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A trial by Merck and Schering Plough that lasted 2 years with 720 patients in the Netherlands found that while Vytorin helped reduce cholesterol more than Zeta taken alone, the plaques of patients on Vytorin grew twice as fast as the one on Zeta alone. Vytorin is a combination of Zetia and Zocor in a single pill. About 60% of patients take Zetia in the Vytorin form. Zetia by itself reduces cholesterol by 15-20% but its not clear if it reduces the plaque formation in arteries at all. The trial was completed in April 2006 but released now only after articles were written about it in the media. Zetia and Vytorin account for 20% of the overall cholesterol lowering drug market. Its about 70% of Schering's earnings and about 100 million prescriptionhave been filled in US so far. The drugs cost $3 a day. For Merck its reputation after the Vioxx issues would be affected by these results leaving some doubts in the public mind.

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This analysis of coal use using graphs shows a clear move away from coal in the world, except for two growth markets China and India which account for 60% of the increase in coal use since 2008. India has gone black in its shift to increasing use of coal. China has begun the shift away from coal to address the smog over large urban areas, poor air quality and health impact of coal use. Because China used five times the coal used by India in 2017, the overall impact in China and India is showing a shift away from coal to hydropower, other renewables including solar energy. It is likely that India will make the shift following China's example in the future. 

The trend is clear when one looks at the incremental terawatt hour and where it comes from. The shift is clear to renewables, hydropower, and non fossil uses in the rest of the World and China which account for most of the coal use in the world.

 

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A team of 45 designers, sculptors, design engineers and scientists are working in the EFlex Systems Design studio to continue work on the Chevy Volt. It will be dedicated to designing a variety of vehicles that will use the electric plug in concept for cars.

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Over 50% of respondents in a Pew Research center survey conducted in December 2014 view with disapproval president Obama's handling of race relations, only 40% approve. This includes a steep drop among African-Americans of 16 points since the previous polling in summer 2014. Obama's statement that change is "hard and incremental" comes up short for many Americans who look for leadership in race relations. A cautious presidency fails to speak up for ideals it espoused, for human rights overseas and building a better future for minorities at home, losing precious opportunities at every turn.

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After the debt swap of old bonds for new bonds with private bondholders for an estimated 53% haircut, the IMF's March 2012 report on Greece says a lot remains unresolved. It predicts a "disorderly exit from the euro" without further help. The April 2012 elections may result in a dilution to committments to austerity policies in Greece, as these policies are highly unpopular in Greece. Greece is still "accident-prone." And competitiveness issues may take over a decade to resolve.

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In 2013 the Greece government of Antonis Samaras made a study of wartime costs incurred by Greece for damaged infrastructure during the Nazi occupation of Greece and Nazil loans forced on Greece between 1942-1944. The estimate exceeded 200 billion dollars. Die Linke, a socialist party in Germany in the European parliament allied to Syriza, also supports debt forgiveness.

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The largest U.S. bank holding companies, including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, and two foreign banks Deutsche Bank and Barclays PLC must submit initial plans for "living wills" by July 1, 2012. The Dodd-Frank legislation requires financial firms to develop plans that lay out how they could be liquidated if they went under in a crisis. This legislation gives the FDIC and other regulators the power to seize and dismantle a failing financial firm, to help mitigate the problems of "too-big-to-fail" firms. The FDIC and U.S. regulators lacked such powers at the time of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The FDIC and the U.S. Fed co-wrote the living will rule for "comprehensive and coordinated resolution planning." In all, 124 banks, including 100 foreign banks with U.S. affiliates, which have over $50 billion in assets worldwide, must submit plans and update on a regular basis. Smaller banks will have the deadline extended to December 2013.

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Yoshimi Inaba, who now heads the North American operations of Toyota, thinks Toyota became complacent and lost touch with the customer. He says Akio Toyoda, the new CEO, wants to put some "passion" back in the company, and to see local executives speed up the decisionmaking at the company.

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Toyota plans to spend $1 billion on a marketing and advertising plan, spending that is 30-40% more than normal, to ramp up production and fill out inventory. It includes money to subsidize lease and loan rates, customer incentives and dealer ads. One aim is to raise the projected resale value of its vehicles used in calculating montly lease payments. Akio Toyoda is also giving more decisionmaking power to local executives for the markets they are more familiar with.

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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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Voter turnout exceeds 70% in the 2014 state assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, India. Voters weary of years of conflict voted in favor of economic development and infrastructure building in the state.

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The political warfare between the two parties Republicans and Democrats complicates help to the automakers being released from the TARP $700 billion by Bush in the months before January transfer to the President elect. Bush is purported to want the Democrats to support the Columbia trade agreement which Obama vigorously opposes on the grounds of violence against union workers in Columbia. Complicating the situation further Obama and environmentalists including Al Gore wnat to see the auto industry help in the light of promoting energy conservation and environmental goals, whereas the industry and the unions and their Michigan supporters like Rep. Dingell and others want to see the aid given without any strings attached. This leaves the danger that both sides may be caught in a situation they could not control, the Bush people with a outgoing President who is struggling to preserve something of his legacy amid dismal ratings, and the Obama people without the experience to handle a situation such as this which is getting increasingly complicated. See the editorial pages of the WSJ on November 10 which said government help should only be given if the current management and board are replaced with new management and board, suggesting government receivership for GM. The management and board of GM which have hung onto their jobs through thick and thin are not likely to volunteer for a change. And the public perception is that the automakers management is responsible for this mess having dragged their feet all the way and used lobbyists to delay having to make the fuel efficient automobiles customers want. And another intractable factor that remains in the background is the collapsing sales of automakers which if it continues would require even bigger amount of government aid to keep operations running and pay workers way beyond the $50 billion that is being discussed, almost unrestricted help. In the meantime the Center for Automotive Research athink tank based in Michigan says about 3 million jobs depend directly of indirectly on the automotive industry and suppliers and services and goods providers to autoworkers. At the rate things are going a further deterioration in the conditions of the industry and further sales losses look likely, and GM's share price has already been placed at zero value by auto analysts at Deutsche Bank. It may well turn out that no one is in control and as the situation lurches from crisis to crisis, both the outgoing and incoming administration might find events happening in rapid fire mode one after another may take GM' s share price down close to zero before any solutions are found to an impasse and action taken. This happened with Lehman Brothers where in the end the failure of Fuld to take decisive and correct action early led to a collapse which the Fed and Treasury let happen. The danger to the economy is that when the story of these events is written years hence it may be recorded that very liitle action was taken to prevent foreclosures and action taken was not taken early or decisively. And individuals like Fuld at Lehman in October and Waggoner at GM in November failed to provide the leadership in the months and years leading into the crisis, leading to its steep and worsening nature on the credit front and on the auto front. ...

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A New York hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. finally makes a settlement with the new Argentine government of president Mauricio Macri. It took 15 years and 5 different administrations in Argentina. Eliott gained $2.4 billion 10-15 times the original investment on Argentine bonds made in 2001, but requiring extraordinary persistence from hedge fund manager Mr. Newman at Elliott Management Corp and Mr. Singer. In 2001 the Argentine bonds traded at 20 cents to the dollar, and Mr. Newman who had made large gains on Peruvian bonds saw this as a good investment. By 2008 the bonds instead traded at pennies on the dollar, and the Argentine government later settled with 93% of bondholders at 30 cents to the dollar. The holdouts were three hedge funds, including Elliott. The Argentine government of Kirchner opposed any settlement with the holdouts. The situation changed with the election of Mauricio Macri in 2015, who made resolution of the issue a priority, so that Argentina could borrow in global financial markets and grow its economy. The U.S. Supreme Court had rejected Argentina's appeal of a U.S. District Court ruling prohibiting paying interest on exchanged bonds when payment had not been made to the holdout hedge funds- which led to the settlement with Elliott, and closing a long and difficult chapter for Argentina....

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The tough job President Obama faces as he faces opposition from politicians who have interests to protect, and healthcare businesses with interests to protect. The President has to come up with a plan that is deficit neutral, because financial markets could see a healthcare bill that further widens the deficit as a signal for higher interest rates that would deepen the recession. At the same time each of the three sources of revenue puts him at loggerheads with political leaders in Congress or groups with interests to protect. Limiting income tax deductions for high earners could raise $267 billion in 10 years. It would require taxpayers in the top tax brackets deduct their mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and charitable donations, at the 28% tax rate instead of the 33% and 35% tax rates. The opposition is with democratic leaders that it would hurt charities, universities that depend on tax deductible donations, and taxpayers in high tax cities like New York city that are the home base of Democratic leaders. Yet only 1.4% of households would be affected says the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, says charitable giving would decrease by 2%. The other opposition on this comes from the preference of Senators Baucus and Grassley, who head the Senate Finance Committee, for tax increases or cost savings to come from the health sector. Specifically they want to see the value of workers' employer provided health benefits subject to income taxes. It is a situation in which every sensible person admits the need for healthcare reform and would see the current pace of healthcare costs as unsustainable and dangerous; and after that will just go back to his group and try to preserve as much of the status quo as possible, so as not to disturb by much the benefits or compensation they have secured from the system over the years. Then there are political leaders in Congress with their own preferences, and Congressmen who are the subject of heavy lobbying by these interests. The administration and the Presidents job is to navigate this stream with a workable deficit neutral plan, without any requirement for any group to make sacrifices, and in some situations even small sacrifices for the public interest. Would charitable institutions be hurt that much, what if charitable institutions were exempted, why would other interests the try to obtain the same exemption. Its like the unions trying to keep the old unsustainable goldplated healthcare and other benefits at GM even as the ship was going down. Taxing employer provided employee health benefits as income would raise $2.5 trillion over a decade. The opposition here is from unions which are a force in the Democratic party and which count tax free health benefits as a legacy of the labor movement. Employer provided health insurance covers 160 million American employed and their dependents under the age of 65, so it has a wide impact. Yet most economists favor ending the tax break. They say it mainly goes to upper income taxpayers, and discourages cost consciousness among consumers of health care, thus encouraging excessive spending and surging health care costs. Senior Obama advisors, Peter Orszag, the budget director, and economist Jason Furman favor this approach. So do Republicans in Congress. Senators Baucus and Grassley are not asking for the complete removal of the tax break, what they want to see is capping the value of benefits that go untaxed. If the tax-free limit is $13,000, a policy worth $15,000 would pay income taxes on $2000. A third spource is to spend less on Medicare. About two thirds of the $948 billion in savings Mr Obama has proposed over 10 years comes from a number of reductions in Medicare spending. $177 billion comes from insurance companies bidding for government reimbursements for offering private plans to seniors. $106 billion comes from cutting the subsidies to hospitals serving the uninsured as universal coverage should remove this need. And $110 billion in reduced payments to hospitals and doctors because of productivity gains. A range of industries insurance companies, hospitals, doctors drugmakers, nursing homes, home health care companies and medical device makers, all stand to lose from reduced payments from Medicare and Medicaid. And these groups with interests to protect are another factor in this process of working out a healthcare plan. ...

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Risks to stable long term growth of too much liquidity in the global financial system.

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Fears that the conflict in Syria might spill over and lead to a conflict with Iran pushed up oil prices. At the same time the new forecast by the International Energy Agency in early August 2012 showing a 20% decrease in demand growth in 2013, as a result of the economic slowdown in the U.S., Europe and China, acted to put a lid on oil price increases. Light sweet crude for September delivery was at $92.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on August 10, 2012, and Brent crude was at $112.95 a barrel on the Intercontinental Exchange.

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Nancy Koehn calls this a brave and insightful book, with relevance for readers watching the debt ceiling negotiations unfold in the U.S. in July 2011. The question he asks about how the elites could have got so many things wrong relate to Greece as well as the bubbles and ensuing crises in the U.S. in the last decade. Manolopoulos points to the problems of using GDP indicators if the economic activity it measures is not reflecting an increase in the productive capabilities and competitiveness of the country. He also cautions about the negative impact of liberalization of capital flows if this results in a large pool of global credit that short termist governments can access without regard to the longer term consequences of repayment. The creation of bubbles is one danger of access to large pools of capital. another danger is that this capital leads to governments relaxing all conservative practices of budgeting in managing a nation's finances.

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Renault's low cost entry cars which were originally designed with emerging markets in mind, are now popular in France and other countries in Europe. Renault gets 30% of its market share, up from 15% in 2006, from low cost cars like the Logan, which cost conscious buyers buy for around $10,000, instead of buying a used car. This has helped Renault at a time when other segments are not doing so well, and when Peugeot had to arrrange a 1 billion euro emergency capital increase. The profit margin on these low cost cars is 6%, compared to 2-3% profit margin on other Renault models. Renault manufactures the cars under the Renault label or the Dacia lavel depending on where they are sold, and uses a factory in Romania. Renault's model is to set the margin first and then ask suppliers such as LG and others to try to come up with a low cost design that meets its margin requirement. This eliminates features that add cost and may be dispensed with for the customer in mind. It requires a fresh approach. Cutting edge is replaced by working with parts designed for older models that cost less. Renault also used the experience gained in the Romanian factory where some of the tasks are done manually instead of using robots, and waste is reduced. The process has taken time because the Dacia Romanian factory was acquired under a previous CEO Louis Schweitzer in the late 1990's, and the first Dacia Logan was made in the Romanian factory at Pitesti, near Bucharest, in 2004. The reliability of the Dacia made cars is well established, say experts. On the sales side the Logan is sold on a no discount basis with fixed price. Dealers are told no discounts are permitted. Total sales of these cars reached 814,000 in 2011 and are expected to cross 1 million in 2012. This is similiar to the achievement of Toyota with its low cost multipurpose vehicles for emerging markets, which is expected to cross 1 million in 2012. The difference is that Renault has achieved this with European buyers in a bold strategy. Tata Motors which pioneered the effort to build low cost small cars with its $2000 vehicle is planning its own entry in Europe, the Pixel as a low cost city-car in European markets in 2015. And Renault is moving further down in cost than the Logan, as its next step, with such a car manufactured in India by Nissan-Renault and regional partners....