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Portugal's constitutional court rules against a government action to reduce public sector worker's traditional extra 2 months salary for each year in 2013-2014. Portugal is required to meet a deficit target of 3% in 2013. The EC and the IMF provided 78 billion euros in loans to Portugal and have indicated flexibility in adjusting the economic program.

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Mr. Acton and Mr. Koum, co-founders of Whats App messaging service have left the company after disagreements with Mr. Zuckerberg of Facebook. They say they had no intention of seeing Whats App turning into a clearing house for ads. Initially following the acquisition there was an agreement that advertising would not be the focus for Whats App, and the Whats App founders were given a large degree of autonomy. This has changed as Facebook uses data it collects to target audiences for ads on its services.

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If John F. Kennedy were writing Profiles of Courage in 2024 he would have James Lankford as one of these Senators who showed courage to take the right stand in the face of opposition from his fellow Republican Congressmen and people in his state and the country who support loyalty to president Trump. Lankford says in this NYT interview that in December 2023 the immigration bill would have passed Congress into law. He has always seen that no one person is the boss. Trump is not the boss even as president. He is a co-equal branch, says Lankford. He sums it up saying- I work for the people of Oklahoma not the president.  Senator Lankford of Oklahoma is interviewed by Lulu Garcia Navarro of the NYT for his role in negotiating a immigration bill with Democrats in Congress and president Biden that would fix asylum policy and close the Border with Mexico. It is a tough bill says Lankford, and the Republicans held onto their position that there would be no citizenship for the immigrants who crossed the border illegally since 2024. If it came up in December 2023 it would have fixed the Border, says Lankford. It came up in February, and by this time the election nominee was Trump who decided not to support it, as it would take away the immigration issue that he hoped to run on against Democrats. It is still alive as Kamala Harris says it is her top priority to get the Lankford immigration bill passed into law. To know Lankford is to know that he ran the largest Baptist youth camp in the Nation at Fall Creek. He believes every person has value and worth and even if he disagreed with them that person has value and worth. His faith, he says, is something important for him, and not something you take off and put on.  The title should be The Men and Women who Solved Immigration for the Nation. This includes Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, Senator Krysten Sinema of Arizona, and Democrat Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Lankford for 22 years a youth Baptist minister from Oklahoma, Sinema immigration attorney from southern Arizona, and Murphy a lawyer from Connecticut. The man who selected Lankford to negotiate the immigration bill on behalf of the Republicans in Congress was Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. For the Democratic party Pat Schumer helped bring Democrats in Congress and president Biden behind a tough bill that reflected the consensus view that something serious had to be done about the US Border for a lasting solution. This opportunity may come again if Kamala Harris wins as she says it will be her top priority to get the Lankford -Sinema Bill passed. ...

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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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Krugman says China's inflation is raising labor costs in China, and in this way gradually reducing the undervaluation of the yuan vs the dollar. But he cautions this would take a long time, 4-5 years. The U.S. faces the costs of high unemployment close to 10% today, and this requires serious efforts now to reduce the undervaluation. It alone will not solve America's problems. It is one of a number of actions that need to be taken and not put off again.

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This Journal editorial which advises patience, comes on the day after the U.S. Senate voted 79-19 to move forward with a bill on sanctions against China for undervaluation of the yuan. The editorial says the Chinese currency has come down 30% since 2005, and inflation in China is reducing the advantage China gains by keeping its currency valuation low. Over time the editorial suggests China will see a decline in trade surpluses similiar to the experience with Japan, and emphasizes the importance of the two leading trading nations U.S. and Britain not repeating the experience of the 1930's with the Smoot-Hawley retaliatory tariffs legislation. The Journal quotes American economic historian Charles Kindleberger: "When every country turned to protect its national private interest, the world public interest went down the drain, and with it the private interests of all."

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The President of the American Chamber of Commerce, Harley Seyedin, says that the days when migrant workers did not know their rights, labor laws were not enforced, and factory owners could keep wages low, are gone. With 787 million mobile phone users and 384 million Internet users- which includes migrant workers who can now get the news about the latest developments, send messages, video, and access the internet. For its part the government made serious effort to create awareness about new labor laws of 2008 through the state run media outlets. And workers have greater awareness and understanding of their rights for safe working conditions and double overtime pay, as well as other rights guaranteed in China's new labor laws. And something else is happening that connects the universities with workers. The expansion of the number of students at Chinese universities has brought more people from rural areas into the universities. This has created sympathy and support for migrant workers at the universities. Nine sociologists at Peking and Tsinghua universities signed an open letter calling national and local governments to implement actions that let migrant workers integrate into the city environment and share in the country's progress that they are creating. The government's security system has prevented the creation of a worker's movement in the past. But this time the government may be thinking of the need to develop China's domestic market, as the reliability of markets in the USA and European countries is uncertain as economic conditions change. For this to happen China's workers need higher wages to buy the goods China produces. ...

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Speaking to Cadena Sur, a Spanish radio network, EU Commission Vice President, Joaquin Alumnia said the EC will have plans to monitor the restructuring of each bank that gets EU funds. He said: "Whoever gives money never gives it for free. There will be people coming to Spain to make sure the money will be properly used."

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A detailed account of the developments that unfolded for Bankia bank during and after the initial public offering of its shares, after it was put together from seven failing cajas savings banks with bad real estate loans made during the housing bubble. The procrastination and small steps taken to paper over the problems by the Spanish government and regulators during the last year of the Zapatero administration and into the first year of the Rajoy administration.

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IMF's differences with Greece and Germany on relative weight of tax hikes and cuts to pensions for the Third Bailout Program accepted by Greece in July 2015. The IMF wants to see further cuts in pensions, the Tsipras centre- left government in Greece is committed to protecting pensioners and the poor, and has agreed to tax hikes that do not put a disproportionate burden on the poor and working class. The IMF fears the relative weight on tax hikes for generating a surplus to pay down debt could hurt prospects for economic growth.

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With U.S. exports to China related to about 1% of U.S. GDP, and the direct foreign investment by China in the U.S. being less than 1% of all foreign investment in the U.S., the slowdown in China is likely to have a small effect on the U.S. economy, say experts. China's slowdown will help service industries in the U.S., internet companies, software and entertainment companies. Positive factors include slower growth in manufactured imports from China, low commodity prices including oil for an extended period of time, access to more Chinese investment in the U.S. with higher returns, and more talented students from China staying in the U.S.

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In a new WSJ/NBC New poll, conducted July 24-27, 2009, 42% called the Obama health plan a bad idea, and 36% called it a good idea. In mid June the poll showed Americans evenly divided on this question. It reflects rising anxiety over the costs of the health plan and what it will do to the deficit, and also shows public anxiety about the ways in which Obama and Congress are reaching compromises to pay for it and to control costs. Added to this are the anxieties raised about government involvement in healthcare and medical decisions about care. Noteworthy are two differing pieces of evidence. In the WSJ/NBC News poll, only two in ten people thought the quality of their own care would improve, only 15% of those with private insurance thought that it would improve the quality of their care. And 4 in ten people thought quality of care would get worse, and 45% of those with private insurance thought quality of care would get worse. By focussing on the cost of health care, the administration seems to have ignored or missed the concerns of people about the quality of care if government focussed on cutting costs. These concerns are real as a vast majority of the public, or about 85% of the people, as Martin Feldstein points out in a recent Washington Post column, are insured. The question is what cost would they be willing to pay for the admittedly worthy cause of insuring the uninsured? And even with the unisured, it seems likely with the current Obama reform plan that immigrants and other people may still remain uninsured, at least for some time. Would a huge burden of $1 trillion make this worthwhile, and is there some better way to do this without the prospect of higher taxes further down the road to pay for this. These are points Feldstein makes. The other piece of evidence is that at the same time that there are reservations about what is coming out of Congress today, there is general support for making constructive changes to healthcare. The WSJ poll showed 56% of respondents favoring the basic ideas in the reforms being considered in Congress, with 38% opposing it....

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Dan Maffei won his Congressional seat from an incumbent Republican from Syracuse. Others of the 35 first term Congressmen represent a rural, small town and suburban areas like Maffei. And they are not about to lose their seats after tough congressional campaigns, they say, by voting the wrong way on health care reform. As one from Maryland put it he is not willing to foloow the lead just to follow the lead. These are the Congressmen that Steny Hoyer, Rep. from Maryland, who leads the Democrats in the House, wants to give more time as this is what they wanted. And these Congressmen are making themselves heard and making changes in the health care legislation where they disagreed.