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Policymakers have alot of mistakes and errors to avoid in the years ahead, things are by no means normal. And the normal of the future after the crisis is going to be one of slow growth, large deficits and high unemployment.

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Glenn Hubbard is Columbia University's Business School dean. He is also a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. Hubbard came under criticism in "Inside Job," a 2010 documentary about the financial crisis for reported connections with financial services firms. Here he talks to the Wall Street Journal's Melissa Korn on the ways in which Columbia is changing its business school programs to ensure interdisciplinary learning. Hubbard thinks a broader education is needed, not just expertise in a particular area, for today's students turning into the business leaders of tomorrow. One of the big changes today is that a student today may have significant responsibilities and leadership position in a shorter period 5-10 years. Earlier generations of business leaders had a much longer period before they assumed such responsibilities. This makes it even more important for a business student to have a broader education and have broader perspective. In the next ten years Hubbard sees two major changes- continued globalization, and the reshaping of major industries such as financial services. This will require students to have a broader grasp of the changes that will be taking place, which cannot come from merely having expertise in a particular field. He says this kind of education will be needed for business decisionmakers to be capable of preventing a broader economic meltdown. Hubbard believes ethics courses simply marginalize the subject, when in reality ethics and doing the right thing is woven into everything that happens, decisions that take place in so many ways and places, and often over many years. For this reason Columbia seeks to cover this ground in case discussions in different subject areas across the breath of the curriculum. Some of the developments and decisions occur over 25 years as in a GM auto industry case taught at Columbia. ...

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About 3.5 million Americans ages 45-64 were unemployed as of May 2012, 39% for 1 year or more. This is even higher than the unemployment among younger workers and is a new aspect of this recession compared to the ones before this. Some have quit looking for jobs after depending on extended unemployment benefits of upto 99 weeks, and some have taken part-time jobs. Statistics on unemployment from the U.S. Labor Department give a more distorted picture this time because the unemployment rate as defined by the Labor Department includes only people looking for work. More people today are discouraged and not looking for work, dropping out of the labor market entirely or in part-time jobs. So that the unemployment rate is much higher when these workers are accounted for.

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Coordinated action by the central banks of the U.S., Canada, Switzerland, the EU, and Japan to ease liquidity problems, as Italy's borrowing rates edged up to 8%, and other EU countries faced similiar problems in November, 2011.

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Hilsenrath gives an account of how U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Bernanke convinced his fellow governors to support QE III and achieved a rare consensus.

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Individual investors reacted strongly to declining prospects for emerging markets with slowing growth, depreciating currencies, corruption and political uncertainty in 2013. As of the beginning of June, retail investors pulled $18.1 billion from emerging market bond funds, about one third of the amount that went in to emerging markets since the financial crisis in 2007, according to fund tracker EPFR Global. Institutional investors have pulled out less, about $9.3 billion, or 10% of their investments in emerging markets bonds since 2007. A similiar pattern is seen for investment in the stock markets of emerging market countries. The U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary expansion helped pull more money into emerging markets such as India, Indonesia, Brazil and Turkey. As the Fed shifts away from these policies in 2013 emerging market countries have large current account deficits and less money to finance imports and debt.

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Official currency reserves of developing world countries almost quadrupled over the last decade to $2.9 trillion. Reserves of industrialized countries went up by 150%. In 2005 reserves went up by 18% for developing countries and declined 1.5% for developed countries. 70% of total currency reserves are in developing countries. This is a huge accumulation of reserves by developing countries in a short period. In 2005 74% of overall reserves were in U.S. dollars. The reserves help countries pay bills and make investments. For developing countries having sufficient reserves helps in two other ways. The reserves are a buffer in emergencies , and means countries like Brazil and S. Korea don't have to turn to the IMF or the U.S. for assistance. Another way this helps is for countries like China to be able to use their reserves to keep their currencies from appreciating and maintain a competitive edge in exports.

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An assessment of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation by 2014.

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The struggle between the Detroit automakers and the states over auto emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping gas emissions. California adopted the first state law requiring auto manufacturers to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide in 2002 and in 2004 set standards for the emission reductions. Vermont, as well as Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania adopted the same standards. Automakers sued toblock these standars in Vermont and California. While the California case is pending, Judge Sessions issued a ruling on the Vermont case this week against the auto manufacturers. This follows a decision by the US Supreme Court in April 2007 that the Environmental Protection Authority has the right to regulate heat trapping gases like carbon dioxide as air pollutants. This endorses the idea that states can set their own limits. What is needed for a state to do this is to get a waiver from the EPA, as the federal Clean Air Act has a provision that allows California to set ists own standards with a waiver from the EPA, and for other states to follow California's lead. A detailed opinion includes analysis by the Judge in this case stating why the Transportation Department's authority is limited to automobile fuel economy standards and does not carry over into auto emissions as pollutants of the atmosphere, the area of pollutants being reserved for the EPA and the individual states to work out together. Under California law as it is now emissions reductions for cars could be 30% or more below the current levels in the 2016 model year. By 2012 emissions are required to be below 2005 levels by 25% for cars and light trucks, SUV's and larger trucks 18%. Note that what is technologically feasible to accomplish in the area of auto emissions is an unknown. At the same time its a function of determination, R&D investment, collaboration between companies to pool technological and capital resources, development of engineering and manufacturing investment and knowhow to learn mass manufacture at low cost, introduction of the already feasible features quickly such as stop start engines which the Germans have already in the works for mass manufacture across product lines, and so forth. The first comer in these technologies enjoys an advantage as Honda constantly advertises itself, and the the only way to say what is technologically feasible or not is by pointing to these pioneers. In this case because of the stronger environmental movement in Europe especially in Germany, some of this pointing will be done in the direction of the German auto manufacturers progress in this direction to meet the new EU standards of 120 micrograms of CO2 per kilometre. ...

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Living wills of BNP Paribas SA, HSBC Holdings PLC and Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC come under increased scrutiny from the U.S. Fed. These banks were added to 11 U.S. banks required to submit new drafts of "living wills" by the end of 2015, which ensure no damage to the U.S. economic system from a bank collapse. Only Wells Fargo & Co.'s "living will" was accepted by regulators as not causing economic damage. In making the decision the Fed and the FDIC agreed that the "living wills" were "not credible."

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The asset bubble may be due to the huge infusion of liquidity in the economy. This inflates the value of financial wealth in stocks relative to real wealth in goods and services and businesses that produce them. Industrial production is down but stock prices are up. This leads to distortions that can show up elsewhere such as in the currency markets with depreciating dollar or in the stimulus being withdrawn too early.

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According to researchers at AARP and the Economic Policy Institute women over 50 years have a harder time than men of the same age in finding good jobs since the 2008 financial crisis. Older women who were laid off have a very hard time finding employment and steady jobs, as this report by Patricia Cohen in the NYT shows. Age, lack of internet skills, shifting networks, caregiving responsibilities and time off taken to care for children, all have worked against older women over 50 years. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis shows that compared to 2006-2007 before the financial crisis hit when about a quarter of the unemployed for women over 50 years were unemployed over 6 months, by 2012-2013 the jobless women for more than 6 months had gone up to about half of the unemployed women in this age group.

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Gillespie lists the myths and describes the reality about Ron Paul. Ron Paul is not a "top tier" candidate- with many Republican candidates assuming top tier status and fizzling out this has become a term that has lost meaning. Paul is a doctrinaire libertarian- he has positions similiar to libertarians but also has his own views on immigration and abortion. His views on the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve, such as "ending the Fed" are crazy- actually Ron Paul's legislation on auditing the Fed is gaining credibility, and Fed policy is viewed skeptically by both the Tea party and Occupy movement, as well as some in the Federal Reserve such as Kansas City Fed chairman, Thomas Hoenig, and respected economists such as Alan Meltzer of Carnegie-Mellon University.Ron Paul is anti-military- Paul has support from servicemen in the military and raised more money from them than any other candidate including Obama. Ron Paul has youth support because he is against the war on drugs- the war on drugs has not worked that well and new approaches are needed. His support among youth comes from a believing that individuals are better at making the right decisions, his idealism, and his faith in making the U.S. a better place. ...

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Andrew Ross Sorkin points out that investors are sitting on their hands and money is moving out of the stock market. About $171 billion has moved out of mutual funds over the last year, according to the Investment Company Institute. About $208 billion has gone into the bond market in the same period. There are now fewer long term investors and the market is dominated by professionals which increases the volatility. There is a lack of confidence in the economy, the same reason that businesses in the U.S. are sitting on $2 trillion in cash that could be invested, and for investors the feeling that the market is rigged to favor insiders. The Financial Literacy Group surveyed 878 students at 18 high schools in 11 states in the U.S. It found that three fourths of the students agreed with the statement: "The stock market is rigged mostly to benefit greedy Wall Street bankers."

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David Wessel says the U.S. is in a liquidity trap. He says the 500 point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Averages was a less significant event than the decision by the Bank of New York Mellon to charge clients for keeping large amounts of cash. In a liquidity trap investors are indifferent between keeping their money in cash or in investments providing a return, because interest rates are so low. Today the S&P 500 have in total an estimated $963 billion in cash. The solutions for gettting out of a liquidity trap include government stimulus spending, devaluing the currrency, and generating inflation that could make it easier to reduce government debt. The stimulus approach was adopted in the first 2 years of the Obama administration and there are now increasing pressures to reduce the U.S. deficit. Because of the role of the U.S. dollar as an international currrency and large sovereign holdings of U.S. currency, an outright devaluation of the dollar has not been considered an option. At the same time the weakening of the U.S. currency has helped exports and is encouraged by the Fed and the U.S. government. In a sense all three options are being tried in different degrees and ways. The stimulus was the early response till the deficit concerns began to increase and require attention, the efforts to lower the value of the dollar to increase exports is underway, and the rounds of quantitative easing by the Fed were intended to produce inflation (and avert deflation). All with limited success....

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U.S consumer spending declines by 0.9% in Dec. 2014 over the prior month, according to the Commerce Department. Consumer spending was up in Nov. 2014 by 0.4%. Excluding auto sales and falling gas prices the Dec. 2014 decline in consumer spending was 0.3%. This shows that consumers are saving most of the money saved as a result of gasoline at about $2 a gallon, or using it to pay off debt. Analysts had estimated a significant increase in retail spending which turned out not to be happening.

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Bond issuance for African countries will continue in 2015 at a slower pace with the expectation of U.S. Fed raising interest rates in late 2015. In 2013 African countries raised $11 billion, and in 2014 $8 billion, compared to $1 billion in 2000, as these countries from Nigeria to Ghana raised money to finance infrastructure development. Ivory Coast plans to raise $1 billion in coming months, Tanzania plas to issue a dollar denominated bond. Senegal, Angola, Kenya and Ethiopia are issuing bonds to western investors and competing with other developing countries such as Bolivia, Guatemala and Romania for investors. Analysts say countries such as Ivory Coast, with a growth rate of 8% and prudently managed finances are considered "good issuers" in today's market.

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As corruption investigations proceed in Turkey and the split in the ruling AKP party becomes irreversible the effects are felt on the Turkish lira. Turkey's lira declined to 2.097 to the dollar on Dec. 20, 2013. Turkey's borrowing costs jumped with yields on 2 year government bonds at 9.61%.