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How returns in the U.S. stock markets of over 30% in 2013 change the picture of five year returns to the end of 2013 compared to the end of 2012. Long run has to be much more than 5 years and even longer for decent returns.

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Activity in downtown San Francisco remains at about a third of prepandemic levels, with remote work having caught on for tech companies during the pandemic employees are there for only half of the week. Office vacancy rates are 28% for downtown. In a strange twist Silicon Valley that led the shift of manufacturing to China and ignored that this led to loss of tax revenues for the towns across America, and decline of these towns that lost factories, is now facing the same situation in its own backyard. Office based industry provides three quarters of San Francisco tax revenue, and faces a $780 million deficit for the next 2 years. Mentally ill on streets near a Whole Foods, and dealers in Fentanyl, homelessness, lead to closing of a Whole Foods store in downtown San Francisco. Thomas Fuller and Sharon LaFraniere provide this report in WSJ of the situation in downtown San Francisco in 2023. Reports from California show the failure to build enough housing during the tech boom for the average American, and apartments for homeless costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and years behind schedule. The mayor is looking for tougher laws to put mentally ill off the streets. There is no consensus on action. Tech investors people hope for another Tech boom to tackle the situation, yet tech companies are retrenching and face government scrutiny even breakup. Even a speeded up effort to add 20% of the housing stock of the city of San Francisco by adding 83,000 apartments from Mayor Ms. Breed would take 8 years.  ...

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Gallup found last summer that only 16% of Americans polled had "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers, in its decades long polling of "Confidence in Institutions." For TV news only 11% trust it. Bret Stephens of NYT says the right approach to give marginalized communities a voice is to create more diverse newsrooms not let objectivity be eroded. He reminds people that in a democracy its not just about reporting, it's also about listening, listening to all the people. He quotes Arthur Miller- "A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself." President Biden showed this in his State of the Union address, by working hard to listen to what the nation is saying about itself, about communities all across America that were for too long being ignored while jobs were sent overseas and communities suffered. For far too long, a period that stretched into four decades, turning them into the "invisible" people. Ninety years after Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes" the task is one of restoring that voice of the people of America. About Lincoln, Sandburg wrote that he said Yes to the paradoxes of democracy, Yes to the hopes of government, No to debauchery of the public mind, Yes to people struggling in the middle of illusions, which of the faiths and illusions would he or she choose for his portion of the light, to take one out of the wilderness. If death was in the air, so was birth.   ...

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The renewal of America requires new leadership at the helm of America's institutions for higher learning when men's enrollment in college education is endangered as reported in WSJ. This WSJ report shows presidents choosing to retire at Dartmouth, NYU, Columbia, U Penn, MIT. Lee Bollinger is 75, he started at Columbia as president in 2002. He helped raise $13 billion and expanded the 13 acre Manhattanville campus. Yet what does it say for so many college presidents when during the period when they raised vast sums of money and during the last 2 decades college education is harder and harder to afford for ordinary Americans? During the pandemic WSJ reports in 2021 even show that American men are having a hard time paying for college education and rates of enrollment are dropping for men to alarming levels. Never before in America's history has it been said that American men are becoming endangered for higher education. One rarely hears college presidents talk about these social issues that are top and center for ordinary Americans. It is not just Columbia or what are called Ivy League institutions, most of the leading colleges in America have forgotten why they are here in the first place and what made America what it was and again can be, a land of opportunity for all. It is time for anew generation of leaders in American higher education to dedicate themselves to this task - so that we hold these rights to be self-evident, to renew America in the face of many challenges and set a model for the free world. ...

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Indian health minister Mandaviya goes house to house in Palitana, Gujarat, to start India's Har Ghar Dastak, house to house vaccination drive. Indian government has identified 50 districts with vaccination rates below 50% for first shot, for efforts at house to house vaccination by visiting homes of the unvaccinated. PM Modi returning from Glasgow held a meeting with chief ministers of the worst affected states such as Maharastra,Tamilnadu, Karnataka and other states with officers at the district level also present, to start Har Ghar Dastak campaign. Modi told the chief ministers and district officials that his talks with leaders of developed countries had increased his awareness of the great risks in letting any slackness or loss of vigorous effort take place in the vaccination effort. Germany is today facing a pandemic of the unvaccinated with fully vaccinated stuck at 67% and facing resistance from unvaccinated and closing of vaccination centers. The US is also facing the same problem and the winter looks increasingly fraught with dangers for both US and Europe, when people go indoors. India seeks to avoid having to face the same problem by taking action in advance to get unvaccinated to enlist in the national effort. Only Spain and Portugal have rates of vaccination close to or over 80% for fully vaccinated, and this is because of the huge trust people in these two countries place in the health system, seeing vaccination as a gift of modernity, and seeing that it is important to not risk health of older family members with whom most young people live with in these countries. ...

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The 2022 industrial trade fair in Hanover, Hanover Messe, is covered here in DW.com with 2500 exhibitors showing how they are responding to a changed world after the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine with support from China. Export oriented companies have to rethink their strategy says Thilo Brodtmann, the executive director of the German Engineering Federation, Supply chain disruptions and the pandemic have led to many German companies reexamining their reliance on Chinese suppliers. Human rights and democracy are now part of the reorienting of business in a new direction. The war in Ukraine is also having an impact. Reducing CO2 emissions is also a major part of the reexamination. Chancellor Scholz told the Hanover Fair at the opening ceremony -"We need to bring along with us emerging and developing countries, whose demographics and economic dynamics are turning them into new centers of power." Brodtmann says the solution is "to become independent and to have a completely different value chain." The head of the German Associaltion of Electrical and Electronics Industry Wolfgang Weber says "I'm quite sure that German companies are ready to invest in any of these countries in Asia, Latin America, and Africa to diversify their supply chains." However such new markets are not very well represented at the Hanover Fair, so that policymakers and German business have a lot of work to do to open up new markets across the world in Asia, Latin America and Africa. India, Indonesia and Vietnam are considered to offer good prospects for diversifying Germany's supply chain and a lot of work needs to be done. ...

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Roger McNamee, an early investor in Google and Facebook, writes this opinion piece in the Guardian newspaper saying that there are very serious problems in the way the "addiction" created by Facebook and Google products is affecting children. Lyrarc.com also points out that the reading and literacy scores in the U.S. and other countries are affected by how the new technology is used by digital gatekeepers. See our FAQ. Tim Berners Lee calls this a massive distraction for learning and youngsters. Melinda Gates has cited this as a problem she has faced in her own effort to raise her children.  Here is the main problem as stated by McNamee- of the millions of content pieces that can be shown the digital gatekeepers show only the content that is fit for their business model, and the best content from an educational point of view whether literacy, reading skills, civic literacy, all types of literacy and knowledge, is not only not the priority but is for the most part absent. He points out that that if not for the advertising business model this would be different- the focus could shift to experiences that educate, enrich and inspire users to better lives and better lifestyles. The smartphone has become pervasive in everyday lives to an astonishing degree- about 150 times a day with 2000 swipes and touches- to the point that it is changing the way people live and think without their realizing it. With it come new risks to the way we live and what we believe, like never before in history. ...

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This article on Emperor Akihito as he turns over the role of Emperor to his son in 2019, shows how he has defined Japan's postwar role in for over 60 years. On the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in 2015 Akihito went out of his way to reproach prime minister Abe for saying that Japan is what it is today because of the sacrifice of three million Japanese during the war. Akihito told the Japanese people on television that it was the hard work and sacrifice of the Japanese people after the war that made Japan what it is today. During the period of the Fukushima nuclear disaster Akihito broke tradition to visit homes of survivors from the disaster kneeling in Japanese manner and talking to people like ordinary citizens. From Jakarta to Beijing Akihito brought a message that showed Japan's resolve to maintain peace with its neighbors in Asia, and heal the wounds left after the war under his father Hirohito. He made a trip to China in 1992 and acted as the chief emissary of reconciliation.  He drew his greatest contentment knowing that Japan has not lost a single life to wars since 1945. As Mr. Abe and others shift Japan to move away from the pacifist constitution Emperor Akihito stands as a clear guide and symbol of what is the best way for Japan in these times 70 years after the war. His son is intent on carrying out the same tradition left by his father. ...

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Macron started out in the Socialist Party in Amiens, France. After going to elite schooling he joins the Socialist Party ministry of Francois Hollande. As Minister of the Economy he rises rapidly to replace Hollande with his own party called the Movement that he sets up and within a year wins presidential elections. The rapid rise, the lack of his Movement party having much experience and put together quickly with new younger people, his aloof presidency, and a lack of connection with the problems brought on by the deindustrialisation of France as production shifts to China, the problems of lack of work and cost of living in smaller towns in France, lead to Macron's loss of popularity. His party won only 10% of the vote in EU elections and 20% in the first round of Assembly elections in 2024. He is now allied with Sarkozy's Les Republicains, the very party he sought to replace by calling it old school and no longer relevant.  A small faction of the Les Republicains shifts out to ally with the National Rally of Le Pen and together the 2 parties seek a majority or near majority in the Assembly to take the prime minister position under Macron. The result would be a too young at 28 years Bardella as PM and the Socialist Alliance a close second in the National Assembly. Macron would have to come to terms with the Socialists he had abandoned to run the country and appoint Oliver Faure as prime minister if a second round gives his Movement and the Socialists over 50% of the vote. ...

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Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, India, UK, European Union elections are taking place by June 2024 and US in November 2024. Yet it is misleading to lump them together. Much discontent is there to see as in the UK with cost of living, governance, time wasted on Brexit, India with lingering effects of the pandemic on rural voters, caste based voting. In India protest vote of lower caste Dalit voters in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, even with government support in forms of universal healthcare, food for poor households during pandemic extended, cooking gas, housing support, clean tap water, direct bank account deposit to accounts of poor and farmers. Yet in the states in the south and east in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and generally in the south the BJP vote count increased so that losses in the north were made up leaving the percentage of vote for India for Modi's BJP party at 37 percent in 2024 instead of 38% in 2019, losing the absolute majority 240 seats of 543 yet having campaigned heavily for partners who added seats 294 of 543. In the UK Keir Starmer may see some vote preference for Labor erode yet the Conservative record is in shambles even conservative experts will say, as in India where the opposition parties offer no prospects for the future and little track record for making India the second or third largest economy in the world which the BJP has set and shown to have achieved over 10 years by taking India to No. 5 in the world economies. ...

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Bradsher, Tankersley and Cohen say in this NYT report- US industrial policy under president Biden corrects the failures of the past. Chinese experts in Hong Kong say the US and Europe deindustrialized their economies with pursuing of policies called "neo-liberal" but basically Reagan era policies that Democratic presidents Clinton-Obama imitated. As they deindustrialized it created disaffection among the struggling lower and middle income classes making $35,000-$106,000 that were big losers in the process, creating threats to democracy as financial and tech, plus pharmaceutical sectors took control of the economy. China's success comes from three decades of mastering the ways of practicing industrial policy that it can support private companies with low cost land, additional subsidies that reduce the cost of production and provide a buffer to absorb losses so that it could dominate key industries. Policies where textbooks and economists trained in the US failed utterly and completely leading to dangers to US democracy that we see as opportunities for good paying jobs in manufacturing disappeared for middle and lower income households from 1980 to 2020. These economists trained in the US always said see lower cost Chinese made goods means lower and middle income people pay less, never saying that this means all opportunities for better paying jobs in manufacturing will be lost for these classes in society. The tech and financial sectors had close ties to the new arrangement that turned manufacturing over to China from the Reagan era to the Obama and Trump era. Apple and Tesla and many industries benefitted from manufacturing mostly outsourced to China. ...

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Inflation is receding as an issue in the 2024 elections as the CPI index dropped below 3% in July as reported by the Labor Department. It was 2.9% lowest since 2021. Greg Ip says when Trump is saying bacon costs 5 times more now he needs to find another supermarket. That is the joke as Trump is really getting ripped off. Ip says bacon prices are up 18% since 2020 when Biden took office. Trump says at rallies grocery prices are up 70%, Ip says fact correction -up 21% since January 2021 not 70%. Trump says gas prices are $5.00 a gallon. Fact correction- gas prices are $3.75 a gallon and falling, says Ip. Trump wildly exaggerates. Trump says he will cut energy and electricity prices by 50% in 12-18 months. His answer "Drill Baby Drill." Experts cited by Greg Ip say even if new offshore and onshore leases are given, increase in supply is marginal and years away. Gas prices are determined by the world price determined by OPEC and Russia, says Ip.  Trump will increase inflation says this report because of tariffs he plans of 60% on imports from China and 10% from other places. That would increase inflation by 1.4 to 1.7% say analysts. Greg Ip of WSJ offers more clues. Inflation linked bonds see inflation dropping to 2.2% in 2025 instead of 2.6% predicted earlier. Jerome Powell at the US central bank the Fed and president Biden hav done their job well and are not letting up, continue to work on it diligently every day. ...

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Decades of investment in car manufacturing and EV's is paying off for China. It now exports 5.7 million cars of which 1.7 million are EV's. EV exports are twice that of Germany. Car production capacity in China surged as the Chinese market expanded to be larger than Europe and the US combined. The production capacity is twice the size of the domestic market- 40 million gasoline cars from 100 factories.  As domestic sales have slowed down there is a push for exporting this excess capacity. The US and the EU are imposing tariffs on Chinese cars to protect their domestic manufacturing. The push to become a leader dates back to premier Wen Jiabao 20003-2013. Wen chose Audi engineer Wan Gang as minister of science and technology, and gave him the task of making China the leader in electric vehicles. Manufacturers were given subsidies, tax breaks, cheap land and electricity. By one estimate the EV manufacturers and battery makers in China received $230 billion in subsidies since 2009.  This is one reason the EU and the US are imposing tariffs to protect their domestic manufacturers. As the shift to EV's continues in China- half of the cars in 2024 EV's- the gasoline models are shipped overseas. China has now replaced the western brands in Russia with it's gasoline models.  China makes great savings in batteries as it controls the supply chain in batteries. It makes EV's at 30% lower cost with these efficiencies. ...

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“I would advise none of the countries to panic. I wouldn’t try to retaliate because as long as you don’t retaliate, this is the high end of the number.” This is the ceiling number Bessent told countries around the world about the Rose Garden Tariffs chart of April 2, 2025. Just don't retaliate and negotiations would work things out. Bessent said some countries say they would work with China. I have this to say to Spain about China, he said, it is like someone with brooms and a bucket of water, it keeps on going, production never stops, that is the Chinese model. What Bessent is saying is that the Chinese model is to keep doing what they have always done non stop with no intention to change- build capacity, overcapacity, and ship production overseas to saturate markets with production and destroy industrial base of other countries- from computers to solar panels to electric cars. China is also looking at it's very recent history just the last 15 years as proof of its superiority in cost and quality and efficiency in production as evidence that US and EU is in decline. Forgetting that this was possible with US assistance and desire to lift the Chinese people out of centuries of poverty. For the 19th and 20th century Britain, the US and Europe were leaders in cost, quality and efficiency. US , India and the EU are coming back using their ingenuity, creativity and talented workers and engineers. ...

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The title says it all from BBC China Correspondent Laura Bicker. China is listening even as it is presenting itself as a nation that is putting up with an unfair tariffs war started by DJT. It has delayed tariffs till Feb 10 says this report and put tariffs on items which Europe needs from the US such as LNG and coal which China can get from Australia, saying that it wants to come to an agreement. My Fellow Americans, Canada, Mexico and China are putting themselves as aggrieved parties when there are two issues here one about fentanyl flows where none of the three nations have taken the needed action to stop all flows and control borders. The reader will find that much of the media titles blame the US for starting a tariffs war are misleading such as one in The Guardian-"In this era of Trump shakedowns everything has a price."  Or even in a Business friendly WSJ site- "The World has Changed since Trump's First Trade War. Other Countries are Ready to Fight Back." Or in Times of London sensational "World Watches as Trade War looms between China and the US," when US demand for effective action on borders and fentanyl flows from Canada, Mexico and China has little to do with trade. In fact it is incomprehensible that these three nations as neighbors and trade partners of the US have waited this long to act on fentanyl flows and controlling their border with the US.   ...

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It is important to know the cause of 0.3% contraction in first quarter 2025 for US economy. It is says WSJ because of a 5% hit from net exports, the difference between exports and imports, as importers rushed to import more before a tariff deadline. Imports by the US increased by 42% in first quarter 2025. Some include MIchigan Governor Whitmer who supports the tariffs as a way to take back America's industrial base, build factories in the US, say the uncertainty of the way tariffs were implemented is damaging confidence in the economy. For instance could the US have excluded the EU, Japan, UK, India as allies, and focused on China.  The problem with that approach is that it would single out China. It means other nations Japan, South Korea, Germany are not investing in the US, also have used trade for unfair advantage, are not called out. This would put China in an odd position. It is better to call out all who benefited from unfair advantage including China, Germany, Japan South Korea, Taiwan, because this has more credibility, giving all a honest and fair picture that they could then look at themselves in the mirror and correct. In the short run it looks messy, the tariff methods look erratic and back and forth increasing tariffs is also messy and unruy. Yet when every major trading nation knows deep inside that US is only saying it like it is asking only for fairness in trade, it will lead it to negotiate a fair trade agreement with US. ...

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Strikers at a Honda transmission factory in Hoshan, 100 miles northwest of Hong Kong are asking for raises of $117 or 800 renminbi in cash above the $132 a month or 900 renminbi that they are now paid. About 950 of 1900 workers at the plant are trainees, young people from vocational schools or high schools earn $132 a month. Older employees earn upto 1500 renminbi or $220 a month. The significance of this strike is that the Chinese government is tacitly encouraging the strike as it begins making moves to increase domestic consumption and make the economy less dependent on exports. This requires consumer's having larger purchasing power and higher wages. It also means that China will not remain the low cost manufacturer for manufacture goods makers around the world for very long. Consider the size of the increase and the policy change of the government and this implies a significant shift by China.

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Helena Morrissey of the 30% Club has helped increase the representation of women on Board of Directors in Britain to 23%. This is nearly double the figure in 2010. Helena Morrissey uses a non-confrontational approach, getting men to join the organization and having them act as advocates with other men in senior positions. She learned this after using other approaches which were less effective. She focusses on telling chairman of the boards that having women on the board provides different perspectives, and points to studies that show about 30% lets a minority voice be heard. Homogenous boards have been known to provide no new thinking or fresh perspective, a problem at many companies. The opportunity opened up with the finsncial crisis of 2008 and widespread opinion that the boards had failed to understand the crisis that was coming. She and 14 other women got the support of 2 prominent board chairmen in 2010 to start the 30's Club. A Commision by the new government led by Lord Davies provided additional impetus by recommending that 25% of a board be voluntarily set for women. Early in her career Helena was turned down for a promotion because she had a baby. She has nine children, which her husband a journalist helps take care of at home, making her situation even more unique. Helena Morissey is CEO of Newton Asset Management in London's financial district....

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Norbert Rottgen, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the German parliament is realistic about the prospects of Minsk 2, after the failure of Minsk 1, which was negotiated in the Belarus capital Minsk in September 2014. The Russians have the upper hand militarily and the demarcation line moves further to the west in current negotiations in Minsk. The breakdown in Minsk 1 comes as Putin continues to support the separatists in Ukraine, who declared a Donestsk People's Republic with elections held recently, and have now taken territory to make their positions in eastern Ukraine more defensible. The war could end there with a de facto split of eastern Ukraine on the Russian side, or lead to further guessing of Russian president Putin's intentions if the conflict continues. Italy's foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni, points out that arms aid by the U.S. to Ukraine would only fail as Russia could respond, and it gives the Russian president the added advantage of the narrative that the U.S. and NATO are a threat to Russia at its borders. All sides say they respect the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine, but the fact remains that Ukraine is deeply divided with the eastern region bordering Russia having close ties to Russia, and the western region near Poland having strong ties to a newly emergent EU that includes much of Eastern Europe. Prudence and restraint is needed on all sides for a settlement. ...

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Research by Chief Marketing Officer Farley's research team found that Americans associate Ford with "on sale", "American" and of being"powerful", attributes that don't help Ford much in being loved by car buyers. What Farley wants car buyers to see in Ford is "Quality, Green, Safe and Smart." And that is where Ford is headed in its marketing campaign. Farley is from Toyota and knows a thing or two about saying the same thing that the dealers are saying. All of Ford advertising will be coordinated so dealers and Ford say the same thing. The new advertising campaign will focus on the line "Ford. Drive One" a line that Mullaly likes because he likes to say at every opportunity "Have you Driven a Ford Lately," another of the older Ford lines. Its about getting buyers to look at Ford. The new campaign was presented to the Board recently by Farley and takes Ford in a new direction It makes sense as it made sense for Toyota, to have a clear message, a clear idea about what you stand for and what people to think of you, and to say it with one voice whether dealers, or Ford the company in Dearborn, Michigan, or other Ford related organization. The 4000 Ford dealers will now have hands on discussions with Dearborn about what they are seeing and what should go into the advertising and monitor the progress as this effort which may go on for several years takes place....

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Admiral Mullen chairma joint cheifs confirms most of what the British Ambassador in Afghanistan s saying about deteriorating prospects in the country. He understands the heroin growing issue brought up by US counter narcotics experts in the NYT recently, by saying "we've got to impact pretty significantly, pretty fast on the poppy issue". He is aware that poppy growing is abundant in the south and in Helmand province pours upwards of $100 million to finance the Taliban. General McKiernan who heads NATO forces there says that NATO forces would be authorized to attack narcotics bosses, their soldiers and infrastructure, if they are linked to movement of weapons, improvised explosives or foreign fighters in Afghanistan. Which is possibly a waiting mode till more troops are sent to Afghanistan as policing this rugged mountanous country with tribal regions and loyalties complicated by the narcotics layer and widespread corruption in the Karzai government and its loss of popular support requires many more troops than are now in the country and a sustained campaign. So far the US and European forces possibly outnumbered have resisted alienating the poppy farmers in the south through land based eradication. But with more troops Mullen's new approach and Petraeus's has to shift to something like that, at the same time as they follow Petraeus's new counterinsurgency doctrine in display in Iraq to draw down the Taliban strength to its core supporters by winning other tribal factions with no hardcore loyalties over to the American side....

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David Reilly warns that though the U.S. Federal Reserve's stress tests of U.S. banks showed they passed- including approval for dividends and share buyback- except for Ally Financial and Citigroup, this can be deceptive. True, the Fed used 13% unemployment and sharp drop in stock market prices as conditions. The problem is with capital ratios. The Fed used a leverage ratio of 3%. It should not be forgotten that the financial crisis of 2008 was caused by excessive leverage and risk. Tested on this measure the banks fail to achieve safe levels of leverage and risk. Under the Fed's highest stress scenario Citigroup ratio was at 2.9%, Morgan Stanley's at 3.4%, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan at 3.8%- what ths means is that the leverage for these banks was at 26-29 times capital. Reilly raises the question- how is this so different than the leverage used by these banks before the crisis. The stress tests in the U.S. by the U.S. Federal Reserve are lauded for being better than the European Banking Authority's stress tests, but is this a standard by which to judge them? Before the collapse of Lehman in 2008, experts including Anil Kashyap at the University of Chicago, pointed out that for every $1 of bank losses in a deleveraging cycle bank lending goes down at banks by $10, and for investment banks at $20-$30 depending on leveraging- in David Henry and Matthew Goldstein, Business Week, July 16, 2008, How Bad Will It Get on Wall Street? Lehman's leverage ratio was between 24-31 times capital before the crisis. Worse, by saying banks are now safe compared to the situation before the crisis, is the Fed giving the green light to banks for some of the same leveraging behaviour that ocurred before the crisis?...

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Quiet quitting has become a phrase that means workers are working hard and doing things the way they did before, except that they are not letting a work culture that may have gone astray because of bosses  who set the wrong rules guide their lives. Even as companies such as Stellantis are taking on a new culture because of a new respect for workers work-life balance and getting a lot more from them, other companies are following older set patterns that did not include work-life balance or rejected work-life balance outright without saying this openly. Stellantis, Europe's largest car company itself shows why this is dependent on who is the CEO and what he believes in. The previous CEO had poor health habits including frequent smoking and irregular long hours without a structure of any sort that led to this being carried over into the work culture. The CEO changes and new rules are set and soon it permeates who is hired at different levels that are consistent with his habits and sense of work life balance. A new culture develops over time and gradually you have new work ethic that respects the mental health and fitness of workers and of managers, and that of the CEO. This report in WSJ starts with the premise that workers should'nt feel bad because worker are "quiet quitting" anyway after the pandemic. But in reality the statement is a bad one, as it does not say there are better models out there few as they are, that need to take pre-eminent place after the pandemic rejecting the old ones that recklessly ignored health and mental health and were less motivating for workers, and leading to less productive culture in the workplace. At Stellantis a lot gets done in regular hours so that the time after 5 or 6 pm is devoted to workers getting into exercize taking a bike ride, doing things that revitalize and build a healthy body and mind so essential for productive and good thinking type concentration in work. Emails over weekends need not be replied till Monday, and bringing up work during the weekend is discouraged. And still a lot gets done, the company will take the leading role in EV vehicles in Europe and has aggressive plans for 2030 for new EV models. See the link to Stellantis to see how this new CEO runs a company of about 100,000 employees around the world. His name is Carlos Tavares and he took charge of Fiat, Peugeot, Chrysler combined operations called Stellantis in January 2021. This is important as it is the new trend that will take hold of the work culture after the pandemic only if workers and managers ask that it be so and as the word spreads that better more productive companies that can get a lot more done is the result of such an educated workplace that respects health and mental health, and the dignity of workers and families. Look, how can it not be so when the word still has to be spread on climate change in the business world? How can one take place without the other? There is a new sense of dignity in respecting the dignity of the environment, of water, soil, and air, how not so for the mind, the body and its connection to nature around it? And no better place than Stellantis and its CEO Carlos Tavares where the old CEO ran himself down with poor work and health habits and passed away while at work in 2018, to show a new way.  In Germany this new way of work-life balance based work culture is called by a more respectful term "Feierabend" than "quiet quitting" showing that what is wrong is with the work culture and bosses who do not grasp the importance of health, mental health, and what it means to be revitalized for truly productive and thoughtful work. Quiet quitting has that sense of workers having to feel a bit of guilt about this and still thinking it is right  doing it anyway. In Germany"feierabend" is popular and accepted, it means breaking away from work at normal times such as 5 pm or 6 pm when a workday ends so that one can go out and relax with a bike ride  or something that is good for health and fitness and rejuvenates. No email, no nothing so the mind can rest and revitalize. ...

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This article in the Economist following the state election in Berlin, says it shows Merkel and the CDU as still the only likely option to form a new coalition in the 2017 federal elections. Even though six parties emerged in the Berlin election- the left parties SPD and Die Linke, the Greens,CDU, AfD, FDP- the situation is so fragmented that the CDU still remains the leading party nationwide. The Economist points out that a Greens and left parties coalition as in Thuringia is not an option at the federal level, because most Germans are not in favor of a SPD, left party Die Linke, and Greens coalition at the national level. The opposition from the CSU inside the CDU-CSU parties to Merkel's refugee policy,  with Seehofer calling for a numerical limit to refugees, is it says presents the only real challenge to Merkel. Yet Merkel has already tackled that problem, as the new refugee numbers are dropping dramatically. and Merkel has already pointed out that the refugee crisis came when she and her government were caught unprepared. By taking the right steps to assuage voter sentiment as she has deftly done throughout her terms in office, staying close to what voters generally accept as the best way forward, a year from now Merkel and the CDU may as she says be seen as having taken actions that best reflect Germany's interests in the long term. ...

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The importance of time and compound interest in investing cannot be overstated. Over long time horizons steady saving and investing using index funds such as Vanguard with low expenses can take advantage of compound interest to generate good returns. This happens for a strategy of dollar-cost averaging into broad indexes over longer horizons. The longer horizons help overcome fluctuations and volatility, even bubble behaviours, as compound interest plays a larger role. Investing based on timing is not viable because no one is prescient about the market. It is risky if this route of timing is taken because the investor ends up staying out of the market for long periods thus missing out on the power of compound interest to generate good returns. One way of looking at this is to take a $100 investment and see what happens by the sixth year on a calculator if it is invested at 10%, in the sixth year it generates 16% on the original $100.