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Michael Gerson was a policy advisor to Geroge W. Bush when Bush announced the PEPFAR program to fight AIDS in Africa. Here he reflects on its lessons. He recalls visiting sub-Sharan Africa and finding only about half a million people being treated out of about 30 million afflicted with the disease. About 14 million orphans had already resulted from AIDS, life expectancy had declined by 20 years, and in whole villages only grand parents and grand children were to be seen, says Gerson. The support came from Rep. Hyde, Rep Barbara Lee, Senators Frist and Kerry- in 4 months after the announcement in a State of the Union address the law was signed. Bush said: "a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa. This comprehensive plan will prevent 7 milion new AIDS infections, treat at least 2 million people with life extending drugs and provide humane care for millions of people suffering from AIDS and for children orphaned by AIDS." By late 2005 PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria had treated 800,000 people, and by 2012 this had increased to 5 million....

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Total USA sales fell 35% from a year earlier in the last quarter of 2008. At Chrysler the fall was steeper, at 46%, according to Autodata Corporation. On average vehicles sold in December had been on the dealer lots 92 days before being sold, up from 59 days in 2007, according to J.D. Power & Associates. Chrysler vehicles were on the dealer lots for 142 days before being sold, the most for any automaker, up from 70 days in 2007. And AutoNation Inc, estimates that 3.2 million vehicles sit on dealer lots around the country. At the current pace of sales this would last 4 months. AutoNation's CEO Mike Jackson said that he is cutting vehicle orders by half.

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June sales are coming in at 12.5 million vehicles. And part of this drop is that there is a short supply of hot seeling small cars like th Honda Fit, Ford Focus, Toyota Prius, aand the Honda Civic.Honda's new plant in Indiana will increase its output of Civic by 200,000 per year. Honda sold 53,000 Civics in May 2008. According to JD Power Prius sell within 4 days of reaching the dealer. Ford has a 20 day supply of Focus cars, and it takes a month after putting a deposit on Honda Fit to have it available. While Honda has flexible production lines Ford cannot produce anything but SUV's at its Wayne SUV plant in Michigan so Ford has a lot of changes to make. About 20% of cars are small cars up from 12.5% and moving up quickly as supplies increase with the demand.

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Ford does not have a good idea why customers buy the F-150 truck even though its a big seller for years. Automakers believe personal -use buyers of the F-150 truck are one fourth to one third of the truck market. Its surprising that Ford does not have a detailed idea of who buys its truck and why for every 25,000 customers breaking it down into smalll segments so it can see it by demographics and other ways so that it can find out where its losing sales, when trucks are down by 41% in June for Ford how much have each of these segments lost in sales volume. Personal use buyers Ford analysts think are buying cars and these customers will be lost forever.

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Only Honda is withstanding the the sales shock as numbers tumble from June of a year earlier. Toyota auto sales down 21%, Ford 28% and Chrysler 36%. GM 18% because of special incentives and discounts. Honda a modest 1.1 % increase in sales. The US manufacturers have their plants skewed towards making trucks and SUV's so turning out Chevy Cobalts and Focus cars is a big problem as there are huge drops in truck and SUV sales and customers are shifting to cars. Sales of Ford SUV's fell 55% and its formerly top selling truck line dropped 38%. Toyota sold about two thirds fewer light trucks than in 2007 June. Market share of domestic makers in the USA market dropped to 46% from 50%. To get some idea of capacity constraints. According to Global Insight GM can build only 250,000 Chevy Cobalts, while Honda has the capacity to build 400,000 Honda Civic small cars annually.

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Krauthammer tells U.S. presidential candidates stop saying that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, because by its very definition it is a Ponzi scheme. Instead exercize common sense and take the simple steps to update Social Security for today's longer life expectancy, aging population and way fewer workers to support a retired person. In a Ponzi scheme payments by people joining currently are paid to those who joined earlier, with not enough to pay future entrants- which is what is happening to Social Security. In 1940, after Roosevelt signed Social Security into law, there were 160 workers for each retired person. That dropped to 16.5 in 1950, today there are 3 workers. In 1940 the life expectancy was 62, today it is closer to 80. Krauthammer says the writing is on the wall- simply have the courage to make the changes by raising the retirement age, means testing the rich for benefits, and adjust the cost of living measure.

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Morgenson cites Paul Diggle, property economist at Capital Economics in London, about why the $26 billion mortgage settlement between the state attorneys general, the U.S. government and the large U.S. banks is unlikely to make much difference to the foreclosure problems in the housing market. The agreement provides for reducing principal by $17 billion over 3 years for homeowners under water. Diggle points out that $17 billion is a drop compared to what is needed, because 11 million homeowners are now under water on their loans to the amount of $700 billion. The $17 billion is a mere 2.4% of the negative equity of $700 billion.

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Signs of a permanent shift in property and housing markets in China in 2014 as the new administration of premier Li Keqiang shifts policy to focus on employment and indicators of wellbeing such as pollution, education, and healthcare.

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The turnaround at Ford Motor Company described in Detroit News reporter Bryce Hoffman's book "American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company."

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IHS Global Insight estimates that output in the US for the auto industry for 2009 will be 9.5 million vehicles, with capacity of 16.9 milllion vehicles this amounts to 56% capacity utilization number which is very low. Center for Automotive Research estimates that the sales began moving ahead of trend in 1996 and really accelerated after 1998. The easy financing fueled the boom. Now the 16-17 million sales years that were considered normal are seen as inflated and way above the trend. All this suggests that there is a lot of restructuring ahead for the auto industry.