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A good account of the history and weaknesses of the Amtrak based system of rail service in the USA. Questions abound about the queer situation where you find rail popular in Europe and so not prevalent and scarce in the USA. How efficient is Amtrak's rail service in conserving energy? Amtrak uses electricity made from coal, it uses 17% less fuel than a passenger car and 32% less than a airline airplane according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Is this based on new fuel efficient locomotives? No the locomotives are old and Amtrak equipment is aging, so much more fuel efficiency gains could probably be made with new technology and investment. Rail service is coming out of a 40 year period of neglect, and Amtrak itself was probably created to put in one place and hold together a dwindling service, as the passenger services of freight railroads were consolidated to create Amtrak in 1970 by the federal government after the interstate highway system built during the postwar Eishenhower years led to a boom in car travel and the spread of housing to spread out suburbs. At the time private operation was not a consideration as Amtrak itself was a rescue operation to preserve some semblence of rail service before it died out. Now with fresh incentive to do mass transit the whole question being posed is whether private operators should be brought in and would do a better job than Amtrak. Today Amtrak has in all 632 usable rail cars an astonishingly small number, its Amfleet cars are 30 years old, and the Acela trains are 8 years old. In all it carried 25 million passengers last year and in 2008 probably will get to 27 million. Many of these are on long haul routes and where passengers can get to small towns where there is no plane service. Its labor contracts require it to keep these routes. So its a peculiar Amtrak that exists today as a result of historical events and shift to road travel, and it may not be the best vehicle to move the USA towards greater use of mass transit to conserve energy, as its slow to change and takes years to introduce new technology and is not spread out evenly over short and long haul routes. The customer service suffered all these years with no competiton and competition may be healthy for better technology, better service and service on new routes. The UK rail service from London to different parts of the country has been privatised for instance. Better technology and fast service are essential to attract new customers and this is an area in which Europe has made significant progress. At this point even with federal money Amtrak would take years to get new technology from the current manner of writing specification for bids, picking a vendor and waiting for delivery especially as vendors have dwindled because of the lack of demand in prior years....

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Paul Volcker was Fed Chairman from 1979-1987 and is now 81 years old. He is best known for taming the runaway inflation of that period. He is now the senior economic advisor closest to Obama and they have a developed a sense of rapport and trust through frequent discussions and meetings in which Obama has sought Volcker's advice, especially at critical junctures of the present crisis. So close is the association that Volcker now keeps a cellphone with him at all times and he has gotten used to Obama's messages at all times. And this week he is due to appear on the campaign trail with Obama for the first time. At a round table discussion with voters in Lake Worth, Florida, he will give his view on the state of the economy and the credit markets. This puts the 81 year old Volcker on the campaign stump for the first time. In his debate with McCain at Hofstra University Obama said "let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed chairman Paul Volcker, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House." Obama is increasingly relying on Volcker. His staff now routinely reviews policy proposals and speeches wit Mr. Volcker. And conference calls and face to face meetings of economic adviers are increasingly organized to accomodate Mr Volcker's schedule. When there is a discussion of the financial crisis Jason Furman the campaign's economic policy director says the most important question for Obama is "what does Paul Volcker think?" It all started when Obama sought advice from Volcker through his economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, a 39 year old University of Chicago Professor. The bond between the two started with a dinner invitation in June 2007, when Obama was still a long shot candidate, setup by Mark Gallogly, cofounder of Centerbridge partners, a New York private investment firm. He invited a number of financial executives like Gary Cohn of Goldman and Fleming of Merrill and Mr. Volcker. At a private dining room in a Capitol Hill restaurant Volcker was seated directly opposite Obama. That night on a return flight to New York Volcker told the group that he "was genuinely impressed" by the Senator from Illinois. When this was passed on to Goolsbee his reaction was- "Volcker is a legend.. we want to pick his brain." Since late summer 2007 Goolsbee had regular discussions with Mr. Volcker. Some of them were about including Volcker's ideas that the housing downturn would snowball into a larger financial crisis into Senator Obama's policy positions. A September 2007 speech by Obama to Nasdaq stated that the oversight lapses and abusive practices would cause the markets to "be ravaged by a crisis in confidence." Since then at almost every turn of the crisis after Bear Stearns collapse, Obama and Volcker have consulted together....

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Galston focusses attention on the major problem facing democracies in Europe and the U.S.- that of providing decent paying jobs and improved economic prospects for lower and middle income households. He cites the surveys from the Pew Research Report and the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics showing how middle income households median net income remains stuck at levels of 1997, and lower income households at levels of 1996. The median net worth of American households adjusted for inflation presents an alarming picture of being at $96,000 in 1983 and $98,000 in 2013 for middle income families, and being at the level of $12,000 for lower income families the level of 1975. Most of the new jobs as much as 95% are being created in the low wage service sector and the BLS statistics show the future looking much the same- with huge numbers of low wage jobs, fewer decent manufacturing jobs because of automation and jobs shifts to low cost locations overseas, remaining manufacturing jobs in the U.S shrinking by another 800,000 to 7% of the workforce by 2025. The result is the alarming rise of populist politicians like Trump in the U.S., Le Pen in France , and populist politicians in Hungary and Poland. Cultural liberals in the Democratic Party and the Republican establishment are both threatened by the rise of cultural illiberalism, xenophobia, and nationalism, as economic anxiety increases, and fears of terrorism and immigrants add to this anxiety. Progressive tendencies in the Republican party since the days of Theodore Roosevelt and of professional elites in the Democratic Party could become endangered if no serious effort is made to come up with solutions to the problems these trends present. The disconnect between the concerns of the working and middle class and the professional elites as the gap widens and the social compact in America and Europe breaks apart, means a new mindset will be required in America and Europe to deal with this. ...

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This WSJ editorial says only now are European leaders realizing the errors made in leaving the Middle East to its own problems, and not intervening where necessay. It says the risks of not intervening are often higher than of intervening as is being proven in this situation after years of inaction and withdrawal in the Middle East. It points to the difficulties experienced by the Bush administration in turning things around in Iraq, but says by the end of the Bush administration in 2008 things were gradually returning to normal in Baghdad. With the withdrawal from Iraq and no action in Syria under the Obama administration policies of withdrawal from the Middle East, the entire region is unravelling. Europeans and Americans would prefer that what happens in North Africa remains there, says the Journal, but that is not the way it has worked out -with millions of refugees now making their way first to Turkey, Jordan and now to border countries Serbia, Hungary, Greece, overwhelming their resources. Germany's acceptance of 800,000 refugees is a great effort but it too faces the challenge of doing this without creating more anti-immigrant sentiment....

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The antiquated nature of the electoral college system that decides elections for president in the U.S. Under this system there can be a close election in the popular vote by a margin of 1-2 % and still have the winner take a huge majority in the electoral college. It also makes states where elections are not close irrelevant for campaigning purposes and framing the message candidates make- in the last three elections this means the South and Plains states which are Republican and the West and East coasts which are Democrat largely irrelevant for campaigning, creating a situation where large parts of the country are simply ignored.

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Republican governors hold governorships in 30 states in the U.S. They have a different perspective on the expansion of Medicaid envisaged in the healthcare law, as long term funding for the expansion is uncertain. With the deficit reduction planned in negotiations between president Obama and the Republican controlled House the outlook for money going to state funding is precarious.

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A cross-referencing initiative by the new government of Mario Monti in Italy called the "income-o-meter," will be setup in the next few months. Under this initiative the government will cross reference different transactions and compare bank accounts with declared income to take action against tax evasion. Tax evasion is so widespread in Italy that an estimated $150 billion is lost in uncollected taxes. This would help Italy bring down its defict and reduce the debt burden in the current crisis. Attilio Befera, director of Agenzia delle Entrate, Italy's internal revenue service, says that the new cross-referencing initiative will prevent someone from declaring income of $26,000 and buying real estate worth $1.3 million. Tax officials say that in a country with 2.5 million luxury cars, only 2% of 41 million taxpayers showed an annual income of more than $260,000.

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Theo Lubke was head of the Financial Infrastructure Department in the Banking Supervision Group, and was a key member working for reforms in the derivatives market. He oversaw efforts at the Fed to have Wall Street centrally clear trades in credit default swaps, which helps control the risk of a firm's failure. Lubke will join Goldman Sachs as a managing director in the securities division, and will help Goldman implement the facets of regulatory reform legislation. Prior to his 15 years at the New York Fed, Lubke worked on the staff of the National Economic Council under President Clinton, and worked as an investment-banking analyst at Lehman Brothers.

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The US share of Japanese exporting companies went down from 20% to 16% in the 2007-2010 period, while the exports from Japan to China, India, and Brazil have gone up by 25% in the same period. Korean companies like Hyundai and Samsung plunged early into the Indian market. LG and Samsung have a significant share in the electronics and consumer appliance markets in India. By comparison Sony's share is about 5% according to Euromonitor research. Now Japanese compaies are putting a new focus on India. In food products Nissin is expanding aggressively by doubling its noodle making capacity, and making its Ramen brand available in smaller packages costing 10 cents each. The idea is to customize the effort to the unique nature of the Indian market.

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The problems of a building a new landfill and temporarily using an old one in Tripoli, Libya. Residents around the old landfill refuse to it being used any longer because it breeds disease and a contaminated environment. Meanwhile a million tons of garbage is piling up on city streets. The new government has promised to build a new one but desperately needs to use the old one till the new one is setup. Libyans say the problem of administration is acute in Libya, because unlike in Egypt there is no effective civil service, and the country was simply run on the decisions of one man and not much moving without that. The whole structure of administration is going to have to be built from scratch.

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Bad loans in Spain's banking system reached a high of 8.16% of total loans by banks in Feb. 2012, according to the Bank of Spain. The total amount of bad loans was 144 billion euros.

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Risks that Bankia bank poses to Spain's banking system as more capital needs to be set aside for losses from the housing bubble.