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An account in the NYT of the events after the first U.S. presidential debate in Oct. 2012 that helped Obama recover his footing.

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Relying too much on BP has put the Obama administration's reputation at risk. This is because BP underestimated the size of the problem from the beginning, made errors that caused the disastrous spillage, miscalculated the rate and size of the leak and denied the existence of underwater plumes. The different government agencies that were supposed to prevent the situation from spreading including the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, and EPA were debating the approach for 3 weeks while neccessary action was either not taken or inadequate. Upto 90 miles of sand barriers needed to protect wetlands and shoreline were only grudgingly approved. Louisiana Governor asked for 23 berms , but only one berm was approved and further approval of berms took a long time.

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WSJ reporters McDowell, Otto and Murray's interview with Indonesia's president Joko Widodo in December 2014, focusses on Indonesia's need for foreign investment for badly needed infrastructure development. Widodo says Indonesia will compete with Vietnam, Malaysia and other countries to attract foreign investors and offer better terms to attract projects. Widodo plans to take up reform of state electricity company PLN, open a limited, national one-stop investment center, and tackle land acquisition for the Adaro power project in central Java to be built with Japanese investment, in coming months, always following a deadline. His goal is to streamline processing and approval of foreign investment projects so that the time is cut from about a year to a few weeks. Investors such as Samsung have preferred to invest in Vietnam, and other investors have preferred to invest in Malaysia, because of a deteriorating foreign investment climate under the previous administration. Indonesia remains dependent on coal and commodity exports to China. The goal says Widodo is to increase the growth rate from 5% to 7% by 2016. This includes revising the old structure of contracts with oil companies to encourage oil exploration investments by foreign oil companies, according to Economics Minister Sofyan Djalil. Indonesia's oil production has declined in the last decade and it is now a net importer, a situation similiar to that in Mexico....

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Arun Jaitley is Finance Minister and minister for corporate affairs in the new Modi cabinet. He is a lawyer who practiced before the Supreme Court of India and has represented foreign companies. Under the Vajpayee administration (1999-2004), he was minister of commerce and headed the disinvestment ministry. Jaitley believes in removing bureaucratic hurdles for business and improving governance. He emphasized creating a climate of predictability for business as a priority, and said during the election campaign that the results would send a strong signal to the world business community and domestic investors. The new cabinet is much smaller and brings together related ministries under one minister to improve speed of decisionmaking, coordination and accountability. Piyush Goyal, is the minister in charge of the power and coal ministry. This ministry brings together power, coal and renewable energy under one minister. Goyal is one of the younger ministers with advanced education in American universities. He has a CPA and a law degree, and is a member of the Board at the State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda. Other ministers are Sushma Swaraj as foreign minister, and Rajnath Singh as Home Minister....

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Wal-Mart promotes Doug McMillon, head of the expanding international operations since 2005, to the CEO position. He started as buyer trainee in sporting goods in 1991. He is a native of Jonesboro, Arkansas, and was mentored by Chairman Rob Walton of Wal-Mart. The current CEO Mr. Duke took the position in 2009. He will stay on as advisor to McMillon for one year, a practice followed by Wal-Mart, with the prior CEO Mr Scott staying on for 2 years when Mr. Duke took the position. Under Mr McMillon international operations in Mexico, China, India, Japan and other countries now make up 29% of sales of $135 billion for the year ending in Jan 31, 2013.

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Even as General Motors consider further cuts critcs point out that the company's 76,000 white collar employees deliver subpar performance, middle and upper managers are still in leadership roles even with poor performance, and under Wagoner little has been done to make it an effective force for the company, especially with layers and layers of management actually hurting when things need to be done quickly in many areas. Major decisions have not beenmade regarding the brands and GM management has chosen to just keep most of the brands just as they had existed before without putting them under some new arrangement and taking out some brands. And through all this the Board of General Motors continues to live with the status quo even with the stock going below $10.

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Toyota's gamble on large pickup trucks with its $1.2 billion assembly plant to make the V-8 engine large size Tundra pickup. Toyota now competes with Ford's F series pickup and GM's Silverado, and moves from its roots in the small car market.

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In an historic event, the young Senator who introduced bills on improving fuel efficiency in the Senate only a few years ago, announces his proposal for a single national fuel efficiency standard of 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016. Mr Obama had the chief executives of 10 global auto companies all gathered together, as he made the announcement. It reverses decades of conflict on this issue, and puts the US at the forefront of developing new technologies for fuel efficiency and emissions control.

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The former editor of Britain's Daily Telegraph says that there is no coherent political strategy in Afghanistan, and that Obama's support for troop "surge" in Afghanistan is more a gesture to the generals than a convicing path to success. He says the 30,000 troop surge makes headlnes but shrinks small in the vast mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. The Pakistani people are increasingly more so than 2001 and 2006, hostile to Americans in the region. And hard core security forces in Pakistan also are against increases in US troops. And because of the Karzai regime's failure the Taliban have real if limited support. And Britain he says is turning irrevocably against the war.

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Courses that use the material on the economic crisis as part of the course or redesign the course around it are growing on college campuses. The courses are in different subjects from English and sociology and Latino studies to economics and finance all drawing from the material. The heightened interest of students as it shapes the job market and prospects.

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Toyota's sales in Sepember fall 32% and Hondas sales fall by 24% showing how even the Japanese makers are hurting with sales of Corollas and Camrys down. Nissan's down by 37%. General Motors down by 16% but only because of fleet sales. And Ford down 34%. According to AutoNation CEO Jckson whereas in 2007 90% of auto loans were approved for buyers with top credit ratings now only 60% are getting approved.

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As a federal criminal probe gets underway into AIG, questions remain about whether AIG misled investors, and whether AIG executives themselves suppressed information from their own internal auditors and ignored the advice of their external auditors Price Waterhouse. The internal auditor raised questions with his boss Mr Cassano about the credit default swaps that AIG had written for its clients. An requests for collateral from AIG to support the credit default swaps were kept hidden. The internal auditor Mr. St. Dennis wrote" I was gravely concerned about this (the request by clients for collateral from AIG worth billions for the derivatives called credit default swaps AIG had sold) and AIG believed that the likelihood of makig payouts was remote." Mr Cassano kept Mr Dennis out of important meetings because he said "I was concerned that you would pollute the process." An important aspect of all this is how it relates to executive compensation that has motivated some of these actions. Mr. Cassano according to the audit committee chairman, earned $280 million over 8 years at AIG, left the company in March and was slated to receive $1 million a month through the end of 2008. The contract was terminated the day before the Congressional hearing. This is a huge amount about $35 million a year and not only is this executive compensation but it is paying someone enough that he would do something that is unethical, or lead to large negative consequences, or even commit fraud, depending on the ethical base of that individual. And this is where executive compensation has ceased to be executive compensation but almost enough to pay someone to do something equivalent in consequences to robbing the bank....