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The Fiscal Survey of States, a report put out by the National Governor's Association, says that Medicaid will become an increasing burden on state budgets as help from the federal government declines. The report points out that state general fund revenue remains $21 billion below 2008 levels, just as the states prepare for less federal help.

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John Bolton on the efforts needed to secure nuclear and biological weapons in North Korea and to reunite the two Koreas, by joint concerted action between China, the U.S. and South Korea. Prof. Cha of Georgetown University, and the Editorial Board of the Washington Post call for similiar preparation and action on Dec. 20, 2011, soon after Kim's death.

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The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization released its food price index for February 2011. This shows a 2.2% rise in world food prices. The index has seen an eighth successive increase since June of 2010. It is now at an average of 236 points. International export prices of food grains are up 70% since this time in 2010.

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Nokia shifts its headquaters from White Plains, New York., to Sunnyvale, California, to be close to developers and competitors. From U.S. sales at 20% of global sales in 2003, U.S. sales have dropped to 2% of global sales even after the introduction of the Lumia smartphone. The efforts to change the mindset of the company in its new location.

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Japan imports about 20 trillion yen ($167 billion) of oil and liquefied natural gas each year. The decline in oil prices to $50 a barrel gives a much needed boost to the Japanese economy. It also increases the prospects for larger wage increases by business in 2015-2016 to support prime minister Abe's economic recovery plan.

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This NYT editorial before the Greece parliamentary elections calls for compromise on both sides- the EU, Germany and Greece. With 61% of Greeks desiring to remain in the eurozone, and Greeks looking for an easing of the severe austerity plans leading to unemployment at 25% and deep recession, debt relief is needed as a way forward.

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The number of households without a car increased the fastest in Detroit of any city in the U.S. from 2007 to 2012- by 5% to 26%. In a city which neglected to put in a rail system, many residents endure subzero temperatures for long waits and long commutes to job locations in the winter of 2014.

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Apple provides about 40% of Taiwanese company Pegatron revenues. Starting with older iPhone models, the company now supplies the new model iPhone 5C. Revenue in the 4th quarter 2013 for iPhones and tablets increased 20%, as sales from televisions and PC's declined. Operating margins increased slightly to 1.9% in the 4th quarter 2014 from the prior year quarter 1.6%.

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Argentina's Kirchner government pressures soy farmers in the Pergamino region, north of Buenos Aires, to increase soy bean exports after a bumper crop. This is intended to maintain Argentina's international reserves of $29.5 billion in May 2014. Soy bean exports are likely to bring in an estimated $29 billion in 2014, making up about one third of exports.

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Kingfisher Airlines in India is facing large losses after an ill timed expansion. The airline has failed to pay suppliers, lessors, lenders, and employees. It is now cutting flights and operating only 28 of 64 planes in its operations. Indian tax officials have frozen its bank accounts a second time because Kingfisher was unable to pay service taxes.

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The falling revenue to the government should lead to a $50 billion deficit for Australia in the coming year. Falling commodity prices exacerbate the situation for Australia. THe export price index fell 4.3% for the first quarter 2009 from the previous quarter. And Australia's central bank expects the terms of trade by 20% in the coming year.

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Worl Bank lowers China's GDP growth rate for 2009 to 6.5% and inflation at just 0.5%. It sees problemaic deflation risk further ahead. It says it is not in CHina's interest to depreciate the yuan as it will not gain much in the way of exports by doing this. Chinese exports fell by 26% in February.

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How the weakening dollar in Dubai is affecting the dirham rupee exchange rate. Remittances mostly to South Asia are about 21 billion dollars a year. 18 months ago the exchange rate was 12.5 Indian rupees to the dollar now its 10.7, one carpenter from India says he is going back if it goes to 8 rupees.

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Sales of Ford's best sellig pickup truck F-150 fell 31% in May, compared to May 2007, and sales of SUV's and pickup trucks dropped 24%. Its sad that it took so long for the American car companies to phase down from the large vehicle business and shift resources in a big way to smaller cars.

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The bidding for 3PAR, a high-end storage company, is expected to reach $2.2 billion. There are questions as to whether the two rival bidders Hewlett-Packard and Dell are wasting cash. Hewlett-Packard may be doing this to protect its busines in the storage field. The bidding is reaching a frantic pace, even though 3PAR is not profitable.

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The lack of education mobility in the U.S. with rising student debt and soaring tution.

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The Congressional Budget Office report in 2011 shows after tax resource flow that a family has to pay for consumption, a better approach to measuring the growth in incomes since 1970 including government help to lower income people and gains in the stock market for upper class Americans. This report shows after tax resource flow for the top 1% in the U.S. tripled from 1970 to 2011. For the middle fifth of the distribution families experienced real net income gains of 36 percent, and the bottom fifth of the distribution real net income gain of 50 percent.This suggests gains of about 10 percent a year if averaged over 30 years for the top 1 percent compared to 1% a year for the middle fifth and 1.5% for the bottom fifth. The report was done in 2011 and this could skew the results. Between 2011 and 2015 the stock market recovered and this would suggest a much higher gain for the top 1% of incomes and the top 10%, while also providing improvement in incomes for the middle fifth and the bottom fifth as unemployment decreased. Working class and minimum wage slowly recovered, and interest income on savings extremely low, with large student and other household debt, so that even at 10-12% gains per year for the top 1%, and 1-2% for the middle fifth of the distribution and 1.5-2% for the bottom fifth the last three decades have not been good for working class and middle income Americans compared to the the period 1950-1970 early postwar period recovery....

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China raises the inflation target from 3% to 4% in December 2010, accepting some of the inflationary pressures in the Chinese economy.

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California's unemployment rate reached 12.6% in April 2010. California's economy is a large factor in the US economy, with 13% of economic output according to the state Dept of Finance. It faces a $19 billion budget deficit through June 2011. California's construction industry declined 14.3% for the year ending April 2010 and this is slow to recover. This affects the national recovery.

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Daisy Maxey of the WSJ talks to 3 financial advisers during Dec. 2014 about how investors should approach stock market volatility, the U.S. Federal Reserve's plan to raise interest rates, and tax issues in 2015. The advisers say investors should not let the volatility affect a steady long term investing strategy. Joel Isaacson says he prefers high-dividend paying stocks over the 10 year U.S.Treasury bonds because of the lack of much upside in bonds. He adds that taking extra risks on high yield bonds is not warranted. The advisers refer to opportunities in areas which are not doing well in 2014 such as in Europe. On tax issues having some money in Roth IRA's is suggested, to have money in tax deferred as well as tax free accounts. Annuities depend on individual situations.

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No other nation has such an amazing diviersity of languages, and equally amazing is the vitality of the free press in 11 major languages- Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Oriya, in the north, and Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Karnataki in the south.

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When George Osborne took over at the British Treasury the deficit was 10.2% of GDP. Osborne's hope in 2010 was that the budget could be balanced by 2015, now it looks like this will happen in 2019 or later.The forecast for the end of the 2015 fiscal year is a deficit of 5% of GDP. Lower than expected tax receipts are a big reason for the difficulty in lowering the deficit. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the budget agency, has reduced the forecast for tax receipts for 2015-2019 by 87 billion pounds. This means further spending cuts will be needed, according to OBR. Budget surplus is not expected before 2019. This is happening even though lower inflation and lower market interest rates have helped reduce outlays to service the debt. OBR assumes productivity will increase to 2% for the budget to be balanced in 2019. At the average productivity growth rate of 0.5% seen since 2008, the budget deficit will still be 2.2% in 2019, in another scenario of numbers run by OBR.

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The Japanese yen surged in value following the 2008 financial crisis as it was seen as a safe haven. As a result the Korean won declined by 42% against the Japanese yen. This continued till 2012. Japanese companies had to compete overseas at 80 yen to the dollar and shifted operations overseas. Now with the policy of monetary expansion of the Japanese central bank the situation is reversed in December 2014. The Korean won is up 40% against the Japanese yen since 2012. The Japanese yen is now down to 118 to the dollar in Dec. 2014. Abenomics gets a new mandate with the snap election in Dec. 2014. Aaron Back says Samsung may have gained ground in televisions and smartphones but other areas in electronics such as chips, displays and image sensors remain competitive and responsive to price. In autos Hyundai market share has declined to 4.4% by Dec. 2014 from 5.1% in 2011, according to MotorIntelligence.com. So far Japanese companies have used the currency advantage to improve profits and come up with better products. By using profits to invest in new technology and productivity Japanese companies can provide more features at the same price points to gain market share without having to cut price. After years of declining margins in electronics, autos and other markets this appears to be the current strategy. Another reason for this is that Japanese companies have already shifted production overseas, the shift being higher for Honda than for Toyota. Technological improvements from investments in R&D in Japan can be transferred to manufacturing operations overseas just as Apple is doing with smartphones manufacturing in China. The currency shift also improves Japan's position relative to American and European competitors in international markets....

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Clarence Cammers, 64, one of Paul Ryan's constituents back home in Wisconsin, has a question for Ryan at one of his townhall meetings. Clarence is worried about what would happen to his son Tim, 32, if Medicare cuts went through and his son had to use vouchers for getting health insurance. Ryan's district includes Racine withe high unemployment, and Janesville which was devastated by the closing of the General Motors plant in 2010. Most of the people there are conservative, believe in fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget, but they are also older, working class people. Some of them like Clarence are dependent on their Social Security check to get by from month to month and are not sure they can cope with the kinds of cuts Ryan is proposing. In this story Clarence and Tim discuss the meeting and come to the conclusion that Tim will lose either way- with taxes going up or Tim not getting the retirement that he should be getting. Clarence a life long saver decides he will cut back on his expenses and save $588 from his $1912 monthly social security check for Tim. Tim has severe attention deficit disorder and works for $10 an hour in food prep at a resort....