President mike pence has encouraged china to take action against the north. His comments came during a visit to the dnc one day after the north korean regime find a ballistic missile. He also repeated president trumps warning that the u. S. Would deal with china if necessary. Donald trump has explained that the decision not to label china a currency manipulator is a result of receiving help. The comments were the first in response to a failed missile defense. By not labeling the worlds secondlargest economy as a currency manipulator he has reversed a promise he made during the election campaign. Chinas growth accelerated for a Second Straight Quarter as investment cap and retail sales rose. Chinas rebound has produced a prices climb and search in credit fuel investments. Credit tomatoes in march but the broadest lending increasing more than estimated. Shadow banking, shadow banking, something they have promised to curtail. In number of People Killed thosenka, lets check out moving in the region. Some of the assets. Had the lira searching surging significantly on the back lets go back to sri lanka. The turkish lira is strengthening further against the dollar, up by a must 2 . The yen is strengthening at a fivemonth high. I will be back in half an hour. This is bloomberg. Oliver welcome to bloomberg businessweek. I am oliver renick. We are coming at you from the magazines headquarters in new york. The satirical newspaper striking fear in the hearts of french politicians. What the maker of postit notes is doing for government issued ankle bracelets. Finally, the most expensive mistake for the u. S. Military. Carol we are here with megan murphy, editorinchief of bloomberg businessweek. So much this week. You guys take a look at stents. They can be so crucial in stroke recovery. Not everybody has access. This is a story that looks at that looks at these, relatively megan this is a story that looks at how stents which are relatively cheap, not a huge amount of money. 8000. When you have a stroke, this be they can alleviate that pressure, bleeding on the brain is crucial to recovery, but what this article talks about is how the injection of these metal stents are not common because because there are only about 115 strokespecific care centers in the u. S. Paramedics are usually the First Responders and will make a decision and evaluate somebody. If you dont go to one of those specialist centers, you are more likely to get a drug. The stents are more effective and lead to better recovery than the drug, but with our aging population and the demographics growing older, we dont have an laugh drugspecific centers. Oliver shifting gears, there is an interesting story that a lot of americans dont know the implications of this magazine in france. Tell us about the duck. Megan use your french here. Le cunard, the duck, it is a fascinating story because it has proved to have a huge effect in this election. The favorites moving down, scandals uncovered, the left making a surge, but also the other thing is that it is a print publication with a minimal digital presence and makes 25 Million Dollars from a print publication. It has a long tradition, similar to private eye or spy magazine, trafficking in tidbits about the elite. They were the first ones who uncovered that fillon was paying his wife. They have gone in and taken down power. They say they are to serve neither the left or the right, and they have proven that. Carol the f35 program, eight years, 1 trillion, and still there are questions. Megan this is the latest in a long line of great pieces exposing inefficiencies in the pentagon process. This is one that has gone through so many iterations. The issue when you are redesigning aircraft carriers, f35, air force one, so many people want different demands from what this product is. There are four Service Divisions in the u. S. Each one wanted different capabilities for the plane. I couldnt believe it when i read this this plane can land like a harrier hovercraft, essentially come down like a helicopter. But the technical requirements and each level of Service Coming in and demanding different things, drove the price up, the contract, complicated it. And no one can keep up with it and then you get to the point that it cant keep up with what you need after seven years on it. Oliver we talked to two reporter paul barrett. The f35 is perpetually in focus because it is the single largest procurement ride the pentagon ever. Once you fold in the upkeep of the plane in the future, it will approach and exceed 1 trillion. So anytime that kind of money is floating around, people are going to be looking at it. President trump has been focusing on it, talking about it a lot, first down playing it and insulting it in his fashion, declaring now that he is involved that it is a fantastic fighter jet. We took a look at whether it is a fantastic fighter jet and discovered it has some performance problems. Carol tell us how long this has been going on. It began with a competition between boeing and lockheed, and lockheed was declared the winner and had the opportunity to build the f35. The idea was that it was one common plane that could be tweaked to be suitable for the air force, the marine corps, and the navy. Carol one size fits all or whatever. Exactly. That was the way the pentagon was going to afford a massive replacement of cold war era planes. The original plan was for more than 2400 of these planes to be built for all three services that fly fighter jets. Almost inevitably in the 2000s as a plane with that much money ran into problems. The degree of what he designers call commonality among the three variants turned out to be something approaching 25 as opposed to 70 or 80 , which was the original plan, so the economies of scale when out the window quickly and costs began to overrun targets and delays set income now amounting to seven years. Oliver it was lets build one model, but essentially making three different planes. That was basically it. Oliver that contributes to the prize because you have to have changes for each plane. So where did that bring the total cost to now . Where is it right now in terms of where it is and where it was supposed to be . Original estimates were the program for development and acquisition would cost of 200 billion. That figure is closer to 380 billion. You have to factor in inflation, so that is a 38 increase, but the biggest cost and the figure taxpayers should Pay Attention to is how much it will cost to sustain the plane and keep it in shape and keep it wellmaintained and fly. That amount could exceed 600 billion over time. Oliver up next, who is to blame for sluggish u. S. Car plants. And h m is chasing its shopper parents. This is bloomberg businessweek. Oliver welcome to bloomberg businessweek. How changing consumer tastes is affecting u. S. Car plants. It is always a supply and demand issue in the industry. It takes years to build. Factories, and they try to produce hundreds of thousands of vehicles all the same, and they have to project those years out, and consumer taste can swing dramatically, so we are seeing sales pass that the come and the decline has come from midsize cars such as the camry, accord, compact cars that are kind of large for compact cars, civics and corollas, ford focus. Those cars are not selling like they have been selling for years and years. They have been displaced by suvs. Oliver i like the story. It is directing go straight to the numbers. Give us some perspective on those numbers. That is basically that sedan market. Those are mainstream, family cars. The malibu and fusion are midsize sedans, the same size as a camry or accord. The prius is smaller. It provides and is used as a family car. These are mainstream family sedans replaced by the compact crossovers, a honda crv or ford escape, smaller than a big truck suv, but something more like an old Station Wagon used to be. Oliver if you are donald trump or are looking at the industry as an analyst, what does it tell you when demand shifts . There is demand, but just different types of vehicles. What does it mean for American Manufacturing . What those cars be coming from somewhere else, americanmade . Break that down. The big issue and debate investors have with the market is whether this is a little bit of a softening and a plateau where we have had record sales for the last two years, and unprecedented streak of seven years of sales growth, so now it looks like we are over the top. Will it be a traditional cyclical contraction . Or is it going to bump along for another three years or so . A lot of folks in the industry are confident things will stay where they are on a volume basis, maybe eat into some of those profits. We have seen warnings from ford and the like about how much tougher of the competition is getting, so maybe volume stays high, but the profitability shrinks. Oliver those numbers are the demand side equation. The supply side of the equation, how does that factor into this in terms of whether the supply is there, whether or not to meet that volume, carmakers need to build new plants, hire people . Because we see that sales have stopped growing, it will not keep going Straight Line up to 20 million a year or something. People are putting the brakes on manufacturing plants. The expansion plans that have been planned are Going Forward and they are executing, but nobody is no one is planning to build a new one billiondollar plant. Oliver h m is going after a slightly more mature audience. We talked to reporter robert williams. It is the worlds secondbiggest retailer by sales. It is a big fast fashion brand and became known of the past few decades for being able to quickly copy runway trends and sell them in their stores and a cheaper version am a but they also have known as a value retailer with a low price point where a lot of young consumers go to shop. Oliver there is one in our building. It is a great place to grab a quick shirt if you are in need. That has been their market, find what is popular, make it accessible, and make it accessible to younger people. As you point out, that is changing. Right now and they are working on developing other brands that have a premium positioning. The slightly more expensive brands are able to attract older customers, people with more purchasing power, and that can be interesting for h m because the value space has a lot of competition in it. Oliver when we talk about h m, the new products, this will be under a different brand. This will not necessarily be the h m that you see. Tell us how it breaks down in the organizational structure. Most people probably wont he able to tell that the secondary brands are a part of h m. This is going to be a store, a new store, called arket, will have a higher price positioning and have clothing for men, women, and children, simple essential clothing versus fashion and trend items. They will also sell products and home brands like pepper grinders. Oliver i liked that you go into the etymology behind the name, which speaks to the essential nature of those clothes. The etymology that means sheet of paper. What about Companies Like michael kors . As they expand, they lose that appeal. Is the opposite the case . I dont think so. Right now what we are seeing is that premium niche brands and lifestyle brands, brands that offer instead of a trend or fashion, instead a total package for a certain aesthetic. So you know, everything somebody is interested in the outdoors, or a young family in the city that likes rings that are clean and minimalist, which is may be the target of this new concept. That is a space were you have more power to create something new. Oliver up next, how to hack your way out of a fulltime job. Taser changing its name and more. This is bloomberg. Oliver welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. Im oliver renick. You can also catch us on the radio at sirium xm. Also in new york, washington, boston, and london. In the technology section, some of the countrys top coders have found a way to avoid the 9to5. A hackathon does not mean breaking into something. Hacking means to put something together out of existing pieces to create something new, so like a marathon building session that lasted from 2448 hours. Oliver not all hacking is bad. These are engine years that our building projects and doing it as part of a tournament. Tell us where these events began. Anyplace with a large area like an auditorium or conference hall, wifi and bathrooms, fair game. Oliver and a supply of doritos and red bull. But whats really cool about this is it is sort of a replacement for fulltime jobs. Tell us how who is going to hackathons, how they are making money. For some people, i would not say it is super widespread, for there are people who have made a fulltime living, supplementing contract work. Typically what will happen is they will go online or hear from friends that a hackathon is occurring, and based on how close it is to them, whether they have to pay for airfare or not, they will get together a team and bring their sleeping bags, usually not their toothbrushes, laptops, sensors, phones, power cords, show up and start hacking for bragging rights, but to your point, for prizes, and some prizes can get big. Oliver are we talking about students, engineers that have graduated . This is sort of their fulltime gig. Who are the participants for the groups you are watching . I watch both. There are academic hackathons sponsored through major league hacking, like sports for programmers. I think there was 170 of them scheduled for 2017 calendar year, so that happens at universities all around the United States and even the world, so 170 in north america alone for 2017, and there are more in addition to that. That is the academic type, and typically those are for bragging rights and to look appealing to recruiters, because large tech Companies Like facebook, uber, google, microsoft, ibm all go to these hackathons to keep their eyes on the next up and rising talent and promote their technology. There is another type where large prizes are at stake, salesforce famously threw one in 2014, a 1 million first prize. They discontinued that because they did not get out of that hackathon what they wanted to, so i guess they figured the roi wasnt worth it. But other ones have continued like hasbro, procter and gamble just threw one, ibm, watson ai x prize. A 5 million prize over three years. Oliver also, taser was to change its name and what it is known for. Taser has been around for 20 years. Everybody knows the stun gun. For years, they have been trying to come up with a second revenue stream that could match that. They finally hit their stride with Police Body Cameras. Particularly since the shooting in ferguson and other places across american, the demand for Police Body Cameras, and they were one of the First Companies to have a viable product that could be rolled out at scale. The doj put money find this. They have a division that makes Police Body Cameras and all the associated Cloud Computing software needed to manage the digital footage people have, so basically that has been the Fastest Growing part of the company and they see that as a way to expand, so they announce this plan to change their name from taser to axon. They changed their ticker and now they really see a lot of their Growth Potential to be coming from their body cameras. Everyone is still committed to the taser, but they see Growth Potential coming from the body cameras and this Digital Management of evidence and digital life of a police officer. Oliver this is very interesting. I feel like there are very few instances where the name of the company is the product. I remember the dont tase me, bro. What was it along the way that happen, an opportunity . Where is the impetus for the change coming from . Actually i think it was the dont tase me, bro that started it anyway. They were facing a lot of lawsuits and a lot of public scrutiny for injuries and death. There was a lot of debate about cause and effect, but they were facing scrutiny regardless. They developed a taser camera that activated when the gun was activated, but in only captured the moment when they were tasing someone. It was a highlight reel of people getting tased. Bit of it but they really wanted to capture what was leading up to tasing. So they started to develop a standalone body camera. The first one was clunky and had three big components and took a while to get what is now the axon line. They have two versions, a body camera that mounts on the chest, and one that mounts on oakley glasses. Trying to protect themselves and customers from lawsuits is what first got them into the body camera line, but then they just got the product in good shape right when ferguson happened and this greater scrutiny on policing exploded, so it was good timing for them in that sense. Oliver up next, the state of North Carolina says no thanks to fancy money managers. 3m struggles in a highstakes market. This is bloomberg businessweek. Ive spent my life planting a sizesix, nonslip shoe into that door. On this side, i want my customers to relax and enjoy themselves. But these days its phones before forks. They want wifi out here. 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I hope the changes are good for the country. The nation showed maturity by voting on free will. Mike pence has encouraged china to take action against the north. He visited the demilitarized kim regimeafter the had a missile test. There was warnings that the u. S. Would act without china, if necessar