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The gridlock in Congress and the housing crisis could postpone an overhaul of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for another two years. The housing crisis of 2008 has created a situation in which 9 out of 10 housing loans are guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie. The two agencies were created to buy mortgages from the banks, freeing the banks to make more loans. Fannie and Freddie gurantee the loans and then sell them to investors as securities, a process that lowers borrowing costs and makes 30 year mortgages more easily available to homeowners. The Obama administration and the Democrats want to continue some form of government guarantee, and continue government support for the 30 year fixed mortgage. The Republicans oppose any government guarantee because of the losses imposed on taxpayers by the way these agencies operated in the past, with the government guarantees providing the wrong kind of incentives in a housing market prone to bubbles. The fragility of housing markets means anything that raises borrowing costs could put downward pressure on housing prices. As a result the restructuring of the two housing agencies is in limbo. Republicans who want aggressive changes may wait for housing markets to stabilize, making the overhaul a multiyear process. Meanwhile the US Treasury has promised to inject unlimited sums into the mortgage giants through 2012 and nearly $300 billion after that, so that Fannie and Freddie have positive net worth and not go into receivership. The total cost to taxpayers beyond the $134 billion already incurred, is additional capital injection of $146 billion (for a total of $280 billion), because of further problems in the housing market in future years, and another $400 billion to adequately capitalize the entities that replace Fannie and Freddie, according to Standard and Poor's estimates....

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The government controlled Securities Association of China says a fund of 120 billion renminbi ($19.4) billion is set up July 3, 2015 to buy shares in the larger more stable companies and reduce selling of shares from brokerage firms portfolios. This is not likely to have much impact because of its small size, and because the volatility is concentrated in small and medium size firms stocks which had doubled since June 2014, and were hit by the sharp decline in June 2015. The stock exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzen also suspended initial public offerings. Share prices have dropped by about 30% since June 12 on the Shanghai and Shenzen stock exchages. With the surge in the Chinese stock market prices till June 12, 2015, share prices of many small and medium sized companies doubled or even quadrupled in value. The overall index on the 2 exchanges doubled because as the smaller stocks quadrupled the large blue chips went up by about a fourth in value. The overall Shanghai market went up 149% to June 12, 2015, over the prior year. It is down 28.6% as of July 5, 2015 since June 12, 2015. A stock index of 100 large mainland Chinese companies traded both in Shanghai and Hong Kong were up about 24% by contrast. A major problem is the margin trading with loans to investors from stock purchases up nine times in 2 years and informal financial companies charging annual interest rates of over 20%. Small investors focussed on small and medium sized firms because they were going up the fastest, and many risked their life savings. Younger workers were also part of the group caught up in the frenzy of stock buying. Shares in the larger companies are only about 30% of the overall value of companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange....

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The SEC, FINRA and state agencies are investigating Stanford Financial based in Antigua, which is offering CD's at yields of twice the normal rate to wealthy investors, but provides little information on how it generates these returns. The few investments it discloses are quite unusual for a company issuing CD's. It claims to have boosted the assets it oversees to $50 billion.

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1. ACCELERATION OF DECLINING PRODUCTION FROM GULF OF MEXICO AS DRILLING RIGS LEAVE THE GULF. Offshore oil production mostly in the Gulf fell by 19% between 2003 and 2005. Natural gas production fell by about 22% from 2001 to 2004, according to EIA. The drilling rigs jack-up rigs and deep-water rigs that drill for oil and gas are declining rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. There were 148 rigs in 2001, now only 90 remain with more leaving soon. Many of the rigs that are leaving are jack-up rigs, used for drilling for natural gas in shallower waters, and this should lead to a pronounced effect on natural gas production. Gulf Gas reservoirs that use these jack-up rigs are quickly exhausted requiring new wells to be drilled to just maintain production. Fewer rigs available mean upward pressure on natural gas prices more so than oil because gas is a market supplied locally. EIA estimates natural gas will move from recent close (July 5, 2006) of $6.10 per million BTU's to a price of $10.00 by end of 2007. This compares with a price in 2001 of $2.43. Hurrican related disruptions pushed oil prices up by $10 a barrel for hurricanes Katrina and Rita, in each of two years, so there will be continued upward pressure on oil price from this acceleration in production declines in the Gulf. 2. SEA CHANGE IN THE OFFSHORE DRILLING RIG MARKET, IN DAY RATES, IN PREFERRED DRILLING LOCATIONS, AND IN RIG PRODUCTION. The hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed 5 rigs. What is a bigger effect is that drilling companies are signing longterm deals with companies overseas. Global Santa Fe Corp. for instance signed a deal last month to send 4 jack-up rigs to Saudi Aramco at $160,000 per day, for 4 years. Ensco International will send one to Tunisia at rates approaching $200,000 for 2 years. There are hotter prospects for petroleum offshore in the Middle east, and in Africa, whereas the easier drilling spots in the Gulf have already been tapped. Worldwide 91 major offshore rigs are under construction compared to 10 in 2003 according to ODS-Petrodata. The new rigs may take till 2009 and may have delays so as to come out after 2009. They cost $160-190 million for one jack-up rig and about $600 million for one deep-water rig. All this has pushed day rates throug the roof. BP PLC agreed to pay Transocean Inc $520,000 a day for three years for a massive drill ship. The same ship cost BP PLC $185,000 a day in 2004. The drilling ship is as large as 3 football fields and can drill in oceans upto 10,000 feet deep. ...

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Germany went through a period of stagnant growth and persistently high unemployment leading to reforms of the welfare system and entitlements under the Schroeder administration. The reforms led to lower unemployment benefits and an effort to get the unemployed take up jobs. Instead of unemployment benefits that amounted to half the salary indefinitely, unemployment benefits ended in 12 months under the reforms, and workers were forced to take up jobs or dig into their savings. The cuts to benefits led to more of the unemployed taking jobs that were not their first choice with lower incomes. Unions agreed to defer wage demands and wages remained relatively flat for a long period. The "kurzarbeit" system of government subsidizing employers to retain workers during economic downturns, helped cushion the workforce from ups and downs in the economy. Unemployment which was in double digits a decade ago, is now 6.1%. The system still preserved some other aspects of generous benefits- parental leave of 14 months at two-thirds salary, vacation time and publicly sponsored health insurance. Recent changes include raising the retirement age to 67 from 65. The Organization of Economc Cooperation and Development estimates that the 200,000 jobs saved in Germany during the recession of 2008-2009 cost the government $7 billion. Government funds helped companies retain workers by paying a portion of worker salaries and averting layoffs.This comes to $35,000 per job. Compare this with the $38.9 billion allocated to a loan program at the Energy Department under the U.S. stimulus. 8050 jobs were created under this program according to the Washington Post- for the money spent so far in Sept 2011- 2 years into the loan program, of $19.3 billion. This comes to $2.4 million in government guaranteed loans per job. The Energy Department says that 33,000 jobs were saved under the $5.9 billion that was given to the auto industry under this program for investments in manufacturing to improve fuel efficiency. This comes to $178,000 per job. The Energy Department and Congress estimated a 5%-10% loss on the $38.6 billion loan program for loans that go sour, such as the Solyndra solar company $535 million loan. This comes to $1.9 billion at 5% loss and $3.8 billion for a 10% loss. The purpose of these figures is to show the cost of programs when the programs fail to achieve job goals or produce too little for the investment. The $3.8 billion loss under the program is over half the $7 billon Germany invested for the 200,000 jobs saved as estimated by the OECD. That ranks as a far superior investment than the Energy Department program. For the U.S. there are aspects of German reforms such as "kurzarbeit" that bear emulation, with serious questions about the effective use of the U.S. stimulus funds. For the rest of Europe the stingier unemployment benefits, raising the retirement age to 67, and other reforms send a different message. From the average German the message is: we made the tough changes, the rest of Europe cannot expect Germans to pay higher taxes while they put off similiar changes. Italy needs to change its retirement age, just as the Germans have done. As Chancellor Merkel puts it: "People in countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal shouldn't be able to retire earlier than in Germany. It's important for everybody to put in effort to make it roughly equal. Germany will only help when others really make an effort." Which is why Greece, Spain, Italy, even France are faced with making serious changes. This isn't stalling when it comes to euro bonds, from the German perspective. And it isn't about the lack of committment to the idea of a European Union, as all major political parties in Germany, the CDP, the SDP and the Greens, all strongly support the idea of a European Union. ...

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China's government is taking up stakes in private companies with large debt and needing financing. Private enterprises have less access to cheap bank loans and other types of financing than state owned firms, and are squeezed by China's efforts to reduce pollution and overcapacity. The tariffs war with the U.S. has also hurt the economy and taking stakes in private companies is way to ensure business stability for China. Its an effort to keep employment stable in the private sector that has 60% of the jobs. Zhejiang Great Southeast Company is a plastics packaging company with founder Huang selling his entire 29.5% stake in the company to state owned Zhuji Water Group Co for $168 million. He did this to repay holding company loans for which he pledged two thirds of Zhejiang Company shares. Beijing stepped in to ensure there is no sharp rise in unemployment. In the first 6 months of 2019 Beijing took 47 such stakes, according to Fitch Ratings, with 52 stakes taken for all of 2018.  The purchase of stakes includes state run companies and investment vehicles of local governments. Even this does not reflect the whole effort of China to ensure no sharp increase in unemployment. From October 2018 local authorities and state linked entities put together about $100 billion of "relief funds" very quickly, estimates from TF Securities. These funds are for passive investments, state owned enterprises normally take on a hands-on role in running the companies. Oxford Economics estimate is that China's private sector provides about 60% of all urban jobs in 2017, increasing from 36% in 2010. Researchers say China stepped in in this way after failing to get banks to lend more to the private sector. The tight supervision to reduce risk of supervisory agencies has made it harder for private companies to get loans. Shadow banking and trust loans was an early target, and stock market selloff hurt entrepreneurs who used shares as collateral for loans. ...

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Even though Brexit is seen as bad for the British economy from a a loss of trade with the EU of as much as 40% and the gains from Brexit that were expected from free trade deals and deregulation too small or illusory, the pro Brexiters soldier on unswayed by this. Prime minister Theresa May is seen as being able to take this deal with the EU through parliament in a second vote after losing the first vote. Behind this thinking are thoughts about how the opposition under Labour and gains made by Labour in a future election could bring together disparate parts of the Conservative party to get this through parliament. The abolishing of free movement between the EU and Britain, is cited as a gain from Brexit. Yet it is this loss of free movement and losses in trade with the EU that are expected to lead to a loss of 3% in GDP per head for every British person, making ordinary British people poorer. In the absence of a Brexit vote Britons would have an additional 2% of GDP per head, according to the Centre for European Reform, a think tank.    ...

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Bangladesh is seen as doing better than India and Pakistan in life expectancy, hunger, fertility rates, and other key development indicators. The new Padma Bridge over the Ganges river operational in 2019 will link different parts of the country and is expected to add 1% to GDP growth. Other infrastructure projects are being planned with $30 billion in projects planned with China including a new port south of Chittagong. The Vision 2021 Plan plans to take Bangladesh out of the poorest nation group by 2021, the 50th anniversary of independence. Germany is the second largest donor and the gender equality in Bangladesh with coeducation in schools is seen by experts as unique among all Muslim countries. The growth of Dhaka and the social and economic change from 5 million garment workers, mostly women and rural could lead to social and cultural change that may be underestimated, says DW.com, providing the view from Germany. DW.com also warns that there are risks for Bangladesh in relying on remittances from Gulf countries, and in not diversifying so that it is not dependent on textile exports alone. Overall German view is that development aid works, and Bangladesh is welcomed from that perspective in Germany. ...

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Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck bring a young generation into politics for the first time in Germany, as they lead to Greens into the 2021 German elections. Here they kick off a party conference in Berlin. The 40 year old Baerbock is finally finding her stride after a difficult couple of weeks. The Greens are polling at 15 to 17% and hope to form a coalition government with the Social Democrats.

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Germany is trying not to choose sides in the trade and security disputes between China and the U.S. Yet it owes a lot to the U.S. from the days of the Marshall Plan and U.S. taking on the role of defending Germany after the Berlin Wall. China was then a partner with the Soviet Union in the Cold War.  Today China is Germany's top market for its car industry. Yet the U.S. export market is much larger than China at $119 billion with China's at $96 billion. In Germany 28% of jobs are linked to exports, and in manufacturing this goes up to 56%, according to Germany Ministry of Economic Affairs. Germany supplied much of the factory  equipment from its engineering companies and the infrastructure that powered up the China transformation. A transformation now underway in India.  There are signs of a shift as engineering companies in Germany grew faster in the U.S. than China, increasing by 6-10% a year. India remains a key growth market for Germany over the next 10-15 years as growth in China slows and India accelerates with its younger demographics and investment in infrastructure. Much of the infrastructure in China is built and it is approaching the saturation Japan reached in the 1990's with additional investments adding little in the way of productivity. Longer term Germany has more potential for growth in countries in South and South East Asia  that will need to make huge investments in infrastructure and technology for manufacturing to meet the aspirations of the people there. Other issues related to freedom going back to the Berlin Wall and the rebuilding of Germany after World War II will emerge. German companies are running out of patience says this report in the WSJ with the bureaucratic obstacles, forced technology transfers, subsidies by state model to extinguish competition, and protectionist approach to home markets, even as state funded companies in China put other companies in Europe, Asia and the U.S. at a disadvantage. Germany will need to transition to a shift in its global relations, a process that is only now taking place. Just as with austerity policies in which it has now made the shift from going with the northern European countries (Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland) to the Southern European (France, Italy, Spain) in favor of common solidarity even at the short term cost of common debt, Germany now is facing the shift for solidarity with the U.S. for its support of Germany from the period of the Berlin Wall in the 1950's, for the U.S. and European solidarity in the face of the post-coronavirus world. The U.S. showing its generosity and openness to Germany and war torn Europe even as it took on the added responsibilities for creating a new alliance with Europe.   ...

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How inflation is affecting people who thought themselves to be in the middle class like postal workers and teachers and public sector emplyees. Wages are stagnant in many parts of the European economy as inflation picks up and the price of basic necessities like bread and fueling the family car cost more as the year progresses. A study by the German Institute of Economic Research in Berlin finds that the broad middle of the German workforce defined as workers earning 70 to 150% of the median income shrunk to 54% of the population in 2007 from 62% in 2000. Something is clearly going on with wages not keeping up with inflation and it does not look good just as a global slowdown that started in the USA is affecting the rest of the world. In Britain striking teachers closed schools as proposed wage raises of 2.5% were not enough to meet the rising cost of living, with food up 7% and oil up 20% since this time last year. German workers have already staged a series of strikes for a greater share in the increased wealth after years of making concessions and the mood in Germany is that a lot of the senior business people are making too much at the expense of workers who are being asked to sacrifice too much....

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The turnaround is huge with Howard Stringer's strategy or refocussing on the main electronics business on which Sony founded itself and thrived in the post war years. Because results were so poor before this the results are huge on digital cameras , new flat panel tvs, andand other consumer electronics except videogames unit. Sales at the electronics unit increased 21%, and operating profit up by $939 million, for 3rd quarter 2007. Stringer has shed most of the non core businesses including the life insurance unit and an online bank spun off 2 weeks ago for $3 billion in an IPO, and selling some semiconductor operations to Toshiba for $800 million last week. Also gone is Aibo, the robot dog. The battery overheating recalls charges are also behind Sony. And the Sony movie studio is making profits with popular movies. These are not reflected in the announced results for 3rd quarter 2007. About $50 billion of Sony's $70 billion in worldwide sales are from electronics. Sony has tieup with Samsung in tv's and this has helped it improve results in its tv business and collaborate to combine resources where needed. Its also investing in technology with a new type of tv screen 0.12 inches thick , enabled by an organic light emitting diode display. Losses continue to mount on the Playstation 3 with losses this year of $847million and more nimble companies like Nintendo have done better in this field. sales are from electronics...

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Health and Education are the best bets for investment to revive the economy. BW's Mandel says the health and education fiscal channel is still functioning, while other ways of stimulating the economy are in breakdown mode. Taxpayer money given to banks, businesses and households will be saved to pay down high levels of debt and because of uncertainty. But funds directed to schools and hospitals will be spent to buy new equipment, modernize and update, put up new buildings, and hire workers. Health care especially is keen on hiring new nurses, medical technicians, home aides, and so on. And over the past year health care and education workers have risen by 500,000. In these hard times the hardest hit areas like Michigan have seen health and education make up 23.7 % of jobs, while manufacturing has dropped to half that, only 12.5%. And in the past decade health and education has had a stabilizing influence already. Nationally these areas have hired steadily, adding 5.3 million jobs since 1999. Meanwhile the rest of the economy has seen booms and busts, and off shoring and outsourcing overseas, with only 400,000 new jobs created in 10 years. Education has suffered neglect for needed infrastructure including broadband and internet capabilities for classrooms, and health care suffers inefficiencies such as computerization of records, and cost inefficiencies. These areas can be modernized and improved, adding to benefits years from now. They are large sectors employing 30 million workers or 22% of the workforce, and now badly needed to stabilize the economy as these employees are well paid and could help keep consumption from falling badly. A Gallup poll taken in February, shows 56% of Americans showed that education investments were "one of the most important items " for stimulus spending, coming out on top, and beating tax cuts....

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Over 9% of Countrywide's loans are past due by 30 days and the situation will continue to deteriorate through 2008 and 2009. For those loans that had weak credit checks like the Fast and Easy program the about 36% are 30days overdue on payments. During one conference call Countrywide showed a chart that indicated that loans with poor documentation were 50% more likely to go delinquent. And Federal investigators and the FBI are looking into Countrywide's Fast and Easy mortage program which turned a blind eye to inflated income figures did not bother to check pay stubs and employment information and in other ways left the program open to abuse. this may be at the heart of how the housing subprime morgage crisis got started in the last couple of years between 2003 and 2008. And the packaging of these Fast and easy mortgages as Fannie recently announced that it will no longer buy any mortgages that are in the Fast and Easy program. Its significant that in recent years about one third of all Countrywide prime mortgages eligible for sale to Fannie Mae were Fast and Easy. Its significant also that Fannie Mae did not require verification of employment on all loans and relied on Countrywide to verify the employment on a sampling of loans and still continued to buy these Fast and Easy program mortgages right down to the present day in April 2008. So Fannie Mae and others who purchased these mortgages and investors in these mortgage securities did not due the basic due diligence or ask the simplest of questions. Amazing and also the kind of thing that is at the heart of the crisis and about which a lot will be coming out as federal investigators get to the bottom of this mess. ...

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Jean Raspail is the French author  of "Camp of the Saints" and of "Me Antoine de Tounens King of Patagonia," winner Grand Prize of the Novel 1981 Academie Francaise. Written by Raspail, the son of the Founder of Le Figaro French newspaper in 1973, Camp of the Saints is a book describing Raspail's extraordinary vision of how boats from Bengal would suddenly appear at French shores carrying millions of people from Bengal fleeing conditions of squalor and extreme poverty. 1971 was the year of the Bangladesh war with millions of refugees from Bangladesh at the time called East Pakistan pouring into India from Bangladesh, hit by massive floods the year prior, and then facing an army of occupation from West Pakistan's Punjab ethnic group dominated Army. While calling Raspail's Camp of the Saints "openly racist" Le Monde does not show the events described here as being entirely real- the squalid and the squalor into which Bengal had been plunged by a over a century of British rule in India that as Gandhi showed in the 1920's in "Young India" magazine spent most of the budget on policing, and very little on development except rail for logistics to hold the Empire together. On this the French Left or French Right or the European Left or Right is silent, preferring not to open up the similar situation facing China Hongkong, Shanghai as Treaty ports and Beijing after the Boxer rebellion, the Middle East with Sykes and Picot creating artificial states of Syria and Iraq, and controlling states of Iran and Egypt, and Indochina as French colony. It is not "racist" it only shows what Raspail might have seen on television at that time of the truly squalid conditions, including a famine in Bengal in 1944 that was aggravated by British policies. If Raspail imagined that boats from Bengal would arrive at the shores of France it is not something that is not connected to reality, it is the squalor and squalid conditions- except the reality the so called Right and the Left failed to say was a result of the centuries of colonization that made the region miss the Industrial Revolution. Western India around Bombay and Ahmedabad was far more developed by the 1970's and more so by 2003 when Camp of the Saints was republished. In 2026 Camp of the Saints is outdated. Northern India, Western India and Central India is in the kind of rapid modernization that happened in China, with bullet trains, ports and new highways, new industrial infrastructure, housing, going up every year under the Modi Government. In the paradox of today the Modi government is referred to as racist or religious right without reference to its essential condition, its very spirit of modernization based on science and technology acknowledging and revering the contributions of European nations and America. Bangladesh is eastern Muslim part of Bengal. West Bengal is part of the federal Union of Indian States, and has fallen into disrepair and industrial backwardness within Indian states because of the lack of the rapid modernization that India is going through, under mismanagement of the scale of Venezuela. Much of the media in the west does not report the scale of the mismanagement of some of the states in India that were built on the legacy of the early decades after independence of policy to slow down industrialization and corruption that destroyed infrastructure investment. The federal government of India and the states run by the party at the federal level in northern, western, central and north eastern India oppose migration to the US and Europe and are now growing at the fastest pace in the world, faster than China, growing at 10-12 percent a year. Bihar state in India is the home of Lord Buddha and the origins of Buddhist civilization of China and Japan. It has a population of 130 million and is growing at 22% a year in 2026. India needs its young people at home, even though it is willing to loan some of its technical people to Germany and Europe and the US. The Indian federal government policy and policy of these Indian states run under federal policy is to oppose migration and find jobs for millions in a rapidly modernizing economy at home. This then is the reality in India, as well as China, with 2.8 billion people. No one in India, not Gandhi if he were here today, not the government in the Indian federal union and states faults Raspail and others and calls them "racist," because of the extraordinary help first Japan, then China and now India receives from America and the European Union to develop and modernize quickly. In fact Indians look with admiration on the western leaders in science and technology, the scientists and inventors of Europe and the US, and are eager to emulate them in the future. And this is true also of the people of China, and reflects the aspirations of the new generation. ...

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Friedman reviews Acemoglu and Robinson's new book, "Why Nations Fail." Acemoglu says that nations fail when wealth and opportunities are concentrated in the hands of few people, that a condition for societies to succeed is to create opportunities for more people. For this to happen it is important to create inclusive political and economic institutions. This is an important insight, but for Western society this is an insight as old as Adam Smith when he pointed out the importance of this aspect of western societies after the feudal period in his "Wealth of Nations." For Smith it was the failure to create inclusive societies that led to the gradual unravelling of societies in the river valleys of the Yangste and the Ganges, in China and India, of increasing poverty and the gradual disappearance of what constituted the middle class in India and China. Chapter 8 titled "Of Wages and Labor" in the "Wealth of Nations" makes specific reference to this.

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After an emergency cabinet meeting and a vote in the Spain's Senate prime minister Rajoy imposed direct rule on Catalonia, dismissing the government of Mr. Puigdemont in Catalonia. He set local elections in Catalonia for Dec. 21. Rajoy was responding to a vote in the Catalan parliament with 70 in favor, 10 against and the rest abstaining, in favor of independence. As the BBC points out Catalonia has 16% of Spain's population and generates 25% of exports, 20% of foreign investment, leading to a feeling among Catalan people that they are sending resources to other parts of Spain. The vote was still far short of the large majority that would show Catalans overwhelmingly support Mr Puigdemont's move for independence. As the reality of the consequences of such a move- when the EU and other parts of Spain have shown little support -begin to be felt it is possible that new elections could bring a result like that in Scotland where the Scottish Nationalist party lost ground to the Conservative party in the recent British parliamentary election. It is significant that the BBC cites a recent poll which shows 41% of Catalans favor independence, 49% opposed. Particularly now that Catalans may have time to consider carefully the difference between redressing a grievance and making a complete break into an uncertain future outside the European Union. Also relevant is that Catalonia enjoys a high degree of autonomy, and that other parts of Spain including Mr. Rajoy's home region of Galicia also suffered under the Franco dictatorship. Even the Basque region has come to terms with the past from the period under Franco and has opted to be part of Spain. ...

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American journalist Bob Schieffer spent 46 years with CBS. He was host of the news show on CBS "Face the Nation" for 24 years. Schieffer says he made the biggest impression on the American public only in the last 12 years since turning 65. During these 12 years he moderated several presidential debates, put CBS at the highest level of viewership as other leading journalists retired, and published a best selling memoir, "This Just In." Things were not expected to turn out this way. In 2003 Mr. Schieffer found out he had bladder cancer, and he says ever since he saw things differently- everything appeared as a temporary assignment. In 2005 he announced he would retire in 2007, when he was 70. Each year after that CBS persuaded him to stay. He replaced Dan Rather for "CBS Evening News" in 2005, and gave it solid ratings till he stepped down in 2007. Schieffer is the same person he was many years ago for people who remember him from CBS since 1982, as the chief Washington correspondent. It is this power of experience, of being always there, that attracts viewers who want to hear about what Bob Schieffer finds important, with an authentic voice asking the right questions....

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A further drop in the value of the ruble would increase the cost of servicing the $500 billion in foreign debt. Fitch downgraded Russia's credit rating to BBB, the main concern being the drop in foreign exchange reserves, down by $210 billion to $390 billion in 6 months. Forward rates on the ruble imply a further depreciation of 20% in 12 months. Russia last week abandoned its committment to stick to the 2009 budget. After the first $29 billion bailout for banks another $40 billion has been assigned for the banks. All this has shown clearly that for Russia the job of reforming the economy, of changing its dependence on oil and commodities, and shifting to manufacturing and high tech industries has hardly begun. As a writer at the Financial Times put it in a CSPAN talk show, Russia is like 120 million people gathered around a oil wellhead. Or as another writer puts it, it remains a dangerously leveraged bet on the oil price. This has ominous implications for Russia, and serious social implications in terms of unemployment, social unrest, and a crisis of expectations, as for the second time in the lives of this generation hopes are raised only to be disappointed....

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Public opinion in France is divided about France's dependence on nuclear power. Ifop's survey of Nov. 13, 2011, shows 40% of the French are now "hesitant" about nuclear power, about 33% favor nuclear power and 17% are against it. About two-thirds of the ruling UMP party of Nicholas Sarkozy supports nuclear power, while half of the Socialist party supporters say they are not sure about the path ahead. The issue is becoming important in the election, as the UMP claims the Socialist party's proposal to shut down 24 of the 58 reactors if elected will cost thousands of jobs and solar power cannot take its place overnight. The French are a bit puzzled by the nuclear issue in contrast to Germany where the issue arouses strong emotions, because nuclear energy had become accepted in France till the Fukushima nuclear disaster raised safety issues. EDF which operates the plants plans to increase spending on safety measures and on maintenance after audits by the French nuclear regulator. EDF's share price was down 40% since the nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan....

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Germany's goalie Neuer would stay outside his goal box so much of the time that it has become the norm for goalies to move out of their box to tackle incoming balls. In this World Cup Soccer the winning team goalies have stayed inside their box to make saves. Particularly true for France, Croatia's Subasic and goalies for Belgium and France. Most of the game depended on goalie saves for Croatia and France. Subasic and Lloris stayed inside the goalie's six yard box and made sensational saves. France's coach also wanted his goalie inside the box and to play the game the way it used to be played 20 years ago.

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Angelo Mozilo's Countrywide acquired by Bank of America for $2.5 billion may have cost Bank of America about $40 billion say people close to the bank. The losses are from real estate losses, legal expenses and settlements with state and federal agencies.

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Blackstone's plans to sell its commercial real estate investments valued at $22 billion in regional parcels, a total of 100 office buildings and about 50 million square feet of space. Plans are to do this for an exit by as early as 2013.