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The Japanese economy went through asevere contraction in the first quarter 2009, declining 15% on an annualized basis. But Japan's unemployment rate in April was 4.8%, compared with much higher rates in EUrope and even higher rates in the USA. France and Germany have social democratic states that protect workers jobs, and Germany even after the Harz reforms continues to help workers deal with unemployment making it least painful as possible with government help. Japan takes this astep further. The law in Japan requires that even though companies can cut worker's hours, they must pay at least 60% of their hourly wages during that time. THe government provides help. It has budgeted $624 million this year to reimburse companies for half of these payments. In March 48,000 companies got subsidies for 2.38 million employees according to government figures. This includes large companies like NEC Electronics and Nissan Motor. THey have to find things for the workers to do, community service like keeping the area clean, vegetable gardens, handicrafts shop, anything that helps the communities. A recent survey by the Nikkei financial daily, shows zero percent of large business owners said they had plans to layoff permanent staff members, compared with 39% in South Korea. WIthout this the unemployment rate, say experts, would be 2 percentage points higher....

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Jeremy Grantham and Jason Zweig share the view that this market has gone up too fast too quickly. Stocks that went down the fastest of companies in industries like finance and banking, insurance and autos, went back up with government support. And many of these companies that have poor earnings prospects are issuing more shares to raise capital now that the credit markets are working, so that they have some cushion if credit markets tighten again. Grantham thinks this dilution of shares spreads future earnings thin over a larger number of shares. Zweig says whatever was garbage has done good, which suggests that what is seen as a recovery in the stock markets is not perceived as a healthy recovery. Grantham's comment that "the junky companies may be diluted to hell just to keep them alive," and Zweig's comment that these "garbage" stocks are hot, but can be expected to sink for precisely that reason, do not offer a reassuring view of this kind of fragile recovery. Companies with stable businesses and stable earnigs prospects haven't done as well as these so called "garbage" businesses to use Zweig's term. Companies like Microsoft, Procter and Gamble and Johnson, and Wal-Mart which have low debt and stable returns. Grantham sees them as offering value in today's market. ...

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Chinese car company Shuanghuan's CEO was on display at the Franfurt auto show. Its rear looks like a BMW X5 and BMW has charged that it copied the X5 and filed suit to prevent it from being marketed in Germany. Shuanghuan also has a minicar that is called Noble which looks like the Daimler's Smart minicar. Daimler also is taking legal action to prevent the marketing of the Noble in Germany. Only the X5 was shown at the Frankfurt Auto show getting criticism from Reithofer who is head of BMW. Critics say that the Chinese actually have borrowed from several car designs and from different aspects such as the interior aand exterior of different brands,thus the X5 is seen as borrowing from the front of a Toyota Land Cruiser and the rear of a BMW X5. The price difference is huge 29,000 euros for the CEO vs 59,000 euros for a X5. Currently the Chinese are struggling with safety issues in their cars by makers such as Brilliance and the Landwind. Both cars did badly in tests conducted by the German automobile club ADAC. Landwind's model is being retooled for safety while the Brilliance which has a collaboration with BMW for the Chinese market presented a new subcompact the BS2 as an alternative to the VW Golf....

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Oil prices doubled in the last year but wholesale gasoline prices rose a mere 39% according to analysts. Independent refiners like Valero and Tesoro have difficulty passing on the increased price of crude oil to consumers and their profits are being squeezed. Th cost of oil represents about 75% of the cost of gasoline at the pump, state and federal taxes 12%, and refining and distribution the rest according to the Energy Department. Meanwhile the demand for gasoline is dropping as motorists drive less, drive in more fuel efficient cars, and take shorter trips. Refining utilization rates are dropping going to a low of 81.4% in April 2008 compared to 90.4% in April 2007. In the beginning of May they were running at 85% utilization rate. Its appears odd but the rising price of oil hurts the refiner's margins because independent refiners buy the crude they process. Tesoro,Sunoco and United Refining all lost money in the first quarter even as producer/refiners like Exxon Mobil showed big profits. Valero which processes the heavier crudes that trade at discount saw its profit drop to $261 million in the first quarter 2008 from $1.1 billion in the 1st quarter 2007. Refining margins are about $12.45 a barrel on average, about 60% below the level a year ago, and in the low part of their 5 year range according to a UBS report....

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A locally produced ton of hot rolled coil steel in India, an industry benchmark, is up 42% in price to $675, since January 2008, when Tata unveiled the Nano. Raw materials account for a higher portion of the costs of making a car like the Nano, and account for 23% of the costs of making the Nano, according to consultants Global Insight. This means margins will be harder to preserve on the Nano. As Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata group of companies put it at a shareholder meeting July 24, "if we passed on all costs to the consumer, it will affect demand, and if we don't it will affect margins". Tata is accomodating suppliers like Rico Industries that make the engine blocks that use steel for increased costs of raw materials. Other costs also are going up. For new car loans the interest rates are between 14 and 16% and fuel prices are going up making the cost of operating the 50mpg Nano costlier for those riding motorcycles. Tata faces other higher costs, its managng director Ravi Kant says the project for the Nano plant in Singur is costing more. The $470 million invested so far is 18% more than it had projected in January and double the amount stated when the prject was started in 2006....

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Brandon Johnson not just won the mayoral election in Chicago but also showed that putting the community effort forward to continue fighting crime, distancing oneself from extreme positions such as unfunding police, and energizing the community through a grassroots campaign works. When people can see and feel the candidate and that he cares for them, is grappling with the problems, it is possible to come from behind, for an unknown candidate like Johnson to win. Julie Bosman talks to people in Chicago to show how this was done. Mr. Johnson, a public school union leader won over a well known Democrat Mr. Vallas who fought the election on tougher action to fight crime, winning 51% to 49%. Mr. Johnson carried wards with black majority population by over 80%. Johnson pitched voters on a public safety plan that went beyond policing while supporting police yet getting the community involved. Johnson also did well in white neighborhoods along the lake and in the northwest Hispanic neighborhoods of Chicago. Bernie Sanders was out campaigning with Johnson in the final days of the campaign. And Representative Jesse Garcia also supported Johnson in the Hispanic neighborhoods. Mr. Quezada, a Cook County Commissioner for the northwest side says people just felt- "we want to be invested in, we don't want to just be punished."  ...

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The story of Lee Kun-hee who over 3 decades transformed an obscure electronics parts maker into the company Samsung is today, as a leader in smartphones and electronics. He was born in 1942, during the Japanese occupation of Korea and lived through the war years. He studied at Waseda University in Japan and George Washington University in the U.S. By the time he took on the position of CEO in 1987 from his father Samsung had grown from roots as a small fish and produce trading firm. It had then added after the war with Japan and the Korean War in the 1950's other lines of business such as sugar refining, textiles and diversified later into simple electronics such as radios and microwaves.  He was for change and once said to Samsung employees "change everything, except your wife and children." He was both mentor and inspiration at Samsung, with self-discipline and resolve to make Korean companies match their Japanese counterparts in technology and growth. He was like Konsuke Matsuhita of Panasonic in some ways- keen on learning new technologies and bringing excellence and quality to the Korean peninsula. Companies in India and other developing countries can look to the experience of South Korea in making similar transformations in South Asia and beyond. ...

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In January 2020 employees met at a local Maryland bar to find out how they might salvage their careers in a 33 year old company that had failed to develop an approved vaccine, says this story in WSJ. Only months later following the coronavirus pandemic everything changed as in a miracle for Novavax. The company had to sell manufacturing assets at one point, and had enough cash for another 6 months just months before. By Feb. 2021 shares which had dropped to $4 were up to $229 and valuation which had declined to $127 million went up to 15 billion. Coronavirus has turned things upside down where newcomers are using previously unproven technologies and making them work in this pandemic. The persistence, perseverance and confidence of Novavax even in the most difficult situations shows how the right attitude can lead to remarkable results. Novavax vaccine can be kept in refrigerators for 3 months, and do not require very low freezing temperatures like Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. This is considered a potent weapon in the fight against coronavirus. Novavax says it can produce a couple of billion doses over the next 12 months beginning in April. Novavax has released data showing its vaccine is effective for protection against coronavirus. Results of late stage US trials are expected in March. ...

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Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, who has struggled through the crisis triggered by the extradition bill she introduced has decided to finally withdraw it. Protests have gone beyond the issue of the extradition bill as Lam herself agrees. She pointed out in her video message that the protests are about housing, land supply, income distribution, social justice, mobility, and many social, economic issues in addition to political ones. Protestors have five demands and the freeing of all those arrested is not something Lam has agreed to. Lam says some protestors violated the rule of law. Protest leaders including Joshua Wong, see the withdrawing of the extradition bill as poor timing. Hong Kong has seen 13 weeks of protests and the pictures are all over the world showing how much the issues and the the lack of responsiveness of Carrie Lam has resulted in this standoff.  Lam would like to replace the confrontations with police "with conversations." Why she took so long to meet or seek meetings and conversations is not fully understood and will be discussed for a long time. This brought China to the brink of a crisis that would have repercussions including on trade issues, when it needed to be handled in a better way. ...

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U.S. vice president Mike Pence visits the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea and says that North Korea should not pursue its nuclear weapons program. Pence says the U.S. wants to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear program "through peaceful means" but "all options are on the table." Pence said North Korea should not test "U.S. strength and resolve."  Snap elections are to be held May 9, 2017 in South Korea, with one of the candidates saying he would reconsider deployment of the THAAD missile system. Following the deployment of THAAD anti missile system in South Korea China has responded with a economic boycott of South Korean goods. Seoul is only 30 miles from the border with North Korea and the sentiment in South Korea is to avoid military action which would affect the region around Seoul of 20 million people. The missile tests by the North are also seen as a threat to South Korea and Japan. China sees the THAAD system as an effort to increase American presence in the region and has opposed deployment. The U.S. response has been to speed up the deployment of the THAAD missile system ahead of the election in South Korea on May 9, 2017. ...

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The step by step process Mr. Obama used to arrive at his decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The use of charts showing the buildup at one of the last meetings, and how President Obama expressed frustration at the length of time the troops would be there, and then says "I want this curve pushed to the left," pointing to the bell curve showing buildup and withdrawal after some years. This says Baker may be the pivotal moment for the expansion of the war. What he meant was something like a fast buildup and rapid draw down. He asks Petraeus how fast the Iraq buildup for the surge took place, and Petraeus says 6 months. The option being discussed was Option 2A carefully prepared to get a30,000 troop addition approved by Defense Secretary Gates and presented to Mr Obama on November 11, 2009. What Obama said at that point was according to NYT reporter Baker's sources is - "What I'm looking for is a surge, this has to be a surge." Gates was the seasoned person in saying the right things at just the right time and not sooner in these negotiations. The process had seen alot of back and forth swings, leaks including the McChrystal report leak and the Ambassador Eikenberry report leak, and the President preferring to keep his thoughts to himself and using University of Chicago law school style analytical thinking to wade through the swamp of issues in this place called Afghanistan. With that Gates shows how that curve can be moved up and gets the President to allow for conditions at the time to be the factor for withdrawal conditions. In effect the President's analytical thinking an approaches good for a law class in the University of Chicago and potentially very unlikely to allow for agrasp of the muddied details and complexities of social, political and historical type in Afghanistan, were being applied to a crucial mind decision that would have a mind boggling impact. Had Gates served the country well? Had Mr Obama served the country well with these analytics, when a more intuitive decision based on understanding of all the conditions on the ground by talking to different people who had first hand experience in Afghnistan and Pakistan- see the links here to first hand reports- would have accomodated the peculiarities of the Afghan situation better than some charts and numbers? Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Obey had indicated lack of support among Democrats. The Budget Office had provided a cost estimate of 1 trillion dollars for 10 years. None of this appeared to matter in the final decision. NATO would supply the additional troops to get the number closer to 40,000. Gates had been the most seasoned player through years of negotiating with Congress, and he helped formulate Option 2A for 30,000. The President makes one final Professorial comment at the final meeting on November 29, 2009, after announcing his decision to support Option 2A, -"but if you don't agree with me say so now" and repeats saying "tell me now." Gates signals to Vice President Biden who inquires whether this is a Presidential order that it is one. Mullen and Petraeus say "fully support." America had by using charts numbers and law school analytical processes turned the complexities of Afghnistan into something else, but these analytics had still to be played out in the vast mountainous spaces of Afghanistan and in the homes and workplaces of America in 2010 and beyond. It is hard not to sense that something serious was lost that day. ...

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Cuomo's Queens, New York, accent. An accent that is part Queens, part his father Mario Cuomo's and part old country immigrant Italian. It has a lot to do with his growing up in working-class Hollis, Queens. Its plain, tell it like it is, says one state Assemblyman from Queens.

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Railroad companies like Union Pacific see improvement in profits as they raise prices because of the demand for rail freight as it becomes more efficient way to transport goods tha truck transportation. Union Pacific and other railroad companies see the need for more capital for expansion and for technologically upgrading.

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Side work earns book royalties of $2 million for Barrett on "Listening to the Law" and Ketanji Jackson $3 million Sotomayor and Gorsuch also have books and royalty advances. This provides the public with a closer view of the Justices on the highest Court in the Nation. It also means Justices live a sheltered life away from the concerns of ordinary Americans about cost of living, cost of health care and pharmaceuticals, cost of childcare, cost of education, cost of fentanyl and other drug trafficking to American families and mothers. During the Depression only three Justices the most prominent of whom were Harlan Stone of New Hampshire and Wendell Holmes of Massachusetts supported New Deal legislation to provide government help with other Justices rejecting New Deal legislation right in the middle of the Great Depression when people were literally without food and shelter, without jobs and in despair. Today there is a permanent exhibition of Harlan Stone in the US Supreme Court for the longest service on the Court. It took till 1940 for FDR to appoint new Justices to get the Court to support the New Deal. Today Justice Barrett is a lone voice among Conservatives willing to listen to all opinions on both sides along with but more than Justice Roberts. This is heartening to both sides. Barrett like Justice Sandra O'Connor before her puts great importance on the Constitution's intent and wording, its pages are in her book. O'Connor from a rural ranch in Arizona carried the Constitution with her at all times and had her own books- the Lazy B about growing up on a ranch on the Arizona- New Mexico border in the middle of big country, big sky, so wide an expanse that she writes about it in her preface to her next book The Majesty of the Law citing Wallace Stegner. ...

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Three NBC reporters talk to people in areas in southern France, including Cogolin, which voted in a National Front mayor. This report describes the contrast between the National Front under Jean Le Pen and his daughter, Marie Le Pen. Marie took over the party leadership in 2011, and has downplayed her father's more racist ideology, even calling her self Marine dropping her last name. About 22% of French women are expected to vote for Marine, according to Elabe polling agency. In previous elections only 12% of French women had supported Marine's father because of overt racism. Yet recent remarks by Marine about Vichy regime shootings have revived some of the old memories of the National Front among some women. High unemployment and sense of neglect has led to a search for alternatives, and the terrorist incidents in Nice and Paris have added to the momentum for the National Front that calls for tougher measures. The Republican Party candidate Fillon, now has the support of Alain Juppe of Bordeaux, and former president Sarkozy. Fillon is also advocating tougher measures, and it is not clear how many votes would shift from Fillon on the right to Le Pen.  ...

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Phelps compares the Continental European system with the American system. He sees the role of creative careers and the satisfaction scores of creative people, and all people who love their work and like to see it made interesting and challenging, as the big positive point for a system that encourages this. But he does not dwell on how this does not happen when society and the institutions and companies inside it redirect these energies to wasteful ways. This article in the WSJ was written the day after he was awarded the Nobe Prize in 2006.

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Phased retirement is becoming a popular option for many Americans nearing retirement. An example is a employee taking 25% less income for 13 weeks of additional time off to spend more time with a reitred spouse, for vacation, and for trying out new locations for retirement. It gives working Americans an opportunity to gradually adopt a more relaxed lifestyle, to better understand what it would be like in retirement. This option also has the advantage of using good health to add some working years and improve the retirement portfolio, with less demands of work.

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France's president Hollande says about Greece during a visit by Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, that the Greek government must move forward with economic reforms, "while making sure that it is tolerable for the population." He also said he was "saluting the Greek people for their painful efforts of the last two and a half years." Samaras says in an intervew: "Greece is like a swimmer who is underwater for a long distance and needs to come up from time to time for some air, we need to be able to take a breath."

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The U.S. 2010 Project study's lead author, Barrett Lee, sociology professor at Pennsylvania State University, says diversity is becoming a part of daily life in America throughout the country not just in large gateway cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles. Hispanic immigrants are moving eastward changing the faces of towns and cities in the South and Midwest. Hispanic population increased 42% from 2000 to 2010 to 50.5 million, Blacks increased 11% to 37.7 million in that period. Asians quadrupled between 1980 and 2000 to about 18 million.

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Big retail supermarket style stores are taking off in urban areas of India. Indian and western companies Tata and Tesco, Godrej, Reliance, Bharti and Wal-Mart, are setting up these stores. A government backed study by ICRIER shows that even though the arrival of the big stores results in a drop in sales of 23% in the 1st year, thereafter sales recover and in 5 years these smaller stores are back to where they started. And gradually the protests like those seen in 2007 are fading from these smaller stores.

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Fuji Heavy which makes Subaru cars is targeting sales of 50,000 cars in 2010 for China. It has no factory there and says it needs 100,000 in sales for putting up a factory in China. Sales in the US were robust and went up 39% in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, to 227,000. Sales for 2010 are targeted at 244,000 vehicles for USA. Fuji Heavy plans to source smaller models from Toyota- which has a16% stake in Fuji Heavy- so that it can address demand in emerging markets like Russia and China.

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Francois Hollande leads in public opinion polls for the second round of voting in France's presidential election by 56% to Sarkozy's 44% in February 2012. Sarkozy has closed the gap for the first round of voting. Sarkozy' popularity has suffered from being president at the time of the global economic crisis of 2008 and the current eurozone crisis, and for his aggressive style. Hollande has been consistently underestimated in France with a nice guy image, but has proven to be a persistent campaigner and effective voice for the Socialist party in the current economic crisis.

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The efforts by Poland to maintain control over its banking sector. About 70% of the banking sector was owned by foreign owned banks before the recent withdrawal by banks from Western Europe. State regulators and the central bank would like to see more of the banking sector in Polish hands. Bank Zachodni WBK, wholly owned by Banco Santander of Spain will merge with Kredyt Bank, a subsidiary of KBC Group of Belgium, to create a larger bank with a stake of $104 million taken by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

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With no clear strategy to pursue vaccines or generics like its competitors, and no promising new drugs in the pipeline, Astra Zeneca faces an uncertain future. Acquisitions are costly with a high premium in 2012. Nestle paid about 20 times earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes for Pfizer's baby food nutrition business. Astra Zeneca's first quarter earnings in 2012 declined by 44%. Government price reductions and competition from generics led to first quarter 2012 sales decline by 11%. New management takes over in June from the current CEO.

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On May 10, 2011, prime minister Naoto Kan of Japan says the plan for nuclear energy to account for half of Japan's energy needs will be rewritten from scratch. This will mean Japan will have to look at renewable energy and other sources seriously to complement a tightly regulated nuclear power energy source. In the past Japan has not given the emphasis to renewable energy that it has received in countries like Germany. The pro-nuclear lobby has also worked against the development of other renewable energy sources.