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With 7 caps for Germany and winning the Bundesliga title for Bayern in 2005, Tobias Rau retired in 2009 after injuries. His next career- teaching sports and biology at the peter August Gasemschule in northwest Germany.

Gheerbrant of The Times of London talks to soccer players who decide to take the road not taken and branch out into different things. 

Rau says as a child he was lucky to have good teachers, and school was a part of life he really loved. With a wife and two small children he likes living in a small town. Werther the home town he came back to to teach at a Gasemschule.( a comprehensive with real mix of abilities and qualifications). He likes that he gets to spend quality time with his children, and does not have to deal with the high of adrenaline of competitive sports which can tax the body and system. He was 27 when he retired, quite young so that helps, as he could get back to university easily at that age. 

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Advice on walking away from a home loan when you are way under water, and it makes no sense to keep writing checks, and when government help is not there as you are way under water. Martin Feldstein had warned abut this as a major cause of rising foreclosures from early last year. Now without government help this looks like a rising tide for many homeowners under water. This financial planner says its feasible, and may make sense. He talks to the Mortgage Bankers Association, and a spokesman there tells him that its cost prohibitive for a bank to chase down a borrower in financial difficulty. And some states have laws that prohibit banks from going after borrowers for the remainder after foreclosure, including California and Arizona, two of the worst affected. And a lawyer arranging the foreclosure, can put in writing a waiver for this. For the tax impact, he says recent laws eliminate a federal tax through 2012 on most primary resident debt that a lender has reduced through loan restructuring, or forgiven through foreclosure. And states like California and Arizona have passed laws echoing these federal rules. Then there is the question of credit. Yes, its impaired for about 7 years. But with so many in foreclosure there may be an effort by credit unions and financial institutions to destigmatize borrowers who have foreclosed. A law Professor at George Mason University says credit scores will have to be adjusted to lessen the impact of a foreclosure, as this does not carry the information value in 2009 that it would say in 2005. And with so many people in foreclosure there is an emerging market here, according to credit union lender BECU in Washington state. If other than foreclosure you have good credit, its not going to be a big issue, says the director of the Rental Property Owners of Michigan, especially as good tenants are not that easy to find in this difficult economic environment anyway. What this suggests is that many will take this option and foreclosures will rise for the rest of 2009, especially if the job losses go on for longer in the range of 400,000 to 600,000 that we have seen for the last 4 months. Changes in the bankruptcy laws and restructuring the loans on that basis, or government help to those under water in some future plan that lowers payments to something in the range of 30-40%, are ways in which this can be averted. But with job losses of this magnitude a lot of people would end up in serious difficulty, and consider the foreclosure option....

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To get a right grasp of the situation as a whole from the bigger picture than the headlines, is to know that even in the current chaotic immigration handling of both parties, the US comes out a winner in long term by 2034. That it gives for the younger generation a better future. Congress's Budget Office economic report shows GDP higher by 2% from the higher immigration of 5.2 million added to the US workforce by 2034. US productivity higher by 0.2% and residential investment including construction up by a whopping 10%. The younger profile of immigrants will help the US compete with India's younger population, and as China ages to have what it and Europe is aspiring to have- a younger population. The best way to look at the immigration issue is for the short term- manage it better by organized method of immigration without chaotic border crossings by allowing potential immigrants to apply from their home country, a step taken by the Biden administration. What it or any Republican administration could not control is the immigration that happens from countries the US is at war with or in conflict with. It is important to recognize that this is what happened with Venezuela the largest component of the immigration border crossings in 2023. It was made worse by actions of both parties Democrats and Republicans and made worse in 2017 by more severe sanctions on Venezuela under the Trump administration.  Also part of the problem is Venezuelan mismanagement- providing oil at pennies a gallon, hurting imports and spiralling inflation that only worsened under US sanctions after 2017. Long term- To reflect that US sanctions on top of mismanagement by Venezuela is a warning for all developing countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and for the US. It meant 7 million refugees a staggering quarter of Venezuela's population fleeing the country, that burdened neighbors Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile. By 2022-2023 many of these refugees were making their way up the Darien Gap to the US. Yet within this tragic situation for Venezuelan people how could the US best respond is to close the border as president Biden has proposed with McConnell and the Lankford effort in the Senate, which was blocked by the House under Mike Johnson. This gives time to assess the situation, correct US laws on asylum and parole that allowed this chaotic way to proceed under actions of both parties.And not let this destabilize the US by understanding that while Venezuela has suffered for its role in the crisis the US will ultimately have come out a winner, as pointed out by the Congressional Budget Office projections. CBO projections of this immigration impact by 2034 of increasing the workforce population by 5.2 million will provide higher GDP, more tax revenues, and higher productivity than without this group of Venezuelan and other immigrants in this special situation of 2022-2023. For the Immigration projections discussion given by Phillip Swagel, Director of the Congressional Budget Office see page 51 of the Budget and Economic Outlook 2024 to 2034. For this search for term Congressional Budget Office or CBO which brings up the report on PDF and turn to page 51 or just click on Original Article on Lyrarc.   ...

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Gerlad Seib points out that one should look less at what president Trump accomplished in the first 100 days and more at how he operated and learned during this initial period. This is certainly true because much of what happened in the first 100 days contradicts some of the tone that Trump setup during the campaign. When it comes to governing Trump has made an effort to learn and adapt and show resilience in the face of early setbacks on the travel ban and the health care bill, the Flynn episode. After this early period Trump took on a more disciplined approach, gave more room to and listened to more respected advisors- Tillerson on foreign affairs in shaping policy with Russia leading to Tillerson's presence at Lucca massacre memorial in Italy sending a clear signal about U.S. policies in line with its role in the past century in world affairs, Gary Cohn and Ross on economic policy and seeking Cohn's advice on tax plan, Ross's on NAFTA negotiations with Mexico. As a result the NAFTA fears were calmed down with statements by Wilbur Ross, the Commerce Secretary, that the goal was a win-win relationship with Mexico. Trump worked with his party in Congress to have the Supreme Court nomination of Gorsuch approved. Meetings with Merkel of Germany and Jinping of China were carefully planned and new relationships established as Seib points out, without ruffling trade relations. The appointment of Robert Lighthizer, as Trade Representative, also shows that efforts to give the U.S. a more level playing field in trade will be resolutely pursued in the win-win context. Lyrarc has profiled Lighthizer earlier in this decade after his op-eds in the media as he correctly anticipated the changing public mood on the need for fairness in trade relations. On relations with China and South Korea, Jim Mattis has taken the lead, and Pence's visit to South Korea also show deftness in handling what is one of the most difficult issues in foreign affairs. Mattis and Tillerson also have helped reinforce the Republican party policies on NATO and Europe, with the visit of NATO secretary general Stoltenberg to the White House. In the end it is how much you can learn in the first year, how much you listen, and the courage to act in difficult situations, the willingness to act contrary to one's instincts and self interest where necessary, that matters. This is especially true in an environment where as Seib points out the Democratic Party stands opposed to the Trump administration following a bitter election campaign.   ...

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WSJ Podcast looks at the structural failure of a 737 Max 9 jetplane from Boeing on an Alaska Airlines flight last week. This is a rarely seen failure where one sees a hole in the plane itself requiring a quick landing to safely get all passengers out. The 737 Max 9 has been a problem plane for Boeing for some time. Last week a Japanese Coast Guard plane crashed into a Japanese airliner with both given the go ahead on the same runway requiring all passengers to be evacuated in 18 minutes. Haneda airport and other airports now have new protocol for flights from Japanese airline supervisory authorites. what it shows is that new technologies make the basics of quality control and strict governmental supervision even more important not less as protocols can fail, governmental supervision can be deficient, and quality control in manufacturing process can be defective.

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As Finland based Nokia's business declines the foreign investment from Sweden and other countries that see Finland as a stable location for operations in the eurozone is increasing. Swedish paper maker Billerud AB invested 130 million euros in a Finnish forestry group as a way to shift costs away from krona which is strengthening to the euro. This is a significant advantage for Finland, a small country with only 5.4 million people, and only 17% of Finns see an exit from the euro as a good option during the eurozone crisis, according to MTV3. Growth of the Finnish economy is expected to slow. The government of prime minister Jyrki Katainen, is planning spending cuts and tax increases of 2 billion euros in 2013, or about 4% of the government budget to reduce its deficit.

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This Journal editorial says Portugal's focus should be on making the Portuguese economy more competitive, and not merely the fiscal tightening and tax raising policies recommended by the IMF in the past. The focus should be on growth, a freer labor market, creating more efficient firms, and lower costs to compete in the European free trade zone. The euro currency reduced Portugal's borrowing costs in the past, but growth requires a more productive workforce. Only 28% of working age Portuguese have completed high school, showing an alarming lack of investment in education. (See the group on education in Portugal). The Journal also questions the lofty sounding agenda of the Lisbon agenda after the2000 EU summit in Lisbon, as it did not get down to addressing problems in individual countries.

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Brooks looks at the Obama and Ryan deficit reduction plans and sees something to like in both plans. He agrees with Ryan that modern medical technologies are becoming too costly to afford- especially with aging populations here and in Europe- and the need for consumers of medical care to shoulder some of the burden to control these costs. He agrees also with Ryan on the need for seniors and the middle class to share some of the burden of rebalancing benefit systems. He agrees with Obama in the need for a balanced approach combining tax increases with spending cuts, and the contribution government can make through targeted investments. He is pessimistic about the chances of bringing the two approaches together taking their best points because of the political climate which is increasingly partisan.

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The stark divergence between 2011 and 2013 forecasts for Portugal's economy show the need for better terms on Portugal's EU loans. The 2011 forecasts of EU lenders estimated a much lower level of contraction in the economy and unemployment. In 2011 the lenders estimate was for a economic contraction of a combined 4% in 2011 and 2012 and returning to growth in 2013, with unemployment peaking at 13%. The forecasts in 2013 estimate the economic contraction at 7% for 2011-2013, with unemployment reaching 17.3%. Portuguese government officials say they overestimated tax revenues and underestimated the payouts for social benefits to the unemployed. Prime minister Coelho is criticized for increasing taxes and making spending cuts blindly. He faces angry protestors singing the anthem of Portugal's revolution against the dictatorship in 1974- "Grandola, Vila Morena."

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Banks in Britain will be charged a 50% tax on 2009 bonuses of more than 25,000 pounds or $40,800. It will be imposed directly on the bonus pool at banks and will be paid by the bank. It takes place effective immediately and affects 2009 profits. The public in Britain is sympathetic to such a move and it comes in the midst of concerns about the British deficits similar in proportion to that of Greece, and of the Dubai debt crisis. Andrew Hilton, who runs CSFI, a research center focussed on financial issues put it aptly: "I think banking has become a truly parasitical business. Bankers these days borrow money at 30 basis points and lend it to te governmet at 300 basis points and then they go play golf."

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 U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, views China's response in trade negotiations as one of conducting extended negotiations that lead to little change. This has continued says Lighthizer for over a decade putting the U.S. at a serious disadvantage in trade. At a White House meeting in August 2017 Lighthizer convinced president Trump that China was in his words "tap, tap, tapping us along."  This confirmed president Trump's own instincts about the U.S. trading relationship with China. Lighthizer is a veteran of trade negotiations, having experience in the Reagan administration as the Deputy Trade Representative in 1983 in negotiations with Japan, when Japan was in a similar situation that China is today. At the time trade negotiations with Japan were getting nowhere. Lighthizer is said to have turned one Japanese response in negotiations into a paper plane and sent it flying right back. Lighthizer does not seek the limelight but is serious about his role having published op-eds in the NYT and WSJ since 2000 about how U.S. trading relationships were putting the U.S. and U.S. workers at an unfair advantage. Many of these op-eds are in the Lyrarc archive and a Search with the term "Lighthizer" would bring up these articles. This report in NYT shows how the role of Lighthizer was not anticipated by China when it sent Liu He to Washington in November 2017 to negotiate with the U.S. President Trump made certain Liu He and other Chinese leaders would have to talk to Lighthizer first. In a session with president Jinping laid out U.S. views that the past negotiations had accomplished little and new negotiations had to be undertaken very differently from negotiations in the past. Earlier in July trade negotiations conducted by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross were "shut down" by president Trump because China continued to repackage earleir offers which meant little to the U.S. As a lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher LLP Lighhizer represented steel industry clients hurt by subsidized Chinese steel industry imports. Mr. Trump and Lighhizer have bonded well because their instincts have been the same- that the U.S. had not been well represented in earlier negotiations by lawyers who saw themselves as speaking for American exporters.  Lighthizer is also a seasoned trade negotiator and has waited for the right time and situation to tackle the unbalanced trading relationship with China. For 30 years Lighhizer represented American manufacturers as he practiced trade law at the Skadden law firm. His strategy has been to get the administration to unite behind a clear trade strategy. He says "I try to be friendly in trade negotiations. I am not the theatrical type. The art of persuasion is about knowing where the leverage is." At this time the leverage lies in the huge trade surplus of about $300 billion China has with the U.S. The U.S. goal is to bring this down by $100 billion through this new negotiating strategy as earlier negotiations have failed. ...

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The UNESCO report on Water scarcity and contaminated water. It creates awareness on World Water Day but comes across as a largely academic exercise, ask any rural woman in India and she knows the significance, question is what should have been done and the resources are there. For action it has to come from nations,, large nations such as India from it's Jal Jeevan Mission, China and Japan transferring the knowhow and technologies to Africa and Latin America and other parts of Asia. The period after a pandemic is also a time to focus efforts on  doing this. How it undermines girls and women and their participation in society is part of the understanding in India, and uppermost in the minds of Indian leaders and technologists, and in the mind of PM Modi. Unfortunately the UNESCO reports fails to even cover right up front in its summary how Jal Jeevan is being done for 1.4 billion people in India to have clean tap water so that people in Africa and Latin America can see that this is possible, if in the Himalayan regions possible in their region it is possible. Just see for yourself in India. ...

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Philipp Rosler, head of the FDP party and Germany's Economy minister, says he opposes further involvement by German taxpayers or the ECB in the debt restructuring for Greece. He pointed out that the current negotiations between Greece and the bondholders (mostly French and German banks) were about private sector involvement. Tax payers of Germany and other European countries are already making a contribution he said. The IMF is pushing for the ECB to take a haircut or writedown on the $40 billion of Greek bonds it holds to supplement the haircut taken by bondholders of over 50%. Rosler said in an interview with the Journal that Athens should keep its side of the bargain by implementing reforms and not letting them just be on paper. On Germany or the EU directly taking responsibility over the Greek budget, Rosler said this should be the responsibility of the Greek parliament. At the same time he pointed out that its important to have a specific and rigorous montiroing process just to be fair to taxpayers in the EU....

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Turner Adair, head of Britain's Financial Regulatory Authority thinks that banks have assumed an outsize role in the British and world economy, and are coopting their regulators. He sees the need to check many of the excesses. Why not use profits to build up reserves rather than give out huge bonuses and paychecks, he asks. He sees the need to challenge the accepted thinking on Wall Street and in the City of London, where the ideology of efficient markets became embedded, as it did also in the regulatory community. He came in the week Lehman Brothers collapsed as chairman of the FSA. And he wants to shake up the existing thinking. In March, the Turner Review. a 126 page report was published. A lot of attention was paid to his suggesting atax on financial transactions, called the Tobin tax, but its designed more to get people thinking and questionning the existing way of running banking as Turner said in an interview, "we have begun to accept this idea of liquidity as the new God." Can British or American society and the financial industry in both countries work to the benefit of both? Nobel prize winning economists and other experts have advised ashift to productive investments that grow the economy using technology, science and brainpower and new ideas, as opposed to the investment in mortgages and other speculative investments. As the regulators -including former and current heads of the SEC, and other regulatory bodies in the US, Cox, Schapiro and others- once held on to the same theory of uninhibited operation of free markets as best for generating increased wealth for society as the banking community, they tended to get co-opted in letting bad practices flourish. Went to sleep on the job as it were. See the links in Intelilinks. Adair Turner's admonitions are designed to get people thinking. He says, "banks need to be willing, like the regulator, to recognize that there are some profitable activities so unlikely to have a social benefit, direct or indirect, that they should voluntarily walk away from them." Investments in science, technology and new products, as in the 60's that generated a revolution in living standards, than the mortgages and consumer lending of the last decade, is what he may be saying, as do these Nobel prize winning economists....

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The supporters of free university education bring up some practical and important points. Not providing free university education at a time of rising inequality after a severe financial crisis that worsened inequality and led to a lost decade for middle class families in the U.S. leads to a situation in university attendance is restricted to people from wealthier backgrounds. Studies in Britain show this says the Economist magazine.  A report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think tank, showed an increase in tution fees paid out of pocket of 1000 pounds ($1243) is associated with adecline of 3 to 9 percentage points in university attendance. Work by Thomas Kane at Harvard University confirms this. Other studies in the U.S. show attendance and completion rates higher for university education with  education being more affordable. Results of studies also show that the tangle of application processes and eligibility rules can reduce the benefits of tackling this by the current approach of financial aid. For this reason free tution which is easy to adminster and easy to understand for all is the real option for today's situation. Wealthy students can pay for it later in life with the progressive taxation. Warren proposes higher taxes on multimillionaires, and Sanders would tax financial transactions such as on stock and capital markets, as ways to address this and bring back free university. As the Economist magazine for the first time  puts this in its Free Exchange column the real support for free university comes not from economic efficiency, or even the way it benefits all in a free, open and equal opportunities society, but from the values that society believes in. There are broad social benefits to a well educated citizenry. The nation is stronger economically, more open to new ideas and more open to technological change to be able to grow when it has promoted to the fullest extent the education of all its citizens. This is especially true in today's world where more than 12 years of education are needed to build a strong base for a country to grow its economy and industry. A warning is presented by the Economist magazine that as the rich pull away from the rest of society they can actually undercut the very values based solutions that are needed today. Their increased political power can restrict the tax increases needed to fund the higher education the nation deserves, that the people deserve.  Social safety nets are also reinforced and societal harmony is strengthened when everyone cooperates to help everyone.  ...

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Sweden gets a centre left government led by Stefan Lofven, who gets a second term in office. He managed to put together an alliance of centre left parties with the Green Party and Liberal paties after the elections gave 40% of the vote to centre left and centre right and proved inconclusive. Lofven governs without a majority in parliament because the minority government has support form other parties with 77 votes in parliament that abstained. Both centre right and centre left did not want to join with the far right anti-immigration Sweden Democrats. Lofven says Sweden chose a different path than other governments that sought to form governments with anti-immigrant parties. He said "in Sweden we stand up for democracy, for equality. Sweden has chosen a different path." To get Centre and Liberal parties support Lofven promised to cut taxes, reform the rental housing market, and relax strict employment laws.

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Krugman puts it best when he says in the NYT that he's got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Its just that the Republican challenge of not a single vote in the House for the $789 billion Stimulus bill just makes it harder to go back for more money which most definitely will be needed. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that over the next 3 years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and will actually produce. $789 billion won't be enough, and more so because the weightage shifted in the direction of tax cuts from the original version. And considering the accelerating nature of the crisis on the housing front and in layoffs and consumption, the absence of a clear action plan with specifics to deal with the bad debt in the banking system, is what gives this sick feeling in the stomach. Because as is stated on these same pages by experts from Japan on February 12, NYT, see the link, Japan went through this same soul searching, public anger, controversy, and political leaders were afraid to take strong action for years from the mid 1990's till 2003 after Koizumi's election. Each action or set of actions each year during that period before 2003 was behind the curve, and did not match what was needed. For the USA this has happened already for 2007, 2008 and is heading in that direction for 2009, with a lack of consensus for the strong action needed. Would 4 million new jobs be generated by the current stimulus if that is a measure of success, as Obama indicated at his first press conference? With less going into spending for education, infrastructure, energy and other green projects, in favor of tax cuts and the AMT, and the feeling that going to Congress for more money will be harder and a partisan affair, will this become difficult to achieve? ...

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Much of the debate in Germany today is around the topic of reunification, was it good or bad for Germany, and why there is an issue of a separate identity in the East. Most East Germans feel they live in a separate country with a separate identity. This issue has social cultural and political consequences, says the Economist.    The CDU is increasingly facing questions about how it has turned out for East Germany. It is losing votes to the AfD in Saxony, Thuringia, and other places in the east. The migration crisis in 2015-2016 created new fault lines. When the Integration minister in a government in Saxony, which includes east German city of Leipzig, talked to people in her state why Germany was helping refugees, she was told to first integrate East Germans.  East Germans do not like resources being wasted on refugees when they feel left out themselves in their own country. After reunification of Germany by chancellor Kohl in 1990 about 8500 companies in the east were privatised or liquidated leading to a loss of jobs in old industries such as mining. Many of these older people ended up in odd jobs and then on Hartz IV, skimpy unemployment benefits. At unification 1 million people moved to the west from the east, predominantly younger people and predominantly women.  Over time one fourth of the population in the east 18-30 years moved to the west, two thirds of them women. Rural areas especially hit hard, with tax revenues slumping, shops and schools closed. Some estimates are that 80% of east Germans were out of work at one point. The humiliation their parents felt is only now being discussed as children in the east talk to their parents about what happened and the hardships their parents suffered 25 years ago. Was unification done the right way is a topic for discussion today. Today the east is much older than the west. Since 1990 over 60's increased by 1.1 million even as the overall population dropped by 2.2 million. In future some districts in the east will have 4 funerals for every birth say forecasters. So what could have been done differently in 1990 so that East Germans did not end up feeling like a "colonized people" by a biased western exploitative culture that portrayed them as culturally inferior and with very little that the west could learn from. Today it is said that the government agency Treuhand that handled closure of businesses could have moved slowly. The 1:1 transfer of west german currency for east german currency was to make east german companies uncompetitive overnight, and should have mitigating plans to tackle the problems of keeping these businesses in operation to keep local jobs. A new constitution and economic plans could have been written, a transition period for such a constitution and economic plan be put in place, so that changes could be studied and plans made to reduce the negative effects.  Culturally there was something the east did better. It had a culture of social solidarity that could have provided lessons for the west.  The good aspects in the east such as respect for women and encouraging them to work outside the home, free child care, the welfare state protecting vulnerable groups, could have lessons for the west to emulate and adopt practices. This would have given easterners a sense of self-respect as in some ways the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as the country was called in the east, had aspects that the west could learn from. For this to happen west Germans need to change their views- half of them see the reunification as a success, two thirds of east Germans see it as a failure culturally, and socially, and wrought with the economic impact of sudden shift in population and business, and loss of most productive young people to the west. ...

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The Italian cabinet of prime minister Mario Monti, includes Corrado Passera, CEO of Italy's largest retail bank, as minister of economic development and transport. In selecting his cabinet Monti brought in respected members from academia, banking, business and the higher levels of the civil service. Monti's agenda includes cutting public spending, increasing revenues, changing the pension system, reintroducing a property tax on first homes, and making it possible for business to hire and fire workers by changing Italy's rigid labor laws. Emma Marcegaglia, president of Confindustria, Italy's business association, says he is the right person to restore credibility and to put Italy back on the road to economic recovery. She had a high regard for the selections in the cabinet. The big challenge in her view was now to get the Italian parliament to approve the changes.