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A multi-billion dollar auction of new bandwidth for phone operators in India was rigged to favor certain companies, according to a report by the auditor -general of India. The report says the auction was conducted by the Communcations ministry in a way "that lacked transparency and fairness." The report focusses on a few of the operators including Reliance Communications. The result is a loss of 1.76 trillion rupees or $39 billion, according to auditors. The cellphone industry in India is seeing rapid growth- 18 million new users were added in October 2010, with the total reaching 671 million. By comparison China has 830 million users. Of 122 licenses granted in the 2008 auction, 85 went to companies that "suppressed facts, disclosed incomplete information and submitted fictitious documents," according to the auditor's report. and in at least one instance, the Ministry's department of Telecommunications "miserably failed to do the due diligence in the examination of the applications," the report said....

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Glenn Hubbard, says Bowles and Simpson, have provided the framework for solutions to the US deficit. He says the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction and other actions such as elimination or reduction of deductions for charitable giving and employer provided healthcare subsidies, actually help reduce the marginal tax rates. Bowles-Simpson report, he says, correctly identified the problem that you need higher offsetting marginal tax rates because of these kinds of deductions to raise offsetting revenue. The two chairmen want to see government reduce marginal tax rates to a range of 8 to 23%, as opposed to 10% and 35% now, and this is a positive development. These kinds of deductions favor upper income households more than other households. He sees the co-chairmen's proposal to cut the tax rate for corporate income tax to 26% from 35%, as being a wise move, as it should not require much offsetting revenue, because OECD research has shown this to be the revenue maximizing rate. He concedes that liberals would have difficulty with the report, because the proposal accepts that maintaining a broad welfare state is inconsistent with the need to balance the country's finances through economic growth and social insurance. Yet he sees the limits on tax deduction and cutbacks in the entitlement's benefits for upper income households, as giving Bowles-Simpson proposals a progressive character....

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Alan Blinder, former Fed senior official, makes a spirited defense of the Federal Reserve's $600 billion quantitative easing move in November 2010. He says at the most this would lead to 1% to 3% inflation, and not the inflation critics are pointing to that would hurt the US. He is critical of the mercantilist countries, Germany and its Finance Minister Schauble, for calling this currency manipulation. He finds it incomprehensible that aides to Russsian Prime Minister Putin have asked the Fed to consult with Russia before taking such action. His preferred move would have been to purchase private securities and reduce the rate the Fed pays on reserves to negative. This he says would blast reserves out of banks into more productive uses. Yet he sees the Fed's move as better than doing nothing. He says that if buying Treasury's is a weak tool, a view he shares, then this should not be very inflationary. See his earlier op-ed piece in the WSJ when the Fed announced its action.