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The constructive contribution made by the G-20 meetings of leaders towards building agreement on economic and other policies for peace and progress in the global economy. The meetings were especially useful for coordinating policy and addressing issues arising in the global economy after the 2008 financial crisis. Here Li Baodong, China's vice minister for international organizations and conferences, international economic affairs, describes the path ahead: IMF reforms implementation, better coordination of macroeconomic policies, pursuing the anti-protectionist and free trade policies with further support to the WTO and ministerial MC9 meeting in Bali in Dec. 2013, and infrastructure financing proposals for developing countries on the agenda at the St Petersburg, Russia, G-2- meeting in Sept. 2013. Baodong says the mechanism called the Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth as part of the G-20 meetings is a major achievement. Each G-20 economy submits it macroeconomic policy plan for a Mutual Assessment Process under this arrangement. The progress from the Bretton Woods financial architecture to the new arrangement- from the G-6 to the G-20 to include developing countries from India to Mexico and Brazil- is another major achievement, not fully recognized by the public, says Baodong. Interestingly Baodong makes particular mention to global rebalancing, rather than pushing what he calls the impossible task of increasing demand to get growth. This is a realization coming to China's economic policymakers under the new Jinping-Keqiang administration after the overly aggressive effort to stimulate demand in the 2009-2011 Stimulus, and the ensuing financial problems in the banking and credit system. It is indicative of the policy shift and its implementation underway in China in 2013-2015....

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This article in The Telegraph shows the debate in the House of Commons on Syria and comments by various MP's. It also reveals the impasse on Syria with Boris Johnson of the Conservative Party using it to score points against Jeremy Corbyn of Labor Party by calling for demonstrations by peace groups at Russian embassies, and Corbyn's response to this saying all parties embassies including the U.S. should be included. By October 2016 with about 100,000 children and 275,000 civilians trapped inside the Aleppo region in northern Syria, and Russian bombings of Aleppo, the situation is dire. With U.S. president Obama's inaction on Syria, the refugee crisis in Europe from Syrian refugees exceeding 2 million in the Middle East, the situation in Syria is at the point where lacking an effective option to setup a no fly zone at this late stage the political parties in Britain and in the U.S. trade charges against each other. German chancellor Merkel and foreign minister Steinmier visit Ethiopia and Nigeria to stem the flow of refugees from economic crisis at the source with aid and support, as Germany works on its own efforts. France's Hollande tells Putin a visit to France would have only Syria as topic for discussions and calls for Syria to be brought up as war crimes. Even the Telegraph's title is misleading as the article covers the debate in the House on Commons on Syria, but the title appeals to Telegraph readers critical of Corbyn when the debate is about Syria and what action to take about the bombings.   ...

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Coy cites Paul Krugman's Willie Coyote scenario for the dollar, where the famous character runs off a cliff, but starts to fall only when he starts to look down. One foreign exchange expert says there is a 40% chance of the dollar falling into a crisis point. Two forces are working in that direction. Near zero rates in the USA is making it a speculative play to borrow dollars cheaply, and then sell them to buy other currencies where stocks and bonds yield higher returns. The other is that experts feel that the US may eventually make its huge debt affordable by devaluing its currency. David Malpass does not see rising import prices and inflation as healthy for the US economy. He says the fall of the dollar in the 1980's gave the Japanese the buying power to strengthen their automakers. Coy also sees the risk of a major failure of a financial institution, as a possibility, if it made a bet that made it vulnerable to a falling dollar. At this point 88% of derivatives credit risk exposure in the USA is residing in 5 banks in the second quarter in 2009....

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This editorial in the New York Times is strongly critical of former president Barack Obama for accepting $400,000 in speaking fees from Wall Street for a single speech. It says the news is causing people to question the ideas and words presented by Obama in his books about the dangers of losing sight of the interests of ordinary people. It gives the impression says the NYT, that Obama is cashing in like everybody else, and that his talk was empty. The editorial says the millions raised by Hillary Clinton led to her defeat in the election. Obama is reported to plan a foundation with the work of training a new generation of political leaders. This NYT editorial says it would be better to stay true to vision and purpose, to walk the talk for president Obama, especially now that a recent poll shows two thirds of voters, including about half of Democrats say that the Democratic Party is out of touch with the interests of the American People. By associating this closely with wealthy donors leading Democrats contributed to this. During a period when some of the remarkable achievements of the last fifty years such as the European Union are being called into question, when ordinary working people, young people and older people are struggling, this is all the more a tone deaf approach by politicians. The idea of helping train a new generation of political leaders through a foundation sounds bizarre in this context, and seems to suggest politicians believe there is always a solution through marketing their audacity and money.   ...

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As a group Hispanics are reported to be hit hardest by this recession, harder than African Americans. In a Feb 9, Washington Post poll, both African Americans and Hispanics were optimistic about the future for the next generation, even with the dismal economic prospects, because things have improved greatly for this generation of black people and Hispanics compared to their parent's generation. And this progress is projected into the future. As a group the most pessimism was shown by white people. Whites say the Obama administration is doing very little for their families, and not doing enough for the middle class and working class Americans and small businesses. They were much more critical about the the administration's cozy relationship and doing "too much" for Wall Street financial institutions. By a 2 to 1 margin whites saw the Obama administration's economic program as harming the national economy.

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Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands Combined Authority, says when you consider that London gets 7 times the infrastructure spending per person than West Midlands, "its not bloody surprising" that his region is not growing fast. West Midlands covers a large part of central England, including Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry. Even life expectancy is lower by 8 years in Blackpool, and disposable income can be quarter in Camden compared to North London. Labor's Corbyn and Conservative's Thatcher in the British general election are both campaigning for reviving the regions outside London, that have seen investment in people and technology lag substantially behind London. Regional revival is the big issue in this election. Consider that London which accounted for about 15% of economic output in the 1980's now accounts for nearly 25% of economic output of Britain. Berlin is about 4% of Germany's economy, and Paris 10% of France's economy. A word of caution on Brexit is sounded by experts at the University of Birmingham, who say the whole process of Brexit is so complicated that it may detract from the task of reviving this region. Even though the political upheaval had origins in this discontent, was it more about shifting government attention to the gap between London and the rest of the country, and less about a complex process of withdrawal from the European Union. ...

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The new bipartisan sanctions on Russia agreement in the U.S. Congress has the support of key senators, McConnell and Corker on the Republican side, Schumer and Cardin on the Democratic side. The agreement would impose new sanctions on Russia and provide for a mandated congressional review. This follows Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 election and cyberattacks. This measure is being considered as a sanctions bill on Iran is being passed.

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Lt. Gen. Frederick "Ben" Hodges is the U.S. Army Commander in Europe. He describes the threats facing the U.S. in an interview with Sohrab Ahmari of the WSJ. Hodges says Russians are preparing for a conflict five or six years down the road, and should have capabilities built up in 2 to 3 years. The U.S. military remains stretched with 9 of 10 division headquarters committed to some requirement, and new crises popping up unpredictably, such as Islamic State and Ukraine in 2014- a situation not faced even at the height of the engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq. The budget sequestration cuts continue to limit the army's capabilities just when additional resources are needed. Hodges calls for depth in resources as the only way for the army to be there to counteract bad actors in Europe or the Middle East, or some other place. With further budget cuts the army will have to drop down to 420,000 personnel from 500,000 today, just when the number of crisis areas are increasing, hurting preparedness and modernization....

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Litigation expenses and settlements for JP Morgan Chase at $17.7 billion for 2008-2012 now exceed the $16.1 billion for Bank of America, according to FBR Capital Markets. JP Morgan Chase plans to spend an additional $4 billion and commit 5000 new personnel to help it clean up the bank's risk and regulatory compliance problems. Of the $4 billon $2.5 billion go into litigation reserves, and $1.5 billion for a 30% increase in risk control staffing and other related expenses. As part of the changes CEO Dimon has put the most senior executives in charge of separate parts of regulatory problems. These executives cannot be overruled by business heads. In another change still to be made at other banks the top compliance officer reports to the chief operating officer of the bank not the general counsel. This change was made at the request of regulators who now meet about 50 times per month with compliance executives. The total control staff for compliance and risk are now at 15,000 in 2013, up from 8000 in 2012. At a 2 day business retreat at Martha's Vineyard compliance and control officers were invited for briefings and came away with equal authority as business chiefs. JP Morgan has also provided 750,000 hours of training on control and regulatory issues to its staff using McKinsey, Ernst Young and other firms. CEO Dimon sees the effort as making the bank stronger than ever and this has become a top priority for him, reflecting a change in his views from the period when the London Whale crisis first emerged. It also shows a leadership trait of Dimon as a learner who puts his full weight behind an effort after gaining new insights into hidden problems....

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The May 6 episode of the stock market plunge of 900 points in the U.S. and then recovering had the effect of rattling investors nerves especially retirees. The impact of this episode is recorded in the experience of one Charles Schwab broker office in Englewood, Colorado. By the end of that day this broker had 50 calls on his answering machine from a fifth of his clients, all seeking to know what happened. Charles Schwab, who helped launch a period of individual investing in the U.S. after 1982 by cutting fees and going after the average investor, (along with others like Jack Bogle of Vanguard Funds), is also on edge. He says he has not seen anything like this since his early days. Schwab confirms Yale Prof. Shiller who says (see link) that his index for markets shows a lot of nervousness. Saying that 98% of people are still very concerned, coming after the May 6 incident, and the Greece and eurozone crisis that impacted US stock markets. One other factor he points out is the constant flow of headlines that suggest certain business people engaged in fradulent practices, something that fuels a lack of trust. Charles Schwab ponders from his office across the San Francisco Bay Bridge, whether words like safety and soundness mean anything anymore. Another factor of concern, Bogle points out, is that institutional investors now own 70% of American corporations, up from 35% in 1975. And the advantage has veered sharply in their direction as institutions, hedge funds, and investment banks trade on their own account, with wealth moving in that direction. This leaves the individual investor and especially the retiree or those about to retire in a severe predicament....

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Car sales in Germany are up 40% from ayear ago. This is not about to happen in the USA. The cash for clunkers program in Germany is broad and less complicated.In Germany eligible cars have to 9 years old and the subsidy covered the purchase of any new car, regardless of size and fuel efficiency. In the US the program just signed by President Obama covers a narrow profile of customers. In the US customers who benefitare economically challenged and in the midst of adeep recession. Cars can't be over 25 years old, and can't have a combined highway and city fuel economy rating of more than 18 miles per gallon as calculated by EPA. To get the full $4500 credit customers must buy either a new truck or sport utility rated 5mpg higher than the clunker or scrapped vehicle, or a passenger car rated at least 10 mpg higher.And the credit is given instead of the trade in value, so if the trade in value is higher it doesn't help. The German government is giving away upto $4500 but it started out with 1.5 billion euros to get 600,000 clunkers off the road, but because of the popularity of the program has expanded it to 5 billion euros for 2 million cars and extended it to end of 2009. The US program only has $1 billion for 250,000 cars or one eight of what the Germans are doing for amuch larger car market. Because of the dire shape Detroit and much of the midwest is in, because of the slump in the auto industry, this may be a mistake and a missed opportunity to do what the Europeans are doing, and get an even bigger impact. The American car market and industry is taking a severe blow from the deep recession. Because of the depressed region the impact of a real clunkers for cash program that targets a broader profile, with bigger financing and designed to give a boost to the market, could make a real difference. At this point it is more of a program designed to help people turn in their gas guzzling trucks for passenger cars, and those driving a $200 car are not likely to be the kind of customer who goes out and buys a new car say dealers. See the link to Alan Blinder's stimulus proposal in July 29, 2008, that suggested a $20 billion program even before the current crisis. The present program has only $1 billion....

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Greenspan's legacy is called into question with the bursting of the housing bubble which he had not expected and the growth of subprime which he did little to slowdown. His libertarian spirits took a dogmatic view of free markets that said that the best approach was an handsoff one. This conflicted with the proper monitoring and supervision of rapid growth of subprime and the abuses that went on in the market for mortages and mortgage securities. He was also slow to raise rates after the rate cuts were down to as low as 1% which fueled the housing boom. Greenspan actually felt the borrowing on home equity loans for consumption was a good thing but failed to see the excesses in consumption spending and dangers of a negative savings rate. He felt that it was necessary to keep rates low to keep deflation from happening at that point in time. He was too complacent and in the position for too long to do the job well for so long. He was appointed by Reagan in 1987 and retired in 2005 three years ago in this role for 18 years. Could the Clinton or Bush administrations have chosen a fresh face who could have performed quite well and had to prove himself and not become complacent in a wave of adulation during good times? He argues that is decision making process was sound. This showed in the LTCM crisis and during the 9/11 crisis. But what went wrong were that his assumption about the goodness of human nature inherent in an innocent view of free market innovation where only the best happens ignores the possibilities of bad things happening when this innocent innovation is converted into a negative kind of innovation by human greed as happened in the mortgage securities market. And the lack of transparency that can creep in when a watchful eye is taken off the financial machinery and it is left all to its own devices as when these mortgage securities were made complex and dispersed in protfolios all over the global financial in places like Nordic towns in Arctic Norway as well as in far off places in Asia. So the basics: careful watchdog role, continually reassessing things like the patchwork of regulation that Secretary Paulson criticized recently fit for 10-20 years ago, getting interest rates right etc requires a good mind, some grace and a fresh face and energies that a man close to 80 years in 2005 after 18 years in the position got too complacent, overstayed and in the end made crucial errors of judgement and wisdom that his libertarian logic may have made all too easy. ...

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Informed sources say Portugal will require 90 billion euros ($129 billion) in a bailout package from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Of this 10 billion euros will be needed in June 2011. Germany's finance minister Schauble, said the austerity program that is part of the bailout will be put together in the next 2-3 weeks with the help of the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF. The bailout will probably be structured in several phases coming before and after June 5 elections in Portugal. The current Socrates administration and a new administration will share responsibility in negotiations for the deal. The opposition Social Democrats who are front runners supported by 39% of the voters and the CDS party with 7%, both support the current government's bailout request. A Social Democrats-CDS coalition is likely after the June elections. The leader of the Social Democrats, Pedro Coelho, is involved in the negotiations. The crisis came to this point after Portuguese banks-which were among the principal buyers of government debt- decided to stop buying additional governmet debt. This meant the government with low cash reserves had little chance of meeting the 4.9 billion euros in debt repayments in June, after a 4.2 billion euro debt repayment in April. The Portuguese government had preferred a bridge loan from the EU but the EU declined this request, insisting on austerity measures. A recent effort by the Socrates government to get an austerity package was defeated in Parliament, leading to Socrates' resignation. ...

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After the huge crisis the debate about capitalism. What went wrong, and importantly what did not go wrong. Not in the sense of more punditry to place the blame but to ask questions to have a better grasp of the fact and better understanding of the twists and turns of the last decade, the complexities, the frailties, the errors of judgement, and the failings, and the outright falsehoods and ethical breaks. So that the good things are not lost for instance the individual initiative and the bad things are corrected and measures put in place to prevent recurrence and minimize damage. Has the model of anglo-saxon capitalism failed? Actually some specific things failed, deregulation at a time when banks and markets were behaving irresponsibly and without any restraint internal or external, credit ratings agencies failed, financial institutions failed in performing their first line of business which is to finance investment in the economy not in housing and mortgages, and American consumerism failed in that value of saving disappeared and abundance of debt brought American savings to zero, leaving little for investment in the economy and infrastructure except by borrowing from other countries. And living on illusions and not on sound basics the leadership failed thinking that free enterprise and technology and productivity improvements somehow allowed a country or group of countries to live way beyond their means, and a tendency to excess in the popular mood of the country, excesssive consumption, excessive and profligate use of energy which sent trillions of dollars overseas over decades, and excessive expectations of the lower classes for housing and goods beyond their means, all played a part. What did not fail is the freedom to trade, the fall of "barriers to intercourse" between nations, that produced gains on a big scale so that computer and cell phone technology developed in one part of the world quickly spread around the world and the innovations and technology developed in one country spread producing benefits all over the world. It created amood of optimism in developing countries whose incomes rose especially where countries encouraged growth as in China, India, Russia, Brazil, Eastern Europe and pulled hundreds of millons out of poverty. With China, America and Germany in effect shipped technology goods in return for lower value added goods like textiles and shoes, to help China industrialize, and American consumption played a useful part until things reached an extreme and the system was abused by forgetting the basics and allowing excesses and failing to respect ethical responsibilities. Regarding regulation excessive regulation and red tape has proved to be bad as in the license Raj in India which stifled private initiative and new enterprise till it was abandoned in 1990, and no one in India is calling for more regulation. What is bad is to abandon good common sense and to rely on the illusion that no regulation is needed to run a complex financial system like we have today, a laissez fairre libertarian philosophy that was rampant in the Bush administration and in the country's leadership in the Bush years. As a result an underfunded SEC failed to deliver on its basic mission and responsibility, and the lack of a centralized regulatory authority with powers and funding to meet the challenges of modern finance as for instance ineffective derivative regulation under the CFTC, simply aggravated things further. ...

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Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, shows clear thinking and agrasp of the situation in Iran, in this lucid and well written article in the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times. He says the four sources of legitimacy for the Iranian government, competence in managing the country's affairs, the official religious authority, committment to Iran's independence, and a stable base of social support, have all been irretrievably undone. He points out that the situation has been changing for some time even before the voterigging. Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most prominent clergyman in Iraq, opposed the principle of velayat-e-faqih (rule of the clergy), and Ayatollah Ali Montazeri (Khomeini's would be successor) had argued that the doctrine of clergy's powers was a form of false god-making or proof of shirk. The economic rule of the bazaars and the large landholders also had moved away and no longer supported the government. Basically the rule now has come down to rule by a " military-financial mafia," says Bani-Sadr, who was the first President of Iran, after the 1979 revolution. He points out that the Revolutionary Guard now occupies the entire government -as the Revolutionary Guard is also part of economic enterprises its really the only group occupying the government- with the clergy conveniently endorsing this group. Bani-Sadr says the protest movement still needs time to spread throughout the country. At the same time he says this time the government's own cardres oppose Mr Ahamadinejad, and a deepening economic crisis is increasing discontent, indicating that the Iranian people may see this thing through over time....

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Comments by Eric Schmidt CEO of Google in an interview with the NYT's Helft. Important points emerging from the interview. Google he says does not know how long this crisis will last. Response not to waste money means less hiring and more careful expense reviews, and more focus. Managers are very very sensitive to important aspects of its culture, so such perks will continue which make it fun to work at the company for employees. And he says careful investment inthe future. "If you tighten too much, you eliminate future innovation, and then you set yourself up for a really bad outcome five or ten years" down the road. And here is the most important point he makes in advising the Obama administration. Do not take up the economy first, and let energy come in afterwards, deal with all the major problems at once, especially energy, which are part of the problem and the opportunity for the economy. For instance as the auto industry shrinks these job losses can be filled with jobs making parts for renewable energy like wind turbines and blades, like solar energy generation parts. This is actually happening already, government could speed things up by mandates for renewable energy and by help to companies through incentives. See the link to this in the NYT about companies in places like Newton, Iowa where lost jobs at Maytag are being replaced by renewable energy jobs. And several million jobs can be generated in energy to make up losses in auto jobs in the midwest. These parts of the Obama plan may have come up through conversations with Schmidt and other advocates of this, and by seeing what is already happening as reported by the NYT in the link. It makes Obama look like a farsighted genius, but its just sharp observation and careful listening. Pickens is already advertising this on television for his wind farms in Texas. It is not only Google's thinking, as Schmidt says, but good common sense and some ballpark estimates that would tell one that it would save sending 1 trillion dollars to Middle East and other nations that is needed for investment at home in the U.S.. Schmidt's calculations are that this amount could be saved in 22 years through renewable energy, plug-in hybrids and other innovative technologies. ...

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Data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that show a Texas budget gap that is worse than New York, and about as bad as California's. The deficit in the Texas budget is expected to be $25 billion for the next two years.

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Harry Markovitz who invented Portfolio Theory and won the Nobel Prize in 1990 on the economic crisis and solutions. His idea in portfolio theory is that you reduce risk by creating a portfolio of uncorrelated assets. Owning GM and Ford together is more risky because they are correlated. The securities owned by banks were not not portfolio type with uncorrelated risk, they were all of one type in the mortgage securties industry. He goes to the heart of the problem saying until all these securities are scrutinized and underlying mortgagesare scrutinized, sorted out down to the individual zip code level, and this is not as complicated as it seems given the amount of resources that can be thrown at this problem, and given what is at stake, and they are striped of their lack of transparency, the country and the global economies that are intertwined with America's problems cannot see a solution to this problem. And this is true for the banks like Bank of America and Chase and the government run banks like the FDIC Indymac bank, where only a small fraction of homeowners can be helped with loan modifications to make monthly payments affordable, as a big part of the mortgage loans they hold or service are in the form of mortgage securtities where they don't make the decisions. Unless mortgage securities are sorted out to restore transparency and the government steps in with help and mandates a direction, the foreclosure process will lead to dropping property prices and further deterioration and economic stagnation similiar to the experience of Japan. Markovitz says it could take a year to do this. He says "the valuation process will take as long as takes, but it is the primary step toward effectively utilizing the very controversial bailout and avoiding the structural problem of a stagnant economy." Writes Gordon Crovitz of WSJ, "to put the issue in probability terms, the odds are very remote and nonexistent that the economy can recover until these basic steps are taken."...

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Krugman points out the gains on three fronts evident from the Census Bureau report of 5.2% gain in median income of households in the U.S. He says the first is the growth in incomes of ordinary working class and middle class families, second the large decline in the poverty rate, and third the further rise in insurance coverage in 2015 for people without health insurance. He points to the steady efforts of the Obama administration to improve lives of ordinary families as working based on the Census report though results have taken time, and could have been better. The Stimulus, says Krugman could have been larger following the blow of the 2009 financial crisis and increased unemployment at the time. Janet Yellen at the inequality conference of the Boston Fed in 2014 pointed out the problems of 62 million households having net worth of about $10,000, and why this was running against the American idea of a better life for all Americans. In that sense the Census report is a movement in the right direction but a lot remains to be done.   ...

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All sides joined the President at the White House, as part of his consensus building efforts, and to get aseat at the table in restructuring health care. The insurers and health care providers, including technology providers, all committed to cutting the cost of health care. New social insurance programs to cover 45 million uninsured Americans, and to make health care affordable for businesses and individuals, will be unworkable at currently projected rate of increase in health care costs of 6.2% a year for the next decade. The industry promised to reduce that by 1.5% through voluntary efforts, even though there is skepticism about whether they will deliver. The insurers are against a government sponsored health plan fearing it will drive them out of business. Insurers and health care providers are lobbying against the cuts in their Medicare payments, and insurers are fighting Obama's cuts to their private Medicare Advantage plans by a total of $176 billion over 10 years. Doctors are fighting a 21% cut in their Medicare fees scheduled to take place in January 2010. Pharmacuetical companies and makers of medical devices are concerned that new products will have to pass a cost-benefit test before being approved for coverage under Medicare. Its just that they all see the continued rise in costs as somehow unsustainable, especially in the current economic crisis, and share the feeling with business and the rest of the country that the system is broken. At the same time like the banks and bank executives, health care companies and their executives go on lobbying aggressively and doing things the old way, which raises questions about how well these systems that are broken can be put on the right path....

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Snowden tells the WP's Gellman he feels vindicated by Judge Leon's describing the NSA security surveillance of phone records as "Orwellian" and the president's own panel calling for changes. He says he brought the same issues up for review by his superiors at the NSA. His goal says Snowden was for the public to have a say in the expanding information collection by the NSA, as the normal processes of review by Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had failed. For Snowden personally this meant making a decision in unknown territory not knowing how the public would respond, and what impelled him to act was the idea that doing something was better than the alternative of doing nothing.He says he considered the fear that the public would be apathetic- as it turns out the public has been anything but apathetic. After 9/11 defense and security officials operated on the basis that complete knowledge of information about U.S. and foreign citizens was needed, this gives the public an opportunity to test that assumption and see if that is itself a problem in a free society and too high a price to pay. Considering that Al Qaeda and other movements in the Middle East are a result of past U.S. support to dictators and autocratic regimes which have turned some parts of Islamist movements into forces hostile to the U.S., changes in U.S. policies to support freely elected governments are a better solution than hyper extensive policing and surveillance- defeating the problem at the source. That process has already been underway in the U.S.-in the media, and with policies supporting freely elected governments encouraging the people in the Middle East to decide their own future. With the change in policies bringing Arab and Muslim opinion on the side of the U.S. that chapter of hostility to the U.S. may be closed and a new chapter opened, making this an opportune time to close the chapter of hyper surveillance and return to surveillance that does not violate U.S. citizens right to privacy. Technology also played a part making such hyper surveillance possible- such as collecting the entire Library of Congress information in less than 15 seconds- and Congress and the Surveillance Court failing to address the issues raised by techonological advances, similiar to the way the S.E.C. and regulatory agencies failed to keep up with the changes in the financial system till after the 2008 financial crisis....

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Ruffenach gives an excellent account of how many people describe their expectations and how it actually turned out in retirement, the good and the bad. He cites numerous examples to give as broad based a picture as possible. Health and active life, passions and interests, loss of self esteem in work for some and finding substitute interests, taking risks to try something new and the rewards. More people describe positive experiences in those surveyed. Health is the main concern for 41% in actual retirement, children and other things are all less than 10%. Travel should be planned early as it becomes harder as the years go by and one gets older. It is not as difficult as people think to make new friends in retirement, and this active social life with new friends can play a positive part in spending time. In addition there is the opportunity in retirement to take things slowly and leisurely, and spend time more on oneself and one's own interests.