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David Leonhardt talks to Raghuram Rajan, Mr Obama, and other experts on how the government should act after the stress test results are announced. Has the government toned down the results of the stress tests, and is it paying too much deference to Wall Street. Leonhardt put this question to Obama, why he asked his advisers were key figures of Mr Rubin's inner circle, Mr Geithner and Mr Summers, who like Rubin are inclined to have too much deference to Wall Street. Obama's answer was that he had other advisers outside of Summers and Geithner. Which wasn not convincing for Leonhardt considering the key positions Geithner and Summers hold. Rajan of the University of Chicago who anticipated the crisis, was not too reticent to criticize Greenspan policies and was in turn criticized for that by Summers, told Leonhardt that certain things may be presented as holy cows not to be touched for fear of something bad happening, but until you find out you cannot be sure. This applies to the bank rescue plans. Should the creditors of banks be asked to take haircuts or swap debt for equity. This may be necessary as there just isn't enough money in TARP - $130 billion left in TARP funds versus the $1 trillion that the IMF thinks American banks may need for solvency in the next 2 years- to do the bank rescue operations. Should the administration consider this a holy cow as Wall Street is suggesting, or come to its own conclusions independently of what Wall Street is saying. Wall Street has to look at it from its vantage point out of sheer necessity, not from what is the best option for someone in the administration's position, considering all the facts without any preconceived ideas or notions....

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The European Banking Authority has lost credibility after two rounds of stress tests by the EBA failed to turn up the problems at Spanish banks that required a $125 billion recapitalization by the EU rescue fund. Now EU officials are turning to the European Central Bank as the eurozone's main banking regulator. The U.S. Federal Reserve is performing this role after the 2008 financial crisis, with the FDIC in charge of bank closures and resolution. ECB president Mari Draghi says, letting the ECB perform supervisory tasks, a decision made at the June 28 EU summit talks, is fully in line with the bank's mandate. Separate decisions will be needed for a bank resolution authority like the FDIC. The ECB will then have to hire hundreds of banking experts to make on site visits to eurozone banks and check their loan books and make independent assessments of bad loans, bank risks, and capital requirements. The important thing is an agency which is free of local and political interference to make the correct evaluations....

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China's limited monetary and fiscal options in 2012, with the housing bubble limiting the option of increasing construction spending to spur growth, and inflation limiting monetary policy. The central bank's decision to reduce the reserve requirement by 0.5% is not expected to do much for economic growth, as there is enough money to lend. The problem is that there is not enough demand for loans in the current environment.

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A former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors during 2010-2011 offers his reflections on the quantitative easing policies of Fed chairman Bernanke. He points out that the Fed was simply offsetting the effects of tight credit channels when it employed QE to prevent this from damaging the economy at a sensitive time. Inflation would have increased as critics say, only if the Fed did not reverse its policy with tapering as it is doing now. Bernanke offers a similiar assessment and says Fed critics refuse to look at todays inflation numbers which are below 2% for 2013- and also below 2% for 2012.

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The failure of the iPhone XR is leading to a Japanese supplier for the model Japan DIsplay Inc. to seek a bailout from investor groups in China and Taiwan.

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Federal prosecutors are working on a criminal investigation of China's Huawei Technologies Co. for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. business partners. Huawei is the world's second largest maker of smartphones and the largest maker of telecom equipment in the world. One investigation looks at technology used by T-mobile to test smartphones. The Trump administration is aggressively following up on cases of technology transfer by Chinese companies and intellectual property theft.

Another investigation involves technology trade secrets of Micron Technology Inc. The U.S. Justice Department is taking up previous civil lawsuits related to technology theft and bringing up criminal cases.

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Mister and misses cardinal sit lightly but still the pines drop snow

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Once again the unemployment statistics lie- women's unemployment at 5.7% in 2014 does not reflect the real story. The number of women employed in 2014 is 55.2%, worse than in Oct. 2010. Many women looking for work give up and drop out of the work force, these women have not vanished, they are simply not being counted in the frequently quoted unemployment statistic. This spells bad news for Democrats in the midterm 2014 elections- today the households making less than 30,000 are almost evenly split on whether they vote Republican or Democratic 43% to 46%, according to polls by Pew Research Center, compared to the 2012 presidential election figures of 35% to 63%. Interestingly the reverse is true for voters with incomes over $100,000 where voters are about evenly split for Republican or Democratic choices for Congress. In 2012 presidential elections the Republicans had a 10 percentage point lead for this income group. Democratic advisors Carville and Greenberg advise not even mentioning the word "recovery" for the U.S. midterm 2014 Congressional elections. About 6.7 million people had multiple jobs in 2010, the figure now is 7 million. About 2.62 million people say they had part time jobs because they could not find full time work in April 2014 up from 2.57 million in Oct. 2010. A separate piece in the WSJ May 20, 2014, shows 10 million U.S. households under water on mortgages and another 10 million households having less than 20% equity in their homes in 2014....

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The 11th Annual State of the News Media Report of the Pew Research Center is optimistic about the future of the news media business and news organizations. The optimism centers on the new investments in the business leading to new hiring for Buzz Feed, Washington Post, and other organizations, the access to news media on the tablets and the smartphones, the new ways and tools used to reach a younger demographic, on line video clips on the digital websites which are drawing users away from the news cable networks with viewership of Fox, CNN and MSNBC declining 11%. Six of 10 adults watch video online and half of them watch news videos. Interactive data presentation is popular. Younger people of highschool or college age get news on Facebook and social media networks, another way of consuming news information. Especially useful are results of the Pew Center's research showing 68% of American adults connect to the internet on tablets or smartphones, and 31% of tablet owners telling Pew they were taking out more time for news information. The tablet is particularly well suited for news information, and as lighter, thinner, easier to hold and fit into a pocket tablets are designed at lower prices, this trend is likely to get stronger....

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Map shows new troop deployments for tens of thousands of new troops (20 to 30 thousand) to be sent to Afghanistan under the new strategy to salvage the situation there. All of these new troops will go into the countryside and especially in the opium growing region in the south and Helmand valley region. And also on the border with Pakistan. This will effectively double the number of American troops in Afghanistan. The boom in growing opium in the south has increased the funding of Taliban insurgents to hire new trrops and to get new weapons.

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As airlines charge for food they are getting more feedback from customers and they are collecting this feedback to learn what customers want and what kinds of food to carry. Delta and Midwest and US Airways are lloking at different food options that are healthier and liked by customers. Delta and Midwest have hired Chefs from restaurants to come up with better nutritional and flavorful dishes that will appeal to customers. Customers who take longer flights or who change planes with very little time to get food in the stopover time are dependent on getting something good from the airline food or staying hungry. These travellers are willing to pay more for better food. The whole shift to having customers pay for food may result in better food choice and menus which are healthier and flavorful. Certain kinds of foods don not hold up in an airplane environment and chefs are experimenting with menus and choices that will be best suited for this. One traveller faulted American for serving a huge cookie thats like a half pound size. It shows how little thinking goes on in airline offices about the food thats served. Already US airlines are falling behind in getting newer planes and some airlines are usoing really old planes that aren't fun to travel in now add the discomfort from badly thought out or not thought out at all food and imagine the onboard experience. see th link to how US airlines are falling behind in getting new planes and the links to all the flight delay especially into New York....

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Christina Romer, economic advisor to President Obama, offers a different view about monetary policy in 2011, suggesting that monetary easing after QE II should continue. She also argues for higher stimulus. She cites the improved economy in the period 1933-1937 as an example of the advantages of monetary easing, of 1937-1940 as a period where a focus on deficits resulted in a fall back of the U.S. economy. This is a view presented also by Paul Krugman. Meltzer's and Fed Governor Hoenig's view is that excessive monetary easing in 2003 created bubbles and that QE II has not reduced unemployment. Meltzer warned in 2009 that excessive monetary easing needed to be gradually withdrawn rather than risk an excesssive contraction later on.

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The dangers of additional liquidity meant for stimulus to the Chinese economy ending up in the stock market in Shanghai. The concerns of Chinese banking regulators.

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Matina Stevis provides a glimpse of the views in Athens for retirees, students, company employees, and other people, as Greece heads for a referendum on July 5, 2015.

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All the regional groupings of countries and the post second world war institutions such as the UN, The Security Council, and the economic institutions IMF, World Bank, and the OECD, and the G-8, and the difficulty and controversy of inclusion or exclusion of emerging economies like Brazil, Russia, India and China, as well as countries like Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa and so on. There are no easy answers but the gradual direction is for inclusion of emerging economies over time.

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With 80% of its exports going to the U.S. the growth rate and jobs in Mexico are seeing the impact Finance Minister Carstens expects no growth in 2009. As Mexico's finances are in better shape than in past recessions there is room for some stimulus projects by Petroleos Mexicanos, the government oil company, by auctioning 2 highway projects, for expanding unemployment benefits, and giving $150 million in aid to industries hit by the credit crisis. About 250,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the last few months of 2008.

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Investing strategy that is in contrast to PIMCO's Gross and El-Erian view that we are entering aperiod which is the "new normal"- aperiod of diminished expectations with stocks playing a smaller role. This means that investors hold as little as 30% in stocks. Barry Ritholtz, CEO of Fusion IQ, a quantitative research firm says he sees this recession as similiar to the 1973-74 recession and sees growth picking up by 2013, or 5 years into this one. Ritholtz thinks its wise to have larger investmetns in fixed income and similar investments, but also to have exposure to stocks in growth areas of the world. Robert Arnott of Research Afiliates, aresearch and analytics firm, suggests a mix of five even baskets: Us stocks paying healthy dividends, stocks and bonds from mature foreign economies, stocks and bonds from emerging markets, stocks and bonds built around oil and commodities to hedge against inflation, and 20% in bonds. including Treasury inflation-protected securities. Such aweighting would increase stocks as apercentage of the portfolio to 50%....