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Comparative effectiveness research will be conducted to evaluate what is the best treatment for any ailment or disease or health problem under the $1.1 billion allocated for this in the Stimulus Plan. What are the alternative methods of treatment, what is the effectiveness of each treatment, what are the comparative costs and so on. Is it better to treat neck pain with surgery or acombination ofphysical therapy, exercize and medications? If there is ablockage of arteries in the lower leg and leg pain, how does drugs and watchful waiting compare with surgery? For chronic heart failure how does home monitoring of blood pressure and weight and exercise in addition to medications provide an alternative route as opposed to just medications. Dr Fisher of Dartmouth Medical School cites these as examples of questions that can be asked in comparitive effectiveness research. The money will be available to the Health and Human Services Department and will be used over several years. About 15 federal employees will form a council to coordinate the research and advise President Obama and Congress on how to use the money. In 2007 the US spent $2.2 trillion, or 16% of GDP, on health care, and the Congressional Budget Office says it will grow to 25% of GDP at the rate its growing by 2025 if left to its own devices. ...

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New York Yimes editorial calls the Conservative party coalition government's austerity budget (the plan to cut 500,000 public sector jobs and terminate unemployment benefits after 12 months), as a gamble on an improbable theory that the private sector can make up for $130 billion in cuts. The editorial says these budget cuts could suffocate a feeble recovery.

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Economists predict sluggish economic growth in 2013.

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A new West Coast Model is emerging with ballot measures in the states of Washington, California and Oregon. The model is to make up for decades of faulty income distribution which favored tech communities in west coast states leaving behind people from minority communities and the working class outside tech hubs such as San Francisco, San Jose and Seattle. During this period budgets for education and healthcare, social services and essential infrastructure suffered as budgets were squeezed for local governments. Minimum wage also lagged behind and communities struggled to keep up. Washington votes for a ballot measure that raises the minimum wage to $13.25 statewide and mandate paid sick leave for workers. In California a ballot measure makes permanent an income tax surcharge on millionaires to use these funds for education. In Oregon measure 97 places a gross receipts tax on corporations with annual sales in Oregon over $25 million, raising $3 billion a year for schools, health care and other programs. The California and Washington measures are likely to pass, Oregon uncertain, say experts. And even in Oregon supporters have learned from the experience to put forward new proposals on the ballot. The Washington measure is supported by Nick Hanauer, and Zach Silk, president of Civic Ventures in Seattle, who say it is essential to put more money in workers wages to increase growth and to bring better lives outside the tech hub areas. Most of the tech booms of the last two decades have not touched the areas outside tech hub metropolitan areas. The conservative approach adopted in Louisiana and Kansas of reducing taxes first and then when holes in state budgets developed to cut education, health and other service expenditures has not worked, and it has led to the backlash in the form of the new West Coast Model, which is expected to be brought up in other states in the east and midwest. The tech hub areas have grown with the boom in tech but this has largely ignored the rural areas, communities just outside of the tech cities, and led to uneven and distorted growth shortchanging the working class and the middle class, and hurting investment in education and healthcare across each state. Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution conservative think tank ,says that its hard to deny that the balanced growth for all communities across the state has lagged far behind as the tech booms boosted growth in the economies of California, Oregon and Washington. An article in the German online site Zeit on Silicon Valley described this vividly showing how this can happen in communities sitting side by side in the San Jose area, with minority Hispanic communities and working class communties seeing very little of the benefits of growth. ...

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Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University economist, author of the well researched book on the 2008 financial crisis, "This Time Is Different," gives his thoughts on the economic prospects for the U.S under the new Trump administration. He says 4% GDP growth and 3% inflation is possible temporarily for a while with stimulus policies, less regulation, and increased private investment. After 8 years of not investing in much needed infrastructure because of concerns about the deficit, the timing is right for such investments, especially as the economic effects of the crisis of 2008 gradually fade.  This is about taking advantage of ultra low interest rates to invest in infrastructure. He says it helps that Trump policies are pro-business. He sees drawbacks as the stimulus program adds a 25% increase with extra debt, adding $5 trillion over 10 years, but adds that for many years Nobel prize winning economist Krugman and others have said that there is good reason to increase borrowing to invest, and this is now being tried. Inflation remains an uncertainty- if there are large quantities of underutilized and unemployed resources it would raise prices less than its effect to increase output. The reverse would apply if the U.S. economy is closer to full capacity. One factor that would help- increasing confidence for business and increasing investment. Against this what he calls optimistic view or spin, is the idea of mistakes under a Trump administration, errors made and a degree of incompetence which he says is a real possibility. Overall his view is that some risks are appropriate now, and from his deep study of financial crises sees the slow growth of the last 8 years a result of a financial crisis that now begins to fade, creating the possibility of higher growth under prudent policies.  ...

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Britain's GDP declined by 0.7% in the second quarter of 2012.

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The impact on the Republican party in 2012 of reform governors who came in with the 2010 U.S. elections- Christie of New Jersey, Walker of Wisconsin, Brownback of Kansas, Snyder of Michigan, Daniels of Indiana, Jindal of Louisiana and other state governors from Maine to Tennessee.

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Jeb Bush on the Republican party and lack of willingness to compromise to come up with viable solutions to economic problems facing the U.S.

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After all the media talk about tariffs inflation- inflation is at 2.4% in May 2025. Tariffs was part of the toolbox of strategies under Lighthizer and Jamieson on getting fair world trade, and not like Congressman Hawley in the 1920's who understood little about the workings of the US economy. This fact the official media such as the WSJ and NYT, Wash Post, BBC need to get it right about the Hawley Tariffs. Hawley was born in rural Oregon in 1864 went to country schools, and was president of Willamette University in Salem, when it's population was 4258. As House Ways and Means Committee chairman he wrote the failed tariffs bill Hoover signed in 1930. DJT's US Trade Representative Lighthizer in 2016 led the successful negotiations with Japan under Reagan, Scott Bessent who leads negotiations on tariffs with China with USTR Jamieson, has a deep understanding and grasp of today's financial markets. Tariffs is one of the tools in the US toolbox to get Japan, China, South Korea to even the playing field for US companies and bring back manufacturing to the US. Without it China would not budge from its unfair advantage and would not negotiate in fairness. This is proven in the way Japan in the 1980s and China today are responding to the US position preparing their economies for not relying on sudden surges in exports putting whole industries and workers in America and Europe out of work and out of jobs. DJT says- "No we are not going to accept that," the EU is catching on and adopting a similar position, China knows that.  The media is irresponsible in presenting tariffs in a negative way, irresponsible to American workers the 10 million put out of work since 2000, and to American families and the Nation.   ...

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German chancellor, Angela Merkel, speaking to the German parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin, on December 2, 2011. She talked about the need for early agreement on changes in treaties that would place strict controls on budgets. Merkel said she sees the process of resolving the debt crisis as a long one, saying "this process will take years." At the same time she continued to emphasize the future of Germany in the European Union- "The future of the euro is inseparable from European unity. The journey before us is long and will be anything but easy. But I am convinced it is the right path. It is the right path to take to reach our common goal: a strong Germany in a strong European Union that will benefit the people in Germany, in Europe." Merkel compared the process to a marathon run, with efforts being particularly difficult at the 35 kilometre mark, making it helpful to know this at the beginning of the race. She ruled out common eurozone bonds as "unthinkable." Instead of agreements, Merkel expressed the need for "legally binding regulations," saying this was the time to "fix the mistakes of construction" by founders of the eurozone....

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Krugman compares the Republican Ryan Plan and the plan proposed by President Obama for deficit reduction. He also compares the Ryan plan on Medicare and Obama's proposed plan for Medicare.

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Brooks looks at the Obama and Ryan deficit reduction plans and sees something to like in both plans. He agrees with Ryan that modern medical technologies are becoming too costly to afford- especially with aging populations here and in Europe- and the need for consumers of medical care to shoulder some of the burden to control these costs. He agrees also with Ryan on the need for seniors and the middle class to share some of the burden of rebalancing benefit systems. He agrees with Obama in the need for a balanced approach combining tax increases with spending cuts, and the contribution government can make through targeted investments. He is pessimistic about the chances of bringing the two approaches together taking their best points because of the political climate which is increasingly partisan.

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The New York Times editorial says the constitutional option looks better than the recession option, now that huge cuts in spending including Medicare and Social Security are planned in the budget talks between the Republicans and the Obama White House. The Times points to $4 trillion in defict reduction in 10 years, that is being discussed as part of a grand agreement in White House talks. It reminds the Obama White House that it is not likely to win independent voters if unemployment increases as a result. The constitutional option is for the President to to point to the 14th Amendment that the public debt cannot be questioned, in effect saying the debt limit cannot be controlled by Congress as it is today. See the piece by Krugman on the same subject in today's New York Times. Krugman asks why Obama's economic advisors have not cautioned him about the size of the cuts and the potential impact on unemployment in a fragile economy. And he points out that most of the senior economic advisors have left and it may be Obama's political team that is looking for a way to win points with independent voters for next years election....

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It looks likely that after ignoring the chances of the former Iraqi army disappearing in the war and becoming insurgents the Bush administration military has now embraced them in the form of Awakening groups in Anbar province, initially with tribal groups with ageold traditions predating even Islam but now more dangerously in Baghdad itself with former members of the Baathist military. The tribal groups have limited loyalties but are not friendly to the Shiite led government and fight among themselves. But the Baghdad Sunnis who have already suffered from the Shiite led national police and militas are hostile to the Shiite led government. This is why the movement is growing so quickly as the war against the Americans is turning into an effort by Sunnis of all kinds of politics to turn their attention to the eventual conflict that they see with the Shiites. These Awakening Groups are numbering some 65000 and could quickly reach 100,000 and are watched suspiciously by the SHiite led army and police who refuse to integrate them into the army and police making them more likely to look to money from elsewhere once the Americans stop paying them. The Americans for their part are paying them $300 per month which will cost the US military budget some 234 million dollars and save a lot of American lives and give the US already convinced that this is quite possibly a civil war situation not entirely of its own making , an opportunity to have cover for a withdrawal that shows honorable intentions to Sunni and Shiite alike. The American officers clearly say that once they withdraw there won't be anybody to administer the contracts. Would other Sunni countries like the Saudis step in with economic aid. This is a possibility. This may be why some Iraqis are actually now going back home from overseas, adefacto partition is already taking place, And the Awakening groups only provide the safety to Sunnis in their Baghdad neighborhoods. from the Shiite led police and army. Why would'nt the US simply recognize the defacto situation call it partition or anything else, its the defacto situation. Is it because that leaves most of the oil in Shiite or Kurdish areas, Basra and Kirkuk? But in effect thats what the defacto situation is because most of the oil production as figures show is from the South Oil Company in the Shiite south. See the link to the recent article WSJ Dec 13, 2007, on oil production numbers from the South Oil Company and in the north. Of 2.5 million barrels 2 million barrels came from South Oil and 500,000 from the north. Not much of the oil money is going to the Sunni areas anyway and the national government members are not willing to even meet with the Sunni representatives in some areas. From the larger standpoint of oil supply in world markets and oil prices this means that the current increase supply into world markets will see two new phases. For a while there will be good supply as the insurgency settles down to prepare for a sunni led government in sunni areas under cover of US protection and withdrawal because violence against pipelines ect will diminish. The when the US withdraws this production will decline for a period as the sunnis and shiites form their own separate governments. After that as peace settles down on the region in a kind of coexistence of sunni and shiite governments oil production in Iraq will see a modernization and significant increase. As the new Shhite government will need a lot of money to fund reconstruction of its areas Iraq may hav an incentive to really bump up production like the Russians did afterthe Yeltsin chaotic years. Note that of the $2.4 billion oil investment budget for 2007, only 30% of this was spent in 2007 according to the link WSJ Dec 13, 2007, even though the industry is using dilapidated and old equipment and facilities and badly needs investment, so the impact of a real modernization and investment once the country's Shiiites and Sunnis have their own governments and coexist and peace settles in the region would be huge increase in oil supply. In this sense this is why its been so difficult to understand oil prices and supplies. Twisters have been thrown into the works for the Iraq area because of the civil war situaton and for Iran the nuclear situation and the rhetoric simply complicated matters even as Iranian production was declining and its internal demand growing. ...

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The Republican House Health Care pLan in 2017 relies on tax credits of between $2000 and $4000 based on age. Under the Affordable Health Care Act the elderly poor in high cost insurance areas received additional help. These people would lose over $2000 per person and may forgo full coverage or coverage entirely under the Republican House Health Care Plan. A report by Standard & Poor's estimates about 2 to 4 million people who are in 50's and 60's not yet qualifying for Medicare might lose their coverage they now have under ACA. The Republican plan also gives incentives through tax credits higher for older people, $4000 for a 60 year ol and $2000 for a 25 year old. Under the ACA the insurers are not allowed to charge more than three times what is charged for younger people, under the Republican plan this goes up to five times.