The lack of any meaningful help to prevent foreclosures for homeowners who are unemployed.

06/04/2011

The adverse effects on housing, on banks holding second mortgages, and on the economic recovery in the U.S., of the lack of a plan and little effort by the Obama administration to help the unemployed facing foreclosure. Most of the programs to prevent foreclosure were designed at the time of the bailouts for subprime lending situations. Prof. Davis at the University of Wisconsin call it outrageous that less than $2 billion of the $45 billion allocated to help homeowners at the time of the bailouts had been spent by Treaury Department as of May 2011.

Linked Articles

Unemployment Strains Foreclosure Aid

New York Times 06/04/2011

Andrew Martin, Andrew, Martin

Wall Street Journal 06/07/2011

Robbie Whelan, Robbie, Whelan

The risks to the Chinese economy of accumulated problems in the financial system

05/25/2011

A Wall Street Journal editorial that draws attention to the opaqueness of the financial system and its accummulated problems. It raises questions about how this will come out. Other expert observers have raised these questions.

Linked Articles

China's Growth Risks

Wall Street Journal 05/25/2011

Editorial

Wall Street Journal 06/21/2011

Carl E. Walter And Fraser J.T. Howie, Carl, E., Walter, And, Fraser, J.T., Howie

Pernambuco and other states in Brazil's northeastern region- lack of investment in public health, education and transportation services infrastructure

05/21/2011

During the boom years much of the investment, about three fourths of the growth rate of over 4%, came from infrastructure investments that supported exports of soyabeans, iron ore and other commodities to China. Under the Worker's party socialist governments that get much of their support from the northeast, this disguised the low investments in public infrastructure services for drinking water, health sanitation, public schools and transportation services. This is a problem in developing countries of Latin America, South Asia, and Africa, with some regions lagging behind in essential infrastructure services, even with high growth rates.

Linked Articles

The Brazilian Doctors Who Sounded the Alarm on Zika and Microcephaly

Wall Street Journal 01/30/2016

Reed Johnson, Reed, Johnson, Rogerio Jelmayer, Rogerio, Jelmayer

Economist 05/21/2011

Economist.Com

Contrasting approaches of Germany and Japan after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan

05/11/2011

Linked Articles

Panel Urges Germany to Close Nuclear Plants by 2021

New York Times 05/11/2011

Judy Dempsey, Judy, Dempsey

New York Times 05/28/2012

Martin Fackler, Martin, Fackler

Austerity measures and economic contraction in Portugal 2010-2013- the terms of the 2011 EU-IMF loan agreement with Portugal

05/05/2011

The forecasts of higher unemployment reaching 17% and economic contraction of 7% for 2011-2013 are widely diverging from the original estimates in 2011 by EU and IMF officials. This increases the urgency for reappraisal of the terms of the original agreement including borrowing rates, giving more time to achieve deficit targets, and other action to put Portugal back on the road to growth in 2014.

Linked Articles

Portugal to Seek New Bailout Terms

Wall Street Journal 03/04/2013

Patricia Kowsmann, Patricia, Kowsmann

New York Times 05/05/2011

Raphael Minder, Raphael, Minder

The remarkable composition and growth of the largest immigrant filled city in the world- New York City

03/25/2011

With 47% of the employed population being immigrants, the presence of immigrants has shaped the city and contributed to its economic vitality. Without immigrants the population would be declining as happened in a prior decade, and economic vitality would be affected. Many of the immigrants are from Mexico, China, India and the Caribbean.

Linked Articles

Immigration Remakes and Sustains New York, Report Finds

New York Times 12/18/2013

Kirk Semple, Kirk, Semple

Wall Street Journal 03/25/2011

Joseph De Avila, Joseph, De, Avila, Sumathi Reddy, Sumathi, Reddy

Bill Gates calls for targeted investment in education

02/28/2011

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will invest $290 million in a program to be launched at selected school districts. The programs are designed around improving teacher effectiveness and new personnel systems.

Linked Articles

Bill Gates Seeks Formula for Better Teachers

Wall Street Journal 03/22/2011

Stephanie Banchero, Stephanie, Banchero

Washington Post 02/28/2011

Bill Gates, Bill, Gates

Saudi expert Karen Elliott House's thirty years of experience covering the Middle East tell us that the U.S. policy is sorely out of touch in the Middle East

02/15/2011

Elliott House is a former publisher of the Wall Street Journal and a Pulitzer prize winner for covering the Middle East. She sees the Saudi Arabian princes sorely out of touch with the ordinary Saudis and the young people and U.S. policy at an impasse. Rice says the policy of supporting autocracy only brings a false kind of stability. She sees Egypt, Tunisia and the rest of the Arab world and thinks it did not have to be this way.

Linked Articles

Condoleezza Rice - The future of a democratic Egypt

Washington Post 02/16/2011

Condoleeza Rice, Condoleeza, Rice

Wall Street Journal 02/15/2011

Karen Elliott House, Karen, Elliott, House

Angela Merkel's experience with the reunification of East and West Germany and her views of the eurozone crisis

01/30/2011

The perceptions of the eurozone crisis of ordinary Germans and of former East German Angela Merkel are colored by the period of reunification of the two Germany's. This was paid for with a"solidarity surcharge" tax paid by Germans amounting to $1.7 trillion and led in its early stages to 4 million unemployed in the eastern part and 20% unemployment. It took over a decade for East Germany to build new modernized industries in the larger cities of the east, but still leaves the rural parts of former East Germany in a neglected state as young peoplemoved out. During this period industry in the west also regained lost global competitiveness, especially in industries such as automobiles and advanced machinery, using wage restraint agreements with unions and increases in productivity. Germans see the need for eurozone countries in the southern part of Europe needing to make similiar sacrifices and see the tax evasion in Italy and Greece as unacceptable. The real estate bubble, the lack of transparency for banks bad loans, and out of control regional spending in Spain is also seen in a similiar light. Greece is seen as the most egregious offendor because of the bad financial accounting that grossly understated the extent of the bad loans. Less publicized in Germany is the role played in the bad loans through poor lending practices of German and French banks and that as experts have pointed out Germany was to some extent bailing out German banks when it was bailing out Greece- till German banks reduced their exposure to Greece in 2011.

Linked Articles

In former East Germany, anxious residents resent paying for Europe’s problems - The Washington Post

Washington Post 06/21/2012

Michael Birnbaum, Michael, Birnbaum

New York Times 01/30/2011

Jack Ewing, Jack, Ewing, Katrin Bennhold, Katrin, Bennhold

Condoleeza Rice and Elliott Abrams question the whole policy of supporting autocracy to preserve a false kind of stability in Egypt and the Arab world

01/28/2011

This stability that comes at the expense of liberty and basic freedoms does not serve America well. This only helps give rise to malignant forces that grow when democratic voices are suppressed. This is especially true in Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world where a false stability has been created.

Linked Articles

Condoleezza Rice - The future of a democratic Egypt

Washington Post 02/16/2011

Condoleeza Rice, Condoleeza, Rice

Washington Post 01/28/2011

Elliott Abrams, Elliott, Abrams

Contrasts in the approaches of S. Korea in 1997 and the U.S. in 2008 to banking crises, and the hobbled U.S. economic recovery

01/06/2011

S. Korea in 1997 at the urging of Treasury Secretary Rubin took decisive step to unwind failed financial institutions. This in stark contrast to Treasury Secretary Geither, regulators and U.S. Fed officials actions in 2008 to merge troubled mortgage institutions such as Countrywide and Washington Mutual with Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. In the process creating mega banks that are hard to manage and hard to run, and "too big to fail," according to former and current Fed governors Hoenig and Fisher. Prof. Cochrane of the University of Chicago says the U.S. Federal Reserve's new job as financial regulator after the 2008 financial crisis, is an impossible one.

Linked Articles

Red Flags said to Go Unheeded at Chase

New York Times 05/14/2012

Jessica Silver Greenberg, Jessica, Silver Greenberg, Nelson D. Schwartz, Nelson, D., Schwartz

New York Times 01/06/2011

Martin Fackler, Martin, Fackler

Taylor and Cochrane say the French and German banks exaggerated the effects of contagion in the Greece debt crisis from the beginning

12/02/2010

Prof. Cochrane at the University of Chicago and Prof. Taylor at Stanford University, say French and German banks exaggerated the effects of contagion from the beginning as a way to delay writedowns on Greek bonds held by the banks. The appearance of lurching from one summit negotiation to the next throughout 2011 dented confidence in the eurozone with slowing or negative growth in eurozone economies, and is likely to hurt banks operating in the new economic enviroment.

Linked Articles

'Contagion' and Other Euro Myths

Wall Street Journal 12/02/2010

John H. Cochrane, John, H., Cochrane

Wall Street Journal 02/22/2012

John B. Taylor, John, B., Taylor