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Thomas Massie's vote counts in a House where if only one other Republican were to vote with him Speaker Mike Johnson could not be reelected. What Massie disapproves of is the way Republicans under Johnson have joined with Democrats when facing division in their ranks on spending, Ukraine and other issues. He was easily reelected after attacks within his own party and from DJT, and he says about pressure to fall in line- "I don’t know how to say this without cussing, if they thought I had no Fs to give before, I definitely have no Fs to give now.” Thomas Massie is a MIT engineering graduate who has a solar powered house not connected to the grid which he built. He is also a member of Congress from Kentucky who supports the style and stands taken by Rand Paul of Kentucky on many issues even if it means standing alone. His wife Rhonda Massie is also a MIT graduate and Massie says that she is the source of his success. Rhonda telling him to pay attention to Rand Paul. His wife passed away last year and Massie says he has little to lose in standing up for his beliefs . ...

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The Takata airbag recall increases by 35 million to about 63 million, about one in 4 cars in the U.S. by May 2016. The issue is connected to Takata's use of ammonium nitrate which poses a safety risk leading to explosions. The findings by 3 separate investigations from Honda Motor, Takata, and 10 automaker consortium have led to the massive recalls. A Takata engineer raised questions about the use of ammonium nitrate in the 1990's, and the company has fumbled in its response to the safety concerns.

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A Toyota panel recommends having foreign directors to reduce the insularity of the headquarters management in Japan. This remains a problem not addressed by recent changes that made the Board of Directors smaller for closer interaction. This makes management and the Board less responsive in dealing with situations like the recent crisis based on safety issues in Europe and the U.S., which occur in a different cultural and media context.

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Akio Toyoda's comments in Beijing to Chinese customers of Toyota apologizing for quality failures at Toyota. He referred to an excessive focus on market share and profits among "some people" at Toyota as the cause for this.

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Toyota is reducing senior management positions to 60 from 77. The board of directors will also be smaller, with 11 members instead of the current 27 members. It was felt that the large board did not enable discussion of important issues and slowed down decisionmaking. This is part of the new Business Plan and the new global vision for Toyota. The thrust is on sales in emerging markets which Toyota will target for increasing sales to 50% of the total sales by 2015, up from 40% currently. Sales in developed markets are set to decline to 50% of the total sales by 2015, down from 60% currently. The other push is in the hybrid sales area. Toyota will roll out 10 more hybrid vehicles by 2015, in addition to all electric cars, plug-in hybrids. Toyota will continue to have an all-Japanese board, and will use a committee of outside advisors to stay abreast of opinion in other countries. Akio Toyoda announced these plans recently and did this by himself, as he puts his own ideas to work for setting Toyota's direction....

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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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Chinese government data show that inflation was 3.1% in May 2010. The spread of wage increases in manufacturing after a series of strikes at Hon Hai and Honda Motor suggest that price pressures will grow even further. Analysts warn that China's central bank will have to raise interest rates to control the boom in the economy and property markets; that merely reining in credit will not work. They also suggest the need for swifter action in revaluing the yuan. As wage increases spread throughout manufacturing, this will eventually be reflected in higher prices of end products.

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One of the severe problems noted in the recall disaster of 2010 was that practically all important quality and safety decisions are made in Japan. Without key American decisionmakers in the process this leaves Toyota exposed to all sorts of errors like the errors that ocurred in stalling the National Highway and Traffic Safety investigations into acceleration and braking accidents in Toyota vehicles. To compound theses errors managment at Toyota focussed on the $100 million in savings that avoiding or minimizing the recalls would generate, as revealed in internal documents. Early warning signs of similiar problems in Europe were not linked to problems in the U.S.. All this was ocurring against the backdrop of a change in management at Toyota- with the Toyota family once again regaining control of the company- and the failure of the management under Watanabe and previous CEO's to put quality before rapid expansion. The new changes are to have 2 new senior executive positions in the U.S. to focus on quality and safety. A chief safety executive will focus on safety and recalls, and a chief quality officer coming from the top ranks of the American operation will now sit on a special committee for Global Quality led by CEO Akio Toyoda. The commitee for Global Quality will address the global quality issues around one table with the highest ranking executives at Toyota right at the table to talk things out. ...

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China's premier, Wen Jiabao, opened the National People's Congress, annual meeting of the Chinese parliament, by saying that China had lowered its growth rate to 7.5% from 8%. GDP growth for 2011 was 9.2%. Wen set an inflation target of 4%. The CPI index increased by 5.4% in 2011. Wen set 14% growth target for M2, China's broadest measure of money supply.

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The failure of the MF Global Board of Directors to question the huge bets on European sovereign bonds taken by Jon Corzine. This board had members with sophisticated knowledge of financial markets. Then why did it act passively, asks Davidoff. Boards have some of the same blinkers that the CEO has, and may have been led to believe that this was a good course of action. Failure of boards of directors in recent times include a long list- Lehman Brothers, GM, H-P, Toyota, most recently Olympus, and others. In some cases as with Corzine and the head of Lehman, one sees a headstrong executive with a history of success, in others as at GM and Toyota the Board is stacked with members selected by or favorable to voting with the CEO. And at H-P or Olympus, an inside group that runs things the way they see fit. Most boards of this type are highly insulated from outside opinion, and highly confirmed in the correctness of their own opinion even when the situation has dangerously deteriorated.

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The author Li Congjun, is head of the Xinhua News agency, official press agency of the People's Republic of China. He calls for rebalancing the global economy with China depending more on domestic consumption, efforts to restrain the excesses of property and asset price bubbles, and renewed focus on technology and investment.

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Research from Australian National University shows steadily improving conditions for migrant workers in China. Migrant workers were able to spend more time in cities- an average of 8.9 years. The hukou sysem ensures migrants return to rural areas when they have to raise a family. About 252 million migrant workers work in factories and construction jobs in urban areas. Migrants with children leave them with grandparents back home. Improving the conditions of these workers is important to reduce the wage and income disparities in China and to reduce inequality. About a fifth of the migrant population now has pension and health benefits. Creating a balanced economy with domestic consumer spending making a larger share of GDP also requires improving wages and benefits of migrant workers. Incoming prime minister Li Keqiang says in a statement on a government website: China "must take migrant rural workers and gradually change them into urban residents. This requires that we push forward household registration reform." If done seriously this will create a new kind of China as these migrant workers are integrated into urban society after years of being shunned and ignored by China's educated middle class. Professor Meng's research at Australian National University of migrant workers shows the proportion of migrant workers with unemployment insurance increased from 11% in 2008 to 21% in 2012. The research shows similiar figures for health and pensions. Improving their living standards also make it attractive for more young people from rural areas to migrate to cities increasing urbanization....

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In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Mark Carney, the head of Canada's central bank and the head of the Financial Stability Board, says China is falling behind in its earlier committments made at G-20 meetings to move towards rebalancing the world economy. He pointed to the fact that consumption in China has moved from about half of China's GDP to about a third, in the last ten years. China's investment has also declined from half of GDP to about one third. Carney also raised concerns about the strength of the Canadian dollar for Canada's competitiveness. The report "China: 2030" by the World Bank and China's Development Reform Commission also calls for changes in the way China's economy has increased its dependence on state run companies.

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Easwar Prasad, Cornell University economist, and a former head of the IMF's China division, says the new report by the World Bank and the Development Reform Commission (DRC), is part of an effort by government officials in China to push the agenda for change forward during the transition to a new leadership. This includes Premier Wen. There is pushback from large state enterprises. The DRC and the World Bank had called for a change from the current situation to allow more private sector involvement in the economy, which means restricting the growth of the large state owned companies and letting the private sector operate in more parts of the economy. The alternative is to see growth slowing quickly and -some economists- say suddenly without warning. The role of Zhu Rongji, a former prime minister during the period Jiang Zemin was president, in pushing for changes appropriate to the period, is also cited. The last decade under prime minister Wen Biao is seen as one in which China relentlessly pursued its currrent export led model of development with large state run companies and state run banks dominating the economy. This has made change even harder to achieve because of the pushback to preserve the status quo....

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Keith Bradsher visits Guangzhou, China, just as prime minister Wen Jiabao tells the National People's Congress that China is changing its priorities from high growth to sustainable development. As recently as 2007 GDP growth reached 14%! The minimum wage is expected to rise 13% each year under the five year plan. Even with the increase in wages owning an apartment is unaffordable in Guangzhou- a 1000 square feet apartment costs upward of $300,000, showing the extent to which the bubble in real estate prices affects young people who cannot afford to own an apartment. A new graduate with marketable skills such as computer engineering makes about $6000 a year, putting owning an apartmet beyond reach. Another change he notices today is that during visits to construction sites he does not see flood lit sites at night. This used to be the case because builders were scrambling to build. With government policies discouraging the property bubble there is no longer a need for work at night. The focus now has shifted to build low income housing....

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Compared to the situation in 2008-2009 during the global financial crisis with the excess supply of labor, China in 2012 faces an excess in demand for labor. In 2009 about 20% of migrant workers were unemployed when the crisis hit, and wages dropped 10% for migrant workers, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Stanford University. The situation three years later is one of tight labor markets and higer wages. A large stimulus in not only not needed today in the way it was in 2008-2009 as a way to maintain social stability, it would reduce the benefits of the anti-inflationary steps taken in 2011-2012, by putting more pressure on wages and prices. Manufacturing sector wages increased by 20.1% in 2011, according to China's statistics bureau. This may be why the Chinese government is taking measured steps to avoid creating more bad loans through indiscriminate lending, and being more selective in accelerating development projects in the pipeline. According to Hong Kong's new Chief Executive Officer China plans to have about 7% growth. This shift in approach would help China refocus on growth strategies recommended in the recent Development Reform Commission and World Bank Report on China....

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Analysts fear an oil shock in 2012 similiar to that in 2008. There is similiarity in the situation now and in 2008- as in 2008, the surge in oil prices comes at a time of higher tensions with Iran and shrinking spare capacity. Spare capacity is at 2.5 million barrels a day on average for January and February 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration. This compares with 3.7 millon barrels a day for the same period in 2011. Part of the reason is that global oil demand is increasing in 2012 by 1 million barrels a day, to 89 million barrels a day. Technical and political problems have shutdown another 750,000 barrels a day. The problems begin to kick in during the second half of 2012. The U.S. ban on dealing with the Iranian central bank for oil trades starts in June 2012. According to the International Energy Agency, the EU embargo and U.S. sanctions will take 1 million barrels a day of Iranian crude out of the market. The result will be that demand exceeds supply by the third quarter by 1.1 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Use of existing reserves in Europe, the U.S. and other countries will make up the gap. The effect will be to put pressure on oil prices. May Brent crude on the ICE Futures Europe exchange was up to $125.81 a barrel, on March 16, 2012, and prices for April delivery were at $107.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange....

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A new report, "China: 2030," by the World Bank and the Development Research Center (DRC), has major implications for the course of action taken by new Chinese leaders. The limits to China's economic model with the dominant role of state owned companies has been pointed out in the past. It has now reached a point where China must choose to move to a modified model or face the "middle income trap" of countries like Brazil and Mexico, where income levels and growth reaches a certain level and then decelerates suddenly with little warning. The report makes some major recommendations that would modify the current system. It says the state owned companies should be supervised by asset management firms focussed on commercializing these companies, and not supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC). The asset management firms would restrict the state owned companies on what areas they participate and sell off businesses to make it possible for private companies to compete. Zoellick says- "China needs to restrict the role of the state-owned companies, break up monopolies, diversify ownership and lower entry barriers to private firms." The state owned companies would be required to pay sharply higher dividends to the government which could then be used for social programs. Currently state owned companies invest in land which is sold by local governments for revenue helping fuel the real estate bubble. Significantly, the report had its origins when it was proposed by Mr. Zoellick, head of the World Bank, during a visit to Beijing in Sept 2010. It was supported by Li Keqiang, then vice premier, and now expected to be the new prime minister of China. The World Bank is widely respected by Chinese leaders because of its assistance during the early stages of reform in the 1980's. The DRC reports to China's State Council, a top governmental institution, and the No. 2 person at DRC, Liu He, is a senior advisor to the Politburo Standing Committee. He helped draft the current five year plan and is close to Li and Xi Jinping, the next president of China. The SASAC has opposed these ideas, especially any shift in its personnel selection of management at the state owned companies, which it shares with the Communist party's personnel department. Respected China economists say China faces large risks of a sudden sharp slowdown because the the state owned companies have largely copied foreign technology and have not generated enough technological advances, which will be needed for the next stage of growth. Lower growth rates could worsen problems in China's banking system leading to a crisis. The Conference Board, estimates China's growth at 8% for 2012, slowing to an average annual growth rate of 6.6% from 2013 to 2016. Barry Eichengreen of UC Berkeley, Donghyun Park of the Asian Development Bank, and Kwanho Shin of Korea University, say the annual growth rate will drop by at least 2 percentage points by 2015....

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A shift in priorities away from focussing on high growth to lower sustainable growth was announced by China's premier Wen Jiabao at the National People's Congress, China's parliament, in March 2012. This shift will reduce investment in infrastructure, power generation and exports, which will affect the level of imports of commodities from commodity producing nations in the Middle East, Australia, Canada and Brazil. It should increase imports of software, computers, entertainment, tourism and high tech goods from the U.S. and Europe. Chinese leaders have said they would make this kind of shift for some years now but growth has consistently increased more than the target rate, and domestic consumption as a percentage of the economy has actually decreased in the last decade. Now 9-10% growth rates may be a thing of the past and the target of 7.5% set this year may be actually closer to the real figure. The Chinese leaders have belatedly realized the need to make these changes now because slowing markets in Europe -which is seeing declining growth and high unemployment- and in the U.S., make the issue impossible to avoid. Wen told the Congress: "Accelerating the transformation of the pattern of economc development... is both a long term task and our most pressing task at present... Domestically it has become more urgent but also more difficult... to alleviate the problem of unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development." This is his way of saying that its unavoidable and better to start in earnest now, and at the same time recognizing the resistance to change from the stateowned companies and the other interests who have benefitted from surging growth, and now occupy a central role in the power structure. An opinion article in the People's Daily, China's official newspaper, said: "imperfect reforms are to be preferred to a crisis caused by no reforms." The World Bank's president Zoellick is respected by the Chinese leaders. He also urged them to make changes now. The recent report of the DRC, China's planning research arm, and the World Bank, also laid out the new direction away from a focus on infrastructure to domestic consumption. The fear is sudden deceleration in the absence of policy action. The impact of this will be negative for commodities over time, leading to slower growth in Australia, Brazil, and Canada. It should boost imports from Europe and the U.S. of high tech, consumer, pharmaceutical goods over time....