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Saying that these countries had significantly cut imports from Iran, the U.S. government gave exemptions from the sanctions on Iran to 10 European countries and Japan. Exemptions were given to Belgium, Britain, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. This leaves 11 countries facing possible sanctions including China, India and S. Korea, with negotiations underway with these three major importers. The sanctions law passed by the U.S. Congress gives the government room to avoid damage to global oil markets and U.S. allies.

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Washington Post editorial on the Obama Georgetown speech of April 13, 2009. It questions whether President Obama has the candour and courage to tackle the tough issues of deficit reduction and entitlement reform. New healthcare spending for coverage itself will add to entitlement, and it says some of the savings mentioned by the President are phony or already needed for new spending for the economic recovery and health care. At the same time the paper gives Obama good marks for his clarity and grasp of the crisis and steps for recovery, and the policy agenda in the areas of health care, energy and education. The questions about courage and candor also raise all the questions about facing upto the facts about insolvent banks that Krugman, Rosenfeld, the Economist and others have raised. Is Obama dodging the hard choices, is he dithering? On the toughest issues like foreclosures, insolvent banks, global regulation pushed by the Europeans, will he end up making inadequate or faulty choices, and when he comes around to making the tough choices, will he have lost so much valuable time as to prolong the crisis and stretch it out to many years....

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A short biography of Wisconsin Congressman and Romney's vice presidential pick, Paul Ryan.

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The month of August 2011 ranks as the 10th worst month for U.S. stocks in 75 years. Or to put it another way of the last 900 months, the month of August 2011 ranks the 10th worst month in terms of volatiltiy. The average up and down movement each day in August was 1.%. In August the Dow Jones Industrial Averages were down 529 points, or a drop of 4.4%. This is not what worries investors as much- as their are months like May 2010 which had a 7.9% drop. The impact on investors is in the increased uncertainty that this creates about how an investment will perform in the future.

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The U.S. trade deficit widened sharply in March from February 2015, increasing by 43.1%, after the ending of a labor dispute at West coast ports. The deficit widened to $51.37 billion. This is more than expected from a strong dollar. This could make 1st quarter GDP figures show a contraction for the U.S. economy. Products imported from China were up 32%, compared with March 2014. Exports were up only 0.9%. Experts estimate GDP contraction of 0.4%- 0.5% for the 1st quarter 2015. In 2014 a similiar situation happened but growth was up for the rest of the year and experts see this happening again in 2015.

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Jason Zweig interviews John Bogle, founder of the Vanguard Group, in September 2011, after weeks of extreme volatility in the U.S. stock market. He says the index fund concept has been "bastardized" by exchange traded funds and the speculative behaviour in ETF's with insane turnovers approaching 10,000 percent. He considers investing in a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds a useful way to approach investing even though the last decade has produced medicore results. And predicts a 7% return for the next decade, with money doubling every 10 years. The changes today mean you have to start earlier, save and invest for longer periods, says Bogle, but the returns should still be good. It would be insane to expect the high returns of the 70's and 80's today, says Bogle. In today's market Bogle has 80% of his investments in bonds and 20% in stocks.

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Jean Brunel, chief investment officer at GenSpring, says expect returns of 2-2.5% on bonds and 5% on stocks and not much higher in the next 5 years. He points out that with low rates the whole investment environment has changed. The consensus among investment managers is that it is a good idea to lower expectations and not chase risky returns in the next couple of years.

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One big concern says Nancy Keates of the WSJ about the National Association of Realtors, is that the organization collects and puts out objective data about home sales, and at the same time provides a commentary on the statistics. It also has a mission to advance the interests of its members. There are 2.6 million licensed real estate agents, and NAR represents about 1.3 million of these real estate agents. Would the real estate agents and the NAR tolerate an economist who raised concerns about the boom in lending? David Lereah, is former chief economist for the NAR ,and worked there from 2000 to April 2007. He remained upbeat throughout these years, even when the market was headed downwards. And the way he sees it he was doing for 7 years everything the NAR wanted him to do, and he was pressured to issue these upbeat reports. Critics called him "Baghdad Dave", after a Iraqi information minister for his false upbeat reports even when the war on the Iraqi side was lost. And a Credit Suisse analyst called him Liar-eah for some of these upbeat assesments, when things were clearly going wrong. The way Nancy Keates sees it this economist was eager to profit himself in the boom years. He was an economics Professor at Rutgers, at the University of Virginia, and later an economist and regulator at the Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation. He himself bought condos 2 in Washington in 2003 and 2004, and one each in Tampa, Richmond, Va. and Alexandria, Va. and Naples, Florida. Owning by 2006 six condos worth between $150,000 and $400,000 a condo. He had an expensive lifestyle says his wife, with a big house worth $780,000, a country club, sports fishing boat. So in some ways suggests this reporter, he was caught up in the boom himself with his investments and the demands of a expensive lifestyle, with little room left for independent opinion and analysis. This is a striking example of things gone wrong, with all the meticulousness and comprehensiveness with which data is collected having its value destroyed by the lack of strict objectivity in the analysis. And the intrusion of strong personal interest bias in one direction making the destruction of objectivity complete. Looking at the economists at companies and associations, there is a subtle bias in operation that needs to be discounted by CEO's and association heads, a bias for giving the CEO's better and optimistic assessments on a consistent basis. An example is the way a large number of economists see the recovery taking place in 2009. Another related example is the sales forecasts for the Detroit auto companies that continued to assume sales in the 16-17 million a year rate into the latter half of 2008, even after the Bear Stearns collapse in March and the increasing foreclosures suggested something was amiss. All with horrendous consequences for the companies or industries involved, and the US and global economies....

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Former U.S. Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, on what the automatic spending cuts from the sequester- after the failure of the Supercommittee in Congress to reach agreement- will mean for the Defense Department and defense preparedness.

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Mark Sanford, Republican Governor of South Carolina, cites Donald Trump in May 2014 on releasing tax returns. At the time Trump is quoted as saying: "If I run for office, I will release my tax returns, absolutely, I would love that." Sanford says he released his tax returns, and Mike Spence, the Republican vice presidential candidate has released his tax returns, and calls on Trump to release his returns as promised. Hillary Clinton has released her tax returns, which show she paid 34% of income in taxes. Sanford says it is important information both for transparency in the political process and in giving voters an opportunity to evaluate those who want to govern the country. He also says that this is the reason a banker asks for tax returns before making a loan, that talking is'nt enough tax returns tell the real story,  and the reason why this is a precedent too important to be broken in 2016. This has become increasingly important in this election year with the public expecting corporations and wealthy individuals to pay their fair share of taxes, so that programs to aid workers left behind during the recession, provide job retraining, finance the infrastructure that will create new jobs, provide access to college for working class and poor, require adequate government revenues. ...

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Ezra Klein says about the contrasting choices offered by Romney-Ryan vs Obama-Biden, that everyone wanted to see a clear choice between different approaches to the issues, and now they have got one. Its almost a repeat of Reagan-Bush vs. Carter-Mondale during a period of high unemployment with Democrats risking underestimating the importance of the careful choice made by Romney today.

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Rep. Paul Ryan got his start in politics in 1983 when he was hired to work for a think tank Empower America. This think tank was formed by Weber, Kirkpatrick, Bennett and Kemp, to preserve Reagan era ideas of focussing on economic growth generated by private investment. This was followed by working as an aide to Senator Brownback of Kansas and Rep. Jack Kemp till his election to Congress in 1996. Kemp was the big idea guy and it was Paul Ryan who delved into the budget details at the time to support Kemp's ideas. Kemp was Republican vice presidential candidate, the same position that Ryan is in today. Ryan represented the area around Janesville, Wisconsin, in the U.S. Congress. He graduated from the University of Miami, Ohio.

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This commentary in the WSJ says it is essential that the U.S. get back manufacturing of all technological goods back to the U.S. or its allies. The dangers of depending on China or other countries not clearly allied with the U.S. is quite clear especially after the pandemic. The U.S. and European supply chains need to be completely remade, restructured, to avoid dependence on China or countries that are not allies. This is what supply chain renewal is about. Yet initiatives alone with hundreds of billions of dollars price tag re not the answer to the problem. What is needed are specific targeted actions such government direct assistance to key sectors to ensure U.S. technological advantages in worldwide competition. Giving a hole range of incentives and direct financial support to industries making everything from electronic and computer components to high tech parts that go to defense and civilian production.   The U.S educational component in this puzzle is university students in all high tech courses which should be kept for U.S. citizens or from key allied nations at American universities. The manufacturing base would mean securing incentives and aid to manufacturing industries, component by component, part by part, to secure American leadership and distinct advantage.  Job losses have to be reversed and industries relocated back to the U.S. And only in cases where it is advantageous to manufacture overseas to relocate in allied countries India, Japan or South Korea. U.S. labor has to be brought into the picture as a key participant in the national interest and given an important role. R& D efforts have to be developed component by component, technological part by part, and technology by technology, so that a systematic plan can be followed to secure American leadership for the rest of this century, is what experts including this one say is required today. ...

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Wallsten describes the tense and now frayed relationship between Obama and immigration groups and the way this has evolved from idealism to frustration to mere coexistence amid loss of faith. Obama's frustration expressed in words such as "I am not a king." And the immigration groups voicing their concerns about Obama's loss of credibility, as minorities especially Hispanics have fared poorly during his adminsitration, hit by rising deportations, foreclosures and the impact of high unemployment in construction and other sectors.

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Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, describes Iran's efforts to make weapons grade nuclear material, escalating the enrichment process from 3.5% to 20%. He says Iran now has 225 pounds of 20% uranium and 11,000 pounds of 3.5%, enough for 5 nuclear bombs, and points out that 20% uranium can be enhanced to weapons grade in weeks. During the initial negotiations the P5+1 nations demanded suspension of enrichment acitivites at a time when the enrichment process was at 3.5%, and transfer of stockpiles abroad. As negotiations dragged on Iran escalated to 20% enrichment. current demands of the P5+1 are for cessation of 20% enrichment and removal of the 20% stockpile, and closing the facility at Qom, as a first step. This has been rejected by Iran. In this op-ed Oren says Israel alerted the world about the Iranian nuclear program 20 years ago, and as this has continued to what it is today, Israel's view is that much of that time was wasted and the window for international efforts to cease and dismantle Iran's nuclear program is almost shut. ...

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Brazilians turn to pawn shops lending by government owned bank Caixa, in a regulated portion of the lending industry, as credit card rates increase. Brazil experienced a huge surge in credit card debt in the years when consumer loans were freely made in the last decade. Between 2004 and 2014, consumer credit in Brazil increased 658% to $297 bilion, according to the National Association of Executives in Finance, Administration and Accounting. Central bank figures show 6.7% of personal bank loans and 26.3% of credit card accounts being in default. As in Turkey much of the country's growth was fueled by increased spending and consumer credit. The credit binge and the lower revenues from a decline in commodity prices is leading to slow growth and a stagnant economy.

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The U.S. Senate passes a motion that allows the chamber to proceed with a debate on a health care bill. The motion passed 51-50 with Vice President Mike Pence casting the deciding vote. Republican Senators Collins and Murkowski voted against the motion. This report in the WSJ says this sets in motion a process in which debate will take place and amendments will be made. It is not clear what shape the bill will take. Under the process used only a simple majority is needed in the Senate, yet this allows for many amendments to be made.  Only hours after this motion passed by one vote, a bill replacing major parts of the Affordable Care Act failed to pass 57 votes against and 43 in favor. Senator John McCain who arrived in Washington from Arizona following brain tumor surgery, delivered strong criticism of the way the Republican healthcare bill was rushed through allowing very little debate. Experts have commented on the way the bill was rushed through with a thin majority for passage, with very little debate, first by Democrats in 2009 and now in the House by Republicans. With the same pattern now followed in the Senate by Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate. A backup bill would remove just the individual and employer mandates and a tax on medical devices- the elements Republicans agree on, if no majority can be put together for the healthcare bill. ...

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Mohamed Hanif of the BBC's Urdu Service points to the manner in which the CIA and the ISI collaborated in the two time destruction of Kabul. And he points to a Pakistani view outside of the military which is not obsessed with India and would like to get down to the basics- electricity and infrastructure, better lives, and a safer neighborhood. In this perspective the Pakistani military and the Americans both do not understand the basic needs of the large majority of Pakistanis yearning for a better life. Contrast this with the Thomas Friedman piece which complains on the other side, with a note of innocence, of becoming a sucker in this game of a two-faced Pakistani military and intelligence services using the Americans for their own game, supporting the Americans and the insurgents at the same time. Hanif almost has the last word in this, pointing to the ordinary Pakistanis who are just poor and looking in.