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The former Attorney General of Ohio, Richard Cordray, was nominated to head the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray is the current head of enforcement at the new agency. The CFPB is part of the overhaul in regulation of the financial industry mandated by the Dodd-Frank legislation. This agency has the authority to write new consumer protection rules, see that federal consumer financial protection laws are enforced, dispatch examiners to review bank accounting and records and look into consumer complaints. The new Bureau's rules can only be overturned by a super majority in the Financial Stability oversight Council, which is headed by the Treasury department, or by appeal to the courts.

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The new conservative administration of Mariano Rajoy is expected to cut spending to reduce the deficit from the 8.1% expected by analysts for 2011, to 3% in 2013. The deep cuts would worsen the unemployment rate of 20%. Spanish banks need recapitalization of 26 billion euros according to the European Banking Authority, about 2.5% of GDP. Spain's 10 year bond yields reached 6.34% on Nov. 15, 2011, close to Italy's 7.10%. With the situation worsening in Greece and Italy, the perception is that there is not much the Rajoy administration can do in the current situation to improve the economy in Spain. Rajoy's plans are to improve labor market flexibility, cut business taxes, and control government spending.

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Efforts by BNP Paribas to get bondholders to take a 50% loss on Greek bonds, and exchange their old bonds for new ones that mature in 50 years. BNP Paribas is working for the Greek government to get other banks and bondholders to accept this exchange so that Greece can tackle its debt load and interest payments on debt. Some arm twisting by BNP Paribas to get bondholders who have insurance through CDS to accept the exchange. This is being done on the grounds that the I.S.D.A. committe would declare the restructuring in Greece as being "voluntary" and not a default, so that bondholders who do not accept this deal would not get paid through CDS insurance.

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Apple will show textbooks optimized for use on the iPad at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in January 2012. Apple's emphasis is on developing the tools for building the digital textbooks of the future, with a service that could become the way for schools and textbook publishers to develop the digital material of tomorrow. This also creates the link between the media companies such as Apple with its iPad and the textbook creators such as media companies who create the digital content, so that new digital content can be created with the best optimizing software and compatible formatting for the electronic devices. Apple's Roger Rosner, vice president of productivity applications, leads the effort.

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In 1998 at the beginning of the effort by President Zemin to boost higher education, Chinese universities and colleges produced 800,000 college graduates. The number is now 6 million and growing. The economy does not produce enough professional jobs in fields like finance, accounting, computer programming. And graduates from third tier schools fare worse in the job market. Between 2003 and 2009 wages for migrant workers increased 80%, yet wages for college graduates actually decreased after inflation. About 100,000 graduates crowd into parts of Beijing struggling with the jobs they can find. One political scientist says college education has provided these people with nothing and they could be a source of instability in an economic crisis.

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Brigid Schulte says French parents can be more relaxed in their parenting because of the reliable state financed childcare system in France. France ranks first in the 34 nation OECD for 100% preschool attendance, with the U.S. way below at 46%. The U.S. is the only country in the developed world that has no federal paid parental leave policy. This puts enormous stress on mothers, and also on fathers who share the tasks of parenting. This is one reason why there is a long tradition of working mothers in France, and why American mothers are constantly having to make choices of staying at home and parenting or trying to juggle work and careers.

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President Obama says he told House Speaker Boehner to pass a stand-alone bill for defunding Planned Parenthood, and not attach it to the budget bill. He said: "Put it in a separate bill, we'll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don't try to sneak this thing through." These comments were made while talking to campaign donors in Chicago on April 14, 2011. On the budget Obama said he told Republicans in the budget negotiations: "You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?"

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Barley points to the other factors surrounding the ECB decision for massive monetary easing on Jan. 22, 2015. THe ZEW and IFO business sentiment indicators show an upward trend, and the German economy is picking up momentum in 2015. The lower oil prices, and the decline in the euro boosting exports, are two other factors pointing to higher growth in 2015. Just as the U.S. QE program came at a time when economic conditions were improving, the same can be said for the Draghi ECB QE program in Europe, says Barley. Draghi appears to have sent a strong signal to financial markets, just as he accomplished in July 2012, when bond yields of Spain and Italy were over 7%.

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Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, describes her growing up experiences in Reno, Nevada, seeing her father help people struggling with some problem as he ran a drug store in the town. This has influenced her own style of managing people, showing care in teaching people so that they can operate in their sweet spot without fear of being overwhelmed by too big a challenge. The ability to bring out the best in a person who is struggling, is one of the things she looks for in people she hires. Innovation, failure, resilience, and the humility that brings care and respect for others, are other things she looks for.

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Pope Francis meets Bosnia's three presidents in a Council, with each president rotating in office every 8 months. He also addresses a crowd of 65,000 in Sarajevo. Pope Francis told the crowd: " In a world unfortunately rent by conflicts, this land can become a message, attesting that it is possible to live together side by side." A council of Interracial Dialogue to bring together different clerics is working well, says the Vatican's ambassador Luigi Pezzuto. At the level of politics divisions remain as political leaders still promote ethnic nationalism. But overall the Dayton Accords negotiated by Richard Holbrooke of the U.S. are working well. The economy struggles with 50% unemployment and 60% of the workers dependent on the government.

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The new government of prime minister Enrico Letta in Italy suspended the summer instalment of the tax on primary residences which was unpopular in Italy. The new government plans to overhaul the tax code this summer to change the way it impacts real estate. This was one of the tax measures taken by the Monti administration. 1 billion euros will go to a wage supplement program, so that companies can retain employees during the economic downturn. Another program to provide business incentives for hiring is being considered. The new government committed itself to bring down the deficit in Italy to under 3% in 2013, which would help keep Italian borrowing costs down.

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As the Bush administration and Secretary Paulson look at Chapter 11 though acarefully arranged and orchestrated process with government support oversight and backing, Sorkin of NYT outlines how this would happen. It would clearly avoid Chapter 7 and be an orderly and organized process with warranty backing and debtor in possession financing. And echoing a lot of public sentiment on this issue Sorkin calls Wagoner's effort to say with a straight face that he still should run the company is laughable. It was his neglect of some of the important decisions that needed to be made that have created this situation and no serious changes can be made with current management and board.

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Incredible story of a Denmark software company run by a 41 year old bodybuilder Stein Bagger, who called it IT Factory. The company, its software deals, everything about it including Stein Bagger's PhD was phony, and in the end outrageously unbelievable that something like this could be allowed to happen. How gullible can people get? This fellow was named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year with a Danish minister present at an event in Copenhagen, just when he was surrendering to police in Los Angeles. Banks and IBM and other firms lost $182 in total as this fellow borrowed from banks to record fake deals of purchases by phony customers from his company.

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Pfizer's aggressive promotion of Chantix an antismoking drug. Article by Steinberg and Foulds in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggesting treating smoking not like alcoholism but like diabetes with lifelong taking of medication like Chantix to curb craving for nicotine after cessation of smoking. The article may have been intended to promote Chantix to insurance companies to cover its use as a drug for treatment of diabetes type lifelong disease. It costs $100 a month for Chantix. The drug can cause depression and psychological disorders so the FDA is considering putting a black box warning on the drug for patients to take due care in using it. Chantix had USA sales of $680 million in 2007.

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A BP led consortium won the right to develop the giant Rumaila oil field. Efforts for seven other oil and gas fields did not result in striking deals with oil companies. The Iraqi government set aggressive pricing for 20 year technical service contracts in which companies were paid fees for boosting output, and set this at $2 abarrel. The sole award for the Rumaila field can boost Iraqi oil output from the current 2.4 million barrels a day to more than 4 million barrels aday which is the Iraqi oil ministry's goal. The BP led group includes the China Petroleum Company. It bid $3.99 but finally accepted the $2.00 a barrel payment.

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Eavis of the WSJ says watch the net interest margins (NIM) of banks, as they may not do as well as thought with the government's free money. Margins may be improving According to SNL INteractive banks with over $10 billion assets had net interest rate margin, or NIM, of 3.21% in the first quarter. Well Fargo's declined to 4.16% and Chase' rose slightly to 3.18%. He says the Japanese banks experience with zero interest rates policies shows that these margins can only be improved so much as depositors expect to receive some returns and banks cannot find enough safe borrowers, households and companies, willing to borrow at rates that create high margins.

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How in the last days before bankruptcy Chrysler executives pushed dealers to take therir allottment of cars even though they had unsold inventory sitting in their showrooms as sales plunged over 50% for Chrysler, the worst hit among all the carmakers. Dealers say this was aveiled threat to take the cars or face being terminated. For Jim Press and Chrysler this was about "You can help us, or burn all of us down," as Chrysler sturggled to show its viability to the government. See link to where White House economic adviser Summers argued against Obama adviser Austan Goolsbee's advice to let Chrysler go out of business, as there was too much capacity in the car business.

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Nocera says that the Obama regulatory reform did not address the issue of banks or financial firms that are too big to fail. Issues that were raised by Former Fed chairman Volcker. It also does not address the issue of customized deritvatives, the derivatives that caused so much damage during the financial crisis, especially at AIG. For these derivatives the Treasury Department will establish a clearinghouse, so that their price and trading activity can be more readily seen. The reform places enormous trust on whoever is running the Fed. This trust has not supported by the actions of Mr Greenspan in letting the bubble develop, and in favoring little or no regulation.

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David Axelrod's take on the battle with Republicans on the stimulus package. Axelrod says Washington DC talks to itself and whips itself into a frenzy with its own theories, that are completely at odds with what the rest of America is thinking. Cable TV can be misleading he suggests, and its almost like living in a parallel universe. This happened he says before the Iowa primary, and situations like this ocurred after some of Hillary Clinton's primary wins, and before the election when the Hillary vote was expected to go to McCain. In each situation people counted Obama out, and were living in a parallel universe where they believed what they were saying to the exclusion of everything else.

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Economists mentioned here at Global Insight and Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, see a slowdown in the economy and some see a rate cut of half a point by the Fed's poilcy making committee meeting Sept 18, 2007. The labor market slowed from ann average gain of 200,000 jobs in 2005 and 2006 to a loss of 4000 jobs in July to August. period. Note that the effects of the housing crisis on jobs in the housing and finance sectors and the further downstream effects on the auto sector have not yet rippled throught he economy, so its still to show up in the numbers, and this confirms that the direction is on the downside

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Next stop in the crisis on Wal Street Alt-A mortgages, mortgages that are like prime mortgages in credit scores but lack the documentation to be prime. For investors the fact that a large part of these securities have good mortgages has not made much difference because a chunk of them are perceived to be shaky. This is what happened to Thornburg as investors let its shares drop to below $1 a share even though at Thornburg only one half of 1% of borrowers are delinquent with payments. It shows how nervous markets are. And now Alt-A mortgages comprise about $500 billon to $1 trillion of the mortgage market so a lot can happen now in this region.

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According to the Center of Automotive Research about 600,000 jobs in the midwestern states and about 3.6 million jobs counting industries that depend on the automotive industry are at stake in the failure of the Big Three auto companies. Even if one of the companies goes into bankruptcy Chapter 11 taxpayers will be on the hook for millions in retiree benefits from that company. Even with a merger of Chrysler and GM the auto companies in Detroit do not look like they can handle a deep recession and protracted dowturn. Which is why it looks increasingly likely that the federal government will have to keep the midwestern economies from sinking with the failure of any of the Detroit automakers.

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William Burns, a former Deputy Secretary of State, and a former ambassador to Russia 2005-2008, looks at the U.S. and European Union relationship with Russia following the expulsion of Russian spies in 2018. He says the U.S. and the European Union should take strong action, yet hopes this is a passing phase so that a healthier relationship can be built with Russia in the long run through diplomatic channels. Expressing views expressed by former president Obama and other experts, Burns says Russia lacks the alliances and broader support that the U.S. and European Union have, and is much smaller than the larger economies of the Western alliance. Under Putin a strong interventionist position has made Russia look better at home but may not be the best for Russia in the long run, says Burns.   Burns calls for stronger sanctions on the economic elite and business leaders under president Putin. Yet the sanctions have not deterred president Putin and a long run solution needs to be found, including issues such as Ukraine and issues that affect the Russian economy so that the change in relations since 2014 can be reversed. After the Berlin Wall collapsed hopes for integration of the Russian economy into the West were raised yet were not realized for Russia in the years following the Yeltsin government and the Russian economy suffered, first during that period and then during emerging market crises. Russian disillusionment with the West was followed by a more inward looking economy under Putin to help stabilize the Russian economy, accepting devaluation of the ruble to make the Russian economy more competitive in a period of low oil prices. Foreign investment collapsed following the Ukraine crisis but the Russian economy adapted to the shock from oil prices. This was followed by efforts to preserve these gains with an interventionist policy that made the Putin administration look better at home and win popular support with strong action in Crimea and Ukraine. This interventionist policy has played out too far with the meddling in U.S. and European elections creating a backlash that is now taking place. With the European Union, having a traditional policy of restraint and good relations with Russia, openly questioning Russian policy under Putin. Much of that period when Russia responded first to the collapse of the Berlin Wall with the collapse of the Russian economy, and in the following decade facing emerging market crises and collapse of foreign investment -which created a more inward looking Russia under Putin in his third term- is shown in Lyrarc.com. In some ways the Russian response in Ukraine, the effort to bolster popular support at home in elections, and the interventionist approach are linked to the efforts to find a Russian response to the economic crises Russia faced since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Seen in this way a shift to better relations is still possible as a broader perspective is gained.  ...

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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.