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Medical insurance choices are complicated for a reason. This WSJ report says a PhD. is not sufficient to figure it out. They were designed this way to maximize profits from a government program by private insurers and capture as large of the market for the Medicare Advantage plans they offer. Heavy lobbying in Congress makes it possible to write legislation that keeps selecting coverage complicated.  The only way to clean up this mess is through universal health insurance, that is UN's SDG 3.8,  that is fair for all, which everyone can understand, and the US as an advanced technological nation can support. Reducing transparency works with heavy advertising for private insurers with Medicare Advantage Plans to capture the largest chunk of what the government spends. Medicare Advantage insurers capture $943 billion of spending on Part A & B Benefits compared to $693 for traditional Medicare. 

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This report in the NYT focusses on the failure to invest in New York subways, including failures in maintenance. It follows other detailed reports in NYT that looked at years of neglect and mismanagement of the New York subway system with interviews of key officials. This is costing subway users dearly as they face delays, and the poor quality of rides on the system compared to other systems worldwide. This report describes a subway accident with a loose piece of rail on a track on June 27, 2017 that could have been prevented with proper maintenance. This was one of 82000 delays on the system in June 2017 alone, one of the worst months in many years. A NYT examination of MTA records and reports shows the neglect of maintenance was one of the main cause of delays, including problems with turnover, and lack of training for new employees. The system's age (113 years old) and its size complicates problems leaving less room for the errors it is experiencing today. The world's oldest subway system in the most advanced of industrialized countries in the worst possible shape, showing the nation's lack of investment in essential infrastructure. A failure at a more basic level- a failure of the nation's culture to set the right investment priorities. ...

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Quentin Hardy gives this exceptional account of a startup company named Box in cloud computing services, based in Los Altos, California. Co-founder and CEO, Aaron Levie, faces a cash burn rate and larger competitors, as Box had losses in the 2014-2015 fiscal year of $167 million with revenues of $216 million, growth slowing to 30% for the current year from 74% the prior year. Box has 1200 employees, 45,000 paying customers, and $330 million in cash. Share price has declined by 25%, as it faces strong competition from Amazon, Microsoft, and other larger competitors.

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The Iranian response to the tighter sanctions of the Trump administration are seen in this report from Tehran in the WSJ. The economic arm of the Revolutionary Corps that helps run the Iranian economy managing civil construction projects, oil projects, and commercial real estate, is now led not by a general from the Iraq-Iran war. The new head is Saeed Mohammed who has a PhD. in civil engineering and has managed civil construction projects. He hopes to use his company's resources to fill the void left by foreign investors complying with sanctions and withdrawing. The companies run by the new leader are run on management efficiency principles leaving behind the revolutionary fervour of the previous period. As CEO of Khatam Construction Base, 50 year old Saeed Mohammed plans to stabilize the economy and soften the harsh effects of the sanctions of the Trump administration on Iran. He plans to work with other private companies inside Iran to shore up the Iranian economy till the sanctions regime and the differences with the U.S. are settled. ...

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The Space Shuttle with astronauts Behnken and Hurley makes a sea landing in the Gulf of Mexico after a 64 day trip to the Space Station orbiting the earth. 

After the retirement of the Space Shuttles in 2011 NASA relied mainly on Russia to send astronauts up into orbit to connect with Space Stations. Under the Obama administration two private companies were hired by NASA to operate Space Shuttles SpaceX and Boeing to take astronauts up to the space station in orbit. Much of the work to build the spacecraft is financed by NASA. 

Space exploration was not a priority for the Obama administration after the financial crisis resulting from banking behaviour in 2009.The U.S. under the Trump administration is renewing America's efforts for space exploration for science and out of a curiosity for what lies outside our planet.

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Popularity of podcasts in 2024 to engage young people and for news events.

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France's CFDT trade union says both Sarkozy and Hollande have shown agreement with a plan for workers to show flexibility in wages and benefits in return for preserving jobs. This comes at a time when France's trade deficit is widening. It was 69.6 billon euros in 2011. Hourly labor costs in France are 34.20 euros, 14% higher than in Germany, where similiar wage restraint was shown by the unions during the last decade to reduce high unemployment. It is 20% higher than the euro-zone average, according to Eurostat. Now France is looking to adopt some aspects of the German model to improve competitiveness and reduce unemployment.

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This report in the Washington Post points out that more than half, about 12,000 homes, needing lead free pipes in Flint, Michigan, are still waiting. This 4 years after lead contamination in Flint water was shown to be over 800 times more than the approved levels. In parts per billion 13,000 compared to 15 ppb upper allowable level. 

About 12,000 children in Flint from the poorest families were exposed to lead contaminated water when this was discovered in 2014. 

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Women in senior management positions at GM include Mary Barra, Melissa Howell, Anne Larin, Victor McInnis, Grace Lieblein, Alicia Boler-Davis. Howell is senior vice president of global human resources. Leiblein, vice president for global purchasing. Boler-Davis, senior vice president for global customer experience and quality. Barra is the new CEO in 2014. Here Leiblein describes her decision as chief engineer for large crossover utility vehicles- to leave a gap at the bottom of the left foot rest making room for female drivers wearing a high-heel shoe. Barra says she concentrates on doing a good job and doesn't count the number of women in the room at meetings. Other female managers says women have to put in more than men to be recognized.

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Car insurance and tariffs on Mexico made auto parts would take a 2 year lag in inflationary impact, says this report in WSJ. Insurance companies will wait to see the impact and how long the tariffs are in place. Tariffs are put in place to stop fentanyl flows through Canada, Mexico and China to the US, which have cost 490,000 deaths in the US over the last 12 years. Canada now fully supports the US for action to be taken and cites similar loss of lives in Canada from fentanyl comparable to the US for its smaller population. Much of the focus on tariffs is seen as economic action in the media, when as Commerce Secretary Luttnick pointed out it is being used as an instrument to get immediate action from countries that have not acted to stop the flow of fentanyl -action they should have done taken many years back. DJT's action is to protect average Americans, communities across the US that have lost their manufacturing base to Mexico and China, and are being hit by the flows of fentanyl across borders for over a decade now. Never in American history has this kind of flow across borders happened since the first settlers came to America in 1600. ...

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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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A detailed account of how the Treasury under Secretary Paulson and the Fed under Bernanke worked through the evening of Friday and through Saturday and Sunday, to come up with a plan -coordinated with the heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank- to support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before both companies ran into serious difficulties. The stock of both companies had been on a serious downward decline in the past 4 trading sessions with Fannie Mae shares losing 45% of their value and Freddie Mac losing 47% of their value. Also rumors in the financial markets on Friday had affected their share prices. Secretary Paulson felt it necessary to send a clear signal to the markets by making an announcement at 6pm Sunday that Treasury would get congressional approval to increase significantly the credit line at Treasury for the 2 companies, and also get approval for Treasury to take equity stakes in the 2 companies. Meantime the Fed Governors met over the weekend and made the decision to open the Fed's discount window to lend to the 2 companies....

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Robert McFarlane, national security advisor to Ronald Reagan, describes three qualities of Reagan that made him a great President. He looks back at the President on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan. The first is belief in America's core values: a sense of right and wrong, tolerance for risk, and compassion for the less fortunate. The second political courage, the committment to do the right thing, regardless of how it would affect one politically. And the third the ability to take his case to the American people and inspire confidence. He cites Reagan's courage and committment to do the right thing in the case of nuclear deterrance strategy. Reagan viewed the nuclear strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction as immoral and one that would ultimately lead to the annhilation of mankind. And he decided to change the entire strategy and move it towards protecting Americans and the free world, with the ultimate objective of doing away with all nuclear weapons. McFarlane says today the development of defense against ballistic missiles is accepted wisdom but not at that time, when it was seen as risky, costly and not likely to work. At the time in 1983, the Strategic Defense Initiative was criticised by nuclear experts and respected senators. One could add that this applied also to Reagan's looking at the Berlin Wall and sizing up the situation in one line- "Mr Gorbachev tear down this wall." One in which Reagan combined courage with simple straight talk to Russians, Germans and people in the free world, in a manner that struck a chord with millions of people....

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There is a difference between the two candidiates. Most of Obama's tax policies are vague or not clear. This risks having higher taxes costing more than $648 billion over 10 years according to the Tax Policy Center. Taxpayers would shrink from 62% to 50% of households and there would be a hodge podge of tax credits. On energy McCain is pushing for nuclear energy and Obama is not giving this option enough importance. Obama would probably give more importance to higher taxes and redistribution of income and building infrastructure but sweeping changes in taxes increasing taxes for the middle class and having many tax credits is something that needs careful thought not to reverse the positive benefits of lower taxes and simpler tax code improvements of recent years. With Obama fuzzy on how much the tax system would be changed and its impact on the middle class and working class it will be a question on voter's minds. Because some way has to be found to pay for increased spending on infrastructure and healthcare. And though its largely accepted that something effective has to be done for health care for middle and working classes in the country its important that it be well thought out and free of special interests on one hand and free of political bias so that creative and useful solutions can be be made to take advantage of the unique situation the United States is in. Its not clear that the junior Senator has the experience and the understanding of this vast subject that would be needed to come up with the right system of health care for this country as any hastily put together solutions would not be likely to be the best ones....

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The profit squeeze is evident in JP Morgan's net profit margin of 2.14% in the fourth quarter, declining from 2.19% in the prior quarter. Return on assets at 0.78%, down from 0.87% in 2013. Lower interest rates hurt JP Morgan's fixed income, currency and commodities business, and this is not expected to change much in 2015. Legal expenses were $1.1 billion in pretax terms for the fourth quarter 2014.

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The Mali conflict and the stockpile of arms from Libya that were not tracked after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime.