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DJT Commerce Department restricts access to US technology to Chinese defense companies. Inspur a server maker and Sugon supercomputer maker are added to the list limiting access. The goal is to restrict access to technology for defense applications including hypersonic weapons. This goes further than the Biden administration.

Export controls don't always work when Chinese companies control ownership in American companies as shown in this example in WSJ for Inspur Corp.

"American technology should never be used against the American people,” -Jeffrey Kessler,  head of the US Commerce department’s Bureau of Industry and Security.

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Lenovo acquires software company Stoneware, of Salt Lake City, Utah, which lets users connect remotely to information and control different devices. This follows its agreement with EMC Corporation to develop and market network storage.

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General McChrystal lacks support from Senators who backed him earlier, after comments in a Rolling Stone article showed disdain for the Obama policy team and for Vice President Biden.

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The FDIC has launched 50 criminal probes of officials at failed banks, and more than 50 civil lawsuits. FDIC is seeking $2 billion in these lawsuits.

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The civil case against BP for gross negligence in the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion begins in Feb. 2012.

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The Institute of Medicine releases areport of the 100 health topics that should get high priority, as the Obama adinistration proceeds with a plan to $1.1 billion to compare the effectivenesss of treatments. Some of these areas for research are prostate cancer treatments, a surgical procedure called ablation, and others.

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Thre drug companies are placing bets on the vaccine business. Johnson and Johnson paid 302 million euros for 18% of Dutch biotech company Crucell NV, to jointly develop vaccines. Abbott Labs says it will acquire a unit of Belgian conglomerate Solvay SA for 4.5 billion euros in adeal that includes a vaccine business. And Merck obtained the marketing rights for a seasonal flu vaccine from Australia's CSL Ltd. This follows Pfizer's Wyeth acquisition. Low prices, high costs and fear of lawsuits made most drug makers to exit the business in the 1980's and 1990's. Now vaccine sales are growing faster than other prescription drugs and are largely protected from generic competition. And government agencies here in the USA and around the world are reliable buyers of vaccines as they seek to stockpile medicines that could be needed in aflu outbreak. Merck never exit the vaccine business and now makes 8 of 10 vaccines recommended for adults. Flu and other vaccines are especially attractive for entering drug markets in Brazil and China and developing countries. Governments lke the idea of lowcost prevention at $10 adose, and with this new relationships are developed in these countries. And even at price of $10 or $20 a dose they provide asteady stream of revenue.Vaccines are estimated to generate $21.5 billion in revenues by 2012 according to Sanofi-Aventis SA, which is a leading vaccine maker....

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Maria Bartiromo's questions to Treasury Secretary Paulson on the SIV Superfund that Treasury has supported.See the related article on the housing crisis and the difficulty with a Superfund. If it takes out the most creditworthy securities the superfund would leave only credit impaired securities in the remaining SIV and would it not then lose value precipitiously thus making it more likely the banks would take big losses on the remaining securities.

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Neel Kashkari Paulson's assistant, the assistant secretary of state for international economics, and one of the key people whom Paulson used as an assistant in the recent financial crises in September and now into October. He is expected to work on implementing the $700 billion purchase of mortgage assets from banks. He also comes from Goldman Sachs but is only six years out of business school and is very young for this kind of job that would be daunting for someone with years and years of experience.

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Slowdown in drug sales growth in USA and Europe. Top seven emerging markets will account for 34% of global sales growth upfrom 7% in 2000. And the USA accounted for 40 to50% of growth in global pharmaceutical sales each year early in this decade, in 2009 the sales in the USA will account for just 9%. Forecasts and figures are from IMS consulting firm. USA sales will rise only 1-2% if at all, while emerging markets will grow by 4.5% to 5.5%. With the economic troubles American consumers are less likely to fill prescriptions and insurers are not covering new drugs and favoring generics. Intense competition among generics drug makers is reducing prices. IMS predicts that the global generic market will grow by 5 to 7% in 2009 to $68 billion, slowing from double digit growth. This is from total sales forecast for pharmaceuticals globally of $830 billion.

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Bayer CEO, Marijn Dekkers, plans to divest its plastics business, called Material Science. The plastics division requires large investments with lower returns than can be made in health care or the agricultural crop science business. Crop Science generated earnings before interest and taxes of 1.81 billion euros in 2014, and Health Care helped by 5 new prescription drugs reported EBIT of 3.58 billion euros, compared to poor returns of 555 million euros on the polyurethane and polymers used for laptops to soccer balls in the Materials Science division. CEO Dekkers is a Dutch born executive who worked for 25 years in the U.S. Since taking over in 2010 he has brought a significant culture change to Bayer, by insisting on speed and agility from executives. Division heads with marketing backgrounds are preferred to science degrees, and the planning orientation of the company is being changed to one where the company executives are not afraid to take risks based on incomplete information. Dekkers prefers an IPO for the $10 billion plastics business to generate more cash and reduce the debt of 20 billion euros. He acquired the over the counter drug business of Merck for $14.2 billion, and has boosted drug sales with the introduction of Xarelto in partnership with J&J, eye treatment Eylea, cancer drugs Stivarga and Xofigo, pulmonary hypertension drug Adempas. Sales of these 5 drugs are expected to go up from 2.9 billion euros in 2014 to 4 billion euros in 2015, contributing significantly to Bayer's profits. Dekker's venture capitalist type focus on profit margins is showing results in share price performance- Bayer's share price has advanced 60% in 2015 mid-March price of 145.85 euros compared to the prior year month. In the small town of Leverkusen, Germany, where Bayer is located, there were initially fears that Dekkers was "too American" and too focussed on shareholder value to understand the need to respect tradition. Since then Germans have realized that Dekkers understands tradition and is only bringing necessary change- the transition to being a life sciences company makes sense to shareholders in Germany, for employee representatives on the supervisory board the guarantee of current level of 17,000 jobs in the plastics division for a few years shows his concern for job protection during the transition period. For Dekkers who left Holland in 1985, and has a U.S. passport with an American wife and kids who speak no Dutch or German, the important thing is to get the right balance- he says the system of 99-1 where 99% of the information had to be in before a decision could be made is making the change to 90-10 where only 90% of the information is now necessary to go ahead, even if he would like to see it at 80-20. Bayer still sponsors the local soccer team known as Bayer Leverkausen, and 26 other clubs. Dekkers steps down at the end of 2016....

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Axel Weber, former Deutsce Bundesbank president, will becomes the new chairman of UBS bank in 2013.

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The war of the Houthi rebels in the Persian Gulf shipping lanes turns into a stalemate with the US Navy and Air Force reports WSJ. US oil money supports many of these conflicts as it finds its way to the Middle East where development priorities fall behind decade after decade.

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Putin takes the first step for Russia to join in discussions for a lasting peace. More than a ceasefire is needed, as many ceasefires have come and gone and the war is now over 15 years old, pausing for a while and then starting again many times. Russia calls for addressing the underlying issues behind the war.  It started with Russian support for Yakunovich 2010-2014 which ended with the Maidan protests in Kviv and Lviv. Russian and Putin strategy at that time was that as long as  a pro-Russian or a person leaning towards Russia with good relations to the West -as existed in some of the former states in Eastern Europe during the 1980's during the Soviet Union such as Poland and GDR- this would be acceptable. The Maidan protest led upheaval thus had a contrary effect which Germany under Merkel and France under Sarkozy and Hollande failed to grasp. Obama judged Russia by its GDP, ignoring its history and relations among European states as one of the major powers in Europe, a technological state with nuclear power. As China shifted away making the integration of Hong Kong and now Taiwan a priority under president Xi, and asserting the virtue of its state run capitalist system over free market capitalism, the fissures began to develop in the system that prevailed after World War II and which survived the fall of the Berlin Wall. These are some of the origins of the war and are also in some of its aspects geopolitical and relate to world peace,, and peace inside nations in general outside the Ukraine war. And here relate to Venezuela Mexico and US inaction in tackling borders and cartels, the US border with Mexico, Syrian war and Syrian refugees entering Germany/Europe, the anti refugee movements in Germany and the EU, refugee crime in US and Europe, all connected in some way to the unsettled borders of the Russian state with US and Western European + Eastern European states in NATO and the EU nearby. And the limiting or removal of Russian influence in Ukraine seen by Russia as unacceptable in regions nearest to Russia that speak Russian. Britain has the virtues of its parliamentary democracy, yet it is far from Russia's borders and it just like the Russian Empire had an Empire in India and a near thing to an Empire in China, as recently as 1950, over history of western colonial empires of 500 years not too long ago. Which means it is good to be starry eyed but the reality in European history since 1400 is of dominant states and colliding or co-existing spheres of influence, mostly co-existing in some balance of different states in the interests of peace and welfare of the people.     ...