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French premier Francis Bayrou puts forward ideas for the new government in Jan 2025- Immigration- "Seeking a form of harmony also means addressing the fears and realities that immigration raises in our country. (...) My deep conviction is that immigration is first and foremost a question of proportion. It is our duty to direct a policy of control, regulation and return to their country of those whose presence, by their number, endangers the cohesion of the nation." Education- "I think that, in our school and university system, it must be possible to accept and even encourage [career changes], changes in [professional] training."   PM Bayrou for the promotion of reading, at a time when "screens have taken over from any other mechanism for transmitting knowledge. This is a national issue."  "We'll have to go back to studying the notebooks of grievances that were presented by the 'Yellow Vests'," for "the expectations, often the most unspoken, that are those of social circles excluded from power" to be heard. ...

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The poor decisions made by former CEO, Mark Hurd, leading to underinvestment in research and development and lack of funding for H-P Labs, leave H-P in a weaker position. The cuts were lauded at the time by the financial media but left the company with weaker technological capabilities. The distractions since 2005, with changing CEO's and lack of proper direction in the company, a weak board of directors, a large bureaucracy and inefficient sales force, and the emergence of low cost competitors from Taiwan, are hurting H-P's performance and capabilities. Meg Whitman, the current CEO, plans another round of layoffs, following the layoffs under Hurd. About 30,000 of 324,000 existing employees will be retired or laid off. H-P generated only $1.7 billion in net earnign on sales of $127 billion in fiscal 2011. In smartphones, cloud computing services and tablet computers, H-P has either stumbled or still struggles to develop clear winners.

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June unemployment numbers will jump say experts at IHS Insight as GM and Chrysler downsize even more to become smaller companies with even less market share. This will reflect closing Pontiac and sale or closing of the other GM brands Saturn, Saab, and Hummer. It will reflect closing of more dealerships of GM and Chrysler. THis might be offset by a pickup in sales if something like the European trading clunkers for new cars program takes off in the USA. But with the US customers more in debt and with rising job losses, the pattern may be different in the US. It may only offer a small boost in sales. Manufacturing still matters in a recovery. In 1980 manufacturing was 20% of America's output, now it is 11.5% says Mark Zandl of Moody's Economy.com. Manufacturing, he says, has a bigger impact than its size suggests, because it responds quickly. As sales resume workers are called back to their jobs. The sharp V shaped recoveries in the early 80's reflected the rapid response of manufacturing. After the 1980's both the declines and the recoveries were shallow in 1990-1991 and 2001. Now with GM and Chrysler shrinking further under the government plan to fix these companies, and taking the supplier impact, the rebound leg of the V is missing. The kick from the Big Three and their suppliers is missing, says Nigel Gault of IHS Insight. Of the 5.7 million jobs lost from Jan 2008 to June 2009, 1.6 million were in manufacturing and 289,000 were in motor vehicles, split almost evenly between assemblers and supplier networks....

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The impact on stock markets around the world of the protests in Egypt. The Nikkei fell 1.5%, the Kospi index fell 1.5%, on Jan 31, and the Dow Jones average fell 166 points on Friday Jan 28, 2011. Oil prices increased by 3.7% to $89.34 during the week of protests in Egypt. The Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington estimates a 5% increase in the price of oil takes away $5 billion dollars from the US economy. Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at Standard & Poor's Equity Research, says that a boxer rarely gets knocked out by a punch he is expecting, and this could be what starts a decline after the market fought off fears from sovereign debt crises in Europe and interest rate increases in China. What makes Egypt significant? The Suez Canal is ony a 1000 feet wide at the narrowest point. Supertankers carrying oil do not pass through the canal but rely on smaller vessels and on the Sumed pipeline. About 2.9 million barrels of oil a day, 2.6% of global oil production passed though the Suez Canal and the pipeline according to the US Energy Department. Because prices are determined at the margin this is a lot of oil, especially considering the global spare production capacity is only 2.5 millon barrels a day. The immediate impact would be on Europe which gets much of the oil refined in the Middle East and shipped using the canal and pipeline. Egypt is also a major importer of wheat, importing more wheat than any other country. Any increase in imports to placate consumers would increase wheat prices. Already wheat prices are impacted by floods in Australia, a long drought in Argentina, and forest fires in Russia. Inflationary impact of rising food prices has been felt in China, India and other countries....

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New rules for foreign direct investment in India will allow foreign multibrand retailers to own upto 51% of joint ventures in India. Rules set earlier allowed foreign retailers like Wal-Mart to only setup wholesale joint ventures. The move by the Indian government lets Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Metro Group and other retailers open supermarkets. The rules were also changed to allow 100% ownership for single brand retailers such as Nike stores. Prior rules limited single brand retailers to 51% ownership. This is a major step because of the growth in the Indian retail market, and the small portion of the overall market that is occupied by large retail chains with well developed supply chain management. Technopak Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a consulting firm in New Delhi, estimates that the Indian retail market has sales of about $470 billion a year, with only about 5% of this or $27 billion in modern organized retail operations. In the five year period 2012-2016 sales are expected to grow to $675 billion, with $85 billion coming from organized retail. Companies with operations in India that are expected to expand operations include Bharti Wal-Mart, Tesco which has a agreement with Tata Group's Star Bazaar stores, Germany's Metro Group AG. according to these numbers, even with competition from the organized large stores, smaller stores will still occupy 88% compared to 95% of the retail space in 2016. And the growth in the overall market means that the smaller mom and pop type stores will still have growth from $443 billion today to $590 billion in 2016. A government backed study by ICRIER shows that smaller stores lose about 23% of sales in the first year, but recover quickly in following years because of growth in the overall market. The introduction of modern supply chain management, modern refrigeration methods, and large investments by leading global retailers is likely to change the way food and other products are stored and marketed, a revolutionary change for India where these methods and investments lag far behind the developed world. For this reason this may give major impetus to modernizing the Indian economy....

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Major decline in oil prices in Oct. 2014 as prices drop to $81 per barrel and are forecast to reach $70. U.S. oil production increased by about 56% or 3.1 million barrels a day since 2004. U.S. demand for gas and fuel declined 8% compared to 2004. Initially instability and wars in the Middle East sustained high oil prices in 2012-2013. Yet with growing output from shale and other sources in N. America and slowing economies of Europe and China, the situation reached a point in 2014 where supply exceeds demand. This shift more than offsets any instability in trouble spots. The situation affects the U.S. consumer favorably with an estimate of $1 billion in savings for American consumers with every one cent drop in price at the gas pump, by one estimate from Deutsche Bank analysts. Typical American families gained an extra $50 a month from the decline June to October 2014, according to analysts at Gasbuddy.com. The declines are a boost for the slowing economies of Europe, Japan, China, S, Korea and India. China's imports for 2015 are estimated at 61% of oil consumption, using official estimates. In the current slowdown the lower prices offer relief. India which imports 75% of its energy benefits signficantly, as this helps lower inflation and reduces cost of fuel subsidies for state run companies. Russia is adversely affected by the declines as it depends on oil and gas exports for 50% of the nation's budget. Estimates by AFK Sistema economists show the Russian economy contracting in 2015 with oil at near $90 per barrel (Brent crude is at about $85, and WTI at $81 in early Oct. 2014). Russia's former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin reflects opinion among Russian executives and politicians, when he told state television that Saudi Arabia may be pushing prices lower to target Russia's oil resource based economy and Mr. Putin, in an effort to broaden the effect of sanctions. (The Saudis have strongly protested the Putin intervention in Syria.) Venezuela has used $120 per barrel and Angola $98 for its budget, leading to a strong hit for the economy. ...

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India's airlines together will lose $1 billion to $2 billion in 2008, twice what they lost in 2007, according to aviation analysts. The airlines face a glut of domestic overcapacity. Until recently therre were 50 flights between Bombay and Delhi with 4 seats chasing each passenger according to Keskar, Boeing vice president in charge of sales in India. Boeing and Airbus are advising airlines in India to delay deliveries of planes so that the overcapacity does no lasting damage and the industry can recover from this as they see India as a boom market in the future. Boeing expects India will need 1001 aircraft till 2027. Reasons for the airline losses are that in the 12 months ending April 2008 passenger traffic increased by only 7%, and in the 12 months before that by 31%, and in the 12 months prior by 59%. Air India is cutting its domestic flights by 15% returning 14 leased jets to their owners as the leases expire and freezing the size of its fleet. Worldwide the airline industry could lose $6.1 billion in 2008 with a third of the losses in the USA. Passenger volumes fell in China for the second straight month in June but China's airlines appear stable because of milder competition and government support....

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Germany's calls for closer political and fiscal union for the eurozone countries to complement and support the euro currency arrangement. German chancellor Merkel calls it "more Europe," "step by step." It all hinges on French president Hollande and how well the Socialist party does in the elections to the National Assembly on June 10 and June 17, 2012. If he does well and gets a working majority with other like minded parties he will not need the support of parties that are opposed to giving up sovereignty. Hollande's mentor is Jacques Delors, a former president of the European Commission and a strong supporter of the idea of European Union. England under the Conservatives remains Euro-skeptic. France and Germany were driven closer by the idea of European Union by necessity, because of history and three wars. The European Union had strong support after 1945 from French and German leaders, Monnet and Adenauer, who struggled with political opposition but won over skeptics, with the process continued by German chancellor Kohl, a mentor of Angela Merkel....

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The action taken by local and government officials to address the high PM 2.5 pollutant levels and smog in Harbin, China, in October 2013. For the first time the Ministry of Environmental Protection has powers to take serious action. It is sending out inspection teams to cities across China for the winter to make sure environmental regulations are enforced. One big change is that cities now report in real time the change in pollutant levels for PM 2.5, the worst pollutant. By Oct. 2013 113 cities in China carried the live reports on websites. The Ministry has published a list of the 4189 factories in China that create 65% of total industrial air pollutants in China. The Jinping-Li Keqiang administration supports the stronger enforcement and has set a goal of reducing PM 2.5 levels by 15- 25% each year for Tianjin, Beijin and Hebi province in northern China, compared to 2012 levels. These three regions have been given the target of reducing coal use by 80 million tons a year.

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President Obama is not greeted with enthusiasm during his speech on the need for financial regulatory reform and curbing executive compensationa adn bonuses on September 15, 2009. The President also showed a lack of clear direction and leadership on the issue, as bankers are not expected to have the same enthusiasm for change from past practices.

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Boone and Johnson point to the problems facing Portugal as being worse than that faced by Argentina when it defaulted on its debt in 2001. Portugal they say spent too much in recent years with the help of Euro-money letting debt rise to 78% of GDP compared to Greece's 114% of GDP and Argentina's 62% of GDP at default. The lack of the option for a necessary devaluation under the euro currency makes the situation worse. At this point the situation is simply being postponed as the European Central Bank will continue to let the governments issue bonds, which European commercial banks buy and deposit at the ECB as collateral for fresh printed money.

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Calin Georgescu of Romania who won the first round of the Romania election is interviewed by The Times of London.  An advocate of life lived close to Nature and religion,  who agrees with RFK Jr., and a skeptic of UN and NATO wins the first round of the Romanian election in 2024 with 23% of the vote. Social media Tik Tok videos helped Georgescu come out of obscurity into a lead in the election. This interview was conducted in darkness after a blackout at a friend's home outside Bucharest.  He says of the war in Ukraine that it is not our business, we are interested only in Romanians. His main concern agricultural independence for Romania as sovereignty, which means food water and energy. He wants respect, health and sovereignty for Romanians.  Georgescu is not sold on the British/French/German/Japanese narrative of the Ukraine war, as he sees Putin (and DJT) as patriotic in sentiment. He says Romania is fine in the EU and NATO but will negotiate what is in the interest of Romanians. ...

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Turkey is reviving its relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Prince Bin Salman will visit Turkey as part of a remake of Turkey Saudi relations. Turkey's economic crisis has revived the relationship as Turkey badly needs aid for its economy. The pressure on emerging markets is increasing with US central bank raising rates reducing inflows of western money into Turkey even further. Prince Salman has already received visits from French and British leaders. He visited Jordan and Egypt this week and will now be in Ankara. In the summer he will visit Greece and Cyprus. Saudis are modernizing their economy changing culture in relationships of men and women, in women's rights and education, and broadening relationships with the world under Salman. There is an astonishing openness to science and technology in a drive to be modern. The old Saudi monarchy and conservative rule with ancient traditions is giving way to what the Saudis in the group under Salman see as the modernization of Europe and America in the 20th century using science and technology as what they would like to see in their own country. There is also a drive to think independently from the dogmatic positions of the past that have turned the Kingdom into an American dependency with no obligation or incentive to modernize its culture and be open to the world outside.  The US fought a war to ostensibly modernize a backward mountainous remote state as Afghanistan, while being perfectly comfortable with the old Saudi monarchies of the past that made little change in the ancient culture and tradition and in women's rights and education. Such were the contradictions in American policy and the failure to think anew. As president Lincoln said "as our case is new we must think anew, and act anew." President Biden will now visit Saudi Arabia to build a new relationship with an independent nation, which along with the UAE is bringing change to the Middle East through infrastructure development and modernization. Salman's modernization comes as the kingdom also faced a need to make a transition out of dependence on fossil fuels. Salman sees trips to Greece and Turkey as opening up to all sides. Saudis have good relations with Israel and Egypt another part of this openness. The US senses this, India has sensed this. India's Modi government  made sending the Oxford vaccines manufactured in India to Saudis a priority during 2021. The Indian example is also changing the way the UAE and Saudis see infrastructure development and modernization in the region. This is also changing the way the region is looking at itself. For decades Egypt lacking the resources to build infrastructure on its own has languished economically. A helping hand from the Saudis is changing Egypt. The entire rail system is being modernized with the latest technology from Siemens. The Saudis have stabilized the Egyptian economy with a $5 billion deposit in the Central Bank of Egypt. On June 21 Egypt and Saudis signed $7.7 billion in investment deals for infrastructure, logistics, port administration, food, industry, medicine, energy and technology. In the investments in Egypt some of the oil money going to Saudis with $100 per barrel oil price is going to an economy in Egypt that can easily absorb and make good use of the investment to modernize.   The influence of Saudi leverage in fossil fuels which drove the US relationship with Saudis since FDR is being replaced with an independent Saudi kingdom making decisions to modernize across the board in all aspects compared to one that favored a few American companies such as Exxon Mobil and ARAMCO or arms makers such as Boeing and Lockheed that helped recycle American money going to pay for Saudi fossil fuels back to America.    ...

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Elliott Abrams quotes former President George Bush from November 2003 when he asked the question: "Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?" Abrams, former deputy natonal security advisor for President Bush, says the autocratic regimes and dictators of the Middle East have offered a false choice to the US- its us or the Islamists. Roger Cohen also points this out in a recent article in the New York Times. For Tunisia he says this was never defensible. It is a largely secular nation with a literacy rate of 75% and per capita GDP of $9,500, and Ben Ali, the dictator of Tunisia, jailed moderates, human rights advocates, editors, anyone who represented hope and change. Abrams says Mubarak has done the same in Egypt. And he warns that if you make moderate politics impossible as Mubarak in Egypt and Ben Ali in Tunisia have done, then you make extremism more likely. Ruling by emergency decree for decades creates a real emergency, as has happened in Egypt. Bush made that speech at the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, and he reminded Americans that "sixty years of Western nations excusing and accomodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe- because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." He admits that the Bush administration did not always conduct US diplomacy in this vein, but the President took the lead and the Obama administration's abandonment of that mindset is nothing short of a tragedy. Obama's policy of "engagement" actually endangers the US position as a supporter of liberty and freedom wherever it is stifled or muffled, because it turned a blind eye to the people themselves as it engaged with the dictatorial regimes in the Arab world and other countries. When the elections in Iran were stolen the Obama administration hesitated, waffled in its committment to liberty, fearing that it would affect nuclear negotiations. Obama did not -as of late Friday night Jan 28, 2011- call for free elections or clearly demand democracy. The law school analytical processes that Obama brings to the presidency and the demands of geopolitical diplomacy are impervious to the loud voices demanding freedom in countries denied liberty. Obama has forgotten the very same voices he passionately heard when he wrote in his first book that in the words "we hold these truths to be self-evident" he could hear the spirit of Douglas and Delaney, as well as Jefferson and Lincoln, the struggles of Martin and Malcolm and unheralded marchers to bring the words to life. He could hear the words of interned Japanese families, the voices of Russian Jews in lower East side sweatshops, of dust bowl farmers during the depression, all these voices clamoring for recognition and asking the question about what is community and how it can be reconciled with freedom. This failure to recognize these voices clamoring for freedom and economic opportunity is all the more striking because it was vision and a bold sense of purpose that energized the Obama campaign and both the vision and the bold sense have eluded the administration. Abrams calls for a clear unequivocal committment by the US government in favor of freedom and peaceful efforts to achieve it in the Middle East, because he says that as the demonstrators are telling the world outside supporting freedom is the best policy of all. ...

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A study by professors Kane and Reardon from Harvard and Stanford show kids have fallen behind and not recovered by mid 2023 from the effects of school closures and pandemic illness in families. On average kids have fallen behind by half a year in math and a third of a year in reading by mid 2022 for 7800 communities in 41 states in the US that are in the study. Disturbing is that in the poorest 10% of districts children have fallen behind by one and a half years from the national average average for the year in school making existing inequalities worse. Another finding learning loss was similar within communities for both lower income and higher income students.  Some of the hardest hit communities- Richmond, Virginia, St Louis, Missouri, New Haven Connecticut where students fell behind by one and half years in math. At 150% of teaching effort it would take 3 years to make up for the loss. The $190 billion in pandemic money from president Biden's programs to add tutors and school staff  has helped recover 25% of the loss. They suggest using other help including summer camps, an optional fifth year of high school, summer learning, museums, and online learning. "If we fail to replace what our children lost-we not the coronavirus will be responsible for the most inequitable and longest lasting legacy of the pandemic" say Kane and Reardon. ...

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Surprisingly very little can be found on the internet on how the relationship between Apple's Tim Cook and Foxconn started and how it evolved over the two decades- a key to understanding the two decade rise of Apple since 1998 when Tim Cook, an Alabama engineer, joined Apple's Steve Jobs to rebuild an almost demolished Apple. It is also key to understanding the rise of China in manufacturing to the point of excluding all other countries, including the US, for major investments. It is also key to understanding how the social relations have been disrupted in the US, how the US workers and families suffered from outshoring on this massive scale never before seen in the US for 100 years of the Industrial Revolution since Lincoln in the 1860's. This has not significantly changed to this day as the US goes into the midterms to elect a new Congress. Mr. Trump ruffled sentiment on this issue but had little action or results to show for it to reverse this. Mr. Biden is making some headway as the US elects a new Congress in November 2022 to take up the tasks to restore American leadership in manufacturing and in technologies that support advanced manufacturing from semiconductors to renewable energy. What happens now depends on many things. Mr. Cook talks about intuition as a main driver along with preparation and hard work in his project which has done little for America and the American people, in the sense of how its communities look like, and how its families live, as they are largely excluded from Cook's Apple project. Even as it employs about 3 million workers of contract manufacturers, for the most part in China with Foxconn. Total employees in the US are 37,000 mostly highly paid engineers and technical workers. The 270,000 working in what it calls its ecosystem are mostly workers in retail stores paid much lower wages. Of manufacturing there is little on the scale in China. Not since the days of Lincoln in the 1960's who fought a civil war so that the rights of labour in the US were protected as seen in his message to Congress in the 1860's, and through the Industrial Revolution for 100 years, has something like this happened in the US. It is not about some manufacturing taking place in Asia, it is the sheer scale that excludes America from significant manufacturing, about 300,000 workers in the US mostly in lower paid retail jobs, and 3 million in China with contract manufacturers that is an aberration from history. It is about delegating an entire supply chain in manufacturing that constitutes this huge aberration.     ...

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There are serious differences in what Ukraine says it received $67 billion military aid and $31 for budget needs compared to the $350 billion figure cited by DJT. DJT calls Zelensky as not legitimately representing Ukraine as no elections can be called in Ukraine in wartime and Zelensky's term expired in 2024, saying should'nt the people of Ukraine be at the table. He also says Ukraine was at the table for 3 years and even a half baked negotiator could have settled this war. What DJT means is that Ukraine could have settled it by promising to stay out of NATO, and remain neutral not joining the EU. It would have given up control over formerly Russia supporting parts of Ukraine in the east that Russia now controls. Ukraine would have returned to being a buffer zone between Western Europe and Russia of today. Even today this has not changed as any peace would not reverse the status quo of control of these eastern regions by Russia. On NATO Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov says- "Trump (DJT) is the first, and so far only Western leader to publicly and loudly say that one of the root causes of the Ukraine situation is the impudent line of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into NATO.” Zelensky's popularity has fallen in Ukraine as the war drags on. DJT says US has put $350 billion in Ukraine and asked for an agreement committing half of Ukraine's rare earth resources to the US. Zelensky says he cannot sell the state out. Zelensky's estimate of US assistance is $67 billion military aid and $31 billion in aid for the budget. ...

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Moody's assigns a junk rating to Portugal's government debt in May 2011.