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George Will lists the shortcomings of Romney and Gingrich, as U.S. Republican presidential candidates in 2012. Gingrich is the worse candidate, says Will. Gingrich was paid $1.6 million by Freddie Mac, for services as "a historian." His response was to say "If you put people in jail," look at "the politicians who profited from" Washington's environment. He criticized government housing agency Freddie Mac for its role in the housing crisis, and at the same time profited as a lobbyist for Freddie. This shows his personal record and lack of conviction about the need for integrity in government officials. Conservatism, says Will, is about understanding that man does not fully understand the complexities of the world around him. It stands in opposition to man saying that he has grasped these complexities and assuming a hubrisitic attitude. Gingrich with his fervor for the latest idea, is the opposite of what conservatism stands for, says Will. Will sees Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman as better candidates than Romney or Gingrich. Presidential debates don't test what is needed to perform presidential duties and have become ridiculously important. Rick Perry's Texas record as two term governor, and his skepticism and distaste for Washington and Wall Street, give him assets that could prove to be vital for the job of president. Huntsman's positions on issues are closer to the conservative approach to government than Romney's. Will says it is important that Republicans don't give an Obama running as a Harry Truman did in 1948, against Congress, the one thing needed to win - someone who voters have a distaste for....

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Bruni expresses cynicism about the lack of conviction and authenticity in Romney's claims.

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Global austerity measures could lead to a weaker and slower recovery in the absence of other policy actions to tackle the deficits in the medium term.

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The Center for Economics and Business Research in London estimates GDP growth for the UK of 0.4% in 2012. According to Britain's Office of National Statistics the UK economy contracted by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011 compared to the third quarter.

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Britain's Office of National Statistics said that GDP declined by 0.2% in the first quarter of 2012 from the prior quarter. GDP declined by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011. This means Britain is officially in a recession, with two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The ONS said GDP was 4.3% below its precrisis peak in the first quarter of 2008. The UK registered growth of a mere 0.4% since the coalition government of David Cameron took over in May 2010. This presents problems for prime minister Cameron in tackling the UK deficit. It also shows how difficult it will be for EU countries to address their deficits without economic growth. This has come into increasing focus with recent events in the Netherlands with the collapse of the government and upcoming elections on the issue of austerity cuts, and in France with the presidential elections and the swing to parties questioning austerity measures without economic growth.

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The Obama administration's Small Business Jobs Act of Sept 2010 set aside $30 billion to stimulate lending to small business. Only 7% of 7700 U.S. lenders have signed up for the program so far. The deadline to sign up to participate has been extended from March 31 to May 16, 2011, by the Treasury Department. Banks have been hesitant to sign up for various reasons: banks say they see a stigma to taking these loans, and need additional staff to handle the extra paperwork. Banks say there isn't enough demand for loans from small business, or that there is enough capital already to handle larger better collateralized borrowers with the others considered too risky anyway.

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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....

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Yuka Hayashi describes the remarkable comeback of prime minister Shinzo Abe in Japan, his "Japan is Back," strategy and its personal overtones. He describes a visit- by Japanese known for taking that second or third chance and making it work through difficulties- to the prime ministers residence for discussion on the theme of "the second chance." The premier tells the visitors that Walt Disney would never have been heard of if he had not tried the sixth time after five failures, and not succeeded in Japan, which has a risk and failure averse business environment. Encouraging risk taking to setup new ventures and open up new frontiers and markets is part of the growth strategy for Japan. His personal struggle with ulcerative colitis during the period of his first term as prime minister, and the new drug discoveries that made it possible for him to recover, give Abe a fresh burst of energy this time. His story and Japan's story now coincide. Abe says the mission of the new LDP is to make sure that talent now flows from mature industries to the industries of the future....

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Lipton, Austin and LaFraniere of the NYT tell the story of how the serious differences between the prime contractor for the federal healthcare website, CGI Federal, and the Obama administration officials handling the website, evolved into conflicts that could not be resolved. This led to the flawed website being rolled out on schedule ignoring serious problems with the website. The detailed report comes after interviews with Obama administration officials and specialists who worked on the project and looking into government and contractor documents. A month ago in October 2013 the healthcare website for the Obama healthcare law was up only 42% of the time with 10 hour failures happening frequently. Basic steps for the functioning of website backup systems in case there is a failure, testing to ensure negligible or no outages, were not secured. The government officials responsible for the rollout did not have the capabilities to handle such a project. Henry Chao, who worked in the Medicare agency for 19 years was left to oversee day to day questions for the website HealthCare.gov, but lacked a formal background in software engineering and no authority to make the decisions needed. The $630 million project was setup inside the Medicare Agency, instead of a separate agency specially setup for this project and staffed with the appropriate skills as originally proposed. Five different lower level government officials made decisions without the authority needed and no one person with the necessary skills was given overall responsibility and decisionmaking. A series of missteps were allowed to take place- settting many added requirements that made it difficult for contractors to focus on basic steps and get them right, use of the MarkLogic database system instead of systems from IBM or Oracle against the advice of contractors, multiple contractors without a way to control the overall project, shifting requirements from the government and bureaucratic delays for resolving basic issues such as use of social security numbers, all worked to create delays. With the delays came a deterioration of relations between Obama administration officials and the contractors. The government officials response was to stick to the deadline of Oct. 1 rollout, with Michelle Snyder, chief operating officer of Medicare agency telling people she would fire the contractor if possible. In the end no one took responsibility for a safe reliable rollout, even though the system failed a test of 500 users in late September and was down half the time in mid-October. President Obama or his advisors were either not kept fully informed, or did not grasp the significance of the collapse in relations between contractors and the government and a project out of control. His aloof distanced approach was not an asset in such matters- saying about the rollout and use of the website: "this is real simple" like using the Kayak website for travel bookings- and he saw no need to take action leading to the major failure for the administration that followed....

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That Chrysler was pushing its new Dodge Ram pickup with a cattle drive through the streets of Detroit in January 2008, and GM and Ford were counting on new redesigned pickups to help them through the year shows how badly the three companies miscalculated the market and how costly it will end up being. The Big Three may end up being the Big Two as Chrysler depends even more on larger vehicles like vans, SUV's and pickups and sales decline is the highest on Chrysler vehicles in June, and Chrysler does not have the money to come up with a completely new product line like its competitors. It also does not have the overseas operations that are earning money. For all three companies its finance arms which used to bring in earnings now are at a loss especially as loans go sour and the resale value of pickups and trucks is in a sharp decline. See the Manheim US auction prices May 2008, source of graph Morgan Stanley.

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U.S. companies are required to use a discount rate that reflects current corporate bond yields for future pension liabilities for workers. The low interest rate environment supported by the Fed increases these liabilities. Some companies including Ford Motor see increases in the liabilities even though steps are taken to reduce the amount on the balance sheet. This is a major problem for companies with defined benefit plans- for Ford, GM, Chrysler, Boeing, Dow Chemical, Verizon, AT&T and other large companies. Ford plans to put $5 billion in its pension fund in 2013, close to what it will spend on plants, equipment and developing new models. In 2012 Ford's unfunded pension liability increased to $18.7 billion. Ford reduced pension liabilities by $1.2 billion through buyouts for salaried workers. Having to reduce the discount rate from 4.6% to 3.84% ended up increasing Ford's liabilities for pensions on the balance sheet. Boeing faces a similiar problem.It plans to put $1.5 billion in cash in the fund to reduce unfunded liabilities in 2013, following $1.6 billion it put in 2012. This still leaves the unfunded pension liabilities at 26% for Boeing....