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The need for a new European economic government to back the euro currency.
04/29/2010
The French view that there should be a common economic government and clear institutional responsibilities and the German view that is not so willing to cede national sovereignty in economic matters. The fiscal and structural flaws that need to be repaired for the euro currency to work.
Linked Articles
Economist 05/13/2010
As Greek Drama Plays Out, Where Is Europe?New York Times 04/29/2010
Greece and EU in 2015 - (5) What went wrong? What errors were made by Greece 2003-2009?
03/03/2010
Linked Articles
Europeâs Two Years of Denials Trapped Greece
New York Times 11/05/2011
Europe's Original SinWall Street Journal 03/03/2010
John Taylor's reply to U.S. Fed chairman Bernanke's defence of his role in setting low interest rates in 2003-2006 leading to the 2008 global financial crisis
01/04/2010
Linked Articles
The Fed and the Crisis: A Reply to Ben Bernanke
Wall Street Journal 01/10/2010
Fed chief Bernanke urges better financial regulation to prevent crisesWashington Post 01/04/2010
Why the Obama health care law gets an "F" grade from the Dean of Harvard Medical School
11/18/2009
The failure to replace the "fee-for-service" system in favor of capitated payments is cited as one of the main reasons. The other reasons are it does not resolve the issues of introducing competition in quality of care and cost, and continues the practices that disguise the true cost of care with a highly fragmented system of care. In a op-ed, Jeffrey Flier, Dean of the Harvard Medical School, gives a detailed account for the reason for his grading. A poorly drafted or incomplete law says Flier can make things worse, citing the example of the health care law in Massachusetts which is driving up costs, as it does not change the old dysfunctional system's key features such as "fee-for service," and instead tries to build a new system on broken foundations. Pearlstein in the Washington Post says the Obama health care law has addressed the "fee-for-service" problem, but this is really not the case, and Flier's reasoning may be the clue to the deeper problem for the Obama health care law.
Linked Articles
Steven Pearlstein: Eat your broccoli, Justice Scalia - The Washington Post
Washington Post 04/01/2012
Health 'Debate' Deserves a Failing GradeWall Street Journal 11/18/2009
The new coaltiion governement of Liberals and Conservatives in Britain.
10/08/2009
A common program for the 2 parties to attack the U.K.'s budget deficit with spending cuts. A pragmatic sensible approach from Cameron and Clegg.
Linked Articles
Britain's accidental revolution
Economist 05/13/2010
That's more like itEconomist 10/08/2009
Merkel's shaky hold on public opinion in Germany.
09/28/2009
Merkel's Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats now have only 34% support, compared to 47% for the Social Democrats and Greens, according to a poll for Stern magazine by polling institute Forsa.
Linked Articles
Merkel Looks to Recharge Her Ratings
New York Times 07/21/2010
Victory Brings Risk of Conflict With Merkel’s AlliesNew York Times 09/28/2009
The President's regulatory reform proposal in a 85 page white paper and his remarks at the White House
06/17/2009
Obama explains the reasons for the reforms and the decision to work within present structures.
Linked Articles
Obama’s Financial Reform Plan: The Condensed Version
Wall Street Journal 06/17/2009
Steven Pearlstein - Regulatory Reform That Falls Far Short of ItWashington Post 06/19/2009
Marchionne gets high marks for the transformation of Chrysler.
06/11/2009
After being run first by Daimler, then by Cerberus private equity, Chrysler has gone through a rough period. Fiat's Marchionne has helped transform Chrysler and given it a viable future.
Linked Articles
CEO Marchionne offers turnaround experience.
Detroit Free Press 06/11/2009
Marchionne is Steady Behind the WheelDetroit News 04/21/2011
The huge downsizing in the auto industry creates the need for big government supported initatives in retraining.
05/21/2009
Vicotr Brown and the 60,000 former workers at GM's BUick City have worked at GM all their lives, and can't imagine anything else. How does one get them from joining the ranks of the permanently unemployed, is a challenge for the government. THe labor underutilization rate expected to reach 20% for 2010, could threaten the economic recovery, and put everything at risk.
Linked Articles
Stuck at Unemployed: When A Layoff Becomes a Lifestyle
Washington Post 06/06/2009
The Last Holdouts Cast Their Lot With G.M.New York Times 05/21/2009
Sec. Geithner's regulatory reform for derivatives and areas of weakness.
05/15/2009
The NYT editorial and Prof Portnoy of the University of San Diego law school find weakness in the measure proposed, as it does not have the same rules for all derivatives. Lobbying continues to hinder effective legislation.
Linked Articles
Danger in Wall Street’s Shadows
New York Times 05/15/2009
New Rules for DerivativesNew York Times 05/15/2009
The NYTimes asks whether the administration has the will for the tough steps in bank rescue.
04/21/2009
Skepticism about the administration's efforts in bank rescue.
Linked Articles
Economists Seek Breakup of Big Banks
Wall Street Journal 04/21/2009
The Stress Test ResultsNew York Times 04/26/2009
WPost editorial thinks Obama's speech at Georgetown scored well on clarity and grasp of facts, but poorly on candor and courage to address entitlement reform.
04/14/2009
The WPost editors agree that defict reduction and entilement reform are a hard sell for the President, whereas the rest of his agenda can sail through a Democratic Congress. It asks the question, is the President dodging the tough choices?
Linked Articles
From President Obama, Economic Clarity but Little Courage
Washington Post 04/15/2009
Text of Obama Economic SpeechBusinessWeek 04/14/2009
Steven Rattner of Quadrangle, private equity firm, heads the team that is advising Obama on GM and Chrysler.
04/06/2009
So far Rattner is getting good points for his advice and his work for the President. His bacground at Brown University, the NYTimes, Lehman, Morgan Stanley, Lazard and Quadrangle.
Linked Articles
Rattner Rises as Obama's Mr. Fix-It
Wall Street Journal 04/06/2009
Obama’s Top Auto Industry TroubleshooterNew York Times 04/06/2009
The Project on Government Oversight Report in 2013 and the revolving door at the S.E.C. in the U.S.
04/24/2010
Robert Khuzami was enforcement chief at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the critical period following the 2008 financial crisis. He was also a lawyer at Deutsche Bank during the period when the problems at Deutsche Bank happened which resulted in legal settlements. The revolving door has affected the way the S.E.C. carried out its enforcement responsibilities.
Linked Articles
S.E.C.'s Revolving Door Hurts Its Effectiveness
New York Times 02/11/2013
SEC's Top Cop Oversaw Deutsche CDOsWall Street Journal 04/24/2010
The inaction at GM 2009-2013 for the defective ignition switch recall and the inaction at Toyota for unintended acceleration recall
02/10/2010
GM's management lost track of quality issues that were buried at lower levels during the bankruptcy period. Toyota's management in the U.S. referred the NHTSA to quality managers in Japan who did not make the necessary effort to look into and address the problem. This shows that quality is not just a technical issue for the engineers and requires management atention at the highest levels, direct reporting to top managers. It also shows that quality problems never go away, will always be present, no matter how good you think you get. Small mistakes can be very costly as BP, TEPCO in the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Toyota, have shown in the recent past.
Linked Articles
General Motors Misled Grieving Families on a Lethal Flaw
New York Times 03/24/2014
Safety Agency Scrutinized as Toyota Recall GrowsNew York Times 02/10/2010
Hatoyama fails to implement his vision for Japan.
12/23/2009
Perceived as indecisive over issues related to cutting wasteful spending and reducing the deficit, and the shift of an American base out of Okinawa, Hatoyama's popularity drops to 25%. He resigns (teary- eyed) after only 8 months in office. It shows how difficult it has become to find aleader since Mr Koizumi left office.
Linked Articles
Japanâs Premier Will Quit as Approval Plummets
New York Times 06/01/2010
Harsh Realities Stand in the Way of a Leader’s Vision of a New JapanNew York Times 12/23/2009
David Rieff provides insights on why all developing countries, Mexico, Brazil, India, Indonesia and China need to take child malnutrition seriously
10/11/2009
The Indian lower house of parliament passed a Food Security bill in August 2013. Rieff says China made serious progress to reduce malnutrition from over 21% for children under 5 years to around 7% today after 1990. In India malnutrition for children under 5 years is above 40%. There is a lot that developing coutnries can learn from each other in this area including the Bolsa Familia program in Brazil which uses the concept of improving vaccination for children and school attendance as requirements for subsidy payments to the poor. Mexico and Indonesia have different versions of programs to help the poorer sections of society. The problem is acute in India because of indifference induced by caste and other considerations and the high level of malnutrition for children. Rief says how good is ademographic dividend when many of these children are permanently and silently impaired by malnutrition by the age of three. India's Congress party leader, Sonia Gandhi, put it differently in parliament: "What is our responsibility to these people?"
Linked Articles
New York Times 10/11/2009
India's Lower House Passes Food Bill to Help PoorWall Street Journal 08/26/2013
World Bank chief Zoellick on the global economy and how to prepare an effective long tem policy
10/02/2009
Zoellick sees the short term Stimulus and central bank monetary easing policies of 2008, as not appropriate to the long term problems of debt reduction and energy price volatility. He emphasizes the need for bridge financing for Spain and Italy though he accepts the German view that credit cannot be provided freely and reforms need to be undertaken. A partial euro bond solution is a step in the right direction.
Linked Articles
World Bank Chief Urges Euro Bonds
Wall Street Journal 05/31/2012
2010 Looks 'Highly Uncertain,' Zoellick SaysWall Street Journal 10/02/2009
Chuck Hagel and the fresh thinking he brings as leading candidate for U.S. Defense Secretary in 2013-
09/03/2009
Linked Articles
Chuck Hagel - Why Going It Alone No Longer Works
Washington Post 09/03/2009
Defense-Chief Candidate Has Conservatives WaryWall Street Journal 12/14/2012
Bernanke's views on how the underutilization of labor in todays markets should make inflation less of a threat.
06/11/2009
Remarks by Bernanke to the Open Market Committee of the Fed in 2003, have a relevance to the situation facing the economy today. Rising raw materials prices and the falling dollar are likely to have a muted effect on inflation. The impact of slowing wages and the high unemployment and growing underutilization of labor, in the midst of a manufacturing capacity utilization rate of 68% and continuing to fall, are likely to be the deciding factors.
Linked Articles
Slack Labor Markets Will Hold Down Prices
Wall Street Journal 06/23/2009
Get Ready for Inflation and Higher Interest RatesWall Street Journal 06/11/2009
An Arab view about the need to change old attitudes and perceptions about US and Muslim world differences.
06/03/2009
The need for education in the Muslim and Arab world that helps melt old attitudes and perceptions. This is a large region covering the Arabs in Egypt and North Africa to Muslims in South Asia.
Linked Articles
President Obama's Cairo Appeal
Washington Post 06/05/2009
Education vs. ExtremismWall Street Journal 06/03/2009
S. Korea's second household debt binge in the 15 years since the 1997 financial crisis
05/18/2009
The first period of rising household debt ocurred with the credit card boom when the government promoted consumer spending as a way to stimulate the economy. By 2003 this became a serous problem and the government rescued a credit card issuer in 2003. Household debt is again a major problem in 2012 with the increasing number of companies in financial lending that are not regulated.
Linked Articles
Notes From Another Credit Card Crisis
New York Times 05/18/2009
S. Korea tries to curb mounting debt and avert a crisis - The Washington PostWashington Post 07/09/2012
The hidden virtues of Hillary Clinton- a different approach to foreign conflicts
04/30/2009
Hillary's adoption of the Dutch military's model for the U.S. role in Afghanistan and following up on the work of South Asian envoy Holbrooke, who settled the Balkan conflict with peace accords under Bill Clinton.
Linked Articles
Against Odds, Path Opens Up for U.S.-Taliban Talks
New York Times 01/11/2012
U.S. Takes Dutch Military as Role Model in Afghan OperationWall Street Journal 04/30/2009
A word of caution about the recovery. Expert opinion that sees dangers in the recovery of 2nd quarter 2009.
04/21/2009
It may only be a glimmer of hope says the Economist and not the real thing, which may be a long ways away.
Linked Articles
Economists Seek Breakup of Big Banks
Wall Street Journal 04/21/2009
A glimmer of hope?Economist 04/23/2009
Bogle at Vanguard Group says we live in an agency society where agents like pension fund managers and mutual fund managers make decisions for us.
04/12/2009
Its this agency society and not an ownership society that we have syas Bogle. Ownership society was 50 years ago. And what did these agents do, they did not ask the questions and exercize their civic obligations in the business sense, which means scrutiny for things like selection of board members, corporate governance, executive compensation and conflicts of interest, and dilution of responsibility where it has to be exercized. Here private equity firm Carlyle Group is shown to have given millions of dollars to get access to New York State pension fund investments in Carlyle Group. In the process pension fund managers made millions of dollars, and Bogle's agents have sold their obligations to fiduciary responsibility.
Linked Articles
He Doesn’t Let Money Managers Off the Hook
New York Times 04/12/2009
N.Y. Pension Deals Seen as Focus of Wide InquiryNew York Times 04/14/2009
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