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Joe Nocera of the New York Times, says that it is the Attorney Generals of the 50 states in the USA, that have taken up the rights of homeowners, not the federal authorites. He points out that the Obama administration, the Treasury department and the federal agencies, have failed miserably in getting the banks and servicers to take loan modification seriously. It was the attorney generals of the states that were with homeowners from the beginning, to prevent predatory lending and outright fraud. Until they were stopped by federal bank regulators, who sided with the banks in court. The subprime lending crisis might never have ocurred, says Nocera, had the states not been obstructed in this way. As the subprime lending mounted, the state AG's were talking to people in their communities, and knew the reality on the ground. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision, two primary regulators of the banking industry, saw their role as protecting banks from consumers rather than protecting consumers. Professor Prentiss Cox, of the University of Minnesota Law School, who was an assistant attorney general in Minnesota in charge of consumer enforcement, says federal regulators should have been listening to us, instead of trying to shut us down....

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This beautiful DW.com video shows the use of face masks in vibrant colors and styles is in the hope that it will become popular. It is of great importance in the fight to stop the spread of coronavirus. A large part of people who have coronavirus are asymptomatic and are a big problem as spreaders of the virus, say health experts. The Robert Koch Institute in Germany recommends use of face masks. Jena is the first city in Germany making them mandatory. Other cities will follow, only not soon enough,

Face masks to prevent spreading the virus are a way of life in China, South Korea. Then why is it so difficult for Europe and the U.S.? Czech Republic and Slovakia have made face masks mandatory. The Center for Disease Control in the U.S. are now revising their guidelines to require people to wear face masks to avoid the spread of the virus, cloth masks or scarfs could be used also.

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The LDP Party led by prime minister Abe wins 290 seats in the lower house of parliament in the Dec. 2014 elections. Its ally the Komeito Party gets 34 seats giving the government a two thirds majority in parliament. The LDP previously had 295 seats from the 2012 elections. Of the total 475 seats in parliament, 73 seats went to the opposition DPJ Party and 21 seats to the Communist Party. This gives Abe a 4 year mandate reducing the uncertainty from having a regular change in prime ministers in recent history, making Abe the 17th prime minister in 25 years. The stable government and clear economic policy will help the economy. Abe says he will focus on prodding companies to raise wages, as many people say they have not personally seen any benefit from Abenomics. As a result turnout hit a new low of 52% compared to 59% in 2012 parliamentary elections, with prospective voters showing their dissatisfaction by staying away. Severe winter weather and public confusion about why the snap election was being held may have added to low voter turnout. Other parts of the Abe agenda include restarting some of the 48 nuclear reactors offline since the Fukushima disaster. Abenomics faces hard work ahead as it grapples with two quarters of declining growth in 2014, consumers feeling the effects of the increase in the consumption tax from 5% to 8%, and small businesses feeling the effects of higher cost for imports with the weaker yen. ...

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The German French plan for 500 billion euro of outright aid as non repayable subsidies is supported fully by Merkel as she calls for massive amounts of aid to help the EU recover from th pandemic. Asd the pandemic was exceptional so must the aid be exceptional says Merkel.  The Bavarian state premier Soder supports it, so does the FDP's Lindner.  This report looks at why Merkel has pushed forward with this plan after supporting a decade of austerity in Europe following the Greek loan bailouts. Merkel sees aid that is repayable worsening the debt ratios of countries like Italy to the point that this would be stones not bread. This would strangle Italy's and other economies such as Spain and Portugal. It is not in Germany's interest, it is best to make partners. Only Austria, Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark oppose this. Yet this is shortsighted. Most of these northern tier countries have pursued their own self oriented interests not that of a European community of nations in crisis. ...

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In a first Vietjet Air will connect Hyderabad, India to Da Nang, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam by November 2022. Direct flights will also be set up from Ahmedabad and Bengaluru to Vietnam.

This will build the connectivity for business and tourism as the new supply chain is set up by the US and EU in Asia with Vietnam and India.

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By putting the credibility of 6 Republican National Chairmen in recent years on the line, including Republican figures such as Bill Brock and Bob Dole, this op-ed article in the WSJ aims to put to rest any doubts about the rule that an absolute majority of delegates is always needed to become the nominee of the Republican Party. This is true since Lincoln won the nomination on the third ballot, and who would never have been president if this was not the rule. The party coalesced behind Lincoln after the nominee on the first ballot failed to win. This also happened when Reagan won a million more votes than Gerald Ford but gracefully conceded to Ford who had the delegate lead. Eisenhower also was nominated on the second ballot after the leading candidate failed to win the first ballot. Reasons given by the party chairmen for this setup are that the party works to elect the best candidate to represent it by coming together at the convention behind the best leader for the party in the general election. Only about 17% of eligible voters voted in the Republican primaries, with a highly fragmented vote, which make the primaries only one way of bringing in public representation, the other being grassroots leaders in each state party having their views represented as delegates, leaders of the party in prevous elections also offering their views and being represented in some form. Even the general election system of electoral votes is based on winning by state electoral votes and does not simply tally up the votes in the entire country, the framework for the Senate with 2 senators for each state, 2 for California and 2 for Wyoming is not entirely on number of voters because it was the intent of the founders for the Senate to bring representation in a different way than for the House of Representatives, all the time looking for appropriate checks and balances for good government as the goal they set above everything else....

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The U.S. takes in 70,000 refugees a year, but only 1500 Syrian refugees have been taken in by the U.S. by Sept. 2015, as a huge migrant refugee crisis unfolds in Europe. Germany has to make the same background checks and is moving quickly, the U.S. takes 18-24 months. The withdrawal of the U.S. from the Middle East under the Obama administration led to the collapse of the fragile situation in Libya, Iraq and Syria, and the unraveling of these countries, a direct cause of the massive refugee crisis in the region with about half the Syrian population and large parts of Iraqi, Kurdish, and Libyan population dislocated. The result is a massive humanitarian crisis, turning the hopes of the Arab Spring into something no one could have imagined across North Africa. In a small Lutheran church in Frankfurt, Paulskirche, is the German story of a popular movement that spread throughout Europe in 1848, for a transition from autocratic governments to parliamentary democracy. Aspirations similiar to that expressed in the Middle East and North Africa in 2013-2014 in the Arab Spring were expressed in Germany and many parts of Europe in 1848. In the centre of Berlin on the Kurfstendamm lie the bombed but preserved ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, telling the story of the intervening years 1848-1949. It took many years before the same aspirations for liberty found shape in Germany's Public Law of 1949, finally finding a safe resting place after years of failing to unify a people around the ideas of liberty and justice for all, and not nationalism. Germans who had the hardest time waging that fight, by embracing the refugees in a spirit of openness carry on that fight into this century. Paul asks the question- who will lead? A Lutheran pastor's daughter takes up the fight without the slightest hesitation, and full measure of confidence with the words- "Europe will have failed on the question of refugees, if the close connection between it and universal civil rights is destroyed." ...

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Dan Balz says former prime minister Blair's policies in Britain (1997-2007) closely followed the policies of moving to centrist positions of U.S. president Clinton, with Blair's election in 1997 following Clinton's wins in 1992 and 1996. Clinton followed the Reagan years and Blair the Thatcher years in government, in modifying the early postwar ideas about the economy. The election of Corbyn by 59.5% of the vote of Labor party members, exceeds the 57% achieved by Blair in 1994. The opposing candidates did very poorly. Yvette Cooper, who most resembled Blair's positions was seen as waffling on issues by not taking clear positions. She lost badly with 4.5% of the vote, showing that something significantly has changed with the the deep recession following the 2008 financial crisis, and the recovery through years of austerity policies under Cameron's Conservative government. Balz's view is that this is likely to bring up the same debate in the Democratic party- Corbyn proposes a national investment bank for large investments in education, health services and infrastructure, and a reversal of Labor policies introducing fees for college education to increase opportunity. Sanders has not proposed a national investment bank, but says he would invest in education ( including reversing the spiralling education costs), health services, infrastructure, and other areas. Hillary Clinton has made the issue of upward mobility for the middle and working class a central issue in her campaign, but lacks the authenticity claimed by Sanders, who has tapped into anti-establishment feeling following the lack of recovery in wages under 7 years of the Democratic party government in the U.S. In this context Jeb Bush has also stated at the 2013 CPAC conference that social and economic mobility is the central issue of our times, only he would approach it by giving business incentives to increase business investment to create jobs and increase wages; and by adopting a tax code that would be also fair to the middle and working class....

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By September 2009, says the NYT based on a state by state analysis of Labor Department numbers, 1 out of 4 persons in California will either be out of work or just working part time. At this time in July 2009, 1 in 5 persons in California are in this situation. This would mean a 25% unemployment/underemployment rate in California, and the rate in Florida, North Carolina and Washington could reach 20%, by September 2009. This spring the unemployment/underemployment rate reached 23.5% in Oregon, 21.5% in Michigan and Rhode Island, and 20.3% in California. In Tennessee, Nevada and some other states that rely heavily on manfacturing or housing, the rate was just under 20% this spring, and may have since passed that number. And so far only $90 billion of the stimulus has made it out the door according to Moody's Economy.com. From now until the end of 2010, an additional $25 billion or thereabouts will be spent every month. In most of the Great Plains States and the Mountain West the unemployment/underemployment rate was still below 12% in spring 2009, and in North Dakota as low as7.8%. But these states are getting adisproportionate share of the stimulus fund, which shows that the allocation of stimulus funds needs to be adjusted. Who are these parttime workers and how many are there? Take Richard Smith and his wife Lyn. They left Michigan where he worked for GM and Ford in white collar jobs till he was laid off. Mr Smith moved to Charlotte, N. Carolina last summer. He hasn't found full time work after sending in hundreds of applications. He now works a few days aweek at agolf shop, repairing clubs and making $9.50 an hour. With the help of that money he has bought abargain-basement foreclosed house. Part time workers like the Smiths comprise about one third of the 20% unemployment/underemployment rates in states like Michigan and Oregon, so the rate for those who are completely out of work is around 13% in these 2 states....

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The most important segment with future implications for growth is the young people segment, and here American companies are really weak. Of the "millenials" or people born between 1979 and 1985, those who consider a Ford when shoppng for a small car are only 7%. These are Ford's own numbers according to the Wall Street Journal. Ford and GM are moving their emphasis to small cars. Ford did this at the Los Angeles Auto Show with the new Fiesta arrriving in the market in early 2010, and GM will compete with the Honda Civic with its Chevy Cruze due in August in showrooms. To do this Ford and GM are remodeling their showrooms. To do this 3000 Chevy stores are taking on a new focus on small cars and 26,000 sales people are being retrained by end of 2009. Kurt Mcneil, Chevy's sales chief, says their emphasis is on giving a good response to online customers by having salespeople able to talk fluently about fuel efficiency and compare with Honda and Toyota. For Chevy the showroom remodeling involves having a greeter at the reception desk not a salesperson, this is who one first sees when walking into a dealership. The improvements costing $200,000 to $600,000 per location are being paid by dealers with GM offering financial incentives for the work. The way Ford is approaching it is to use social media like Facebook to a bigger extent. It will send a social media consultant to its largest 800 dealerships or one fourth of all stores to build an online infrastructure to connect to local buyers and offer online updates, videos, and games related to small cars. Ford, GM and Chrysler have only 21% of the small car market, according to Autodata, and Ford has only the aging Focus to offer today. In 10 months of 2009, 19% of 8.65 millon light vehicles sold were small cars up from 14% in 2006, while the percentages for SUV and pickups dropped 53% to 46%. ...

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Questions raised about the government's committment to serious health care reform. New leaders of China who took power in 2002 and 2003 with concern for the poor, did not put discuss reform till 2006 and during this crisis there isn't the urgency that is needed. Recent documents, says the Economist, that were circulated secretly within the bureaucracy for 3 weeks before being made public, provide no clear target about how much people would be reimbursed for medical treatment. The other concern is that the central government provides only 40% of the 850 billion yuan allocated for additional spending on health care in the years 2009-2011. This is about $125 billion. Burt local governments may not be keen on spending on health care as officials are still judged by how much they can boost employment and GDP growth. Over three years the central government's annual share of the additional spending on health care of 850 billion yuan is 111 billion yuan, according to Caijing, a business magazine.But the 2009 budget on health care is 118 billion yuan, so its not clear that things add up. The central government's additional spending in each of the 3 years is only $16 billion. How this can provide help to the 200 million uninsured, the insured who still pay a large amount for health care, and pay for essential pharmaceuticals on a list prepared by the government, and pay a portion of the expensive diagnostic tests that hospitals like to make money from, is not clear. The whole system will have to be overhauled so that hospitals do not have the incentive to prescribe these expensive tests and pills that cost more. The government says it will be 2020 when 90% of Chinese are covered by agovernment financed health insurance system- 11 years away. This only means that domestic consumption may remain depressed for a decade or so. With export markets collapsing, this leaves China dependent on infrastructure spending for growth for a long time, and lower growth rates with higher unemployment. ...

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The party congress of the Communist party does not look like its going to lead to any changes in the system, only to make sure it runs better by getting public input through pollsters on public officials, and on web sites on new legislation. The pollster, including a firm, Horizon Group, describes his role as working out a mechanism for people to express themselves as there is very real frustration in society. Websites airing public opinion helped introduce nondiscriminatory clauses in the new employment legislation. But otherwise there is actually a tightening of the control of dissent, as the party is worried that once it starts it will get out of control and jeopardize the economic progress However this leaves the future quite uncertain as there is still not enough room for airing the very real frustrations and concerns such as for the environment, health and services, the prevailing corruption, and the problems in the countryside of the poorer regions in the interior of the country. These concerns are being pushed into the future. For instance without a free press its hard to air corruption cases, as in India. Only two of the several thousand petitions under the system of letters and complaints xinfang are resolved. About 12 million are received each year by the government. Because of the obsession with tight control many activists end up in prison even though the causes such as the environment are popular. Like the activist who called attention to the Lake Tai pollution, and the rural blind activist mentioned who argued on behalf of women that were forced into late term abortions. Here the government actually stepped in to announce plans to cleanup Lake Tai, but the system continues its inexorable push to drive out any dissent even if it does not relate to political issues. This may be one of the severe distortions of the present system. ...

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Motorola considers selling its handset business, or some other arrangement to separate it from its other businesses. It has fallen behind as competitors launched phones with new features and sleeker designs like the iPhone from Apple and Nokia's new line of phones, with a whole set of new features and careful attention to customers future needs, constantly staying ahead of the curve. Motorola has had one shot hits like the recent Razr phone but has not had the management vision, leadership and structure to keep ahead of the changing customer needs and development of new technologies- which together have created new kinds of phones and new designs for different market segments in different countries. The companies successful in such an industry have to have mangement direction, capabilities and drive and speed to keep coming up with new features and combinations of features for different sets of customers in different countries. New technologies mean faster internet access, iPhone type features, exchanging pictures, being able to see internet information on their phones and changes every year or two years. The nature of this industry requires companies to stay ahead of technologies and customers, and have good people on the field who can help you understand the changing markets in each region. This includes designers and technology access, with execution abilities and people to do it who can put it all together, again and again each time the customers needs change and the market takes a new turn. Nokia has in contrast to Motorola stayed ahead of the game. Even if it has missed a step it has regained the momentum quickly, and set up a structure of people that can generate the new phones customers want before other companies. Here Motorola is having a free fall in market share and no product to meet the competition at least not till the end of this year, a long time in this fast paced industry....

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Irish voters rejected the Lisbon treaty 53% to 47%. Ireland joined the EU in 1973 and has gone during this period from the poorest country in the bloc to the second richest in per capita terms after Luxembourg. As the first attemp to get approval of an EU constitution for a closer political union was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, the effort was modified to take out the EU flag and call it a treaty and not a constitution and to go the route of approval by parliaments in each country instead of elections. But Ireland's constitution required a referendum and now Ireland has rejected the treaty. The Irish generally have favored the EU so it will give more thought to those who favor closer political union about how to proceed from here. Opposition to it in Ireland was based on a fear that Irish taxes would have to be raised and make Ireland less attractive for investors, and fear that the EU's global free trade stance meant that cheap food imports would be forced on Ireland and hurt Irish agriculture, but the Lisbon treaty has little to do with taxes and farming. The Lisbon treaty calls for a EU President that is appointed and ceate a Foreign Minister who can speak for the EU and greater powers to legislate in areas like immigration. How will EU supporters proceed from here? One is to go for ratification by the Parliaments of the 26 other countries in the EU without risking a vote. Another is to work on a two speed Europe with core countries like Germany and France and Spain and Portugal and Italy forming a political union and countries like the UK and Netherlands taking a more trade and economic based union approach. Also subject of discussion will be how to get the message of European union across, what is it about, and what are the institutions for, according to one expert at Oxford University....

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Remember the pictures of all the bicyclists in cities in China, now there are cars instead, and that we assumed was progress. But crammed as we are into small urban areas, and with so many people in the planet and so many with aspirations for a better life in China, India, Brazil and Russia and other countries, this does not point to a sustainable future. We need bicycles back and a new kind of automobile that is sustainable on the streetsof urban areas. So here we are in New York City and commercial buildings like the Rockefeller Center operated by Tishman Meyer following old rules prohibiting bicycles, looking down on bicyles, and seeing bicycles as affecting safety in the building. So cyclists are on their own. The city has about 5000 bicycle racks, and will add 1200 by 2009, and expects to add 37 bike shelters each for 8-9 bikes by the end of the year at transit hubs. The number of bike racks are inadequate as nearly 131,000 people ride bicycles daily in New York City according to Transportation Alternatives. The city has plans to add 200 miles of new bicycle lanes but mparking is a huge problem. Parking on the street is also risky because of bike thieves in New York City. So new solutions have to be found and it would be nice if building had an area on the ground floor with a separate access for cyclists or a way to go to underground parking through a separate acess and directly park and take elevators just as one does for underground car parking. This would be really commuter friendly but till then its the shop owner who lets youpark there or a friend who has a business and an area where he lets you park your bike and so on, everybody having to be creative. But make no mistake bicycles matter for clean air, the environment, for congestion, for people, for healthy living, and to create a good living environment in urban areas....

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China's leaders including president Xi Jinping, and China's financial regulators have frowned on the lack of regulation of the financial businesses of Alibaba. They see the state banks which are highly regulated with capital requirements as supplying the capital on which Alibaba makes a profit on transactions, yet having to take on the risks if something was to fail. Alibaba itself has avoided the financial regulation needed for stability in its rush for growth. At one point says the WSJ, Xi and other leaders were infuriated and decided to halt the Ant initial public offering that would provide accumulation of wealth and a pay day while increasing risks in the financial system for China.

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China's effort under president Xi to expand the state run sector by providing more credit to state run enterprises and expecting private companies to pursue goals of the state's planned economy. Tackling the coronavirus economic impact required state planning and that experience has further renewed the effort to build the state run companies as a reliable partner for the government. There is also a conviction that private companies are unreliable in a large and complex economy as China's.

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China is moving to shift its economy in a new direction of self-reliance on domestic consumers and local investors. Mr. Xi calls it "domestic circulation." This also means less dependence on imported technologies and inward looking policies. As the pandemic has reduced demand in other countries and as the U.S. and West tighten controls on imports and introduce new restrictions, there is the sense that the entire policy has to shift quickly to dependence on domestic consumers and investors.

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Two differing types of attorneys will represent Mr. Trump in a New York courtroom- one Mr. Tacopina from New York's Brownsville neighborhood who studied law at the University of Bridgeport and the other Susan Necheles of Puerto Rican heritage who attended the University of Rochester and Yale Law School. Susan Necheles is meticulous, does extensive preparation for the courtroom and stays away from the press. Tacopina is a frequent commentator for television channels and appeals to Mr. Trump because of this. Both have litigated cases for many years in New York.

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John Fuhnrer, chief executive Walmart, says store owners get an automatic stock grant to make them think like store owners. A 200% store bonus and $20,000 stock grant goes to superstore managers added to average store manager salary of $128,000 a year. This takes it to $400,000 for a superstore manager who runs a small company as it were of 350 employees and $100 million in sales including online sales. This is the way Walmart conceptualizes its business. Store employees provide the pipeline for these managers many who start as clerks and do not have college degrees.

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If he now believes it is a structural shift and not a cyclical one, if he thinks consumer behavious is changing, and rapidly, CEO Wagoner of General Motors owes his shareholders and other stakeholders like the company's own employees and loyal customers an explanation of why it took so long for him to arrive at this conclusion. And why is the Hummer still sitting there in GM's product line, and the Chevy Suburban, vehicles that never belonged once the craze for bigger vehicles was past its peak in 2006 and 2007, some 1-2 years prior to today.

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Brad Stulberg reflects in this article on the idea of groundedness and how it creates internal strength and a sense of fulfillment in life. The pandemic has worsened mental health and created the need to reflect on living a better healthier life. Here he points out that one needs to accept the present, the mess of vulnerabilities he says we find ourselves in, as a natural part of life. To build on a good process that gets us there. This means clarity, simplicity, and concentration so that one does not end up wasting one's energies in different directions. Focus on one or two tasks, what he calls deep focus work, play and connection. Experts say it is not true that there are sudden leaps in performance. Most work is diligently done each step preparing ne for the next step which eventually with patience and persevering on tasks brings results. They only appear to be sudden achievements, but always build on work done before patiently and step by step. This can be seen in the work of recent Nobel prize winners in science who have worked on a new discovery for decades with failures that were overcome, and obstacles that were surmounted with patient work day after day. Stolberg quotes St. Augustine and the Buddha on the importance of close knit groups, companionship and being part of a deep community. When Buddha's disciple Ananda says this is half of the spiritual life, Buddha says in response -  not so, this deep community is the whole spiritual life. Stolberg's new book is "The Practice of Groundedness." Much of this is also seen as important in the Bhagavad Gita and in Christianity- the ideas of simplicity and concentration in life on just one or two tasks, the clarity of mind that comes from this free of tensions.  The Cistercian monasteries all over Europe in the Middle Ages attest to this. One such abbey the restored Abbey of Fontenay in France, embodies this idea. Written about the restored abbey are the words- "The sun brings life to the austere bareness of Cistercian architecture, the way God's light spreads grace through the simplicity loving souls of the monks." ...

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This article in The Lancet published in February 2018 throws much light on how the ban on gain of function research on virus was lifted -research that carries with it the danger of increasing transmission of virus if something unexpected happens in the manipulation of a virus. It was lifted in 2018 in the US by officials in the US Health Ministry, NIH and HHS. The Cambridge group of scientists and experts opposed lifting the ban on such dangerous research that could make the virus more contagious through manipulation. Epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of Harvard School of Public Health wrote at the time that the lab research to create a more lethal strain of virus could lead to "an accidental pandemic" yet he was ignored. The public in America and in the world is unaware of how this created serious risks for public health in the world through the coronavirus.  Did US health officials lift the ban on such research without consulting other countries such as India, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and the EU on its ramifications. Were public health experts and the publics themselves in the US and around the world not drawn into the discussion of public health and the dangers that existed. Not only did officials in HHS and NIH restart the research by lifting the ban but also sent funds overseas for such research- was this a proper or thoughtful action considering the risks involved.  Is enhanced surveillance of virus- a dubious benefit from manipulation of a virus- something a few health officials can decide for the whole world in addition to the US. How are health officials in one or two countries responsible to the people in India, Brazil, Europe and the poorest populations in the world in the world in Africa, Latin America, and Asia, people who have suffered devastating consequences from transmissibility of the virus, including children and older people with health problems. India, Brazil, Italy, Spain, France, UK, and other countries worst hit by the coronavirus must ask serious questions about how they can protect their people if institutions in the US and international institutions are seen as failing to protect world public health. ...

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Prince Philip of Britain who is 99 years old hands over patronage of the infantry regiment The Rifles to Camilla, in this rare ceremony.