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Asian banks exposure to the US subprime mortgage securities. Bank of China has the largest exposure of $9.65 billion investments in subprime, but its part of a large investment of $130 billion in foreign currency investments and the bank funds itself with customer deposits so it does'nt face a crisis even though its much large than the bank's first half profit of $3.9 billion. Note that this bank has only taken a loss of $100 million charged so far. Standard Chartered has about $17 billion in a structured investment vehicle (siv). Mitsubishi Financial Group has $2.45 billion exposure to subprime mortgage securities. Mizuho has off balance sheet vehicles with exposure of $7.3 billion. HongKong, India and the rest of Asia are not affected.

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Making friends with Trees-  these are ways to Emotional Wellbeing. One Brooklyn neighorhood Boerum Hill has a play area park called Sixteen Sycamores right in the middle of a busy urban setting showing how trees are a treasured part of our urban landscapes. 

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How marijuana in schools poses a problem in US schools- pot in class reduces diligent work in classrooms. Costly policy errors that are producing ill effects in states hitting health, education and the American spirit- poor performance in schools and deficits in attention, says this report in WSJ.

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150,000 homes in Los Angeles region that mostly empty are owned by foreign buyers 2025 who live in China and use it as an investment or asset to use when needed. This is a sore point for people who cannot find housing after losing their home in wildfires. Many of these homes are in the San Gabriel Valley- Pasadena, Arcadia, Temple City and San Marino.  Investors in such homes come from China, Mexico and South Korea, and real estate agents say about 1 in 10 homes are going to foreign buyers in these suburbs. Restrictions on moving money overseas by China's government has reduced the flow of international buyers in recent years.

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Karl Rove, advisor to President George W. Bush, and organizer behind American Crossroads political action committee, says the election will be decided by the higher support for Romney among independents and the high turnout of Republican voters. The prediction for the voter turnout among Republicans is 36% Republican vs. 35% Democratic, according to Gallup. This compares with the 39% Republican and 37% Democratic in 2004, and 39% Democratic 29% Republican in 2008. The early and absente ballot voting advantage has significantly gone down almost by half for Democrats as more Republicans cast early votes in swing states like Ohio. Closing statements and crowds also appear to confirm this trend. Rove sees this as 51% to 48% favoring the Republicans. The addition of swing states - Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania also appears to suggest that a broader movement is underway that is happening right now in the final week before the election on Nov. 6, 2012. Rove focusses on the numbers. A behavioural assessment shows the importance in this campaign of the centrist position adopted by Romney in the closing months of the campaign; the selection of Ryan which gave Romney support from the Republican conservative base so that he could talk freely about his record in the liberal state of Massachusetts to independent voters and women, and most important the clear message to voters focussed on a five point plan to get the economy recovery were critical in shaping these numbers....

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About 15% of black men of working age in the population, and 21% of black women, were employed in the U.S. public sector, according to the population survey. The Labor Department reports 500,000 jobs in the public sector were lost since 2007. This reverses an historical trend of resilience in jobs for the public sector during economic downturns. If population increase since 2007 is figured in there are even fewer jobs considering more jobs might have been added, with estimates as high as 1.8 million. This is bad for black people in the U.S. because many work in public sector jobs driving school buses, in the post office, in the police and in other public services, with black people being 30% more likely than whites to hold a public sector job, and twice that of Hispanics. Thic comes at a time when the black community has seen a devastating impact from the foreclosures and other economic damage that followed the 2008 financial crisis. The result is shown in a study of foreclosures for 2005-2009 at Cornell University showing mostly black and Latino neighborhoods were affected by foreclosures at three times the rates for white neighborhoods. According to Pew Research Center the median white family had net assets of $142,000 compared to $11,000 for the median black family. With median black household income at 60% of that of white households the gap keeps increasing especially with high unemployment in black neighborhoods....

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Year over year inflation in Dec. 2013 was 9.9% in India. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan plans to focus on headline inflation which focusses on food and fuel which are about 60% of the consumer basket in India. Earlier RBI efforts used a number of indicators- inflation, growth, financial stability and exchange rates which created confusion in the minds of investors about the serious control of rising prices. Inflation for the last 5 years has been over 8%, and is persistent even as growth slows. The policy rate is now about 2 percentage points below inflation. Inflation targeting under Rajan could take the shape of 8% target in the first year, dropping to 6% and then a range between 2-6%.

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Economists raised projections for GDP growth for U.S. to 3%, up from 2.9% last month and 2.4% last year, according to the WSJ survey of private The question now is whether this can be sustained. Economists in the survey predict a slowdown or a recession as the effects of the tax cut fade and the repercussions of trade conflicts and tariffs are felt. The tax cuts are seen as a temporary stimulus with effects fading much as that in the first year of the Obama administration following stimulus spending.

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The prospects for Asia in the current crisis are much better than in the 1997-98 Asian crisis.

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Dell's donation of $750 million to UT Austin, $100 million donation for University of Wisconsin, and $200 million donation by an alumnus of University of Southern California who as a stake in Nvidia- all these donations go to hiring AI faculty and setting AI as the goal for school of computing. USC plans to cover many fields for AI within the university.

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Alan Mullaly's role in pulling Ford Motor Company away from the bankruptcy that struck GM and Chrysler during the 2008 global financial crisis, and the steps taken to revive the company.

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Wells Fargo's Richard Kovacevich interviewed by Maria Bartiromo. He thinks we're getting close to the bottom and all the bad news means we're gettting to the bottom faster.