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A landmark ruling and a huge win for consumers and for the country, as the Supreme Court says states can enforce fair-lending laws and other consumer protection measures against the largest banks in the USA. The Suprem COurt said that the rules issued by the federal banking regulators like the Comptroller of the Currency under the NationalBank Act - a law passed in 1864- could not block sfforts by the states to enforce their laws. For the country its a win because the lack of enforcement of state laws only allowed abuses in the subprime area to continue and helped create the subprime mortgage crisis. The case began with letters by the New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2005 to several national banks including CItigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo inquiring about lending practices to minorites. The letters referred to "troubling" disparities that suggested black and Hispanic borrowers were being charged disproportionately higher interest rates on mortgages compared to whites. THe letters asked for information "in lieu of subpoena." Protection of minorities and the weak in American society is part of the moral fabric of America and that it had eroded in recent years is evident in the manner the banking sector responded. A banking trade group and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency brought a lawsuit to block the New York Attorney General's request saying that the National Bank Act nd rules issued by the Bush administration in 2004 gave that type of authority to comptroller and prohibited such efforts by the states. And then afederal district court ruled against the states, aand the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Court affirmed that decision. These are instances where the system failed to protect the weak even with the laws that states had on their books. Justice Scalia voted in favor with a 5-4 vote to allow states to enforce consumer protection laws, even though his written opinion was based on an interpretation of what "visitorial powers" of a federal regulator were, and not about the importance of fair lending in the proper functioning of the American economy. Justices Roberts, Alito, Kennedy and Thomas voted against....

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For anyone trying to understand the Middle East read the gripping story told in Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's own words-"The Great Speech- Nutuk," it is on Kindle Amazon. It shows week after week  Mustafa Kemal as he fought the colonial powers  the British and the French, and then turned a Caliphate into a modern country. If the Vietnamese who fought the French were seen by JFK in the way he saw Ataturk (hear JFK's words on Ataturk in Lyrarc.com) then there would be no Vietnam War. Ataturk's Republican People's Party in opposition for 2 decades wins by a landslide in Turkey's main cities- in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa and Antalya. In Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu wins by a margin of 11.5 percentage points. In Ankara Mansur Yavas wins by a margin of 28 percentage points. Voter turnout was 78% surpassd only by the 87% turnout in the presidential election. Imamoglu is now the contender for the presidency. This is a delayed reaction by voters to the economy with inflation having reached 86% in February and a slowdown in growth, with hardships for ordinary families. Ozgur Ozel, 52 years, replaced an aging civil servant Kilicdaroglu who hung to leadership for 13 years losing repeatedly to Mr. Erdogan and not able to exceed a 25% of the votes. Imamoglu supported Ozel to change leadership of the party founded by Kemal Ataturk in fighting for Turkey's independence from foreign powers in the 1920's. Under Ozel-Imamoglu leadership the Republican party won 38% of the vote to 35% for Erdogan's Justice Party. This is a historic win and sets Turkey on a new path, which could also set a new path for the Arab nations in the Middle East because of the tone of moderation and modernization, good governance, scientific mind, set by Kemal Ataturk. Hear JFK's remarks on the 25th anniversary of Ataturk in Lyrarc.com. If JFK had said the same for another nation building effort in Vietnam similar to that of Ataturk there would be no Vietnam War but a negotiated peace- that is if Kennedy was alive and his life not cut short in 1963.  Few people in US and Europe even know how Kemal Ataturk founded the Republic in the place of the Caliphate type of structure in Ottoman Empire, and defended his homeland from the French and British colonial powers who sought to dismember Turkey, then the remaining parts of the Ottoman Turk Empire. It is told in his own words in the Kindle book "The Great Speech Nutuk," and it is a story that is gripping in its detail of the fight against colonial powers effort to dismember Turkey in the 1920's and even maintain the old Ottoman structures to their benefit. The story is told as if it was happening right in front of our eyes. ...

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The activist stance of the Chief Justice of Brazil Joaoquim Barbosa. One of eight black children of a bricklayer in Minas Gerais state. Joaoquim went to Rio, worked as a janitor in a court room. He went to law school at the Universiy of Brasilia, the only black student in the program. He later joined the diplomatic service . Finding the diplomatic service a place of rigid traditions with no chance for improvement he became a prosecutor. He continued his studies earning a doctorate in Paris, and learning three languages, French, German and English. He supported a decision by the court for affirmative action at the University of Brasilia. And his efforts have led to the conviction of politicians of the governing Workers Party in a vote buying scheme.

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Krueger and Posner, eminent economists, say the reason wages have stagnated in the U.S. with wages not having budged much over a decade 2008-2018, is not only because of globalization and automation as long term trends. They attribute this stagnation in wages to "monopsony power," or power American corporations have over workers because of their stronger bargaining position and because workers have few alternatives.  For most of this period 2008-2018 high unemployment as reflected by the people out of work and taking part time jobs or having stopped looking for work, shifted bargaining power to companies. The Economist magazine pointed out that workers have not shared in the profit and gains corporations made during this period. Here Krueger and Posner show additional factors such as non compete clauses in worker agreements that have depressed wages. Half of franchise agreements prohibit competition for labor. Outsourcing work to other companies that hire workers means these outsourcing companies have more power over workers than the original companies using the labor. Unions represent only 7 percent of private sector workers by 2017, compared to 35 percent in the 1950's, so that there are no mechanisms to counteract the greater bargaining power gained by companies vs. workers. The way workers have roots in the communities they live and the consolidation of employers into a few companies in a particular area, mean fewer options exist for workers.  Senators Warren and Booker and the anti-trust division of the U.S. Justice Department are in agreement on this issue of widespread use of noncompete agreements that is considered unlawful, says this report in the NYT, offering hope for a solution to bring a better balance between the rights of workers to fair wages and companies seeking profit for stakeholders. Issues about workers, lack of gains for workers, prevalent outsourcing, and the frustrations of labor with parties that had lost touch with their worker base- such as Labor in Britain, SPD in Germany, Socialist Party in France and the Democratic Party in the U.S. - have led to political upsets with support shifting to other parties. This has not led to significant change to improve bargaining power of workers to correct the imbalance that now exists between labor and companies, leading to calls for change. Eric Posner is a law professor at the University of Chicago law school and co-author of a new book "Radical Markets: uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society." This book turns the popular notion on its head that free markets have produced the imbalances that hurt social cohesion and democracy, by saying it is precisely the suppression of free competition such as for labor that have created this unhealthy situation. This is true in other areas where monopoly power has developed in other parts of the U.S and European economies in 2008-2018, as also for distortions in capital allocation that hurt infrastructure and other public investment. Krueger is a professor of public affairs at Princeton University and former head of the President's Council of Economic Advisors in 2011 under Obama, showing that Democrats themselves failed to correct this imbalance leading to a shift to other parties and Mr. Trump, who also appear to lack ideas or solutions to this problem that affects social cohesion and democracy. This is contrary to the vision of American or European society of better opportunity for all shared by all Americans and Europeans for most of the twentieth century. ...

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Boris Johnson leads a new British government that is composed mostly of ministers who want to see Brexit happen, and giving the positions of Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary to persons who do not care what happens as long as Britain leaves the European Union. Johnson's date is October 31st for leaving the EU. Sajid Javid, a former Deutsche Bank AG executive is the new chancellor of the exchequer. Priti Patel is new Home Secretary. Dominic Raab a former lawyer who has called for parliament to be suspended if need be so that Brexit can be pushed through is the new Foreign Secretary. Dominic Cummings who headed the Leave campaign for the Brexit referendum in 2016 is the new adviser at 10 Downing Street. Johnson's strategy is to pack the cabinet with people loyal to his vision of leaving the EU October 31st regardless of what the EU does.  The EU has not changed its position and is even less likely to consider any new Irish border proposals. Three top ministers are opposed to Mr. Johnson's views and resigned. Treasury chief Philip Hammond, Deputy primeminister David Lidington, Justice Secretary David Gauke, all resigned in opposition to Mr. Johnson simply pulling Britain out of the EU. Johnson once said all he feared from Britain abruptly leaving the EU was a shortage of Mars bars. During the election in the Conservative party Mr. Johnson was mostly quiet and avoided any gaffes to sound statesman like, yet as the process unfolds Mr. Johnson is likely to face the same problems faced by his predecessor Mrs. May. Added to this is the new opposition of moderates like Mr. Hammond and Gauke in the Conservative party that could topple the government and lead to a general election with just three vote swing in the other direction doing this. Mr. Johnson has prepared for this by having Mr. Cummings as a top adviser in the event he faces a general election. Meantime the Labour party initially not favoring a second referendum with Mr. Corbyn's ambiguous views on Brexit, as shifted gradually to the leadership and the rank and file all favoring a second referendum and for Remain. As Greg Ip has pointed out in the WSJ this week the conditions have changed with protectionism, nationalism and hostility to globalization, and president Trump not planning concessions of any sort even for the UK in trade negotiations. This means to low productivity of less than 1% to support stifled wages, one would have to add a 3.5% hit to GDP from a no deal Brexit such as Mr. Johnson approves according to the IMF. With the migration issue not what it was three years ago and reduced to a trickle this new situation must be on the minds of Mr. Corbyn, Labour and Conservative moderates. ...

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Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan, after her first year at the U.S. Supreme Court. Kagan was appointed by President Obama in 2010. Kagan talked about her experience at the Supreme Court at an Aspen Institute event. Kagan replaced Justice John Paul Stevens. Stevens says Kagan has voted very similiar to how he would have voted on most of the cases. And Justice Ginsberg says about Kagan: "she has already shown her talent as an incisive questioner at oral argument and a writer of eminently readable opinions." Kagan takes writing opinions for the Court very seriously. She described her style at the Aspen Institute event as figuring out how to communicate difficult ideas to people who know little about the subject. An additional aspect of Kagan's writing is that she strives to put things using vivid and colorful language that sticks with people. She has used expressions such as "loosey-goosey," for instance. In her dissent on the campaign finance case she described the supposedly smoking gun found by her colleagues, as: "the only smoking gun here is the majority's, and it is the kind that goes with mirrors." The media tends to compare Roberts with Kagan, the two youngest chief justices on the court, both articulate and vigorous in their opinions, with similiar intellectual backgrounds but taking different positions. Kagan says the most valuable experience to prepare for her new position, was the year she spent as Solicitor General, where she was trying to persuade nine chief justices of the court why they should take a particular position. The difference now being that she must persuade eight justices. The most striking aspect of the two appointments by George W. Bush and Obama, with the absence of a retirement age for the U.S. Supreme Court- as in other democracies such as India- is that both Roberts and Kagan may well be on the Court for 25 years or longer. ...

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Judge Rakoff is interviewed by Adam Liptak as an essay by Rakoff appears in the December 22 issue of The New York Review of Books. Judge Rakoff is critical of the Justice Department for not prosecuting individuals responsible in the 2008-2009 financial crisis and merely offering excuses. He discounts the Justice Department argument that proving intent is difficult or that proving fraud is hard because of the sophisticated counterparties on both sides. He says assistant attorney general in the criminal division Bauer's assertion that you have to prove the individual involved made a false statement, intended to commit a crime, and that the other side depended on this for what they were doing, is misleading. The government is not required to prove that one party to a transaction relied on another party. On the difficulty to prove wilful criminal intent for individuals several layers above those who made and marketed the bad securities, Rakoff says the legal doctrine of wilfull blindness could have been used. Reflecting on why the Justice Department has not prosecuted individuals for wrongdoing the way Milken, Keating and Skilling were prosecuted in prior financial crises, Rakoff comes up with a explanation. He says the government's own role and the role of firms throughout the financial system is suspect in the 2008-2009 financial crisis unlike prior crises. Not only regulators are failing to to do their job. The financial system offers incentives for the packaging of bad debt securities. Fannie Mae has government backing and its management buys these securities to expand access to housing for low income people. The profits made on these securities brings U.S. and foreign banks into this business and leads to a proliferation of these securities around the globe to the point that small towns near the North Pole end up with these securities in their portfolio. This complicates things for prosecutors who in some situations have themselves worked for banks selling these securities. In its slow deliberative way the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the S.E.C.'s new head, move to prosecute firms during the administration's second term, but not enough is done and tackling individual responsibility for deterring future wrongdoing in the interests of a safe and fair financial system seems a long way off....

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Stephen Carter at Yale Law School, and Sonia Sotomayor on the Appeals Court of New York, share the idea that a judges's experiences will have an impact on what and how he or she see things, and there is virtue in that impact. And those individual experiences are unique to that person, what makes her who she is , and are to some extent idiosyncratic or special to that person. This adds to the law rather than than detracts from it, by adding to the richness of experience. If the life of the law is experience and it is informed by it, then the richness of experiences on the bench only add to the richness of insight brought to bear in making the decision. Sotomayor explains this in the light of her own experiences, but others could have done so also. And no two women are the same. Justice O'Connor's experiences growing up in the frontier on an Arizona ranch and taking part in ranch activities are just unique, there is just no one like her in the supreme court past and present. The same is true of this Newyorkican (puertorican form the Bronx). These individual experiences temper the sense of shared perception of womanhood, and criss cross over cultural lines in so may ways, that there is no typical black, no typical white and no typical Hispanic, especially in today's heterogenous mix of communities in America. Try a Puerto Rican who can't speak Spanish and doesn't know what tacos are like....

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A new CBS-New York Times opinion poll in June 2012 shows 44% of those polled approve the job the Supreme Court is performing and about three fourths say the decisions of justices of the court are influenced by their political and personal views. By comparison only 15% approve of the job done by the U.S. Congress in the most recent poll. Only one in eight say the justices make decisions based solely on legal analysis. About 60% say they agree that life tenure for justices is bad because it gives too much power to justices. On the health care law two thirds of those polled say they hope some or all of the 2010 Obama health care law is overturned.

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Deutsche Bank Co-CEO Jurgen Fitschen's call to Volker Bouffier, governor of the state of Hesse where Deutsche Bank is located, to complain about a police raid on the bank's headquarters in Frankfurt, has come under heavy criticism. The prosecutor's office comes under the state government and the governor said he could not intervene. The raid took place on Dec. 19, 2012, and the call was placed on Dec. 20th. Michael Meister, a senior official in the coalition government of Chancellor Merkel said that Deutsche Bank has created an impression that it feels it is "above the law." He added "the prosecutor's investigation must be supported. Deutsche Bank must send a clear signal." The Handelsblatt newspaper cited Green party co-chief Jurgen Trittin's strongly critical remarks: "A fish rots from the head down. That also applies to Deutsche Bank's boardroom." The tax fraud probe started in 2010 and little was known about its progress until the raid. Investigators went up to Mr. Fitschen's office and told him he was one of 25 employees being investigated under suspicion of tax evasion, moneylaundering and attempted obstruction of justice....

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The EU Commission's first Vice President, Frans Timmerman, says it is ready to act against Poland under Article 7 of the Lisbon Treaty that protects the rule of law and independence of the judiciary. This would strip Poland of its EU voting rights. Poland's new law lets the government appoint judges letting it control the judiciary.   Timmerman said the Polish laws are "a systematic threat to the rule of law."

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Online protections were provided to tech companies by Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act of 1996. The U.S. Justice Department is coming up with a proposal to remove some of that legal protection from lawsuits.The U.S. Congress passed the law  because of a court decision in 1995 against online provide Prodigy that held that online content providers could be held liable for defamatory online content generated by a third party. The U.S. president and the Justice Department are in favor of amending this by executive order and through legislation.

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USC Justices Roberts, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett questioning Solicitor General Sauer, and lawyer for the small business Katyal, on Tariffs by the US president DJT in November 2025. Coney Barrett says the whole thing is a big mess. Treasury Secretary Bessent who watched the proceedings in the Court benches says the issue of fentanyl is one of the reasons for tariffs on China which has played a uncooperative role on this issue of fentanyl sourced by drug trafficking gangs on America's borders. Bessent saying that it is a policy tool when unfriendly powers seek to hurt America. DJT says a SCOTUS ruling against the Tariffs would reduce America to Third World status. Most American themselves are being told by the media interests that the issue of young Americans dying from fentanyl is an issue like many others not that it is the heart of the issue that more Americans have died from fentanyl than the youth of America who died in the Korean, Vietnam and First World Wars combined. The wine import company with 19 employees whose lawyer Katyal filed a petition to SCOTUS is a tiny part of the people harmed by tariffs. It could easily be compensated from the tariffs revenue of $500 billion in 2025-2026 as could other businesses. How does the SCOTUS decide what policy the US is to use. With recalcitrant Asian nations Japan and China the only way is years of negotiations that lead nowhere on world trade. Is SCOTUS responsible or Congress to the American people when the supply chain disruptions caused by concentration of the supply chain in China led to huge price increases making life unaffordable for the low income earners,  including cost of automobiles? Large companies acting on the DJT signals are reducing this concentration in China actively, the trade deficit is coming down, the tariffs revenue is a fund to offset the cost to Americans mostly smaller businesses as large businesses increased their margins in 2022-2024 pricing moves so that today only about 30% of the tariff cost is borne by the average Americans, the rest by large businesses and some of it by exporters in China and Japan. ...

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Ruchir Sharma, chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley, says Poland has achieved a remarkable transformation over 25 years with steady growth of 4% year after year. The bright spot is manufacturing. For emerging nations the average percentage of GDP from manufacturing exports is 22%. Poland is at 33 percent of GDP for manufacturing exports. Countries dependent on commodity exports such as Argentina, Brazil, Russia, lack this steady growth from a manufacturing base and are less likely to cross the line of $15,000 of GDP per person that qualifies for it to be called an "advanced economy" for the IMF. South Korea, the Czech Republic and Poland are some of the countries that have benefited from manufacturing exports. Poland's wages are one third of that in Germany and its currency is cheap, giving it an advantage as an export hub for German companies. Germany is the main destination for exports and the German automobile industry uses the Czech Republic and Poland as export hubs. Poland's and Czech Republic's geographical location near Germany with a highly educated population makes it attractive for German companies. Poland has gone from $2300 per capita GDP to about $13,000 in 25 years according to the IMF, and is likely to be the next country to make it to advanced economy status by 2020, says Sharma. It is important not to run up debt, to manage finances carefully, and to maintain steady growth not growth in spurts interrupted by declines, and have a manufacturing base, says Sharma.  ...

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This editorial in the NYT says the Roberts U.S. Supreme Court is setting its own course compared to the earlier courts. It is not supporting precedent in the manner of the 1930's court or giving credence to social consensus as the 1960's court did.

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The Roberts Supreme Court's liberal leaning tendency with swing Justice Anthony Kennedy in 2014-2015. Bravin describes the tendency of the Robert's court to stay with the status quo. Restraint and stability appear to be strong preferences for Justices Kennedy and Roberts as seen in the ruling on the Affordable Care Act, and in the ruling on the Environmental Protection Agency. The four liberal Justices on the court, Kagan, Sotomayor, Breyer, and Ginsburg voted consistently together in 2015.

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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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Veering between reckless intervention and doing nothing has led to some of the problems the US faces even today.  Barrack Obama created the hope for Arab Spring at Cairo University in 2009, which he failed to follow up on. Ronald Reagan and his Arab envoy Donald Rumsfeld, Defense minister Weinberger, supported a reckless intervention on the Iraq side against Iran in 1980 after winning the election following the capture of hostages in the American Embassy in Iran. Reagan was reckless in such intervention not understanding what was happening in a religious sectarian and Arab Socialist ideologies war in which US interests were not involved. Le Monde of France recounts how Barrack Obama hesitated to followup on his warnings in 2011 after the Arab Spring. This led to Obama doing nothing in the face of just what he had stated at Cairo University of people "having the ability of speaking their mind and having say in how they are governed," and US intention "we will support them everywhere." Another instance of no action was with a failed state situation and  millions of refugees in Venezuela after a Bolivarist Chavez ideological economic collapse similar in some ways to Arab ideologies Iraq and Syria. US did not follow the Monroe Doctrine on non intervention of foreign European powers on the American continents. Obama's speech and then inaction may be at the root of today's problems of migration and the divisions it has caused. Millions of Syrian refugees left for Greece, Hungary and Germany in 2015-2016. It was followed by Brexit again on migration. And in 2016 migration and the Border in the US election. And again in 2022 and 2024 the Border and migration the big issue in the US election. In a speech at Cairo University in 2009 during a visit to Egypt. Obama said: "I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere." On September 11, 2012 following the death of Libyan dictator Muammar Khadafi and the beginning of civil war in Libya, the Libyan mission in Benghazi was attacked with US ambassador Christopher Stevens killed just 2 months before the US presidential election.  Faced with use of chemical weapons Obama issued a warning to Syrian regime in Damascus- then following the Libyan experience did nothing. Le Monde cites an interview with president Hollande of France in 2015 who expressed his frustration with France willing to act.  Obama underestimated the ISIS in the region says Le Monde, leading to the situation by 2015 of the eastern part of the country linked to the region around Mosul going under ISIS. By 2016 the problem of ISIS was left to next US president DJT to tackle by Obama, a result of the inaction in 2012-2013 on Syria, says Le Monde. And like Angela Merkel in Germany on migration, Barrack Obama simply rationalized his action, with the US and the EU left to tackle the results of these actions.     ...

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This editorial in the WSJ describes the sharp increase in premiums under the Affordable Care Act of president Obama. The average premium increase is about 24.2% according to a Barclay's analysis, and as high as 43.9% in states such as Illinois. Bill Clinton calls it the craziest thing with small business affected, and some premiums doubling. Of the 17 million people in the individual market eight million buy without subsidies. One in five enrollees cannot qualify for subsidies. Democrats say subsidies are too small. Hillary Clinton has proposed to have a Medicare "buy-in" for people ages 55-65, and a "public option" government run plan. Republicans want to rewrite the law. But this depends on which party wins the Senate, with the election in Missouri giving Democrats an opportunity to maintain a Senate majority.

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The publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Co., is working to overturn a court injunction that prevents the public from seeing the Medicare billing records of individual doctors. Dow Jones & Co., filed court papers in January 2011, to overturn the court injunction. The American Medical Association has fought to keep secret the amounts of money individual doctors get paid by Medicare. The AMA filed a lawsuit against the government to keep secret these Medicare records, on the grounds of privacy rights, and won a court ruling in 1979. This court ruling still stands. The position of Dow Jones in its efforts to change this situation, is that giving the public access to the records is essential to the monitoring of so large a public expense as Medicare. These records would then be available to state medical boards, nonprofit organizations, universities and newspapers who can act as watchdogs over the $500 billion Medicare program. Such transparency and monitoring is an essential feature for the proper functioning of such programs and to prevent misuse of public money. For a program like Medicare, fraud and waste has enormous implications, as it adds to the spiralling cost of healthcare and to the unsustainable budget deficits. In one of the largest cases so far, the FBI, Justice Department, 700 state, federal and local agents, worked together to charge 114 defendents nationwide with Medicare fraud in February 2011. A senior law enforcemet official says Medicare fraud is so rampant, "there's no way in hell you can prosecute your way out of this problem, no way." He says the the answer is more effective monitoring of the money that goes out. And a key part of that is transparency and public access to how the money in Medicare is spent, what individual doctors and healthcare providers are getting paid by Medicare. The lack of this transparency for a program the size of Medicare can only lead to a lack of monitoring as the Dow Jones suit asserts, and make it difficult for the government to check abuses in the way money goes out. At a time when teachers and public workers and seniors are expected to make their share of the sacrifices to fix the budget deficits, it is incomprehensible that money should then be allowed to go out of the Medicare system through fraud and waste, because of a lack of transparency....

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The Republican party (GOP) chances with Trump as the candidate in 2024 are seen with much skepticism by Karl Rove in the WSJ. Republicans need to keep the presidential field of candidates not too crowded for too long, as pluralities in primaries led to Trump winning a large share of delegates even with about one third of the vote in the early primaries for the 2020 election. Another challenge is the work of Trump supporting leaders in states such as Michigan who want to select delegates by convention and not through primaries. Ron de Santis, Governor of Florida, is seeking the Republican nomination, and faces a strong challenge from the former president. De Santis, 44 years, is from Dunedin, Florida, His mother was a nurse and his father installed Nielsen TV rating boxes, with great-great grandparents immigrating from Italy Benevento, Avellino) in 1904. He studied history at Yale and went to Harvard Law School, Navy Justice School after joining the Navy. De Santis was elected to the US Congress in 2014 and 2016 where he served as the chariman of the sub committee on National Security. He founded the Freedom Caucus in these years. In 2018 he ran for Governor of Florida winning by 0.4%, running again in 2022 he won by about 20 percentage points. ...

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NYT's Landon Thomas gives this exceptional report on how Deutsche Bank changed from a lender to the German auto industry and safe banking practices to enter the derivatives business and other opaque financial products that led to taking on huge risks. Deutsche Bank has agreed on Dec. 22, 2016 to settle with the U.S. Justice Department paying a fine of $7.2 billion for practices relating to faulty mortgage securities. This report says the problems started in 1995 with Deutsche Bank's leadership hiring Edson Mitchell of Merrill Lynch to promote the investment banking business at Deutsche Bank. Mitchell hired two derivatives traders Broeksmit and Anshu Jain. Mr. Mitchell died in plane crash in 2000 when he was 47 years age, Mr. Broeksmit committed suicide in 2014, 58 years in age, Mr. Anshu Jain, 53 years old, is the only surviving person of the three. Under Mr. Jain Deutsche Bank assumed more and more risk, and was involved in complex and opaque financial products leading to the toxic mortgage crisis, and manipulation of the lending rate for London banks.  It also lent $300 million to Donald Trump's businesses. Most of the profits generated from this venture have evaporated, with analysts estimating $15 billion in fines and penalties owed of the $20 billion that these ventures generated. Not counting the serious damage to the bank's reputation in Germany and the U.S. This report points out the role played by the CEO from 2002 to 2012 of Deutsche Bank, Josef Ackermann, in encouraging these ventures converting the bank from its original loan as a contintental lender to business to a bank selling opaque financial products for most of its profits. Landon Thomas also describes the events and days leading up to the suicide by Broeksmit, including a visit to a psychiatrist and Broeksmit's facing enormous stress about the investigations underway in Germany and the U.S. looking into the opaque financial products and practices of Deutsche Bank. This is also a cautionary tale about what happened in banking from the late 1990's leading to the collapse in 2008, leading to the problems of today- the need to rescue the economy in 2008-2009 and the low rate world that ensued damaging the savings of ordinary people, the infrastructure that was never built, the parallel crisis of the hollowing out in manufacturing as a false prosperity boomed in banking and finance. In a sense it is also a story of everyday lives that were damaged in the high flying boardrooms of finance in New York, London and Frankfurt. The revolving door between regulators and the banks made it harder to monitor and control banking risk letting this story unfold over decades, damaging the credibility of governments and the established political parties without clear alternatives from outside; as the dominance of Wall Street executives in the new outsider Trump administration shows.  ...