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Mr. Zelensky of Ukraine makes his first official visit to Warsaw, Poland in April 2023. He was welcomed in Poland with an outpouring of support. About 10 million Ukrainians have crossed into Poland since the war began in February 2022. Of this 1.5 million Ukrainians have settled in Ukraine, the rest have gone to neighboring countries or returned to Ukraine. Poland has also opened its market to Ukrainian grain causing unrest among farmers because of lower prices. Poland has a population of 38 million, Ukraine a population of 43 million. These two nations are now the countries that are in the frontlines of the war after Russia's invasion. Other countries that have seen Soviet invasion such as Finland in 1939, Czech Republic in 1968, are now part of the NATO alliance force that faces Russia across a long common border. The Finnish border with Russia stretches for 830 miles through vast forested regions. The US is building a vast warehouse complex in Warsaw that will store US and NATO tanks. As the war continues a year later the resolve of the US and of Ukraine and Poland remain undiminished to the Russian invasion. This is unlike the events of post 1945 when Europe as a whole had seen the effects of 5 years of war and America faced the Soviet expansion into war ravaged Eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Greece. In 2023 the economies of the US and European Union have survived the economic effects of the war and the US is embarking on a huge plan to rebuild its infrastructure and its manufacturing capacity. The US and European Union through NATO remain united to reject any nation changing borders with impunity by force- the issue they see in Ukraine and in Taiwan. On the issue of Taiwan the US, EU are joined by Japan, Australia, Philippines, Vietnam and India. The issue of impunity and allowing borders to be changed by force will remain a strong one for the US and EU, on which there may be little room for concessions because of the principle. In his History of Europe- The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present, Cambridge historian Brendan Simms has shown that no nation by itself or with its allies has been able to use its dominant position to exercize power with impunity without meeting formidable combined opposition of other countries  in Europe. Over 500 years of history France, Russia, Austria-Hungary, have in turn had to agree to give up claims after meeting a formidable opposition of other countries in Europe. This Russian invasion does not appear to be any different.  ...

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About 4.2 million Americans will be 65 years old in 2024, and for the next six years about 4 million will be added to the 65 plus population each year making the 2030 population of 65 plus larger by about 24 million people. As America ages it will need more young people to do many jobs in healthcare, care for the elderly, in agriculture and transport. This is what we are seeing in Japan and even a country highly protective of its own culture has a policy of admitting immigrants from Vietnam and other countries to meet worker shortages. Claire Ansberry looks at the 65 plus population today and compares it to 35 years ago and finds it is more oriented to exercise, health, and has more accumulated wealth. About 20% of people over 65 years work today compared to 15% 35 years ago, says Pew Research, and of these working 65 year olds two thirds are working full time compared to half in 1987. They are wealthier having median net worth of $410,000 today compared to $282,000 in 2010 much of the 45% gain made in the last 2 years from rising house prices and stock investments. Those over 75 years have a 13% gain. Overall the wealth is significantly higher today. ...

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Monica Hesse gives this exceptional story of Gladys Ament, which is the story of American women as they voted in election after election after the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920. In 2016 she is 96 years old and used an absentee ballot to vote for a first women president for the U.S.. Ament gives this touching and graceful account of a woman who lived through many presidents, and never failed to exercize her vote in every election held since the day she was born on Aug. 26, 1920. That day Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment giving it the majority needed to become the law of the land. This was the year Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, was in office. Her story starts in a two room schoolhouse in Lonaconing, Maryland, population 2054, when America was largely rural and rapidly urbanizing. The girls did the housework and the boys worked in the coal country, and women were not considered to be the ones in the home to go to a college or university. She dated a man who worked for the phone company, and later was drafted in the war. She joined Montgomery Ward filling catalogue orders. Her first vote was for FDR in 1944, in reality for Eleanor Roosevelt. And then she voted for Harry Truman, who she liked for his plain talk manner. Then Eisenhower, Nixon, Humphrey, McGovern, Carter, as she fulfilled the role of a mother and teachers aide at a school for special needs children. Her husband was not sure her daughter Mary needed to follow the two sons to college, but she made sure Mary did even though tution money was tight. She loved the self-respect which came with working, she was patient. The opportunities came and it was Mary who pursued her education and became an administrator who also supervised men. Things had changed, nobody thought of it twice, what Gladys had struggled with was now the accepted way of things. Then came a granddaughter and by this time young women had more opportunities, and there were as many women in universities as men. Gladys voted for the first black president and then for a first woman president at 96, 96 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving women the vote in America. After that election in which she really voted for Eleanor Roosevelt- who was all over the country making speeches and talking to people to bring hope during the Depression years- she could see the potential in a next woman as president. She had seen some of the 18 presidents who had led the country as good leaders and some not so good, some who were seen as good in their years in office but later seen as having done poorly, she could see that women could do just as well or better after all these years of her voting and learning. ...

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The Indian public from retired businessmen, farmers, students, and the press are coming out in support of anti-corruption leader Anna Hazare's call for effective legislation to control corruption of public officials in India. This comes after a number of corruption scandals and lack of action from the Congress government. The government's bill in parliament - introduced after pressure from public opinion- sets up an ombudsman or Lokpal agency, which would exclude from its jurisdiction the very public officials over whom it was meant to exercize oversight. Under the government's bill the prime minister, the public officials in the bureaucracy and the judiciary would be excluded. This has set up a confrontation with an increasingly exasperated public, with Hazare's protest fast in central New Delhi as the catalyst for protest across the country. The Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told parliament that he sees it as an issue of parliamentary sovereignty, as Hazare's protest is for a version of the bill that he has drafted to be adopted. But the public's sense is that Hazare is only responding with his own draft of the bill because of the government's effort to make only a token effort by not giving the anti-corruption body the powers it needs to function effectively. The response has brought thousands of demonstrators from around the country to Tihar jail where Hazare is being held by the government after his arrest. The situation is reminiscent of the protests against the British imperial government by Mohandas Gandhi, and in this sense has serious implicatons for how the country is governed. Corruption was prevalent in India during the days of the license Raj in the period 1950-1990 when business needed government permits in the closed economy of the Nehru period, and corruption existed in the bureaucracy in its delivery of public services. Since 1990 as the economy opened up and the growth rate increased corruption at all levels of government has in some ways increased and become embedded in the bureaucracy and government. This hurts the poor and the middle class the most, as corruption acts as a tax on the delivery of public services and infrastructure development, both badly needed in an emerging market country....

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This shows that the US and the EU are today more affluent than 100 years back but with it has come a dangerous neglect of healthy living that is destroying happiness for people as they reach the age of 70 yers. A lack of education about healthy living in schools and society is showing up.  Only 10% of people in US and EU have good cognitive, physical and mental health in a major study from 3 Universities. The study tracked 100,000 people over 3 decades their eating habits and exercise and other variables and was done by University of Montreal, University of Copenhagen and Harvard. It shows how the quality of life has deteriorated in the US and the EU as diseases become more chronic for the heart, diabetes, and higher prevalence in population of obesity and substance use disorders. So that older people have more conditions and few can live healthy lives- less than 10% if this study is an indicator of the state of the Nation's health. One of the findings is that a plant based diet with moderate animal protein such as diary and fish is the best for reaching 70 years of age with the best quality of overall physical and mental health. ...

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The average U.S. light vehicle price was $30,303 in April 2012, up $1219 from the prior year. Incentives were also lower, down $146 to average of $2,446, according to TrueCar.com. This is happening even though cars account for a greater portion of sales of light vehicles. Used cars and trucks prices increased by 3.2% in March over the prior year, according to the Labor department data. Pent up demand is part of the reason. Another reason is the discipline exercized by auto manufacturers, especially the Big Three, in not letting supply exceed demand and therefore not having to offer higher incentives to get rid of inventory. These practices of oversupplying the market hurt the Detroit automakers in the period before bankruptcy, especially GM. Increases in used car prices and higher prices of new cars create a virtuous cycle for automakers to support higher margins. With the high retirement and healthcare costs reduced through bankruptcy and new agreements with the UAW, the Detroit automakers are now better positioned in the market to sustain margins by limiting production to demand. ...

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Carlos Tavares runs Stellantis the company that combined the operations of France's Peugeot, Italy's Fiat and America's Chrysler right out of his living room in his Lisbon, Portugal home one week every month. He is a believer in the advantages of hybrid work model and says most of the 75,000 workers at the company can work remotely most of the time.The quality time that is generated in this new work model that allows life balance and getting fresh air walks outside is needed when you consider that auto companies such as his are embracing world of electric cars- Stellantis will have 75 models of electric cars by 2030 In this interview with the WSJ shown here he says the fact that one is giving back high quality time that otherwise goes to commuting means you get more time during the day. Carlos Tavares says remote work is an opportunity to recreate a better life balance. He doesn't see any risk in it at all. He sees how hard people are working, harder than they did before, and says giving back one half hour or two hours of quality time actually helps the process of getting good work. Look he says after a long day of remote work people need that time to go out and have a walk for an hour just to refresh one's mind, because the work was so intense. Tavares asks why shouldn't we trust each other? He believes it is the only way to go. Asked about his own work routine for remote work.He says it is the Portuguese routine of  7 am to 4 pm or 5 pm and then an hour out for a walk. He has a small desk in his living room, and he is sitting there with his iPad, grandkids are going by but nobody sees them. Does he miss the face to face contact? He does says Tavares. He still sees other employees as he does go to the office. What about mentoring for junior  employees? This does not have to be five days a week, you may want coaching one day a week, what you don't want is someone on your back five days a week. For Tavares it is all about the quality of time that is used. On company culture the much abused word Tavares makes some good points. If you say this is the culture and hand it to somebody then how do you get that creative mind to exercize his own judgement, how do you get diversity of thinking. Tavares is forthright and honest here- he says if I give you a culture and put you in that box I will get it wrong, and by killing the valuable diversity of thinking I will make it counterproductive. Actually with French, Italian and American operations under one roof and employees of 170 nationalities there is a value in appreciating the value each employee can bring. Practices at Stellantis- Tavares says if you want your people to be in game shape or in great shape mentally don't call them or email them on weekends, so that they can use the weekend to recharge themselves. He even apologizes for calling on a weekend. Or if you email your people tell them to not respond till Monday. ...

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France was exceptionally well prepared says France 24, citing a report in Le Monde, for the SARS crisis in 2002 and the H1N1 influenza in 2009. A billion masks were stockpiled by 2009. Following the H1N1 influenza not appearing in any significant way the media, political parties and the public shifted their attention away from public health crises preparation. For H1N1 the government spent 1 billion dollars some of it going to pharmaceutical labs. The eurozone financial crisis that followed the global financial crisis shifted policy to austerity measures. The entire preparation effort for influenza type health crises was abandoned as too costly.  The same pattern repeated in Britain which was also well prepared before 2010. Austerity budgets after 2010 had little room for public health investment.  One could say a similar pattern was seen in the U.S. Today the worst hit countries are U.S., Britain, France and other European countries. France which had 1 billion masks in 2009 to tackle a possible H1N1 epidemic finds itself with 150 million masks in March 2020 and scrambling to find masks. Some masks which were usable were even destroyed as expired, ministers and experts who had built up the prevention effort in 2009 were even demoted and forgotten, as was much of the preparation in these years. It wasn't just medical supplies pubic awareness had practically disappeared. In the U.S., in Europe, the same situation of a lack of public awareness so that experts, government, and the public could work together quickly, was clear to see. In countries such as Taiwan the preparation led to speedy response at all levels, making contact tracing, isolation of clusters effective. In the U.S. and Europe this early, early, period was lost leading to makeup mitigation measures and the growing sense of a loss of control over the virus. ...

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Ian Buruma sheds light on the efforts of prime minister Hatoyama of the DPJ party to create a East Asian Community and bring Japan and China closer in economic and political ties. This failed because of the tensions with N. Korea and the Obama administration's opposition to this move- which did not give the young Japanese prime minister the same opportunity to exercize his electoral mandate that was given to the young American president. The Obama administration's pivot to Asia is seen by China as keeping America's post war role as the dominant power ensuring peace in Asia. The election of a nationalist Abe from the LDP party which has promoted strong defense and political ties with the U.S. and supports the U.S. traditional postwar role is consistent with this policy. The result says Buruma is to block the development of new closer ties between Japan and China which reflect the new dynamics in Asia. Buruma says Japan looked to China during the centuries before the modern period, with both countries sharing a Buddhist civilization and culture, and depending on how one sees it the conflict in the period between the two wars would be the pattern or the aberration in the relations between Japan and China. Many Japanese are wary of further tensions between the two countries. Buruma provides an alternative look at how relations between China, Japan and the U.S. could evolve in Asia which would provide a basis for constructive cooperation. ...

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Elite universities with a third foreign student enrollment displacing Americans, are facing US government funding cuts. This report shows these universities turning to pharmaceutical companies and big tech monopolies that have placed added burdens on cost of living of ordinary Americans, and mental health of children, on the ability for basic literacy by 4th grade. Somewhere the basic goal of the university to educate Americans is being lost. For no more than 5 to 7% of funding these universities are willing to turn to companies that have exacerbated the cost of living crisis or monopolistic behaviours in the Nation, particularly the pharmaceutical companies, showing alevel of misguidedness in management that fails to understand the real interests of ordinary Americans. In pursuing science alone at the expense of everything else and derelict of leadership where it is needed such as cost and value, this behaviour ignores the fact that the greatest dangers to public health come from cutting chemicals in food, in healthy food and exercise habits cultivated in schools, raising the consciousness for healthy living and healthy environments in the Nation. The schools of public health at the Nation's leading universities needed to take a better stand on the dangers of proliferation of  research into viruses, and to single out breakdowns when they happened that are seen by many to have led to the pandemic.  ...

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A study by the director of the obesity center and professor of global nutrition at the University of north Carolina at Chapel Hill states that based on data collected from 20,000 patients in China over the last 15 years obesity has increased 1.2% a year among men in that time. The study says that more than 25% of the adults in China are overweight or obese and that the number could double in the next 20 years. Its a result mainly of improving living standards which make vegetable oil affordable, and beef and dairy foods more available and affordable. A sedentary lifestyle for many Chinese plays a part as well.

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Western R&D labs in India and China and hiring of Indian and Chinese engineers working for American and European companies doing research in Bangalore or Beijing. R&D as an international exercize using the knowledge from different countries and combining it in new ways to come up with new things and products and new knowledge. The globalization of R&D just as manufacturing has globalized.

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Sheila Dewan provides analysis of the figures on household debt for the fourth quarter of 2013 put out by the U.S. Federal Reserve. U.S. households added $241 billion in debt in the 4th quarter 2014, increasing by 2.1%. It shows says Dewan, that American households were beginning to spend on homes and consumer purchases such as autos. Certain groups such as students and young people were restrained in spending by high levels of student debt. Debt increases were $152 billion for new morgages, $18 billion for car loans, and $53 billion for student loans up by 5.3%. Total household debt to income ratio went up to 130% by 2007, and has since declined to above 100% at the end of the 3rd quarter of 2013, going up again in the 4th quarter of 2013. Credit card debt showed only a small increase of 1.6% as households focussed in cutting credit card debt with high interest rates. Increases in credit card debt and in mortgage debt were shown to be for people with very high credit scores of above 720 in the Federal Reserve analysis, a sign of the caution exercized by households and banks following the overleveraging in 2008....

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Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim will provide $250 million to New York Times in return for warrants that can be converted into 15.9 million common shares at a strike price of $6.36, close to where the price was last week. The notes carry a interest rate of 14% and are due in 2015. The Sulzbergers control 19% of the company's equity and control the company through super-voting shares. If Slim exercizes the warrants he would control 18% of the company's equity. Times faces a liquidity crisis and the $250 million may not be enough for it to survive as an independent company. The New York Times borrowed heavily in the boom years and it had $1.1 billion of debt at the end of September 2008, and only $46 million in cash. Much of that debt is coming due in the next couple of years. It has a $400 million credit facility that expires in May 2009, $250 million in notes due in 2010, and a $400 million credit facility expiring in 2011. Its stock has fallen 50% already and its debt is rated "junk" by S&P....

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"Feierabend" is the German word for when you stop working for the rest of the day. It is also the period after stopping work and beginning a period of leisure and rest. Germans working from home for government, in software industry and in other business places, are using this time when work stops at say 4 or 5 pm to shift to exercize. Here Nils Backhaus, of Germany's Federal Institute for Health, marks the end of a day's work by taking his racing bike and cruising along the the tranquil landscapes of the Ruhr river, just outside Dortmund. Stress and recovery go hand in hand, it is the bodily rhythm for Nils Backhaus and many Germans. You cannot do double time the next day. You have to first regenerate and get renewed after a day's work. This improves both health and the productiveness of work. It also creates enthusiasm the next day to begin work. A clean disconnection is needed says this report and "Feierabend" helps one do it. Workers working from home can end up working too much with no demarcation that ends the day. During the coronavirus with many workers working from home this demarcation has been lost for many people resulting in overwork and fatigue of body and mind. Microsoft 365 team has seen this surge to the point where managers have the software do this demarcation to stop work, and ask people using the software to say how they feel. What better way than something like Feierabend where one makes a clean break from work and goes out and does something completely different. It gives the mind and body a chance to rest and to regenerate. Prof. Rothauge of the Catholic University of Eichstatt who has studied the history of the evolution of work says this comes from an historical context. The industrial revolution introduced new work habits and days structured around work routines. This also provided a period of breaking away from work to rest. It was important to see the rest period as a way to regenerate not simply engage in some other equally taxing work. It was all part of the same coin, resting and renewal of mind and spirit after a day's work ended enabled one to make a fresh start the next day. It was what made productive work possible and an integral part of it.  During the coronavirus it is very important to do this regeneration and renewal, and to start this by having a clear disconnection from work after several hours of intensive work or a day of normal pace work. Intensive work of 3-4 hours or 4-5 hours can make up a days work at home because of the uninterrupted nature of working remotely from home, say workers with extensive experience of working from home. At that point break away and make the clean break or disconnection to regenerate and renew for the next day. ...

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Nawaf Obaid, a fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, is also senior fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. Here he describes the events leading to the Saudi turndown of a seat on the UN Security Council. The Saudi foreign policy establishment made this decision after several weeks of debate in Jeddah considering the U.S. and Russia's effort to make only a muted criticism of the use of chemical weapons in Syria in the Security Council; and the U.S. effort to have the British, French and Saudis give up on demands for firm language in a Security Council resolution on action to be taken against the use of chemical weapons. For the Saudis, says Obaid, better not taking a temporary seat on the UN Security Council, than to be left a docile member without its own voice and the voice of others in the international community being heard. Obaid also points out that this is the beginning of Saudi effort to exercize its own influence in the Middle East, as it faces three separate developments in 2013- the Iranian rapprochement with the West under new president Rouhani, the Arab Awakening and the new consciousness in the Middle East, the U.S. policy under president Obama of not taking leadership in the Middle East. This also comes as the Saudis parted ways with the Obama administration on the role of the military in Egypt, and has differences with Turkey and Quatar on support for Islamic groups in Egypt and Syria....

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Rhabdo happens after intense workouts beyond what your body can take. Increasingly trainers push people to do more. Starting from low exercise levels to suddenly intense can be a problem. Monitoring heart rate and doing it steadily, increasing it gradually, and listening to your body is important. Going steady, and being regular, increasing gradually letting body adjust, gets the best results in the gym and outdoors.

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WSJ's Jeremy Page looks at Admiral Wu's efforts to build U.S.-China naval ties through relations with Admiral Jonathan Greenert, head of U.S. Naval Operations. Admiral Wu has the backing of Chinese president Jinping to expand the influence and capabilities of China's Navy. A skeptical Senate Armed Services Committee led by Senator John McCain sees the effort to enroll Chinese officers at U.S. naval colleges, and offers of visits to Chinese ports by U.S. aircraft carriers, as a ways to increase the capabilities of China's Navy. McCain and members of Congress are alarmed by the effort to build China's naval power on the Spratly islands to extend control over the South China Sea and beyond. Wu is the only naval leader on the 11 man China Central Military Commission, headed by president Jinping, which commands China's armed forces. He joined the People's Liberation Army in 1964 and in 1988 has commanded a group of destroyers. Wu as an advocate for a greatly expanded mission for the Chinese Navy following what is called the "century of humiliation" with the Opium War in 1842, is seen with wariness with close neighbors Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, Australia and India....

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Gen. Martin Dempsey took a cautious approach to U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Syria. He did not approve of the way Gen. McChrystal expanded U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, and the hasty manner in which the Iraqi army was trained under his predecessors leading to some commanders being appointed who later became members of sectarian death squads. Under his command the U.S. limited its role in Afghanistan and Iraq and handed more responsibility to local forces. Gen. Dunford who succeeded Dempsey as chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff for the U.S. follows the cautious approach set by Dempsey. Dempsey's approach extends to what he believes is an Heisenberg effect in physics where when you you observe or touch something it changes the way it functions and operates. For critics such as Senator McCain, who served in Vietnam as a pilot, if Dempsey did not want to intervene in some country, he could invent the reasons not to get involved. President Obama exceeded the caution exercized by Dempsey, leading to a situation where the U.S. after hasty action under a Republican president seemed to lurch in the opposite direction under his Democratic successor by not taking action where U.S. presence was needed, followed by a corrective course to make up for this....

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European doubts over research data, on medical interventions, and the efforts to exercise caution on transgender. Having allowed medical interventions and treatments for years, the medical community in 5 countries, UK, Finland, Sweden, Norway, France, now urge caution in their use for minors, stressing lack of evidence benefits outweigh risks, says this report in the WSJ. The UK's National Health Service limited the use of puberty blockers to clinical trials,.

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Britain staged a rehearsal for a pandemic called Cygnus in 2016. Till that time the preparations for a pandemic that started years earlier during the SARS crisis were conducted vigorously. Yet the by this time Britain was becoming immersed in the Brexit struggles in the ruling Conservative Party. Prime minister Cameron resigned on July 13, 2016  and was replaced by Theresa May. From that time on the struggles with pro Brexit factions led by Boris Johnson consumed the COnservative Party and sucked the life out of the pandemic planning that Britain had conducted for years before. The recommendations to correct deficiencies from the pandemic rehearsal exercize were ignored. The second failure happened as the crisis approached. Again the Brexit date of January 31 intervened and the months long struggle to get Brexit had taken so much energy and tired out most of the British public including new prime minister and leader of the Conservative Party Boris Johnson. Johnson did not attend the first Cobra meeting of the highest level ministers and military, convened on January 25, 2020, as reported in the Times. Such meeting are convened only for a national threat. Only 5 weeks later on March 2 did the prime minister attend a Cobra meeting. During this time the situation was grave in Italy with rising cases and infections. The entire process was conducted during this time by the Health minister Mr. Hancock who had assured the public that the situation was under control. Britain now has the highest number of infections in Europe exceeding that in Italy- at 240,000 on May 15, 2020. The prime minister and his adviser Mr. Cummings, were also infected by the virus, and Mr. Johnson spent time in ICU before recovering. Queen Elizabeth addressed the nation on Easter day, the first such address since 1940, to boost Briain's spirits. Never had Britain been less prepared as in 2020 when earlier preparations were ditched for austerity plans and events such as Brexit fatigue conspired to strip the nation of the crucial 5-6 weeks of preparation since the first January 25 Cobra meeting of the highest people in government.  Never had such preparation even for 6 weeks been more crucial than in February and March as the infectivity ratio was determined by infectious disease specialists at the best British universities and scientific institutions to be between 2.6 and 3.4 compared to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 which was somewhere between 2.0 and 3.0. This means every one person infects another 3 persons, compared to about 1 person in a regular flu season. This reproduction ratio and the nature of coronavirus remain a threat today as Britain, Europe, the U.S. and the world reopens.  As reported in the Times the infectivity ratio was also the reason for the mindset that refused to believe that the virus was real because at 3.0 infectivity the only way to tackle it was a "lockdown," and this was itself an "apocalypse" scenario for many in the pro-Brexit Conservative party that won the election, which badly wanted to get back to economic activity after Brexit. ...

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The Large Institution Supervision Coordination Committee (LISCC) was setup by Fed chairman Bernanke and Fed governor Tarullo, in 2010. The Fed's 200 PhD's, bank examiners and other experts at headquarters are now tapped for the the task of looking at adverse scenarios, checking on assumptions made by the banks in their analysis, requesting data from large banks on their loan and securities portfolios, and asking banks to consider adverse scenarios. Such adverse scenarios include a decline in the U.S. economic growth of 1.5% in 2011, and decline in housing. The Fed checks the banks estimate of its financial position aginst the Fed's own standard and prods the banks to consider new risks. Before the 2008 crisis the Fed's 12 Reserve Banks did the day to day supervision and reported back to Board of Governors, a system that led to a diffusion of responsibility and did not work. Former Fed vice chairman, Alan Blinder, says the bank boards did not exercize responsibility, and "blew it, big time," during the financial crisis. This approach has the effect of acting as a early warning for the banks for things that could go wrong. J.P. Morgan Chase CFO Braunstein made a Feb 15 presentation to show that Chase's stress scenario was more stringent than the Fed's. The current review says Tarullo includes asking banks to do a check before issuing dividends to shareholders, and consider what would happen if the economy is in trouble in the next 9 quarters. According to Fed guidelines issued in November if the bank's plan does not show enough capital to handle economic, regulatory and lending risks, the Fed can challenge the bank's decision....

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Indonesian president Joko Widodo announces that he has won re-election with an estimated 54% of the vote. Voter turnout estimated at 80% was high. A massive logistical exercize for a country which stretches as long as the United States across thousands of islands in the Indian Ocean, with 193 million people eligible to vote. There are 800,000 polling stations and 17 million people taking part in setting up polling booths and other services. The opening of a new subway in Jakarta, and the infrastructure projects including roads and rapid transit, airports, that Indonesia is building under Widodo helped him win public support. Under Widodo Indonesia has advanced democratic processes and improving lives with public services.