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The northeastern region of Brazil, the poorest region of Brazil, has benefitted from the economic expansion in Brazil. The region's GDP went up by 4.2% a year for the last ten years compared to 3.6% for Brazil. Bolsa Familia, President Lula's anti-poverty programme has benefitted the northeast, but the Getulio Vargas research institute shows three quarters of growth coming from earnings and expansion of export based agriculture in soyabeans and other products and from mining export industries. Projects in the northeast include development of the port and industrial area around Suape. A petrochemical plant, a shipyard and a Petrobras refinery, are under construction. A new railway will link Suape to the interior. Much of the development is for export industries in soyabeans and iron ore, and for the rail and port infrastructure that supports these exports to China. As a result the development looks similiar to what is happening in Australia with the huge expansion in rail and port infrastructure in that country to support iron ore and other mining exports to China. Any slow down in China will affect Brazil as the IMF has recently warned, because of an overdependence on commodity exports to China. Alexandre Rands of local Datametrica consultancy points to this when he says that infrastructure booms while helpful are not enough to sustain development. Big firms train the workers they need which is how Brazilian companies cope with a weak educational system. Schools in the northeast are however not getting the financial support to improve education, a situation that affects Brazil as a whole, but is even more evident in the northeast....

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The election of Sebastian Pinera only confirms a new emphasis in Latin America towards a social cohesion agenda. In Mexico with Calderon, in Columbia with Uribe, in Brazil with Luiz Inacio Da Silva, in Chile with Pinera promising to work closely with the Concertacion and carry on social programs introduced by that coalition which reduced poverty, the trend is the same. It is to put behind Latin America the struggles between the military, the universities, business, unions and other parts of society and forge a common consensus for coupling social programs for the less well off with business friendly policies to improve the economy. Its even a process that is taking place in Spain which has a great deal of influence on Latin America, as Spain combines social support programs with business friendly policies. And the Concertacion President in Chile, Michelle Bachelet, leaves with personal popularity ratings of about 75% showing that these policies are popular with Chileans, as they are in places like Brazil and Mexico. The fatigue with 20 year old Concertacion rule shows with a change in administration but overall policy direction will in large measure continue....

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Felipe Calderon is President of Mexico till Dec. 1, 2012, when Enrique Pena Nieto takes office. He describes the priorities for the next administration at the Mexican cultural center in Washington D.C. The first is to allow foreign investment in Mexico's oil industry. His efforts to do this were watered down in Mexico's Congress. The renewal of the ban on assault weapons in the U.S. is another priority, as 80% of the 150,000 weapons confiscated by Mexican law enforcement were bought in U.S. gun shops. Calderon's says he worked hard in his term of office to make Mexico "a rule-of-law state."

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Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, describes her growing up experiences in Reno, Nevada, seeing her father help people struggling with some problem as he ran a drug store in the town. This has influenced her own style of managing people, showing care in teaching people so that they can operate in their sweet spot without fear of being overwhelmed by too big a challenge. The ability to bring out the best in a person who is struggling, is one of the things she looks for in people she hires. Innovation, failure, resilience, and the humility that brings care and respect for others, are other things she looks for.

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Fighting escalates on the Syria- Turkey border in 2016 as U.S. Special Forces support Syrian rebels with the help of Turkish artillery to take border areas from Islamic State. Turkey was not willing to support Kurdish rebels in the fight against ISIS, leading to the shift to support Syrian rebels with the help of U.S. airstrikes. The result is a new flow of refugees to Turkey. The Turkish government created a zone on the Syrian side of the border for new refugees and called on the U.S. to create a safe zone.

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Mexico's Felipe Calderon cites the achievements during his 6 years in office: the efforts to establish a rule of law state, reduce the influence of drug trafficking gangs, improve higher technical education with 113,000 engineers now graduating each year, generating jobs and economic growth, and reducing the flow of people moving across the border with the U.S. as conditions improve in Mexico.

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The shift of offshore manufacturing jobs from China to Mexico in 2014-2015.

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Studies by Mexico's Interior Ministry show that 62% of the $23 billion in remittances to Mexico by Mexicans living in the U.S. go to the lower middle class. As migration to the U.S. diminishes to zero Mexicans who are illegal aliens in the U.S. are returning to Mexico as small entrepreneurs using earnigs made in the U.S.. This offers them a chance for upward mobility and a return to families that they never had in the U.S., and is aiding the growth of a Mexican middle class. About 12 million Mexicans, or 15% of Mexico's labor force lives legally or illegally in the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Experts say that in the first 3-5 years remittances go to help their families, after 7 years the money goes into savings and investment fueling growth of small towns such as Santa Maria in Mexico. About half of Mexico's 112 million people have family living in the U.S., which is having an influence on atttitudes and ways of thinking of the lower middle class that emigrated to the U.S.and is now returning to the country. Other factors are reinforcing the trends such as the lower price of consumer goods with the entry of retailers such as Wal-Mart and Costco into Mexico. Nestle, P&G, and Unilever, all sell at low price points in Mexico. The government's effort to setup a basic safety net subsidizing schooling, health care and food has also helped in this direction. Rapid change in demographics in all of Latin America, including Mexico with a shift to smaller families is creating new opportunities to invest in children for better educational opportunities and working lives....

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A seven member panel formed by Toyota to look into Toyota's recall problems made its recommendations recently. The panel's report says Toyota was not good at responding to criticism from outside. Company executives looked at complaints about sudden acceleration defensively or skeptically, and viewed regulators in an "adversarial" manner. The NHTSA also has come under criticism in investigations, because to some extent Toyota's close connections with the NHTSA made it possible for the company to drags its feet in responding to complaints. Edmunds.com CEO, Jeremy Anwyl, says Toyota has a stable and predictable way of doing things and this does not work well in a crisis, leaving Toyota uniquely vulnerable to this. The insularity of executives in Japan because of the lack of non-Japanese on the Board. and in other important positions, magnifies the problems when they are rooted in a crosscultural environment. Such complaints in the U.S. media are viewed differently than in Japan. The report also pointed out that safety and quality are two different things - that processes that improve quality will not necessarily produce safe vehicles. By putting safety under quality and making everyone responsible for quality, no specific executives were assigned responsibility for safety. One of the lessons learned from the recall crisis is that specific responsibility needs to be assigned for safety, and the person in charge has to report directly to the President and top managers. One of the panel members, Brian O'Neil, a former president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Saferty, says the old adage is true in this case- when everyone is responsible, no one is responsible....

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The situation in Tampico, Mexico, with corruption, crime and dangers to public safety, show the problems Mexico is still grappling with to ensure a rule-of-law state right next to the U.S. The paradox is that of a breakdown in public safety with Calderon's war against drug gangs undermined by corrupt police and local government, and the continued foreign investment in the country. DuPont is investing $500 million in a new plant near the port of Tampico and South Korea's steel manufacturer POSCO is planning a $300 million investment to double production in this area.

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An indepth look at Mexico, its assets, its huge potential and what is holding Mexico back. It ranks much higher than Brazil in many respects- higher investment as a fraction of its GDP, technical education, an easier place to do business, less regulation, better management talent, more industrialized. In 2010 Mexico had $400 billion of business with the U.S. With rising Chinese wages Mexico is an attractive place for foreign investment, with a hardworking and educated workforce. Mexico suffered badly during the 2008 recession in the U.S. It is trying to reduce its dependence on exports to the U.S in key areas such as the automotive industry. Exports to the U.S. by the automotive industry are now 65% of the total, and the auto industry association in Mexico is working to bring this figure to 50% by exporting to Latin America and Europe. Economic growth was 5.4% in 2010, and expected to be 4-5% in 2011. Drug violence may have reduced the growth by one percentage point according to some estimates. The think tank, Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, estimates that economic growth would be 2.5% percentage points higher if labor market and competition laws are changed, and the oil industry is opened up to foreign investment as happened in Brazil. A study by OECD and the Federal Competition Commission (CFC) of Mexico has shown that 31% of Mexican household spending goes to products operating in high price monopolistic or oligopolistic markets. The bottom ten percent spend even higher proportion of incomes, around 38%, for products supplied in such markets. This includes pharmaceuticals, airline travel, banking, and electricity. Taking on these cartels is a difficult task. The CFC is beginning to take the first steps in this direction, in what will be a long road to fair prices for Mexican consumers. Banking was opened to Wal-Mart. The collapse of Mexicana was an opportunity to auction landing slots to other airlines. An auction system has been developed by CFC for drugs. A new competition law sets penalties for collusion in pricing, with upto 10 years in jail. And Carlos Slim's telephone monopoly was fined $1 billion for its telecom monopoly practices. In 2009 the Calderon government shut down Luz y Fuerza, a state electricity company costing the governmment $3 billion in subsidies for an highly inefficient operation. ...

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Barry Ritholtz lists the causes of the financial crisis, He says New York Mayor Bloomberg's exoneration of the financial industry is simply false- what he calls "the Big Lie"- even though Congress, regulators and the Greenspan Fed acted irresponsibly and created favorable conditions for the actions of the financial industry.

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A 93 year old hero of the French Resistance, Stephane Hessel, publishes a pamphlet called "Indignez-Vous!," released by a small publishing house from the publisher's home. He calls for resisting the "international dictatorship of the financial markets" and "defending the values of modern democracy." He protests France's treatment of illegal immigrants, the influence on the media by the affluent, cuts to the social safety net, French educational reforms. It was first published in October, and now has sold 1.5 million copies, all through word of mouth advertising. It has been translated into Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Greek. New editions are planned for Slovenian, Korean, Japanese, Swedish and other languages. In Britain, it was published with the title "Time for Outrage." The pamphlet is about 4000 words and only 14 pages of text. Its timing is good, as the French are debating what to do in their politics with an election approaching and Sarkozy's standing at new lows. The short length and low price are a big plus, at $4 it made a convenient Christmas gift. Britain, Spain, Portugal and Greece are going through austerity cuts. Public sentiment has been aroused by the cuts, and by the overarching influence of financial markets on the economies of these countries. Some of these countries referred derisively as piigs- Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain -countries in the financial markets. The economic impact has fallen disproportionately on the young, with high jobless rate for young people from Italy to Spain, and cuts in funding for universities and schools in the UK also fall heavily on young people. A sense that something has gone wrong in the free market system and the western world. Austerity cuts in spending in the U.S. create a similiar feeling and joblessness among young people is also high in the U.S....

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Peter Funt points to the time before the internet when daily papers were delivered and radio carried the news between music, and it was hard not have it rub off while hearing the radio or glancing at the sports pages. This rub-off effect meant that even by casual listening or accidentally people got the news. Before cable television the news came from nightly and evening general interest news broadcasts. People usually caught the major news at dinner time or before bedtime as most entertainment broadcasting paused for news broadcasts. By contrast in today's environment news is pulled on the internet home page only from the sources and topics one has selected, or watching one of the 24 cable channels that are essentially covering a liberal or conservative agenda, leaving people less informed about current events except in ways that reinforce one's opinions or biases. Others get their news from tweets, or social media. Funt call this a complete inversion of the traditional process of getting news- where the traditional process was to combine what people wanted to see and ought to see, the new process was to give what people wanted to see. Add to this competitive pressures and budget cuts, and news was shifting by design and intent to what people wanted or were likely to click on frequently, even on sites like BBC News with proliferation of trivia. The net result- there is too much which poses as "news" but is not news such as trivia, less coverage of news, and as the title of this article suggests, too much media and too little general news to shed light on events that affect our daily lives. Funt was writing in 2009, when Google News and Facebook News Feed were just getting started. By 2016, this inversion was causing serious alarm because of the way misinformation was becoming prevalent. This article reminds one that this was not always the case, this is something that has developed only in the last couple of years- that it is not a constructive development, and which we now realize can have a disruptive effect on democracy through spread of misinformation. Funt cites Scripps News slogan- "Give light and the people will find their own way," - that there is a role for traditional general news in our daily lives which informs and lets us form our own opinions afterwards,  that the social media news feeds on the internet run by algorithms or 24 hour cable news channels run for conservative or liberal agendas is not a subsitutute,  that most of us can use the help of good editors, and good broadcasters.       ...

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This op-ed essay by the President of Toyota Motor Company, Akio Toyoda, talks frankly about the situation that led to the quality failures at Toyota and promises that Toyota will try to live up to the ideals that shaped its beginnings some 70 years ago. Toyota had humble beginnings in the thirties when the original founder of Toyoda was in the textile loom manufacturing business. Following a new venture in automobiles in the 1930's, for three decades Toyota was only trying to catchup with the U.S. in auto manufacturing. It started with the current chairman Shoichiro Toyoda's father -and Akio Toyoda's grandfather Kiichiro- visiting a Professor of Metallurgical Engineerig at a university in Tokyo to collect ideas and information for entering the automobile manufacturing business. Akio Toyoda seems quite cognizant of these beginnings in this essay. Action steps he mentions are a top down review of global operations, establishing an Automotive Center of Quality Excellence in the United States, and asking a blue-ribbon safety advisory group of outside experts in quality management to independently review Toyota's operations, with the findings made public. Akio Toyoda points to the lack of effective communication in quality matters in its global operations that led to the problem festering for so long. He says that in regard to sticking accelerator pedals, Toyota "failed to connect the dots between problems in Europe and problems in the United States because the European situation related primarily to right-hand-drive vehicles." Toyota also moved to address problems in its Prius and Lexus HS250h models for anti-lock braking systems....

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Prof. Gorton and Prof. Metrick of the Yale School of Management review 16 scholarly studies and papers on the causes of the 2008-2009 global financial crisis in the current isue of the Journal of Economic Literature. Another article in the same journal reviews 21 books on the subject. Samuelson says the most cited causes- lax regulation and passive regulators, and the policy of home ownership that encourage the packaging and of securitization of mortgages to government sponsored agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac- are only the surface causes. If we are to explain how a whole society seemed to believe in the idea that somehow there was a way to maintain a rising tide continuously, with only small corrections over several decades, by the clever manipulation of monetary and fiscal policies; then one has to look to the hubris of economists who acted as if this was possible and the gullibility of business and a public that desperately wanted to believe as some have put it "that this time it was different," or that shrewd management of economic policy could actually bring about such a panacea. The abiding lesson is economic policies based on a better understanding of how modern industrial economies work are merely useful tools, no more no less, and there is no substitute for a good ethic, wise management and careful thinking on the part of the public, business and government, particularly for the people in leadership positions. ...

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Efforts to bring the textbook industry under state control by selling the firm "Enlightenment," which had a 30% share of the market, to Putin ally Rotenberg. "Enlightenment" has now received further support as other competitor's textbooks were not given approval by the Ministry of Education and Science. Apparently Putin sees western ideas introduced in some textbooks as harmful to the development of Russia's youth. All schools will now be given state inspections, and where textbooks are not on the approved list the schools will see cutoff of state funds. Putin was chairman of the publisher "Enlightenment" when it was under state control, Rotenberg is the new chairman. During Soviet times "Enlightenment" as a state publisher controlled all textbook publication. The industry was opened up after 1990, resulting in a large number of new publishers. Now many small publishers are being pushed out as the industry is being consolidated under the state's private sector allies with an educational agenda being set by Mr. Putin....