians held by China since 2018, following Meng's release.

Meng is daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei. She was arrested at Vancouver International Airport in December 2018 at the request of the United States. The US Justice Department during the Trump administration had accused Meng and Huawei of a decade long effort to steal trade secrets, and evade Iran sanctions. In retaliation China arrested 2 Canadians who were released after Meng's release, after a long period in detention.

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In 2007 the number of businesses initiating liquidation increased by 50% totaling 18, 751 according to the Administrative office of US courts. And 5700 businesses sought Chapter 11 protection to reorganiza an increase of 24% over 2006. Look for more of this happening in 2008. In current credit and economic conditions its hard for some companies to pay off their lenders and the lenders do not want to go through a restructuring process, lenders preferring to get their hands on collateral and doing the liquidation. Its a sign of the times.

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Marketing innovation at Ford. Marketing campaign called "Bold Moves," to help Ford reconnect with younger buyers, bring the younger demographics into Ford's customer base again. Could cost upto $100 million. It would have a documentary style internet program starring Mark Fields, head of North and South American operations, and features a new Kelly Clarkson song. Ford plans to produce this show itself, to tell its own story in its own words.

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This report in the NYT says Hillary Clinton has studied policy briefings, academic papers and taken advice from 200 policy experts, including experts from Bill Clinton's administration such as Alan Blinder, all in an effort to define her own policy positions on issues facing the U.S. This happens at a time different from the period of slow growth when Bill Clinton ran against George H.W. Bush. Since then middle class families face the added problems of not being able to keep up with the rising cost of college education, health care, child care, low interest rates on savings and volatile markets dampening savings growth. For working class Americans in the middle class during Bill Clinton's time in office the problems take the shape of a sharp decline in the manufacturing wages that once supported a middle class life in industrial states of the midwestern U.S., with global competition doing the damage, and few solutions available except improving technology and technical skill of the workforce to compete in higher end products. Consider the points made by Janet Yellen, the Fed chairwoman at a Boston Fed conference in Oct. 2014- Fed information for 2013 showing the average net worth of the lower half of American families representing 62 million households is $11,000. Only this conceals the situation facing one fourth of these families who have zero wealth or negative net worth, and a significant fraction owing more on their homes than they are worth. Hillary Clinton told a audience at the New School in Greenwich Village in New York, this is the defining economic challenge of our time. " We must raise incomes for hard-working Americans so they can afford a middle class life. This will be my mission from the first day I'm president to the last."...