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The ECB stands ready to act with the unanimous support of its 25 member governing policy, says Mario Draghi, president of the ECB. Draghi said that "if oil feeds into other prices, that could generate exactly what we want to avoid, namely a spiralling downward phenomenon" for wages and prices. Mark Carney of the Bank of England, says he will see "how things evolve." The U.S. Federal Reserve might slow planned rate increases in 2016, if inflation remains well below the target of 2%, and conditions indicate adverse effect on the economy.

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Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Price will be leaving Bank of America. David Darnell and Tom Montag were appointed co-chief operating officers of Bank of America. Bank of America stock declined by 50% by September 2011. Montag will oversee the bank's banking and marketing activities including Merrill Lynch. Darnell will run the consumer business including wealth management and home loans.

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The Coal India IPO will bring $151 billion rupees ($3.39 billion). This is India's largest IPO. The IPO drew demand of $52.48 billion. The Indian government's goal is to raise 400 billion rupees for the fiscal year ending April 1, by selling stakes in state-owned companies.

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Pret A Manger, British sandwich chain, is planning an expansion in the U.S. by opening stores in San Francisco. The chain has stores in New York, Chicago, Washington and Boston. It has expanded rapidly in Britain with 288 stores, and has 60 stores in the U.S. It was co-founded by friends Metcalf and Beecham in 1986 at a single location near Victoria station in London. By 2000 it had opened a store in New York. McDonald's took a 33% stake in 2001. After a failed expansion in Japan with 14 stores, which brought the company close to bankruptcy, it cut costs. McDonald's sold its stake to Bridgepoint Capital in 2008. The expansion planned in the U.S. is carefully planned, with one store planned initially in San Francisco to test performance. Pret was mostly a lunch chain, it is now considering a dinner menu, with one store in London testing this. Bridgepoint now owns 66% of Pret A Manger.

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The U.S. Federal Reserve chairwoman, Janet Yellen, gets high marks in a July 2013 WSJ economist survey of who would be the most likely successor to chairman Bernanke. She gets high marks for abilities in shaping monetary policy, forging consensus, and communicating monetary policy.

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ICBC's strong performance is largely because of the leadership of Jiang Jiangqing. Jinagqing was reluctant to engage in the large scale lending encouraged by the government during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. For this reason he is not popular with the leadership in the government and the Communist party. This could change considering the large number of loans from that period which are expected to go sour in coming years. The U.S., Spain, U.K. and other countries suffered from the effects of bad loans in the banking system and experts say China is not likely to be an exception. Especially considering the excessive lending during that period and slowing growth in China. When this happens Jianqing's banking skills and conservative approach is likely to gain increasing respect within China. Jiangqing has expressed the view that the last thing China needed was to go back to the situation in 2000 when China's banking system was weighed down with bad debt. One has only to look at the change in Spain where once respected senior IMF officials like Rodrigo Rato are now looked at very differently. Jianging's push for expansion overseas- so that ICBC does not end up being a regional bank- is not viewed favorably by the government, which looks for a domestic focus. ...

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A Brookings Institution study of hiring trends and unemployment in the 100 largest metropolitan areas of the U.S. at the end of 2012, shows 78 metropolitan areas adding jobs in the 4th quarter 2012. 14 of these areas had more jobs at the end of 2012 compared to before the 2008-2009 recession. Six of these cities were in Texas. This included Knoxville, which gained from jobs added at a nearby VW plant. Other cities were Oklahoma City, Omaha, Salt Lake City, Charleston. Only three cities in the East and West are on the list- Pittsburgh, Washington and San Jose, and none in the midwest, showing the geographical divide in job gains. And Washington D.C. will lose government jobs after job cuts in the government. Charleston will lose jobs from cuts in military spending.

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Feniosky Pena-Mora originally of the Dominican Republic, came to the USA in the 1980's with a degree in engineering at the age of 21. He now becomes dean of the Colombia University Fu Foundation School of Engineering. He wants to integrate the "biological, physical and digital worlds of engineering." He also wnats to set up faculty led trips and internships abroad in order to give students more international exposure.

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ig changes in transportationpolicy will change the way Americans move around. Its not just the auto industry that is being remade. US transportation policy is being shaken up and is in for big cahnges. The head of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee is a Minnesota Democrat Rep. Janes Oberstar, he is suggesting Congress steer $30 billion to highways and bridges and $12 billion to transit as part of the $85 billion being discussed for transportation spending in the stimulus plan. This would be a much higher percentage than what transit secured for many years.

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Exxon's position with cash on hand of $37 billion gives it agood position from which to invest in partnerships with Petroleo Brasileiro for exploration on the Atlantic coast of Brazil, or to acquire another oil company. It may also consider investments in possible oil finds in places like Greenland, New Zealand, Madagascar or the Black Sea.

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One big concern says Nancy Keates of the WSJ about the National Association of Realtors, is that the organization collects and puts out objective data about home sales, and at the same time provides a commentary on the statistics. It also has a mission to advance the interests of its members. There are 2.6 million licensed real estate agents, and NAR represents about 1.3 million of these real estate agents. Would the real estate agents and the NAR tolerate an economist who raised concerns about the boom in lending? David Lereah, is former chief economist for the NAR ,and worked there from 2000 to April 2007. He remained upbeat throughout these years, even when the market was headed downwards. And the way he sees it he was doing for 7 years everything the NAR wanted him to do, and he was pressured to issue these upbeat reports. Critics called him "Baghdad Dave", after a Iraqi information minister for his false upbeat reports even when the war on the Iraqi side was lost. And a Credit Suisse analyst called him Liar-eah for some of these upbeat assesments, when things were clearly going wrong. The way Nancy Keates sees it this economist was eager to profit himself in the boom years. He was an economics Professor at Rutgers, at the University of Virginia, and later an economist and regulator at the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation. He himself bought condos 2 in Washington in 2003 and 2004, and one each in Tampa, Richmond, Va. and Alexandria, Va. and Naples, Florida. Owning by 2006 six condos worth between $150,000 and $400,000 a condo. He had an expensive lifestyle says his wife, with a big house worth $780,000, a country club, sports fishing boat. So in some ways suggests this reporter, he was caught up in the boom himself with his investments and the demands of a expensive lifestyle, with little room left for independent opinion and analysis. This is a striking example of things gone wrong, with all the meticulousness and comprehensiveness with which data is collected having its value destroyed by the lack of strict objectivity in the analysis. And the intrusion of strong personal interest bias in one direction making the destruction of objectivity complete. Looking at the economists at companies and associations, there is a subtle bias in operation that needs to be discounted by CEO's and association heads, a bias for giving the CEO's better and optimistic assessments on a consistent basis. An example is the way a large number of economists see the recovery taking place in 2009. Another related example is the sales forecasts for the Detroit auto companies that continued to assume sales in the 16-17 million a year rate into the latter half of 2008, even after the Bear Stearns collapse in March and the increasing foreclosures suggested something was amiss. All with horrendous consequences for the companies or industries involved, and the US and global economies....